Fifth Avenue Forum

JOY!

Doing the straight in about 3 seconds is bonkers.

Consecutive posts from Autosport's Facebook this morning:

7 hrs

Red Bull was certain Daniel Ricciardo would re-sign for the team, but do recent events at Ferrari offer him hope of heading to the Prancing Horse? We discuss all in the latest podcast - listen now!

6hrs

BREAKING Daniel Ricciardo will leave Red Bull at the end of 2018 and is tipped to join Renault - what do you guys think of the potential move?

BREAKING CONFIRMED! Daniel Ricciardo is heading to Renault next season - a good decision?

Lol.
Interesting choice.
Might it speak to Red Bull's PU woes being related to not listening to Renault's packaging requirements, recommendations?

I'm not sure that leaving a customer team that is nearly tripling up the factory squad in constructor points when the chief complaint at the customer team is the quality and reliability of the engine supply really makes any sort of rational sense.

Being a Number 2 to Crash Musthappen would drive me from an F1 team as well.

I don't think I'd call it a bad move. Taking stock here at the summer break, Renault seems to have pretty much seized the "best of the rest" crown after the big three of Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull. Mercedes is most likely going to bring back Hamilton and Bottas, and Ricciardo probably wouldn't want to play second fiddle to Vettel at Ferrari, so he wouldn't have gone there even if Räikkönen is out (which he probably is). Plus, I could easily see Ferrari bringing Leclerc up to fill that seat; he's been good in the Sauber. Renault is a factory team and has been putting in some decently solid performances. Red Bull's move to Honda power is also a big question mark hanging over that team. It could work out great, or it could be a disaster. I don't think Ricciardo could have gotten anything better, and I think I'd rather be at Renault than a team like McLaren. If I'm Räikkönen and I want to drive in F1 next year, I'm on the phone with Red Bull.

As to the rest, Force India (to the distress of my fantasy team) has taken a big step back this year, and off track they were basically just forced into bankruptcy. The team will probably survive, but who knows what's going on there, That's not going to be an attractive destination for drivers. The soon-to-be-formerly-known-as-Force-India team might come back strong, or the whole team could go up in smoke.

Haas has shown good performance in qualifying, but (also to the distress of my fantasy team) that performance hasn't often carried over to races. Both Magnussen and Grosjean often finish worse than their qualification positions. K-Mag strikes me as the better of the two. I'd be surprised if Grosjean is back.

McLaren has demonstrated that its lack of place can't all be blamed on the Honda engines (or Renault engines, for that matter). Stoffel Vandoorne doesn't impress me, and I think Alonso will head off to sports cars or something else. McLaren for the foreseeable future is a mid-pack team at best. Who knows who their drivers will be.

Toro Rosso and Sauber are okay midpack teams, but neither is better than a development team for Red Bull and Ferrari. Williams is a dumpster fire (oh, how the mighty have fallen). I don't see any major improvements for any of them for 2019. Their drivers will be set by who falls down from the higher teams or what young drivers the "parent" teams want to get rides. (Or for Williams, who can bring big wheelbarrows of cash. Looking at you, Sirotkin.)

The Stratos, what a thing.

Excerpt:

I'm hoping for some 'insights' re Jenni Dahlman.

In celebration of Alonso quitting F1:



Anyway, reports have Sainz taking Alonso's seat but none of the major outlets, except for ESPNF1 have reported it.

Sainz-to-McLaren is the lead headline on Autosport.

Pretty official now.
Gotta think Lando is getting the other seat...

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/hwyl ... 1534435491

Control room discussion of Vettel's coverage following his lap 51 crash in the German GP.

Fascinating stuff.

How the hell does anyone understand what's going on? It just sounds like chaos.

In listening to it, it sounds fairly layered. I don't think everyone speaking necessarily is processing the input from everyone else. I think a lot of it is unilateral. It sounds like a military command center turned up to 11.

The punishment for getting fired from your F2 team for texting and driving in the formula car and crashing out teammates is you have to race in IndyCar for Dale Coyne, it seems.

I don’t know anything about motorsports, but my brother’s race team won the IMSA event at VIR yesterday, so that’s pretty **** awesome.

Wait. You have been holding out all this time? What's he do?

He’s on the pit crew for eEuroparts.com’s race team, which the internet tells me is part of the Touring Car class of the Contintental Tire SportsCar Challenge.

I have no idea what anything after the comma means.

Yeah, I figured he was Continental since the race was on Saturday. That's awesome. The race will be broadcast next week, Conti gets a week delay.

Robert Wickens not dead. Huzzah.

Never really seen a catch fence just cheese grate every appendage on a car and then spit the monocoque back onto the circuit. He is really lucky it landed flat side down.

Dario Franchitti would like a word with you, as soon as he remembers where he is.
RHR's roll bar was even scarier.

The onboard from Hinch was a bit insane too with Fittipaldi sliding on the oil and hitting him at full stride like that. Was painful watching Hinch walk to the ambulance with t-rex arms.