Nobody’s playing here anymore?
That wheel-to-wheel action between Vettel and Alonso was pretty exciting. I was sure that Seb was going to crack and take them both out. He’s really not showing World Champion composure this season.
I wish Kimi would get his shit together.
I really don’t think Kimi is going to get his shit together. I really don’t think he can change his driving style to suit the new car. Kinda like Vettel.
Nothing like mid-season rule changing to make things “interesting”… The sudden interconnected suspension ban (FRIC) should make that neutered go-kart track in Germany more interesting than expected.
And speaking of Kimi, surprised to see he still got off easy with no penalty after the crash at Silverstone even after it was noticed that poor Max Chilton nearly got Henry Surtees’d by one of his flying tires. If Pastor had done that…
Yes, Kimi was quite lucky this weekend. That crash may have killed him 10-15 years ago, so it’s good to see that safety has come so far in the sport.
It was kinda sad hearing Seb cry like a boy to his daddy worrying about what FA was and wasn’t doing. It was still some good wheel/wheel action though, so I’m glad they kept it up. I was confused about which corners required 2 wheels inside the line… I saw different drivers crossing different lines w/ various numbers of wheels, so I assumed that the stewards weren’t hell-bent on enforcement.
Also, go Williams! I have been very glad to see them do well this season.
Yeah, the announcers had a good time with the paved run-off areas allowing the cars to keep the speed up, but for the last several years they’ve also said how much better they are then gravel traps.
The problem wasn’t Kimi’s speed merging back onto the track (in fact you could argue that merging back onto the track at less than racing speed is more dangerous), but it was the ditch or hole that he hit causing the suspension to break. The on-air guys bitched about the very same problem at the Austrian GP with the little service road after the last corner that sent people airborne during practice. And going back to the Austrian race, Jesus did everyone trip over their dicks to over-hype the most boring track on the circuit. I guess if you wanna play in big money sports, you gotta suck Red Bull dick. That’s all I got to say about that.
And Ferrari drivers don’t get penalties. 
I’ve become a fan of Valtteri Bottas these last two seasons. It’ll be interesting to see how far he can go and how good he can be. Two podiums in a row is a nice start!
A great race in Hungary. Who says F1 is boring?
Great drives by Lewis and Kimi today.
America has an F1 driver again. Chilton out for “contractual reasons” and Alexander Rossi into the race seat at Marussia for Belgium. Hope Alex got to at least sit in their simulator since he joined the team.
Awesome. Wish him the best.
Looks like he didn’t get his drive after all. Mercedes lock-out on the front row again.
That’s definitely not how you want to see a race end. Hope Jules pulls through. 
An awful day for the whole F1 community yesterday. Andrea de Cesaris was killed in a motorcycle accident in Italy some hours after the darkest Grand Prix since 1994. Very worried Jules’ best outcome is a hazy Michael Schumacher-like non-recovery recovery. The end result of his accident was not unlike Dan Wheldon’s 2011 fatal crash in IndyCar with the roll hoop structure of the car completely ripped off at helmet level. The video (fan shot) is now out there. I’ve avoided it so far.
That’s probably for the best. I saw it. You know how forklifts and other lifting vehicles are counterweighted in the back to balance them under load? He hit it so hard it came off the ground. If he had hit it square he would have died on the spot. How he didn’t die already I’ll never know.
I’m not saying this to be insulting or overly dramatic, I’m saying it because it’s the truth: Jules Bianchi, if he survives, will probably be a vegetable. If something like that happened to me I’d hope it would kill me.
It is a horrible situation. I do hope he makes a meaningful recovery. I’m not particularly squeamish but I have no real desire to watch the whole process of pain and suffering being inflicted on someone. My imagination is enough to turn my stomach.
On the subject of safety. I think we do get complacent regarding F1. The last deaths were Senna and Ratzenburger in 1994. Since then we’ve had a raft of improvements that ensure drivers survive crashes that only a short while ago would have killed or maimed them for sure.
But ultimately, we have 22 cars going wheel to wheel at 200 mph, on a twisting circuit and sometimes in the wet. You cannot have racing in any meaningful sense without accepting the danger and understanding that no matter what you do the dynamic, knife edge nature of the sport is going to throw you a curve ball and people are going to get hurt.
We may see further restrictions or re-designs on track access recovery vehicles and perhaps a faster response to such dangerous situations and that seems like the way to go. Pragmatic and incremental improvements in response to safety gaps whilst retaining the essential nature of the sport.
Count me in on not watching any video. The tell-tales for me were both of the rear tires of the Marussia had been pulled around to the right rear of the car and worse, the mounting points for the rear-view mirros had both been just scraped off. Since that’s just below Jules’ helmet level I figured permanent coma. A truly awful accident to have happened more-so since it occurred at a curve with waving yellow flags. Conditions must truly have been ice-like and it will be interesting to see what the inquiry finds out.
As bad as it appears to be, when they were first talking about how he lost control around the same area Sutil had, I thought he might have plowed through a group of marshalls/rescue workers. That would have been worse, I think.
Honestly, I’ve never been comfortable with people running out on the track to grab fallen wing pieces with nothing but a local yellow, even in dry conditions. Given the relative shortness, lap-wise, of a F1 event, I can understand why they don’t bring out a safety car every time there’s debris on the track or a car, but that does result in a greater chance of horrific consequences.
That’s been an issue since the beginning, but you’d think they might have learned from the 1977 death of Tom Pryce (no link to video, it’s the worst thing you’ll ever see, be warned) that having cars and marshals in close proximity with both relying on the good judgment of each other is a recipe for disaster.
This week’s race in Austin will be four cards short of a full pack. Both Caterham and Marussia have gone belly up.
It’s funny - I remember people saying exactly the same thing after Imola '94: that everyone had gotten complacent because of a long quiet spell. I think the last death before Ratzenberger was Elio de Angelis in '84 or '85.
It’s amazing how often F1 teams go bust. You almost never see, say, a Premiership football club shutting down, even though the budgets (and disparities) are relatively similar.