Formula One ( F1 )

Agree with your closing sentiment, its been thrilling so far and I can't wait to watch the rest of the season unfold could be other teams exacerbated by their teams mishaps come October.

Piastri confirmed at Alpine. It's a messy story though...

Alpine basically were blindsided by Alonso leaving as they thought he was close to signing a 1+1 year deal with them. That meant no drive for Piastri so he signed a contract with McLaren for 23 and beyond rather than be loaned to Williams. That means that Ricciardo knows now that the team were about to boot him.

Now Piastri is at Alpine knowing they didn't want him and the same for Riccardo at McLaren.

Has Ricciardo been confirmed as staying?

Hawks

"I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year."

https://twitter.com/OscarPiastri/status/1554527452231262210?s=20&t=TSQejG0yl5UqzlCJYck-lQ

Jesus. Piastri and Palou; both signing contracts for McLaren whilst being under option elsewhere. Brown clearly feels he can pay out the other contracts for the right driver.

Not yet. I can only assume if he doesn’t stay he’s off into retirement.

Apparently Piastri's ran out at end of July. So seems like Alonso timed it to fuck over alpine?
Feel bad for Ricciardo whatever happens

Can't believe no one posted it here yet, but thicc ricc will leave McLaren at the end of this season

The banter heuristic would be Ricciardo in an Alpine re-finding his form, and consistently beating Alfonso in the Aston.

It was basically a done deal since Alpine "announced" Piastri. Would be surprised if he ends up anywhere but Alpine.

If Macca can't get Piastri who would they partner with Noris?

They'll get him. It's just a money thing now.

I wonder if they'll have to pay Ricciardo's salary at Alpine?

if ricciardo secures alpine then that's a real result for him. they have a great car this year and he knows the staff etc.

Don't they also have 2 other young IndyCar drivers in a holding pattern?

Edit: https://eu.indystar.com/story/sports/motor/2022/07/14/mclaren-2023-driver-options-indycar-formula-1-formula-e-alex-palou-pato-oward-daniel-ricciardo/7828561001/

Trouble is they know he's not actually all that, and an unknown driver would be a more optimistic gamble.

Blimey, blunderfest. Max was exceptional but i didn't find much to enjoy in that race.

First lap was good until it wasn’t.

Shot of Hamilton going for a walk in the countryside was weird funny

Was a great drive from Max, had visitors over so didn't get to see too much of it. Any ideas on what was up with Leclerc? Saw that he had a tear-off stuck in a cooling duct that forced the early stop but he was absolutely nowhere compared to Sainz.

Loved the last gasp attempt by Ferrari to screw up his race by letting Alonso past then getting a time penalty to demote Leclerc anyway. Classic.

Red Bull & Max have just been unstoppable this year. Time to break out the Ferrari mantra of "next year will be our year"

Occon with the moves was a++

The Redbull seemed in a different leaguen to the other cars- anyone got an idea of what element or elements lead to that?

Or is there car just hugely suited to Spa?

If I had to guess, it'd be that their floor section just works so much better/efficiently than everyone else's (not exactly a pinpoint guess there to be fair). They were able to run a low-downforce wing setup so had the edge in sectors 1 & 3, but still were on pace in sector 2 that's mostly high-speed corners.

Other cars (Ferrari in particular IMO) seem to be closer on lower speed circuits which makes me think they can generate more downforce than RB, but in a less efficient manner.

Probably a safe bet that the new TD has impacted RB much, much less than their rivals. Ferrari, while much quicker than a team like Mercedes, they did seem to "suffer" porpoising just as much, it just didn't seem to have as significant an impact on lap time. I'd wager most other teams have had to raise their ride heights more than they'd want to to accommodate that.

Also, fair play to Hamilton for holding his hands up for that incident at Les Combes. This aged like milk though:

Read something today that said that McLaren saved 6M USD by paying off Ricciardo with 10M as his 2023 salary would have been 16M.

Same article also said that the agreement between Piastri and Alpine for 2023 was verbal not contractual so they're going to be screwed when the judgement is announced.

Both could obviously be bollocks