nudge

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.

First season of Hanna is finally out on Amazon Prime. Loving it so far; much better than the movie already.

I must be under a rock then

This is actually very interesting; a washing machine would make astronaut lives on board more comfortable and it would also solve the problem of having to use so much cargo space for fresh clothes; especially in the future missions farther out. It remains to be seen if they manage to actually develop a working one. NASA tried to do something similar years ago but it seems that project was abandoned at some point.

Was a great player as well; I'm not much into women's football but she was part of the German National Team back when I used to follow it closely as they were playing some great football. Will be interesting to see how she does!

Yeah I thought it would be right up your alley If you like this style of "big history" books I highly recommend Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris. It's a massive read (some 700 pages) but it completely blew my mind.

I read this one (well rather listened to it as I got it as an audio book) last year! I've posted this here before, but it's a very fascinating book; a sort of a popular science version of "big anthropological history" that covers history, culture and societal aspects of our species and raises quite a few interesting points throughout. I think you will enjoy it. If you do, make sure to get the "sequel" called Homo Deus which continues where Sapiens left off and attempts to paint an image of the future of humankind.

Ugh. Can't stand him but at least he's got a clue when he's talking about racing. Should stick to it as well instead of trying to play an armchair psychologist and talk about mental coaching, nature & nurture, human psyche and the likes. I watched his podcast with Toto Wolff and was honestly cringing at certain parts.

Same, Mutter is both my favourite album and my favourite song This cover sounds great but it's a bit weird to hear it being sung by children given the song's lyrics

You're right - it was a Big Mac

Starting Neal Stephenson's Seveneves tonight... .

I don't know, a frozen burger that just fell out of the sky doesn't sound very appealing to me

Wtf