F1 2025

[MiniDave]

I hear that, I think the last movie I saw in theatre was the new Top Gun, because they had that 3 sided screen.....which was only used in the first part of the movie. I was really disappointed that they copied the first Star wars movie with the bombing run.

If we can get some $5 Tuesday tix I might go see it indoors, one of my Mini buds wants us to go see it at Imax, those won't be $5.

[Brit_in_TX]

The wife and I went to a brunch showing, and I enjoyed the movie.  There are elements that are very hollywood that would probably be against the rules in reality.  Also the storyline is a little weak outside of the racing parts, same as any of these blockbuster action movies.  Some of the cameos are good from F1 drivers and team principals.

A random article popped up on my feed about potentially getting Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise together for another racing movie, bringing together Days of Thunder and F1. 

[MiniDave]

Well, speaking of F1 - Austria that is:

This race was a disaster for the home team, although the junior varsity did pretty well, getting Lawson into the points in 8th, Hadjar just missing out on 10th as his tires gave up on the last laps.

It mostly was a showcase for McLaren, tho it's clear that Ferrari has made a step forward. Mercedes did not like the heat and by the end Russell and his Merc were 30 seconds behind the Hamster in 4th - and Kimi took out Max on the first lap when his rear tires locked up under braking for turn 1.

Norris got a good start and led and Piastri managed to get ahead of LeClerc for second, the next almost 20 laps were fun to watch as Piastri and Norris went at it, always racing fair but trading the lead on several corners. In the end Lando managed to hold on and they finished 1-2, LeClerc and Hammy 3-4, Russell quite a ways back in 5th.

One of the stars of this race was Borteleto, who got his first points for Sauber by finishing 8th, who I have to say are starting to feature in the mid field. I wonder if that's due to Binotto's influence or if it was just the natural maturing of the team?

Williams also had a terrible weekend, the first start was aborted when Sainz' car would not move off the line at the lights, they did finally get it moving and it made one lap but went to the pits with the rear brakes on fire. Albon was racing well when he had to retire the car about 1/3 of the way thru the race. 

There was a ton of passing thru out the field, tho the two Ferraris were pretty much in their own race as the Mac's put about 15 seconds on them by the end.

Next up is Silverstone and George thinks he can win it if they have typical English weather of around 20* C, if it's as hot as it was this weekend he says they'll be nowhere....

[Brit_in_TX]

Austria was great for the first 30 laps and then was dull.  The most exciting thing in the second half was the Alpine driving Piastri off the track when he was trying to lap them.

[MiniDave]

Yeah, he said at the time over the radio "Alpine still manages to find a way to fuck me over all these years later, huh"

[Brit_in_TX]

Hulkenberg finally gets rid of a terrible record, the most races without a podium finish! 

The current driver with the highest record is now Tsunoda.

[MiniDave]

Poor Yuki, Red Bull may have nuked his career putting him on the varsity team when he was going so well in the Vcarb car. OTOH if Max jumps to another team chances are they'll keep him, right?

There are several contracts up at the end of this season, should make for interesting reading later in the year as they start vying for teams.

There has been a lot of discussion about what happened to Piastri at Silverstone, right or wrong I hope that will be the giant kick in the butt he needs to go on and win the driver's championship.

Verstappen is the really big question mark in the driver's silly season, a lot of internet talk has him going to Mercedes, and while the rumors are strong that they will have the strongest power plant setup next season, it doesn't matter if the car is shit again. Plus 3 other teams will have the same power unit.....including McLaren.

Likewise, Aston may have the best chassis and car, but if Honda can't deliver on their end.....no matter what, next spring in Barcelona is going to be interesting!

3 weeks till the next race, then 4 more to the one after that. I dunno if any of the teams are still working on their 2025 car, Sauber's updates sure worked for them tho! Too bad it took till half the season was over to get them on the car.....

[Veggivet]

Well, the rain certainly made for a very interesting race highlighting tire strategy. Rain can be the great equalizer...

It's a long 3 week wait for the next one, guys!

[MiniDave]

End of an era......Christian Horner has been removed from Red Bull with immediate effect.

Laurent Mekies will take his position and Alan Permane will take over at Vcarb/Racing Bulls

I expect one of the very first things they will do is try to lock Verstappen down and prevent him from jumping to another team, but I wonder if that actually will spur him on to take Stroll's billion $$$$ offer and rejoin with Newey, or jump to Mercedes? He also has a good relationship with Honda, who will be powering the Aston in 26.

Could be good for Tsunoda as I think Mekies was responsible for both Vcarbs and Yuki's improvement when he was team principle at Vcarb

[Brit_in_TX]

Horner going was a huge surprise, especially in the middle of the season.  You have to wonder if the Verstappen camp negotiated Horner getting fired as part of Max not activating exit clauses in his contract to go elsewhere.  Also Red Bull has lost a huge number of key personnel and they have not been successful in replacing them.  Horner has taken on extra responsibility (he is leading the powertrain development and Sporting Director responsibilities) as well as being Team Principal.  It was also revealed that his inner circle at the team was also fired, so it is massive clearing out. 

They are not going to turn this around this season, but perhaps they needed to get rid of him before they started working on 2026 developments in earnest. As Dave said, not many teams will be working on developments for this season any longer with the rule change coming for the 2026 season.

[MiniDave]

Yeah, many pundits are saying the handwriting was on the wall for Horner when Dietrich died.

No idea what Verstappen is going to do, but it makes sense that getting rid of Horner would be an incentive for him to stay, but Horner isn't the one who dictated how the car was being built, and there's no question that they were trying to suit Max in the design and setup. Point being, will he stay with a car that he can't win with? Or jump to a team that he thinks he can drive back to the winner's circle. The problem is, no one knows what car is going to take the lead till next spring, so staying with the team you know vs going somewhere and starting over?

As much as Toto is lobbying for Max, I think if he moves he'll go to Aston. IF.....

(see what I did there? That's a big if!)  :-)