Posted on 08/05/2009 7:57:45 PM PDT by Chode
This will be a general purpose thread for F1 news and pings that really don't require a thread of their own.
1- the book, Rush to Glory, is much better than the movie, as they usually are, and is an absolute must read for any race fan...
2- i was 12 years old when it happened and like most kids into sports at the time, had a subscription to Sport Illustrated. They had the famous picture of the car in flames while Lauda was still in the car- will never forget that color picture to this day.
And after enduring all that torment, later that same season Lauda abdicated the title that might have been his at the final race. He retired because it was raining fiercely and the memory of the Nurburgring crash was still too near to him.
That was a decision I think enhanced the reputations of both men, Lauda AND Hunt. Lauda because it showed he had the courage of his convictions. And Hunt because it gave him his only world championship.
That was the same event at which James Hunt missed the pre-race driver introductions. According to Williams co-founder an technical director Patrick Head, he mistakenly wandered into the McLaren pit garage where he found Hunt with his racing overalls around his ankles, having his front end alignment checked by a lovely young Japanese girl.
Only in a Russ Meyer movie script could you have someone being discovered in such a state by anyone named “Head.”
Despite the alleged sedentary effects of such an experience, Hunt still had his customary pre-race vomit.
“RUSH”
.
I got the DVD a couple months ago.
XLNT!-—— A Ron Howard Flick IIRC
The FIA has strongly rejected accusations that it failed to foresee the problems created by Formula 1’s new 2026 regulations, insisting it identified the risks well in advance but was blocked from making changes by the sport’s governance system and a lack of support from manufacturers....
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What tripe. It's the FIA's circus and those are their clowns. The relevant expression is F-T-A: Failure To Anticipate.
FIA's efforts to scapegoat the blame is pretty much unequivocal proof that Domenicali is LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH every time he says, "The racing is fine."
The bottom line is that the uncaused first cause of this mess is Liberty Media's decision to forsake the sport's heritage and attempt to increase their penetration into a largely untapped market segment by becoming evangelists for apothogenic global warming.
Why Honda only realised the scale of its F1 problems in January
Shintaro Orihara says Honda discovered during the Barcelona shakedown that it would not be competitive in terms of either performance or reliability at the start of the 2026 F1 season
Heading into Formula 1’s major technical overhaul, expectations at Aston Martin were high. With a state-of-the-art factory in Silverstone, legendary designer Adrian Newey and a works partnership with Honda, all the ingredients for success appeared to be in place.
That may still prove to be the case in the longer term, but the start of the new era has proved far more challenging than anticipated. Mike Krack recently admitted that Aston Martin had barely been racing before the summer break, simply because the gap to newcomer Cadillac amounted to around one second.
That changed when the AMR26 received its first major upgrade package in Hungary, although the chassis is naturally only part of the story. Honda has also encountered numerous problems since officially returning to F1, ranging from vibrations that troubled the drivers during the opening weeks of the season to a significant deficit in outright performance.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Autosport, trackside manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara explained that the full extent of those problems only became clear in January.
“So, probably at the end of last year, our position was not so bad,” he said. “Still, performance and drivability were in the development stage, but it looked okay.
“But in January, we realised that in some of the areas we found some, not issues, but we realised that performance was always up, down, up, down. So we found some performance, but then we also found some reliability issues.”...
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/why-honda-only-realised-scale-of-f1-problems-in-january/10844237/
It's a propaganda campaign, pure and simple, emphasizing their fealty to the New Green Religion, intended to attract these young skulls full of mush who until recently would have regarded the internal combustion engine (and sports involving its use) as a creation of Old Scratch hisself.
And for all Liberty Media cares, the Old School fans can get stuffed because they're betting the sport's future that they can drive them away wholesale with the new shambolic style of "competition" and replace them -- and then some -- with the young environmental socialist crusaders.
In a nutshell, that's what this is all about. They're infecting minds with the belief that "At long last, here's a problem so enormous that no one except government can fix it (and we're all going to die if we don't let them)."
And some in the F1 press are beginning to say the quiet part out loud.
Dan Ripley Global Editor
Professional F1 journalist and analyst
Saturday, August 8, 2026 at 8:56 AM
There are a generation of F1 fans who grew up in an era when the sound of Murray Walker screaming misinformation at you was pure delight.
This isn't a knock on Walker by the way, on the contrary, his enthusiasm for F1 was so much that even when he was wrong it only added to the drama.
A subset of this generation would have enjoyed Walker paired in the BBC commentary booth with the 1976 world champion James Hunt.
Now Hunt had a tendency to say what he thought, and if that meant claiming an F1 driver had 'a mental age of 10' and being 'pig ignorant' for failing to let leaders by, then so be it.
Now Hunt may have been harsh on poor Jarier but it made great TV, and he remained a much loved public figure until his sad and untimely death in 1993.
F1 has moved on
Hunt's words and commentary style though have no place in modern F1. it is now a huge business which appeals to as many markets as possible and will change just about anything if the price is right and the money makes sense. The sport itself is a consideration, but it's always a sacrifice if another dollar can be made.
Outspoken commentators don't fit this bracket. They cause or at the very least risk controversy that F1 as a brand wants no part of.
Today commentators are a bit more respectful to drivers, but a big reason for this is due to making sure relationships are kept respectable and that bridges aren't burned when it comes to interview access etc. There's always a bigger game in play.
Play it safe and ditch V10s
This line of thinking has seen the exit of the much loved V10, or even V8, engines that were the soundtrack of the sport for years up until the hybrid era started in 2014. Not a single fan wanted to get rid of them, but F1 decided to lean into Net Zero goals to be a more sustainable sport.
Ok, fine, but let's not pretend here that the output of the V10 engines over hybrid engines are a major cause of climate change, especially given the air miles this sport puts in.
So F1 played it safe and went with with the least controversial route. As a result you now have to listen to this corporate sludge at Monza instead of this F1 epic. There have been suggestions of going back to V8 engines from as early as 2030 but why has it taken 16 years?
Germany and France ditched
F1 has also expanded the calendar during this century from a fairly stable 16-race season to 24 races. Now there's arguments whether this is better or worse from a 'more diluted' to 'yay, more races' experience.
One thing for sure is you can't increase the calendar by eight races and ditch the German and French Grands Prix at the same time.
Well, I guess you can if F1 races are sold to the highest bidder, but surely there is a sporting obligation to be in these countries given their motor racing tradition. I mean, France invented the grand prix for goodness' sake!
What are we doing going to countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and especially Abu Dhabi with its garbage track that has never produced a classic race (no, 2016 and 2021 don't count)?
The answer is simple and it's because they are the tracks that make F1 money. Hockenheim, Nurburgring, Paul Ricard - these places are iconic names but are nothing to the modern day sport without a chequebook to match countries who have never even had an F1 driver.
Granted, we've heard talks of these tracks coming back, but it should never have got to this point in the first place.
But what F1 is doing works for them
Money is everything to F1, it will ruthlessly chase every last dollar it can and no F1 tradition is safe. It will not risk controversy if it means bad headlines.
Now here is the kicker, it's a good strategy. F1 isn't dying, it's thriving. It's done an exceptionally good job of marketing the sport to casual fans, with F1 president Stefano Domenicali at the heart of it in recent years. The methods are working for what it wants to achieve.
The sport made a loss in the second quarter of 2026 compared to 2025, dropping from $1.22billion to $764million - and this was due to four fewer F1 grands prix held during 2026 as opposed to the year prior. So, for the purists, why would F1 drop from 24 races down to 16 again if it's going to likely cost them hundreds of millions?
F1 will go on and continue to gain new fans who haven't grown up or been aware of the sport's history.
Lando Norris sends F1 warning
But all of this will come at a cost to the soul of the sport. Those of us who lived through the 20th Century will miss the heart and soul of F1 which appears to have been forgotten in the pursuit of profit, and that's now never going to change. You'd think you'd try and find a compromise but...
If you don't take my word for it, then perhaps to conclude you will listen to the recent words of reigning F1 world champion Lando Norris.
"The thing that's a shame is that Formula One's gone too heavily led by the fact it's a business nowadays and not how can you make the sport the best possible.
"It's how can you just make the most money as a business, and that's just not what it should simply be. That's not how a sport should be run."
Amen, Lando.
https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/1088829/f1-lost-soul-v10-engines-german-french-grand-prix/
David Coulthard offered to give his (failing) pub in London to Jeremy Clarkson ... and Clarkson turned him down.
He’s obviously not a devoted watcher of Clarkson’s latest TV show, the cleverly-named “Clarkson’s Farm,” because if he were, he’d know Clarkson’s pub — which be bought/built entirely as an outlet for the products he raises on his farm — is the bane of his existence. If something isn’t going wrong, that means you’re not looking hard enough because there’s always something wrong.
And only serving what he himself produces was part of the point. He even grows his own barley, which he then has made into a beer he serves at his pub. And he does all this with only a full-time staff of three, including Jezza and his lady fair, so there’s not the division of attention to raise enough meat and potatoes for another pub. And I’d wager Clarkson is no fan of the 75-mile drive from Chipping-Norton to London every time something’s gone wonky at the London franchise.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/david-coulthard-jeremy-clarkson-turned-down-free-pub
I like the TV show because of what it’s not supposed to be. It’s never been said but I think Clarkson created the series with the ulterior motive of highlighting the plight of the British farmer. And who else could have said, “I’m going to make a show about farming” and all the little English people would answer, “Oh, Goody!” and make a note to tune in.
I usually try to limit these posts to the less well publicized, and while this is going to be all over the F1 press by lunch, it is pretty significant so I thought I’d repost it here.
Cadillac Formula 1 Team has fired team principal (Englishman) Graeme Lowdon and replaced him with with (Pole) Marcin Budkowski. Not a good optic, in my view, to change principals in the middle of a season — espeically a freshman season, when you wouldn’t think expectations are particularly high — but this has the ring of a Stalinesque “midnight firing.” And Americans are nothing if not a ‘tribal’ lot, so if Cadillac wants their support, they should work harder at finding Americans for the marquee positions.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/cadillac-abrupt-f1-team-principal-change-lowdon-out-budkowski-in/
Thanks for all your GREAT posts.
So far this silly season doesn’t have as much ‘silliness’ to it yet...we’ll see what happens.
More doublespeak from Baghdad Bob Domenicali:
“I think that the main target of the future regulation is to keep the things as simple as possible, to bring to Formula 1, lighter cars with a sustainable fuel, with of course electrification, and keep the chance for the driver, above all, in certain modes to push as hard as they can, because that has been always one thing that they have requested as F1 drivers.”
Explain to me how in the hell you reconcile “simpler” with either “sustainable fuel” or “electrification?”
Even “lighter” works at crossed purposed with “simpler” when you consider how much of the cars now is made from carbonfiber or titanium, and how expensive and technically challenging it will be to make them any lighter.
And “to push as hard as they can” was never just an F1 thing, it’s been the mantra of every form of racing that ever existed, even before the internal combustion engine was invented.
Here’s another peach from that basket:
“This is the evolution or the nature of our sport: to always try to find problems at the beginning instead of thinking about the opportunity that change can bring.”
That rings of “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” does it not?
When he was made the Scuderia’s sporting director I though he was a crazy-nice guy, but what a weasel he’s turned out to be. It shows how little he thinks of F1’s current crop of fans that he would lie like this without fear of being called on it.
A couple of days ago the FIA lifted the ban on drivers from the USSR and Belarus, which the Ukraine is now protesting.
What an absolutely boring sprint race. A single overtake among the top 10 on the opening lap (before batteries were topped off), and a single overtake in the top 10 in the heat of battle.
Good thing they’re on synthetic fuel because it would have been criminal to waste dead dinosaurs on this.
I’ve been kvetching for years that the biggest problem with F1 is the lack of human drama, starting with the fact that the cars appear too composed. From the spectator’s viewpoint, and with the high survival shell, you can’t tell there’s anybody in the car. They might as well be slot cars. Now at last I’ve got what I asked for and the cars are squirmy again, but the battery nonsense is screwing things up.
They’re also putting a YUGE amount of driving talent to criminal waste.
Senna’s NSX is for sale. It goes on auction in London on 31 Oct. Expected to bring £500,000 to £800,000, which seems low, considering the unbeatable provenance, but it does have 633,000km on the odo.
It’s not the one he was driving in the heel-and-toe master class (video link below) because it’s white and RHD. His was red and LHD, so it isn’t just a respray. And he was driving it at Suzuka, so I think the one in the video was a Honda demonstrator.
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/features/car-culture/ayrton-senna-honda-nsx/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8By2AEsGAhU
Edd Straw calls ‘Nando’s 9th place drive drive at Zandvoort the second best performance of the day. It was Aston Martins first points of the season.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-2026-dutch-grand-prix-f1-driver-rankings-edd-straw/
There might be snow on the roof but there’s still fire in the furnace. It would be a hoot to see him score a podium before season’s end.
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