jonathanhoey

Whereas I, watching all the same video you are, think Max knows exactly where Hamilton is and consciously decides to turn in on him anyway.* I also think Hamilton knows if he stays there, they’re crashing. I don’t think Hamilton is a dirty driver at all, but to me it’s a message to Max that he’s finally had enough of Max’s “you will yield or we’re crashing” Senna-esque driving style. Lewis is calling Max’s bluff, essentially. I don’t think for a second that he meant to put Max in the wall that hard. We know from Natalie Pinkham that the first Lewis heard that Max was in hospital was when she told him in his post-podium interview. Mercedes had only told him “he’s out of the car and he’s OK”. I do suspect if they’d told him Max had been airlifted to hospital, we’d have seen a much less exuberant champagne celebration. *This also happens to be how Jolyon Palmer reads it. Some of the other pro drivers agree it’s a racing incident, while still others blame Hamilton as Driver61 does.

Yeah I still rate Scott Mansell very highly (although I disagree with him on the Max vs Lewis crash, I still say racing incident) but the presentation style of the Driver61 channel has certainly changed a lot since the early days. And not for the better, alas.

Even reading it back myself, I can’t not hear it in Horner’s voice As for the halo, it’s absolutely true. You can no more see it while you’re driving than you can see your own nose.

That is because it is not possible to do, any racing driver would know that you absolutely don’t attempt it - it’s the fastest corner of the whole world championship, after all - and frankly anyone who would attempt it should be prosecuted for attempted murder. Were you not paying attention at all?

He commentates every race (and practice and quali session) live on BBC Radio 5.

Sorry for the big multi quote. I tried to trim them down a bit but I’m on my phone so it’s awkward. Anyway the big example that comes to my mind was when Max crashed on the way to the grid and they rebuilt the front of the car before the race. At the time I was adamant that he should have had to start from the pit lane regardless. Not because I’m not a fan of Max, but because what happens if something lets go at the front end of the car once it gets loaded up during the scrap for turn 1? I was envisaging a multi-car shunt. I found out afterwards that they have a portable ultrasound machine that can quickly scan the car in situ for structural weaknesses that aren’t visible on the surface. Apparently they did that and were satisfied none of the remaining parts had damage (and sure enough the car didn’t fail, and made it all the way to the end of the Grand Prix).

You’re thinking of Jonathan Wheatley at RBR and Ron Meadows at Mercedes-AMG, I think.

The most egregious recent example is when they went from Monaco to Paul Ricard (which is about 100km away) via fucking Azerbaijan.

The rule seems to be that if someone attempts a move on you round the outside, you are obliged to back out meekly and simply let them have the place.

The problem that exists is that they spend all this money putting cars on TV on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but no one watches Friday. This is just to make you.

So this 2022-spec show car that they’re bringing out at Silverstone. Who’s actually built it? They haven’t got one of the teams to do it, I assume. Is it from Dallara or someone like that?

Obvious solution: both sides take each spot kick at the same instant, in the opposite goals. Countdown over the PA to the moment when the striker has to kick the ball. It’s on him/her to time it correctly. That way no one has the pressure of knowing “if I miss this we lose” etc. A bit like when they play whole knockout matches at the same time so that the known result of the previous match doesn’t influence or even invalidate/render pointless the next one.

Yeah I’m fairly certain it’ll have been a Richard Mille watch as they’re one of the team’s major sponsors. It’ll just have been issued to him in order for him to be seen wearing it in public. STOP TALKING BRITAIN DOWN

I know this isn’t the most serious discussion, but out of curiosity I looked up what happens in the Super Bowl if there’s a tie. Basically it goes to golden-goal extra time, 10 minutes per period. If someone scores the game is over, otherwise they would add on another period of extra time. If it’s still a draw they just keep going (even changing ends after two periods of ET, just as they would after two periods of regulation play). There doesn’t seem to be a theoretical limit on how many periods of ET could be added on. But then they don’t really need one because it’s vanishingly unlikely to happen.

So this collar tackle business. Half of you seem to think it’s a yellow, half of you think it should have been a straight red, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Comparisons with rugby and American football are not perfect - because those are sports in which you are sort of encouraged to take your opponent down to the ground - but there’s merit in the comparison because they still require you to do it safely. Someone mentioned the horse collar tackle in American football. That’s a major personal foul with a loss of 15 yards, but I don’t think it’s usually a sending-off. Maybe if it’s deemed to be unnecessary roughness I guess? But that must be very rare. I think in rugby union pulling someone down by the jersey collar would be classed as a high tackle, so a yellow card and 10 minutes off the field. The point should really be that it is an unusually dangerous thing to do on any field of play. In American football the injury is typically a broken leg, which might not be what you’d expect. Seems to be a combination of factors: they play on Astroturf, on which it’s easy to catch your toe; so the leg gets caught under you, and then your weight (exacerbated by all the gear) breaks your leg or snaps the ligaments, etc. In rugby union the high tackle laws are more about protecting the head and neck from impact injury. If you look at how Saka goes down, he basically takes the bump across his shoulders (not so bad) then his head carries on backwards and hits the ground (bad). That last part is super dangerous. I know this from personal experience because - and this is genuinely true - I once fractured a friend’s skull by doing something very similar in an informal (ie no equipment) game of American football. He fell down on his back, his head followed through, and bang. Fractured skull. I was clumsy, rather than intentionally violent, but that doesn’t change the fact that I inflicted a really severe injury. Fortunately for both of us, my friend got lucky and didn’t have any lasting effects - apart from a permanent ridge where the two halves of his broken skull didn’t heal totally flush!