Formula One ( F1 )

Agreed. Bottas isn’t all that. They need to find a new number two now the grid is more competitive

Agreed. My vote goes to Russell. He's already shown he can outrace Bottas.

Wonder how Ham would react to a competent and competitive team mate? I think it’d be great but he’s always seems to have preferred safe, unspectacular team mates.

He seemed to handle Rosberg pretty well every year but one, and you don't beat Hamilton to the title in identical machinery without being pretty handy.

Oh my god that was a stressful race! Got sent a spoiler earlier so I knew Max was out; it was just a matter of when and how.

Very Mario kart blue shell memeable

Yeah looks like the Leclerc/Gasly info was up while Tsunoda was politely informing his engineer that he was already pushing.

https://streamable.com/0qt6sk

On another note, did anyone hear Webber's reaction to Hamilton locking up? Absolute gold:

https://streamable.com/564pwk

On another note, did anyone hear Webber's reaction to Hamilton locking up? Absolute gold:

https://streamable.com/564pwk

Hahaha, I thought that's what I heard but I couldn't rewind to check!

On another note, did anyone hear Webber's reaction to Hamilton locking up? Absolute gold

Echoes of Gary Neville's goalgasm, which never gets old!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXUdemBWEB8

Seems like he has previous form too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b1A9d805QQ&t=5200s

1:26:40 if the timestamp link isn't working

That sounds like something straight out of Wallace & Gromit, amazing

Only just found out what Hamilton's error actually was: Accidentally pressing a button on the steering wheel which set the brake balance 75% forward.

Seems much more understandable and forgivable than a straightforward (pun intended) driving error.

Yeah - they confirmed that on the sky coverage just after the race. Still definitely his fault but not a driving error.

it's kind of crazy that the steering wheel is designed is such a way that can happen

I guess they're getting very limited for space these days.

Also a fine line between making something easy to access when necessary, but difficult to operate inadvertently. This one might need a rethink, but at least Hamilton will be very wary of it now.

He was holding the wheel pretty oddly at the restart, you can see how he pressed it. But I can't recall seeing him (or others) hold it in that way previously (his left hand was up over the top of the wheel, presumably holding the clutch as I assume the right-hand side is the gear up paddle). Has anyone reported on that? I've not really followed any of the coverage post-race to be fair, outside of watching Mark Webber's scream on loop.

I thought I read somewhere that it wasn't that he pressed the button by accident on the lap but a button that he hadn't turned off from the warm up.

No, he pressed it for the warm up, correctly turned it off, then accidently turned it back on for an upshift, throwing all the the brakes to the front wheels. Mad really, but it has got to that point where the cars are so complicated to drive it was a matter of time until something like this happened.

It dawns on him around 3 mins into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQA3xc9hI6k

On the Bottas stuff - surely this is the ideal time to get rid of him. Russell comes in as defacto number 2, so easy to give team orders when needed. Also, if it's clear that Russell / Hamilton are going to be a serious match for each other, they have plenty of time to try and put in some ground rules to mitigate an early season flair up that you could get if Russel starts at Race 1 next year.

Everyone seems to be hating the French GP, but for a newbie like me it looks really cool with the blue and red lines

It's a pretty dull layout to be fair, and the huge tarmac run-off areas mean there's not much penalty to pushing track limits or just bailing out of corners (I know the blue/red strips are abrasive and likely to cause tyre damage, but I don't recall seeing much of that in previous races there.

And while existing courses like Monaco, Spain & Hungary are also a bit of a snooze-fest, they've been around for a good few decades so are more likely to get a bit of a pass. But adding a 'new' track to the calendar and it being a dull track is more likely to generate criticism (see Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Russia).

I realise we've not seen any actual laps from Saudi Arabia, but a narrow, high-speed track lined with barriers is likely just going to be a longer Monaco.

I realise we've not seen any actual laps from Saudi Arabia, but a narrow, high-speed track lined with barriers is likely just going to be a longer Monaco.

Yeah it’s a strange looking track for modern F1 cars. No doubt they had the best brains money can buy designing it, so we’ll see.

Wait, belay the above. My gf just pointed out it’s a street race and they’ll probably build a track in the future.

No doubt they had the best brains money can buy designing it, so we’ll see.

The Saudi track? Hardly, it's another Tilke track. Copy, paste, yawn.

I still think we need some huge tracks like Le Mans. The cars would be out there stripped bare of any unnecessary aero, space nearly everywhere to race three abreast and pull it off, battle of the balls on the brakes etc etc. Maybe even throw the F2 race on the track at the same time!

Old-school Monza layout with the crossover? I'd vote for that!

Or even a spec series with old cigar-tube style cars (brought up to modern safety standards of course)

Racing wasn’t much better then, it was just more lethal. Not sure a return to that is an improvement.