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2026 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix Heroes and Zeroes

October 11, 2026, 06:04:20 PM by Jericoke
Views: 166 | Comments: 4

A sprint weekend, on the tail end of a triple header of three race weekends, after an impromptu race in Malaysia with some rough conditions. There was room for a lot to go wrong this weekend, and while it was far from flawless, I think things went generally well.

Heroes
Max Verstappen. The Marina Bay race win had eluded him his entire career, to finally get both the sprint win and race win must feel like getting one of the last monkeys off his back. Red Bull the Team, Red Bull the Engine Supplier have both gotten their best work to provide a solid race car, and Verstappen is easily up to the task of making the whole outfit look perfect, even if they can't hear him over the radio.

Charles LeClerc. Second place, how else can he be anything but a hero? The Ferrari programme seems to struggle in multiple ways, and putting a red car on the podium is worthy of praise. Should he be doing better? Yes. Does he have the team to do better? Not even close.

Kimi Antonelli. A rough weekend leads to third place? If there are racing gods, surely they're smiling on Kimi. We expect 'kids' like 20 year old Kimi to race recklessly, to put everything on the line every second of the race to prove how amazing they are. Sure, he still struggles with track limits, meaning he is keeping close to the edge, but he also drove like someone who understand that finishing the race is the goal. Driving smart, driving patient, the race came to him. You've got to be lucky to be good, and Kimi is both. He's very much a deserving champion-in-waiting.

Liam Lawson. Racing Bulls as a B team aren't as strong as Red Bull, but Liam has proved he still belongs at the sharp end of the sport with a solid race

George Russell. Starting near the end and earning points on a one stop difficult to pass street track, even with the 'best' car is pretty good.

Isack Hadjar. Ditto what I said for Russell. I'm really enjoying Hadjar as a racer. He's got the passion that some of the other young drivers seem to have suppressed. He's media trained, like all of them, but still we get to see the 'real' Hadjar from time to time, and I hope we never lose that.

Zeros
Lewis Hamilton. Hard to say if we're blaming the driver or the team, but clearly whatever luck they had at Bahrain in Malaysia was used up. They took a chance, but I don't think everyone understood the chance they took, or agreed, or something. Hamilton is better than what we saw today.

Alex Albon. He's been my favourite 'non Hamilton' driver since he joined the sport. He showed promise, he brought joy and knowledge along with his skill, but I think he's lost whatever made him an F1 driver. I hope I'm wrong, and just the Williams team is letting him down, and there's still a corner to be turned, but he just isn't bringing anything to a team that NEEDS something brought.

McLaren. Fourth and Fifth for the defending champs doesn't feel like enough when their competitors were giving them opportunities all weekend. I don't know if it's driver management, strategy, lack of focus over all. They were lucky.

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Was the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia an Embarassment to the Sport?

October 07, 2026, 11:05:09 PM by Jericoke
Views: 401 | Comments: 9

I say no, and I'm tired of watching internet think pieces claiming this is further proof the hybrid systems need to go.

The 2026 power unit regs were ambitious, and like any F1 rule set, there's going to need some ironing out as teams exploit various loopholes, and reality doesn't match the plan.

Right away, the formula was fiddled with. How much power the cars could collect, how much they could deploy, far after the development freeze was in place, changes were being made.

Now, we can agree that meddling with the formula mid season is a bad look for the sport, BUT, I think we're overlooking that the current technology has the advantage that the teams (and officials) can make adjustments to it. Once we're back to turbo charged V8s, if we find a problem, then it's going to last the season. Here, 'problems' have been fixed via software. Some changes done after safety issues were identified, and some done right before a race where a mis understood scenario happened.

The defective engine programme provided by the FIA is embarrassing, for sure. However, this isn't the first time F1 has shown up un prepared for a race. Usually it's a problem with tires. Bahrain in Malaysia could EASILY have been a repeat of Indy 2005, with only a handful of cars taking the green flag. But it wasn't. The FIA managed to find a solution to their problem, a high tech solution to their problem. Creating cars that can be reprogrammed on the fly, and then having the people available to do the reprogramming is something that no other sport can claim. It was amazing! The fans in Malaysia seemed to enjoy it. The race itself wasn't hurt by the scenario. (Indeed, without the delay, we may well have had a repeat of Spa 2021, a much bigger black eye for the sport)

No major sporting event goes perfectly, but I think that F1 was able to dig itself out of the hole it put itself in is impressive, and should have the people behind F1 trying to ensure that future rule sets provide the flexibility to fix the cars on the go, rather than just hope everything is okie dokie over 24 races in diverse conditions.

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Another reason to dislike Sprints

September 22, 2026, 09:58:19 PM by Andy B
Views: 2226 | Comments: 24

So Melbourne costs have gone up due to the addition of a Sprint race is what they are saying and who pays for that?
The Fans of course and with F1 profits of $450 million they obviously need to raise prices.
While I'm at it 10 sprints a season is 10 too many!

https://www.planetf1.com/news/australian-gp-f1-2027-cost-price-hosting-fee

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Will Madring give us a Demolition Derby this weekend?

September 10, 2026, 04:49:31 PM by John S
Views: 2244 | Comments: 1

Will we get Red Flag chaos in multiple sessions, or are the Worlds best drivers likely to make a better job than the F3 teams last month?

When F3 headed to the Madring for an official test last month, some team owners and sponsors will have likely scratched their heads. The end result was 19 red flags, including a number of significant crashes that drove up the accident bills.

As is always the case with any new circuit, the grip levels will be extremely low in year one. But Madring's hybrid of public roads and bespoke high-speed sections with little runoff area could well lead to a chaotic weekend.

A lot of attention will go to the Madring's headline feature, the steeply banked La Monumental curve and is a lot more complex than it first seems, with its varying radii and elevation changes.

But the corners right before and after the impressive Turn 12 are also extremely tricky, with plenty of exit walls that come back into the track rather than fade away. With so many unknowns, there is every chance the first running of the event could become a messy one.

"I think definitely with the way they've put the barriers and the design of the track, it's going to be one of the biggest challenges in Formula 1 recently," said Carlos Sainz, who is an ambassador for the event.

"The track reminds me a lot of Jeddah, reminds me a lot of Baku, even reminds me a bit of Macau in some ways. So having that in an F1 car with 1,000 horsepower is going to be quite an interesting challenge."

Sainz was aware of what happened in the F3 test and was under no illusion that the Madring could be a recipe for chaos, both in qualifying with drivers searching for the limit millimetres away from the walls, and the omnipresent threat of impeding incidents.

"I've been looking at the track and hearing of what happened in the F3 test,” he added. “I think we are all expecting safety cars and red flags and yellow flags in qualifying and things like this.

“It's been a tendency of Formula 1 to go to these kinds of tracks like Jeddah and Baku recently, that are closer to the city, Miami, but they have more walls and we haven't had any issues with it."

Above article courtesy Filip Cleeren on Motorsport.com, Weds 9th Sept.

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1964 US Grand Prix

September 09, 2026, 03:34:33 PM by lkjohnson1950
Views: 1067 | Comments: 1

A blast from the past. Here is video from the 1964 US GP at Watkins Glen. Unfortunately, the only sound is some country music. Note, the Ferraris are in the NART blue and white livery as Enzo was p*ssed at the FIA and withdrew the official entry. If you're old enough you should recognize Graham Hill, Phil Hill, Clark, Surtees, Ginther, Brabham, Innes Ireland; there are many more I didn't know.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1399511825056000

If you would like a race summary here is the Wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_United_States_Grand_Prix

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The astonishing life and legacy of Ferdinand Porsche

September 09, 2026, 11:01:37 AM by John S
Views: 947 | Comments: 1

I enjoyed reading through Porsche history, hope you do too.

Whilst Porsche was undoutably a genius at auto design not all of it is pleasant reading, especially the Nazi party associations.

https://www.lovemoney.com/galleryextended/312010/the-astonishing-life-and-legacy-of-ferdinand-porsche?page=1

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