I’m looking forward to Le Mans this weekend. Particularly the Garage 56 NASCAR effort. The modified Gen 6 car has been very quick in practices. Curious to see if they make it the finish.
Speaking of NASCAR and Le Mans; Championship winning Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver and Team Principal, Kamui Kobayashi is set to make his NASCAR Cup debut a the indy road course this summer. I consider Kobayashi to be one of the best drivers in the world and am excited to see how he does.
Good question. I’m a cheap fuck and can’t bring myself to subscribe to anymore streaming services so Im planning on just doing my usual and follow the race though twitter posts and YouTube clips.
It’s worth $5 to watch Le Mans commercial free in its entirety with a variety of camera and commentary feed options. I would pay $500 for that, in fact.
As a side note, I watched the Porsche x Hagerty Le Mans video on YouTube. It was, frankly, awful. A quick listing of shortcomings:
0-Bizarre pacing and huge emphasis on some years while skipping others completely.
1-Patrick Long is a Porsche “ambassador” now, but his on camera delivery isn’t great; at one point, he insinuates that the 918 was inspired by the 919 (obviously untrue). Furthermore, narrator Patrick Dempsey goes on to say that the 963, which features a spec hybrid system and is FAR less advanced than the preceding 919, is the most advanced Porsche racing car of all time. Patently - and obviously - untrue.
2-Podcaster Spike provides some of his expert wisdom about Le Mans, but he admitted on his podcast that he’s never been to Le Mans and never really watched the race before.
3-Loni Unser is featured as a WOMYN in RACING who hopes to race at LAMANZ in the future. She speaks for about 45 seconds while driving someone else’s 993. She has no connection to Le Mans.
4-The producers skip over many famous anecdotes and stories; e.g., they show Allan McNish posing next to his handprint embedded into the pavement at Le Mans, but they skip the infamous anecdote about his name having been misspelled.
5-The producers do spend time talking about how the 1998 winners “invented the selfie.”
6-The final edit inelegantly excludes any living driver who isn’t currently a Porsche driver or ambassador. For example, Earl Bamber, who won the race twice with Porsche (2015, 2017) is essentially ignored in favor of Nick Tandy, who maintained a Porsche contract while “on loan” to Corvette. Tandy says he’s excited to be “back with Porsche,” but there’s no footage telling anyone where he went during the interim.
None of that matters, however, because your complete ingestion of the show counts as a win for Hagerty, assists them in keeping a ridiculously over-specced sponsorship deal with Mobil 1, and enshrines the current management in their roles.
I agree that the "Walking with Giants" (easily a top five Blondfire song) special was a tad peculiar. But I will watch anything involving Derek Bell, going back to the late '80s, when we'd rent "In Car 956" over and over from the video store. The Silent Bob type behind the counter would say "You guys are, like, the only people who ever rent this".
Speaking of Le Mans, I just found out that Corvette will no longer be fielding a factory team. Which is kind of a bummer even if they will be supporting the privateers.
I am sure that behind the scenes it was not an unalloyed good, regardless it was nice to see a domestic involved in something other than a glorified spec racing advertorial for laundry soap. I am showing my age, I just looked it up and I guess the sponsors are gambling and cell phone companies now.
Thank you, sir. "Glorified spec racing advertorial for laundry soap" is absolutely the best description I've ever read of that particular type of racing.
Talking of callway and lemans, did you ever get a chance to drive the pratt and miller c6.rs back in the day? I heard it was a fantastic(ally) underrated car.
That. That is my dream car. I don't know. It just seems to me like peak corvette. In every way. 8.2 litre V8 that revs to 7000 rpm. That's it. That's the golden goose.
I unfortunately missed all the racing this weekend due to being out of town, but extremely happy for Fasil and the Thaze team, that is a stellar outcome for a debut race. Excellent work!
As the resident hater of of F1 (though not really a hater, just dislike all the newbies who never experienced the glorious v10/v8 era cars), all we do is discuss the people not the racing, and I’ll reiterate it is terrible racing. The drivers are wickedly overrated and basically have no personality. The fact that bottas is being outclassed by Zhou shows you how bad these guys are. I know Sherman McCoy will tell that the engineering is the exciting part and that spec series are dumb, but in reality no one gives a shit about the engineering except for nerds and die hards.
A non competitive Ferrari team does no favors to anyone. I can’t believe people thought Checo would challenge max. Then again I’ve never raced a car legally, so wtf do I know. Is it football season yet?
If you like racing watch MotoGP and Indy, way better.
This doesn’t make it better racing, it makes it a better spectacle. There’s a difference. F1 is leagues ahead in turning dreary product into something exciting.
F1 is far more consequential than Indycar, and a major driver of that is that it’s a development series, rather than a series that uses spec cars that are over a decade old. That is, ultimately, why the vast global F1 audience hangs onto every pronouncement from every voice involved in F1.
F1 is in a position of potentially turning away OEMs who want to participate (e.g., GM/Cadillac) while Indycar has been BEGGING additional OEMs beyond GM/Chevrolet and Honda to enter.
This misses the point of the argument, F1 is terrible racing but great marketing. It in fact, isn’t consequential as much as you think. Having worked for a manufacturer, racing is a marketing tool in which the cars that make the money, rarely get that tech. Look at Honda, has it really helped them?
GM wants in for marketing purposes, but as usual, are late. They put a ton of effort into NASCAR. Each market is different, so if you’re a “global brand” than F1 makes sense for marketing purposes.
We obviously disagree about what makes for quality racing.
F1 is of course consequential for OEMs because of the global reach, i.e. marketing. I believe that Ferrari could leave F1 tomorrow and suffer less than would F1 in the absence of the Scuderia.
I started following F-1 back in the 60s when half the grid was F2 cars to fill it up. So I guess it’s better. I just watch it with half an eye these days, first to see which innovative tactical mistake Ferrari will make this week, and then to listen to the Sky guys desperately trying to inject excitement into a race that has none. Lemans looks interesting, try to catch some of that.
I started following F1 as a teen in the early 80’s when I had to read the race summaries by Rob Walker or Innes Ireland in R&T 2 or 3 months after the race took place. The high point to me was when Senna & Prost were teammates at McLaren. After May of ‘94 I turned into a casual fan. I watched season 1 of the Netflix thing and didn’t find any of the drivers compelling.
Don’t get me started about that yelling idiot Crofty. Now get off my lawn.
This is a nearly exact duplicate of my experience. Interesting to hear others having the same experience. There aren’t enough hours in a lifetime to spend any watching F1.
Holy smokes, I’m not alone! Those three month old race summaries were the first thing I went to when I’d get my monthly R&T. On Monday mornings after a race, you could get the results from the sports pages of the newspaper, but that was deeply unsatisfying.
CBC was televising the Canadian Grand Prix in the early eighties with Jackie Stewart commentating. “It’s a fine fine day for motorrr carrr rrracing”....only one race a year.
When we moved to Seattle from the hinterlands of SW Washington, we got cable that had the CBC affiliate from Vancouver. It showed same day coverage of the BBC feed with Muddley Talker and James Hunt. Except for the Canadian GP where it was Sir Jackie and Brian Williams, who had a tendency to yell as well.
Yes! Brian Williams was the other guy I couldn’t recall. Largely ineffective as an F1 commentator if I recall correctly, and very excitable as you rightly point out. Thanks for the wave of nostalgia that just washed over me 😁
The NASCRAP media machine is gloating about “OMG teh NASCAR is faster than the fancy European cars hahaha!”
Bear in mind that the Garage 56 car is not, strictly speaking, competing in the race, and has not been BOP’d, unlike every other car in the field.
I was at Le Mans in 2018, and the then brand new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 turned a lap in the Road To Le Mans support race that was faster than the GTE Pro pole time.
I understand what you're getting at, but there is a massive difference between a non-BoP GT3 car going faster than the other GT3 cars and the strong showing of the Camaro, which has a lot of commonality with the highly disrespected Car Of Tomorrow. The purpose was to suggest a future direction for the CoT and also to give fans of both series a sense of how the cars might relate to each other.
Let's not get too high and mighty about a European series largely populated by spanks and drivers who washed out of sprint racing.
AND... Nascar IS A THING IN EUROPE. The very hated Max Verstappen has said multiple times that he watches the racing over here AND the European Nascar series.
This is about global expansion. Period. Nascar isn't growing here, but the rest of the world is hungry for something else.
I'll take your word for it; although I have been an FIA-B license holder in the past, I just don't care about this stuff enough to understand. What's the basis for GTE cars, then?
GTE is the WEC / Le Mans spec of cars. GT3 (GT2, GT4) is an SRO formulation.
Common sense has finally prevailed and GTE will make way for GT3 in WEC next year due to (1) the massive expense of GTE over and above GT3 and (2) the exodus of manufacturers from GTE to the top tier prototypes (for a similar financial outlay you can compete for overall victory versus class).
Offhand, two of the GTE cars were convertible between GTE and GT3 - Ferrari and Aston Martin.
Versus GT3, GTE cars feature faster “confidential” tires, more underbody aero (the rear wings are actually smaller), no driver aids, wider tracks and tires, etc. Similar power, or in some cases LESS in GTE due to BOP. The mid-engine 911 RSR is a GTE car.
In IMSA, GTE was called GTLM and GT3 is called GTD (Pro).
There were 17 or 18 cars in the GTE Pro class at Le Mans in 2018 across 6 OEMs (Porsche, Ford, Corvette, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW). It was a fantastic race that year.
The focal point this year and going forward will be the top class of prototypes, and I am hopeful that next year the grid will be simple: Hypercars (LMH, LMDh) and GT3. No antique LMP2 Orecas.
During the halcyon days of LMP1 hybrid in the previous decade, there was no BOP. Porsche and Audi both reportedly spent F1 midfielder budgets to compete in the WEC, which is the championship arrayed around Le Mans. But anyone involved would give away every other race to win Le Mans, obviously.
The heavily promoted “golden age” of sports car racing upon us, in which bespoke LMH Hypercars compete against spec tubbed LMDh back door cheapo prototypes via BOP both within their respective verticals and in translation between the two formulae, is dependent on BOP to let people compete affordably.
Usually is a hp dock and weight being added. The formula for who gets what is kinda of up for debate. It's why many, many smart teams totally sandbag with new cars. It's also part of the reason why the Ford GT won their latest LeMans. It does make for far more interesting racing when used appropriately.
You have to agree it's pretty cool though. Last time something like this happened was 50 years ago. And they lost. Massively. So even a top 15 finish would be a huge achivement when you have prototypes and gt3 cars to fight with.
Yeah ik it's heavily modified to the extent it's a caricature. But idk man. As someone who's not American and used to seeing cars like those, i find it exciting. Like, India has less camaros than a neighborhood in Chicago. So you'd understandd where I'm coming from. And pretty sure they won't invite the 499P lol. It would lap the lead car like 2 times or something. I just think it's cool they do this garage 56 shit. Like that deltawing concept. Didn't work at all, but still cool to witness.
I was in the "Sergio may pose a real challenge" camp. Was based on evidence, no different to your own claims that the "Oriental" drivers are mopping the floor with their respective teammates.
I think Max is proving that he is consistent at a level that basically no one else is on the grid. I also agree that the Red Bull doesn't have anywhere NEAR the same advantage as the Merc did in its dominant years.
The upgrades that Alpine, and Mercedes have brought have genuinely put them in the mix for the last podium spot, but erratic performances from their drivers (and those of Aston) make this a one off situation until we can add to the statistical sample set.
Horner made a tongue in cheek comment that he thinks that Mercedes must have used a lot of 'development credits' to get this upgrade on their car, I think they did it very reluctantly, and the timing of 'Sir' Lewis's contract being under negotiation is not a coincidence, regardless of outward facing comments from all involved parties. The Red Bull has even more performance in reserve as I'm sure they could have upped the pace had they needed to.
Ohh and Yuki was absolutely screwed, and for once I absolutely agree that Zhou taking to the escape route was fake. Steiner was right, the stewards are laymen.
The track at Detroit was dogshit in terms of surface and width. Nothing more to say about it.
The Belle Isle course was a lot more camera friendly. Racing downtown they looked like they were in a concrete box canyon.
I think it's too bad the organizers couldn't include the short street called Civic Center Drive that curves around what used to be Cobo Arena and runs down to Atwater at the riverfront, which has a tunnel that used to be part of the F1 race in Detroit. It'd be like Detroit's version of Laguna Seca's corkscrew.
Props to the McLaren team for letting their drivers racing each other for position.
I think the radio exchange about the fastest lap says everything you need to know about Max vs Checo and the dominance in reserve of the Redbull cars.
Max: “What’s the fastest lap?,”
GP: “It’s a 16.6,” “It was the first lap on a new soft for Checo, with DRS, so I wouldn’t worry about it, Max. You’ve been given a black-and-white flag, so we cannot afford anything.”
Max <casually busts out a 16.3>
GP: “Mode seven, please Max,” “Okay – now – can you bring it home, within the white lines?”
The difficulty is that even when Mercedes manages to get next to Max, they still have to pass him. Sir Lewis had a lot of years where the FIA and the fears of the other drivers let him run roughshod over everyone else during races. Max has zero white guilt, apparently.
Really odd though. Hasn't won a race in 12 years and everyone including me thinks he's one of the all time greats. Certainly better than 80% of this field.
So much so that both the mercedes drivers now expect people to just move over by dint of them being mercedes drivers. They're both queens in that regard.
Max has zero guilt about anything. Remember he survived a minor attempt at his life by 'Sir' at 'his' home race in Silverstone, and I'd forgive him if he dished out as he saw fit.
The only instance I cannot forgive him for is crashing into Ocon who was trying to unlap himself at the Brazilian GP 3-4 years ago, and then holding him in contempt and trying to hit him post race (ala Jos, the drunk idiot). Hopefully he has grown a little since.
That's the problem with having your late teens and early twenties in the public eye... something that was true for Seb Vettel as well. The odd part to me is that Sir Lewis appears to be aging in reverse with regards to his behavior. Back in 2007 the worst we saw from him was forcing the issue on Alonso at the USGP.
Funny you bring up Seb, just watching interviews from over his career, which I did recently due to Netflix, gives me concern about his mental health and its deterioration from the pressure at a young age.
I would have crossed the line, got the 5 second penalty. On the podium, I would have mentioned it before kissing my bicep. I would have went complete WWE.
Also, in one of FPs, "Is that Helmut's phone I hear ringing?"
first time i encountered that was at the front desk at the venetian in vegas a dozen years ago. karen mentioned getting some info from that lovely oriental young lady over there and the ?samoan? male clerk said 'you mean that asian young woman?' i'm ready now...when i'll use 'oriental' and am corrected i'll put my hands together, pause, and say 'ah! so!' courtesy of charlie chan.
For a short while, when DuPont was shuffling managers around, our IT group was dotted-line assigned to a Japanese chemist who came to America to get his education, I suspect because he didn't have the connections or status to get into the University of Tokyo. He was almost fluent in English. In one of our group meetings he mentioned that the word oriental was offensive. He likely picked that up in Ann Arbor at UofM. I thought that rather cheeky coming from someone who was not a native speaker of English (not to mention how racist many Asian societies seem to be), so I asked him, "Is occidental offensive too?"
"What does that mean?"
"Occidntal means western just as oriental means eastern."
He had no clue about the word occidental.
Then there was the co-worker who kept insisting "Discrimination is always wrong," when I used the term in its original meaning, to tell the difference between two things.
you're looking at it as a business--which has screwed everything up like bobby jones predicted a hundred years ago when he said 'money will ruin sport.' i look at it as a sport. you think there wouldn't be a le mans if all the sponsors pulled out? of course it'd stay on the calendar. nobody's allowed to build a better car with new ideas now--instead they spend ridiculous amounts of money dancing around the waaaay too many regulations. i remember years ago on some road course a cadillac dicing with a corvette...well, bullshit, preppie!
I have been trying to find the greater context - interview, news article, magazine, book - for Bobby Jones prophetic quotation about money ruining sport for some time.
Good luck to this guy. It is a fantastic sport, but he’s got a real challenge trying to get wider acceptance in the US. People just don’t give a damn as much about bikes generally, and motorcycle racing specifically here in ‘Merica. Shame, the racing is fantastic; the skill level is incredible; the stories are great…
Sort of like the Apocalypse Now scene at the end with real dead bodies (Really, look it up) and filming the killing of a live Water Buffalo (That wasn't faked either).
Not racing related, but it involves driving skills instruction. Please enjoy one of the best government films ever.
US Army Evasive Driving Training Video (1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u-XIjXS98Q
Synthetic Line SnapBack would like a word:
https://youtu.be/xRDbbEIE8R4
Also, if you like military history movies, The Fat Electrician on YT is about the best I’ve seen.
+1 for Quackbang, dude's the best.
Sounds like they got Brad Fiedel to do the soundtrack hot off his success from "The Terminator"
I’m looking forward to Le Mans this weekend. Particularly the Garage 56 NASCAR effort. The modified Gen 6 car has been very quick in practices. Curious to see if they make it the finish.
Speaking of NASCAR and Le Mans; Championship winning Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver and Team Principal, Kamui Kobayashi is set to make his NASCAR Cup debut a the indy road course this summer. I consider Kobayashi to be one of the best drivers in the world and am excited to see how he does.
I take it they’re broadcasting it on MT again? I’d like to catch a few minutes of the race just to see how the Gen 6 does.
Good question. I’m a cheap fuck and can’t bring myself to subscribe to anymore streaming services so Im planning on just doing my usual and follow the race though twitter posts and YouTube clips.
I believe there’s a free one month trial for MT; if not it’s ~$5 / month
And that five dollars goes directly to keeping the worst parts of the business alive.
It’s worth $5 to watch Le Mans commercial free in its entirety with a variety of camera and commentary feed options. I would pay $500 for that, in fact.
As a side note, I watched the Porsche x Hagerty Le Mans video on YouTube. It was, frankly, awful. A quick listing of shortcomings:
0-Bizarre pacing and huge emphasis on some years while skipping others completely.
1-Patrick Long is a Porsche “ambassador” now, but his on camera delivery isn’t great; at one point, he insinuates that the 918 was inspired by the 919 (obviously untrue). Furthermore, narrator Patrick Dempsey goes on to say that the 963, which features a spec hybrid system and is FAR less advanced than the preceding 919, is the most advanced Porsche racing car of all time. Patently - and obviously - untrue.
2-Podcaster Spike provides some of his expert wisdom about Le Mans, but he admitted on his podcast that he’s never been to Le Mans and never really watched the race before.
3-Loni Unser is featured as a WOMYN in RACING who hopes to race at LAMANZ in the future. She speaks for about 45 seconds while driving someone else’s 993. She has no connection to Le Mans.
4-The producers skip over many famous anecdotes and stories; e.g., they show Allan McNish posing next to his handprint embedded into the pavement at Le Mans, but they skip the infamous anecdote about his name having been misspelled.
5-The producers do spend time talking about how the 1998 winners “invented the selfie.”
6-The final edit inelegantly excludes any living driver who isn’t currently a Porsche driver or ambassador. For example, Earl Bamber, who won the race twice with Porsche (2015, 2017) is essentially ignored in favor of Nick Tandy, who maintained a Porsche contract while “on loan” to Corvette. Tandy says he’s excited to be “back with Porsche,” but there’s no footage telling anyone where he went during the interim.
And so on.
None of that matters, however, because your complete ingestion of the show counts as a win for Hagerty, assists them in keeping a ridiculously over-specced sponsorship deal with Mobil 1, and enshrines the current management in their roles.
I agree that the "Walking with Giants" (easily a top five Blondfire song) special was a tad peculiar. But I will watch anything involving Derek Bell, going back to the late '80s, when we'd rent "In Car 956" over and over from the video store. The Silent Bob type behind the counter would say "You guys are, like, the only people who ever rent this".
Thanks for saving me the trouble.
I too am excited to see how the Garage 56 entry goes, should be entertaining.
Maybe next year we can continue the 'Murican invasion and run one of those King of the Baggers bikes.
I’d unironically watch that.
There’s been some hype videos on that works 962 that is coming up for auction. Man, those Group C cars look so much better than the current cars.
Speaking of Le Mans, I just found out that Corvette will no longer be fielding a factory team. Which is kind of a bummer even if they will be supporting the privateers.
It's a nice thing in one sense -- GM spent YEARS cock-blocking the Callaway Corvette GT3 program, and now maybe they'll stop doing that.
I am sure that behind the scenes it was not an unalloyed good, regardless it was nice to see a domestic involved in something other than a glorified spec racing advertorial for laundry soap. I am showing my age, I just looked it up and I guess the sponsors are gambling and cell phone companies now.
Thank you, sir. "Glorified spec racing advertorial for laundry soap" is absolutely the best description I've ever read of that particular type of racing.
Who do you think the highest level GM employee is that has driven the C8R on track at speed?
Speaking of which, if GM is pulling the plug on the factory team, do you think one could pick up a C8R on the cheap?
Talking of callway and lemans, did you ever get a chance to drive the pratt and miller c6.rs back in the day? I heard it was a fantastic(ally) underrated car.
I wish! Quite rightly, they kept that sort of thing far away from autowriters at the time.
That. That is my dream car. I don't know. It just seems to me like peak corvette. In every way. 8.2 litre V8 that revs to 7000 rpm. That's it. That's the golden goose.
You're not wrong!
Tsunoda got screwed for no reason and now I want to nuke China even more than I did before.
Hear me out:
Isle of Man, in semi-trucks.
Or if not semi-trucks, let's give Robby Gordon a call and get Stadium Trucks there.
This is a brilliant notion. I would even subscribe to MT on Demand to watch Stadium Trucks on the TT course.
Like puppies on a newly waxed kitchen floor.
There’s been at least one fatality at the Isle of Man already this year.
theres an average of 1 per year from what ive heard/read, and yet it still goes on
Wikipedia states 266 since 1907. I didn’t drill down any deeper, too depressing.
Have some nice close up pictures of the Thaze car, beautiful machine!
I also got some nice pictures of the car a few weeks ago in Detroit, it is a remarkable machine! Could have spent another half hour drooling on it
Great to see that they placed third! Car looked gorgeous in person!
I forget, though: was that factory-built as a race version of the street car, at least in part? (Like the Mustang--what is it?)
Cripes, how many trips to the Motor City for Jack in the last month? Almost a second home, of late!
I unfortunately missed all the racing this weekend due to being out of town, but extremely happy for Fasil and the Thaze team, that is a stellar outcome for a debut race. Excellent work!
As the resident hater of of F1 (though not really a hater, just dislike all the newbies who never experienced the glorious v10/v8 era cars), all we do is discuss the people not the racing, and I’ll reiterate it is terrible racing. The drivers are wickedly overrated and basically have no personality. The fact that bottas is being outclassed by Zhou shows you how bad these guys are. I know Sherman McCoy will tell that the engineering is the exciting part and that spec series are dumb, but in reality no one gives a shit about the engineering except for nerds and die hards.
A non competitive Ferrari team does no favors to anyone. I can’t believe people thought Checo would challenge max. Then again I’ve never raced a car legally, so wtf do I know. Is it football season yet?
If you like racing watch MotoGP and Indy, way better.
Over 70 million people watch a typical F1 race.
How many people watched the Indy 500? Less than 10% of that figure, I believe.
This doesn’t make it better racing, it makes it a better spectacle. There’s a difference. F1 is leagues ahead in turning dreary product into something exciting.
The Indy 500 is still called "The greatest specatcle in racing", based on an "out cue" used on the syndicated radio network broadcasting the race.
Nothing in my personal experience of watching sports live comes close to the excitement when the first lap goes green at Indy.
F1 is far more consequential than Indycar, and a major driver of that is that it’s a development series, rather than a series that uses spec cars that are over a decade old. That is, ultimately, why the vast global F1 audience hangs onto every pronouncement from every voice involved in F1.
F1 is in a position of potentially turning away OEMs who want to participate (e.g., GM/Cadillac) while Indycar has been BEGGING additional OEMs beyond GM/Chevrolet and Honda to enter.
This misses the point of the argument, F1 is terrible racing but great marketing. It in fact, isn’t consequential as much as you think. Having worked for a manufacturer, racing is a marketing tool in which the cars that make the money, rarely get that tech. Look at Honda, has it really helped them?
GM wants in for marketing purposes, but as usual, are late. They put a ton of effort into NASCAR. Each market is different, so if you’re a “global brand” than F1 makes sense for marketing purposes.
We obviously disagree about what makes for quality racing.
F1 is of course consequential for OEMs because of the global reach, i.e. marketing. I believe that Ferrari could leave F1 tomorrow and suffer less than would F1 in the absence of the Scuderia.
I'd like to hear what you think makes quality racing considering the lack of lead changes and pit stops being a joke in F1.
I started following F-1 back in the 60s when half the grid was F2 cars to fill it up. So I guess it’s better. I just watch it with half an eye these days, first to see which innovative tactical mistake Ferrari will make this week, and then to listen to the Sky guys desperately trying to inject excitement into a race that has none. Lemans looks interesting, try to catch some of that.
I started following F1 as a teen in the early 80’s when I had to read the race summaries by Rob Walker or Innes Ireland in R&T 2 or 3 months after the race took place. The high point to me was when Senna & Prost were teammates at McLaren. After May of ‘94 I turned into a casual fan. I watched season 1 of the Netflix thing and didn’t find any of the drivers compelling.
Don’t get me started about that yelling idiot Crofty. Now get off my lawn.
This is a nearly exact duplicate of my experience. Interesting to hear others having the same experience. There aren’t enough hours in a lifetime to spend any watching F1.
Reading Rob Walker was a highlight of every issue for me.
Holy smokes, I’m not alone! Those three month old race summaries were the first thing I went to when I’d get my monthly R&T. On Monday mornings after a race, you could get the results from the sports pages of the newspaper, but that was deeply unsatisfying.
CBC was televising the Canadian Grand Prix in the early eighties with Jackie Stewart commentating. “It’s a fine fine day for motorrr carrr rrracing”....only one race a year.
When we moved to Seattle from the hinterlands of SW Washington, we got cable that had the CBC affiliate from Vancouver. It showed same day coverage of the BBC feed with Muddley Talker and James Hunt. Except for the Canadian GP where it was Sir Jackie and Brian Williams, who had a tendency to yell as well.
Yes! Brian Williams was the other guy I couldn’t recall. Largely ineffective as an F1 commentator if I recall correctly, and very excitable as you rightly point out. Thanks for the wave of nostalgia that just washed over me 😁
“Muddley Talker”; too funny. RIP Murray
I was in Ireland a lot in my youth. My relatives were always bemused by my gluing myself to the TV to watch the 500GP races in the eighties.
They weren’t broadcast here at all, despite Americans dominating the era of the unrideables.
No discussion of Indy Car at Detroit?
You'll have to start it! I was already back home, moving cattle gates from one part of the property to another.
The NASCRAP media machine is gloating about “OMG teh NASCAR is faster than the fancy European cars hahaha!”
Bear in mind that the Garage 56 car is not, strictly speaking, competing in the race, and has not been BOP’d, unlike every other car in the field.
I was at Le Mans in 2018, and the then brand new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 turned a lap in the Road To Le Mans support race that was faster than the GTE Pro pole time.
I understand what you're getting at, but there is a massive difference between a non-BoP GT3 car going faster than the other GT3 cars and the strong showing of the Camaro, which has a lot of commonality with the highly disrespected Car Of Tomorrow. The purpose was to suggest a future direction for the CoT and also to give fans of both series a sense of how the cars might relate to each other.
Let's not get too high and mighty about a European series largely populated by spanks and drivers who washed out of sprint racing.
AND... Nascar IS A THING IN EUROPE. The very hated Max Verstappen has said multiple times that he watches the racing over here AND the European Nascar series.
This is about global expansion. Period. Nascar isn't growing here, but the rest of the world is hungry for something else.
Actually, it was a non-BOP GT3 car going faster than a BOP’d GTE car.
The GTE cars are faster than GT3 cars and cost roughly double what the GT3 cars cost.
I'll take your word for it; although I have been an FIA-B license holder in the past, I just don't care about this stuff enough to understand. What's the basis for GTE cars, then?
Hubris.
GTE is the WEC / Le Mans spec of cars. GT3 (GT2, GT4) is an SRO formulation.
Common sense has finally prevailed and GTE will make way for GT3 in WEC next year due to (1) the massive expense of GTE over and above GT3 and (2) the exodus of manufacturers from GTE to the top tier prototypes (for a similar financial outlay you can compete for overall victory versus class).
Offhand, two of the GTE cars were convertible between GTE and GT3 - Ferrari and Aston Martin.
Versus GT3, GTE cars feature faster “confidential” tires, more underbody aero (the rear wings are actually smaller), no driver aids, wider tracks and tires, etc. Similar power, or in some cases LESS in GTE due to BOP. The mid-engine 911 RSR is a GTE car.
In IMSA, GTE was called GTLM and GT3 is called GTD (Pro).
Aha. GTLM was a garbage class.
There were 17 or 18 cars in the GTE Pro class at Le Mans in 2018 across 6 OEMs (Porsche, Ford, Corvette, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW). It was a fantastic race that year.
The focal point this year and going forward will be the top class of prototypes, and I am hopeful that next year the grid will be simple: Hypercars (LMH, LMDh) and GT3. No antique LMP2 Orecas.
Is there ANYONE in NASCAR media who is openly critical of things? All I see are Bob Pockrass types.
bop is loathsome. can there be any more intense pandering to the great unwashed? truly awful
There would be no sports car racing without BOP.
During the halcyon days of LMP1 hybrid in the previous decade, there was no BOP. Porsche and Audi both reportedly spent F1 midfielder budgets to compete in the WEC, which is the championship arrayed around Le Mans. But anyone involved would give away every other race to win Le Mans, obviously.
The heavily promoted “golden age” of sports car racing upon us, in which bespoke LMH Hypercars compete against spec tubbed LMDh back door cheapo prototypes via BOP both within their respective verticals and in translation between the two formulae, is dependent on BOP to let people compete affordably.
What is BoP?
Balance of Power.
Usually is a hp dock and weight being added. The formula for who gets what is kinda of up for debate. It's why many, many smart teams totally sandbag with new cars. It's also part of the reason why the Ford GT won their latest LeMans. It does make for far more interesting racing when used appropriately.
Thank you.
I believe it is actually Balance of Performance
You have to agree it's pretty cool though. Last time something like this happened was 50 years ago. And they lost. Massively. So even a top 15 finish would be a huge achivement when you have prototypes and gt3 cars to fight with.
It’s not a NASCAR. It’s a prototype that weighs ~600 lbs less than a NASCAR.
Will NASCAR invite the Ferrari 499P to race at the Daytona 500?
Yeah ik it's heavily modified to the extent it's a caricature. But idk man. As someone who's not American and used to seeing cars like those, i find it exciting. Like, India has less camaros than a neighborhood in Chicago. So you'd understandd where I'm coming from. And pretty sure they won't invite the 499P lol. It would lap the lead car like 2 times or something. I just think it's cool they do this garage 56 shit. Like that deltawing concept. Didn't work at all, but still cool to witness.
I was in the "Sergio may pose a real challenge" camp. Was based on evidence, no different to your own claims that the "Oriental" drivers are mopping the floor with their respective teammates.
I think Max is proving that he is consistent at a level that basically no one else is on the grid. I also agree that the Red Bull doesn't have anywhere NEAR the same advantage as the Merc did in its dominant years.
The upgrades that Alpine, and Mercedes have brought have genuinely put them in the mix for the last podium spot, but erratic performances from their drivers (and those of Aston) make this a one off situation until we can add to the statistical sample set.
Horner made a tongue in cheek comment that he thinks that Mercedes must have used a lot of 'development credits' to get this upgrade on their car, I think they did it very reluctantly, and the timing of 'Sir' Lewis's contract being under negotiation is not a coincidence, regardless of outward facing comments from all involved parties. The Red Bull has even more performance in reserve as I'm sure they could have upped the pace had they needed to.
Ohh and Yuki was absolutely screwed, and for once I absolutely agree that Zhou taking to the escape route was fake. Steiner was right, the stewards are laymen.
The track at Detroit was dogshit in terms of surface and width. Nothing more to say about it.
The Belle Isle course was a lot more camera friendly. Racing downtown they looked like they were in a concrete box canyon.
I think it's too bad the organizers couldn't include the short street called Civic Center Drive that curves around what used to be Cobo Arena and runs down to Atwater at the riverfront, which has a tunnel that used to be part of the F1 race in Detroit. It'd be like Detroit's version of Laguna Seca's corkscrew.
Props to the McLaren team for letting their drivers racing each other for position.
My issue was specifically with the track surface being very bad.
Was it ever. You could see the GS cars banging their noses.
But don't worry, more people representative of the city were able to watch the race... right? RIGHT? RIGHT!
The people never liked their Belle Isle being closed to parties for a month.
There isn’t shit to do on Belle Isle aside from walk/drive around anyway. I never understood why people cried about it all the time.
That is, if you exclude those who tried to make it into a racial/classist thing of the “wealthy” race fans taking over the “people’s” park.
You're not wrong though it's a pleasant enough place to hang out for a bit. But all the noise is for show like most of Detroit.
I remember paying like $20 to get a grandstand seat at the '82 F1 race over the start finish line.
More like back alleys than a concrete box canyon. "We have got to go around the GM HQ!!!!!"
I'm not sure if they ever mentioned the Renn Center but cameras made the part facing the river look like a loading dock to a grocery store.
I think the radio exchange about the fastest lap says everything you need to know about Max vs Checo and the dominance in reserve of the Redbull cars.
Max: “What’s the fastest lap?,”
GP: “It’s a 16.6,” “It was the first lap on a new soft for Checo, with DRS, so I wouldn’t worry about it, Max. You’ve been given a black-and-white flag, so we cannot afford anything.”
Max <casually busts out a 16.3>
GP: “Mode seven, please Max,” “Okay – now – can you bring it home, within the white lines?”
I laughed out loud when that happened.
The difficulty is that even when Mercedes manages to get next to Max, they still have to pass him. Sir Lewis had a lot of years where the FIA and the fears of the other drivers let him run roughshod over everyone else during races. Max has zero white guilt, apparently.
The other laugh out loud radio was Alonso calling the 3 place grid penalty on Gasly in quali.
Really odd though. Hasn't won a race in 12 years and everyone including me thinks he's one of the all time greats. Certainly better than 80% of this field.
Because Formula 1 is 98% car and 2% driver, I suspect.
So much so that both the mercedes drivers now expect people to just move over by dint of them being mercedes drivers. They're both queens in that regard.
Max has zero guilt about anything. Remember he survived a minor attempt at his life by 'Sir' at 'his' home race in Silverstone, and I'd forgive him if he dished out as he saw fit.
The only instance I cannot forgive him for is crashing into Ocon who was trying to unlap himself at the Brazilian GP 3-4 years ago, and then holding him in contempt and trying to hit him post race (ala Jos, the drunk idiot). Hopefully he has grown a little since.
That's the problem with having your late teens and early twenties in the public eye... something that was true for Seb Vettel as well. The odd part to me is that Sir Lewis appears to be aging in reverse with regards to his behavior. Back in 2007 the worst we saw from him was forcing the issue on Alonso at the USGP.
Funny you bring up Seb, just watching interviews from over his career, which I did recently due to Netflix, gives me concern about his mental health and its deterioration from the pressure at a young age.
He does seem a little scattered now, doesn't he?
I would have crossed the line, got the 5 second penalty. On the podium, I would have mentioned it before kissing my bicep. I would have went complete WWE.
Also, in one of FPs, "Is that Helmut's phone I hear ringing?"
Just to clarify, the term oriental is racist, and you should immediately remove it from your article. No need to thank me.
I'm pretty sure the comment was intentional as it wasn't actually considered racist until what... the past 10 year tops? It's old man humor.
first time i encountered that was at the front desk at the venetian in vegas a dozen years ago. karen mentioned getting some info from that lovely oriental young lady over there and the ?samoan? male clerk said 'you mean that asian young woman?' i'm ready now...when i'll use 'oriental' and am corrected i'll put my hands together, pause, and say 'ah! so!' courtesy of charlie chan.
It’s not racist, unless you believe that “Occidental” is racist.
The Oxford dictionary currently has a downright hilarious use example for "Occidental":
"an Asian challenge to occidental dominance"
Doublethink at its finest.
For a short while, when DuPont was shuffling managers around, our IT group was dotted-line assigned to a Japanese chemist who came to America to get his education, I suspect because he didn't have the connections or status to get into the University of Tokyo. He was almost fluent in English. In one of our group meetings he mentioned that the word oriental was offensive. He likely picked that up in Ann Arbor at UofM. I thought that rather cheeky coming from someone who was not a native speaker of English (not to mention how racist many Asian societies seem to be), so I asked him, "Is occidental offensive too?"
"What does that mean?"
"Occidntal means western just as oriental means eastern."
He had no clue about the word occidental.
Then there was the co-worker who kept insisting "Discrimination is always wrong," when I used the term in its original meaning, to tell the difference between two things.
I guess the Seiko (Epson) watch sub brand "Orient" is also racist. Or is it like the "N" word, it's only ok when they use it?
I own a couple of Orients, a Kamasu diver in black and gold (I like JPS colors), and a quartz "panda" chronograph.
We Three Kings of Orient Are … now canceled.
He didn't mean it, he said it by occident.
What, then, of occidental?
Max put on a clinic, but the racing is getting pretty boring without mechanical failures.
Bold prediction: F1 will have peaked in the US by middle/late next year. It's very possible it already HAS peaked.
Isle of Man: As is customary, another soul was sacrificed to the lady of the Isle.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jun/07/spanish-motorcycle-rider-raul-torras-martinez-dies-at-isle-of-man-tt-races
you're looking at it as a business--which has screwed everything up like bobby jones predicted a hundred years ago when he said 'money will ruin sport.' i look at it as a sport. you think there wouldn't be a le mans if all the sponsors pulled out? of course it'd stay on the calendar. nobody's allowed to build a better car with new ideas now--instead they spend ridiculous amounts of money dancing around the waaaay too many regulations. i remember years ago on some road course a cadillac dicing with a corvette...well, bullshit, preppie!
Hopefully the day comes when we can have a good stiff drink together.
I have been trying to find the greater context - interview, news article, magazine, book - for Bobby Jones prophetic quotation about money ruining sport for some time.
Do you know when he said / wrote this?
Google “Jimmy Dunne” and see what he’s been up to this week; I began my career working for him.
Good luck to this guy. It is a fantastic sport, but he’s got a real challenge trying to get wider acceptance in the US. People just don’t give a damn as much about bikes generally, and motorcycle racing specifically here in ‘Merica. Shame, the racing is fantastic; the skill level is incredible; the stories are great…
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2023/06/05/Portfolio/motorsports.aspx
Remember when the Bog People burned the bus at the Glen. Now that was great F1 racing.
Sort of like the Apocalypse Now scene at the end with real dead bodies (Really, look it up) and filming the killing of a live Water Buffalo (That wasn't faked either).