Wednesday Racing Thread
F1, Indy, IMSA, others. Open to all subscribers
At the request of multiple subscribers, we’re going to have a Wednesday race discussion thread. After this one, I won’t be e-mailing it to you — as many of you already know, I don’t like sending too many emails in a week from Substack.
Feel free to discuss any recent races or motorsports news, from amateur on up.
As for me: I don’t mind seeing Fernando as “best of the rest” in F1 at the moment. He’s obviously driving the heck out of the car, but the car itself is pretty good. Also worth a smile: George Russell simply declining to let SIR LEWIS by. Sir Lewis has been the recipient of favorable team decisions since his first year at McLaren when Ron Dennis made it obvious to all and sundry that he preferred his homegrown driver to the hired gun. Lewis has a habit of losing to his co-drivers when open competition is permitted. Will be interesting to see how the season shakes out.
Over in sports cars, the Porsches embarrassed themselves both on raw pace and behavior at the end of the race. Couldn’t happened to a nicer minivan vendor, if you ask me.
I watched all three major races this weekend: WEC 8 hour race from Sebring on Friday (entirety); IMSA 12 hour race from Sebring on Saturday (bits and pieces during the day, then the final few hours); F1 from Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
F1 Observations:
Red Bull - Imperious on pace, but Verstappen’s driveshaft failure on Saturday, which relegated him to 15th on the grid may portend future reliability gremlins. Perez intimated that both Red Bulls had potential reliability issues in the closing stages of the Bahrain season opener (hence the directive from the pitwall to reduce pace), and also obviously there were issues for both drivers in the final laps of the Saudi race. Liberty Media - to say nothing of the other front-running teams - will want to slow Red Bull down, lest the new fans find something else to watch other than intramural Red Bull conflict. On that note, imagine if Verstappen were to lose the title to Perez due to reliability?
Aston Martin - Lovely to see Alonso at the sharp end again! After a decade in the wilderness, it’s evident that his pace and capability never waned. The trickster has deep experience and the best race craft on the grid - would love to see him win a race this year.
Mercedes - Another race in which (1) Mercedes were comprehensively outpaced by Aston Martin, which is their customer team (AM buys their Power Unit, rear suspension, gearbox, etc. from Mercedes) and (2) Russell outperformed SIR Lewis Hamilton. Russell has beaten LewSIR in both qualifying sessions thus far this year, and the chosen one is out of contract at year end. Will Jim Ratcliffe and Ola Kallenius want to pay Hamilton top dollar when other credible drivers would be willing to take that seat for FAR less? Their votes would overrule Toto’s. Also, IF Hamilton were to leave Merc, where would he go? Not Red Bull; Max will surely have a clause about vetoing a teammate.
Ferrari - The car is slow, and it’s become apparent to me that Binotto’s ouster came courtesy of new Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna. New Team Principal Fed Vasseur has performed a pale imitation of his countryman Jean Todt’s efforts to shield the team from the braying of the Italian media. The Scuderia is already on the back foot politically.
Alpine - Decent race, solidified as the #5 team, so they should scrape the bottom end of the points when both cars from the above 4 teams perform as expected. Eagerly awaiting the cries of Sacre Bleu when the Frenchmen collide on track, which will happen.
Alfa Romeo - Who had Bottas getting outperformed by Zhou Guanyu on their bingo card? Terrible race for the Finn. Who will Audi want to drive their car from 2026? Would it be wise to take a punt on joining them in hopes that they nail the ‘26 regs a la Mercedes in 2014?
AlphaTauri - Tsunoda is outperforming his older, much more mature teammate Nyck DeVries. Unexpected. Also, what about team boss Tost absolutely throwing the engineering team under the bus? Morale must be LOW in Faenza.
Haas - The “Suck My Balls, Mate” duo haven’t collided yet; both have a propensity for self-destructive behavior (collisions, etc.), especially when in a position to score points. Hulkenberg has done very well against Magnussen after 3 years on the bench (occasional super sub appearances aside).
Williams - Logan Sargeant should be a superstar in America? Why isn’t he?
McLaren - Two races, zero points. Zak Brown should be looking for a new job, and Lando Norris will certainly be looking to go elsewhere; his problem is that new boy Oscar Piastri made HIM look weak in the race! Vettel was made to look overrated by Ricciardo in 2014; Ricciardo suffered the same fate against Norris in 2021 and 2022; will the same thing happen to Norris this year? If so, Oscar may get the call up to a top team! Somewhere, Danny Ric is laughing.
FIA / Race Control - Did not cover themselves in glory; fans should finish any sporting broadcast knowing the outcome definitively.
WEC and IMSA Observations:
The WEC race was a real race; the IMSA event was a shambles. The final few hours were punctuated by yellows and safety cars, and the final outcome in any of the IMSA enduros is a lottery driven by safety car restarts. This devalues the race long “narrative” that develops during a quality endurance race. Credit to Toyota for winning against legitimate OEM competition on Friday - they earned it.
I can't believe Jack would disparage minivans with such a comparison.