Panflute

Yeah, in name only I think. Bombshell was made by a different developer on a different engine in a differente genre. The only gripe I have with Ion Fury is that finer details can be hard to see in this engine, so this sometimes makes it difficult to spot enemies or important details that will let you progress the game. Other than that it's a great game so far, based off the first zone I completed.

I've been playing Ion Fury, a relatively new game made in an updated version of the Build engine (the one that also powered Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood). The combat is super addictive. Here's an example of a fight I did earlier today:

Ferrari seem to have made steps in terms of their true pace, but on the other side I think RB's mishaps were a fluke. It was kind of the same in Singapore 2016. And even with a poor quali, a poorly timed safety car and generally not much going for them, Max still managed to get a top 5 finish. I see RB winning the next races except maybe Brazil.

Asia

Yeah at one point it looked very bad. Honestly looking at some of Jordan Peterson's psychology lectures before he became political was quite interesting. He had some wacky takes but at least some food for thought. Since he turned into a self-help guru it was game over.

Also, on the topic of Jordan Peterson, there is a very weird link between him and Tate, as the latter dated or was in some way associated with Peterson's daughter. I forgot if he was also involved in that very weird part of Peterson's life where he got fucked up on benzos, was transported to Russia by his daughter and put on a keto diet or some shit. It's just such a cringe part of public discourse.

Before he became big I heard him on a podcast and I was like 'who the fuck is this idiot'. I was hoping that it was a comedian doing a bit because surely no one would be that stupid as to admit to being a human trafficker and a psychopath on a public platform, right? Looking at some of the insane posts he's written about his dad neglecting him while playing chess against himself (lmao), I figure this guy never experienced a true emotional bond in his life and everything he says/does is just to cope with how sad and empty his existence is. Sad that he appears to have clout, as adopting that way of thinking can actually destroy your own life.

Sure Nico, now let's get you to bed.

Eventually maybe but it entirely depends on McLaren's trajectory for the next 2 years, and their chances for the 2026 rule change. Also I haven't really seen anything substantial indicating Lando is to join RB other than a few figureheads saying 'wouldn't it be cool if' and the usual hacks turning it into clickbait. It was the same shit with the Hamilton to Ferrari rumors a few months ago, which were frankly ridiculous.

Very nice race. Not as spectacular as Zandvoort but I really liked the on-track battles today. Also can't believe Max has done it. I remember at the start of 2022 I looked up the consecutive race record and saw Vettel did 9 in a row. I thought 'wow, that must've been bizarre to witness'. And now Max has broken it. Amazing driver.

Surely he's still below Lawson in the pecking order. After 2024 a lot is possible though. Some drivers might retire, Checo will surely be gone from RB and possibly F1, and maybe Yuki fancies his chances at another team. Yuki is in the twilight zone where RB don't seem keen on promoting him but he's also not looking like the kind of driver to stick around with AT forever. Maybe Aston Martin to keep the Honda love alive?

I'm gonna do some bold silly season predictions because why not. During the Dutch GP Helmut Marko made an ominous comment regarding Pérez and his future at RB, along the lines of 'nothing is 100% certain in F1'. Shortly after, F1 outlets reported Christian Horner as confirming that Pérez will be Verstappen's teammate in 2024 and that it's all done and dusted. However, I looked up the exact quotes that Horner gave and they seem to be "Pérez will be our driver in 2024" and "Pérez will be in the car", which leave open a lot more possibilities than him being Verstappen's teammate. So here's my 2 scenarios: Scenario 1. Ricciardo comes back and outpaces Tsunoda by the end of the season. In this case, RB will do a driver swap, promoting Ricciardo to Red Bull for 2024 and demoting Checo to AlphaTauri. This would make sense because it gets rid of the very obvious tension between Max and Checo in RB, replacing him with a by now senior driver who seems to have a good relationship with Max while also being no real threat to him. At the same time, with AlphaTauri copying a lot more from Red Bull next season, having a driver with extensive experience in this year's Red Bull would be very helpful to their development, since teams are allowed to share parts but not allowed to provide them with information on how to extract performance from them. You might think Checo would not want to drive for AT, but he still has a contract with RB, so this would allow him to keep racing and keep getting a paycheck, while it allows for RB to not having to buy him out (like McLaren did with Ricciardo). So it would make sense for Checo to serve out his contract at AT, and to be replaced with Liam Lawson for 2025. Note how this scenario does not contradict Horner's 2 statements: Checo will still be a Red Bull driver (on loan to AT), and he will still be in 'the' car. Ricciardo will be in the car for 1-2 seasons, but likely not more, since some lucrative driver options (such as Leclerc and Norris) might become available after 2024/25. Scenario 2. Ricciardo comes back but does not manage to outpace Tsunoda. In that case, Red Bull would stick with Pérez for 2024, while replacing Ricciardo with Lawson at AlphaTauri. I do not think that Red Bull intends to promote Tsunoda at all despite his improvement this season. So after the 2024 season, Pérez's contract expires and Red Bull might once again attract a driver from outside the academy. A likely target would be Lando Norris, since Red Bull are not guaranteed a dominant car for 2026 and beyond, and will probably want 2 top-tier drivers to maximize the points in the Constructors. Leclerc's current contract runs through to 2024, so he would be another option. Thank you for listening to my shower thoughts.

Race

Max is now 84 points clear off Mercedes in the Constructors Championship.

Possibly the most entertaining GP of the season so far. Max is already one of the all-time greats. Alonso showed yet again that he's still an elite tier driver. Amazing podium by Gasly. Also a great performance by Albon once again. I think the latter might be on for a Mercedes seat should Lewis not renew his contract after all.

PlanetF1 needs clicks, more at 5.

It depends but in the end he is a professional racing driver and a spot in F1 is the most lucrative job you can get in that field, even if it is with a lesser team. I also don't know how it works contractually since RB can 'loan out' drivers to AlphaTauri. So on paper they would be fulfilling their end of the bargain by providing him with an F1 seat, and if he refuses to play ball, then perhaps that'd mean RB could terminate his contract without having to pay him off. Just speculating of course, but there is probably a reason why Red Bull has so often retained drivers who didn't cut it, either by putting them back in Toro Ross/Alpha Tauri (Kvyat, Gasly) or by making them the RB reserve driver (Albon).

Depends on who replaces him. If Ricciardo manages to outpace Tsunoda and get the seat than I could imagine a driver swap since AlphaTauri would still be able to benefit from having an experienced driver for their development. It might also save them from having to buy out Checo since he has a contact until 2024. The fact that they hired De Vries (a 28-year-old driver with a lot of experience) and then Ricciardo for the 2nd AlphaTauri seat tells me they don't want to go with actual rookies anymore. At least until they feel Lawson is ready.

France.

A nice bit of speculation and sensation, but does anyone else get the feeling that things have been getting a bit tense over at Red Bull during the past couple of races? I read reports that the moment in Austria where Checo pushed Max onto the grass was the final straw for the Verstappens, and it does seem that ever since that moment, Verstappen is going out of his way to humiliate Pérez. At least, you could view some things in that light, such as him pitting in Austria to take the fastest lap away from Pérez, his bickering with GP over RB pit strategy in Spa and then later in the race apparently driving on the limit (again to the dismay of GP) when he clearly didn't have to, just to demonstrate the pace difference. His body language towards Pérez post-race also seems a bit colder (like in the cooldown room he'll mostly be talking to the driver other than Checo). It may seem far-fetched but I've said before on the Discord that Max does have this Michael Jordan-like pettiness to him where he will just go out of his way to prove how good he is if he is slighted, doubted or taunted. We've seen earlier that he likes to play mindgames like when he was pointing to the 1 on his car after the Miami race (a win that followed the height of Checo's championship speculations, which no doubt annoyed Max), or even in previous seasons where he'd pull up next to Hamilton behind the safety car in Abu Dhabi 2021 on his new slicks. If I want to go real Bild conspiracy nut I'll even speculate that RB pulled the trigger on the Ricciardo - De Vries swap following (and because of) the Austria sprint race incident because they wanted to set up Ricciardo to replace Pérez at the end of this season as the Verstappens want an experienced yet non-threatening 2nd driver who can get along with Max. The whole tyre test bullshit was just a cover story for them to justify it. Maybe it's all BS but I think it's fun to think about these things.

2022 showed how. In Austria, according to Max they had put an experimental upgrade on the car that turned out to be a considerable downgrade, allowing Ferrari to outpace them in the Grand Prix proper (well, until Sainz's car blew up). This probably was exarcerbated by Austria being a sprint weekend, so they did not have a lot of time to try and limit the damage with a killer set-up. When they took the upgrades off the next race, everything was fine again. In Singapore, we had the fuel load oopsie in qualifying, meaning Max had to start P8 on a street circuit. He also had the weakest Grand Prix I've seen him do in like 3 years. In Brazil, Mercedes had a fluke killer weekend while Red Bull were surprisingly weak. I don't know whether it was down to a wrong set-up or just the uniqueness of the track, but I don't think Mercedes even really understood why they won there. So there's a chance something like that might happen. In the end it will come down to whether Pérez will be able to consistently get podiums again, meaning he'd be in position to take the win if Max has a moment. I just don't see Max winning everything now. Apart from the issues listed above, there's always a chance Max'll get damage (Baku 2023), drive into someone else's debris (Silverstone 2022) or has bad luck with a safety car (also Baku 2023). The question is, when that happens, will Pérez be in pole position to take the win or will he be on yet another 'recovery drive'.

2021 already happened

I saw that and he was obviously kidding. Leave it up to PlanetF1 to write a clickbait article on it. Their bullshit is probably written by AI at this point.

People who experience success in life tend to develop the illusion that they can be successful at everything. He also claimed he had studied disasters in aviation and spacefaring to learn from them. A Youtuber pointed out that he apparently forgot the lesson of the Apollo 1 disaster, which taught us that bolting people into a tight, high-oxygen space will lead to disaster if a fire breaks out.

The controller by itself is not the crazy part, as controllers are also used by the military in some countries. The mental part is that they relied on a wireless connection, which any gamer will know can be highly unstable/unreliable. Military application of controllers always uses a wired connection. They did have spare controllers on board in case it failed, but this particular model (Logitech G-F710) relies on a 2.4GHz cordless connection, meaning you need a USB dongle plugged in for it to connect. Each controller will only connect to the specific dongle that it was shipped with, and judging by the way this shitfest went, there is a real possibility they were not aware of this. So all of those spare controllers would've been useless unless they came with their corresponding dongles on board. Then there's the fact that they used a 2011 knock-off brand, which again, every gamer will know is highly unreliable.