Mercedes losing 19 million is probably accounting shenanigans, and I imagine there is some R&D benefit shared with AMG road cars. When you are in the business of building supercars, being able to say the same engineers designed the world championship f1 car, that's a pretty good marketing spend. They spend more than that a year on stadium sponsorship probably.
A few weeks ago after Chadwick Boseman passed, they cut to Hamilton's cockpit as he won the race and he told the team "That one was for Chadwick. Rest in Peace Black Panther" and one of the analysts goes "you have to wonder if the FIA will look into Hamilton once again bringing politics into the sport." For all the positive messaging they are putting out front about ending racism etc, the sport's old boys club is clearly on one side of that issue
yeah. I'm sure Lewis knew he was breaking a FIA rule. I do feel that the FIA is in a lose-lose here. Don't investigate? Then the rules are useless. Investigate? Then it seems like they are against the message. I wonder with stuff like this if Lewis just told them ahead of time something like, "Hey, I'm doing this, just fine me and we'll move on". He's a multimillionaire so he can afford to get the message out. I did read a funny comment: "Bottas said the fine should be a 56 point deduction"
And that was the gist of the article that even with a loss of 19m that is essentially a massive win for the world wide marketing they get as a result of racing in F1. They race to advertise lol
The funny thing is in this country I would imagine a pretty big majority of this country would have the same reaction and find this fucked up. And push Lewis to continue on. Being Italian and spending good chunks of my life in Europe this old guard way of thinking is the majority unfortunately. Hopefully Lewis keeps pushing them to reform even if cost him money.
I will say the Ross and the new leadership at F1 on paper have done a good job of pushing the sport in the correct direction. Again on paper... I'm guessing F1 doesn't want to give manufactures or "teams" the profile and media attention from joining F1 would provide. Now if someone claims to be joining F1 a simple call into F1 leadership can fact check it and kill any press if proven false.
Those guys are all "old" now, though, with the exception of MV. I think they should have 2-3 every "generation" (if that makes sense) if it's a successful junior program, IMO.
According to Wiki the answer is No I was wrong on Webber he isn’t a Red Bull program driver. Kvyat is the other RB program driver in F1 EDIT: apparently he got his start in a RB car but didn’t come up in the program
Lewis is going to have some issues tomorrow starting in the soft. Somehow Bottas will fuck it up in the end and Max will hopefully win.
Haven’t seen the press clippings but curious what Ferrari excuse is about being such shit this weekend. Can’t blame Russia for being a horsepower track.
Most jarring thing about that race to me was seeing full grandstands. Not surprising Putin doesn't give a shit.
Not true... more races will have fans in attendance. Sochi wasn't full either but they had large crowds. Some nations in Europe are letting limited amounts of fans to see soccer as well.
I'm kinda surprised they hammered Lewis with those time penalties. Guess they need to find a way to keep the title chase alive lol
Sorry I should’ve clarified that I meant of countries with uncontrolled outbreaks and autocratic leaders who don’t believe in a free press.
Also, the reason I mentioned it was because of the stark contrast in what can be seen at events here. At this point I'm ok with our stadiums doing what they're doing. Something like 20% or so of capacity. If less, that's good too. While Sochi wasn't 100% capacity it was obviously over 80% for every grandstand I saw. It was just notable.
Yeah I recorded but then woke up, saw everyone talking about what a boring race it was, and politely opted out
No, but before you point too many fingers I did a bit of research yesterday as we were talking about a similar tangent...
A quick check shows your county would've been best on that list, so congrats! Lancaster (PA) (545K) = 297
Sainz belongs at Ferrari. Can't drive around a fucking bollard without shitting his pants and destroying the car.
Rather have Mic in that seat... Sainz is nothing more than a place holder till they see where the new spec lines up
I was mainly trying to get a rise out of our Ferrari fans, but I really don't like his driving. He's either brilliant or out of the race. What little Schumacher is doing in F2 is pretty cool.
I’m fully on the Checo to Red Bull wagon. Out preforming Stroll with missing upgrades and info from the team.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/152510/schumacher-set-for-f1-practice-debut-at-eifel-gp With Ferrari pondering the next steps for its F2 race winners, Schumacher will join Callum Ilott in getting some running in first free practice at the Nurburgring. Schumacher will drive for Alfa Romeo, while Ilott will take part in the practice session for Haas. Robert Shwartzman will get a first free practice run in the F1 season finale at Abu Dhabi, but it has not yet been confirmed with which team.
Two of those three have shown to be Uber talented and then you have Mic. Not saying he isn’t but jury out. Ferrari has three stud young drivers and not enough room.