F1 - GP (General Purpose)

Porsche connoisseur Jerry Seinfeld just sold a 1971 911S. It brought $657,000 on Bring A Trailer.

What made a garden-variety 911S worth almost three quarters of a million (to somebody) wasn't entirely down to the car's provenance. Seinfeld had sent it to Ruf, who spent three years swapping the 177-bhp 2.2 liter factory engine for a 340-bhp, 3.4-liter, electronic fuel injected lump of their own manufacture.

If you don't know who Ruf is (pronounced "roof"), they're one of the world's greatest performance shops. They specialize in 911s and their modifications can be so extensive that under German law Ruf becomes its manufacturer. So part of what they do is sell extensively-modified 911s with a Ruf badge on the hood.

But Jerry's is box stock on the outside, right down to the skinny OE spec tires. Even has the normal 1971 Porsche interior. But the turbocharged 1975 Porsche 911/930 had 80 fewer bhp than what Ruf gave Jerry's normally-aspirated 911S. With the Ruf 3.4 it'll do 0-60 in under 5 seconds. Top speed, it'll bury the needle on the 180-mph speedo. Can you say, "sleeper?"

And I know Ruf well enough to know they would never have doubled the horsepower in the car without also massaging the suspension to keep it in line with the available torque (my est. 325 lb-ft) but none of that is apparent. I also doubt the $657k sale price covered the cost of the Ruf conversion.

https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/jerry-seinfeld-ruf-modified-porsche-911s-auction-1237260250/

Ruf also makes its own V-8 for the 911, if you've got an island in the South Pacific you don't mind selling to finance the work.

Reading a related article I discovered that until recently Jerry also had owned one of the LeMans (film) Porsche 917Ks. Jerry's was the 'glamour' car, the one for the in-car shots of Steve McQueen himself driving it. McQueen even autographed the right side (driver's) door. This car doesn't often break cover.

Nobody seems to know what Seinfeld paid for it but the year before Jerry bought it, it changed hands for $1.3 million. And Seinfeld spent seven figures having it restored to exactly the condition it was in in the film, even keeping the mounts for the film cameras. Purists fainted that he'd destroyed the car's historicity but I think he was looking to preserve a historicity of another sort.

Jerry did drive the car in anger at least once, at the 2015 Rennsport Reunion at Laguna Seca. You have to wonder if he drove it like he stole it, or like he hadn't made his final payment yet. Especially through the corkscrew.

Mecum had the car on offer in an auction this past January, but Seinfeld turned down an bid of $25 million, then sold it some weeks later for an undisclosed amount.

https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/steve-mcqueen-porsche-917k-le-mans-movie-mecum-auctions-1236002780/

You gotta love a millionaire who spends his money like a 14-year-old.

Red Bull got fined €50,000 because one of their worker bees strolled out onto the starting grid during the formation lap at Austin.

But that’s not the whole story.

It wasn’t just some dumb jibroni taking a wrong turn, it was a saboteur on a secret mission.

He was sent to remove a piece of marker tape McLaren had put on the tarmac next to Lando Norris’ start box to help him with his alignment.

The TR & SR are silent about whether this maker tape is allowable or prohibited.

And the TR & SR also are silent about whether it is forbidden for an agent of another team to remove said marker tape this maker tape.

The fine is exclusively for the RBR jibroni’s alleged failure to follow stewards’ instructions by entering the starting grid while the formation lap was in progress. And the fine will be cut in half provided there is no repeat of the incident by season’s end.

All part of Laurent Mekies’ plan to live rent-free in Zak Brown’s head.

https://speedcafe.com/f1-news-2025-red-bull-penalty-united-states-gp-tapegate-usa-mclaren-bizarre/

So all the F1 races will be streaming in America starting next year?? Sorry- not interested:

Apple and Formula 1 announced a five-year media rights deal Friday that will bring every F1 race to Apple TV beginning in 2026.

Apple TV will provide coverage of all Formula 1 events, including practice, qualifying and Sprint sessions, as part of the streamer’s existing $12.99 per month subscription, which comes ad-free. Certain F1 races and all practice sessions will also be available for free in the Apple TV app throughout the season, the companies said in a statement.

It’s a different structure from Apple’s partnership with Major League Soccer. Apple TV similarly has exclusive rights to every MLS game, but at an extra cost through the MLS Season Pass.

Apple is paying about $140 million per year for the racing rights, according to people familiar with the matter. Disney’s

ESPN is the incumbent media partner for the league and had been paying about $85 million per year on average, according to people familiar with that deal, who asked not to speak publicly because the details are private.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/apple-f1-media-deal-streaming.html

He's absolutely right, the FIA-mandated hi-deg tires are part of what's wrong with F1 today, but Russell is only 27 years old. I'd be impressed if he remembered F1 before the FIA came up with its jacked-up fast-wearing tire regs.

George Russell slams modern F1: ‘It’s not racing anymore’

The Mercedes star says Formula 1 has lost its edge, claiming races are now decided by qualifying and Turn 1 instead of real competition

By John Smith -- 21 October 2025 - 17:21

...“Right now in F1, it’s a race to Turn 1,” Russell told Sky Sports F1. “There’s no tyre degradation, and there’s only about three tenths between the quickest and slowest car in the top six. Normally, you need at least half a second to overtake. If I came out of Turn 1 in P3, I’d have been on the podium today. But I came out in P6, and I finished P6.”...

...“The thing is, when there’s no tyre degradation, there’s no tyre delta,” Russell explained. “Every track we go to, you need at least half a second to overtake, so that’s why you’re not seeing many overtakes. I don’t even remember the last proper two-stop race.”

He stopped short of criticising Pirelli, acknowledging the difficult balance the tyre supplier faces between durability and spectacle. “Pirelli get a hard time no matter what,” Russell admitted. “When there’s lots of tyre degradation, people complain it’s not real racing. But when there’s none, everyone says it’s boring.

“Realistically, you want a tyre you can push flat out for 15 laps, then it drops off a cliff, and you have to pit again. That’s the perfect world—but it’s easier said than done.”

Russell added that while the current generation of tyres has improved consistency, it’s come at the cost of entertainment. “This tyre is very good, but it causes bad racing,” he said...

...The Briton doesn’t see much changing over the final five rounds of 2025, with the Mexico City Grand Prix, Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi all expected to produce similar one-stop contests.

“Qatar and Vegas are our best shots, but again, it’s all about qualifying,” Russell added. “If you do a strong lap and start on the front row, you can hold position. If not, it’s the same story — the race is decided by Q3.”

Russell’s comments highlight a growing concern shared by several drivers: that Formula 1’s current regulations have narrowed the field so much that races lack unpredictability. As teams already look toward 2026’s new rules, Russell’s remarks underline the urgency for a format that rewards creativity, not just clean starts.

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2026 is about cementing F1's commitment to The New Green Religion. There's not a chinaman's chance that they'll get that right and unscrew the regulations they themselves were responsible for screwing up in the first place.

One way to make the racing more exciting is to change the DRS deployment from a one second gap to a fixed number of deployments per race at the driver’s discretion.

That would make it more like the Push-to-Pass system Indycar uses on its road courses. A driver could use it to catch up to a leader, and the leader can use it to defend against a takeover.

A second way to encourage more overpasses is to increase the effectiveness of DRS so that a larger advantage is given to the following car, and increase the minimum gap for deployment from 1 second to 1.5 or 2 seconds.

The F1 press is setting up a storyline that will give Hambone a soft landing whether he fails to bring Maranello another WDC or not, and will pillory Ferrari if he doesn't.

There have been reports all season that Hambone keeps telling Ferrari how to conduct its business. Gradually the press is turning up the heat on these, as if Hambone is some brilliant F1 strategist and no one employed to think these things through for Ferrari is his equal. They simply can't do it without his help.

"...[A]ccording to Croft, Hamilton doesn’t feel the team are receptive to his advice, even after seeing him build a dynasty at Mercedes in the 2010s. This narrative could gain more and more traction heading into 2026..."

“...That, to me, could become a story more and more down the line. Lewis is desperate to try and help Ferrari regain their glory years, but at the moment he doesn’t feel he’s being listened to by management and those above management...”

So if Hambone REALLY IS all that and a bag of chips, does that mean Mercedes also failed to listen to his 'brilliant' advice? He was unseated as WDC while driving for them in 2021, and spent a further three title-less seasons there. And he scored progressively fewer WDC points in each of those four seasons, meaning his performance was consistently trending downwards.

So does that mean Mercedes ignored his advice, too? Or was his 'advice' worthless? Or did he not get desperate enough to try to "fix" the team he drives for until after abandoning the one that had gifted him with six WDCs?

To cut to the chase, if Hambone is capable of saving Ferrari, why didn't he save Mercedes when he had the opportunity?

It's obviously another attempt to drag Hambone across the finish line, to save his reputation despite his commitment to embarrassing himself. The press is sewing the seeds right now in the minds of the fans to question why Ferrari didn't listen if/when (probably when) Hambone fails to ever contend for another title. Or if by some implausible stroke of luck, he does win another WDC, the press will proclaim that it was only Hambone's guidance that made the impossible possible.

Write it on the wall, you heard it from me first. This will happen.

What you'll never hear anybody in the F1 press say is that Hambone ditching Mercedes for Ferrari was one of the STUPIDEST sports moves since the Braves traded Joe Torre to St Louis for Orlando Cepeda. Don't forget that Mercedes finished ahead of Ferrari in WCC in both 2023 and'24, and they are the odds-on favorite for best PU in 2026. Ferrari, on the other hand, is, as always, a Chinese fire drill.

Groucho Marx once famously said, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." If Hambone didn't have such an inflated ego, he'd have known better than to join any team that wanted to hire him as a driver.

https://www.f1oversteer.com/news/david-croft-has-seen-signs-that-ferrari-management-arent-listening-to-desperate-lewis-hamilton/

F1 paddock thinks McLaren ‘lightness’ has disappeared and makes Max Verstappen the title favourite

After their little resurgence, Red Bull’s swagger is back, and they’re starting to believe in themselves once more. Before the arrival of team boss Laurent Mekies, there was a dejected and negative feel about the direction of the team, which has since changed.

Even Lando Norris has admitted Verstappen’s good job, and it shows that the pressure he has applied is starting to mount on his rivals. Before, their advantage was so big that they didn’t even have to think about him.

Now, Auto Motor und Sport’s Michael Schmidt reports that McLaren’s ‘lightness’ has dried up since Red Bull started winning again. That added pressure to perform is exactly what makes Verstappen so dangerous, and perhaps the favourite to win the title.

“Yes, I think some people in the paddock are saying that the real favourite for the title is now Max Verstappen, even though he is still behind,” he said.

“The thumbscrews are tightening even tighter for the McLaren drivers, and also for McLaren as a team. You notice that the lightness they had is gone. So, they don’t win the races anymore, just like that.

“They had a cushion of two tenths over everyone else, and even if things went badly, they were still at the front. Now, if things go badly, you end up sixth on the starting grid, as we saw with Piastri, and you can’t move up any further.”

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After the Dutch GP, Piastri had a 100-pt lead over Verstappen. After COTA, it's down to 40.

There's five races and two sprints left. That's 37 points difference between winning and coming second at all seven contests. Oscar hasn't won a race since August, and teammate Lando Norris has had better results at the last four races. And Lando could in fact take the lead at MXC if Oscar comes worse than 5th.

Don't forget your popcorn.

Some people just can't help themselves. The racing is in their blood.

In the referenced 2020 accident, he lost control of his hand cycle in a fast descent and ran into an oncoming truck, suffering severe facial and head injuries.

Keeping Alex in our thoughts and heart

Special thoughts go out today to one of motorsport's most emblematic figures, Alex Zanardi, born on this day in Bologna 59 years ago.

It's been a while since we've had any news about the Italian driver and Paralympian who suffered a traumatic hand-cycling accident in Italy in June 2020, but according to reports, his recovery continues, supported by his family and fans worldwide.

Zanardi enjoyed 41 Grand Prix starts in his career between 1991 and 1999, but reached his peak in the US as a double CART IndyCar champion, in 1997 and 1998.

Sadly, his success in CART was cut short by a horrendous accident at the Lausitzring in 2001 in which he lost his legs.

But Zanardi, as brave and courageous as they came, surmounted the adversity to fight his way back behind the wheel of a racing car, supported by BMW in the WTCC and in endurance racing.

However, the best testimony to the Italian's exceptional fortitude, determination and heroism is his massive success in handbike racing, the Italian winning four gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics.

Buon compleanno Campione, forza!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Zanardi

I've always been fascinated with 12-pot engines. The V-10s might have a more visceral snarl but the true nature of the V-12 was captured in two words by Richard Pryor in the film Silver Streak (ADULT LANGUAGE WARNING).

The story I posted (above) about Jerry Seinfeld selling one of the Porsche 917s used in Steve McQueen's classic film LeMans reminded me how odd the interior of that car looks because the 917s were right-hand drive and right-hand shift, meaning the driver had to climb over the gear shift when entering and exiting the car.

Of course the cherry on top of that monster was the 180°-V 12-cylinder engine. AFAIK the 917/10 TC remains the most powerful road-going race car ever, making better than 1550 bhp on about 33 psi of boost (at least for a lap ot two). I've read they used titanium head bolts in the turbocharged 917 because their higher modulus of stretch (than steel bolts) could save the engine from being over-boosted. Like many of the early Porsches, the 917 was designed to not use head gaskets, so if the head lifted slighty, there's be no gasket to blow (but the mating surface probably required refinishing between events).

Anyway, that reminded me of a news story a couple of weeks back about a patent Ferrari had taken out on an innovative V-12 design. Of course the big bugaboo of a 12-pot is engine block length (which is precisely why Bugatti used the VW VR6's design in its W-12s, W-16s and W-18s). Instead of splaying cylinders to crowd bore centers together, Ferrari borrowed the oval pistons from Honda's OX engine (used in the short-lived NR500 GP motorcycle), only where Honda ran the pistons' long axes parallel to the crankshaft (because each piston needed two conrods), Ferrari's design runs the long axis perpendicular to the crank so they can reduce the distance between bore centers.

Crank and pistons from Honda's OX:

Crank and piston layout from the Ferrari patent:

And what's as zany as the oval pistons is the siamesed connecting rods, which lets them run two connecting rods on the same journal bearing, which allows them to run a shorter crankshaft.

I don't know about the siamese conrods but I know the bathtub pistons were prohibited by the FIA as soon as the NR500 broke cover, so this has no applicability to F1 (unless Ferrari can get them to change the TR). This is so "Rube Goldberg" that it leaves me wondering if they patented it not so they can build it but just to prevent somebody else being able to.

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