Panflute

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.

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.

Really nice article by/about Alex Albon. About his time with Toro Rosso and Red Bull, and how he went from a test driver back to being on the grid. He's always been one of the most sympathetic drivers on the grid and he seems really talented to, so I hope he does well again at Williams this year. https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/alex-albon-formula-one-racing-f1

Not really surprising. I forgot who it was but there was a Youtuber who put out a video like half a year ago making a strong case as to why Alpha Tauri isn't really interesting for Red Bull anymore marketing-wise and could be sold.

A video I made about becoming Emperor in Elder Scrolls Online (the biggest PVP achievement). I don't know how well it translates for people who've never played the game, but I figured I'd post it here anyway.

Watching The Last Dance for the third time. Possibly my favorite sports documentary of all time.

Someone from the UAE holds conservative views on women? Say it ain't so.

Rewatching The X-Files. This must be my third time, although I've only ever watched up to season 7. This time I intend to watch all of it, including the new seasons. A few episodes in I'm already super into it again. It's just so fun and well-written. It really is my comfort food of television.

Trying to play through Final Fantasy 14 with a friend. Kinda rough.

"Prehistory? In MY history thread?" It's more likely than you think.

Twin Peaks Honestly having a hard time struggling through this, especially now that the supposed 'best' part of the series is apparently behind me. I get that it's old but there's shows from around the same era that aged much more gracefully. I don't get the appeal and the criticisms I see online are primarily discarded with variations of 'it's supposed to suck.' It's sad because it inspired a lot media that I do enjoy, so I was more than ready to enjoy this, but alas.

lmfao

Catching up on ESO quests while listening to the Conan soundtrack. It makes everything more epic.

I expect Red Bull to be the favorites next year as well, just with less distance to the rest of the field. Ferrari for now don't have a team capable of fighting for a championship and I doubt that'll change in 100 days. Mercedes will probably be a lot closer. I'm really curious though what will happen there in terms of the driver order. Normally Lewis is still the faster driver, but if Russell can hold on to the consistency he showed through the first half of 2022, he'll be tough to beat in the same car.

Started healing a high-end pvp group in Elder Scrolls Online. Really fun.

I don't know if it's true but Ziggo's Nascar reporter said that he practiced this move with his brother in a video game before doing it irl.

It's a bit more nuanced than the headline made it out to be but he should still know better, especially in the wake of the tiny shitstorm that emerged when he made that radio comment in Spa.

I like Fernando's not-giving-a-shit attitude where he just says what he wants, but he has to be careful to not just be a hater at this point.

Less drug-related gun violence than in the real Amsterdam too.

I don't care about Call of Duty but I can't get over how insanely real this looks.