Marchionne up to his accounting machinations. I’m sure I’m not the only one in being a bit wary whenever he does something, though I will admit I only want the Fiat group to do well.

About June of last year I was with a few friends sat enjoying the great British summer on a bench in Knightsbridge when suddenly this big Range Rover does an about turn in front of us. Sat shot gun was no other than Bernie himself, although all you could see was his head peeking out over the dash. I remember cracking…

Well yeah I guess, I just think substantial training is necessary. I mean I know a very successful geophysicist who has been a marshal for every Abu Dhabi GP. He learnt the trade back in the UK, honed it and now helps ensure the standards are met for the race in his adopted homeland. Of course you can argue that’s…

Are those hi-viz propeller blades? Or is it just a light effect?

Oh it was understandable. Pretty much on the 3rd lap till the finish when Kimi was closing in on Bottas at the same time as Perez was put under the kosh I was worried it would end in an incident, I just knew it would given the way they were going for it (nothing wrong in that). In fact I was worried Sergio would do…

Fair enough, it would be overkill to have a Typhoon class crawling through there though. By anyone’s standards

Let’s just be glad it didn’t. I know that the simple thing would be to have marshalls who are trained enough to not do stunts like this but maybe put some sort of smartwatch sensor on them so that cars get alerted if they’re actually on track.

Ah, thanks, I’ll have a look. I’ve seen a good BBC documentary charting the creation and early years of the Dakar. That’s excellent

I wonder if there’s anything similar done for the Dakar, be it from the South American years or earlier.

Among other interesting things in this week weekend I found it funny how F1’s chief communications guy basically scolded a whole bunch of Russian secret service agents out of the podium drivers waiting room. Also found it interesting to see how the drivers were around Putin, he seemed friendly enough, Putin beat a…

I think one of my favourite moments from this weekend was after quali when Lewis was absolutely engrossed with Seb’s car. I swear he spent a good 5 minutes just pacing around, leaning in and having a good inspection. It was nice to see, I wonder how much he then discusses with his team other than why can’t I get a…

I think Rob Smedley handled it brilliantly when asked by the BBC about the team radio from Bottas following the shunt. Smedley for team principal some day

oh dear lord, that was truly horrific! Racing has come such a long way from the gnarly past

Agreed, I think the colour was what threw me off. Speaking of colour I guess the drivers just want something that would not interfere with their field of view.

cue the comment thread exploding. Honestly though it’s almost as if Heath Ledger’s joker was running the show. I wonder what would happen if a Syrian jet shot down a Turkish one (surely even Russia can’t condone such boneheadedness)

Haha, initially it did come off snarky. Now that I look closely at the label on it I can read TecPro so yeah. Dunno for some reason I thought it wasn’t. I think it was the colour maybe.

these aren’t tech-pro are they?

rear light is a lot like the last Saab.

Kinda strange to see just how petite this thing is. Crash safety definitely has had a hand in ballooning the size of vehicles.

Some truly interesting cars in the WEC across the categories, real depth of designs. So good to see enthusiasts take the plunge. I’m curious to hear about this sourced hybrid engine though. Obviously in context of the bruhaha with Red Bull over in F1.