#clearly he’s also trying to finally trigger max into mating him..

[omegalerc]

not only is charles’ suit an xs/s but i believe he had it taken in at the waist 🫠

waaaa i heard this before too. ugh i would say we need to bring back omegas with shame but who am i kidding .. literally the entire world is benefiting from the fact charles is an omega with zero shame. show off that waist babygirl !!!

[thisdaynews]

Brazilian Grand Prix: Ferrari's 'silly' problem is a rather large one

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/brazilian-grand-prix-ferraris-silly-problem-is-a-rather-large-one/

Brazilian Grand Prix: Ferrari's 'silly' problem is a rather large one

It took 20 races, but finally the inevitable happened at Ferrari at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Their drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel collided, taking both out of the race and leaving the team with a rather large problem on their hands.

“Silly” was the word team boss Mattia Binotto used to describe the incident. In his cool, detached way, he deflected a series of opportunities to lay the blame, and said he would reconvene with Vettel and Leclerc at the factory in Maranello this week to analyse what happened, come to some form of judgement and decide on next steps.

The question now for Binotto is what he does next and how he manages what has become the most combustible driver pairing in F1, not so much for the one remaining race this year, but to prevent the internal competition from derailing their 2020 campaign.

Verstappen wins in Brazil as Ferraris collide

How the Brazilian Grand Prix unfolded

Listen: “Come on guys!” Hamilton feels the heat in Brazil

What happened?

The collision occurred on lap 66 of a frenetic race, with five to go, as the two Ferrari drivers found themselves at the back of a queue of cars being held up by Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, running second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on much older tyres than those behind.

Ahead of them, and behind Hamilton, was Red Bull’s Alexander Albon, who was trying to pass the Mercedes while also holding back Vettel, who in turn had Leclerc behind him.

Leclerc saw an opportunity and dived for the inside of Vettel into Turn One. It was a daring move, aggressive certainly, but absolutely clean. But not one that Vettel was likely to take lying down.

The German had use of the DRS overtaking aid on the run towards Turn Four, and Leclerc moved to the inside to defend his position, leaving just enough room for Vettel – but not an inch more – on the outside.

Approaching the corner, Vettel then moved across on his team-mate, his left rear tyre touching Leclerc’s front right. Although light, the contact broke Leclerc’s suspension and ripped the tyre off the rim, and also gave Vettel a right-rear puncture.

Both cars retired from the race, prompting the final safety car that triggered a bonkers last two laps, in which Mercedes did what technical director James Allison described as “plain dumb” in pitting Hamilton for fresh tyres, the world champion collided with Albon, costing the Anglo-Thai a first podium, and Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly finished a wholly unexpected second.

What did the Ferrari drivers say?

Vettel did what he always does in controversial situations and kept his public pronouncements to a limit, repeating the same few sentences in every interview.

Whose fault was it?

“It doesn’t matter now,” Vettel said. “We both didn’t finish the race, which is bad for us as a team.”

What happened?

“There is not so much to say, I think it’s pretty clear. But obviously it’s bitter and a shame for the team to lose both cars. I didn’t have much space on the right. I had a better run out of the chicane and tried to pass and then we touched.”

Vettel is 19 points behind team-mate Leclerc in the drivers’ championship

Leclerc was a little more forthcoming.

“We will have to analyse better the crash,” he said. “I overtook in Turn One, then on the run to Turn Four I closed the door.

“I was aware he was on the outside. I left little space but enough for him and then I think he tried to squeeze me a little bit towards the inside and we were very close so we touched straight away. Very disappointing to end a race like this.”

The stewards – to the surprise of some, given that Vettel had clearly changed his line and instigated a collision – ruled it a racing incident and took no further action.

How did it happen?

How the two Ferrari drivers came to this juncture is a rather longer story than the events of this weekend.

To those on the outside, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. The pressure inside Ferrari has been building all year as Leclerc has established himself as a star and threatened – and perhaps usurped already – Vettel’s seniority in the team. Vettel, meanwhile, is a proud man who, in the car, is as stubborn as they come when it comes to protecting his competitive position.

All year, Binotto has been doing his best to manage the inevitably tense situation.

Ferrari started the season with Binotto saying Vettel, as the senior driver, would have priority in any “50-50 decisions”, and the first few races passed with a series of team-order calls, the majority in Vettel’s favour.

Vettel’s refusal to move over for Leclerc in Russia eventually played into the hands of race winner Hamilton

Leclerc said he accepted the situation but also that he would do his best to change it. And as soon as the second race in Bahrain, he dominated Vettel and everyone else and was on the way to a superb victory when his engine developed a problem in the closing stages.

Tensions cooled after the first few races, as it became apparent that Ferrari did not have the pace to mount a title challenge, and Vettel established the upper hand as Leclerc’s chances were comprised by a few too many mistakes in qualifying, usually by him, but sometimes also by the team.

But at the French Grand Prix in June, Leclerc turned a corner and went on a run of nine races in which he out-qualified Vettel, while the German continued to make the sort of pressure errors that have blighted his last three years at Ferrari.

Leclerc won twice in Belgium and Italy as Ferrari made a flying start to the second part of the season. In Monza, there was a controversy when Leclerc failed to do his part of a prearranged team strategy for the drivers to give each other tows in qualifying, which angered Vettel.

Vettel then won in Singapore, but only after the team inadvertently got him ahead of Leclerc, who has been leading from pole position, by pitting Vettel first to try to pass Hamilton for second place.

Then in Russia Vettel directly refused team orders to let Leclerc by – which had been agreed pre-race following a decision to get Leclerc, again on pole, to let Vettel past with a slipstream into the first corner, so both Ferraris could be running one-two in front of Hamilton.

Since then, Vettel has been on a bit of a run, and has out-qualified Leclerc in the last two races, and the battle for primacy at Ferrari has taken another twist. And now this.

What next?

It’s not hard to work out what has happened here. Vettel will not have taken kindly to being passed by his team-mate. He has then made what many will see as a misjudgement in trying to reclaim the position and been too aggressive in moving over on Leclerc.

As Leclerc put it: “The result was a huge disaster but the incident itself was a very small touch. It’s unfortunate.”

Vettel has form at this sort of thing. Those with long-ish memories will recall the Turkish Grand Prix in 2010, when in trying to pass Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, he moved over and the two touched, handing a one-two to McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

In 2010 Vettel had this to say about his collision with team-mate Webber: “I dived down the inside and I had the corner.”

And in the past two years, Vettel has become infamous for making a series of errors in racing situations. Many will see this as the latest example.

After Russia, the two Ferrari drivers were sat down by Binotto to discuss the situation. But the issue for Ferrari is that in the past Vettel has proven time and again that he is reluctant to be managed – unless the situation is in his favour.

What will Binotto do about this aspect of his former number one driver, he was asked?

“It is not a matter of managing,” Binotto said. “It is matter of recognising what has been the actions and mistakes. Whether you are a driver or engineer or whatever, recognising mistakes is important because it can only make you better.

“It is not for me to blame them, it is for them to recognise it.”

On the other hand, while Vettel undoubtedly triggered the incident, Leclerc – who was making his own point in the psychological and on-track battle between the two – may come to conclude that in pinching his team-mate so close to the grass, he was making himself vulnerable to exactly the kind of move Vettel made.

“We need to clarify within the team what is silly and what is not,” Binotto said, “where is the limit of the actions. But when you have a crash, something was wrong, no doubt. When you are free to fight, it is a driving matter how much you can take the risk but today the risk was not necessary.”

The potential consequences

In Brazil, the two Ferrari drivers were free to race because the team had secured second place in the constructors’ championship and all that was left was to decide which finished ahead in the drivers’.

Heading into Brazil, Leclerc was third in the championship, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Vettel. Verstappen’s superb win at Interlagos, coupled with the retirement of the Ferrari drivers, has promoted the Dutchman to third and given him an 11-point cushion on Leclerc, a margin that the Monegasque will not find it easy to overhaul at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi on 1 December.

More important for Binotto, though, is how he handles the Vettel-Leclerc situation going into 2020.

Vettel and Leclerc are under contract with Ferrari until the end of the 2020 season

Leclerc is likely to finish this year ahead of Vettel on points, on race wins, on pole positions, and on their qualifying head-to-head, despite the advantages Vettel had at the beginning of the year, and despite the fact that he is in his first year with the team and only in his second in F1, against a four-time champion with 53 wins.

To all intents and purposes, Leclerc is now Ferrari’s lead driver, and Binotto cannot go into next year giving Vettel priority. But nor will Vettel accept it being given to Leclerc. He just doesn’t work that way. He believes his status in the sport demands more.

As for Binotto, he has a number of times this year described having two such closely matched and competitive drivers as “a luxury”. Does he still think that way?

“I am still convinced it is a luxury because they are both very good drivers,” he said. “They both represent a benchmark for each other and they have improved during the season.

“Seb in the second half has been very fast. What happened today, I would say it was even lucky it happened this season because there will be an opportunity to clarify with them for it not to happen next year.

“Currently they have a good relations and are going well together. Certainly what happened today may not help. But I don’t think there is a drama at all and I see it more as an opportunity in view of next year to clarify what is needed.”

Read More

[theconservativebrief]

John McCain was many things in life — a war hero, a political reformer, a militarist, a principled opponent of torture — but one thing he was not was a member of the resistance to President Trump and his aspirational autocracy.

Some of his longtime political allies and ideological soul mates like Bill Kristol really were and would like to believe that McCain took the same resistance journey that they did. Many journalists who are profoundly uncomfortable with both partisan politics and Trump’s stated desire to end press freedom wish McCain had been the leader of a Republican wing of anti-Trump resistance.

But it’s simply not true. His daughter Meghan McCain said the memorial was “to mourn the passing of American greatness. The real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly.” That was widely seen as a shot at Trump, and rightly so. But it does a disservice to John McCain’s actual political views and those of the speakers at his funeral to retroactively conscript them into a resistance movement none of them adheres to.

The core conviction of the resistance is that Trump’s presidency is a moment of crisis for American democracy, and a time for choosing in which all patriots have an obligation to take concrete steps and make concrete sacrifices to try to save the constitutional order from a corrupt demagogue. The resistance fears the emergence of what David Frum calls “Trumpocracy.” This sense of crisis is a belief the resistance shares with the pro-Trump movement, emblematized by Michael Anton’s essay proclaiming 2016 the “Flight 93 election.”

The core premise of McCain’s final two years of life — shared by his daughter, the Bushes, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and other apostles of old-fashioned Republicanism — is that this crisis is mythical. In the old-fashioned Republican view, Trumpism is an unfortunate passing fad that should be alternately accommodated and scolded such that the enduring values of Reaganite conservatism might reassert themselves when Trump recedes from the scene. They fear, essentially, that Trump’s bumbling will let Democrats win elections.

America would be in better shape if neocon pundits like Frum, Kristol, and Max Boot had succeeded in convincing some working politicians like McCain to agree with them and join the resistance. But they didn’t. And the old-fashioned Republican viewpoint that McCain adhered to and that his funeral represented needs to be seen for what it is — not a form of quiet resistance but something close to its opposite, the belief that collaboration is the wisest path forward even for those who have very real disagreements with the current president.

The weekend of McCain’s funeral, I was in Kerr County, Texas, visiting my wife’s family. This is a deeply red county where Trump won 76 percent of the vote and Mitt Romney got 79 percent. It’s the kind of place where the local Democratic Party was left for dead years ago. But animated by the spirit of resistance, the Kerr County Democratic Party has a new chair, a new headquarters building, a new website, a new slate of precinct captains, and a spirit of enthusiasm about high-quality candidates in what are admittedly long-shot races for House and Senate.

Texas’s 21st Congressional District, an open R+10 seat, has its own Indivisible group now, and even out in what’s probably the reddest part of a red congressional district, I saw more hard signs for Beto O’Rourke and Joseph Kopser than I did for their opponents.

That’s resistance. From giving up a safe House seat for a long-shot Senate race whose very existence helps other down-ballot candidates to giving up a Saturday afternoon to attend a candidate town hall in Bandera to putting up a political sign most of your neighbors will disagree with in order to signal to other shy Democrats that they should come out of the closet, millions of people across America are doing tangible things to dislodge Trump in tangible ways.

Kopser, sensibly, is not running a particularly left-wing campaign. But if he wins, it would put Democrats one seat closer to a majority that would be in a position to hold hearings, expose corruption, and force Trump to engage in meaningful financial disclosure.

These are things that Republican Party politicians certainly could be doing — they would in no way violate the tenets of conservatives’ alleged philosophical principles — but they aren’t. The only elected officials who are resisting Trump are Democrats, so the only way for someone not in electoral politics to resist Trump is to try to elect some Democrats. That’s an easy call for McCain mourners like Barack Obama and Joe Biden who have always been Democrats, but it’s a tough call for members of the Bush and McCain families and others of their ilk, and the call they made is to collaborate rather than resisting.

During the 2016 campaign, the silence from old-school Republicans like McCain, George W. and Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and others was deafening.

They were not endorsing their party’s candidate for president — an extraordinary step. But at the same time, they were not willing to endorse his opponent or even to defend her from the outrageous email-related slanders to which the official organs of the Republican Party were subjecting her. Nor did they organize a meaningful third-party effort that would have attempted to draw votes away from Trump and sink his electoral fortunes.

The reason for this wasn’t mysterious.

While old-school Republicans didn’t like Trump or believe he would be a good president, they also thought he was likely to lose and didn’t want to facilitate a Democratic landslide that would hurt the GOP down ballot. Once Trump got into office, he turned out to be a pleasant surprise to old-school Republicans on policy — appointing a slate of mostly banal GOP foot soldiers to key executive branch jobs, taking the Federal Society’s cues on judges, and adhering to at least a recognizable version of a conservative legislative agenda.

He’s also behaved in outrageously corrupt ways and dabbled with authoritarianism on any number of fronts. This corruption and authoritarianism could be checked by Republicans, but it would be tough. They could threaten to hold up aspects of the policy agenda unless Trump addressed their concerns, but they believe in the policy agenda and don’t want to sacrifice it. They could engage in meaningful oversight and expose corruption, but that would simply serve to hurt down-ballot Republican candidates in the midterms, which would impair the policy agenda.

So instead of taking concrete, specific actions that impair Trump in specific ways, old-fashioned Republicans chide him on occasion and make speeches like the ones we heard at McCain’s funeral.

This isn’t nothing. Words matter in politics, and the project of trying to keep the flame of Reaganite conservatism alive could end up mattering a great deal if Trump loses in 2020 and the GOP finds itself back in the wilderness. But it’s not resistance. McCain’s personal final political act was declining to resign his seat even though he was incapacitated by illness, thus dying in office late enough into 2018 that the vacancy could be filled by a Republican appointee rather than triggering a special election that Democrats might win.

In France in the late 1930s, many on the political right adopted the slogan “Better Hitler than Blum.” That didn’t mean they were Nazis. It simply meant that they really hated Prime Minister Léon Blum’s socialist government and feared it more than they feared military defeat. Old-fashioned Republicans wish that Trump would change and hope the next generation of Republican Party politicians won’t act like him, but they’d rather see Trump be politically successful than Democrats swept into power. It’s a calculation they’ve made, and the country should see it clearly.

The belief that Trump is fundamentally unfit for office is fairly widespread among working non-ideological journalists in Washington. Some of that is because Trump is, in fact, fundamentally unfit for office. Some of it is that the demographics of elite journalism pretty precisely correspond with the exact segment of the electorate that reacted most negatively to Trump relative to Romney. And some of it is the fact that Trump keeps directly attacking the First Amendment and the legitimacy of journalism in a nearly unprecedented way. Whatever the reason, alarm about Trump is widespread in political journalism.

Woodward book, in scenes with Cohn trying to explain trade deficits and the service economy to Trump, answers the question ppl always ask about Trump. “Hasn’t anyone told him that XYZ is not true?” Yes, ppl often do. It has no impact on his existing thinking.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 4, 2018

But most reporters are profoundly and fundamentally uncomfortable with partisanship and partisan politics.

Under the circumstances, it would be extremely convenient if there were some kind of bipartisan resistance to Trump such that efforts to curb his wildest excesses weren’t simply a continuation of partisan politics. And John McCain would have been a logical person to lead the GOP wing of such a resistance movement.

For starters, he was obviously a man of enormous physical and moral courage who had nothing to fear from Trump. He’s also a guy who was certainly willing to break with party leaders at times, and who prioritized foreign policy issues over classic domestic economic conflicts.

But having flirted seriously with this course during the first Bush administration only to rebuild his identity as a mostly orthodox Bush-style Republican, he showed no inclination to actually take this step. Perhaps he drew the lesson from the Bush-era that American liberals are prone to hysteria about the flaws of Republican presidents and should be mostly ignored.

But whatever the reason, McCain didn’t step up to lead a Republican resistance, and neither did Romney or any of the Bushes. There simply is no such wing.

Republicans, including Republicans who dislike Trump personally and disapprove of a fair amount of his conduct, have decided that, all things considered, they are better off if he is a popular and politically successful president than if his regime is broken and beaten at the polls.

For those of us who’ve never been Republicans, it’s easy to say that perspective is wrong. For those who are, it must be a genuinely difficult choice. But it’s a choice that has been made — in 2018, America will either elect a Congress that continues to bolster Trump’s regime or it will elect one that tries to erode it. Those resisting Trump are pushing for one kind of Congress, and those not pushing for an anti-Trump Congress aren’t resisting Trump.

Original Source -> John McCain’s memorial service was not a resistance event

via The Conservative Brief

[ultrasfcb-blog]

Lewis Hamilton wins Azerbaijan Grand Prix after Red Bulls crash

Lewis Hamilton wins Azerbaijan Grand Prix after Red Bulls crash

Lewis Hamilton wins Azerbaijan Grand Prix after Red Bulls crash

Lewis Hamilton was handed victory in a madcap finish to a chaotic, incident-strewn Azerbaijan Grand Prix during which both Red Bulls sensationally collided with each other.

Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas was on course to win after Mercedes took advantage of a late safety car to jump long-time leader Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari.

But, after Vettel had thrown away second place with a mistake at the restart, Bottas suffered a puncture on the next lap.

His two rivals out of the way, Hamilton was given victory and the championship lead on a plate after looking set to finish third.

Two weeks after being hailed as the master overtaker, Ricciardo may have to take some of the blame for Red Bull’s worst intra-team incident for years

There will be words

The late safety car had been triggered by a crash between the two Red Bulls, when Daniel Ricciardo slammed into the back of team-mate Max Verstappen while trying to pass into the first corner.

There will be recriminations at Red Bull, whose drivers had appeared on the edge of a crash for much of the race as Ricciardo fought to pass Verstappen and the Dutchman defended right on the edge of acceptability, and some might say beyond.

Red Bull are well known for employing two drivers who fight fiercely on track, but there has not been a coming together of this magnitude since Vettel and Mark Webber ended each other’s race during the Turkish Grand Prix in 2010.

But although their incident – for which they both received a reprimand from race stewards – will generate headlines they had a bit part in a race that for so long Vettel looked to have in a headlock.

Perez returned to the podium for the first time since Baku two years ago

How did Vettel lose that?

The German led from pole and, after a safety car was triggered by several first-lap crashes, built a three-second lead on the first racing lap.

Hamilton could not quite stay with Vettel and his hopes appeared to be over when he locked his wheels going into Turn One on lap 22.

That forced him to stop for fresh tyres and demoted him to third place, and now there was a cat-and-mouse game between Vettel and Bottas.

Vettel and Ferrari stuck it out with a conventional strategy, stopping on lap 28 for soft tyres, while Mercedes left Bottas out hoping for a safety-car period.

It came, thanks to the Red Bulls, as Ricciardo cannoned into the back of Verstappen.

As a stop under the safety car costs less time than one in racing conditions, Bottas was able to emerge in the lead.

That’s three different winners in four races this season

The question of whether he could hold off Vettel in what appeared to be a faster car became academic when the German lunged for the inside at the restart with four laps left and ran wide, letting Hamilton and the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen through. Force India’s Sergio Perez moved past into third soon afterwards.

Bottas then seemed set for the win, but ran over debris on the next lap and suffered a major tyre failure as he passed the pits with three laps to go.

Hamilton, who took his first win since last October’s US Grand Prix and a four-point championship lead over Vettel, was disbelieving afterwards.

“Really quite an emotional race,” he said. “Valtteri did such an exceptional job and really deserved the win. I was very fortunate. It feels a bit odd, but I’ve got to take it.”

Red Bull team-mates Vettel and Webber collided while travelling in a straight line in 2010

How the Red Bull madness unfolded

The Red Bulls were expected to contend for victory but, instead, in the opening laps found themselves under pressure from the Renaults of Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg, who were on softer tyres.

Verstappen’s passing move on Ricciardo at Turn Two at the first restart on lap six let Sainz past the Australian and the Spaniard was soon past the Dutchman, too.

After Hulkenberg took himself out of the reckoning by hitting the wall in his second unforced error in Baku in two races, the Red Bulls set to it.

Ricciardo was obviously faster, and tried several times to pass Verstappen, the edgiest moment when the Dutchman nudged his team-mate to the wall in Turn One as Ricciardo tried to pass around the outside on lap 12.

Ricciardo settled back for a while but then attacked again on 35, this time succeeding in his outside move at Turn One.

But, when they pitted two laps apart on laps 38 and 39, Ricciardo somehow lost out despite stopping first, which should give an advantage.

Next time around, Ricciardo sought to make amends. He dummied to the outside, Verstappen defended and then defended again to the inside, and Ricciardo locked his brakes and smashed into the back of his team-mate, the pair spinning into the run-off area.

The incident will cause controversy – and while Ricciardo undoubtedly misjudged it, there will be those who feel Verstappen paid the price for moving too many times in the braking zone, something he has made a controversial trademark since his debut.

Mercedes non-executive director Niki Lauda sided with Ricciardo, saying the incident was “70% Verstappen’s fault because he moved too many times”.

There may also be an argument the team should have intervened earlier, knowing the intensity of the drivers’ personal battle, and given Ricciardo was clearly the quicker driver on this day.

Another mad restart

There was even drama during the final safety-car period, when Haas driver Romain Grosjean spun out of seventh place while trying to warm his tyres.

Hamilton criticised race director Charlie Whiting for not stopping the race, rather than sending out a flat-bed truck to recover Grosjean’s car.

That decision would also have provided more racing laps at the end.

Vettel, after his error at the final restart, survived to finish fourth, ahead of Sainz, a stellar performance by rookie Charles Leclerc in the Sauber and McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, seventh despite suffering two punctures and floor damage when caught in a first-lap incident with Hulkenberg and Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin.

Sirotkin was later handed a three-place grid penalty at the next race for triggering the incident.

Driver of the day

Leclerc, who has made his F1 debut this season with high expectations on him, qualified superbly in 14th place for Sauber and dodged the melee on the first lap to emerge 10th. He ran in the top 10 for most of the race and took a superb sixth to finally deliver on his potential as a future star after a shaky start to his career

What happens next?

F1 returns to Europe in two weeks’ time for the Spanish Grand Prix, where everyone will have updates to their cars and Mercedes will be seeking to overturn Ferrari’s obvious pace advantage.

Almost a footnote after the late-race incidents, but the agenda was set by several first-lap collisions

You are beautiful, no matter what they say… about your overtaking skills: Christina Aguilera oversaw the madness at Red Bull

Hamilton may look at his first victory in Azerbaijan through rose-tinted spectacles

Hello darkness, my old friend: Maybe Hulkenberg’s rare mistake – where he crashed into the wall for the second time in as many years in Baku – will be forgotten after all the action

The race takes place in downtown Baku

BBC Sport – Formula 1 ultras_FC_Barcelona

ultras FC Barcelona - https://ultrasfcb.com/formula1/3075/

#Barcelona