It’s kind of a win-win game for right-wing politicians:

Two things to bear in mind are that the public reacts less to absolute levels and more to trends (a crime wave of crisis proportions today could still have less actual crime than a relatively crime-free period of the ‘80s), and that opinions of politicians are often decided early on. Reagan’s first term genuinely saw…

Vettel continued on for a decade of looking worse and worse since his last championship season...

I agree with the wider points, but, well, yeah, it IS like Lando is doing much better, consistently. He’s beating Ricciardo 10-3 in races, 14-2 in qualifying, 84-16 in points; he has 14 fastest laps to Ricciardo’s 1, and he has a podium. And the qualifying gap isn’t even close, he’s consistently looking like he’s in a…

I think it’s hard to really point to any mistakes Horner has made, to be honest. He could maybe have managed drivers and their conflicts better - I think he regrets not being able to keep Ricciardo - but I can’t think of any obvious blunders even in that regard. [in hindsight maybe he should have kept Gasly instead of…

I think he was definitely ‘world champion contender’ level, even if he wasn’t actually (meaningfully) contending for the championship.

As many as possible? Besides, which evil cabal of “the Europeans” do you think would have the power to prevent them? F1 is now owned by the Americans and will bend over backwards to do anything that would encourage more Americans to watch; and seats themselves are offered by teams, which are private companies, mostly…

OK, now we’re getting a bit silly. Who gets more respect in a bar? Obviously the F2 driver. If you tell people you’re an F2 driver, they’ll get excited at meeting a future F1 driver. If you tell people you’re an Indycar driver, they’ll go “oh, you... drive around in circles in America? How... interesting. Anyway...” -…

Actually the last person to do that was George Russell, the year after LeClerc.

I did know that - the fact that, despite repeated attempts, they’ve never even been able to turn up at the start line in nearly 60 years was kind of part of my point.

Yes, I’m sure Red Bull must have felt terribly inadequate talking to the champions of both... the GTE class at Le Mans AND one GP in Formula E. And they won Dakar in 1986!

That’s not necessarily true. It’s also possible that they pocketed 90% of the money raised by taxpayers, or that they pocketed 90% of the money donated by the PR department of an international company with a factory nearby. We needn’t leap to conclusions here!

Are you familiar with the Sampoong store collapse? It should be taught not only as an example of what not to do, but as an example of just how colossally stupid/immoral people can be...

More likely, unfortunately, the dignitaries needed a ribbon to cut in order to invoice the champagne as an expense...

The problem with “abolish the monarchy” is that while it has a good rationale (the monarchy is ridiculous), it fails to give an answer to what we should do instead.

I actually like the system, though it could of course be improved. As well as acting as a filter to stop inept pay drivers reaching F1, it also gives more structure and purpose to the careers of drivers in lower series. When deciding whether to go to this series or that, or indeed looking back on their careers and…

Yes, it’s kind of a scam, and several drivers have complained about it. Although it does have some rationale: they want to nudge winners to bugger off and retire to let new drivers come in [iirc Button mentioned it as a factor in his not sticking around longer], and they reason that if you’ve won F1 you’ve got plenty…

In the old system, too, the most talented drivers never got to F1 because they didn’t have daddy’s money. Modern F1, while flawed, is far more meritocratic than in the past. And the superlicence helps to that end: daddy can’t simply pay a team a vast amount to let their boy race even though he’s never made it beyond…

Counterpoint: 5 of the last 8 Indy500s (and 2 of the last 3) have been won by F1 drivers.

You could actually do it just by wining Nascar three years in a row - 15x3=45. Assuming their road courses are homologated? Given Jimmie Johnson’s struggles in Indycar, that’s probably kind of a glitch in the system! There ought to be a ‘single seater experience required’ rule or the like.