#when he won in monza i think it was too late for us. i think it rewrote something in us. i think he ascended that day.

[introspectivememories]

if you're writing a charles fic, it must have some aspect of boyking. he must lean a little on the childgod side. he has to be revered a little bit, adored even. if people aren't talking about him like they wouldn't wash his feet and adorn it with perfume like mary magdalene washed and adorned jesus' feet, you're doing it wrong.

[norrisleclercf1]

Ooooh girl I am here for Seb/Charles/Reader

Ok so like if you were with Seb first when they were at Ferrari and you both took care of baby Charlie. And everyone is like "aww they're like his mom and dad" but Charles is like "please god I want them to cherish me forever in the most romantic way"

And it shifts when Seb goes to Aston Martin. Like, you're all seeking each other out purposefully to spend time together more and more. And slowly you and Seb are like "...oh. oh no. We love him so much. And he might love us too?" Because you both always had a little crush on him but thought it would go away

And then being together and Seb worships both his loves and Charles is so soft and lowkey obsessed (in a healthy way)

A/N: Through the years

Charles meeting you for the first time driving for Alfa:

"Hi, I'm Y/n," Charles blushes, seeing the pretty older woman before him as Sebastian stands behind you talking to Kimi. "Charles," He mumbles and shakes your hand. "So you're going to be Sebby's new teammate next year hm?" You move sitting down next to him and Charles moves over, as your knees knocked into each other.

"Yeah, seems like it," Charles blushes and notices the way that Kimi and Seb were watching you two. "Well I'm excited, Kimi has been a bore for a while," "Heard that," Kimi snarks but you just giggle and turn back to Charles. "If you ever need anything, you're more than welcome to come to Sebby's and I place in Maranello." Charles sinks into his seat and nods his head loving the attention you're giving him.

Charles First Season:

Charles noticed you and runs up behind you and hugs you tightly. "Y/n!" You giggle and place your hands over his, patting his hands. "Hi my baby," Charles smiles sweetly at the nickname as you turn around in his arms and pull him closer. "Ah, have you eaten?" Sebastian pops up beside Charles ruffling his hair.

"Yeah, had toast and some eggs." You smile glad to hear that he had eaten something as you knew Charles was always nervous since joining Ferrari. "They act like his parents," One of the engineers whispers in passing. You giggle at the comment but Charles shys away, but Sebastian doesn't let him.

His arm was wrapped around Charles waist and you knew the boy wasn't going to move away from Sebastian. Charles couldn't help that this would never leave, he wanted both of you more than he knew.

Charles winning Monza:

Sebastian couldn't even care that he DNFed all he wanted to do was to pull Charles into a huge hug and tell the younger driver how well he did. "Charles!" You scream, dragging Sebastian as you see the champagne soaked Ferrari driver turn around dropping the bottle and trophy.

"I WON!' "You won!" You both shouted, Sebastian let you hug the boy, but he gently pried you two apart and hugged Charles close, hand on his waist and the other on the back of his neck before placing a gentle kiss on his cheek. "I'm so fucking proud of you," He whispers and you get distracted by friends but kept a close eye on the way Charles and Sebastian were wrapped around each other.

Sebastian leaving Ferrari:

"You're really leaving?" Charles sniffled standing at the front door of your and Sebastian's apartment in Monaco. "Charl," Sebastian reached out but Charles just stepped back, slapping his hand down. "Am I not good enough?" Charles barked, you sit up in bed wondering who could possibly be here so late at night.

"Charles, I'm not leaving because of you," Sebastian begs, reaching for the boy again but he refuses to let Sebastian touch him. "I wouldn't blame you, you probably hate me," Charles cried, wiping his tears. "Charles? Baby what's wrong?" You peak around your husbands back and Charles just breaks seeing you. "Don't leave me," Charles sobs and moves collapsing into your arms.

Seb doesn't think twice and moves hugging you both and dropping to the floor. "We're not leaving you baby bot, I promise." Sebastian whispers.

Aston Martin:

You sighed heavily sitting in the Aston Martin garage, wanting nothing more than to walk over to Ferrari and cuddle up to Charles. It was early before the race and you knew the drivers would all be resting. You just wanted nothing more than to have him in your arms. "What are you doing?" Sebastian whispered, looking up from his phone where he lie.

"I can't get comfortable, I just want Charles with us," You pout hating not having him next to you. Sebastian smiles at you, moving his hand through your hair and squeezes your neck. "I know, I'm used to him sleeping on my lap and now he's not here. It's weird," He mumbles and you smile at how adorable the two always looked.

They would tend to fall asleep on each other and then rest their heads in your lap, but now Charles wasn't allowed to see you often as Ferrari and Seb didn't leave on good terms. "Screw this, I'm going to find Charles," Sebastian grumbles, standing up.

"Sebby, our feelings aren't going to change are they?" You whisper the question which has your husband freezing. "No," He sighs and throws his body back into the seat and drops his head. "We need to tell him," You whisper which has Seb nodding his head in agreement.

A knock at the door has you and Sebastian sharing a look wondering who that could be. Standing, your husband answers the door. "Sebby," A flash of red fills both your views as a body collides into Sebastian. Chuckling at the familiar weight in his arms, Seb takes steps back until they're on the couch.

Charles doesn't hesitate and crawls onto Sebastian lap and looks over at you, reaching his hand out for you to join. Moving over Charles wraps his arm around you and sighs, like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. "I don't like you two not being there," He whispers, even if he liked Carlos he wasn't you or Sebastian.

"We're not going anywhere," You whisper, and some how Sebastian understood what you meant.

Dating:

"Charles," You sigh hearing the familiar sound of a camera click as Sebastian zipped up your dress. You both turn and see your giddy boyfriend dressed in a nice suit and holding his phone. "What? You two look very....very good," He mumbles and you see a tint of red on his cheeks and eyes zone out.

"Charlie," You call which has him snapping back and he blinks away whatever he was thinking. "Can we skip? Really can we?" He asks, licking his lips as you add the earrings, Charles coming up behind you and giving you a hug, kissing your shoulder.

"No really? Can we skip, cause I'd rather just stay in bed and maybe," "Charles, this is an important event, and we're going." Sebastian pulls him off, giving him a quick kiss on the lips which has Charles chasing him. "Hmph, please just want to stay in bed with you two." He mumbles but you chuckle and turn around.

"How about, if you're good for us, we'll let you do that thing," You offer, Charles head whips around and face lighting up and he opens his mouth but Sebastian covers it with his hand. "No, I'm serious Charles, behave." Charles swallows and nods his head and you move fixing his tie before patting it down.

"Alright, let's go." You whisper, feeling the tension grow between you three. Maybe going tonight wasn't going to wise.

[vicsy]

Daniel Ricciardo and tennis – a masterpost (of sorts).

To start things off, here is a video of Daniel playing tennis that I think about way too often, especially lately, with the recent paddle mania that took over the paddock.

A few things I could note here, apart from the fact that Daniel himself said that if it wasn't racing, he'd go pro in tennis:

old school-ish (european) one handed backhand which is actually rather solid! Daniel said many times that he is a big fan of Federer (a true goat) and Daniel's technique here is pretty much imitating Roger's smooth and satisfying backhand strokes.

it is just a couple of hits but ball placement court wise in not bad - all past the half court mark, down the line, then cross court and close to the baseline.

his movement on the court itself comes off a bit wonky in comparison to regular players but I do like how he attacks the short ball (even if he swings a bit too wide but it still works).

Some assortment of interesting facts:

Apart from his love for Roger Federer, Daniel was a big Andre Agassi fan.

In 2021 Daniel and Lando stayed up to watch British teenage tennis player Emma Raducanu (who is an avid F1 fan and her fave driver is Daniel) win the US Open, her maiden grand slam tournament. This was right before the win in Monza and McLaren 1-2.

In 2020, Daniel took inspiration for his "Equality" face mask from the four time grand slam winner Naomi Osaka and called her a "strong voice" (which she rightfully was). Lewis Hamilton also considered Naomi a great inspiration in raising awareness of several social issues.

When Daniel was a kid, he would smash his racquet if he lost (that's so real of him and i do that too):

Ricciardo is widely regarded as motorsport’s nice guy. But when does the mongrel come out? "I’m a born competitor. As a kid I was a sore loser. If it was a tennis match, I’d smash a racquet or something," he said, laughing. (source)

Once Daniel was playing with his cousin and apparent he got a little outplayed, so in retaliation Daniel hit his cousin point blank with a tennis ball (which hurts A LOT). His cousin cried and then Daniel's dad gave him "a clip across the ear". Daniel also talks about it in one of the Grill the Grid videos. (big thanks to @go-daniel for finding the article and the video to back this story up!)

Daniel is childhood friends with Marcus Stoinis (an Aussie cricketer) and they grew up together playing tennis, driving to Dunsborough south of Perth and they would play tennis together for the whole day, practically hogging the court. (via this post)

Now, to the photos!

Carlos and Daniel playing a tennis match in 2013. Daniel won 6-3 2-6 7-6. It's from Daniel's old twitter post.

Daniel and Jannik Sinner in Piatti Tennis Center in 2020. Jannik is an Italian darling and current world number 3 on the steady rise to the top (i love my carrot boy so much).

Daniel on court.

Daniel attending semifinals of Wimbledon 2021.

Daniel with Juan Martín del Potro during Miami 2023 Grand Prix. Del Potro, now retired, was a prominent tennis player from Argentina, a "gentle giant" and he is also a fan of Fernando Alonso.

Daniel with Matteo Berrettini (and Francesco Carrozzini in the middle), Italian tennis player, current world number 142, during Met Gala 2023 (the way i yelled when this photo dropped omg).

It is all I have managed to gather for now but I will update if I stumble upon something new.

[alexiavettel]

chapter six

"The world was whole then, the sun and the moon together as one"

pairing: charles leclerc x fem!stroll¡reader

word count: 2.3k+

warnings: explicit language, reader manipulating her father to create chaos basically, Seb retirement, Lawrence is almost a good dad (i love him, i hate to make him a bit toxic), reader and charles being sassy and quite aggressive towards each other, Leclerc being obnoxiously sexist.

disclaimer: any photo used is not supposed to represent the reader, are all Pinterest pics that match the context

<<< previous part

April 10th, 2022

Melbourne, Australia- post-race

“We're gonna reveal in the next race” Charles notified you right after entering your trailer “Binotto wanted to be in Monza but it’s too far. So.. I was thinking that we could walk in on thursday holding hands” he starts planning.

“We didn’t agree with soft launching?”

“For god’s sake, Stroll! We’ve been soft launching for months! I had never gone out so much even with my real girlfriends, there are more pics of us in gossips accounts than on our own phones, we do more press together lately than when we were in the same team. Everyone figured that we are together already” he seats down on your couch.

“But why Imola? We could wait a bit, don’t we?”

“They decided already. Better be soon in the season, no?” 

“I will find a way to not let this be a main thing this weekend…” you murmur to yourself but Leclerc managed to hear it.

“What are you planning, Satan?” The man gets up and comes closer, eyeing you suspiciously.

“I don’t wanna be in the spotlight… with you” you whisper.

“Gotta be clearer, sweetheart” he looks at you quirking his brow.

“You’ll see it!” You turn to him and smile over sweetly.

“I don’t like the way you say this-”

“Do you want all the questions this weekend to be about our relationship? Yeah, I don’t think so. My team had something planned for a while so I think we could announce it now and it’ll take a bit of the spotlight from me- us”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s a bit of a risky move, but I’m gonna figure it out”

•

“Dad, please! I would never ask you for something like this if it really wasn’t important!” A lie, you would. You have done it multiple times already.

“Do you know how many problems this may create?” He grew uncomfortable in his seat. Having a serious conversation like this one, wasn’t your first option but the anxiety won.

“Daddy… An upgrade was already planned for Imola, we gonna announce it this thursday anyway. So thinking in a business way, it’ll attract to us a lot of attention. Since we’re having a good development this season, it will create an expectation in everyone that we are turning into a brand new team and one of the main ones. Announcing Alonso will create so much speculation and basically initiate the silly season”

“Kitten, there will be so many questions,” he sighed tiredly “did you stop to think how risky that is? To you, specifically. No one's gonna think Vettel is retiring, they will question your talent and ability, sweetie. I think I can do what you ask me but are you ready for all that?”

“Yes, I am. I’m not a kid anymore, you know I can take a bit of shit from the media with my head high. I’ve done it already, I can do it again. Thank you, daddy!” You hug him dearly. Really happy that the plan worked out and that he trusted you enough for that, but quite worried about the consequences. 

“Don’t worry, kitten. But I’ll need your help to talk with Vettel, see if he’s okay with all this. I’m gonna take care of the rest, let’s see if Alonso allows it. But I’m gonna make it happen, anything for you baby girl. Just… Don’t disappoint me, okay?”

“Never, father. But if Seb isn’t okay with it you don’t need to do it, deal?”

“You are the most perfect teammate, sweetheart” he shuffles your hair affectionately.

•

April 20th, 2022

Silverstone, United Kingdom - Aston Martin Headquarters

You told Seb everything yesterday, from the point of taking the attention away from you and Leclerc to open opportunities to other teams' proposals, as your official (and undisclosed information) contract ends this year.

Your dad was happy about Vettel’s acceptance and already set everything up for today’s breaking news. So let the silly season begin! While on Sim, Sebastian gave you a lesson about how risky that could be and if the media starts to go too harsh on you, you can call him up anytime. You have been ignoring Leclerc for the past few days since he hasn’t stopped asking what you're going to do and you can’t wait to see his reaction. Liv told you the news release time, not before calling you crazy and “Can’t you fucking accept that you and Charles are a couple?”...

Your mobile started ringing like crazy but you just put it on the ‘do not disturb’ mode and follow with your day. It actually made you curious sometimes throughout the day but you tried to concentrate on training, and gossiping with Seb helped a lot.

“So… People enjoyed the news?” Vettel asked when we were about to get out.

“I don’t know, didn’t touch my phone since it came out” you admitted picking up your stuff.

“You’re not curious?”  He side-eyed you smirking.

“Yes… But we already know what they’re talking about either way”

“Get your phone, if you're not curious I am!” You did what he said and got shocked by how many missed calls, hundreds of messages and social media notifications.

“God’s sake!...” You showed your phone to him and he started laughing at your reaction “Let’s search the news”

“SILLY SEASON BEGAN: Fernando Alonso joins Aston Martin for 2023. Who will leave?”

“Is Y/n Stroll remaining in Formula One?”

“Vettel OR Stroll? Who will leave Aston Martin?”

“Will Lawrence Stroll be brave enough to fire his own daughter?”

“Is it possible that Sebastian Vettel is going to retire?”

“Is Sebastian Vettel going back to Ferrari?”

“Who will replace Fernando Alonso in Alpine?”

“Will the only female driver on the grid be fired?”

“Did you see Leclerc’s message?” Sebastian asked after you two read all the news.

“He’s probably just freaking out. Did you already explain to him the Ferrari beef?” His reaction said enough “Why not?”

“Do you really think it will help his relationship with Mattia? I can tell him after I retire, I heard Binotto will retire depending on this year’s performance…”

“Really? That could explain why he had gone so far for Leclerc’s reputation. Shit, he’s fucked!” You laughed out loud while Seb attempted to scold you but failed and started giggling with you.

•

April 21st, 2022

Imola, Italy - Media day

Y/n Stroll POV:

“So the ghost comes to pay me a visit?” He was suited in his classic Ferrari polo when he opened his hotel room’s door. 

“Shut up, Leclerc” I enter the room and sit on his bed.

“You ghosted me for more than a week and I can’t be mad?!” He closed the door harshly.

“Stop being dramatic…” I shuffle around his messy bag of clothes.

“I’m not being dramatic!” He’s probably so mad that he doesn’t even care that I’m going through his stuff.

“Why do you care that much?” I found less embarrassing trousers, a white tailored one “Missed your pretty girlfriend?” I look up at him teasingly and he just avoids me looking at the trousers.

“Fuck you. What’s that?”

“I’m not being seen with you wearing those horrendous pants! Change to this white one and then we can go” With a sweet smile I shove him into the bathroom. 

As he took time to change I used the opportunity to read all the messages he sent to me in the meantime. 150 messages all about him going crazy like “WTF ARE YOU DOING?” “ARE YOU GETTING FIRED?”, it made me giggle.

He didn't say anything while walking out of the bathroom, just gathered his things in silence and didn’t wait for me to get out of the room.

“Are you really that mad at me?” He was waiting at the lift door. “Silence treatment now?” He remains silent.

The elevator arrives and we enter with quietude filling the air. If we stay in this situation the remaining 14 floors will be unbearable.

“I am not getting fired”.

Fourteenth floor

“I didn’t tell before ‘cause I didn’t know if my father would allow”.

Thirteenth floor

“You’re not gonna talk to me? Really? Stop fucking ignoring me!”

“Are you really that embarrassed of me?”

Twelfth floor

“Embarrassed? Only of your sense of style, Leclerc”

“It’s a lie”

“No, it’s not! Why would I be so embarrassed of you?” 

“You’re gaslighting me!”

“I am not! Why can’t fucking answer me properly?!”

“Look how much chaos you created just to not hold my fucking hand!” He scratched his neck after messing up his hair nervously.

“That’s not the problem!” I pick up his hand, interlacing our fingers “See!”

“Then why did you do all this? You don’t want this fake shit, I know it really well. I got you! But was this all necessary?!” He shook my hand away and widened his eyes.

“I don’t want the spotlight in my face!”

“You don’t shy away! Like never!”

“Can’t you put yourself in my place one fucking time?! You and the others can change girlfriends like a pair of shoes and will be treated normally!”

“And?”

“Stop playing dumb! Having a boyfriend will be the main point of my weekend to them. Especially if it is with a driver! They gonna question my ability, if I’m able to discern my personal and professional life, that I’m a whore who couldn’t keep it in the pants with a coworker!”

“They’ll do the same with me, don’t play the victim” He messes his hair madly.

“You’re a man! You’ll be the best one ‘cause you got a hot girl at work, you’ll be the player, an ‘alpha’. Now aside from ‘getting my seat from daddy’s money’ my good performance will be explained it’s because I’m fucking you or some bullshit like that!”

“Okay, I understand but! Why ignore me like that?! I can help and will! Why don’t you talk to me?”

“We are not friends! Why would you help if not for your own image? Stop pretending you care!”

“You are so self-absorbed!” Shit.

“Leclerc!” Shit shit shit shit shit.

“Don’t ‘Leclerc’ me! You screamed at me so can I!” 

“Leclerc! Listen-”

“No! You listen!-”

“Charles, shut up! Look!” I show the floor pointers stuck between the twelfth and eleventh floors. And right at that moment, the lights go off just resting the emergency one.

“Oh fine, great. Amazing really! Exactly just what I needed!” He shouts pressing the emergency button repeatedly “No one sees this fucking camera?!” He asks loudly, waving his arms like crazy to the small thing pinned on the corner.

“Are you fucking blind?” I nervously point to the only light on us.

“I’m gonna kill myself-” He desperately leans against the wall.

“Do you have a stick up in your ass?” I come closer to him starting to feel my blood boiling more. Everything he said is piling over and getting me even worse.

“What did you just say?” He starts to look down at me.

“Do-you-have-a-stick-up-in-your-ass? Did I forget something?” If he can look down at me like I’m shit I can do as well.

“Why can’t you stop being a bitch for a second?! We’re literally trapped here!” He approaches me caging in the wall, he narrows his eyes with a newfound intensity. Not just anger but something indescribable. 

“Yeah, nightmare material. Not like we got to choose!”

“Nah, I don’t believe you…” he starts smirking.

“You’re the one who is a breath away from me, Leclerc” I tilt my head to look directly at his eyes.

“Fuck off!” He distances himself mad.

“I gladly would. And look, just because I love torturing you, doesn’t mean I like spending time with you” Teasing him is a bit better when we’re not trapped in a lift and I can get out after this point.

“You really aren’t making this any easier, are you?” The driver started trying to open the door "I can't open it!"

“It's protected against idiots” I giggle as his arms shake after only opening about 5 cm of the door just to be concrete. We are literally in between floors, great. I hope we don’t die.

“Listen here” He corners me at the end of the lift, putting his arms around my head caging me and holding my jaw to look at him “Dare me again and I’ll fucking break you off”

“Wow!” I say cynically “That cute little face you’re pulling didn’t scare me before and it definitely won’t now. Put it away” I grab his jaw, pushing his cheeks together. and slapping him away weakly. 

“You find my face cute, huh?” He scrunches his nose, pushing my hands away and smirking.

“I hate- Fuck!” The lights come back and as the lift starts to tremble we stumble over each other. If it wasn’t for his hand on my hips we both would’ve been on the ground right now.

“Don’t panic! We are getting you two out of there!” We heard a masculine voice through the small opening in the elevator’s door.

“So… What you were saying?” He didn’t move his hand away.

“I hate you so fucking much!” The teasing is gone. I’m just mad right now. I don’t know how or why he can make me thrilled so easily but I would do anything to change that.

“Oh really?” He puts his right hand on my cheek, smirking.

“I don’t know what you’re doing. But yes, Leclerc really.” I managed to stare back at him defiantly.

“Lying doesn’t suit you, sweetheart”

“But you know what does? You getting off of me, sweetheart” I don’t like the feeling of my cheeks burning so I slap him off and go close to the door, with my back turned to him. “I hope we don’t get too late to the press…” I think out loud after a bit of silence.

“Lucky enough we were early. Probably going to arrive just in time, chérie” He acts normally, just checking the time on his watch.

@laura-naruto-fan1998 @honeyric3 @tempo-rary-fix hope you enjoyed <3

my taglist!!

[dobbiamo-capire]

What I was waiting for: Zapelloni’s article bc yesterday he was RAGING while Turrini was the only one trying to defend Ferrari (that’s why I won’t read his article today)

This is my translation, every mistake is my fault, full article translation under the cut

FERRARI YOU HAVE TO DECIDE: CARLOS SAINZ OR CHARLES LECLERC, WHO IS YOUR BEST SHOT FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?

There’s a victory to celebrate, but a regret to extinguish. In order to beat Red Bull, Ferrari needs to decide: who’s the first and second driver. We’re not in Enzo’s era where the only thing that mattered was a Ferrari win regardless of the driver. To win the championship you need to place every best strategy to only one driver

There’s a victory to celebrate, but a regret to extinguish. Ferrari celebrates Carlos Sainz, but at the same time frets for the lost chance with Charles Leclerc, who before the safety car was leading the race with the chance to gain 19 points against Max Verstappen. Once again, Ferrari made the wrong box call penalizing their best driver, the only one that has the chances to defeat Verstappen in the championship. In Montecarlo Ferrari called Charles when if was best to left him out. In Silverstone they made the opposite, they left him out when it was best calling him in to put fresh softs for the 13 laps long sprint race that change the classification drastically.

Binotto explained the reasons of his choice and the explanation is worrying because they told us Ferrari did this choice after thinking about it. Like the Monaco mistake wasn’t enough, like Ferrari’s strategists were sleeping during the last race of last year where Hamilton stayed out loosing the championship and Max pitted and won with fresh tires.

If during the Silverstone race we didn’t hear the Ferrari box asking (a little late, we must say) Sainz to let Charles pass for the victory, we would have a doubt that Ferrari think the Spanish driver is their best shot for the championship. He’s not, so why all the strategic choices of this season are there to penalize Leclerc? Ferrari keeps on consider their drivers equal when no other team does this.

F1 history told us that only an unbeatable McLaren could have the luxury to let their two drivers fighting eachother. Apart from them, Whoever has done that lost the championship. Ferrari knows it too well because their last title (Raikkonen 2007) came because McLaren wasn’t able to handle the battle between Hamilton and Alonso. In order to beat Red Bull, Ferrari needs to decide: who’s the first and second driver. We’re not in Enzo’s era where the only thing that mattered was a Ferrari win regardless of the driver. That was what brought the crack between Ferrari and Gilles. In order to win a championship you need to prioritize one driver and do all the best calls on him. Ferrari is not a charity organization that needs to let all win. They need to try to win the championship. Acting like that is seems like they don’t believe in it.

(I’m going to use “Ferrari is not a charity organization” as a chorus at Monza pls it’s so funny that’s why I translated the article)

[vro0m]

Nope. I disagree. Maybe I should clarify: Any COMPETENT driver would win in the RBR (not a Latifi or Mazepin, mind you). Would they win at the same rate as Max, probably not, but someone in that RBR would win. Remember, all it takes is winning the most points, you don't have to win 97% of the races. You just need to finish higher than everyone else more often, and if you're driving a car that is powerful enough for you to win races by seconds, that will likely happen. RBR has their track record of winners for a reason.

Now, Checo may not be the greatest, but he was still P2 in the standings. We can't hype up Lewis for getting to P3 in the WDC, but then insult Checo in the next breath. And tbh, this discourse is EXACTLY why RBR is keeping Checo in the second seat, not because they believe he's comparable to Max or even the second best driver on the grid. They're perfectly fine with the gap in performance because it supports their narrative and too many of us are falling for it.

F1 is like pro wrestling. Lots of manipulation by the teams and even the governing body to produce certain outcomes. Too many variables beyond the drivers' control to properly judge any one driver's performance. It should be exclusively a team sport.

I agree a bit more with you this time but it's very different than what you said in your previous ask. Of course having a good car means you have better chances of winning, but it's not sufficient to win.

Perez did finish P2 but until very late in the season there was speculation as to whether Lewis could catch up with him (admittedly at the time of the article I linked it was a bit of a stretch), in a car that was far from being on par with the Red Bull. The difference between them was only 49 points at the end of the season, even though the difference in car performance between RBR and Merc was massive. So I'm not saying that Perez necessarily wouldn't win the championship, because he absolutelx would have the advantage in terms of car performance, but I don't think it'd be as clear-cut as you make it out to be. You say "a car that is powerful enough for you to win races by seconds", but Max is winning races by a huge margin, not Perez. Even when you take Max out of the equation. Admittedly he started this year well but in 2023 the last time he was in P2 (so would have won if you ignore Max) was in August in Monza and he was indeed ahead of P3 by 5.1s. He didn't finish in P2 in the next 8 races. What I mean is he does finish ahead by a good margin when he's able to make it to P2 in the first place which really isn't as frequent as one would expect if the driver had a negligible impact on the results compared to the cars like you suggest. I'm also not insulting him : saying that he's not performing as well as Max is factual. Doesn't make him a bad driver. Just not as good as his outlier of a teammate.

The idea of F1 being manipulated like pro-wrestling is absurd. The way the stewarding works is debatable for sure and they've made some gigantic mistakes at times (which had gigantic consequences for the people involved btw) (and also happens in other sports, think about Maradona's hand of God for example, mistakes happen) but I think you're way overestimating what the different parties have the leeway to do without the others 1) knowing or 2) disagreeing. There's a lot of money and brands involved, do you really think they would still be there if it was made up and secretly manipulated behind their backs as much as you think? Do you think they would not look into it and make a big scandal out of it if you were right? Thousands and thousands of people are employed in F1, way more have been employed in F1, and you think they're all either playing along but able to keep the secret somehow or not aware that there's a big conspiracy going on (and that you somehow know better than them)?

Where I agree with you is that there absolutely is too many variables involved to truly be able to purely judge the drivers' performance. Unless we put them all in the exact same cars with the exact same engines operated by the exact same people, all we can do is compare and infer and speculate.

[lostf1ndaydream]

I posted 405 times in 2022

That's 405 more posts than 2021!

246 posts created (61%)

159 posts reblogged (39%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@alexalblondo

@race-week

@earthbound-in-doubt

@seblicha

@ginrussell

I tagged 380 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#f1 - 262 posts

#formula 1 - 241 posts

#e’s late takes - 58 posts

#formula e - 56 posts

#fe - 56 posts

#lewis hamilton - 28 posts

#sir lewis hamilton - 23 posts

#max verstappen - 21 posts

#charles leclerc - 21 posts

#george russell - 20 posts

Longest Tag: 131 characters

#i was pretty small when he won his first championship; i saw ‘successful’ and ‘british’ and ‘dad likes him’ and thought ‘mine now!’

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

❤️❤️❤️

43 notes - Posted July 24, 2022

#4

Ok, so this is a bit random, but re Monza being voted race of the year… I’m actually really happy. Neither Max fans nor Lewis fans had something to hold over the others that weekend; neither can have been fully happy with the outcome of that race. But Monza was voted best race of the year anyway — because Daniel won after a torrid start to the season, because McLaren got the only one-two finish all year, and because there was palpable joy emanating from the papaya garage at the end of that race.

Perhaps I’m overstepping, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Monza was voted best race of the year for entirely positive reasons, rather than fairly unhealthily competitive ones — and positivity is something that, in the last season, this sport has been sorely lacking.

51 notes - Posted January 9, 2022

#3

Hey, so, I made these wallpapers… feel free to download and use them, but please like/reblog/both (!) if you do :)

See the full post

52 notes - Posted March 10, 2022

#2

Mercedes are really a phenomenal team, actually.

They’ve dropped from fighting for the constructors’ championship to third-best on a good day, and yet they’re still doing what they have to do, and have done every weekend so far.

When you think of Ferrari in 2020, or McLaren or Williams a few years further back — or even Aston Martin last year, actually — when things have gone wrong, teams have been ruffled. There’s been a bit of obvious stress and panic.

Not so with Mercedes, it seems — they’ve picked up solid points every weekend so far, one of only four teams to have done this, and have even managed two podiums in a car that really doesn’t deserve to be up there.

How much of that is Mercedes as a team, and how much of it is the fact that Hamilton and Russell are both incredibly talented, I don’t know. But it’s definitely interesting, and feels worth thinking about.

128 notes - Posted April 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I love how half the dash is “Daniel noooooooo 😭😭😭😭” right now and the other half is just “Smick football! ⚽️🥅😁😍”

The juxtaposition is 👌

186 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[f1]

Star debutant de Vries wary not only merit needed for 2023 F1 seat | 2022 Italian Grand Prix

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Nyck de Vries hopes to land a full-time drive in Formula 1 next year after his widely-praised debut last weekend, but says “it’s not only merit” that will determine whether he gets the chance. The Williams substitute has won the Formula 2 and Formula E titles since joining Mercedes in late 2019. He gained F1 mileage with the marque and its engine customers, but had been overlooked for a race seat until last weekend. While on Mercedes reserve duty at Monza, de Vires got a last-minute call-up to stand in for the unwell Alexander Albon and starred by reaching Q3 and scoring points for ninth place. The result immediately lifted his F1 stock and has thrust him into contention for a 2023 drive. “I think this weekend has been a good performance, but we’re always expected to perform and do a good job and it’s not up to me to decide any driver line-up,” de Vries said of how his debut may influence his future. “This world is very volatile and it’s not only merit [that] counts. It’s out of my control. “But this, no one can take away from me. Regardless what happens in the future, whether I’m here or not, I can still look back on a proud debut and first moment in F1.” While joining Albon at Williams appears to be the likeliest destination for de Vries, Alpine is also thought to be interested in his services to fill the seat Fernando Alonso will vacate at the end of the season. “I might need to prepare a PowerPoint,” de Vries joked – referring to how George Russell convinced Mercedes to take him on as a junior driver – when asked about Alpine’s interest. “Any time you’re in the car, you’re expected to do a good job. And every time you get the chance to drive a F1 car, that is a kind of job interview and audition. “You’ve got to take those opportunities, but you also have to use them sensibly, because there’s always a trade-off between doing too much and too little. But I am just grateful that it worked out well and it played in our hands, we took some points and it was a great performance and no one can take that away from us.” Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free 2022 Italian Grand Prix Browse all 2022 Italian Grand Prix articles via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net

[danielxricciardo]

Winner

Summary: You met Pierre at the Brazilian Grand Prix and for 3 months you couldn't get in touch.

Warnings: fluff, like 2 swear words

Word count: 2.3k

This one was requested by @jugasly and I know it is not exactly what she wanted but I really tried and I hope you liked it!

Avenida Paulista's Boulevard catches the eye especially through the skyscrapers similar to those in the big North American cities. Brazil's most modern city has much to offer tourists around the world. The most beautiful museums in South America can be found here, the shore is furrowed with lots of sunny beaches. And its nightlife has attracted many tourists.

The largest city in South America makes New York look small. The buses make an unbearable noise and black smoke spreads over the upper floors of the skyscrapers which, through the heat that maintains it during the day, turn the city into a real hell.

I felt myself waking up but I was determined to keep my eyes closed for a little longer but in a few seconds I was awakened violently by the sound of car engines. That's what I deserve for booking the hotel next to the Formula 1 circuit.

You reluctantly got out of bed and went to the window. I saw how the Formula 1 cars are brought on the circuit and I look at my watch. Fuck, it was pre-qualification practice, did I really sleep that much? Honestly, I arrived in the room at 5 o'clock and at 6 I fell asleep so I shouldn't have been so surprised that I slept in.

I was in Brazil with my two best friends to watch a Formula 1 race live and we chose Brazil because we needed a good reason to leave Europe and visit South America for a week, right?

I woke up my friends and in less than half an hour we were leaving the hotel, running, with a big cup of coffee in our hand.

We passed quickly through the front gate, all we needed now was to find our seats.

All around us could be heard the cars speeding on the circuit. My skin was goosebumps and I was looking at my friends who had the same smile on their faces that I think I had.

We find our seats and watch the last 15 minutes of training. We held in our hands the tickets that gave us access to the paddock. We were going to go there after the drivers returned to the garages.

My eyes were searching for Aston Martin Hospitality. I knew that if I returned home from this Grand Prix without an autograph from Sebastian Vettel for my father, I could very well stay in Brazil for the rest of my life.

Being so focused on looking for the green building, I didn't realize that someone was coming in front of me only when I hit a hard chest. I heard my girlfriends gasping. Fuck, I just hope I didn't run into Toto Wolff.

I open my eyes slightly and see a driver's suit, white and blue. Alpha Tauri?

I look up at the driver's face. To be damned. Pierre Gasly. With ruffled hair and a red face, Pierre Gasly was in front of me.

"I'm really, really sorry, I didn't look where I was going. Sorry!" I say and take a step back, stepping out of his personal space.

As I walked away from him, I saw that he was not alone but with Pyry.

"It's okay, I wasn't looking where I was going either," he says, running his hand through his hair, trying to fix it.

I smile at them and then I look at my friends giggling at our embarrassing date.

Pyry motions to Pierre to someone behind me and that makes him take his eyes off me.

"Oh, I have to go," he tells me. "Have fun."

I stood still for a few moments, unable to move. I just met my favorite driver and it couldn't be more embarrassed than that.

"The first meeting with your children's future father was very good." my best friend, Lila, tells me.

"Shut up."

The fact that I found Aston Martin Hospitality and managed to get the autograph for my father and I could take a few pictures with Sebastian Vettel erased the embarrassment caused by the disastrous meeting I had with Pierre Gasly.

For a little time.

As soon as we got out of Aston Martin Hospitality Lila pulled us to McLaren Hospitality, hoping to meet Lando Norris and take some pictures with him, about 100, but who's counting, right?

I was with my head on the phone, sending my father some pictures I took with Sebastian Vettel when I came across someone, this time I lost my balance and I was about to fall but two strong arms caught me. Pierre Gasly, again.

"Honestly, we should stop meeting like this, you could get hurt," he says and laughs. "Are you ok?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," I say and bite my lip. "I should really start looking where I'm going."

My friends secretly took pictures of us.

"It's the second time we've met in less than 10 minutes, maybe the universe wants to tell us something, don't you think?" he says and holds out his hand. "Pierre."

I hold out my hand and smile wide. "Y/N."

I turn my gaze to Lila and Erica, presenting them to Pierre as well.

"I hope you feel good in the paddock. So far, the world has been nice to you and your friends?"

"Yes, everything has been good so far. We've only been to Aston Martin and they've all been very nice to us. Except for a few people who don't look where they're going, we haven't had any unexpected events." I say and laugh.

Pierre starts laughing too.

"Yes, I will try to look after you from now on and avoid you. I don't want to be the reason you fall. Although, if something happens, I know the medical team and you don't need medical insurance here."

I asked Pierre if he wanted to take some pictures with me and he accepted immediately. At least that's what I can do after I've run into you twice already.

For the next few hours, Lila and Erica, and I walked from one Hospitality to another, looking for drivers. They were all very nice to us and agreed to pose with us.

When it was time to start qualifying, we went to the room provided by McLaren for guests to watch.

I followed Pierre's position in the standings, Lila followed Lando's position and Erica followed Max's position. All three of us breathed a sigh of relief when the three boys passed into Q3.

Lando will leave from the seventh position tomorrow.

Pierre will start from the fourth position.

Max will start from pole position.

The three of us went to the hotel, ready to rest well for the next day.

If the atmosphere for qualifying had seemed charged to me, then the atmosphere before the race could not be described.

Yesterday everyone was behaving nicely and they were smiling. Now everyone was running past everyone, there were many screams and many curses could be heard. And everyone was frowning, not a smile in sight.

We didn't see any drivers, so we headed to McLaren Hospitality to get comfortable for the race. I unwittingly was disappointed. I wanted to see Pierre before the race to wish him good luck.

Although I hadn't wished him good luck, Pierre was lucky. He finished the race in second place, behind Max Verstappen. I was very happy and I wanted to go and congratulate him as soon as possible.

I watched the award from the window, filming and taking pictures which I was sure I would cherish for a long time to come.

"Congratulations!" I scream when I see him and he looks at me. "It was a very good race, congratulations!"

"Thank you!" he says and smiles at me.

I asked my friends to take some pictures with the trophy and champagne and then Pierre left, being shouted by someone from the team.

"Stay here, I'd like to see you one more time before you have to leave."

I could die then and there when I heard his words. Pierre Gasly wanted to see me again.

It's just that it hasn't happened before. We stayed there for another two hours and Pierre could not be found. It was getting late and everyone was starting to leave, so we left.

Monza is the most important economic, industrial and administrative center of the Brianza sub-region, being the third-largest city in Lombardy, with a population of about 120,000 inhabitants. When people think of Monza, the first thing that comes to mind is the famous Formula 1 Grand Prix that is held here every year.

Although many may think that Milan eclipses this smaller city, Monza should not be dismissed, having an absolutely sublime historical architecture, such as the Cathedral and the Leoni Bridge, but also features the huge Parco di Monza and of course the famous Formula 1 Autodromo.

The historic center of Monza stretches over a large area and in this area, you can find most historical sites and a guided tour of the history of cities.

Three months have passed since the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Three months since I first saw Pierre Gasly.

Although I have pictures of the two of us, I can't help but regret the fact that I didn't see him then; I will probably never see him again.

The exams passed and to relax completely my father and I got tickets to the Italian Grand Prix.

What I didn't know was that my father had taken VIP tickets.

That means we're going to the paddock.

Does that mean I can meet Pierre?

I tried not to have too many hopes, in the end, there are thousands of people there, I can't meet him, can I?

I didn't meet him on Friday. It had been the two practice sessions, everyone was as relaxed as possible, my father took pictures with everyone he saw, but Pierre was nowhere to be seen.

On Saturday we were late and did not catch the practice, but we saw the qualifications. Pierre starts from the tenth position. To be honest, I didn't have high expectations for tomorrow's race for Pierre.

And man I was wrong about that.

The whole race I was speechless. I heard my father from lap 23 and to the end cursing the accident that took Charles Leclerc out of the race.

My eyes were only on car number 10. I had the impression that I was blinking only when the camera moved to another car. I forgot to breathe when I saw the overtaking he was doing.

But he won.

Pierre Gasly won in Monza. His first ever Formula One career win and it was my home race.

Before we went out in the paddock looking for Pierre, after the premiere, I wiped away the tears I didn't know I had.

It wasn't hard for me to find him. Where there were a lot of people screaming and chanting, he must have been there too.

And I was right. He is enjoying his first victory with the whole team. Everyone wanted to hug and congratulate him.

As if he noticed my presence among the hundreds of people who were there, Pierre looked at me. I noticed his face light up and he came towards me.

"Y/N!" he says and hugs me.

I'm sure my father was shocked somewhere in the back. I hadn't told him that I had met Pierre, but after this hug, I will definitely have to explain to him what the situation is.

"Congratulations!" I tell him and I smile broadly. "First victory! Wow!"

He shrugs nonchalantly.

"I was lucky."

I laugh and hit him playfully in the shoulder.

"With Hamilton being penalized? You would have overtaken him without that penalty."

He looked into my eyes.

"I haven't found you after the race in Brazil."

The fact that he remembered had taken me by surprise. I was sure he couldn't remember the fact that he had proposed to me to stay on the circuit so that he could see me one more time.

I was sure that the second he left, he forgot what I looked like and forgot my name.

But no. He still knew me. He still knew my name and knew we had to see each other.

"I haven't seen you there before and I left after about two hours, it was getting late."

"I'm sorry, the teamwork had taken longer than I initially anticipated. When I went to look for you, no one was there. Then I realized I didn't even have your phone number. I tried to look for you on Instagram, but do you know how many girls are there with your name?"

I laughed.

"Well, I could give my phone number to the race winner now, if he wants it, of course. Do you think he would accept it?" you ask laughing.

Pierre blushes and bites his lip.

"I'm sure he would accept."

I take out of my bag the notebook and pen I was carrying with me to receive the drivers' autographs and write my phone number. I hand him the sheet just as Pierre is being taken by some engineers to the garage to celebrate the victory.

I laugh and wave at him.

I was at home with my father, watching a boring movie on Netflix. I've been looking at the phone constantly since last night, waiting for a message from Pierre but I haven't received anything.

"Ugh, this movie is so boring," I say and take my phone off the table. "Let me look for a more interesting one."

That's when I receive a message from a number I didn't save. I received a picture.

It was the picture with the prize Pierre received.

"The winner of the race has received your number and is wondering if you are free to dine with him."

I bit my lip, unable to control the smile on my face.

"If the winner of the race wants to go out on a date with me, who am I to say no?"

"8 o'clock?"

"I'll send you the address right away."

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The Great Drive: James Hunt and Niki Lauda at Fuji, 1976

I feel really sorry for Niki. I feel sorry for everybody that the race had to be run in such ridiculous circumstances because the conditions were dangerous and I fully appreciate Niki’s decision. After an accident like he had, what else could he do? Quite honestly, I wanted to win the championship and I felt I deserved it. But I also felt Niki deserved to win the championship – and I just wish we could have shared it.

- James Hunt on winning the Japanese Grand Prix 1976 to become F1 World Champion

James Hunt’s epic title battle with Niki Lauda, during what many see as the definitive F1 season, was topped off by a thrilling race in the land of the rising sun. It became an instant classic, one of F1’s Great Drives.

With everything to lose, in treacherous conditions, and with late drama, James Hunt's drive in the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix was one of the greatest of all time.

James Hunt delivered his greatest drive in spite of himself. It wasn’t just the peak moment of his career, but also a defining drive for F1.

The British gentleman racer conquering the world’s best in far away lands – Hunt embodied it.

Despite this, the Brit’s landmark drive came in the midst of late night escapades, mechanical disasters, psychological warfare and F1 politics.

As the ‘76 season approached its climax in North America and Asia, it seemed all might be lost for the McLaren team and its lead driver. Hunt had been duelling with Ferrari’s Niki Lauda throughout the year, but losing his British Grand Prix win to disqualification (announced by the FIA at Round 14 in Canada) seemed to have derailed his season for good.

McLaren team manager at the time Alastair Caldwell describes the state of affairs as they approached the North American leg of the season: “We abandoned the idea of winning the world championship. I let him misbehave in Canada and in Watkins Glen. On both occasions we were pissed on race eve, both of us in a bar after midnight getting rotten – me on alcohol and him on women, because he was always very successful with women.

“James met a girl – the leader of the band at the motel in Montreal – and so he came to the race dishevelled, in the same clothes as he’d been wearing the previous night – and he won the race!

“Even then we still thought we were out of it. Then we won Watkins Glen too! So suddenly we became serious again.”

Lauda had scored 4 points to Hunt’s 18 in this period. With the championship fight back on, the rejuvenated team and driver looked at the season finale in a new light. The championship fight was back on, and as a result, McLaren prepared for the Japanese GP with renewed vigour.

James Hunt had been in Japan a fortnight, ostensibly to test at a circuit  new to him. Delays at customs, car problems and bad weather had severely  restricted his running, but at least now he was totally orientated and, in his inimitable fashion, ‘relaxed’. That meant when he wasn’t  strutting his stuff on the hotel’s squash court, he was billing and  cooing with its latest migratory flock of pretty air stewardesses to bed. It beat  jogging.

Lauda arrived later, low-key and at a low ebb. The spirit that held  the demons at bay during his remarkable Monza comeback had evaporated in  Canada and America. Now running on empty, he was full of doubts. While  Ferrari team manager Daniele Audetto attempted to whip up retro oppo to  McLaren’s ‘illegal’ testing, his star driver looked the other way and  wished it over: Lauda was sick of Enzo and his minions, of a season in  its 10th month and of press intrusion.

McLaren’s earlier preparations were in sharp contrast to the rest of the field who arrived just for the race weekend itself. According to Caldwell, “The others all turned up on the Thursday, including Niki, you can see them all get off the plane knackered and then trying to find where this new racetrack was.”

It wasn’t just through testing and acclimatisation that Hunt and McLaren stole a march. Caldwell thought he might use interactions with the press to his advantage: “Just for a laugh we spread a rumour. A journalist said to me ‘what’s the track like?’ I said ‘It’s is good but it’s got a lot of loose gravel on it.’”

Enjoying the effect the track surface story had on the rest of the field’s preparations, Caldwell thought he’d develop the rumour into a full-blown design feature.

“Because we were bored and had nothing else to do, the mechanics made mesh covers for all the air intakes on the car, to “protect” the brake ducts and air intake.

“Then Niki (Lauda) came down to our garage, which he always did – he spent more time in our garage then Ferrari’s. He would joke with us and do mechanic’s repartee.

“Psychologically we had them on the back foot right from the start.”

“Niki had come to see what we’d done with the cars as he was also a spy. So I told the mechanics, ‘just by mistake’, to take the covers off the cars so you could see the mesh covers on all the intakes. They did this and then they put it back on in a hurry while I ‘looked displeased’.

“And so then Niki broke off the conversation, trotted back to Ferrari and said ‘f**king hell, McLaren have put vents near these grilles over everything in the car, we got to do the same.’

“The whole Ferrari organisation went out to find these grilles, find where they came from and make them for their three cars. Then we put our three cars in the pit road and took all the grilles off the T-Car. Niki came down and said ‘You f**king bastards!’ They came down the pitroad and Ferrari had this shit all over their car – these grilles all over the radiators.

“He had to tear back and tell them to take them all off. Psychologically we had them on the back foot right from the start, there’s all this psychological warfare.”

Niki was plastered across front pages because of his near-death  experience on the track; James was on them because of the life he led  off it. Their battle and clashing personalities, though they were good  friends, had made the world championship a global news shit-fight. Hunt,  outgoing but often lonely in a crowd, pretended to be okay with it.  Lauda didn’t.

Friday’s practice sessions provided blessed relief, therefore, even  though both men suffered understeer on the stickier Goodyears made  available to its faster teams because of the rare presence of  Bridgestone and Dunlop on one-off Japanese entries. The title rivals  finished the day one-hundredth apart on a provisional third row.

Each improved on Saturday – Hunt to second, Lauda to third – and  James, a notoriously slow starter who, by his own estimation, needed to  win the race in order to become world champion, was in a much-improved  mood. Niki’s never budged.

Then it rained. And rained. And rained some more.

The storm that swept in from China a day later than forecast was the  last thing Lauda needed: another element beyond his control. Mist  shrouded the snow cone of Mount Fuji, which supposedly bestowed good  fortune – when visible – and Niki felt hemmed in by circumstance.

The mind-games might well have been in vain, for the monsoon weather which rolled in on Sunday looked like putting the race in jeopardy. If the Grand Prix was cancelled, Lauda would be handed the World Championship.

Not that Hunt was enamoured with the situation. He spoke privately  with Lauda and agreed an attempt to have the race postponed – albeit not  before he stressed that he would take the start if necessary and race  as hard as Niki forced him to.

The Grand Prix Drivers Association had been formed to have some influence on such matters, to stop the interests of teams, the governing body and sponsors taking precedence over drivers’ well being. Hunt and Lauda were both members and convened prior to the race start in an effort to have it stopped.

“They were adamant the race wasn’t going to be held. Bernie (Ecclestone, Brabham team boss) and I were in the race control tower trying to convince them to hold the race.” says Caldwell “And James kept on saying ‘No no, we’re not going to race’. I tried to explain to him that no race meant no World Championship. He replied “No, no, no, it’s totally unsuitable, we can’t race”.

Alistair Caldwell, McLaren Team boss, resorted to more imaginative tactics to swing the mood towards starting the race.

“I was going down (to the pits) getting my car mechanics to start the engines every half an hour, which would make all the other teams start doing it – they didn’t know why. The engines were making this noise ‘woop, woop, woop’”.

The engineer then turned his attention to activating the spectators.

“I was trying to get some enthusiasm from the passive Japanese crowd, they’d been there for hours doing nothing. They weren’t even talking, just sitting in the rain – miserable.

“I said to our tyre man Lance Gibbs ‘Do you think you could get the crowd going?’ So he got up on the pitwall with his ACME Thunderer whistle, which had been given to the boys to use as a horn, for when they pushed the race cars around the paddock.

“He went ‘beep beep’ and hundreds of spectators did the same – got them doing a concert. We then did the business of slow clapping, when it gets to the end, people can’t keep up, they lose co-ordination and you get a huge noise.

“I went back to the tower and the geriatric Japanese officials and said, ‘Look, you’ve got a riot on your hands’ Bernie was there and he said ‘Yeah, you’ve gotta hold the race. Otherwise you’ll have trouble’. So they said ‘Ok we’ll have the race.’”

With the decision made, the cars finally lined up to start at 4pm. The deliberations had been going on so long that the light was now beginning to fade, reducing the limited visibility even further.

Hunt, nervously retching and hacking more than ever, was so  distracted that he took a leak in full view of the spectators. Cue  polite applause. Ominously, he then walked a plank laid across a puddle  and stepped aboard his McLaren M23. He tipped his helmet back against  its roll-hoop and closed his eyes in contemplation. Lauda, crushed by  all that had gone before, hunched forward in his 312 T2’s cockpit. Both  knew that fate was about to be sorely tempted.

Hunt made a blinding start and held a huge lead by the end of the  opening lap. As the rest pecked hesitantly in his rooster-tails, he was  out of sight, both physically and metaphorically.

Meanwhile, Lauda, unable to blink because of his burn injuries, was  drowning in the pack and questioning his sanity. He formulated an answer by lap two. The Ferrari – “a paper boat in a storm” – rolled into the  pitlane and drew up at its garage. Measured. The team descended while  designer Mauro Forghieri craned into its cockpit to ascertain the  problem.

After just 1 lap, Lauda had seen enough. Deeming the conditions too dangerous, and having already nearly lost his life at Nürburgring that year, the Austrian decided it simply wasn’t worth carrying on. He pulled his Ferrari into the pits and walked away from the 1976 World Championship. Lauda, the reigning world champion, had the skill but not the will to continue. It was “murder” out there – and life was for living.

Hunt, as drivers without a world title feel compelled to, pressed on  and kept his date with destiny. Hunt being Hunt, of course, he almost  missed it. Not until his post-race red mist lifted could he be persuaded  that he hadn’t.

With Lauda out the race, Hunt’s task was now a little more straightforward. He simply had to finish third, and the title was his.

The McLaren driver pressed on and by lap 10 his lead had doubled to over 8sec. Meanwhile, interesting movements were afoot further back in the pack.

Local hero Kazuyoshi Hoshino, driving a privately-entered Tyrrell 007, had made his up to third, from 21st on the grid!

More worrying for Hunt was that March’s Vittorio Brambilla had overtaken Andretti and was beginning to hunt him down. By lap 20, Brambilla had closed right up behind the Hunt.

On the next lap, the March driver decided to go for it. Brambilla, known for an erratic driving style, conformed to type on this occasion by inadvertently out-braking himself as he dived down the inside of the McLaren.

Hunt had been wary of Brambilla and was monitoring the situation constantly. In a moment of brilliant anticipation, he allowed the March to spin in front of him, performing the cutback and before carrying on as if almost nothing had happened.

Brambilla dropped to fourth, the danger to Hunt being over for now. Andretti at this point was gradually dropping back through the pack. It was Hunt’s team-mate Jochen Mass who was behind him now, with a McLaren 1-2 now looking very much on the cards.

Seeking to control the race from here on in, the team’s new concern was the drying line which was now appearing on the track. Caldwell put out a pit board sign telling his drivers to cool their wet weather tyres – this was done by searching for wet sections of the track, the water preventing the rubber from overheating.

To his team manager’s frustration, Hunt didn’t appear to be heeding the warnings: “As soon as Mass saw the sign, he pulled over in the water right in front of us. Then on the next lap he came down the right hand side of the track, splashing through the puddles, which cools the tires down, (while) James didn’t react.

“The next lap we gave it to Hunt again, the next lap again, he still didn’t do it. So we took away the pitboard, just gave him the ‘cool tyres’ sign and he still didn’t react. So then everyone in the team started pointing at it (the sign). Everybody in the team pointed, Teddy (Mayer, McLaren Managing Director) and everyone else and he still did nothing.”

Hunt carried on down the dry line, running his tyres way above their recommended temperature, seemingly oblivious to the warnings.

If Hunt wasn’t going to heed the warnings, then Andretti was: “Because we were emphasising this so much, Andretti saw it and started to cool his tyres. So he started running through the puddles. He didn’t have to stop (as a result).

“But James just resolutely drove down the middle of the dry track, and we could never bring him in, because he was never that far ahead. It was never possible to tactically stop him because there’s a big long pitroad at Fuji.”

Jochen Mass, benefitting from his team’s tyre advice, now began to reel in his team-mate. If he got past, he would have no trouble driving off into the distance to take the win.

However, the German’s diligence came to naught, as he spun off and out of contention on lap 36. This would have a huge bearing on the race later.

For now, Hunt was again in the clear. Another challenger, Shadow’s Tom Pryce, moved into second, but he too retired as his Cosworth engine expired on lap 46.

As the grand prix wore on, Hunt remained in a seemingly trance-like state as he stuck to his line, the situation became critical.

Whilst yet another to danger to Hunt had abated, the McLaren driver was now deciding whether to play the percentages. He could either pit to replace his worn tyres – and lose track position – or try and stick it out at the risk of losing so much grip he would be overtaken anyway.

Hunt took the second option. He could afford to drop to third, and this is indeed what happened. On lap 61, he was overtaken not only by Tyrrell’s Patrick Depailler, but also the resurgent Lotus of Andretti.

If Hunt managed to hold position, he would be world champion. For the next 7 laps, the plan appeared to be working. Then, on lap 68, disaster struck.

The McLaren driver suffered not one, but two deflated tyres – both on the left-hand side of the car. They were, as Caldwell puts it, “worn down to the air”. Hunt managed to drag his car round for half a lap before scraping into the pits.

F1 jacks at the time were not designed to lift a car with puncture at the front and rear of the car. While the jack was used to lift the rear of the car, TV shots show Caldwell and other team members lifting the other end of the car themselves to replace the front-left tyre.

It was a long pitstop, and once out, Hunt found himself back in fifth place. There were four laps left and Hunt was two places down on where he needed to be.

Two more laps passed and the Englishman was no further up the order. It looked as if he may have lost his championship chance.

Then, with two laps left of the race to go, Hunt started the fight back. At the exit of T1 he managed to get past the Surtees of Alan Jones. One more place and the championship was his.

Next up was the Ferrari of Clay Regazzoni. It turned out there were some Scuderia politics at play which would work to Hunt’s advantage.

Caldwell filled in the back story: “Ferrari’s reaction to Niki’s crash was to sack Regazzoni (for 1977). He had already been sacked (by Fuji).

“So he was pissed off at Ferrari. When James came charging along, he just stepped out of the way and let him by.”

After benefitting from Regazzoni’s apparent generosity, Hunt was suddenly back in the golden position, the third place he needed to clinch the championship.

The McLaren man just had to keep it on the road for two more laps and he’d take the title. The tension mounted, both in the team pit and back in the UK, where his family were watching the live television feed at 3am.

Despite two nerve-wracking final laps, the Englishman duly brought his McLaren home in third place. He was the new F1 World Champion.

Photographs show Hunt angrily remonstrating with his team as he climbed from the car. He hadn’t realised he’d got the job done.

Caldwell himself had mixed emotions about the whole affair, “He didn’t look at the board and when he came into the pits he started shouting at us, because he didn’t know what happened. He was incredibly annoying on the day. He did drive magnificently, he kept it on the road – that’s one point of view. From my point of view it was the most frustrating day – I could’ve hit him with a baseball bat! He could have won the race, just strolled the world championship. All he had to do was read this pitboard and drive in the water, which is what Andretti did, so he didn’t wear the tyres out and could paddle across the line with the same ones.”

In spite of Hunt seemingly making a championship-losing decision, he had still managed to pull it off.

However, such was Caldwell’s consternation, the two didn’t discuss afterwards.

I was so angry about it. We flew back to England and I wasn’t talking to him on the plane. He was pissed as a newt anyway – we were all pissed as a newt and totally exhausted. He just went to sleep.”

The two never discussed the reasons behind the events, but it didn’t change the result. Three years after making his F1 debut, Hunt was the world champion.

Ten weeks later Hunt arrived in Argentina to begin his title defence  feeling underwhelmed and under-prepared. A few celebratory cigs and tins with his friend Britain’s newly crowned 500cc motorcycle world champion, Barry Sheene, at Fuji and a riotous return flight had been followed by a  disorientating whirl of meetings, interviews and engagements. The  race-by-race title chase had been thrilling: a sequence of one-day  stands. Making it official had cooled the relationship. The love affair  was over.

Though both men would retire summarily during the 1979 season, Hunt  did so because he felt frightened and disillusioned, whereas Lauda did  so because he felt nothing, which frightened him.

Niki, though, had a system – plus a plan to run his own airline – and  ultimately would return to the F1 cockpit and be successful. James,  whose theories were sometimes somewhat scrambled, would not. He bred  budgies instead. You do what you have to do.

Lauda’s decision to stop at Fuji ensured that he would be able to  continue. Hunt’s decision to continue ensured that he would have to stop  sooner rather than later. One racing mind wiped clean, the other  cluttered – and racing.

In spite of his career’s decline, Hunt’s endeavours had captured the imagination of the wider world in a way no racing driver had done before.Hunt knew that life was for living, too. Tragically, however, he had just discovered how best to when fate too soon snatched it from him.

[itsworn]

Car Craft’s Top 20 Picks from the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion

Beech Bend Raceway, on the outskirts of Bowling Green, Kentucky, is without equal in many ways. Located literally within a 180-degree bend of the Barren River, this is a combination dragstrip and oval facility with adjacent camping and amusement park, yet within easy driving distance from I-65. It is much more rural than a lot of the ‘big show’ racing facilities, with wide grassy areas in place of acres of asphalt. With a rich regional heritage of automotive history (including the legendary GM Corvette plant and manufacturer Holley’s headquarters), the track has been a popular destination of racers and car enthusiasts for many years, and hosts a number of large specialized shows each year. For number of them, that has included NHRA’s yearly Hot Rod Reunion, a Father’s Day tradition for over a decade. Scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this big weekend, the rewind is a mix of historic drag racing, vintage car show, swap meet and general get-together. Here are our top 20 highlights from 2017, and a gallery of action to boot…

here are our top 20 highlights from 2017, and a gallery of action to boot…

NHRA Motorsports Museum & NHRA Hot Rod Reunion : www.nhramuseum.org Bowling Green Raceway : www.beechbend.com

Wheelstanding station wagons. This is Doug Duell, who won the popular Nostalgia Super Stock program in this 1964 Plymouth wagon while doing wheelstands like this one. Doug’s late father Dave was a noted racer in the ‘60s, and the winning ways of this machine is carrying on the family tradition. It leads us off in honor of the late Arlen Vanke…

Push-starts. Back in the day, real men got a shove from behind, got up to speed, and clutch-started the engine. That tradition lives on as cars get ready for the grand finale ‘cacklefest’ as well as at select times during the event. This short-wheelbase machine looks the part of 1960…

Real road signs. Thanks to guys like American Pickers, real roadside signs are hot. While some guys are ok with new repops or even minty NOS versions, we think they look coolest in as-found condition. Here were a couple for sale in the swap meet. A little dent or rust adds character, and, hey, if you had bullet wounds, you’d show ‘em off, too.

Vintage funny cars. In keeping with the note above, the Hot Rod Reunions often shows the ‘barn finds’ of nitro history. Here is the old Super ‘Stang Mustang of east coast racer Paul Stafanski. Brian Hutton brought this car to the show. It has been painted by his father back in the day.

10-Second Hudsons. You never know what will show up in the race program at this event. After his pass, we found Jody Blalock in the pits, whose 1949 Hudson runs with a big Mopar wedge engine in it. 1948 was the first year of that drop-down body styling, and its cool look made history in NASCAR and the Carz cartoon movies. Not fast enough? His son, Jody Jr. had a ’47 model here as well, running in the nines!

Vintage NASCAR iron. How about a 1964 Chevelle in period paint? Seen in the car show, our buddy Jason Matthews picked it out for us and got a couple shots. The car had been raced at Beech Bend with dominating success for many years, and is now owned by Chris Deweese. We agree, its groovy, and don’t do a thing to it!

Racing heroes in action. Roland Leong and Top Fuel winner Jim Murphy show off the spoils of victory during the winner’s circle images. Murphy ran through the eight-car field with convincing purpose, and the owner of the legendary Hawaiian racecars of the Sixties and Seventies was on board helping the team out.

Nitro Carnage. A walk through the pits between qualifying rounds on Friday revealed a lot of thrashing going on. Here is a dead engine out of Murphy’s first run that day. How did that happen? Nitro, baby. Go fast or go home.

Swap meet tuner parts. You never know what may turn up at the swap meet, and for those playing with LS and Ford equipment engine swaps, here was a nice group of induction equipment for those late model powerplants. Oh, you could still find the Strombergs and early Hemi stuff as well, but this was a nice display of Car Craft-approved power possibilities.

Historic Funny Cars. In the area behind the grandstands gathered a number of restored funny cars (all of them can be seen singly in the photo gallery). On Saturday morning, ex-Petersen editor Jim McCraw, photographer Dave Kommel and enthusiast David Paine helped get them in order for this group shot.

Funny car burnouts. Top honors for this could have gone to one of the nitro cars, but Ron Heugli and the Tiki Warrior Monza were consistent in laying down the clouds all the way to half track. He also took the alcohol-fueled flopper to the semi-final round of the heads-up 7.0 bracket as well.

Historic Paint Jobs. Top of the list would have been this rendering on the Great Expections machine once raced by Jim and Allison Lee. Brian Beattie had the original car on display in the cackle area, while Tyler Hilton put the recreation into the 8-car program with a 6.10 run.

That wooden roller coaster and more. As seen here, the entrance to Beech Bend’s amusement park is right near the entrance to the racing arenas. There is also a water park and camping here. While we doubt you’ll have time for all of it, you never know when you may decide to take an extra vacation day with the family and do it all.

Wheels-up run. While there were a number of cars that pulled the front ends up off the ground, this Corvette with its straight front axle and early gasser look did not leave attendees disappointed. The car carried on and up this way on each pass, which did not help it go rounds on raceday but made a lot of fans.

An S/C Rambler drag car. We know the car is a tribute. That wasn’t that important considering how few AMCs you see at the track, and the fact that this one looked the part of street outlaw with its through-the-hood engine stacks. The owner is Michael Rados, and the beast runs in the 11-second zone.

A Camaro, of course. Our detractors used to accuse us of being Camaro Craft. We took it all in stride, but for you Camaro guys, Bill Porterfield chose this event to debut his just-completed, original (not recreated) 1970 Dick Harrell Camaro funny car, displayed on a ramp truck of like vintage. Porterfield, a former Oldmobile Engineering guy best known for figuring out the mystery of the 1969 ZL1s, also had the original-paint ’68 Harrell/Jim Kirby car on hand for the Cacklefest.

Beating the odds: Greg Jacobmeyer is a long-time campaigner of historic-looking funny cars, and his 1970 Challenger keeps the old-school look with its flat grille and slightly rescaled body. For us, watching his victory here over some of the more streamlined entries in Nostalgia Funny Car was a nice deal.

Awful Awful Fuel Altereds: Considered perhaps the most violent cars drag racing ever spawned, what could go wrong with a big nitro engine, a shortwheel base and fearless driving? AA/FA car owner Dave Hough, who drove these things himself, gives the ‘let’s go!’ sign to driver Vince Generalao as Nanook gets ready for another skate at 200 mph.

Six Packs in the campground: How could you not appreciate camping next to folks who had a Six Pack? No, this kind, a real V-code 1970 Super Bee, in Plum Crazy no less. Adding camping may not be for everyone, but if you dig it, you can come here and live for a few days, in your van down by the river.

HOT ROD Power Tour. Yes, if you had been here this year and still had not gotten your fill by Friday afternoon, the Hot Rod Power Tour landed in Bowling Green for the evening. Here we see a Falcon with some history proudly parked out front of Montana’s, a popular upscale dining locale in Bowling Green itself. Within the track and out of the town, what a weekend! AND ONE MORE…

Cacklefest. Saturday’s finale is sort of a gearhead’s fireworks show. Seen in front is the original version of the Lee’s Great Expections AAFD, rolling toward the final spot in the line-up. With fumes hanging in the air, the 2017 Hot Rod Reunion concluded with a ban and a pop. See you next year.

The post Car Craft’s Top 20 Picks from the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[greggsdiabetes-blog]

The Race to Design the World's Fastest Running Shoe

New Post has been published on http://www.greggsdiabetes.com/the-race-to-design-the-worlds-fastest-running-shoe/

The Race to Design the World's Fastest Running Shoe

Call it the Space Race of professional running: rival superpowers Nike and Adidas have each stated their ambitions to put a man under two hours in the marathon. Nike has the Breaking2 project, which by some remarkable sleight of Swoosh was both superhyped and frustratingly opaque until now. Tuesday, however, the company unveiled its mystery rocket shoe, the Zoom VaporFly 4%, along with the revelation that the attempt will be made on a Formula One racetrack in Italy. Adidas meanwhile just debuted the adizero Sub2, which the company is touting as “a revolutionary marathon shoe created to take athletes below the two-hour barrier.”

Luckily for Nike and Adidas, they’ve also got some pretty decent astronauts. Breaking2 has Lelisa Desisa, Zersenay Tadese, and Eliud Kipchoge on board—all of whom have run well under one hour for the half marathon. Adidas has former marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang, who is still the only man alive to have beaten Kipchoge over 26.2 miles. Late last month, Kipsang won the Tokyo Marathon in 2:03:58 while wearing “the only pair of adizero Sub2 shoes in existence,” according to an Adidas press release.

With runners like that, one might wonder: can shoes really make a difference?

Sports brands, of course, want to you to believe that their products play a part in the success of the athletes they sponsor. After Kipsang won in Tokyo, André Maestrini, global general manager for Adidas Running, said that it was a proud moment for the company to see its best racing shoe “successfully paired with Wilson’s incredible talent,” as if he were some kind of distance-running sommelier. The same press release notes that Adidas “owns four world records,” ­a reference to Kipsang’s 2013 performance in Berlin and the current world record set by Dennis Kimetto on the same course. Although it’s impossible to prove that these men wouldn’t have run as fast or faster if they were competing in another brand of racing flat, it’s hardly controversial to point out that if a company really wants to “own” a world record, the best way to go about it is to sign the fastest runners.

Or perhaps just get lucky. U.S. marathon star Meb Keflezighi ran in Nike shoes for years with considerable success, but he lost his sponsorship in 2011, likely because the company thought Meb was over the hill. He was eventually signed with Skechers, total newbies to the performance market at the time. A year shy of his 40th birthday, Meb pulled off a major upset by winning the Boston Marathon in a lifetime best 2:08:37—in Skechers.

So what’s the scoop on the latest offerings from Adidas and Nike?

The key innovation of the adizero Sub2 is that Adidas has developed a significantly lighter version of its successful Boost foam technology. For the uninitiated, Boost foam is composed of thousands of tightly packed pellets (or “energy capsules,” in marketing parlance) that form the shoe’s midsole and allegedly make for unparalleled snappiness (that is, “energy return”). Thanks to “Boost Light” foam and an upper made from a single layer of ultralight fabric, the adizero Sub2 is about 100 grams (3.5 ounces) lighter than the previous Adidas racer and weighs in at roughly 150 grams (5.3 ounces). Adidas notes that reducing a racing flat’s weight by 100 grams can deliver a “one percent improvement in running economy”—the rate of oxygen uptake at a given speed. (That might not seem like much, but consider that breaking two hours in the marathon requires a runner to run “only” 2.5 percent faster than the current world record, an uptick that recent studies suggest requires increasing running economy by somewhere between 2.3 and 2.8 percent.)

In 1984, E.C. Frederick, then the director of research at Nike, published a famous paper called “Physiological and Ergonomics Factors in Running Shoe Design,” which supports the link between shoe weight and running economy. The study found a one percent increase in aerobic demand on the runner for every 100 grams of additional weight per shoe. (For a more detailed explanation of this, see here.) However, the same study also found that when a shoe has too little cushioning (that is, becomes too light), the benefits of weight reduction are canceled out since the runner’s muscles are forced to absorb too much of the shock. Hence, the study’s main takeaway: “Optimum designs for maximizing running performance should provide sufficient traction, minimal weight, and maximum cushioning.”

Maximum cushioning was the first thing that came to mind when I visited the Nike New York office last Thursday to preview the Zoom VaporFly 4%. Rather than the sliver of a racing flat I was expecting to see, the shoe looked like something you could float down the Colorado River.

“The first paradigm shift was to go to a ‘more shoe’ construction, and the first breakthrough was our ZoomX foam,” Bret Schoolmeester, senior director of global running footwear at Nike, told me, explaining that ZoomX is roughly one-third the weight of Nike’s standard foams yet offers 13 percent increased bounciness. (Excuse me, “energy return.”)

Nike’s new shoe weighs in at 195 grams (6.8 ounces). That’s roughly the same weight as its previous racer, the Streak 6, despite having a midsole that’s nearly twice as thick. (Imagine a Double Stuf Oreo with the same calorie count as the original.) The VaporFly also has a full-length, scoop-shaped plate of compressed carbon fiber built into the midsole that allegedly gives the wearer a sensation of running downhill. Scientific testing has been auspicious: Rodger Kram, a physiology professor at the University of Boulder, found that the VaporFly averaged a 4 percent improvement in aerobic cost vis-à-vis the Streak 6 and another competitor’s model shoe—hence the addendum to the name. (Kram’s study will be published later this year.)

Taken side by side, the VaporFly and the adizero appear to be adopting different approaches to hitting that elusive sweet spot of maximal cushioning and minimal weight. Nike is betting more heavily on the former, Adidas on the latter.

The two companies have also employed radically different rollout strategies for their latest innovations. While the adizero just celebrated its triumphant debut last month in Tokyo, the VaporFly has been hiding in plain sight for more than a year. Galen Rupp and Amy Cragg were wearing the shoe when they won their respective races at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February 2016. (Gimlet-eyed members of the LetsRun community noticed that, in the words of our current president, there was “something going on.”) Eliud Kipchoge was wearing it when he nearly broke the marathon world record at the 2016 London Marathon—smashing the course record of the world’s most competitive marathon by nearly a minute and a half. At last summer’s Olympic Games in Rio, all three male medalists were discreetly wearing the shoe.

Which raises a potential conundrum for Nike: If the VaporFly works too well, could it be illegal?

“Up to now, any shoe technology that made a potentially large impact on running performance has been banned,” author and University of Houston running coach Steve Magness told Outside last year.

“Even the highly touted Adidas Boost technology gives only about a one percent improvement in running economy, which translates to fractions of a percentage improvement in actual performance. If Nike or any company develops technology that has a drastic impact on performance, it’s likely to be illegal or, at the very least, skirting the bounds of the rules,” Magness said.

At the time, Magness was responding to speculation that Nike’s supershoe would have a spring plate in the sole, and thus violate IAAF Competition Rules, which state that no footwear can be used that would give an athlete “unfair additional assistance, including by the incorporation of any technology which will give the wearer any unfair advantage.”

Nike did indeed file a patent for a spring plate, but that was for an entirely separate project, Schoolmeester told me. That said, the legality of the company’s new racing shoe might hinge on what ultimately defines an “unfair advantage.” Needless to say, Nike believes it is in the clear.

“We are very confident that this is not illegal, and by the letter and interpretation of the rule, we are not doing anything that we need to hide or feel ashamed about,” Schoolmeester said when I brought up the issue in our meeting.

“People have been using foam and plates in shoes for years. We’re using better foam. Better plates. And using it more intelligently, which I think is the other breakthrough. The geometry, the way the system works together, is really what’s allowed this to work,” says Schoolmeester.

Just how well it works probably won’t be seen until Nike makes its Breaking2 attempt with Kipchoge and Co. going full-throttle in a hypercontrolled environment sometime later this year. Each runner will be outfitted with a slightly customized version of Nike’s new shoe, dubbed the Zoom VaporFly Elite.

At the end of the day, the VaporFly remains only a small piece of the Breaking2 puzzle. This morning, Nike announced that the attempt will take place on a 1.5-mile asphalt loop around theFormula One track near the town of Monza, in northern Italy. The course will be IAAF ratified, but as of this writing, it is still unclear whether Breaking2 will be eligible for an official world record.

Original Article