Reverse on the Left: 2019-03-24

Friday, March 29, 2019

Dope Vid. #231

Video courtesy of HartnettMedia.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

What to watch this Weekend (Mar 29th - April 3rd)

The Grand Tour. Season 3 Episode 12. Friday (Amazon Prime) new
Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Bahrain. From the Bahrain International Circuit in Manama. Practice 1. Friday @ 6:55am - 9am (ESPNU(HD)) live
Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Bahrain. From the Bahrain International Circuit in Manama. Practice 2. Friday @ 10:55am - 1pm (ESPNU(HD)) live
Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Bahrain. From the Bahrain International Circuit in Manama. Practice 3. Saturday @ 7:55am - 9am (ESPN2(HD)) live
Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Bahrain. From the Bahrain International Circuit in Manama. Qualifying. Saturday @ 10:55am - 12pm (ESPN2(HD)) live
Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Bahrain. From the Bahrain International Circuit in Manama. Race. Sunday @ 11:05am - 1:30pm (ESPN2(HD)) live
Chasing Classic Cars. Tuesday @ 7pm - 7:30pm (MotorTrendHD) replay
Motorweek. Tuesday @ 7:30pm - 8pm (MotorTrendHD) replay
Restoration Garage. Tuesday @ 10pm - 11pm (MotorTrendHD) new
Chasing Classic Cars. Wednesday @ 9pm - 10pm (MotorTrendHD) new

Last time around in Australia...Merc showed themselves to be tops once again, Honda got on the podium for the first time in the hybrid turbo era, Grosjeans luck continued to go awry for another year via wheel related DNF, Ferrari looked slower than expected and Leclerc was seemingly told to back off once he reeled in Vettel due to some undisclosed (at the time) issue. Bottas lost out to Hamilton's qualifying mastery, by a tenth, but got what really mattered most to him, a (dominant) win and as icing on the cake, the single point for fastest lap (new rule in 2019). This brings him to 26pts after the first race. Hamilton didn't seem to be in too bad of spirits after wondering why he lacked pace during the race, as he explained he knows why the problem arose so theoretically it'll be resolved next time around in Bahrain (see vids below, re: floor damage). McLaren's Norris was able to make Q3 which was positive, but Sainz unfortunately channelled his inner Alonso and had a power-unit failure, smoke spewing out of the back of his car around mid-race. I just thought about how Alonso could've been suffering that failure if he was still on the team, but Norris did make it to the end of the race in his Renault powered McLaren. Ricciardo's home race was disappointing to say the least, starting off bad with his front wing getting ripped off on a bold starting move where the ground clearance was misjudged. The rest of the race deteriorated from here and pretty close to the end the team decided to pull him for some data on the screens that didn't bode well. With the checkered paddle dropped, the current race standings are as follows: Bottas, Hamilton (-8), Verstappen (-11), Vettel (-14), Leclerc (-16), Magnussen (-18).

Bahrain is a different style circuit to that of Melbourne, so it'll be interesting to see if Ferrari figures out what's going on, if Leclerc is allowed to flourish or just be the permanent #2. How will Hams fare against Bottas once his issue is resolved and how strong can Haas be when both cars can finish the race. Will McLaren be able to resolve the issue that lead to the failure and be able to have both cars finish? We'll have to tune in to find out.

Enjoy your weekends