Be Excellent To Each Other

So F1 is moving to Channel 4. Only four live races though

On the up side - no Eddie Jordan!

Oh no wait, there will be ten live races. That's not too bad, I guess.

Sky haven't dropped it though, have they?

Not that I know of.

It's quite a lot of money, though.

Well, this was wrong.

Not a bad first race, though. Terrifying crash for Alonso, and the red flag did ruin things somewhat (but only because Ferrari went insane).

David Croft continues to have his tongue wedged firmly up Hamilton's arse. After the start he concluded that Vettel's launch system must be "more user-friendly" than the one in the Merc, hence his awesome start. Or, you know, the four-time world champion can actually fucking drive.

It's been a long time since driver skill had any real say into how well the starts went. How well they recover from bad starts, maybe.

That's what the single-clutch paddle starts are meant to bring back though, isn't it?

If there's one thing which has been obvious over the years, F1 rules that are "Supposed to" do something rarely do.

See: The exciting new qualifying system. Ahem.

Do you know, I didn't actually mind that - I think it has some potential. It'll be interesting to see once the teams get the hang of how it works, I think.

Mind you, I also think that qualifying is a stupid exercise.

Ooh, Verstappen! Fucking love Verstappen. "Get him out of my fucking way!"

Not that you'll find out, as they've reverted to 2015 process already.

It's just going to be two silver ones and a red one on the podium all year isn't it?

Way to overreact, everyone.

They should qualify for their team mate's grid position, but gain driver's points the better they do.

They should use the 90s racing system and reverse the finishing positions of the last race for the grid. You want overtaking? We got your overtaking.

I'll tell you what, the Channel 4 app on the PS4 is utter dogshit. It seems to load adverts 100% of the time and then it's about a fifty fifty as to whether or not the actual programme will ever appear.

They would have to award points down to last place,or drivers not in the top 10 could start to drive slower to get a better start in the next race.

Or just pull over and park up.

None classified drivers start behind the winners

They already pretty much had the hang of how it worked (How many times do you think they'd have run software simulations) - that was the result. That was always going to be the result if the tyre supply was limited.

Still, I'd have liked to see them actually give it a chance.

BTCC does a reverse grid of between 6 and 10 top cars, with the exact number drawn after the race to ensure people don't deliberately lose places. That only works well as they do three races per day though. First race is a traditional qualifying session, second based on race one positions and the third has the reverse grid.

That's a valid point. At the race before Monaco everyone less than fifth on the track would be driving backward to get a better qualifying place.

How about linking it to overall points total too?

Putting the fastest cars at the back would make for hilarious starts. Total carnage! I love it!

Random grids. The cars pulled out in random order everytime. Or a weighted one, where everybody gets one ball, then the top 8 from the last race get 0 bonus balls, the next eight get 1 bonus ball, anyone who finishes the race higher than 16 gets two bonus balls. DNF gets you 0 bonus balls. Draw 22 balls, discarding any that have been drawn previously.

Woo, a way to get a world champion by pure chance.

Yeah, fuck that shit. I'd rather watch a sport than some horribly mangled entertainment thing.

The thing is, what they have isn't entertaining at all. It hasn't been entertaining since forever. The problem is what F1 has become itself. The solution: making the cars slimmer, less dependent on downforce, and in the end, slower, is something that they'll never do. (You've already got F1 fans complaining that LM specials are faster than F1 cars).

OMG China was a fucking brilliant race.

Here is a (very) condensed version for folk that don't normally watch F1:

I don't recognise half of those cars

Aaaaand.... blocked.

Maaaaan.

It's OK. I watched it already

Goodness me, Spain was some good watching.

Yeah it was alright that. My first thought watching the Hamilton/Rosberg crash was that it was all Hamilton's fault but now I think they were a pair of dickheads.

Yeah, I agree with most of that. When Hamilton arrived behind Rosberg he was already on the grass, so I'm not sure what he thought was going to happen.

I think the races are more interesting without the Mercedes!

I can see why it happened, though. The old adage that you can't win the race on the first lap didn't apply so much in their situation at that track as it was fairly likely that the outcome could have been decided in those first few corners. Has Rosberg said anything about it yet? Hamilton seemed quite reasonable about the whole thing, perhaps realising that Rosberg just did what he would have done.

It's been the same for decades. Remove the two leading cars, whether that's Merc, Red Bull or Ferrari, and it's much better

Technically he had the right of a cars width due to having millimetres of wing behind the back wheel, and Rosberg should have been able to determine that given the pace differential.

However, technically too, Hamilton also had a brake pedal.

Rosberg was moving right well before Hamilton got alongside him, though. He'd have had to react like a motherfucker and perhaps bend physics a little to leave enough room, but he could have backed out earlier and then it would have been okay (assuming Hamilton could slow down fast enough to get around the corner). But as you said, both of them could have backed out - hence racing incident.

Here's a gif to show how far behind Hamilton was when Rosberg started covering his line:
https://gfycat.com/LinedHeartfeltCrab#?speed=0.25

Here's the FIA statement:
https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=57E06BA3

Both of them get driver of the day, in my opinion

These are great: https://www.instagram.com/formulawkward/

Williams broke the record for the fastest pit stop - 1.92 seconds.

https://streamable.com/u7pl

I think it was their own record that they broke, no?

No, DHL sponsor the pit times competition.

https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-we ... -2016.html

Unless you mean "they were fastest before this, and just got better" in which case yes.

This is the first official sub-2 second time, though (I think).

Button is in P3 for tomorrow's race!

If the Hulk gets a penalty for not slowing under a yellow then he's on the front row!

Did everyone else get massive penalties or something?

Two people got penalties that bumped him up, but he qualified a pure fifth.

It was a drying track, though.

YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

That's looking promising.

Fuck me, Jenson can drive.

http://www.formula1.com/en/latest/featu ... ustin.html

It'll be a shame to see him go at the end of this year