Panflute

Great race.

Friday 14th June, 2024 Group A Germany vs Scotland - 2-0 Saturday 15th June, 2024 Group A Hungary vs Switzerland - 0-1 Group B Spain vs Croatia - 0-0 Italy vs Albania - 3-1 Sunday 16th June, 2024 Group C Slovenia vs Denmark - 0-1 Serbia vs England - 0-1 Group D Poland vs Netherlands 0-2 Monday 17th June, 2024 Group E Romania vs Ukraine - 1-1 Belgium vs Slovakia - 1-0 Group D Austria vs France - 0-1 Tuesday 18th June, 2024 Turkey vs Georgia - 0-0 Portugal vs Czech Republic - 3-1

Hello

I think it's the other way around and the Horner scandal plays into a bigger internal struggle at Red Bull. I read some reports saying that Newey was done with Horner even in 2023 when the latter was downplaying Newey's importance to the team. But who's to say, really.

A lot of the people who insist you need to grow out of video games instead spend their entire weekends watching Netflix, so it's not really something I pay attention to.

It's funny how every one of these seasons would've been a nailbiter without Max.

Set up my team for today.

Albon to Mercedes then?

Finished Heavy Rain since it's available on Steam these days. God, that was shockingly bad. Incredible how people back in the day used this as the go-to example of video games being art.

Bad rapper

Remember this?

Yeah but what's freakishly tall for an F1 driver is still pretty regular height.

F1 drivers on average are quite small. You just don't notice it when they are standing next to each other.

On that, this video explains the technical side of it pretty well:

The Ion Fury: Aftershock DLC came out just as I was wrapping up the main game. Still extremely good level design and gunplay on a game engine that was antiquated by the time it had come out. I wasn't surprised to learn that the Ion Fury team is comprised of several people from the modding community, as you can really tell that they're just showing off what they can do with the Build engine. It might not look impressive if you're not familiar with the old games that ran on this engine, but some of the set pieces are nothing short of Build magic.

I wouldn't say he's dreadful. He's massively improved over the years. Still, the leading theory is that he's there because of his Honda connection.

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

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.

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.

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