Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Soldato
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In the closest finish in NASCAR history, Kyle Larson beat Chris Buescher to the checkered flag by roughly one inch to win Sunday night’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway. After Kyle Busch’s spin on Lap 261 of a scheduled 267 sent the race to overtime, Buescher took the lead on the restart of the two-lap shootout, only to have Larson pull even on the backstretch on the final lap.

Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet and Buescher’s No. 17 Ford banged doors twice coming to the finish line. Buescher held the edge a foot from the stripe, but Larson surged ahead to win in a photo finish, with timing and scoring showing a margin of 0.001 seconds.
 
Soldato
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Not watched any NASCAR before but bashing your rival on the way to the line looks a little suspect to me? That second one was certainly intended to slow him down. Presume it's allowed given the result.

as they say in NASCAR - "rubbin is racing"

Yeah - it's pretty much fair game.... It's an unwritten rule pretty much that anything goes on the last lap....Seem so many wild crashes on the last lap of races....

Always fun to watch last 20/30 laps of the race....
 
Soldato
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They should bring back testing in a much bigger way. They could make money off it by making it a public day. They could host a weekend at Donny for example. Not only would it bring money into the track but help fund the costs of testing. I am sure F1 could milk it over 3 days. It would also give test drivers some coverage and more compeititon for places on the grid.

You look back at how bad Ferrari were in both 1995 and even in 1998 but both times they managed to claw back through testing. You could see the car just getting faster and faster until it could compete with the Williams in 1997 and the MacLaren in 1999.

The main issue you have today is that whoever gets the regulations right on a big change basically has the championship locked up till the next ones. Mercedes would have never had the dominance that they had if the manufactures had free reign on engine.

By all means still include a cap but let people do what they want with it.

Who is going to pay for all the work to bring Donington up to standard to allow the F1 cars to run there, it's only an FIA Grade 2 track so can't host them.

Ferrari had their own test track so could run unlimited testing, something that was denied to the other teams at the time. But I'm not sure why they would have struggled to keep up with someone pushing a baby in a stroller.

It's only in the last couple of years that there have been restrictions on the development of the current hybrid engines, up until that point the manufacturers did indeed have free reign on what they could do to the power units.
 
Man of Honour
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Not seen anything mentioned on here; but an unnamed team (supposedly Williams) have applied for a super license exemption for Kimi Antonelli to allow him to race in F1 before his 18th birthday (which is around the Dutch GP) - the thinking being that he will replace Sargent.

Personally I think the FIA should reject it and let him have his season in F2 where he's look solid but not exactly front running so far for Prema (who aren't having a great season) - there's plenty of other drivers who are super license eligible for Williams to draft in for the rest of the season if Sargent is to be binned.

Also read that Mercedes are putting Kimi and Mick together in a Silverstone F1 test soon (presumably an older car) to see how their pace compares; could be a chance for Mick; maybe not at Merc but you would almost put money on Alpine looking for new drivers next year the way things are going.
 
Soldato
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Andretti trying to burn the house down since they weren't allowed in the front door, it seems.

Which they should absolutely do. You can't have something that is supposed to be an international sport with a completely opaque application process or way for new teams to join. A response of Mr Stefano Domenicali says "no" doesn't really cut it.
 
Soldato
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It isn't just the "no", it's the fact Andretti has jumped through every single hoop. They have racing heritage, a reputation they want to keep and even went to lengths to bring new partners to the sport and some enthusiasm. FOM set a ridiculous "anti dilution" fee expecting no one to want to enter and Andretti called their bluff. When you have billionaires willing to paint back marker teams in the colours of a nation or own whole teams to keep their kids happy, the amount of "investment firms" who have dabbled and lost, it makes a change where someone wants to go racing because it's racing. This is probably why FOM rejected them because they were in for the sport and not the spectacle.

The driver market is crying out for 12+ teams, let Andretti in and another owned by a crazy billionaire and compare how competitive both would be. In all competition there's always a winner and there has to be someone last.
 
Commissario
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I’ve always been for more teams, the grid is far too small. It didn’t quite work out last time, but I enjoyed seeing a few more cars.
Yeah, me too. And if the argument is that the grid isn't big enough at some circuits for all the cars, then the answer is simple. Only xx fastest qualifiers get to race where xx is the grid capacity.
 
Soldato
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If the pit space isn't big enough to house the teams then it shouldn't be a FIA grade 1 circuit for hosting F1 events. Garage space is already allocated based on finishing position in the championship where the better performing teams get additional space over "the smaller teams" when space is limited on circuits. Both Williams and McLaren in the last 10 years have had to yoyo between both ends of the pitlane and managed. The budget cap is fixed (apart from catering) for all teams, the regulations around car design is the same for all teams, allocate the same space for pit activities for all teams to be the same. Many of them already have technical roles either remote from base or in their own paddock buildings and the back of the pits is taken up with delegates from sponsors and celebrities. If the issue is because the cars are now too long and it's not safe to pit 13 cars at the same time, restrict pit entrance access during yellow flag situations to stop double stacking pit stops.
 
Caporegime
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Who is going to pay for all the work to bring Donington up to standard to allow the F1 cars to run there, it's only an FIA Grade 2 track so can't host them.

Ferrari had their own test track so could run unlimited testing, something that was denied to the other teams at the time. But I'm not sure why they would have struggled to keep up with someone pushing a baby in a stroller.

It's only in the last couple of years that there have been restrictions on the development of the current hybrid engines, up until that point the manufacturers did indeed have free reign on what they could do to the power units.

That was just an example. They could do it all over. Plenty of tracks to choose from. They could even split so half at Donny and half at Brands then reverse later in the year.

The main issue is that teams have no real way to catch up once regs change and it will be exactly the same for whoever gets the next ones right.
 
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Soldato
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That was just an example. They could do it all over. Plenty of tracks to choose from. They could even split so half at Donny and half at Brands then reverse later in the year.

The main issue is that teams have no real way to catch up once regs change and it will be exactly the same for whoever gets the next ones right.

You seem to be missing the fact that the only Grade 1 FIA track in the UK is Silverstone. There is precisely one track to choose from if you want to run F1 cars in this country.
 
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