Off Topic Other Sports Thread

It was hilarious seeing perez utterly lose the head. Ruined his whole race and a possibly a second place.

The perez move on league clerk was far worse than norris.

Dominant race from verstappen.

 

Oh and I have to say seeing the Dutch fans going mental is genuinely great for f1 even though its compete super spreader territory

It's better than oh look Hamilton's won. Again.

Let's knight him, maybe or not blah blah.

It's not quite that level here but it could be after the semi final where even the most ardent cynics could get swept up in the party.

 

I can see Mercedes replacing Bottas with Lando, it's a natural step up and Lewis praising him today on "public" radio could well be a hint. I ****ing hope it doesn't happen though, I like Lando (easily my favourite driver atm) and would hate to see him being Lewis' support act!

 

A shame that what looked to be shaping up to be the closest title battle for a few years has developed into a one horse race. But it's champion's driving from Max at the moment in by far the best car. It will be interesting to see if Merc can/will close the gap. If they committed to developing this car they would be able to do it but there's clearly some indecision in the team about how much to develop this season or whether to focus mostly on the new regs and the brand new car for next season, which isn't helping.

It's good to see the drivers in 'lesser cars' than the RB and Merc putting in performances that squeeze more out of their equipment than inferior drivers, shows who has the class in the field. Lando will win a championship eventually. Russell as well. So things look good for British F1.

Penalties are being applied very inconsistently, they really need to standardise this and just set and impose clear rules at every race. There will always be racing incidents but outside of those the parameters should be totally transparent.

 

Norris has only just signed a new contract with McLaren and he wants to keep developing there and win a title with them. They're making the right progress to do this very soon, depends on how things shake out with the reg changes but things look good for him there. He's their main guy and the team like him and want the same. Russell is really the front runner for the Merc seat if it's open. Bottas helped himself with a P2 this weekend but there's still a decision for Wolff there.

 

My thing is we have seen actual racing to the end based on cars pushing finally and the show is much better.

Its helped that Ferrari are ****e in quail but charging up the field in the race etc.

Overall though it's only been a short dominance for red bull. Mistakes prior let Mercedes win 3 of 4. Verstappen is on a run but we have seen these things flip with mercedes adding and refocusing over summer breaks before.

It's clear this issue is not engine so it's not insurmountable. It's about take and aero.

 

Title race is still wide open imo. Lewis can go on a run and turn this around (but hopefully won't), he's done it before.

 

I'm not so sure. I think Verstappen drives off with it now and I'll be glad if he wins it as it will be very deserved. However, without any bias I'd like Hamilton to recover and break the record this season just to see that happen. After that anything can happen as far as I care. I like the sport and don't favour any driver, I just want good, competitive racing and excitement. So my preference is that Ham wins the title this season in an epic comeback and tight tussle with Max, then that with the new regs next season we see a big shift, much more competition and more drivers able to compete right at the top and win titles so there's that element of doubt and tension all season. Probably a pipe dream considering the continuing disparity in resources and budgets, even with the measures brought in to try and correct this.

 

And Cav wins again to get to 33 TdF wins - one more required to equal the incomparable brilliance of Merckx .

 

Impressive stuff. At least there's interest elsewhere in the race because the GC is done already

 

the green jersey could be very interesting as i'm not convinced that Cav can make it to Paris considering some of the stages to come .

 

Hopefully he can equal/break Merckx's record before he starts to finish outside the race time limits there are some, let's say rather challenging, high mountains stages lurking

 

Federer out in Straight sets

donut in the third set as well.

Djok to easy to the championship now.

 

It should've always been a slam funk for Djokovic.

 

there one gone for Cav and showed his respects at Tommy Simpsons memorial

 

Two flat-ish days coming up for Cav

 

He looked absolutely shot tbf, terrible performance

 

Tokyo is going to make a huge loss on the Olympics, probably the biggest ever now that they've built all those fancy stadiums that'll have no spectators in.

Athletes competing in empty stadiums

 

Yup. It is what it is. They committed to it and got caught. It has to be run off but they dont want to do what we are doing here.

You have to wonder what the Japanese know that we do not.

As I recall they really didnt lock down like we did either so the rationale for it having any fans ow compared to the uk where it's a free for all with out the vaccines done.

 

Japan has a really low Vaccine take up, something like 15% so far.