wood

Yeah lol I 'member that one. Fuckers. Probably the only reason all those trees were added to that rendering was because the City Council told them the planting of something like 1000 trees was a requirement to get the COA endorsement they needed in order to receive METF (now MERP) funding. Richard Suttle probably made sure of that before the huge final vote. Of course the fucks at the City never followed up on any of that shit.

Thanks for posting this! I finally got a chance to open it up and take a look around. That's one of the previous versions. Y'all see that permanent concession/restroom building near T11? That's one of about 7 or 8 that were originally planned but never got built because Bobby axed 'em. You can also see the original plan for the hill that was there before Bobby decided to build the amphitheater and $14M tower. It was a perfect natural hillside viewing area for T16-19. You can also see where the topography slopes away from the track on the exit of 10. A berm was supposed to be built up there, that would have allowed excellent viewing of 10 and would have joined up with the natural hillside viewing that begins down closer to 11. That was a baby of Hellmund's because it's such a fantastic spot, but Bobby axed it because who fucking knows why. It probably would have cost nada & would have been just a matter of moving dirt dug from the track to T10 instead of somewhere else. That woulda been one of the best spots to view F1 cars and prototypes doing F1 car and prototype things. But instead you can't see anything at all from there, because you're downhill from the track, looking up at the fence. There are also older versions out there that show other things, like how Tavo wanted the exit of 1 more open, with a faster T2 leading to faster esses and T6-10. T6-10 in particular were much straighter and quicker than they are now, but the FIA wouldn't have it, fearing the cars would get too light coming across 9 and carrying too much speed into 10 with a downhill runoff. 16-18 used to also be more open and faster, leading to a faster 19 and potentially an overtaking spot at 20, but again, FIA. I have some shots somewhere of those old display models I took at early meetings. I'll see if I can find them.

I believe the precise terminology is "Brazilian. Brazilian and one. Whatever it takes". : ) And yeah like you said, he's always said super-offensive shit.

And then there's the whole Andretti fuckery, and trying to limit us to the same 10 teams from now into eternity.

Heh. Yep. Very accurate.

I kept wondering why I was wasting my time with this when it looked so outta hand. This is why ....

That's awesome. I have some big-ass (like 4' x 5' or whatever size those things come in) drawings of COTA that were given to me by a COTA guy back when it was still being built. They look a lot like that, just not as purty. /csb ETA: I went and dug one of 'em out from behind the dresser.

Jenna Fryer's really starting to sink her teeth into this F1 reporting thing. So, an inaccurate leak from a 'whistleblower'? Shocking.

MBS and FOM have been at odds since the beginning. There used to be a deal between FOM and the FIA where the FIA got a small portion of FOM's profits. The courts nixed that, so that left the FIA without their major source of funding, from their own property, which Max Mosely leased to Bernie for 99 or 100 years at probably 1/10 of its actual value. FOM, otoh, wants control over errrrrthing. We saw that with the Andretti press release, where they tried to assume some control over sporting matters, which is the FIA's purview, per the courts. So that kinda gives some reasoning for where MBS is coming from. Add into the mix that a Saudi sovereign wealth fund is rumored to be in talks to buy FOM, and it all gets even more interesting imho. It also wouldn't surprise me if the FIA and MBS are angling to get the lease voided.

Unfortunately, in the Liberty Media vx of F1, apparently no new teams will be allowed, and none of the existing ones can be had for $1. Before becoming an owner, Brawn was a team principal with all the connections, knowhow, and Machiavellian savvy that come with that. Newey is a master-airbending designer.

IMHO the 'Max to Merc', 'Marko & Newey leaving' stuff is posturing/bluffing to get the Thai side to can Horner.

Maybe they could include steers & bulls in that. Texas needs to money-whip Newey and lock him up. Get him on the Forty pronto. Hold on, lemme fire up the flightaware.

Yeah the timing of the MBS stuff coming out is very interesting. Two things dropping in two days? Very unlikely that's merely a coincidence imho. Kinda like the Lewis news dropping immediately after FOM's idiotic list of bullshit 'reasons' to deny Andretti entry. Thought this was interesting ...

If that tweet is accurate, Newey would apparently be on the same side as Marko, or is just going to fuck off to design sailboats or something.

Este. As soon as Dieter died, some people were saying shit was about to get real, but we had no idea it would be anything like this. And things seem to be heating up on the FOM vs MBS front as well. FOM wants MBS out, and someone (likely FOM imho) is doing their best to dig up shit on him, which isn't difficult.

None of this makes sense.

Damn. Y'all be reading way faster than I ever could. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through, at the part where she calls Horner 'ambitious and unscrupulous' and Toto 'gruff and blunt, but endearing' ... lulz.

That drone looks about the same size as the RB1 did sitting next to the RB19.

Wow. I'd never seen this before. RB1 and RB20 on track together. The RB1 looks like a toy beside the RB20. Nothing short of shocking imho. (just posted on Autosport in a thread about the sorry state of F1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuR5jnNdoIk

This. Until Nico retired, Merc was as dominant in the W/L column as RBR is now. In the first 3 years of this PU era, of 59 races they lost a total of 8 races. 86% win rate, but there was a battle within the team, so many people didn't care. Since the start of 2022, RBR has lost 6 of 45 races, with the same 86% win rate. After Nico retired (and in large part imho because Nico retired & was replaced by 'excellent wingman' Bottas), Merc wasn't as dominant. But Lewis winning the WDC was more of a foregone conclusion than when Nico was fighting him. Bottas was no match for Lewis and was never intended to be one. In 2017 & 2018 (the 4th & 5th years of the PU era), Ferrari was finally able to put up a fight, but in the end they didn't really get very close, and never would have had any hope with a better driver (such as Nico) in the Merc #2 seat. The funny thing though is that despite all of Perez's mistakes, in the dominant years of each car, Perez has scored about the same points per race as Bottas. He's finished P2 and a close P3 (by 3 points). Bottas finished P3 and P5 his first 2 years at Merc. They're also not far off in terms of race wins in the WCC years. Bottas 10 in 5 years, and Perez 4 in 2 years.

Oh, and did y'all catch Brundle's comment about the hybrid engines? Sure took him a long time to finally say it. The cars are so big and ugly and heavy, and look slow af in slow to medium speed corners, changing direction so poorly that they just look like tanks compared to the old ones. I've been watching some of the older races recently and it is absolutely striking how much nimbler and more agile the pre-2014 cars were at low to medium speeds. Also striking is how much smaller they were, because they were so much lighter & didn't need huge, dramatically expanded floors in order to make enough downforce to turn.

He beat his teammate, which is job #1. Had he been allowed to make the swap sooner as they should have, he probably would have beaten him much worse. He might not have anything left, but imho it's still too early to know. Stroll was hit from behind by Hulk, who looked like he might have been hit by (iirc) Bottas, who Martin described as 'driving by braille'. Stroll had a pretty good race after that. getting a point. Yeah he fucked up, and then doubled down. Pretty crazy shit. That would be great, but only if that's Andretti's only means of entry. If the teams succeed in keeping the grid at 10 teams forever, man, fuck that shit.

IMHO top 12. I was telling my kid during FP3 that Hulk is gonna embarrass KMag this year. Dude took 2 years off and beat KMag last year in a car he'd never driven. KMag only lasted in F1 beyond the first couple of years because he's always had shit teammates, until now. Re: the 1:28s, I thought so too, but it seems Max made a mistake on his last lap.

Yeah but they aren't all like this, either, with the first Friday and Saturday sessions in the day and the second ones at night.