It is absolutely wild how many different sources are buzzing tonight about Fernando Alonso signing his deal with McLaren—and apparently, Honda has already cut Ferrari a €30 million check to settle things. We should be getting the official word during the Japanese Grand Prix. On top of that, it looks like Ferrari is gearing up to go on a massive shopping spree, using those deep pockets of theirs to hunt down both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
stormybadger8 said:I watched the replay and actually drifted off three times during those 25 laps... on a Sunday afternoon 🤣 It broke the NASCAR record, and I honestly thought something like that was physically impossible 😳
Maybe the rain played a part since it was pouring all day... The race was a race, and it wasn't exactly mind-numbing, just incredibly slow. The engine noise isn't even that loud or intense; they might as well just mute it.
While I was watching, this was pretty much what was going through my head:
I just can't bring myself to watch. I really did try—I truly did—but that slight, high-pitched squealing sound is driving me absolutely crazy, and honestly, everything just feels so sluggish and slow.
If you take a look at the GIF, it looks like Rosberg initially veered left to try and dodge the contact—which was smart enough—but then he likely thought he could slide back into the slipstream. He just seems to have misjudged the gap and ended up clipping the tire. Honestly, it just looks like your run-of-the-mill racing incident.
stormybadger8 said:Yep Ted said that... Well, you don't exactly need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out—it's pretty obvious. 😁
I mean, good God, Vettel didn't even run in Free Practice 2, which is usually the golden opportunity to fine-tune the race setup... plus, his workload in Free Practice 1 was minimal—just 11 laps—and then he only squeezed in 10 laps during Free Practice 3... compared to Ricciardo, who clocked in a total of 44 laps across the practice sessions.
And since these are entirely new, unfamiliar cars, there really wasn't much choice but to basically just copy Ricciardo's setup... Last year's data probably wasn't worth much at all when you consider things like the brake-by-wire configuration, GDI settings, or how to manage the battery deployment and so on.
Yeah, I suppose that's probably why Vettel loses entire seasons.😂
stormybadger8 said:So, we finally get the news—turns out taking pole isn't even all that great, and starting from P2 might actually be the smarter move here. 🙏🤣
graniteharbor502 said:Look, you can complain and throw insults all you want—it won't change the fact that Vettel achieved things your favorite driver will simply never touch. 😍
neonfox65 said:Honestly, you packed so much nonsense into a single post that I don't even feel like arguing with you—but fine, let me give it a shot.
So, you’re claiming you’ve never seen anything truly legendary from Alonso? Well, if that's the case, you clearly missed out on some pretty incredible racing. To start things off, I'd suggest you go back and watch Hungaroring 2006. Once you've seen that, come find me and we can talk more. 😉
Sure, he barely scraped the championship back in 2006, but honestly, if it had been Schumacher, he would have "barely" won too. I don't see what's wrong with that—it just goes to show how high the level of competition was. Winning a title against Schumacher is no small feat. Kimi fought him hard in 2003 and couldn't quite pull it off. Alonso did, and that's exactly what makes him a Maestro. 🙂
You're out here suggesting Schumacher dominated him in 2006 with a much slower car, which is just total nonsense—it sounds like you weren't even watching that season. Someone already pointed out that Renault actually had the edge during the first half of the year, but then they were hit with those Mass-damper bans just to bring Schumacher back into the title fight. That's why Ferrari looked faster than Renault in the second half. When you look at the big picture, Schumacher simply made more mistakes than Alonso, and that's why the title slipped away.
And regarding that race in the United Kingdom—what does it matter if Alonso was faster on the straights? Vettel was quicker through the corners and had a better exit out of that final turn, which allowed him to dive down the inside and overtake him. The fact that he managed to close the gap so quickly afterward really proves just how much faster his car actually was compared to Vettel's; it would have been an embarrassment if he hadn't managed to get past.
Roger Wright94 said:Kimi is already heading toward a situation where people are going to start comparing him to Massa. To be fair, there’s been a lot of bad luck lately—maybe just a bit too much.
He really needs (and so does Ferrari) one standout, rock-solid result to get this momentum shifting in the right direction. I’m honestly a little worried he might spiral into that 2008 headspace.
Even as a huge fan of his, Kimi 2014 has been such a massive letdown—but that’s just who he is as a guy and a driver; when he’s not feeling it, he's really not feeling it.
stormybadger8 said:Aside from the minor detail that the Ferrari is actually a better car than the Red Bull... You’re overlooking the fact that Kimi is in a complete mess and that Ferrari is realistically the second strongest team on the grid 😁
🤣🤣 Run away, honestly—go plant some petunias somewhere else😁
