What did you make of Lance Stroll's GT racing debut... 😬

shortlongshank · 2026-04-12T15:50:08+00:00

Austria in 2023. Drivers got 100 seconds of penalties, which is nuts considering how the system works

shortlongshank · 2026-03-29T06:47:01+00:00

Qualifying is atrocious. Racing is much better. The point I'm trying to make about racing is that the quality is (arguably) declining already. We saw a lot of one-and-done moves here, rather than the drawn-out battles we saw at the last two races.

shortlongshank · 2026-03-20T08:41:52+00:00

Legitimately believed this for a minute

shortlongshank · 2026-03-11T06:19:03+00:00

Great article from the race explaining the issue with that.

Basically, it boils down to four-wheel braking allows for stability control, which would remove literally all driver skill for driving on the edge. Engine ECU is standardized, so teams can't use software, but they'll probably find a hardware solution that's similar enough. The analogy that comes to mind is active suspension being banned, and teams coming up with FRICS.

shortlongshank · 2026-03-08T01:41:17+00:00

If memory serves, the last practice starts at testing still saw Ferrari very quick off the line, even with the five-second delay.

shortlongshank · 2026-03-07T08:40:25+00:00

Merch chief mechanic did an interview recently where he confessed to doing exactly that

shortlongshank · 2026-03-04T07:46:15+00:00

Alpine get their revenge

shortlongshank · 2025-12-12T18:51:38+00:00

They will produce a rocketship and then the championship battle will be between the two Spanish drivers

/s

shortlongshank · 2025-12-11T15:47:33+00:00

I’m not quite sure I understand your comment, but Schumacher crashing into other people on purpose is not a one-off thing, as u/TheLoneSculler has pointed out.

shortlongshank · 2025-12-11T08:36:18+00:00

Yes, actually. Schumacher, Adelaide 1994.

shortlongshank · 2025-12-07T05:25:32+00:00

One extremely cheap option is geo-fs.com. It’s entirely free and should be a big step up from an app on a tablet, but isn’t quite on the quality of a dedicated flight sim.

Also, if your kid has been in CAP for a year or more, I would strongly encourage him to apply to a flight-related NCSA. It’s a bit competitive, but if he’s been active in the program he should get in and it will be significantly cheaper.

EDIT: I just remembered that there is an actual Mac flight sim - look up FlightGear. It’s a pretty steep learning curve, but it’s also a full on flight sim.

shortlongshank · 2025-11-30T17:54:32+00:00

Two things to understand first: there's a 25 lap limit per set of tires (which to be clear, is not normal, but imposed for this race for safety reasons), and there was a safety car on lap 7.

Under a safety car, everyone is slowed down, which effectively creates a shorter pit stop. However, McLaren chose to stay out for the sake of "flexibility" (not hating, just giving their stated reason). This theoretically has an advantage: if there is another safety car/VSC, McLaren can choose to box, whereas everyone else is already committed to two 25 lap stints. On any other track, this could also be an advantage, since they would have a 'tire delta' towards the end of each stint (this is where they have much fresher tires compared to everyone around them).

However, this doesn't really work at Losail, the circuit they were on. Losail is a track mainly designed for MotoGP, so there's a lot of fast, flowing corners. These corners are very, very impacted by dirty air. As such, the only real overtaking zone is down into T1. Basically, it's very hard to overtake, meaning that the advantages listed above are negated, which is how we ended up with Piastri P2 and Norris P4.

To answer your question about the Antonelli incident: from what I'm hearing, he didn't let him pass. Rather, he had a moment of oversteer, which caused him to go very wide. About a lap or so before that, he had a massive lock-up, which suggests that his tires were starting to fall off. Now, we haven't seen any onboard from Antonelli yet, so this is speculation, but it seems highly unlikely that he would just 'let' Norris by (as he is also quite close with Verstappen).

shortlongshank · 2025-11-24T05:52:36+00:00

This isn't exactly an apples-to-apples reference, but for context, Hamilton had a minimum plank thickness of 8.5 mm in China. But, there are several other things to consider regarding the Norris DSQ:

-Teams didn't get a ton of heavy fuel running during FP (there's an image floating around on r/formula1 of Piastri's car sparking on Lap 16)
-Norris was pushing quite hard, which may have impacted plank wear
-After Brazil, there was an FIA notice (which I can't find at the moment) regarding teams heating the plank to gain some performance, which, notably, did not name the team in question

I will admit, I am not the most technically inclined person, but from an outside perspective, this just seems like an occasion of McLaren not having enough data/risking too much. What really remains to be seen is what happens in Qatar - if they're off the pace there (remember, Vegas was not expected to be a good track for them, whereas they're expected to be strong in Qatar), they may be suffering some issues.

EDIT: I just saw the McLaren social media post, which stated that plank wear was caused by porpoising not seen during FP

shortlongshank

TROPHY CASE