Posts by Sam Clark75

stormybadger8 said:One. 😳
Bottas thinks Mercedes is in deep trouble—honestly, he’s out here claiming his Alfa Romeo is actually faster than the Mercedes. 😁

It’s all useless when his Alfa Romeo isn't moving an inch like it was yesterday. 😁

Thomas Sanchez2 said:My bad if this is the wrong sub—couldn't find an existing thread when searching, so here we go. Any solid office chair recs?

Is it even possible to just buy one online, or should I actually go sit in some and test them out first? That's what I'm thinking—gotta make sure it actually fits.

I'm about 6'1", spend way too much time sitting, you know how it is...
Where can I test and buy? Looking for good suggestions 🙂

Don't do it online—you gotta try it physically. A chair might be great for one person and total garbage for another, so you really need to hit up some stores and actually sit in them.

I can vouch for mine—been using it for a few months and I'm finally happy (after struggling through cheap office junk and those IKEA chairs). I'm 5'6" and sit all day at work, so if that helps as a baseline, here's my pick:

Personally, this year's AM is my favorite—but I'm a total sucker for anything green, so there's that.

Looks like there's a serious issue with the McLaren brakes—I'm smelling something's definitely off. 😢

Nothing beats working at 40% capacity when you can just sit there and watch pre-season testing instead. 🤣

It's working now, thanks! 👍

Kenneth Jackson6 said:Hey everyone, we're hosting a Formula 1 pub trivia night! If you want to test your knowledge and just have a good time, come hang out on March 13th at Cherry Tree (Chicago) starting at 7:00 PM. 👍

You can find all the details in our official post about the event.

The link is broken—classic. Still, love the idea... I'd totally show up if I could round up enough people for a team!

stormybadger8 said:How the hell is it possible that Alfa isn't just way too heavy? 🤔

But man, it would be wild—like, legendary levels of crazy—if some miracle happened and it turns out Alfa actually has a winning car that dominates everything. 🙏 🤣
I mean, jebati, imagine how insane it would be if old man Bottas somehow snags a title—or even crazier, if he’s fighting for wins against Williams. 😂

Those idiots over at Sky would probably have a total meltdown on live TV, crying their eyes out over poor Russell's "tragic fate." 🤣

Even then, Bottas would somehow find a way to screw it up, poor guy. 🤣

graniteharbor502 said:Live testing updates:
motorsport
official site

We won't see any TV coverage for the tests until we hit Bahrain.

If you were wondering how aggressive the design approach is going to be at Red Bull Racing—spoiler alert: it's a lot:

Super interesting stuff, honestly. This season might actually be more chaotic than the last one. 🍿

If a Ferrari car is actually in the championship hunt, it probably won't be driven by Charles Leclerc—mostly because he'll be too busy trying to scrape himself off the first wall he slams into.

Gregory Brown94 said:Leaked shots of Alfie Rome in camo livery over at Fiorano!

After being basically invisible on track last year, now they’ve decided to be literally invisible. 🤣

ruggedhawk20 said:1) We aren't talking about aesthetics. Period.

The real issue here is you’re too embarrassed to admit you didn't realize the blue was there because of a sponsorship deal. Now you're pushing this whole "aesthetic" angle just to sweep it under the rug—basically hiding the fact that it never even crossed your mind that these were sponsor colors. You're clearly mortified by that little slip-up and want to bury it.

Well, it's not working. The President has seen through way bigger scammers than you in his entire life, so you really think he won't see through you?

You don't know what you're talking about and you aren't actually having a conversation with anyone. 😁 Honestly, I'm dying of secondhand embarrassment right now. 😂

ruggedhawk20 said:You’re an incredibly stubborn woman

1) This isn't even about whether it looks good or not—leave that to the art critics. I'm no critic myself, and clearly you aren't either.

2) The actual argument here is whether there's any connection between those two colors or if they just don't go together.

3) I already laid out the proof showing there is a link. The link is the Gulf sponsor, who's been using those two colors for decades.

4) The way you phrased your post that started this whole mess makes it seem like someone just picked a random shade of light blue and slapped it on the car.

5) To make things even more tragic, because you're so headstrong and refuse to back down from anything you post, you're just doubling down on this idea that the color was random and looks terrible.

6) The President doesn't like stubborn women, he doesn't like forum fights, and he doesn't like conflict in general. So maybe think about whether you want to keep this going, or if you'll just be nice—like a proper forum member the President actually likes—and admit he's right and you were wrong to say "they don't match."

😂

Yeah, I'm stubborn—pretty much just as much as you are, Mr. President.

1) My comment was purely about aesthetics. How do you know I'm not an art critic if you're admitting you aren't one?

2) You say there's a connection because of the sponsor, and fine, sure, there is. But that's not a counter-argument to the fact that the combo looks ugly. In this free country, I'm gonna say it looks ugly, and I'll also say there's no connection between the colors simply because I feel like saying so. That's my plan for the future, too. Sorry not sorry.

3) Okay. Whatever.

4) Someone definitely just picked that blue at random and stuck it next to the orange without any logic, and then these guys just copied those colors onto the car. You happy now? Is that better? What's the point?

5) It's honestly pathetic what people—let's call them women—allow themselves to be these days! 🙂

6) If the President doesn't like forum fights, then the President shouldn't start them, and then we wouldn't have any fights to begin with. 🙂
Don't push it by forcing me to admit I'm wrong; you're really overstepping there. 😁

ruggedscout76 said:Blue and orange are actually complementary colors, which are often used to make something pop.

You just have to pair the right shades. Personally, what bothers me is that the blue is cold (sort of grayish), while the orange is warm. They had much better combinations in the past.

Exactly, the issue is how bright one color is compared to how washed out the other is. For example, last year when they used dark blue with a bright orange, it didn't look totally disastrous. I didn't love it, but it wasn't as bad as this.

ruggedscout76 said:All in all, it’s not even that bad—it's still McLaren, after all.🙂

Even if things go totally south, it’s still McLaren. Once they actually start performing like we expect them to—then and only then will we forgive them.

ruggedhawk20 said:What do you mean "it doesn't work"?

Even that blue. Both the blue and the orange are their sponsor's colors!

You wrote that "this light blue doesn't go with anything, it makes no sense"

That sentence actually hurt my eyes—the connection is more than obvious.

Those are standard Gulf colors, and Gulf is McLaren's main sponsor



I mean, how can anyone claim those two colors have "nothing to do with each other"—that's just completely beyond me.

Again... so what? Just because they're sponsor colors, does that automatically mean they look good together? They don't look right on the original product, and they don't look right on the car now either. ☕

graniteharbor502 said:The last time McLaren actually had a decent car there was way back in 2005.

Facts.

ruggedhawk20 said:Good grief, man—that blue has been tied to Gulf since forever.

Right? It’s ugly—and paired with that orange they love so much, it’s just hideous. The car looks like a damn lollipop or some cheap toy. They haven't been able to nail a decent livery for years, not since they went almost entirely black back in 2015/2016. Honestly, though, they were so pathetic back then that I'll happily take a fast car even if it looks like trash.

Purely from an aesthetic standpoint—AM and AT look way better than they did last season. I’m really not feeling the McLaren vibe, though; that light blue just clashes with everything, it looks off. But hey, if it ends up being fast, I guess I can live with it. 🤣

I'm guessing most people here absolutely loathe the sprint, but man, these numbers caught me off guard—apparently 70% of you are straight-up allergic to the sprint race. Makes me wonder how much this hardcore Formula 1 crowd differs from the average US viewer, and if our poll actually means anything. 😁

Btw, Alonso says the fans should be the ones deciding: https://www.planetf1.com/news/fernan...-sprint-races/

Not really a fan of letting viewers call the shots, though. Most people don't have any taste—honestly, what would we even complain about if they just gave us everything we wanted? 🤣

From a viewer's perspective—not that it matters—I’m really not feeling this sprint format thing. It just drags out my weekend way more than I actually want. I read somewhere that they pushed the qualifying and sprint times later just to cater to working fans who need to catch the action late at night. Honestly, it would be cool to see some actual stats to prove if that move even worked. Personally, I don't just watch the race; I tune into qualifying and all the practice sessions too. I actually enjoy watching how the teams prep for the main event. But for me, having qualifying and the sprint so late in the day right after practice feels off—maybe that's just me being a creature of habit, but it doesn't sit right. In Monza, qualifying wrapped up around 7 PM, and for a daytime race here in the States, that timing just feels unnatural.

From the teams' side of things, the sprint seems like a total headache. They barely have enough time to get through the practice sessions to gather meaningful data on car behavior, tire wear, or long stints compared to a standard race weekend. So they head into the race with a massive element of uncertainty—which isn't exactly a huge advantage for anyone.

If they don't scrap this format later this season (which, let's be real, would be great), they should at least switch up the tracks. These last three sprint races were brutally boring. And please, don't jump to more than three different tracks—they were already talking about six, which sounds exhausting. 🤦

Gregory Brown94 said:The whole concept of the sprint races in this current setup just isn't what they should be. We don't really have a standard Grand Prix weekend, and we certainly don't have a real Sprint. We need to draw a line somewhere and figure out how to actually do this better.

That points system—giving 3 for P1, 2 for P2, and 1 for P3—is honestly a joke. Why wouldn't we have a Sprint where more points are actually on the table? They could extend the scoring to more positions while still ensuring the top three get a bigger chunk than P4 and below. That would actually create some real stakes. Right now, the Sprint format feels like a procession where drivers are too scared to take risks because there are SO many more points up for grabs on Sunday. Why settle for soup when you could have a steak?

I have another idea too, something that’s kind of a mix between Formula E and NASCAR. It's a Crazy sprint that would award a total number of points equal to a standard Grand Prix weekend. This style would work great for tracks that aren't generally that exciting. The format would look like this:

Friday / 60 minutes of practice + 60 minutes of practice
Saturday / 60 minutes of qualifying to set the grid for the first Crazy sprint (93 miles race)
Sunday / 60 minutes of qualifying to set the grid for the second Crazy sprint (93 miles race)

Crazy sprint scoring: p1/16, p2/12, p3/10, p4/8, p5/6, p6/5, p7/4, p8/3, p9/2 and p10/1

I’d probably go even further. Maybe one or both of those Crazy sprint races could be part of a separate competition that counts toward the regular Formula 1 championship. Formula E used to have the Voestalpine European Cup, which covered all the races in Europe. At the end of it, whoever earns the most points in the Sprint series could get a nice trophy at the FIA Gala.

A Crazy sprint would be perfect for the less interesting tracks, and we could increase the DRS detection to 2 seconds. And obviously, if a track offers multiple configurations, it would be a blast. On a standard track, we’d have the normal race, and then for somewhere like Bahrain, you could have two Crazy sprint weekends using the outer ring and Endurance setups. One location, five races! Just imagine a Crazy sprint at Paul Ricard with the 1.2 miles Mistral, or even Jerez.

With Crazy sprints added, the Formula 1 calendar would easily hit 30+ races per season.

Man, you've always got plenty of opinions, don't you? 🙏

Since we've been seeing all kinds of conflicting takes in the "Rumors and News" section regarding this season's new sprint race format—and we’ve definitely spent plenty of time ranting about it—it'd be cool to see what everyone actually thinks now that there's a bit of breathing room after the season ends. Should they keep it or scrap it? 🤔

Just a quick refresher on how the sprint rules work and what the weekend schedule looks like:

FRIDAY: Practice 1, 60 minutes.

FRIDAY: Qualifying, 60 minutes (regular qualifying setup, but the results set the grid for the sprint, and you're locked into soft tires only).

SATURDAY: Practice 2, 60 minutes.

SATURDAY: The sprint race at 62 miles, where the finish sets the grid for Sunday's main event. Winner gets 3 points, second gets 2, third gets 1.

SUNDAY: The main race, free tire choice.

The whole point of this was to boost viewership on Saturdays. Formula 1 will probably run some polls through their F1TV subscriber data to check if numbers actually went up, but what's your take—did it actually work?

Compared to a normal race weekend, teams get way less prep time with this setup. Does that make the racing better or just mess things up?

One last thing: Were Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Monza, and São Paulo the right spots to test this out? Which tracks would you want to see a sprint at, or is this whole thing just one big failed experiment?

(Lots of questions, not enough answers. And honestly, I could go on forever. 😁 )