Why wouldn’t they have done this with Lawson?

^^^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^^^. …. But it could put a few jobs in jeopardy.

A lot of this could be solved by, you know, .....testing !
The idea of putting a new driver in a top level car without actual testing is just crazy

Yes, I know the "rationale" of why there is no testing these days but there should be an out for new driver test; if nothing else, allow the "new" driver X number of test days at the end of the season in that years car. Otherwise we will continue to have the silliness we have now where quality young drivers are dumped in the fire, hoping it works out. Sometimes (Kimi A) it does, other times (Liam) it doesn't. Meanwhile careers are destroyed instead of developed, IMO

LewHam "tested" for several days 2- and 4-year old Ferraris before he stepped into the new car. RB said they didn't do that with Liam. The question is why not?

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/c62x5dnvlzdo Be “as close to Max as possible”. What do you suppose that means?

Toyota Gazoo Racing is taking over the HAAS F1 team. They are getting serious again.

Today I'm skeptical. If that's still happening tomorrow (April 2) I'll believe it.

Same, that being said - it's 90% sure that Hyundai is getting out of WRC, that would leave the juggernaut Toyota with no competition, so WRC might die, and it may make sense for Toyota to get more involved in F1 by reallocating that budget... F1 is doing well (RIP WRC most likely) - not an april fool.

All seems very possible, would be a crying shame if WRC was to only have privateer teams

Toyota in F1 again would make it very interesting

3x European, 2x Japanese and 2x American automotive PU manufacturers, now that's a world championship :cool:

yeah, good for F1.. Now off topic on WRC, as a fan of rallying having grown up seeing the monte, corsica, and other local rallyes live, it's a crying shame but I also lost interest in the way it was televised and frankly watching a body-built Yaris or Hyundai I20 was never all that fun to me. oOt aspirational cars like a 037, a delta, an quattro, a 205T16... Maybe that gets reborn with 911s, M3s, Alpine A110s, fun RWD cars, long slides, and better TV...

Well FP1 answered that.. Yuki is not bad at all...
And we may see Colapinto soon based on Doohan's exit of FP2. Ugh.

Saw this on Instagram yesterday. Pretty dang funny, take off on The Hangover:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YDSkwBJFgh4?si=9eIQu_UGZnghc6N8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Love it.

If only Honda hadn't overridden the racing engineers and specced disaster a few years later. :(

Has anyone seen or heard what happened to Doohan ? The commentators thought the car bottomed out . His line into the corner looked okay . Then I heard he maybe made a mistake with DRS . Something about manual override ? If he really only has a 5 race contract it's not looking good for longevity .

Looks like driver error , he didn't manually close the DRS . Oops :D

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/alpine-reveal-misjudgement-that-led-to-heavy-doohan-crash-in-suzuka-fp2-as.63vMw7p5wcrDXQwtXm11kW

Breaking: Briatore fires Doohan and puts Colapinto in car at Bahrein... (kidding, but let's see how this plays out). I like Jack from his time commentating with the F1TV team, glad he got a shot, but that's a major F-up if true, Flav is ruthless and won't like the cost of writing off a car...

DRS:

Shouldn't there be an automatic closing feature? As a failsafe to prevent exactly this scenario. Even Jim Hall figured that out with his Chaparrals.

Take your foot off the throttle, DRS closes. No need or ability to manually override it.

And shouldn't there be some GPS-enabled detection of the end of the DRS zone on the straight, to prevent any manual override use of DRS outside of the DRS zone?

I think it closes automagically if you tap the brakes, but this first part of the turn is still full beans - at least not on the brakes yet, guess he did not brake and..forgot? Supposedly the previous lap he went thru OK because he did tap the brake pedal.. I agree with you though, the thing should maybe be on a timer, or only on WHILE you push a button, not press button on and off. Hell, I think DRS should be gone altogether.
Crazy fast accident, lucky to be unhurt with modern safety measures..big decel, I am shocked he can see straight ! He may be OK now but would not be surprised to see a replacement driver for the race.