I wouldāve voted for Kimi. Maybe I should start voting. Meanwhile my Superbru probably took a knock.
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What the actual fā¦!! I wont put that in a trophy cupboard
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What are the options for watching the races? Is it still just DSTV?
SKYā¦oh wait, jou mean SA
DSTV yep
And soon the failed F1 app will offer live streaming as well
Was honestly expecting it to be a lot more processional than it turned out. Was a lot more entertaining than Canada, and a probable 6.5/10 on the Reddometer.
Agree with others that Seb probably didnāt deserve the DotD award, but donāt think all the faux outrage is entirely justified. A couple of racing incidents, more than poor driving or decision making, imo.
Leclerc continues to impress. The Sauber/Alfa - Ferrari relationship is clearly starting to deliver results, and if Kimi does call it quits, Ferrari would be foolish not to put Leclerc into the seat. I think heād provide fantastic support to Seb, and at the same time would learn a ton of stuff from him in return.
The āWhere will Danny go?ā question is still a little up in the air, but the more I think about it, and from listening to things over the weekend, Iām starting to think that he may just decide to stay with Red Bull. Maybe a 1 year extension on the contract, with a bit of a pay bump, to see how the new Honda engine partnership goes. Iām still convinced that his target is a WDC crown, and with the ongoing concerns at McLaren I still think heād be daft to go there, even if they do dump a fat load of cash in front of him.
The trophies are a bit of odd one. I wonder if theyāre just a once off to celebrate the F1 return to France? They were custom-made by a French artist named Richard Orlinski. Iām pretty sure they were commission by Paul Ricard and Pirelli as promotional/sponsor trophies more than anything else. Probably consider them works of art - one of his 1m high DK-style gorilla with an oil barrel sells for $24,000 and the highest price paid for one of his sculptures is ā¬680,000. Iād be amazed to see them repeated next year.
Besides, itās not like it hasnāt been done beforeā¦ remember those hideous red plastic Santander trophies from the not too distant past? And the weird wooden circuit map from Austria a couple of years ago. Also, this one from the European GP at Donnington in '93:
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It would make sense for Dani to stay with Red Bull, but in all likelyhood heāll move to McLaren to fill Alonsoās seat. He does have the skill to take the crown, but I honestly donāt think he ever will. I do however think that Max might take a drivers championship between now and end of 2021.
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I hope Dani stays with Redbull, he will hopefully win the Championship one day but not now. To many others there that takes that spot. I really hope he wont go to Mclaren, it will break his spirit. Itās bad enough to see how Alonsoās spirit has been broken. You can also see the team is fractured - especially with all the āleaksā coming out of the factory in the past week.
https://www.pitpass.com/62153/Alonso-explains-radio-apathy
https://www.pitpass.com/62130/Brown-Eric-is-a-valued-member-of-the-team
https://www.pitpass.com/62091/Boullier-in-angry-exchange-with-Freddo-journo
All is not well in that place and once those toxic levels has been reached I am worried, I dont know if they can rescue the company
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That would be career suicide for DRic. I really hope thatās nothing but pure speculation and nothing comes from it.
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āā¦Daniel Ricciardo has not denied that McLaren has offered a whopping $20 million a year ā¦ā
Take the money, suffer out the contract and retire. Itās what I would do
Well yes the money is great. It will just be sad to see a guy with such talent waste his time at McLaren. I donāt think I wouldāve done it differently either, itās just sad though.
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It is sad, but his career is eerily similar to Rubens āThe Bridesmaidā Barrichello in that heās there, but not quite and it has nothing to do with his skills or even the team. He (Dani) is in a team with a car that is capable of winning races, but heās paired with Max. No matter which way you cut it Dani will have a rough time.
If he gets an (unlikely) ride at Mercedes heās stuck with Lewis. If he ends up with Ferrari he has Vettel to contend with. At McLaren heāll get a fat paycheck, but will likely have to kiss his chances of winning a drivers title goodbye. His next best bet is Renault, but I donāt quite think Nico HĆ¼lkenberg or Carlos Sainz will give way anytime soon.
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It depends on what he wants, if the money is important he can take the contract. Otherwise I wouldnt touch the Mclaren team with a 10ft barge pole, and this is coming from a long time Mclaren supporter. They have gone backwards so fast its scary.
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I actually feel sorry for McLaren, after they dropped Mercedes and joined up with Honda they had a horrible time. I was happy to see McLaren-Honda again, but the results were a little underwhelming.
Itās the first season for them with Renault, so Iāll give them a pass, but they better start producing podiums from next year. The Mercedes dominance will likely end with the 2021 rule changes.
They lost the plot and cannot keep the staff happy, its not just the car that is an issue - its a mismanagement of the whole company
I said it yesterday - DRic needs to extend his contract at Red Bull. Push for some extra pay sure, and drive the heck out of the car to the point that the Max factor becomes a non-issue. Anything else would be a huge detriment to his WDC aspirations.
McLaren need to seriously sort their shit out. The car is a dog. Their wind tunnel testing data doesnāt match their on-track performance data, their aero package - even after the Spain upgrades - is woeful. They have internal politics raging, and some seriously unhappy staff. The last thing they should be considering doing now is spending $20-million on a driver. That money should be going into development and into human resources. If this deal actually does happen, Danny will go into a team with some seriously pissed off crew, if any of them are even still there.
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Maybe thatās why, when Rosberg got the Championship, he took it and ran. Never to return again.
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Rosberg achieved what he wanted and he wanted to spend time with his family while the kids are young. I have so much respect for him that he could leave the way he did
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Hallo Ćsterreich! 
Weāre barely over the French gorilla trophies, and Round #9 of the 2018 F1 season is upon us already!
Schedule for the weekend:
And the circuit map, now with a 3rd DRS zone:
The Pirelli Infographic for Spielberg:
And some random stats and info leading into the weekend:
- Sebastian Vettel is 14 points behind Lewis Hamilton heading into round nine of the championship in Austria. That is a mirror image of the situation in 2017, when Hamilton trailed Vettel by the same total prior to the Austrian GP (also round nine last year).
- Vettel and Hamilton will have to overturn recent Red Bull Ring form this weekend, as they have only led 30 laps between them at this circuit in their careers (Vettel five laps, Hamilton 25 laps). Red Bull as a constructor have only led five laps at this venue, fewer than Sergio Perez and Force India (11).
- Hamilton is seeking his 50th pole position in a Mercedes this weekend, which would put him eight short of Michael Schumacherās total with Ferrari (a record with one team), and he can score his 44th career victory with car #44.
- Vettel has never won at the Red Bull Ring ā one of a surprisingly-high six circuits on the 2018 calendar at which heās never taken victory.
- Ricciardo is aiming to be the third man to win a Grand Prix on his birthday, after James Hunt (Holland 1976) and Jean Alesi (Canada 1995).
- Bottas has led more laps at the Red Bull Ring than any active driver (72 laps), and is seeking a third consecutive front-row start for the first time in his F1 career, having also been there in Canada and France.).
- Raikkonen will make his 139th career start with Ferrari, tying Felipe Massa for the second-most in the teamās history (behind Schumacherās 179) and third most by any driver/team combo in F1 history (second-placed David Coulthard started 150 races for McLaren).
- Magnussen has finished in the top six more times this season (3) than in the rest of his F1 career combined (2), and even with 13 races remaining Magnussen heās only two points short of the best-ever season by a Haas driver in the teamās short history (Romain Grosjeanās 29 points in 2016).
- Alonso has failed to finish four of his six previous starts on this track and only has one points finish and one top-10 start on this track (when he qualified fourth and finished fifth for Ferrari in 2014).
- This track layout has only seen one winner from outside the top three on the grid, when David Coulthard triumphed from seventh for McLaren-Mercedes in 2001. Conversely, the driver finishing second on this track has come from lower than seventh on four occasions, most recently when Max Verstappen was second from eighth on the grid in 2016.
A finally, Max Verstappensā virtual lap of the Spielberg circuit:
Race on F1 fans!!
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