Sorry to break the news to you: Paul Ricard is not on the calendar anymore.
Monaco: Never seen the camera angles that they have this year. Very Cool! I try to ignore the talking mouths, but I think someone said this is the first time for helicopter coverage. Got to be some drones, too.
It’s really pretty great!
It sure looked good. But for whatever reason the ESPN app coverage had NO SOUND! For both practice sessions. Other events on the app had sound, it was just the F1 stuff didn’t. It was weird. Hopefully fixed by qualy.
Blessing in Deguise. They just talk inane shit for the entirety. But you know that.
I crank Foo Fighters over the coverage.
For practice, yeah, it’s nice to not hear the babble. But I still want to hear the cars.
Babble is ok, at least it’s not Leigh Diffey. That fucker needs mute all the time.
Regarding the camera footage, it is nice. I especially liked the car camera shots when they are up on the crane. It’s like the view from an insane roller coaster.
Bears repeating today. Wait, I guess there were a few short ones. I was thinking Safety Car.
Just finished watching Monaco. How do I put this…it’s an absolutely lovely city. I think it’s totally cool how people who live there every day can literally look out the window and see a thrilling sports event right below. It’s a remarkable test of driving ability and always has plenty of thrills and spills and chills. (That the teams had to adapt to changing conditions completely on the fly definitely puts this a cut above any NASCAR event.)
As a race, however, I found it…lacking. That course is just so tight and unforgiving that there aren’t any real options; it almost looked more like a lot of time trials happening at the same time than a competition. The key to victory seemed to be “have the best car and don’t hit too many things”, which nobody had any answer to. Once Max Verstappen got out in front, that was it. I honestly don’t think even Fernando Alonso’s tire blunder made any real difference; it only made it a total massacre as opposed to a modest massacre.
It’s truly remarkable what F1 teams and modern technology are capable of, but I can see why it’s an acquired taste.
Monaco is almost always the most boring race of the year. Overtaking is so difficult that it’s basically a procession as the drivers don’t even need to take the risk of hitting the wall to stay ahead. It doesn’t help that the TV commentators are constantly talking about how amazing it is. I’m sure it is incredible to be there but if I’m watching on the TV I’m not there, so stop rubbing it in. Qualifying is always good around Monaco though.
The only competition to most boring race track is the Paul Ricard circuit which hosts the French GP. It’s almost a piece of art to make a non-street circuit more boring than Monaco for actual racing.
I’ve heard commentators say how large the current Formula 1 cars are. I wonder if passing at Monaco might be easier, and the race more interesting, if the cars were smaller.
I know we’ve only had the current spec for a couple years, but is there any prospect that the next generation of F1 cars might be smaller? What would be the argument against that; is a smaller car less safe?
Watching the driving is fun. Watching the QUALIFYING is fantastic. No racing happens on Monaco Sunday.
Very entertaining qualy in Spain today. Crazy grid.
I love that they finally got rid of that shitty last chicane.
Another pretty god-damned boring race. Maybe I’m just done over it? Only missed a race, maybe two in 40 years. Only been entertained by a hand-full in the same time period.
I hate to admit it, but I really liked the old days of fewer restrictions when half the field would blow up spectacularly (sometimes from the front of the grid) and you really had to watch the whole race, and pay attention. I dunno. I been drinkin’ since the checkered flag.
There was a lot of mid pack racing. But yeah, not much action up front. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again. I’ll take a birthday Ng F1 race over 95% of anything else on TV.
This season was over before it began. I think even the Mexican fans realize Perez is not going to seriously challenge Verstappen. Much as I have grown to dislike , him, he is driving with all the pure pace he started with but he’s now a consistent performer who doesn’t put the car in the wall randomly. Perhaps that’s just because the car is so quick he doesn’t have to push, but whatever.
Typically, it takes several years for teams to converge after a rule change, so the odds of anyone catching RB before 2025 are not good
Regarding Monaco: you watch it to see the drivers beat the track, not each other. Once you learn to watch how closely they are shaving the barriers rather than how closely they are following it’s much more fun.
Ugh, it’s supposed to say “boring”
I was wondering what you were on about.
I was on about 20 beers or so, apparently.