MrPogo

There's been this from Simon Pegg: “There have been plenty of discussions about it. Tom and Chris are always talking about it. But ultimately the decision comes from somewhere else whether one goes ahead … I don’t know if we are doing another or not. But I imagine it is likely.”

I haven't watched the crashes since Sunday, but at the time I thought with both that Bottas didn't have anywhere else his car could be (those overtaking were preventing him from being anywhere near the racing line) and the drivers passing him knew they were taking a risk by leaving so little room when his tyres were pretty much fucked.

Actually turns out it’s not unknown, other than Ferrari engined cars seem to produce a lot more of it, more they put the pipe in a different place to most other teams, in the lights rather than by the main exhaust.

Martin Brundle briefly mentioned on Sky that they always seem to have smoke/steam coming out the rear light cluster for reasons unknown.

Indeed. With Mercedes he might luck his way into a title (especially if he hangs on until Hamilton goes) and will almost certainly pick up a few more wins, but he’s never going to signed by another championship contending team (unless someone does a Brawn) and will be lucky to ever see a podium again if he moves on.

I’ve found a flying version of that. Stumped early game though. Need to mine copper but it’s all deep under water

Does anywhere actually give the sector breakdowns for qualifying times? I suspect the F1 website live timing might on a desktop, but refuses to so on a phone! I mainly just wanted to see how Hamilton and Bottas compared in Q3, after the commentator said Hamilton was down in comparison in sector 2 but then ended up thrashing him.

I guess that’s what got them off a harsher punishment, cos after he reacted to the “stay out” it would have been dangerous to try and change course again, as wet grass and sharp turns really don’t mix.

It's a bit of an obscure regulation which Brundle seemed to think only applied if you cut over it in the other direction (still out on track and cut it to go into the pits). Here's the exact wording: d) Except in cases of force majeure (accepted as such by the Stewards), the crossing, in any direction, of the line separating the pit entry and the track by a car entering the pit lane is prohibited. I assume Ferrari are arguing about the "crossing, in any direction", whilst Mercedes defence would be he wasn't entering the pit lane as he crossed the line, as evidenced by him not ending up in the pit lane; you can't be deemed to have been entering something you didn't actually enter, so the rules about crossing the line don't apply.

Skillz from Leclerc

Is it just me who can only understand about one word in ten from that Renault guy they’re always talking to?

Though luckily he’s not playing the game, and putting his foot down!

Probably just a matter of practice to get the technique, but using the joy cons to drum at thin air really isn’t working for me. Registers the wrong sort of hit far too frequently, and also loads of false hits (often thinks I’ve drummed again when lifting the imaginary stick up again after doing a hit). The joy con aspect is a novelty which doesn’t really work based on my preliminary findings, so it needs be drum controller or nothing for me (never got into button mashing on a standard controller for rhythm games!).

My take is Hamilton seems more sensitive to car set up (and how that's working with the track and conditions) than most other drivers. Bottas gets 95% of the maximum possible performance out of the car every week, whether it's all working properly or they just can't get everything right. If Hamilton feels at one with the car he can get 100%, squeezing every single bit of possible performance out if it, pushing harder than anyone else would dare; if all the drivers were in identical Mercedes when everything's dialled in to perfection he'd still wipe the floor with the lot (other than maybe Alonso). But if something's not quite right it knocks his confidence and he'll only get 90% out of it that weekend. He doesn't know how to push almost as hard as he can., if he doesn't feel comfortable giving it absolutely everything he holds back too much. And he's aware he's doing that, but can't still dial into that 95% zone and beats himself up over it instead.

The story now seems to be he ran wide because the hydraulics failed immediately before the corner.