formula one is formula fun

yep, we have a crazy and topsy turvey race and the championship doesn't change. in fact, verstappen not scoring is probably a net benefit to hamilton. bleak.

the race itself was great. almost like how motogp has been all year without marquez and the honda factory team struggling and yamaha's race pace being very patchy, it's wide open and exciting and almost anyone can win a race - there's been 3 first time winners from 5 races so far! including tech3 getting their first win, essentially the toro rosso of motogp - and so the championship is appropriately close.

today felt almost like they gave us a treat, a fun race without any real consequence to the championship. i definitely won't complain of course but knowing that it hasn't really changed the championship picture is a bit disappointing.

i wouldn't rule out that he left voluntarily, either to give them a fresh start of with his age not being bothered anymore...

...or maybe doritos decided the organisation needed a fresh start given how it's been over the past decade :p

obviously property is theft yaddy yadda but we should ban property development imo:

nascar is framing it as them being gracious and listening to the fans by giving them a 0.5 mile short track when in reality nascar has been wanting to build on or even sell off some of the land for years now - obviously a 0.5 mile oval takes up less space than a 2 mile oval. the track used to be a haven for indycar and had the reputation for being the fastest track in CART - faster even than indianapolis in quali trim. it holds the record for the fastest closed circuit lap time (as avg speed) ever recorded, gil de ferran recording an average speed of 241.428 mph/388.541 km/h during qualifying for the 2000 CART race and the track held until 2014 the record for fastest ever 500 mile race at 2:33:42 (the 2014 race at pocono smashed that by over four minutes though).

when penske left CART in 2002, the track moved to the IRL and then eventually open wheeled cars stopped going there. penske also built the track before merging their track management division with nascar's. for years only nascar raced there and in that time penske's influence had dwindled to non-existence. indycar returned for a few years from 2012 on and insisted on racing into the night on a saturday and being the season finale - giving the series even worse ratings and in their second most important race (i think one year the race finished at 22:30 local time and thus 01:30am on the east coast (and 06:30am here )). in 2015, indycar insisted on another date and the only date nascar would give them was a saturday afternoon at the end of june. being california, it was some 40c and the race day attendance was only around 3000 (1/40th full). it was also one of the most exciting races of all time* - there were officially 80 lead changes over 250 laps however the lead often changed 4-5 times a lap. just with the same car leading at the start and end of the lap - and of course, in true indycar fashion, it ended in a terrifying accident. also in true indycar fashion, airing at midday on a saturday, television viewers were low (though it did do spectacular numbers in bars with casuals!). also in true indycar fashion, they never went back.

with indycar and penske out the way, nascar were basically free to do whatever they wanted and taking note of the california land prices (especially in the los angeles area) nascar decided that it wanted to BUILD condos or sell expensive land in order to BUILD condos. attendance has been falling for years now but nascar but zero effort into advertising any of its events - NBC sports and MAVTV, who aired and sponsored indycar events there did more work - and the racing has been unspectacular - due to the aero package that nascar mandates for it. i am sure that the new half mile track will be great and nice for the fans, i'm sure also that the cool buck nascar will make from development will also be great for them.

maybe brewdog can put one of their bars there. keep the new folk hydrated.

*you know that italian grand prix when like 6 cars crossed the line within 1.5s of each other? it was like that but for 3 hours. when you have mad lads like jp montoya, tony kanaan, will power, helio castroneves, takuma sato, graham rahal, ryan briscoe etc up front all day too you know that it was crazy shit they were pulling.

(lap 1 or lap 200 i honestly don't know)

i remember during the 2016 GP2 season when we had all of those great gasly vs giovinazzi races, satuday was appointment viewing for me. it was class. the 2016 feature race at sepang was one of my favourite races that year, so good. but the sprint race was usually skipped. even though it meant something, it felt like it meant nothing.

i don't mind the partially reversed grid in BTCC because it's only one out of three races in a meeting and i can accept a little more gimmicks in touring car racing. in formula racing - per the FIA, the second most important open wheel series in the world! - there's no place for it.

the only f1 support race for me is the porsche supercup :p

as an aside, i don't mind actual format of the BTCC: the race one grid is decided based on a 25 minute qualifying session, race two is decided by race one finishing positions and race three is the reverse grid. what is good with the BTCC format though is that it is partially random the point at which they reverse the grid. the grid can only be reversed as far back as 12th position and what they do is, between race two and three each meeting, pull a number out at random and the grid is reversed from that number down i.e. number 8 is picked and so on pole would be 8th place from the last race, 7th starts 2nd, 6th starts 3rd etc all the way back to the race two winner starting 8th and then the grid carries as normal.

it's good because it discourages drivers from just settling for a 11th/12th place finish or from drivers taking excessive risks and causing carnage (ironic for BTCC :p) over the lower points positions. also, because there is a success ballast system in the BTCC that is dependent on your previous race results it means that a driver can't win race one, have the 60kg added and let themselves slide down to 12th, and start race three on pole with no ballast again. the race is still full points but as far as reverse grids go, it is probably the fairest and most sporting form of it.

i think the thing is, with nascar in particular, they are desperate to reach a moneyed, middle class and, dare i say, yuppie type audience. nascar and indycar both have been looking at returning to nashville for a few years now, being one of the booming cities in the south/adjacent to the midwest, and the cup series is going there in next year and indycar is looking set to have a street circuit* there for 2022.

i get that motorsports need money and need an audience. i also get that motorsports has always needed lots of money and sponsors in order to, like, exist. but i am still of the mind that motorsport, as a spectator, is one of the great egalitarian sports - rich or poor, watching a superbike or touring car fly through the at knockhill, or fly through pouhon, or down the dipper at mount panorama, is an enthralling sight to see! the reason it appealed to me as a three year old was seeing these multi-coloured missile things dive around at 200mph; as nice and profitable as it'll be to have a short track next to LA, surrounded by expensive condos and serving the nicest craft ales, and it'll be a nice night out for those that can afford to be let in to watch, i amn't sure what it'll do to appeal to the ordinary person. idk.

busy afternoon, right?

checo out at jordan shocked me - it was him and his management team that allowed stroll to buy the team in the first place! i hope that the stroll family have sorted them out financially and, perhaps, with a job for next year. i'd be worried if i were driving a haas or alfa with this news though! (i'm assuming that renault alpine won't drop ocon so soon...)

johnson hooking up with ganassi is very interesting though! he certainly impressed the team with his approach in his tests but his timing, though unofficial, was not said to be great (though we don't know what his fuel load was, what tyres firestone provided or what kind of downforce they gave him give his stock car experience). fordy and i have been speculating about scott mclaughlin joining penske and them expanding to four cars (despite their team principle's aversion to it). with andretti running 3 or 6 cars, depending on how you count it, and penske running a minimum of 3, ganassi fielding 4 on the road courses next year certainly sets up an interesting dynamic! mclaren are also looking to expand and rahal-letterman-lannigan-sato-honda-rahal-etc racing want to add pigot on full time...it's a boom time for indycar!

if you'd told me three years ago that scott dixon, felix rosenqvist, marcus ericsson and jimmie johnson would all be racing in the same series, let alone as teammates, i'd probably pass out but it seems like that's what we're going to see next season. sweet.

(i so hope checo lands somewhere in f1, he's such a good driver)