nudge

For me as a kid watching him drive the car was pure magic; raw speed, his driving style and especially his cornering technique, also his incredible performances on a wet track in the rain. I also loved his confidence and determination; he seemed to radiate authority and command respect with his presence alone. For sure he had quite a few highly controversial moments on the track and while I wasn't proud of them, I was still always impressed with his sheer will to win, his hunger and resilience. I can definitely understand how that could come across as arrogance, especially combined with his privacy and "cold" interviews, but for me there was a fine line there which he didn't cross and seeing how well he treated his mechanics and other team members and later hearing first hand accounts on how he treated people in general only cemented his status as a legend to me.

I had a Michael Schumacher Thermoskanne that I brought with me everywhere I went

As I said before, Michael Schumacher will always be my #1. Have been to various racing tracks, especially often in Nürburgring, but never for an F1 race. I love F1 but for live viewing I much prefer the likes of VLN or GT Masters or any other GT/sportscars race event as it's much cheaper and way more personal with free access to the pits, drivers, cars and whatnot.

Geez don't promote that shite

The podcast was meh though

No current American drivers in F1. There's one in F2 (Juan Manuel Correa) who is Ecuadorian-American but he's racing under the US flag and license. As for the second question, that's why I mentioned the Andretti family before Mario Andretti was a great driver and even won one F1 championship. His son competed in F1 later in the 90s but struggled.

Charles Leclerc for sure. There's no such thing as relegation or promotion; you have 10 teams (also called constructors as each team is required to build their own chassis) at the moment taking part in F1, each team has two cars/two drivers. Most teams have their own driver academies or driver development schemes where they sponsor young upcoming drivers in lower feeder series. F1 is the highest class of single-seater motor racing. F2 is one step below on the ladder; then you have various F3 series below that, then F4 series, then various karting competitions etc. They all differ in organisation and rules and regulations but essentially, those junior formula series are spec series, meaning that all cars in the series are essentially the same so there's better opportunities for young drivers to demonstrate their skills hoping to make impression to climb through those junior single-seater ranks and "graduate" into F1 eventually.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive https://www.netflix.com/title/80204890

Also Tommy's idea of watching the Netflix series might be a good idea as well for introduction into it!

If you're looking for an American connection then you could start with Haas as they are the first American team to compete in F1 since the 80s.

ESPN absolutely shows it! They use Sky Sports F1 coverage. https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/26082657/espn-f1-tv-broadcast-schedule-2019 Also Formula 1 offers an official online subscription service to F1TV Pro where all F1 races (including all practice and qualifying sessions as well as all supporting series) are being broadcast live. In the US that costs 10$ a month or 80$ a year.

Phew, that's a relief US motorsports scene has so much more to offer than just NASCAR... IndyCar for example; similar to F1 in terms that it's open wheel single seater racing but less technically complicated and unlike F1 it's a spec chassis series. Very entertaining as now they only have a few oval tracks on the calendar and way more regular road tracks with a lot of wheel to wheel racing and action. Also IMSA Sportscar championship which features prototype and GT cars of different classes racing together; it offers very competitive entertaining races with many different manufacturers and good drivers.

Yeah but you can't expect someone who's not into motorsports to have a clue who he is despite him also being American I wonder if @Eco has heard of Andretti family though I also reckon he should join us by getting into F1 and starting following Haas

Seriously you couldn't find a better American driver?

I'm honestly quite surprised that you've never even heard of the likes of Senna or Schumacher Until now I was under impression that even those who had absolutely no interest in racing and motorsports still knew those household names! Anyway, the answer to your question depends on whom you ask. One thing you have to realise is that the sport has changed so much over the years that there's no way to rate drivers over different eras objectively and so comparisons across generations are pretty much useless. Different cars, different attitudes and mentality, different technology, different standards; just a different racing culture altogether. As an example, it's one thing to drive a heavy death trap of the 60s and 70s with no power steering and help from the team garage on unforgiving tracks with poor safety standards, a completely different one to drive a modern heavily aerodynamics-reliant F1 car with all its subtleties, the electronics and driver aids and constant team feedback over the radio where the driver has to do a lot of information management in the cockpit. Rating the drivers based on the era they raced makes more sense I think. I'm only following F1 properly since late 80s/early 90s so can only judge the previous generations based on some archive footage, stories I've heard and books I've read, but that's how I'd do that: 50s - Fangio 60s - Clark 70s - Lauda 80s - Prost 90s - Senna 00s - Schumacher 10s - Hamilton The list still misses a lot of extremely gifted drivers; Mansell, Piquet, Häkkinen, Alonso, Stewart, Moss, Patrese, Hill to name a few big ones. My personal list from the ones I followed closely would be Schumacher - Senna - Prost - Hamilton. Michael will always be #1 for me (for numerous reasons; some of them being objective, some very subjective) but I'm putting that list in no order otherwise. Hamilton is definitely the best driver of his generation, only Alonso comes close to him in my opinion.

Good job by Mick!

I typed a long reply and then the site crashed Can't be bothered to type it all again but basically Russia is another option (especially for Europeans) for stunning arctic territories with traditional nomadic (or formerly-nomadic) ethnic group cultures. But most Europeans are usually not too keen on travelling to Russia - nevermind its arctic regions... I wanted to go on a trip to Kamchatka with my dad a few years ago. While it's sub-arctic so not the same I think it's still very fascinating and would have been a great introduction to the region. Sadly that trip never materialised...

Yeah the combined cost of airfares alone would be an overkill for a normal European traveller's budget I think...

Hope polar bears don't eat you! Nah just kidding, sounds great! A proper adventure in a remote territory unspoiled by tourism. Be sure to take a lot of photos, this is surely not a popular travel destination at all so I'm sure many people would be interested to see and learn more about it. Will be looking forward to the video of your trip

To be fair though, Ferrari know what they have in Leclerc while Mick still has a long way to go until he's anywhere near that level and it remains to be seen if he can even reach it. So unless he absolutely takes F2 by storm this or next season, I don't see Ferrari sacrificing anyone - especially Charles - in favour of Schumacher.

Hmm I think in two years time Leclerc will either have already won the title or gotten very close to it, depending on how good and reliable the car is. Mick would be signed as a #2 driver, as a promising talent and also as a great marketing opportunity. I don't think Ferrari would see a dilemma here; it's a win-win situation for everyone involved. Of course it depends on how well Mick develops in the first place. It's his first season in F2 and also his first F1 test; he needs time to adapt to the machinery and Pirelli tyres, and while I don't doubt that he'll end up in F1 one way or another, I hope they don't rush him and I think Ferrari will put him in a Sauber seat first.

I can see Mick replacing Seb and joining Charles in Ferrari in two years if he keeps on developing well.

Same.

Better start learning Chinese then.