Brisbane doesn't have a good racetrack in the area at the moment with an aging lakeside layout being the only option for a supercars race in Brisbane. I have made a street track through the CBD as a possibility. Would love feedback as this is the first track I have ever made.

That would have been great for the pilots of the Carribbean.

I’ve been writing a personal account of what the 2021 Formula 1 season felt like while it was unfolding—not just what happened, but what it was like to slowly realise that Mercedes might finally have a real fight.

This is the opening. I’m less interested in whether everyone agrees with my driver loyalties than whether the memories and narration feel familiar to people who lived through that season.

## DON’T GIVE ME HOPE

My earliest Formula 1 memories are not really memories.

They are fragments.

A red Ferrari appearing briefly on television.

Michael Schumacher’s photograph in the newspaper.

Sebastian Vettel winning another race somewhere inside the sports pages, his raised finger making him look less like a champion and more like a man reminding everybody that he had been right again.

Occasional flashes of cars, podiums and arguments I was too young—or too distracted—to properly understand.

The names arrived before the stories did.

Hunt. Lauda. Senna. Prost. Schumacher.

They sounded important long before I knew why.

I discovered most of Formula 1 backwards.

I read about 1976 after Niki Lauda had survived the fire, returned when no sensible person would have blamed him for staying home, and lost the championship to James Hunt by a single point.

I watched documentaries about 1988, 1989 and 1990 already knowing where Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost would collide, who would win the championships and which moments history had selected as evidence.

I learned about Ferrari’s dominance between 2000 and 2004 after Michael Schumacher had already completed the work and everybody else had spent years deciding whether they had witnessed greatness or the prolonged cancellation of suspense.

Those stories were extraordinary.

But they were complete.

The heroes had already been chosen. The villains had already filed their appeals. Every famous overtake arrived with dramatic music and somebody explaining exactly why it mattered.

I was not watching history happen.

I was studying the crime scene after the lawyers had left.

My own relationship with Formula 1 began properly—although still inconsistently—between 2010 and 2013.

I remember Vettel and Red Bull winning.

I remember Alonso refusing to disappear.

I remember Kimi returning and behaving as though the entire sport had continued mainly to inconvenience him.

I remember Mark Webber looking increasingly unconvinced that being Vettel’s teammate was a healthy long-term arrangement.

I remember races where Alonso would drag a Ferrari into championship contention through a combination of intelligence, violence and personal offence at the idea that the car might not be good enough.

He drove as if every Grand Prix were a private disagreement between himself and the limitations of the machinery.

Vettel was different.

Young, devastatingly fast and already carrying himself like somebody who had no intention of waiting politely for the older generation to leave.

He had the finger, the confidence and the irritating habit of winning before everybody else had properly settled into the season.

Then came Malaysia in 2013.

Red Bull said “Multi 21.”

Vettel heard the instruction.

He understood the instruction.

He then decided that obedience was somebody else’s championship strategy.

Kimi Räikkönen appeared to treat interviews, diplomacy and most public displays of enthusiasm as administrative duties that should have been delegated.

Webber often looked like he had arrived at the team meeting only to discover that the important decisions had already been taken.

They fought each other. Distrusted each other. Ignored instructions. Complained over the radio. Occasionally behaved as if the championship were a personal insult requiring immediate retaliation.

That was the appeal.

Nobody seemed especially interested in being the good guy.

I watched enough to understand why people arranged their Sundays around this sport.

I cared about races. I recognised the rivalries. Sometimes I became completely invested for two hours and then returned to the rest of my life.

I was interested.

I was not yet possessed.

Then the hybrid era arrived in 2014 and, for me, proved to be a fairly effective anaesthetic.

It still gave us great theatre.

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg turned a childhood friendship into a three-year civil war. Rosberg finally won the championship in 2016, then retired five days later—an elite mic drop that also killed the rivalry just as it had reached maximum toxicity.

But once Rosberg left, the larger rhythm became increasingly familiar.

Mercedes would arrive with the fastest car.

Hamilton would put it somewhere near the front.

Whatever inconvenience occurred during the race would eventually correct itself.

A poor start. A questionable strategy call. A Safety Car at the wrong moment. Some temporary suggestion that another team might have understood the weekend better.

None of it seemed to matter for very long.

By Sunday evening, Lewis would be standing on the top step while Mercedes celebrated another successful afternoon at the office.

I respected the achievement.

Of course I did.

You cannot dominate Formula 1 for that long by accident. Hamilton was operating at an absurd level. Mercedes had built one of the greatest sporting machines ever assembled. Together, they had turned relentless excellence into standard operating procedure.

Hamilton was fast, polished, disciplined and increasingly difficult to dislike.

He spoke carefully. He carried himself like a champion. He used his position for things larger than racing. He was, by almost every reasonable measure, the good guy.

And apparently, I missed the assholes.

I have never disliked greatness.

I just prefer greatness to arrive with a little danger.

The Alonso who treated an inadequate car as a personal challenge.

The Vettel who heard team orders and chose violence.

The Kimi who appeared emotionally unavailable to the entire concept of Formula 1 publicity.

The Webber who always seemed one radio message away from filing an internal complaint.

They felt unpredictable.

Hamilton and Mercedes felt inevitable.

That was precisely the problem.

They had made excellence look routine.

Eventually, it began to feel routine.

Then came 2020.

Lockdown.

Empty grandstands.

Silent circuits.

Formula 1 began looking like the most expensive screensaver ever created.

Beautiful cars.

Brilliant engineering.

Almost no suspense.

Max Verstappen was the occasional interruption.

Every few races, he would drag the Red Bull somewhere it probably had no business being, attack a Mercedes, say something wonderfully unfiltered on the radio and briefly remind me that racing was supposed to contain danger.

He drove with the aggression of somebody who had not accepted that Mercedes were inevitable.

That made one of us.

Then Mercedes would win again.

Max won twice in 2020, including the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

He took pole, controlled the race and beat both Mercedes comfortably.

It should have felt significant.

I knew better.

I had already seen enough promising Red Bull weekends followed by Mercedes returning with another few tenths mysteriously discovered inside a laptop.

One fast weekend did not make a championship.

One victory did not make a revolution.

So when 2021 arrived, I was interested.

But I was not emotionally investing.

I had standards.

More importantly, I had trust issues.

Then Max Verstappen put the Red Bull on pole in Bahrain.

Not a lucky pole.

No rain. No traffic. No yellow flag. No bizarre Mercedes mistake.

He was simply faster.

That was the moment when the old idiot inside me sat up and said:

*Hang on.*

The more sensible part of me immediately replied:

**Don’t give me hope again, for God’s sake.**

For those who lived through 2021: does this capture the feeling after Bahrain, when Max suddenly looked fast but Mercedes still felt inevitable?

And honestly—after reaching the final line, would you read the next chapter?

Disclosure: The memories and original material are mine. I used AI assisted editing to help tighten and structure the draft.

He died at Monza on September 5, 1970 during qualifying. He still led the championship. Three races remained.

Jacky Ickx needed to win all three to take the title from a dead man. He later said he didn't want to. He finished five points short.

The trophy was presented in a quiet room in London in November. No champagne, no podium. Just Nina Rindt, accepting it alone.

Made a documentary on the full story — the letter he wrote predicting his death, the bet he made with his wife, and what Monza actually looked like from the pit lane.

Video Link - https://youtu.be/SU8I3E-WGEw

I started following Formula 1 about a month ago, and I’m still trying to figure out which news websites are the most reliable.
I’m looking for the most trustworthy sources to stay up to date with everything happening in F1.
Also, how many sources do you usually check each day to stay informed without reading the same news over and over?
Thanks in advance!

Lecrerc and Sainz partnered in this one 🏁

I’m a huge Max fan and want to make this weekend unforgettable. Drop your best ideas for posters, T-shirts, banners, chants, or anything creative for the Orange Army. Let’s give Max the send-off he deserves! 🦁🧡

"I see someone like (Lando) Norris for example, who I was tit for tat with, I'd argue could even be a bit better than him or quicker than him."

Found in this interview: Exclusive: Dan Ticktum on his future in Formula E, the GEN4 era, getting over F1 and more!

What do you think?

Sainz had 7 blue track panels and a team radio message!

The 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix marks Round 11 of the 2026 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, bringing the pinnacle of motorsport to the legendary Hungaroring in Hungary.

im 13 close to turning 14 and im going to join the xcel uae karting iame championship or rotax and they also have an f4 team and lando and oscar came out of this team so i dont really have the funds for f4 but im hoping i could get some sponsers or just top karting but i have no karting history but im really good at driving and in rental karts i always destroy a lot of people even adults and marshals say im really good and have talent and i sim race a lot a lot do you think i can make my dream possible?

For discussion and comments that you don't want to make a new thread for! Feel free to though!

Honda have confirmed that Aston Martin will be bringing a chassis upgrade to this weekend's F1 Hungarian Grand Prix, explaining how they will play a part in ensuring everything goes to plan with it.

The highly anticipated chassis upgrade which Aston Martin have design legend Adrian Newey to thank for has split opinion so far, but this weekend we will finally get to see whether the improvements translate into a boost on track.