The season has begun! The first race in Bahrain is tomorrow, Sunday March 5 at 18:00 local time (UTC +3), 10 am U. S. EST.
I haven’t been following the off-season activities much, just watched a few YouTube videos. So I don’t have much to say to kick off this thread, but I thought someone should start it.
I also haven’t started watching Drive To Survive on Netflix yet, with its coverage of last year’s season. I should get on that, because it always gives me a clearer picture of the teams, people, and strategies going on behind the scenes than just watching race coverage in real-time or near real-time. A year after the fact.
I’m a long-time fan of Lewis, I like George and Charles, and I hate Max as a poor sportsman and whiny and entitled bitch. And I’ll miss seeing Daniel. It’ll be interesting to see how the newcomers do.
What are you looking forward to seeing?
I don’t recall if we’ve had this “rule” in these threads before, but unless there are objections, I’d like to suggest that we have no spoilers on qualifying or race results until the day after the respective event. I, for one, rarely have the opportunity to watch qualifying or races live and I assume that’s the case for others.
(Sometimes I don’t get to them for days, but then it’s on me not to come into the thread or read the e-mail notifications.)
Alonso is looking real strong this year. I was never a huge fan of his back in the day, but I’ll gladly cheer for him over max.
Agreed. He was a bit of an asshole in his prime, but I like him better as a talented and elderly (by F1 standards) underdog.
Well, as excited as I was for the season to start, I watched Qualy and was completely bored. Lost interest and kinda zoned out. Not a good sign…
As I mentioned, I rarely watch live. I record all the sessions – practice, qualifying, and race – on my Tivo, but almost never watch anything but the race. When I do watch qualifying I usually just zip to the last five minutes of each session.
If not for Alonso, this would have been mostly a snoozer. Granted, I’ll take a total snoozer F1 race over an “exciting” football game.
Damn, that race was a hell of a start to the season! Aston’s star is definitely rising - most of their problems last year seemed to be more to do with the car than the drivers, and if this race is any indication they have most definitely improved their car tenfold. Alonso absolutely killed it, and Stroll (who has never been one to shy away from risky moves) pushed it to a very respectable 6th place without ever appearing to lose control. While I think Red Bull will continue to dominate, the more interesting battles (and bets) in my opinion will be between Aston and Mercedes. And I wonder if Russell (whose progress, like Stroll’s, I have been following with interest from the days when they were perpetual back-of-the-packers) will manage multiple victories this year. It’s going to be an exciting season for sure.
Felt sorry for, who was it, Ocon? Penalty for not serving his penalty, then a penalty for speeding to serve his other two penalties. 
Watching Fernando was entertaining.
Yeah, a real comedy of errors. And then he retired from the race.
Will McLaren and Williams ever return to the glory years? Or even get another race win? Sad to see. I suppose it’s possible, given Mercedes went from dominance to battling for third place in basically one off-season. And Ferrari went 21 years without winning a world championship (1979-2000).
When Alonso and Sainz were battling, was anyone else thinking of this?
I’d like to repeat my request in the OP that we not reveal any results of qualifying or races until at least 24 hours after the event, for the sake of folks who aren’t able to watch in real time. Personally, I would prefer that restriction to include oblique references, like “Too bad X didn’t do better,” etc.
Blur spoilers would be fine.
So remember last August when Kimi drove in a NASCAR race?
I watched to see how he would do, and while I was watching I wondered if there was any merch.
Turns out there was, so I ordered a Kimi Raikkonen #91 1:64 car for about $10. At the time, they told me it would arrive in JUNE 2023! I assume that they didn’t even start making them until well after the race.
Well the good news is that mine arrived this week. I had to put it up somewhere high so that 7 y/o couldn’t get to it, so it’s on the shelf above my computers desk where all my Fallout Funkos and other misc stuff lives.
Speaking of which, I saw some headlines that both Kimi and Jenson Button will be driving in the NASCAR race at COTA this year. I’ll probably give that a watch I f remember.
I’ll take this result. Also really impressed with Mercedes and disappointed in Ferrari.
But I love this track! The cars look so quick around it. Perhaps not the best for racing, but I just love the in-car/helmets cams around here.
Two questions about todays race: 1. How the hell do they get away with calling that a “Street Circuit”? 2. What was up with all the Mother’s Day stuff? Isn’t that in May?
Hope Fred don’t get boned by that jackman.
He still needs to punch that guy in the throat!
In the US and many other countries, yes. In the UK it was yesterday. Not sure why they made it a feature - I can only assume because a lot of teams are based in the UK (and are therefore away from their mothers/children for the race)?
Clears it up for me. Although it does put a chink in Terry-Thomas’ rant.
