Wednesday Racing/Open Thread

Open to all subscribers, focusing on F1, NASCAR, a Cars-and-Coffee bill of attainder, and a curious press car

brad and his wife when they bring the new plate of cookies out at golden corral

Alright, this was a great weekend for F1 fans, and for Ford fans as well. Since I’m both, I can’t wait to kick this off.

Justifying our love

After 102 races, Lando Norris was almost within DRS range of Max Verstappen — but that’s not why people will remember this race. There was the heartbreaking hydraulic failure for Leclerc that had him near-sobbing over the radio. “Why the fuck am I so unlucky?” Both the Sprint and GP race were chock-full of bold action, big passes, and heroic defenses. And, of course, it ended with Fernando Alonso making his case yet again to be listed among the sport’s all-time greats. How many drivers in the world can legitimately say that being a double World Champion doesn’t reflect their true talent? And so much more…

Yuki takes it!! It’s no secret that I personally prefer the volatile, emotional, samurai-like Yuki Tsunoda over the made-for-Netflix Ricciardo. This weekend made it plain that Yuki has no intention of sitting idly by while Danny Ric works his way back to a Red Bull seat. He’s making moves and scoring points. Yes, he needs some seasoning — but as someone who has coached a few hundred of them, I can tell you that it’s far easier to calm a driver down than it is to embolden him. Really, why not consider him for the Red Bull next year? Wouldn’t that be better for the fans than having a washed-up Danny or chronically-depressed Checo?

Clear air for Checo. And speaking of the “South American” driver… this weekend surely gives him a bit of relief. Hamilton’s chances to pass him for second in the driver’s championship look mathematically unlikely now — and outright impossible, if the rumored Abu Dhabi cancellation comes to pass. There’s little to criticize about Perez’s efforts this past weekend. He was unspectacular but also competent, and his battle with Alonso made the fans very happy.

Lewis struggles… but for the third weekend in a row George gets “the bad car”. Both Alonso and Norris are within striking distance of his championship position. Two podiums for either would do it, if Lewis can’t maintain pace. Meanwhile, Russell is looking increasingly like a man who would like to work for another team. At one point, he demanded to know if he should work with Lewis or pass him — to which the team gave him a non-answer. Which is like getting an answer, and the answer is “Get fucked — this is Lewis Hamilton’s team.”

Alonso’s terrible joys. What a race for him, capped by the obvious and gratifying respect shown to him by the young lions — Lando made it a point to take a picture with him and Max for social media, while Oscar Piastri pronounced himself delighted to trade helmets after a weekend that was otherwise short of joy for the Australian driver. It’s easy to imagine an alternative universe in which Alonso, rather than Hamilton, goes to Mercedes — and becomes an eight-time world champion. In this life, he won’t even get a third. It’s worth asking: who in the modern era has truly been a better driver?

Meanwhile, in the land of the chicken tender

showing the number of components shared with production mustangs

Three young drivers, the oldest being a 29-year-old Ryan Blaney. Three chances to win. And… mission accomplished, with Ford taking all of the NASCAR series in a single weekend.

This weekend also marked the retirement of Kevin Harvick. I was lucky enough to sit on the pit box with Harvick’s crew for a Bristol night race many years ago, and I have never heard a driver who was more unpleasant or disrespectful to his crew and people. Good riddance.

Cheeseballs in Cucktown

coffeeandcars

A post shared by @coffeeandcars

Few things inspire as much tortured self-reflection in your humble author as the “cars and coffee” phenomenon. In theory, it’s great for everyone to come out and park somewhere. It’s social. It promotes automotive enthusiasm and brings us together. It gives you a chance to see some neat cars and to share what you have with others.

But… it’s also become yet another one of the numberless ways in which we celebrate rich people and/or the mere ownership of objects in preference to their use. The Houston “coffee and cars” people are among the worst in this regard, with their endless “curated invitationals” and “celebrations” of supercars and hypercars and limited-edition cars. I think it’s probably difficult for younger readers to understand just how rare high-performance exotics used to be. Hell, rear-engined Porsches were rare. During the early Nineties Porsche built fewer cars in Stuttgart than Ferrari builds at Modena now. In 2023, however, there’s a McLaren Elva in every parking lot.

The timid and elderly people who tend to own $300k cars like everything just so but the young men who also attend the events see them as more of a chance to fuck around and show off. It has ever been thus. And now you have what Constitutional attorneys call a “bill of attainder” specifically banning certain cars.

Had I world enough and time, I’d drive my 300C down there, since they were stupid enough to leave it off their little bad-boy list, and sideshow their prissy asses until someone vomited on the seats of their F8 Tributo, just one of 3,054 made this year in Rosso Corsa with shields.

And speaking of the Chrysler 300C

The above image came from a Canadian autowriter; isn’t it lovely? But it also raises another question: why are there 300C Final Edition press cars?

Nominally speaking, all 2,200 of the cars were sold before arrival. In practice, there appear to be four of them left at dealerships. The press cars arrived after some customer deliveries. Furthermore, there will be no 2024 Chrysler 300C, so there’s no point in revving up demand for next year’s batch.

I’ve talked about this in the recent past, but it’s hard to make the argument for any auto media in 2023. Dealerships don’t need help to sell the cars they can get. Fewer and fewer new cars are being released. The only reason you need an auto media at all is to sell the EV trash that seems bolted to showroom floors even though it’s being sold at half what it costs to build. Think about that for a minute. How many F-150s could Ford sell if the price were set at half the cost of production? How many Mavericks could be sold at $12,500 each?

Spare a thought, if you will, for the poor autowriters out there, who have little purpose in life other than to sell electric vehicles. Well, I guess they can also shill for Polaris Slingshots and Honda Motocompactos. Hard to believe that these jobs once made you feel like the king of the world. Was it just six years ago that Lotus built an Evora 410 specifically for me, color-matched to my ZX-14R, then let me take it all around England before driving it for days at Spa and the Ring, where I ran a comfortable 7:50 while listening to Florence and The Machine? What’s the modern equivalent of that? Getting two free meals and mandatory sentencing in a Kia EV6? Review, friends — troops long past review.