Thursday, August 26, 2021

What to watch this F1 weekend (Aug 27th - Sept 1st)

  • Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Belgium; from circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. Practice 1. Friday @ 5:25am - 6:30am (ESPN2) live
  • Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Belgium; from circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. Practice 2. Friday @ 8:55am - 10am (ESPNU) live
  • Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Belgium; from circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. Practice 3. Saturday @ 5:55am - 7am (ESPN2) live
  • Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Belgium; from circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. Qualifying. Sunday @ 8:55am - 10am (ESPN2) live
  • Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Belgium; from circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. Race. Sunday @ 8:55am - 11am (ESPN2) live
  • Bitchin Rides. Mon/Tue @ 6pm - 7pm (MotorTrend) replays
  • Garage Squad. Mon @ 7pm - 8pm (MotorTrend) replay
  • Bitchin Rides. Wed @ 5pm - 6pm (MotorTrend) replays
  • Auto Mundial. Tuesday @ 7pm - 7:30pm (MotorTrend) replays
  • Motorweek. Tuesday @ 7:30pm - 8pm (MotorTrend) replays
  • Top Gear America. Wednesday @ 9pm - 10:30pm (MotorTrend) new
Hungary was a wilder ride than even Silverstone; and once again Red Bull got the short end of the stick. A surprise result for Alpine as their car was incredible and Ocon took his first race win with the help of the wiley Alonso holding up Hamilton's run through the field after the Merc blunder of not switching off wets when the entire field did, following the red flag Valtteri's bowling ball impression caused. I say blunder due to the result, but at the time they were at the front of the field and had no idea what anyone else was doing. So they primarily lost a game of chicken. Back to that bowling ball impression though; plenty of DNFs resulted from that crash, McLaren and RedBull getting the worst of it -- Max continued his race but his barge boards were so destroyed they couldn't be repaired so he raced with jacked up aero all race, but was miraculously able to finish tenth. Another beneficiary of the rain was Vettel, but....as you'll see below his second place finish wasn't meant to be, due to some other issues his car had which lead to him getting DQ'd after the race. That DQ was quite a big deal, because plenty of folks downstream gained points accordingly. William's scored with both cars, but got even more points with the bump. Max got another point, moving from 10th to 9th. Sainz got bumped up to the podium and Alonso got bumped to 4th to bring in the biggest haul for Alpine ever in a single race. And of course Hams moved from 3rd to 2nd, after falling to the very back of the field. Vettel lost out due to the inability to turn over 1L of fuel after the race. Aston Martin put up a fight during the Summer break (video below) but at this time they have no recourse. Everything that's happened has lead to a few things; one, Ferrari has closed the gap to McLaren in the Constructors and has another engine upgrade on the way. Merc has taken the lead over in both Drivers and Constructors Championships. Ricciardo still hasn't gotten a handle on the McLaren and Alonso is as good as he's ever been. Spa is a legendary track where drafting and power are keys to success. It'll be interesting to see how RBR responds and how Valtteri continues working on his bid to keep the Merc seat in 2022. 
Enjoy your motorsport weekends.

Video courtesy of Peterwindsor.
Video courtesy of Autosport.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Monday, August 23, 2021

Rally Pron Feature: We Drove Sebastien Loeb's 2008 Citroen C4 WRC Championship Winning Rally Car (Carfection)

Henry gets a crack at Sebatian Loeb's 2008 championship winning Citroen C4 WRC car (chassis #14). First, he walks through this cars' history with RM Sotheby's auctioneer extraordinaire Max, Girardo.

Video courtesy of Carfection.