Sure is. He was one of the Stewards this weekend.
@KartingIsLife, Newey was Mario’s race engineer for a season in 80s, so hardly surprising he said hello.
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I figured there was a connection, esp with Newey starting with Indycars…
I don’t think there was a single person who was not happy with the outcome.
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The drivers market is so volatile right now I think Alex extended just to be sure he wasn’t left without a seat at all. Sooo many contracts are up at the end of the year.
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Yea I was kinda surprised by this. I figured he had a decent shot at the Mercedes seat. I’m not sure if he has any RB backing/support anymore. It was quite the controversy at the time that an ex-RB driver went to a Mercedes powered team.
The drivers market is such an odd term in that it seems to me there’s not really a market. It seems like it’s the same folks always. I suppose it’s a given that the teams are always grabbing each others drivers or outright trading them?
In the past several years, there have certainly been some old heads who are sticking around longer than drivers used to in decades prior. Alonso, Hamilton, and the like are showing that with training advancements and if you’re just plain good enough, you can have a longer career.
But we’ve seen lots of young drivers come in too. Unfortunately the F2 champion used to be all but a shoe-in for an F1 seat, but that isn’t necessarily the case anymore. Guys like Drugovich and Illott are strong talents but there simply haven’t been any seats for them in F1. I think that’s why you are seeing the rise in F2 and other European ladder drivers coming to IndyCar, like Illott and Pourchaire.
But still, George, Lando, Charles, Yuki, Logan, and Piastri are all pretty recent newcomers to the grid.
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Absolutely. The fact that teams/drivers have their own physical therapist, fitness coaches, nutritionist etc goes a long way.
The need to let Andretti in, that’s two more seats. It really annoys me that they have been turned down.
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I have to imagine that Andretti has some sort of agreement for the future, otherwise there is no way to justify building out a facility in the UK specifically for F1.
And yeah, more teams = more seats so I think it’s a good thing for sure.
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Yeah I think it will be when the current concorde agreement ends and gets updated. They will boost up the entrance fee from 200 mil to whatever. It’s all about money I feel.
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I think Andretti intend to use that facility for their Formula E team too.
Congress is involved now too so we’ll see where that goes.
I thought we might have a real race on for Sunday the way practice looked.
Nah… order restored.
Without the tow off Hulk, Max would not have been pole. The McLarens are going to be a real bother tomorrow I think.
