2024 F1 Season.

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In 1984, a teenager named Zak Brown appeared on Wheel of Fortune and won $3,050. He spent all the money to buy a go-kart. He went on to become the CEO of McLaren F1 racing.

Anyone else know Zak's claim to fame to become McLaren CEO? I probably could Wikipedia him but seems like he has just been cherrypicked into a CEO position the envy of the motorsport world - and all credit to him as let's remember what those McLaren cars were when they were with Honda - not only uncompetitive (and let's not put that all on Honda) but they were largely sponsor less and getting money from the Arab states which you know still goes on I suppose (and they did well to bankroll it when they did) but are a lot more self-sufficient now.

I have no excuse for Checo. They should have picked up the Smooth Operator, instead of allowing him to waste at Williams.

Do you really think Max gives a **** about who his team mate is? He will beat everyone on the planet. Even if there was an equally talented driver, which I don't think there is, he will have a huge disadvantage in not knowing the RB

I want to know how important Carlos Slim is to Red bull and the Red bull business - that is the only logical reason Checo could still be there. Red bull if they ever re-gain their dominance need to seriously reflect this whole best driver and one driver that should be driving in Indycar strategy that this never happens again and us fans are not subject to this level of incompetence again

I think there is truth in Liberty asking RedBull to keep Checo around and RedBull themselves making a lot of money off Checo. Also it only matters who is in that car if it causes Max to lose the WDC title.The WCC has almost no relevance to RedBull and with the reduced windtunnel times it brings I am not sure they even want it.

You answered your own question. The fact that Checo is still there indicates that Slim is massively important to them.

I'm a Checo fan, but even I admitted long ago that it sucks that he's still there. It especially sucked when Red Bull was so dominant and no one could remotely compete with Max. At least with a Sainz or maybe Gasly in at RB, they could have challenged him a bit every 3rd or 4th race.

poor planning to have 4 weeks between races at this stage of the season

I thought we already had the European summer break

we did...

Millionaires need a vacation to.

Will be interesting to see how strong Red Bull really is. Having all this time off to solely work on the car should see some big improvements and satisfy max.

Unlike the midseason break where they are not allowed to touch the car, this break I am sure they are 100% focussed on saving the season.

Will take a punt and place some bets on Max and red Bull in the upcoming race since McLaren are now favourites.

If no improvements are displayed, can really see how big Newey was to the team.

So I think Lawson gets the seat at RB next year and maybe Checo back to Red bull visa

It is a result of trying to get less travelling from one continent and another and certain races having limited options because of weather or other events.

sure. But it’s ridiculous for a multi billion $$ global sport

Max Verstappen has secured pole position for tomorrow's Sprint race at COTA.

Lando can’t play high stakes.
Chokes under pressure way too many times.

serious question….does anyone in here like the Sprint races?

I watch them all because I feel I should do and because they have a bearing on the championships but I’ve never looked forward to one and I can’t remember ever really enjoying one. Like this was a very good version of a Sprint but I just still found it totally meh

The fact I watch them shows they’ve ‘won’ because certain it’s about $$ ultimately but they just leave me cold

Not really, no.

Na, a weekend with a sprint qualy, normale qualy, sprint race and normal race: nobody got time for that.

My sprint race format proposal, feel free to dunk on me as you see fit.
Double or triple the points given out for races (so 50 or 75 for the win, 36 or 54 for second, etc), and maybe score 2 more places. Sprint races keep the same 8-7-6-etc scoring. Have sprint races roughly every other race, race weekends with a sprint have FP1 and FP2 Friday, sprint then qualifying Saturday, race Sunday. Sprint grid gets set as reverse grid based on season long driver standings. Pros are that it adds to rooting interest for bottom teams, adds a bunch of interesting potential strategy decisions for teams in terms of how to approach it, and could have dramatic potential if a title contender needs to storm through the grid to sneak a point or two at a sprint. Cons are that it would feel gimmicky and it could be overly penalizing for middle of the grid teams.

I like the single lap qualifying format... one driver at a time for one lap.
maybe you can do three laps and average the time, but that is five laps overall... and that's 22 drivers for 5 laps each at say 1:30 lap so nearly 8 minutes a driver, even though one driver is on his inlap while the next driver is on his out lap. that is still nearly 2 hours running time... and I would do it in reverse order so that slower drivers (based on last race results) would get the opportunity to go last when the track is the fastest.

Yes just like I do for Motogp as it means more racing.

Sprint weekend are a lolobvious improvement over the old system. If you don't care about the sprint qualy and the sprint race, then don't watch. Nobody forces you to watch it. You're probably also not watching free practice ( now THOSE are boring)

I wasn't too sure about Max winning the WDC, but after this weekend, with Lando losing a handful of points and more importantly, a race less to make up the deficit, I don't see how Lando can win this, without some serious shenanigans

We need to talk about Colapinto and Lawson making Albon and Tsunoda look very mediocre indeed. If they continue driving this excellently, Lawson will have a seat next year and Colapinto probably the year after.

It is interesting to see how some F2 drivers come to F1 and fail (Mick Schumacher, Latifi, Sergeant) while others adapt really well.

I think Button is right here:

https://www.planetf1.com/news/jenson-button-calls-fia-rule-change-verstappen-v-norris-cota-controversy

PlanetF1

What frustrated Jenson Button told Christian Horner in F1 rule change demand