F1 Racing

[Burley Wright]

But whatever. I'm so happy for Perez.

Me too. I have nothing against Albon but the Max/Checo pairing is so much more exciting. I hope the U.S. Grand Prix has spectators this year so I can be one (although ticket prices will probably be even more astronomical that usual, at least I got to see Raikkonen's 2018 USGP victory). Max hasn't had a worthy teammate since Ricciardo so I'm hoping at last there will be some genuine competition between Red Bull drivers to take the fight to the Mercedes juggernaut. And I've never even had a Red Bull energy drink even though I visited their Hangar 7 in Salzburg in 2016.
Who knew Red Bull would end up as a Maxican team?

[Hal...]

You haven't missed anything. Red Bull is disgusting. How it became popular is a complete mystery to me.

[Sunlight Caller]

You guys will appreciate this exceptional framed photo that my beloved brought me for Christmas. Hope you are all having a fun time in spite of the damn virus.

3AB296CA-157C-4554-AEEE-F7570B96631E.jpg

Edit : Hmmm resolution isn’t that good, I’m not sure I uploaded it properly, but it is Phil Hill leading the grid at the start of the 1962 1000km Nurburgring race. It’s a great picture when you can se it in full detail!

[Hal...]

Here are the new liveries for 2021. Note: Ferrari's new livery won't be revealed until the weekend of the first F1 and is rumored to be two tone. Red Bull's will look essentially the same. And wait'll you get a look at the Alpine (Renault) and Williams.


Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen:





AlphaTauri:





Haas:





McLaren:

[Hal...]

Mercedes:





Alpine (Renault):





Williams:





That Alpine is sharp! And I really like the Williams.

[Hal...]

Incidentally, here's the schedule:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Bahrain Grand Prix Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Portuguese Grand Prix Spanish Grand Prix Monaco Grand Prix Azerbaijan Grand Prix Canadian Grand Prix French Grand Prix Austrian Grand Prix British Grand Prix Hungarian Grand Prix Belgian Grand Prix Dutch Grand Prix Italian Grand Prix Russian Grand Prix Singapore Grand Prix Japanese Grand Prix United States Grand Prix Mexican Grand Prix Brazilian Grand Prix Australian Grand Prix Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir Imola Algarve Int'l Circuit Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya Monaco Baku Gilles Villeneuve Paul Ricard Red Bull Ring Silverstone Hungaroring Spa-Francorchamps Zandvoort Monza Sochi Autodrom Marina Bay Suzuka Circuit of the Americas Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo Albert Park, Melbourne Jeddah Street Circuit Yas Marina

28 March 18 April 2 May 9 May 23 May 6 June 13 June 27 June 4 July 18 July 1 August 29 August 5 September 12 September 26 September 3 October 10 October 24 October 31 October 7 November 21 November 5 December 12 December

[Duncan Glenday]

Thanks for posting the pics. Aston Martin has a nice new (almost) British racing green color scheme too.

(Click to enlarge)
skysports-aston-martin-f1-cae_5291382.jpg

That schedule is VERY Euro-centric - 12 of the first 15 are in Europe.

[chalkpie]

Fun looking go-karts.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Great to see Imola and the portuguese GP still on the calendar.

[Hal...]

Thanks for posting the pics. Aston Martin has a nice new (almost) British racing green color scheme too.

Yeah, I forgot to include it.

Here's the picture I saw:



I can't seem to remember they're the rebranded Racing Point team. But thank God those pink cars are gone.



I guess that schedule is Eurocentric, isn't it? I hadn't noticed at first. That's fine by me, tho, as I find most other circuits outside of Europe to be kind of boring. Even COTA in Austin, isn't all that great, the big hill notwithstanding. I really like the Canadian and Singaporean courses, tho. But Spa is still my favorite, even if they did take some of the teeth out of it.

I'm glad they're still racing at Imola.

I'll be especially interested in Zandvoort. I can't recall ever seeing any kind of race there.

[Duncan Glenday]

Yeah, I forgot to include it.

Here's the picture I saw:



I can't seem to remember they're the rebranded Racing Point team. But thank God those pink cars are gone.



I guess that schedule is Eurocentric, isn't it? I hadn't noticed at first. That's fine by me, tho, as I find most other circuits outside of Europe to be kind of boring. Even COTA in Austin, isn't all that great, the big hill notwithstanding. I really like the Canadian and Singaporean courses, tho. But Spa is still my favorite, even if they did take some of the teeth out of it.

I'm glad they're still racing at Imola.

I'll be especially interested in Zandvoort. I can't recall ever seeing any kind of race there.

I agree - I wasn't complaining about the Euro circuits. they're classics! It's going to be fascinating to watch the new driver lineups.
How will Vettel manage in a mid-pack team?
How will Sainz compare with LeClerc?
How will Danny Ric hold up against the youngster, Norris?
How will this new Japanese guy that popped up out of nowhere compare with Gasly?
Will Williams still be as slow as paint?
Will the new Russian with the rich daddy (Mazepin) be as weak as we're all expecting?
Will Schumacher be a patch on his Dad?
Will McLaren adapt okay to the new Mercedes engines?
Etc, etc...

[Duncan Glenday]

I like the look of the Aston Martin, and love that they're back in the game as a company. And I'm thrilled that they've found a big sponsor - despite the fact that I truly hate Cognizant as a company. (Many, many experiences with them!)

[NogbadTheBad]

Its very pretty

[Hal...]

I like the look of the Aston Martin, and love that they're back in the game as a company.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. They're just a sponsor with Mercedes engines. Do mean simply that you love that AM is in F1 again, regardless of their role?

Will Williams still be as slow as paint?

I suspect they'll improve over their performance of the past few years, now that the Williams family is no longer involved. Even Claire Williams said something recently to the effect that the job may have been to much for her; that she may not have been qualified for it. Not that I have anything against her. I liked she was the team principal. I felt the same about Monisha Kaltenborn. I think we need more women in autosports. But both teams weren't that competitive, if at all, under their leadership.

[Duncan Glenday]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. They're just a sponsor with Mercedes engines. Do mean simply that you love that AM is in F1 again, regardless of their role?

Only Ferrari, and McLaren are 100% true factory teams. Both companies started as race teams, then developed expensive cars to finance their race operations.

The owner of Aston Martin (cars) is the owner of Aston Martin (F1), the cars and the race team both have Mercedes engines, and the car and the F1 team are out of the UK. That makes them more of a factory team than even Mercedes. (Mercedes is a British team owned one-third by Mercedes Benz.)

Renault/Alpine, like Aston, bought an existing team (Enstone - also British) and made it their own - and continued using Renault engines.

The rest aren't manufacturers teams at all.

Factory teams in order of "purity" IMHO are
Ferrari & McLaren
Renault
Aston Martin
Mercedes
Alfa Romeo
The rest.

All IMHO

I suspect they'll improve over their performance of the past few years, now that the Williams family is no longer involved. Even Claire Williams said something recently to the effect that the job may have been to much for her; that she may not have been qualified for it. Not that I have anything against her. I liked she was the team principal. I felt the same about Monisha Kaltenborn. I think we need more women in autosports. But both teams weren't that competitive, if at all, under their leadership.

Agreed - it was great to have both Claire and Kaltenborn in the sport, but Williams and Sauber were both at their lowest ebb during their tenure.

[Duncan Glenday]

BTW - there are vague rumors (again) of Porsche getting into F1.

I was sad when BMW left.

[Hal...]

Aston Martins use Mercedes engines? Wow. I did not know that. After reading over their history on Wikipedia, I see they worked out a deal in 2013. I also read Lawrence Stroll was a huge investor in AM and was made chairman of the board(?).

[Duncan Glenday]

I'm looking forward to the next "Drive To Survive" series - which (I think) will be released in 2 weeks.

[Hal...]

I saw that was going to be released. I just checked and it's due on the 19th.

Which season showed some back & forth verbal jousting between Christian Horner and Cyril Abiteboul? Was that season two?

[chalkpie]

I'm looking forward to the next "Drive To Survive" series - which (I think) will be released in 2 weeks.

Yes!

[Sunlight Caller]

This may not mean much to everybody, but for so many years the voice of F1 in Britain, Murray Walker has sadly passed today aged 97. He electrified the sport for me, his co-commentaries with James Hunt are what really drew me in. RIP Murray.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...e_iOSApp_Other

[NogbadTheBad]

Murray was excellent and bonkers at the same time, the voice of racing in the UK. RIP

[Burley Wright]

Recently F1TV changed their site/app so that I could no longer watch it on my TV using Amazon Silk or Firefox and, of course, the app isn't available for Amazon Fire TV so that left my choices to either be satisfied to watch it on a computer/tablet/phone, cast my device to my TV (always seems to be problematic), or get a Roku (I got the Streaming Stick+ for $49.99 at Sam's Club) which I did and the F1TV app installed just fine and I've been watching winter testing for a couple of hours with no issues at all.

So nice to have an app instead of using a web browser with a Firestick remote.
BTW I also started a trial of YouTube TV today and so far I'm digging it.

[Duncan Glenday]

This may not mean much to everybody, but for so many years the voice of F1 in Britain, Murray Walker has sadly passed today aged 97. He electrified the sport for me, his co-commentaries with James Hunt are what really drew me in. RIP Murray.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...e_iOSApp_Other

Murray was excellent and bonkers at the same time, the voice of racing in the UK. RIP

I used to love Murray Walker's commentary. His slow, sometimes doddering analyses were such a contrast to the speed and precision engineering of F1. His knowledge of the sport's history was encyclopedic.

RIP

Recently F1TV changed their site/app so that I could no longer watch it on my TV using Amazon Silk or Firefox and, of course, the app isn't available for Amazon Fire TV so that left my choices to either be satisfied to watch it on a computer/tablet/phone, cast my device to my TV (always seems to be problematic), or get a Roku (I got the Streaming Stick+ for $49.99 at Sam's Club) which I did and the F1TV app installed just fine and I've been watching winter testing for a couple of hours with no issues at all.

So nice to have an app instead of using a web browser with a Firestick remote.
BTW I also started a trial of YouTube TV today and so far I'm digging it.

Sounds like a lot of hard work. My DVR automatically records every practice, qualifying, and race - and records the next 90 minutes just in case there are delays, and the race goes over the scheduled broadcast times. Then - I watch the recordings at my leisure.

That convenience and reliability is (almost) worth the exorbitant price we pay for Xfinity cable.

[Hal...]

This is a friendly reminder that the F1 season starts this weekend (thank the Gods) at Bahrain.

You're welcome.