nudge

Yep I'm quite excited hehe. Got the tix for K1 Grandstand (VR46 Tribune), which should be good for on-track action, as you can see the main straight, three opening corners and the pits

Ordered MotoGP tickets for Sepang in November as my Easter present today... Will look into Thailand ones too once they go on sale

I will have to plan my sightseeing quite spontaneously once I'm there, as I have other, non-leisure things to do as a priority so the rest will be all decided depending on how much free time I have, but as it stands, I'll probably do the Mutianyu part, as it's not too far and is easily accessible and has cable cars

Vietnam next month, China in June/July. Quite excited about China as I've never been there before, really looking forward to visiting the Great Wall of China and eating Peking duck

@El_Loco have you watched O Mecanismo yet? Seems to be getting great reviews, sounds interesting too! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6873658/

Yes, and he is set to stay at the club by taking a trainee course after he retires as well. Quality player; too bad his career has been marred by injuries, would have developed into a national team player had he stayed fit, in my opinion. Great news, and Fin Bartels also extended his contract yesterday

Asian Cup 2019 qualifiers are now over, here the countries that made it through: Big achievement for the Philippines, who will be playing in the tournament for the first time ever, after beating Tajikistan in their deciding match yesterday!

Happy birthday Alan!

I only use Skype once every few weeks to video call my mother, can't stand it otherwise and never have it on.

That unsettles me even more

His eyebrows are too well groomed don't know why but it's the first thing I've noticed in the pic and it unsettled me

Skype is a shithouse. Tried to login after resetting my phone to factory settings, they wanted to send me a verification code to my email since "they think this is a new device", fair enough,the problem is though the email never arrives knobheads.

Kimi and Alonso are the best, as usual

Classic hunting trophy photo. Seriously though, feel sorry for Schrey, his finish didn't count as the car didn't make it to the finish on its own

Yes, saw it earlier today... Only 20 years old, obviously talented, seems hard working and determined as well. Cheering for him and Sauber as well.

The straights in Melbourne are not long enough, there are a lot of 90 degree corners and the track is flat and quite narrow in general, Turn 3 is the only decent place for overtaking, in my opinion. It might be easier in terms of overtaking than Barcelona, Singapore or Monaco, but it still much harder than many others. Meanwhile, Shanghai, Bahrain, COTA, Spa are wide tracks with a lot of runoff, long sweeping corners, heavy braking zones, wide apexes, medium-speed corners followed by straights, all of which allows diverse racing lines and provides opportunities for overtaking. As you said before, overtaking is very difficult in these F1 cars either way; mostly due to new regulations as the cars struggle to follow each other in dirty air and barely any overtakes happen if you don't count DRS, but a track layout still makes a difference nevertheless. Maybe it's more noticeable in other series than F1 though. Personally, the only classic race I remember from Melbourne was when Ralf Schumacher flew over Barrichello, forcing at least a handful of other cars to retire as well I'm sure where were more, but that's honestly the only one I recall from otherwise "boring" track (in my personal opinion).

I'd disagree, it's certainly easier to overtake in some tracks than in some others as they usually offer more opportunities due to either a lot of long straights, or a long straight combined with a tight turn/heavy braking zone. Baku, Shanghai, Bahrain, COTA, Monza, Spa have more overtaking opportunities for that reason, many of them were designed by Tilke the way they are for that reason specifically. Australia, Barcelona, Singapore, Monaco are very difficult to overtake.

Bahrain up next, a power circuit, it will be even harder for Ferrari (and Red Bull) to keep up with Mercedes' PU advantage, so they definitely have work to do. The circuit should at least provide more genuine overtaking opportunities, so more race action, hopefully. One thing I definitely expect from this season is a tight midfield battle though, McLaren, Renault, Haas all looking good.

Only if you appreciate bad sense of dressing and social media obsession

Faithcore was just joking there, he's practicing to be the next F1 commentator for German TV For me, F1 still lives on its image and reputation from the past, as the way it is now, you can hardly even call it racing. The cars are too complicated, too high-tech, the driver has too little control, there's too little if any race action and battles, and as Phil mentioned before, too much is being decided by the team strategy instead of the actual driving on the track. Add too that boring driver personalities off track, dumbed down circuits, stupid tires, artificial rules and gimmicks, overregulation; it's all became too sterile and too much like a racing sim. I'm still watching though, haha.

I love this thread

Yeah, I've read that too

Yeah, it's a nice gesture, and everyone makes mistakes, but still it's surreal how they manage to screw BOTH Grosjean and Magnussen in the pits... Surely should have noticed something was wrong after Magnussen's stop already? Not sure if it was an error by the mechanic(s) or the gun, seems weird either way.