Down Under F1 Trash Talk

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Welp, we have not had a Trash Talk thread here in a while. Since the Super Bowl by my guess. So, maybe it is time, and consider this an open thread because I know not all share the historical love of Formula One that this blog does.

The Circus season is about to open. As usual lately, it will be in Albert Park in Melbourne. And it is a fair and fast circuit to open the season with. Last year provided a shocker with Vettel and Ferrari taking the opening win. The rest of the season devolved into another Hamilton coronation though. Sadly. All things racing are better with better competition.

So this year, coverage of the Circus moves from NBCSN, which was abominable, back to ESPN from whence it came long ago. Personally, I loved Leigh Diffey, Steve Matchett and David Hobbs. But other than that, the always changing, and unpredictably located coverage by NBC was shit. As was their babbling and unctuous on scene pit row “reporter” Will Buxton, who is distressingly still present on the Sky feed ESPN uses. Can we swap Buxton for Leigh Diffey somehow?

ESPN may be doing it on the cheap, but they are doing so by utilizing a far superior European feed. Frankly, I am good with that, so far, so much the better. And we are not even into qualifying yet.

Okay, off we go for qualifying. We shall see that out before I post this, but the race, like The Dude, will have to abide.

And Qualy is off! The start of the season is always pretty exciting. Albert Park is a good spot, but not necessarily one of the classic circuits in F1. Probably a little warmer there than ideal, but still a decent track.

Wow. Just wow. The difference in the feed from the NBCSN years, as well as Fox/Speed, is like night and day. Incredibly superior. Hamilton takes pole, but Raikkonen and Vettel are in P2 and P3, with the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Ricciardo right behind.

Sadly Fernando Alonso in the McLaren starts out the season once again out of the top ten in qualifying. Couldn’t even make it into Q3. At some point he will no longer have it, and that day is quickly approaching, but Alonso is not done yet and the fact he is not in competitive equipment is a tragedy in the Circus. Put Fernando in Botas’ seat and Hamilton might pucker. But that is not happening, which is a sad thing for F1 fans.

So, we are off with a new season of Trash. It will be inconsistent until football really starts again, but will pop up every now and then. This weekend’s music is by Jimmy Barnes, a great Aussie import (for the Australian GP) that never got enough cred here in the states. In this clip, with Joe Bonamassa, but it is totally a Jimmy Barnes song (and it is awesome). Give it a listen, it is pretty great. Other than that, keep rolling, we have a long way to go yet.

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20 replies
  1. Trip says:

    Not related to sport, but what is this about?  @emptywheel retweeted:

    https://twitter.com/VickerySec/status/976483317334687744
    Heads up: A reckoning is coming. . . . . . . ->collusion<- #DenyThis — #TheyAreSoFkt — #Soon

    Chris Vickery‏Verified account @VickerySec 19h19 hours ago
    Next week, things are going to get hot. Moderate-size breach report Monday. Then a separate report on, most likely, Tuesday (and history gains a new footnote). #BraceYourself

    Does this have to do with Trump? Or is this some other huge breach of a tech company, gov’t or financial account, etc?

    This is killing me!

     

  2. Pete says:

    I’ve always wondered how they move the traveling F1 circus around the world. Got to be expensive, but I’ll bet the details are pretty interesting.

    Nascah they just load em up in the transporter, swig a beer, spit on the ground, piss on the side of the road, , and pound the asphalt to the next race.

  3. quebecois says:

    Hamilton trash talked a bit:  From Vettel’s reaction after the interview, I think he really got to him.   “Sebastian Vettel (3rd): “It’s been a rather dull day of work, like every Friday. We tried to chase the balance because I didn’t feel completely comfortable at first, but I’m not worried about that because I know that if we do everything right, the car should be in better shape. It looks like we are close, which is good news, so we should be able to do something tomorrow. This track is particularly tricky, in that if you don’t nail it at first, then there is quite of bit of lap time to be found, and I think we still have much potential to extract. The car is fine; it’s not where we want it to be yet, but if we keep on working, it should be ok. I really hope to make a bigger step than the others.””

  4. F1Fan says:

    I always thought Buxton was the most knowledgeable of the NBC crew, in terms of current developments. Diffie drove me mad. First impressions of the Sky Reporting (because ESPN is just using the Sky feed) is good – very knowledgeable people. However, if the goal is to bring in new viewers, this is not a model for doing that. Their discussion starts at very knowledgeable and detailed, and then goes on from there.

    • bmaz says:

      I liked Diffey! Also liked Bob Varsha a lot. Agree about getting used to the new crew, although have some experience with Brundle, who is quite good. As to Buxton, he is clearly knowledgeable enough, but I have always found him grating and annoying as hell. Overall, the through product seems far better, and am thankful for that.

  5. Geoff Arnold says:

    I found Diffey an excruciatingly bad presenter. Inarticulate, cliche-ridden, awkward. At the start of each broadcast, my partner and I had to remind each other: “We want to enjoy this race, so no comments on Diffey’s incompetence.” On the other hand, Buxton was (is) great: telegenic, articulate, enthusiastic, and charming.

    As for the new ESPN/Sky reporting:

    (1) Martin Brundle is superb: shows just how out of touch Hobbs and Matchett had become.

    (2) ESPN is only involved to the extent that they carry the feed and dump a slab of cheesy advertising in every so often. (Much less lucrative ads than NBCsn were showing, with no big name automotive brands.) And they haven’t updated the ESPN app on the Fire TV to include F1 as one of the sub-categories of Auto Sport, nor are we getting full-event replays in the app – one of the things NBCsn got right.

    (3) If ESPN wants to broaden the market for F1 in the USA, the Sky feed is exactly the wrong way to do it. Sky’s coverage appeals to knowledgable F1 fans, but is impenetrable for casual viewers.

    Even though I get the ESPN coverage for free (as a Verizon FiOS subscriber), I fully expect to sign up for the F1 streaming service when it launches. I already use the F1 mobile app for timing and so forth. So maybe ESPN is right to underinvest in F1, because the more lucrative viewers won’t be hanging around for long.

    Oh well…. At least they apologized on Twitter for screwing up the schedules for FP3.

  6. jo6pac says:

    The race is on the local Spanish channel for Free. I turn off the volume because don’t understand a word their saying and they make sound like soccer match. The race is easy to follow with a the info on the screen in English.

  8. bmaz says:

    The kids march against gun violence gives me hope this country may survive the era of ignorant Trumpism.

        • Bob Conyers says:

          Ditto x 3.

          I think there is a lot of denial among the chattering class about how deeply people are fed up with Trump and the GOP, and they’re writing it off as just a mirror view of the Tea Party. In their hearts I think the conventional wisdom buys that this is just manufactured by some yet to be identified person (Soros? Winfrey? Clooney?) just as the Tea Party was manufactured by the Kochs and a small cadre of rich Republians. In their more expansive moods, I think the conventional wisdom wants to see this as small crowds of passionate types on the left matched by equal numbers of Breitbart types on the right.

          The framing had better change quickly from “are the Democrats really ahead?” to “what can the Republicans do to catch up?” Because unless the story becomes clear how serious and real and significant the Democratic lead has become, and how badly the GOP lacks any conventional response, we are not going to get an honest accounting of why the Republicans want to go to war and why they are so desperate to stop Mueller.

    • posaune says:

      Such a wonderful, hopeful scene here in DC today:    the 500K crowd of young people was so inspiring!    Creative, superb signs — fantastic graphics, all in a field of young people with such confidence and commitment.   It was the happiest piece of DC we’ve seen in a long time, all these folks walking all over the city.  There were many right-to-vote signs, including:  “16-year olds need the right to vote.”

      We really needed this day of “can-do” strength and direction.

      • Pete says:

        15,000-20,000 here in Parkland. Supposedly a decent showing near Mar-a-Lago, but I have no heard specifics.  Of course the focus needs to be in and on DC.

        Pete

    • Pete says:

      Thanks for post on the McLaren Team logistics.  All that for a several hour race, bu that’s what it takes to play in that big league.

      I do not know how the Parkland “boys” hockey team did at nationals, but they weren’t supposed to win FL state.  Panthers have “adopted” them and flew them on their team plane with all the fixings to the national tourney.

      The community solidarity is truly amazing.  Now if “we” can learn to do this without the tragic initiator – just do it as a matter of living.

  10. bloopie2 says:

    For those of us who don’t follow too closely, can you tell us what are the big rule changes for this year, why are they, and who is expected to benefit?  Also, is the Chaparral 2J sucker car legal again yet? Those Can-Am races I saw were wild–unlimited horsepower, 5 liter flat 12 Porsches, 8+ liter Chevy big blocks, a BRM screaming at 10,000 rpm–the Wild West, really.  The 2J was the neatest, though.

  11. Bay State Librul says:

    It’s only a contusion?

    “When the line drive smashed into his left hip in the first inning on Saturday, Chris Sale fell to the ground in front of the mound with a shooting pain that numbed his entire leg.
    “It scared the hell out of me,” the Red Sox ace said.”  Globe
    Comment: Four days to go and counting our blessings.

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