THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Lewis was cheated out of his 8th driver's WC.

This is what I love about F1, the GOAT conversation is so difficult because it's almost impossible to compare eras. So you end up having a range of people make cases for (usually) their favourite driver. I've had so many of these conversations with my Dad, who will die on his hill saying no one is close to Senna.

The longer that passes since this happened, the more I think Liberty were in Michael Masi's ear to get him to engineer a Hollywood finale.


Absolutely true. Personally, I'd say Jim Clark. An incredible win rate at a time when cars were notoriously unreliable, and the racing was extremely dangerous. Especially driving for Lotus, where Colin Chapman was known for sacrificing safety and reliability for outright performance.

F1 is now so prescriptive in terms of driving to data, strategy, tyre management and engine management that I think it's impossible to gauge the true talent of any of the modern-day drivers.

Thanks.

Synthetic fuel sounds interesting but isn't part of the importance of F1 the fact it's a test bed for future road car technology? Maybe not anymore but I seem to recall that used to be talked about. If it is still seen as a way of developing the mass market tech (if!), and the mass market doesn't go down the synthetic fuel route, surely major F1 manufacturers will lose interest?

Sorry for the long winded questions - the future of the car post-petrol interests me. I'm not entirely convinced by the current (no pun intended) electric solutions but, as that seems to be where all the big money (and legislation) is going, it's interesting to know about other future options.

The longer that passes since this happened, the more I think Liberty were in Michael Masi's ear to get him to engineer a Hollywood finale.


Absolutely true. Personally, I'd say Jim Clark. An incredible win rate at a time when cars were notoriously unreliable, and the racing was extremely dangerous. Especially driving for Lotus, where Colin Chapman was known for sacrificing safety and reliability for outright performance.

F1 is now so prescriptive in terms of driving to data, strategy, tyre management and engine management that I think it's impossible to gauge the true talent of any of the modern-day drivers.

Yeah, comparing drivers from different eras is more or less impossible. The real leveller is rain and in that regard Schumacher and Senna stand out alone.

I'm not sure you can even apply that any more, given that F1 is now completely allergic to racing in wet conditions. The last genuinely stand-out drive I can remember in proper wet conditions was Hamilton at Silverstone in 2008. For all we know, Max might be an absolute god in the rain, but we'll never get the chance to find out.

Then again, there are now so many races that it's hard to pick out any stand-out drives from anyone full stop.

Personally I think Albon delivered some heroic drives last season. Alonso rolled back the years for a third of the season and watching Piastri get to full grips with F1 was a great watch.

Did everybody enjoy yesterday's race?

I watched it with a bunch of Red Bull Racing employees and even they had to concede it was fucking crap.