One other thing I thought of: Mercedes was lucky that Bottas was having a terrible race and had nothing to lose, so he was one of the first to switch to inters. That gave Mercedes valuable data that the inters were already faster than the slicks. Ricciardo came in a lap later so Mclaren didn’t have time to crunch the…

True, they should have been more forceful with him. Maybe they didn’t have the same weather info as Mercedes, but even if they did, it is a tougher call to pull him in. By that point (with Lewis undercutting him with quicker laps on inters) it would have almost certainly cost him his first win. Of course 2nd > 7th in…

I’ve only driven in the Southwest, but Big Willow, High Plains Raceway, and Inde Motorsports Ranch all stand out as challenging/rewarding drives with great elevation change.

As a track I think Road America is overrated. True, it has lots of varied corners, but they are all separated by short/long straights so there is no flow. And it has good elevation change, but they waste it by making you drive straight up the hill.

I don’t know, I think aero contributes more spray than tires. Looking at the headline pic above (and others of F1 in the rain) there is a small amount of spray off the rear tires, but most of it follows the diffuser and rear wing. Underbody aero works by creating a vacuum under the car, which sucks water up into the…

Yeah you probably can’t do much about the handling of cars in the rain aside from better rain tires - which seems like a fairly easy fix.

Ok. I’d argue that Mercedes was actually a sub-brand of DMG (Daimler) rather than a model, similar to Scion or Lexus under Toyota.

Does the black plastic make the body any wider? Maybe this was a cheap way to make fender flares to cover wider wheels/tires?

I mean the original hexagonal wheel arch was good…

I’m curious if the track is wider than the standard impreza/crosstrek. Maybe the cladding was a strategy to add fender flares hiding some wider wheels/tires without investing in sheetmetal tooling that is unique to the Rex?

You can also buy used in the private market. I recently needed to buy a 3/4 truck for towing. I searched Craigslist for 5 months and passed on a bunch that were listed 2x over blue book. I took 5 trucks to a mechanic for an inspection and finally found a good one listed under blue book. The mechanic told the seller it…

Correct (somewhat long-winded) answer. You can get a lightweight EV but you have to downsize the battery, not the motor. Then you are stuck with a really fun car that can’t go more than 50 miles… or in this case, more than 3 laps around a track…

Yeah, people say the Vulcan 3.0 gets you the power of the 2.3 with the mileage of the 4.0, which is probably true. But it is indestructible, and still quite fun with a manual trans.

Yeah with a manual they are quite fun to drive, even just to the grocery store. Can’t say that about an F-series truck…

This needs more stars. Too bad COTD went away…

I agree with the Ranger. I’ve had one (indestructible 3.0 V6, 5mt, 4x4) for the last 8 years and it can do literally anything except tow more than 2000 lbs. With the 4.0 and an auto, it is even a decent tractor, towing up to 5600 lbs.

Even if it wasn’t the AWD V12 tech marvel it was planned to be…

Came for this… you are right sir. Now selling for over $100K

This is helpful. I just bought a diesel hauler and reserved a u-haul trailer for October. I’m gonna take my new (very used) race car (Lemons beater) out for my first time with it.

Leclerc is driving for Apline now?