Jack, you're still my favorite writer on all things motorsport, but your Hamilton-hate wreaks of bias. He's a sublime driver, who is dealing with a premier talent like George just fine. Last year he out-qualified him in a dogshit car, and this year is comfortably ahead on points. Let's stop moving goalposts. Thanks for another great piece.
George Russell proved that the oft-maligned Mercedes W13 was capable of achieving a pole position (Hungary); Lewis Hamilton failed to equal his new teammate’s performance.
George Russell proved that the oft-maligned Mercedes W13 was capable of achieving a Sprint Race victory (Brazil); Lewis Hamilton failed to equal his new teammate’s performance.
George Russell proved that the oft-maligned Mercedes W13 was capable of achieving a Grand Prix Victory (Brazil); Lewis Hamilton failed to equal his new teammate’s performance.
It has been 542 days since the “GOAT” has managed to win a Grand Prix.
As for the points deficit this year, recall that George retired from the Australian Grand Prix - while ahead of SIR Lewis Hamilton - due to engine failure.
I am unashamed about disliking Hamilton and having little respect for him. Call it an allergic reaction to a media that has portrayed his short-roped accomplishments as being equal to those of Schumacher or Senna or Fangio. To me he is basically Damon Hill: a middling British driver who had the best car.
Lewis comes across as a whiny little prima donna, from the radio tranmsissions shared with the audience, but, really, so do the rest of the drivers. It's a stressful job but he's done okay at it. He's just not the G.O.A.T.
I'm a bit tired of watching people like Louis Hamilton and LeBron James who have had life's skids greased for them ever since someone noticed they were kids with talent but still have chips on their shoulder and resent the societies that have allowed them to amass generational wealth. Hamilton had Ron Dennis as a patron and James went to a private high school that built an arena just for him. None of the people reading this, or their children, have had those kinds of advantages and privileges.
Do you think Hamilton would be willing to compete in some kind of equal competition like the old IROC was?
It's too bad that we can't see what drivers like Fangio, Dreyfuss, Clark etc could do with modern machinery. Downforce cars are a lot different than vintage machinery but when I watch archival footage of those drivers dancing their cars on skinny tires, I get the idea that they'd probably be at least competitive today.
LeBron flops, cries, and whines even when there's no contact, and there's a lot less contact these days than there was a generation ago. Can you imagine his reaction to getting genuinely hammered by Bill Lambeer or Robert Parrish?
The drivers of the '50s, '60s, and even '70s were much different than today's drivers. My respect for them knows no bounds. They drove 150 mph in gasoline-filled aluminum bathtubs and knew that hitting *anything* meant death or worse. Their casualty rate was about 20% annually. Their talent was equal to or better than the drivers today. The difference? Much smaller salaries and much bigger cojones.
I met Johnny Rutherford in the pace car tent at the Detroit Grand Prix a few years ago. His career spanned from the front engine roadsters to the downforce era. When I said, "You guys had to have big brass ones to drive those roadsters," he said, "It was as dangerous as you made it." I replied, "I remember Eddie Sachs' wreck and fire." Rutherford said rather matter of factly, "I got injured in that." Sachs would race with a lemon tied to his neck as a good luck charm. After the accident the lemon was found in Rutherford's car.
Wow! I assume that the Sachs crash resulted in a fatality. ☠️
I remember Rutherford and his wife in a Pennzoil commercial (surprise, surprise), on an oval track, she driving a 1981-era Chrysler Imperial, and he zipping by in the racer on the outside.
But would they really be as good as the best of today? Or even a generation ago?
Think of the gains in fitness, nutrition, simulator work, sports coaching, etc. during the interim. Take a genetic clone of, say, Tazio Nuvolari and put him in Perez’s Red Bull; can he beat Max? I really doubt it.
Follow the current F1 drivers on Instagram - even the ones who are midfielders are also-rans - and see what they do all day. It’s not the James Hunt lifestyle. Senna and then Schumacher lifted the bar, and now it’s table stakes to be ultra committed to fitness, nutrition, and simulator work. Before the testing ban, Schumi spent his winters not enjoying his wealth and his family in Switzerland, but pounding around Fiorano. And that was after he had multiple titles in the bag.
I could go back in time and win any race you want to name prior to 1960. They didn't have line theory. They didn't understand drafting and passing. In most cases they were simply trying to not burn out the brakes, thus all the sideways corner entries that the hoi polloi love. All you needed was total commitment and courage. Which is a funny thing to say, but someone like Max has those things PLUS he knows more about racing than anyone who was alive when he was born.
Can't begrudge anyone for taking a good opportunity and running with it. No one in their right mind would say "I'm signing with HAAS because I want to prove it's me and not the car".
My HAM moment was a few years ago. He's in his speedboat off the English coast. With his bulldog. A flunky is driving the boat. He's being filmed by another flunky. He looks off into the distance, his brow is furrowed. He has his bulldog close to him. And starts thinking about the earth is being destroyed by man.
I had flash backs of Abu Dhabi 2021 with that Indy 500 finish. Happily for me Verstappen and Newgarden are my two favorite drivers. I'd probably be crying bloody murder if it had happened the other way around!
Old stock cars with carbs and 4 speeds were the coolest. Shame they moved to sequentials and EFI. Modern NASCAR seems inauthentic compared to how it operated in the 90s and 2000s.
Roger Penske must be plugged in deep with the Illuminati.
“The Captain,” as his sycophants call him, owns both Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indycar series (as well as many other corporate assets, of course).
At the tail end of the race, the third and final red flag was shown, presumably because Indycar doesn’t want to end their Super Bowl race under yellow. But wait a minute. The red flag was thrown with defending winner (and Ganassi driver) (and Formula 1 never was) Marcus Ericsson leading ahead of Penske driver Josef Newgarden. At the ensuing restart (one lap out of the pits behind the pace car, green and white shown together ahead of a one lap dash, then the checker), it was all but guaranteed that Marcus Ericsson would not be the winner, even if he (and all the others) used the “snake” or “dragon” weaving move liberally. So Penske driver Newgarden won - yay!
This conflict of interest is staggering to me. There are a few options:
Either Penske has everyone else’s nuts in a vise, and they know that space lasers (whether of Jewish or other origin) will blast them to smithereens if they speak ill of RP; OR all the other hardcore badass manly men “Alpha” males in the Indycar circus are just scared of offending Zaddy RP; OR … Indycar isn’t that important, and the conflict of interest doesn’t really matter because the stakes are low, as there are only two manufacturers involved in the series, and most of the sponsors are non-entities, as well. Despite winning the Greatest Spec Series in Racing, Josef Newgarden can walk down Fifth Avenue in NYC in incognito fashion.
In other Indycar news, RP et alia are lucky that the wheel that departed Kyle Kirkwood’s car didn’t go through the grandstand (and fans) like a wrecking ball.
I watched that and said "Self, if you ever go to Indy, get a seat low and at the beginnings of turns 1 and 3".
Watching hundreds of people ducking when the wheel flew over their heads was scary.
A lot of the sponsors are all B2B and the ability to lay out a spread at a track for clients I believe is driving the non-entities. The right crowd and no crowding.
Steven Tyler is thrilled. The worst rendition of the Star Spangled Banner torch has been passed to Jewel.
I think Jewel was the pick because of:
Penske Media Corporation (PMC; /ˈpɛnskiː/) is an American digital media, publishing, and information services company based in Los Angeles and New York City. It publishes more than 20 digital and print brands, including Variety, Rolling Stone, Women's Wear Daily, Deadline Hollywood, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Boy Genius Report, Robb Report, Artforum, ARTNews, and others. PMC's Chairman and CEO since founding is Jay Penske.
Before they named Mary Barra as CEO of GM I had the opportunity to ask Roger Penske if he'd take the job. He laughed and said, "No, I'm having too much fun doing what I'm doing." He might be one of the more competent corporate executives. Can you think of a venture of his that has failed? Roger was also a pretty good driver in his day, winning four consecutive SCCA championships in the early '60s.
She writes equity research on a collection of non-OEM automotive related companies, and Penske is among them.
She and her husband were at Petit Le Mans a few years ago. I took a picture of the two of them standing adjacent to one of the Acura prototypes. She texted it to RP - who wasn’t there - but he got back to her immediately and told her to avail herself of Penske hospitality.
No conspiracy, no Illuminati interference. Newgarden and Team Penske were simply this year's beneficiaries of the NASCARification of IndyCar; namely, the refusal to let the 500 end under yellow. I was in the paddock stands directly across from Helio's pit and the cheers that went up for both red flags were deafening. Makes for a better show, but it delegitimizes the sport somewhat. As usual, my opinion is unpopular.
Agreed on the excellent luck/hand of God that kept Kirkwood's errant tire from hurting anyone. The lady whose car was hit was just great about it. I'm sure the Speedway will make her whole. Check out the "journalistic integrity" in this video.
Reporter, 1:09: "So emotional...this Indy 500 fan won't be back"
The fan, 1:17: "I love it the most...I'll be back next year"
I don't think that would've changed race control's thinking. As is there was uncertainty of the leader at the time of caution. After 2013 it's been clear that Indycar will move heaven and earth to get the 500 to finish under green. If anything the opposite outcome (Red flag waved ASAP, Newgarden found to be leading at time of caution, decision made to end under yellow) would have been worth questioning.
Well, I suppose you can make the case that self-dealing is actually quite period correct and historically accurate; look at the history of IRL and CART/ChampCar there's a lot of interesting conflicts, so to speak.
Can you imagine the uproar in F1 if there were self dealing?
The Abu Dhabi 2021 debacle boiled down to this:
0-Latifi wrecks, just a few laps left
1-Safety car
2-Lewis leads, Max second; Lewis will obviously not give up track position for new tires, meanwhile Max can quickly pit for tires and not relinquish second to Carlos Sainz (in third place)
3-Surely this titanic title battle - one of the best of all time, and one with new audiences that came courtesy of Drive to Survive and social media - cannot end as a parade behind the safety car, right Mr. Masi???
4-But there’s not enough time to get ALL of the lapped cars out of the way; ok, we’ll move the ones that will have an impact on the championship, since that’s what’s important
5-Restart; Max mugs SIR Lewis into the slow left turn (5?) and takes the title
6-Hamilton’s legion of digital activists and Sky sycophants have been “raising awareness” for … over 500 days
Did Ferrari or Sainz ever seriously complain? No.
Did SIR Lewis have the opportunity to pit for new tires? Yes.
Would the outcome have been different if they’d run the hurry up and quickly shuffled the lapped cars ahead? Almost certainly not given the tire offset.
Now imagine if the decisionmaker had been truly conflicted…
Meanwhile, in Indycar, nothing has been said about Penske’s influence!
Well, as you've noted, much of the pleasure of Formula 1 comes from the constant swirl of news, gossip, and drama.
Indycar and NASCAR are closer to the American tradition of having the matter done on the podium. That's why I was so annoyed when I got protested out of 2nd place at the NASA Champs in 2007; the decision to protest came AFTER the champagne.
As someone who is, in a sense, a professional clearinghouse for corporate gossip, subterfuge, intrigue, machinations, etc., that is my favorite part of Formula 1! I genuinely mean that.
I do, however, agree that the outcome of the event should not change after the fact. That imperils fandom, and without fandom, there’s no professional motorsport. No ticket sales, no tv, no pundits, no sponsors, no development, no money.
what did they get you for? when i got dq'ed outta the '73 championship none of my competitors would protest me, so a steward did...long funny story about 'years later'...
no--i had my secretary send him a special invitation to my 'decade of shame' party at the nat'l convention...he slunk in like he thought i'd waited 10 years to get even. i still have my 'decade of shame '73-'83'. painters cap. i'm thinking about a 'half century of shame' party this autumn. he sued minilite for selling into his assigned territory and broke the company, i was told.
Wish I could do that on the freeway some mornings to the brain-dead idiot in front of me doing two under in the left lane, with a line of traffic behind me stretching back to roughly Lima!
That’s riiiiiiiight! June is NMA “Lane Discipline” month! Not that anyone in Northwest Ohio would know or care! 😂
Them's some serious lateral G's. It's hard to really appreciate what that feels like. I remember coming out of a 0.9G turn and feeling loopy like I was 3 martinis deep. Modern tires are amazing.
"At Green Baron Motorsports we're all about the gree... er Diveristy, Equity, and Inclusion. That's why we're proud to be sponsored by Oreo's Special Pride Edition with rainbow colored filling."
There’s a couple Special Edition Oreos out there which aren’t to be missed! Especially the one with the milk AND dark-chocolate filling--unfortunately the name escapes me right now!
The embroidery industry has fire retardent thread to supply companies making racing gear. What's the point of wearing a Nomex suit if the embellishment is flammable?
It's IRONIC Chris don't you understand that if you are IRONIC about things nobody can ever hurt you and you never have to reveal your true self to anyone and you can die alone
I know almost nothing about F1 and the background thereof, but I did greatly enjoy reading an expose in Car and Driver IIRC on the connection between cocaine smugglers and offshore boat racing (ciggarette, etc) in the 1980s.
Could be that R&T invited Randy Lanier to do an AER race with them; my brother also drove with that team on that day, so you had TWO notorious cokeheads there.
I haven't read anything by her that made me take notice but I *did* read that Fat Brad used to bully her into doing his job at jalopnik. Which I cannot respect.
I just tried to find a Blackstock article to prove you wrong and ended reading an immature and contradictory review of the Charger Hellcat. Jalopnik doesn't exactly foster mature writing unfortunately.
The race down at Barber for MotoAmerica Superbike saw Gagne win both races (but not dominate as much as he has in the past in terms of gap). The lack of big straights and issues finding stability put the Ducati and BMWs further back and Yamaha's R1s sweep the first race. A wonderful juxtaposition of tracks to show the differing strengths of the field. It was also good to see Escalante making big progress with his second year on the Suzuki.
The other races were good as well with rain conditions making a few of them battles of attrition and an attempt to mix up the format of Supersport with a single long race this weekend. That saw a lot of wrecks and halts with changing track conditions and may not be a good format or rules for spring.
I'm personally not a fan of bumper cars at the races. I know the people in charge want to see accidents and cars hitting and bumping each other because they think it adds more excitement and drama.
Then again, maybe if they let the cars go as fast as we can make them go, it would be even more exciting?
I stopped watching a lot of racing as it became more of a contact sport. Also not a big fan of all the limitations they started putting on cars in certain races because they don't want them to go any faster.
I mean that's the entire point of racing, to go as fast as you can! Limiting the speed to me, just seems stupid (not talking about category races, where you're racing a specific type of car or engine, though even in those I think you should be allowed to coax every last bit of speed out of it).
I guess this is part of why I got interested in air racing. Because they have unlimited classes and those folks are getting close to the mach barrier in prop planes.
They're looking for a new home, but I don't know that they'll find one in this day and age. There are a lot less airports now, then when the races started, which means it's hard to find a place to move into that meets the requirements that the association wants.
Ideally you want an airport that is 50 miles away from anything and everything, so people don't bitch about the noise and all the airplanes. BUT you need hotels and restaurants and a mjor airport that airlines fly to, and all of the other infrastructure to support the thousands of people who show up.
The Air Races bring about a half-billion dollars to Reno every year. The government (and governor) were very much behind them until Covid. Now? They don't care about money from tourists anymore. They just want those sweet sweet developer bribes. Because all those locusts... erm people, fleeing from California need over priced homes to live in.
I honestly don't see the air races continuing. The FAA has been trying to shut them down for over a decade. Guess they finally got their wish.
I like how you put the P2 at WHRRI ahead of the Coca Cola 600. On Friday I had to listen to 5 minutes of bullshit from Joe Gibbs of an ad for the race and his team disguised as "for the troops" while I was waiting for some NBA updates.
I likewise don't watch the Indy 500 but this year I decided to catch the last 20 laps or so, 'cause that's all that really matters. I can do without 3 hours of roundy-round. This may seem ironic since I am an F1 fan and watched Monte Carlo, but it's by far my least favourite race. Someone once described NASCAR racing on short tracks as like "flying an F-14 in a school gymnasium" and Monaco is like that too. F1 should have abandoned it years ago, but the glitterati would be so deprived. Anyway, with 3 crashes in the last 14 laps and a NASCAR-esque finish, my reasons for avoiding IndyCars was doubly reinforced. The F1 race as better (at least it didn't rain too hard) but I'm glad the circus is moving to a real circuit next. Aside from what you mentioned, my fascination continues to be with Lance Stroll and AM. Is he Nicholas Latifi or Nikita Mezepan, whose fathers bought their rides, or is he more Nico Rosberg? It's looking more like the former, but there's still ample time in the season for him to improve. I mean, he'll never beat Fernando, but he needs to be competitive.
Lance, to me, represents the absolute limit of where someone with no natural genetic talent for racing can go. People like that win a lot of lesser series including IMSA all the time. The coaching is so good now, the data is so helpful. You have to get into a vehicle at the outer edge of human potential in order for the cracks to show.
It also doesn't help that all the development series are spec racers now. So you never learn how to work with your engineers or develop something genuinely difficult. Much of Hamilton's success, for example, came from cars that Schumacher and Rosberg conceptualized. The same is true for Vettel and Coulthard.
Lance is good enough to be there. There's probably hundreds that are good enough to be there. I can't begrudge him for that. He's getting destroyed by some old guy who hasn't won a race in over a decade. I love FA though.
Last year Lance was a lot closer to Vettel that FA. Vettel was more interested in Tar Sands and saving the bees than in racing.
I must say, F1 taking over the TV at Monaco was a great improvement.
In the how the mighty have fallen. In the 70s and 80s I used to go to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut on Memorial Day. This year the feature was Trans Am and vintage racing. The TV coverage was live Youtube. I think in their heyday, they'd get 35 - 40K people. I swear there were more people in the paddock than sitting on the hills inside and outside the track. I wouldn't be surprised if Jack's race day had more spectators. The track was supposed to be much bigger and that never panned out. Stick in the town hates the track with no Sunday racing and the race orgs don't like racing on the equivalent of a road course bullring to the point they don't show up anymore and this place is circling the drain concerning big time racing.
The 600? For about 20 something years, I never missed a NASCAR race. Now, it's an "Oh Yeah, I'm bored". I turn it on, yellow flag. Of course.
Senna was the best I ever saw. He and Dale Earnhardt had the thing that separates the great drivers - the Fernandos, the Mark Martins - from the legends: they could *make the car do more than it could do.* Only for a couple of corners, usually, or maybe a lap, but always in crucial moments. On Saturday, for about 18 seconds, Max joined that group.
That's the magic, isn't it? The ability for anyone, just for a moment, to break through what we consider normal constraints to do things that beggar belief? I'm sure it's been written about somewhere and people have studied it but to actually do it personally - that's gotta feel incredible.
Jack, you're still my favorite writer on all things motorsport, but your Hamilton-hate wreaks of bias. He's a sublime driver, who is dealing with a premier talent like George just fine. Last year he out-qualified him in a dogshit car, and this year is comfortably ahead on points. Let's stop moving goalposts. Thanks for another great piece.
Last year:
George Russell proved that the oft-maligned Mercedes W13 was capable of achieving a pole position (Hungary); Lewis Hamilton failed to equal his new teammate’s performance.
George Russell proved that the oft-maligned Mercedes W13 was capable of achieving a Sprint Race victory (Brazil); Lewis Hamilton failed to equal his new teammate’s performance.
George Russell proved that the oft-maligned Mercedes W13 was capable of achieving a Grand Prix Victory (Brazil); Lewis Hamilton failed to equal his new teammate’s performance.
It has been 542 days since the “GOAT” has managed to win a Grand Prix.
As for the points deficit this year, recall that George retired from the Australian Grand Prix - while ahead of SIR Lewis Hamilton - due to engine failure.
So whose remarks “wreak of bias?”
I am unashamed about disliking Hamilton and having little respect for him. Call it an allergic reaction to a media that has portrayed his short-roped accomplishments as being equal to those of Schumacher or Senna or Fangio. To me he is basically Damon Hill: a middling British driver who had the best car.
Lewis comes across as a whiny little prima donna, from the radio tranmsissions shared with the audience, but, really, so do the rest of the drivers. It's a stressful job but he's done okay at it. He's just not the G.O.A.T.
I'm a bit tired of watching people like Louis Hamilton and LeBron James who have had life's skids greased for them ever since someone noticed they were kids with talent but still have chips on their shoulder and resent the societies that have allowed them to amass generational wealth. Hamilton had Ron Dennis as a patron and James went to a private high school that built an arena just for him. None of the people reading this, or their children, have had those kinds of advantages and privileges.
Do you think Hamilton would be willing to compete in some kind of equal competition like the old IROC was?
It's too bad that we can't see what drivers like Fangio, Dreyfuss, Clark etc could do with modern machinery. Downforce cars are a lot different than vintage machinery but when I watch archival footage of those drivers dancing their cars on skinny tires, I get the idea that they'd probably be at least competitive today.
LeBron flops, cries, and whines even when there's no contact, and there's a lot less contact these days than there was a generation ago. Can you imagine his reaction to getting genuinely hammered by Bill Lambeer or Robert Parrish?
The drivers of the '50s, '60s, and even '70s were much different than today's drivers. My respect for them knows no bounds. They drove 150 mph in gasoline-filled aluminum bathtubs and knew that hitting *anything* meant death or worse. Their casualty rate was about 20% annually. Their talent was equal to or better than the drivers today. The difference? Much smaller salaries and much bigger cojones.
I met Johnny Rutherford in the pace car tent at the Detroit Grand Prix a few years ago. His career spanned from the front engine roadsters to the downforce era. When I said, "You guys had to have big brass ones to drive those roadsters," he said, "It was as dangerous as you made it." I replied, "I remember Eddie Sachs' wreck and fire." Rutherford said rather matter of factly, "I got injured in that." Sachs would race with a lemon tied to his neck as a good luck charm. After the accident the lemon was found in Rutherford's car.
Wow! I assume that the Sachs crash resulted in a fatality. ☠️
I remember Rutherford and his wife in a Pennzoil commercial (surprise, surprise), on an oval track, she driving a 1981-era Chrysler Imperial, and he zipping by in the racer on the outside.
But would they really be as good as the best of today? Or even a generation ago?
Think of the gains in fitness, nutrition, simulator work, sports coaching, etc. during the interim. Take a genetic clone of, say, Tazio Nuvolari and put him in Perez’s Red Bull; can he beat Max? I really doubt it.
Follow the current F1 drivers on Instagram - even the ones who are midfielders are also-rans - and see what they do all day. It’s not the James Hunt lifestyle. Senna and then Schumacher lifted the bar, and now it’s table stakes to be ultra committed to fitness, nutrition, and simulator work. Before the testing ban, Schumi spent his winters not enjoying his wealth and his family in Switzerland, but pounding around Fiorano. And that was after he had multiple titles in the bag.
I could go back in time and win any race you want to name prior to 1960. They didn't have line theory. They didn't understand drafting and passing. In most cases they were simply trying to not burn out the brakes, thus all the sideways corner entries that the hoi polloi love. All you needed was total commitment and courage. Which is a funny thing to say, but someone like Max has those things PLUS he knows more about racing than anyone who was alive when he was born.
Can't begrudge anyone for taking a good opportunity and running with it. No one in their right mind would say "I'm signing with HAAS because I want to prove it's me and not the car".
My HAM moment was a few years ago. He's in his speedboat off the English coast. With his bulldog. A flunky is driving the boat. He's being filmed by another flunky. He looks off into the distance, his brow is furrowed. He has his bulldog close to him. And starts thinking about the earth is being destroyed by man.
With the difference that Hill was actually likable. Not significant on the track, but then, neither is Hamilton these days.
I had flash backs of Abu Dhabi 2021 with that Indy 500 finish. Happily for me Verstappen and Newgarden are my two favorite drivers. I'd probably be crying bloody murder if it had happened the other way around!
Old stock cars with carbs and 4 speeds were the coolest. Shame they moved to sequentials and EFI. Modern NASCAR seems inauthentic compared to how it operated in the 90s and 2000s.
Congrats on blasting through the lap record!
The Xfinity series still exists. It checks both boxes you mentioned.
Why didn’t you watch the 500?
Cause I was in my own race car, doing the racing!
You and DG have a two-car trailer, I presume? You’ve written about it previously, I’m sure--I just don’t recall at the moment.
And presumably the F-250 doesn’t break a sweat hauling it.
We DON'T, actually. We use an 18 foot aluminum car hauler for her car and a 12 foot single-axle Aluma for the Radical.
Need to get one. But trailer prices went through the roof during Covid.
Roger Penske must be plugged in deep with the Illuminati.
“The Captain,” as his sycophants call him, owns both Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indycar series (as well as many other corporate assets, of course).
At the tail end of the race, the third and final red flag was shown, presumably because Indycar doesn’t want to end their Super Bowl race under yellow. But wait a minute. The red flag was thrown with defending winner (and Ganassi driver) (and Formula 1 never was) Marcus Ericsson leading ahead of Penske driver Josef Newgarden. At the ensuing restart (one lap out of the pits behind the pace car, green and white shown together ahead of a one lap dash, then the checker), it was all but guaranteed that Marcus Ericsson would not be the winner, even if he (and all the others) used the “snake” or “dragon” weaving move liberally. So Penske driver Newgarden won - yay!
This conflict of interest is staggering to me. There are a few options:
Either Penske has everyone else’s nuts in a vise, and they know that space lasers (whether of Jewish or other origin) will blast them to smithereens if they speak ill of RP; OR all the other hardcore badass manly men “Alpha” males in the Indycar circus are just scared of offending Zaddy RP; OR … Indycar isn’t that important, and the conflict of interest doesn’t really matter because the stakes are low, as there are only two manufacturers involved in the series, and most of the sponsors are non-entities, as well. Despite winning the Greatest Spec Series in Racing, Josef Newgarden can walk down Fifth Avenue in NYC in incognito fashion.
In other Indycar news, RP et alia are lucky that the wheel that departed Kyle Kirkwood’s car didn’t go through the grandstand (and fans) like a wrecking ball.
I watched that and said "Self, if you ever go to Indy, get a seat low and at the beginnings of turns 1 and 3".
Watching hundreds of people ducking when the wheel flew over their heads was scary.
A lot of the sponsors are all B2B and the ability to lay out a spread at a track for clients I believe is driving the non-entities. The right crowd and no crowding.
Steven Tyler is thrilled. The worst rendition of the Star Spangled Banner torch has been passed to Jewel.
I think Jewel was the pick because of:
Penske Media Corporation (PMC; /ˈpɛnskiː/) is an American digital media, publishing, and information services company based in Los Angeles and New York City. It publishes more than 20 digital and print brands, including Variety, Rolling Stone, Women's Wear Daily, Deadline Hollywood, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Boy Genius Report, Robb Report, Artforum, ARTNews, and others. PMC's Chairman and CEO since founding is Jay Penske.
Before they named Mary Barra as CEO of GM I had the opportunity to ask Roger Penske if he'd take the job. He laughed and said, "No, I'm having too much fun doing what I'm doing." He might be one of the more competent corporate executives. Can you think of a venture of his that has failed? Roger was also a pretty good driver in his day, winning four consecutive SCCA championships in the early '60s.
I have a friend who knows him well.
She writes equity research on a collection of non-OEM automotive related companies, and Penske is among them.
She and her husband were at Petit Le Mans a few years ago. I took a picture of the two of them standing adjacent to one of the Acura prototypes. She texted it to RP - who wasn’t there - but he got back to her immediately and told her to avail herself of Penske hospitality.
wasn't he a smart car importer?
No conspiracy, no Illuminati interference. Newgarden and Team Penske were simply this year's beneficiaries of the NASCARification of IndyCar; namely, the refusal to let the 500 end under yellow. I was in the paddock stands directly across from Helio's pit and the cheers that went up for both red flags were deafening. Makes for a better show, but it delegitimizes the sport somewhat. As usual, my opinion is unpopular.
Agreed on the excellent luck/hand of God that kept Kirkwood's errant tire from hurting anyone. The lady whose car was hit was just great about it. I'm sure the Speedway will make her whole. Check out the "journalistic integrity" in this video.
Reporter, 1:09: "So emotional...this Indy 500 fan won't be back"
The fan, 1:17: "I love it the most...I'll be back next year"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cjr196iFkY
If Newgarden had been ahead at the last gasp would there have been a third red flag at the end or simply a parade under yellow to the checker?
You know the answer.
I don't think that would've changed race control's thinking. As is there was uncertainty of the leader at the time of caution. After 2013 it's been clear that Indycar will move heaven and earth to get the 500 to finish under green. If anything the opposite outcome (Red flag waved ASAP, Newgarden found to be leading at time of caution, decision made to end under yellow) would have been worth questioning.
It ended under yellow in 2020.
The alternative you present is even more conspiratorial.
Well, I suppose you can make the case that self-dealing is actually quite period correct and historically accurate; look at the history of IRL and CART/ChampCar there's a lot of interesting conflicts, so to speak.
Can you imagine the uproar in F1 if there were self dealing?
The Abu Dhabi 2021 debacle boiled down to this:
0-Latifi wrecks, just a few laps left
1-Safety car
2-Lewis leads, Max second; Lewis will obviously not give up track position for new tires, meanwhile Max can quickly pit for tires and not relinquish second to Carlos Sainz (in third place)
3-Surely this titanic title battle - one of the best of all time, and one with new audiences that came courtesy of Drive to Survive and social media - cannot end as a parade behind the safety car, right Mr. Masi???
4-But there’s not enough time to get ALL of the lapped cars out of the way; ok, we’ll move the ones that will have an impact on the championship, since that’s what’s important
5-Restart; Max mugs SIR Lewis into the slow left turn (5?) and takes the title
6-Hamilton’s legion of digital activists and Sky sycophants have been “raising awareness” for … over 500 days
Did Ferrari or Sainz ever seriously complain? No.
Did SIR Lewis have the opportunity to pit for new tires? Yes.
Would the outcome have been different if they’d run the hurry up and quickly shuffled the lapped cars ahead? Almost certainly not given the tire offset.
Now imagine if the decisionmaker had been truly conflicted…
Meanwhile, in Indycar, nothing has been said about Penske’s influence!
Well, as you've noted, much of the pleasure of Formula 1 comes from the constant swirl of news, gossip, and drama.
Indycar and NASCAR are closer to the American tradition of having the matter done on the podium. That's why I was so annoyed when I got protested out of 2nd place at the NASA Champs in 2007; the decision to protest came AFTER the champagne.
As someone who is, in a sense, a professional clearinghouse for corporate gossip, subterfuge, intrigue, machinations, etc., that is my favorite part of Formula 1! I genuinely mean that.
I do, however, agree that the outcome of the event should not change after the fact. That imperils fandom, and without fandom, there’s no professional motorsport. No ticket sales, no tv, no pundits, no sponsors, no development, no money.
what did they get you for? when i got dq'ed outta the '73 championship none of my competitors would protest me, so a steward did...long funny story about 'years later'...
I was there with a G Prod Sprite. NObody thought you had cheated. You was robbed.
Hope "years later..." was horrible for him.
no--i had my secretary send him a special invitation to my 'decade of shame' party at the nat'l convention...he slunk in like he thought i'd waited 10 years to get even. i still have my 'decade of shame '73-'83'. painters cap. i'm thinking about a 'half century of shame' party this autumn. he sued minilite for selling into his assigned territory and broke the company, i was told.
A little bump and run of a fellow who was double blocking me.
Wish I could do that on the freeway some mornings to the brain-dead idiot in front of me doing two under in the left lane, with a line of traffic behind me stretching back to roughly Lima!
That’s riiiiiiiight! June is NMA “Lane Discipline” month! Not that anyone in Northwest Ohio would know or care! 😂
are you old enuf to remember when fangio's people wanted security for him at sebring? ullman told 'em nobody in town had ever heard of him
I’m 34 so not old enough to recall firsthand.
Was that before or after he got kidnapped in Cuba?
about the same time--i can't remember!
A wheel ended up in the stands at MIS during the CART race in 98. Killed three people.
During a test at IMS in 03 pieces of Tony Renna’s car (and, depending upon the source, parts of his body) ended up in the Turn 3 grandstand.
I don’t like to think about these types of things, but the fact that we went 20 years without something major is good to say the least.
Barring a monumental change in line with halos/aerocreeens, I don’t know what you can really do for spectator safety beyond what we have now.
Them's some serious lateral G's. It's hard to really appreciate what that feels like. I remember coming out of a 0.9G turn and feeling loopy like I was 3 martinis deep. Modern tires are amazing.
We have a lot of wing dialed into the car. Probably too much as it won't rotate unless I'm being stupid.
Are those custom gloves, or did you use their logo for ACF?
They are custom, made for me by Stand21, my supplier since 2008. It's a ridiculous bit of vanity but why not?
Not vain at all, ACF is arguably a business; better to wear you own logo than Nabisco or similar.
For the record, I would immediately switch to Nabisco livery for an extremely modest compensation!
If you had a windshield you could do it Ricky Bobby style
https://youtu.be/Bvi9zpHlrvg
"At Green Baron Motorsports we're all about the gree... er Diveristy, Equity, and Inclusion. That's why we're proud to be sponsored by Oreo's Special Pride Edition with rainbow colored filling."
I would run NAMBLA as a title sponsor if I could get an LMP2 season out of it.
I've on occasion wondered what I'd be willing to do for a fighter jet ride-along.
Can the Marlon Brando lookalikes afford an LMP2 season?
There’s a couple Special Edition Oreos out there which aren’t to be missed! Especially the one with the milk AND dark-chocolate filling--unfortunately the name escapes me right now!
I was sort of surprised that they didn't have a special chocolate filling Oreos for February.
I could eat a whole package of carrot cake Oreos in one sitting.
The embroidery industry has fire retardent thread to supply companies making racing gear. What's the point of wearing a Nomex suit if the embellishment is flammable?
Grand-Am/IMSA are particularly picky about that.
Imagine you write a book and your bio on said book only states you “love cats and chain restaurants.”
It's IRONIC Chris don't you understand that if you are IRONIC about things nobody can ever hurt you and you never have to reveal your true self to anyone and you can die alone
That may have been one of the funniest things I have read. Well Done!
So these authors think the Rich Energy thing is somehow new for F1? Never heard of Moneytron amongst others, apparently.
You'd be hard pressed to find two bigger idiots, really.
I know almost nothing about F1 and the background thereof, but I did greatly enjoy reading an expose in Car and Driver IIRC on the connection between cocaine smugglers and offshore boat racing (ciggarette, etc) in the 1980s.
On further review it may have been the Cocaine Cowboys Netflix special and nothing to do with C/D? I dunno, I’m sure I’m getting some wires crossed.
Could be that R&T invited Randy Lanier to do an AER race with them; my brother also drove with that team on that day, so you had TWO notorious cokeheads there.
They're both a special level of refined, distilled, pure car-twitter broke brained and dumb.
I'm so disappointed.
Elizabeth Blackstock has the talent and skill to do better than a tweet compendium.
Alanis is just a news aggregator but Elizabeth cares about racing.
Elizabeth and Jack made me care about American racing series.
I haven't read anything by her that made me take notice but I *did* read that Fat Brad used to bully her into doing his job at jalopnik. Which I cannot respect.
Yeah, no respect there.
I just tried to find a Blackstock article to prove you wrong and ended reading an immature and contradictory review of the Charger Hellcat. Jalopnik doesn't exactly foster mature writing unfortunately.
The only genuine grownup they ever had was Ray Wert, and he didn't give a single shit about the quality of the writing, only what the numbers did.
The race down at Barber for MotoAmerica Superbike saw Gagne win both races (but not dominate as much as he has in the past in terms of gap). The lack of big straights and issues finding stability put the Ducati and BMWs further back and Yamaha's R1s sweep the first race. A wonderful juxtaposition of tracks to show the differing strengths of the field. It was also good to see Escalante making big progress with his second year on the Suzuki.
The other races were good as well with rain conditions making a few of them battles of attrition and an attempt to mix up the format of Supersport with a single long race this weekend. That saw a lot of wrecks and halts with changing track conditions and may not be a good format or rules for spring.
I'm personally not a fan of bumper cars at the races. I know the people in charge want to see accidents and cars hitting and bumping each other because they think it adds more excitement and drama.
Then again, maybe if they let the cars go as fast as we can make them go, it would be even more exciting?
I stopped watching a lot of racing as it became more of a contact sport. Also not a big fan of all the limitations they started putting on cars in certain races because they don't want them to go any faster.
I mean that's the entire point of racing, to go as fast as you can! Limiting the speed to me, just seems stupid (not talking about category races, where you're racing a specific type of car or engine, though even in those I think you should be allowed to coax every last bit of speed out of it).
I guess this is part of why I got interested in air racing. Because they have unlimited classes and those folks are getting close to the mach barrier in prop planes.
What are they going to do after this year for the championships, since this is apparently the last year for Reno?
They're looking for a new home, but I don't know that they'll find one in this day and age. There are a lot less airports now, then when the races started, which means it's hard to find a place to move into that meets the requirements that the association wants.
Ideally you want an airport that is 50 miles away from anything and everything, so people don't bitch about the noise and all the airplanes. BUT you need hotels and restaurants and a mjor airport that airlines fly to, and all of the other infrastructure to support the thousands of people who show up.
The Air Races bring about a half-billion dollars to Reno every year. The government (and governor) were very much behind them until Covid. Now? They don't care about money from tourists anymore. They just want those sweet sweet developer bribes. Because all those locusts... erm people, fleeing from California need over priced homes to live in.
I honestly don't see the air races continuing. The FAA has been trying to shut them down for over a decade. Guess they finally got their wish.
I like how you put the P2 at WHRRI ahead of the Coca Cola 600. On Friday I had to listen to 5 minutes of bullshit from Joe Gibbs of an ad for the race and his team disguised as "for the troops" while I was waiting for some NBA updates.
Is being late to the gate that big of a issue that they typically start you last?
At places where the old hands take pleasure in enforcing the rules it is. But it's my fault. I know the rules.
Only if you were seventh.
I likewise don't watch the Indy 500 but this year I decided to catch the last 20 laps or so, 'cause that's all that really matters. I can do without 3 hours of roundy-round. This may seem ironic since I am an F1 fan and watched Monte Carlo, but it's by far my least favourite race. Someone once described NASCAR racing on short tracks as like "flying an F-14 in a school gymnasium" and Monaco is like that too. F1 should have abandoned it years ago, but the glitterati would be so deprived. Anyway, with 3 crashes in the last 14 laps and a NASCAR-esque finish, my reasons for avoiding IndyCars was doubly reinforced. The F1 race as better (at least it didn't rain too hard) but I'm glad the circus is moving to a real circuit next. Aside from what you mentioned, my fascination continues to be with Lance Stroll and AM. Is he Nicholas Latifi or Nikita Mezepan, whose fathers bought their rides, or is he more Nico Rosberg? It's looking more like the former, but there's still ample time in the season for him to improve. I mean, he'll never beat Fernando, but he needs to be competitive.
Lance, to me, represents the absolute limit of where someone with no natural genetic talent for racing can go. People like that win a lot of lesser series including IMSA all the time. The coaching is so good now, the data is so helpful. You have to get into a vehicle at the outer edge of human potential in order for the cracks to show.
It also doesn't help that all the development series are spec racers now. So you never learn how to work with your engineers or develop something genuinely difficult. Much of Hamilton's success, for example, came from cars that Schumacher and Rosberg conceptualized. The same is true for Vettel and Coulthard.
Lance is good enough to be there. There's probably hundreds that are good enough to be there. I can't begrudge him for that. He's getting destroyed by some old guy who hasn't won a race in over a decade. I love FA though.
Last year Lance was a lot closer to Vettel that FA. Vettel was more interested in Tar Sands and saving the bees than in racing.
Vetted, much like Hamilton, seems mostly notable for under-driving a series of overdog cars.
I want MAX's baby. Call me MAX!!!!
I must say, F1 taking over the TV at Monaco was a great improvement.
In the how the mighty have fallen. In the 70s and 80s I used to go to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut on Memorial Day. This year the feature was Trans Am and vintage racing. The TV coverage was live Youtube. I think in their heyday, they'd get 35 - 40K people. I swear there were more people in the paddock than sitting on the hills inside and outside the track. I wouldn't be surprised if Jack's race day had more spectators. The track was supposed to be much bigger and that never panned out. Stick in the town hates the track with no Sunday racing and the race orgs don't like racing on the equivalent of a road course bullring to the point they don't show up anymore and this place is circling the drain concerning big time racing.
The 600? For about 20 something years, I never missed a NASCAR race. Now, it's an "Oh Yeah, I'm bored". I turn it on, yellow flag. Of course.
The coverage was better, but I missed the unique track signage.
Gotta get me some Zepter Home Art!
There are a couple of good shots of you over on the Waterford Hills Road Racing page on FB.
Thank you!
Senna was the best I ever saw. He and Dale Earnhardt had the thing that separates the great drivers - the Fernandos, the Mark Martins - from the legends: they could *make the car do more than it could do.* Only for a couple of corners, usually, or maybe a lap, but always in crucial moments. On Saturday, for about 18 seconds, Max joined that group.
That's the magic, isn't it? The ability for anyone, just for a moment, to break through what we consider normal constraints to do things that beggar belief? I'm sure it's been written about somewhere and people have studied it but to actually do it personally - that's gotta feel incredible.
Exactly! It's a feeling this former midpack racer was unfamiliar with. :)