Formula 1 2025 - Hungarian Grand Prix

Before I start with the wailing of all Ferrari fans, that was a good race. There was overtaking, and defending, and tyre strategy sneak. I approve. Particularly of Fernando Alonso single-handedly causing more frustration than 10 other men. 

Now, onto things I don't approve of, other than Nico Hulkenberg's bad luck and the on-going curse on the second Red Bull car, holy heck, Ferrari, please can you get your act together.  

If it's not producing a car so impossible you've made a 7-time World Champion think he can't drive well, it's causing the other driver to have an outburst of "I told you so" at 210 km per hour. 

It's frustrating as fans, and I can't imagine how frustrating it is for the drivers. 

I hate my team sometimes. 

It's not the losing, it's the way of losing.

Formula 1 2025 - Belgian Grand Prix

I can see why some people hate the rolling starts but Belgium, even more than many other circuits, is not somewhere where we want to risk people's safety. Andrew Benson's explanation on BBC radio was excellent. 

The rain break also led to some excellent BBC radio waffle. 

I liked FIA's way of avoiding the race finishing with a time out by saying it hadn't started properly.

Tsunoda not having Max's upgrades may suddenly explain his results, and the results of every number 2 driver in the Red Bull team. I was right to suspect the Red Bull garage worked like this:  

I do wonder if Piastri rewatched the video of Verstappen's overtake of him in the sprint race to figure out how to get past Norris, depending of course whether Norris had battery issues or not, and being on the wetter side of the grid.  

As these are supposed to be Ferrari-centric write-ups, I ought to say something about them, especially as one driver got a podium, and the other got driver of the day. It was an excellent defensive performance from Leclerc and an excellent aggressive drive from Hamilton. Could we maybe get them a decent car?!

Withdrawals from the 2025 Tour de France

Sadly, this year, I haven't been able to watch any of the Tour. 

However, I did find the time to do the withdrawal stats. 

Looking at the Kaplan Meier chart:  While I was compiling the chart, I did start to wonder whether this was an exceptionally kind year in terms of attrition (if you're not Jasper Philipsen or Filippo Ganna). I will try and borrow a copy of Prism to get the numbers but the comparison itself makes it clear that there was less attrition than normal but not by much.  

I don't know whether that's because the first "week" this year was 10 days long, because the 14th of July fell on a Monday (very necessary Casablanca clip here - https://youtu.be/HM-E2H1ChJM?si=Sadu7MugvhdwDhXC).  

23 teams took part in the race. The withdrawals seem reasonably balanced. 

6 teams had 2 riders withdraw - Soudal QuickStep, Total Energies, Lotto, Alpecin-Deceunnick, Ineos Grenadiers and XDS Astana. 

5 teams had no one withdraw - Arkea - B&B Hotels, Israel Premier Tech, Picnic Post NL, Tudor and Visma - Lease A Bike. 

(I know it's because sponsorship is hard to find, but do the team names need to be that long). 

Because they withdrawals are evenly spread, in the Kaplan Meier diagram split by teams, there's no sudden drops. It looks very like a plait.  

Further evidence of it being an unusually non-attritional race, despite them having a stage with a sprint finish up the Ventoux - https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/tour-de-france/highlights-tour-de-france-stage-16-2025, is that no one stage stands out as having more withdrawals. Looking at withdrawals by type by week: Ignoring that week 1 was 10 days ... the really interesting things are: 

1 - No over the time limit withdrawals at all 

2 - The pattern is almost symmetrical 

The number of withdrawals by type is pretty even, 48% were mid-stage abandonments, 52% were did not starts. Since Did Not Start withdrawals are mostly "help, the damage has caught up with me" withdrawals, that pattern makes sense.

Euro 2025 - Network Graph for the Final

The figures are obviously very simple now that there are only two teams.  

The same graph, but labelled:  

Gotham FC are the club team closest to the middle. 

Barcelona, unsurprisingly, have the most players left, with 10. The teams with the next most players remaining are Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City with 6. 

Manchester City, Arsenal and Gotham FC are guaranteed to have a player on the winning side. 

The community view gives less information when we're down to two teams so I haven't shared that. 

It's a final to look forward to.

Some equally scattershot thoughts about Fantastic Four, the new one

(Mild spoilers for Thunderbolts and from that to Fantastic Four)

I have more skin in this game than I did for Superman (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2025/05/17/superman-the-new-one-some-scattergun-thoughts-about-comics-history-and-culture/). The coterie of comics fans I was in at high school were very much Marvel (and later 2000AD).

Fantastic Four was C's comic of choice - mine was X-Men (I am filled with trepidation about what Marvel will do to them because while the Fox films haven't been perfect, several of them have come pretty damn near).

I'm intrigued by the retro-futurism of the trailer for the new Fantastic Four, and amused by sudden unexpected Mark Gattiss appearing as I-can't-believe-it's-not Ed Sullivan.

There's a sinister uncurrent in the trailer, even before Galactus and the Silver Surfer turn up, that would have made it clear that it wasn't going end well, even before the bad guys do arrive. Also, Ben Grimm is somewhere where he is happy and beloved and they seem to be determined he will never get that for long *.

Given what we get in the Thunderbolts end credits teaser, I presume the end of Fantastic Four has them slingshotted over into our universe, which at least has precedent in the comics.

Part of me wants it to be "them slingshotted following abject failure to beat Galactus." but I don't think Marvel will go there, no one likes to see their heroes lose. Although they did go there for the Avengers: Infinity War cliffhanger.

What I think is more likely is that Reed Richards is going to have to make a choice, save the world and potentially doom the family, and luckily they end up over in MCU-main-verse.

But that leads to the question of why would they give that away in another film? Or am I just putting too much thought into it?

* Ben Grimm is my favourite in ways that words cannot explain.

Euro 2025 - Semifinals Network Graphs

As suggested (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2025/07/14/euro-2025-quarterfinal-network-diagrams/), the sheer number of Spanish and Italian players playing for Barcelona and Italy respectively did distort the graph. 

It's also distorting the semifinal graphs which are much narrower and elongated than usual. There is a pleasing simplicity to the community view, with each country being its own community. Unsurprisingly, the largest of the paler red circles reflects the club teams with the most representatives left, Barcelona with 10, Bayern Munich with 9 and Juventus with 8. 

Germany are the national team closest to the centre, because of Italy pulling them up. For the same reason, Bayern Munich are the club team closest to the centre. 

I have seen all of the semi-finalists except England play (and I am banned from watching them lest I be an ill omen).  I am guessing that Spain will beat Germany but that German team have a certain admirable determination about them.

Film Review - Ad Astra

This film was so bad that I have made a new graphic for it.  

This is going to be reserved for the real clunkers. I have 61 film reviews to write up, including this one and only 3 of them deserve this figure, and one of those is an edge case. 

Ad Astra was terrible. 

Bad science, bad plot, bad logic. 

Although I will say it had good set design. 

What annoyed me about it so much? 

It was the laziness. 

I'm a bad sci-fi fan. I do not expect diamond-level hardness in my sci-fi films. I am happy to accept internally cohesive over scientifically accurate. But, if you're going to have one of your characters be a deep space explorer charting new planets out in the Kuiper belt don't have three pictures of "new space objects" be the same picture of Europa turned 90 degrees and coloured in differently. 

Particularly not if you say things like "what I’m trying to do is the most realistic depiction of space travel that’s been put in a movie and to basically say, ‘Space is awfully hostile to us.’ It’s kind of a Heart of Darkness story about traveling to the outer edge of our solar system." during the press tour. (https://collider.com/james-gray-brad-pitt-ad-astra-filming/) 

You really don't get to say that if you have scenes that only work if there is no convection of heat from rocket engines. 

It's not just Europa, and basic physics, it's every little detail of the film. For instance, the faked geography of the opening shot. "Whilst watching Ad Astra, instantly recognised two lakes as Brad Pitt was looking down to Earth. Qinghai Lake and Lake Urmia. Obviously they are no where close to each other, one is in China, the other in Iran." (quoted with permission from here - https://x.com/x4rius/status/1248252953074360320). 

In the director's defence, he does achieve the whole "Heart of Darkness" theme he was aiming for, although his is more the isolation of space drives you mad rather than colonialism will destroy us all.

The vibe I got was more Odysseus in the "everyone he meets dies" way but I think we have to accept my brain was warped at an early age. 

The problem is that it was sold as 'interesting sci-fi philosophical film', but it is in fact, "man-pain the movie: this time we're in space". Which would be hard to sit through anyway, but the lead character is deliberately emotionless as his major characteristic and he's the only character with any major screen time ... this film is dull and unengaging as well as having all those technical flaws. 

Gah!  The whole thing is a mess and is a waste of two hours of your life.

Euro 2025 - Quarterfinal network diagrams

The group stage diagrams and predictions based on them can be found here - https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/euro-2025-group-stage-network-diagrams/

How did the group stage predictions go? 

From group A, I predicted Norway and Switzerland would qualify for the quarterfinals, and I was right, even if it involved extra time goals in the decider. 

Group B, I predicted Spain and AN other, which I am aware is a bit of a "the sky is blue" sort of prediction. 

Group C, I predicted Germany and Sweden 

Group D, I predicted Netherlands and one of England and France, which was oh so wrong. 

Out of 8, I am willing to call that about equivalent to 5/8. 

With that in mind, here are the quarterfinal network diagrams 

Unlabelled: Labelled:  

In the communities view, each nation is its own separate colour. Sweden are the national team closest to the centre (just, vs. Norway). 

Either Lyon or Bayern Munich are the club team closest to the centre. 

Barcelona are the team with the most representatives left in with 14, then comes Bayern Munich and Juventus with 13 then Chelsea with 12. 

Predictions for the quarterfinals: 

These are quite difficult because Italy and Spain are pulled out by how many of their players play for Juventus and Barcelona respectively, while Bayern Munich, and the players that play for them, are pulling together Sweden and Germany, and Arsenal and Chelsea are holding together England, Sweden and Norway. 

Sweden vs England - Diagram says Sweden 

Norway vs Italy - Diagram says Norway, plus every single women's football pundit keeps bewailing how often Italy somehow manage to screw up. On the other hand, Norway trip over their own feet also. 

France vs Germany - Diagram says Germany just. Football fan says "ooooh". 

Spain vs Switzerland - Remember how I said Barcelona pulled Spain out of the diagram. This really reflects that. Switzerland are far closer to the centre. On the other hand, there is no way I can see Switzerland beating this Spanish team.

Formula 1 2025 - British Grand Prix

Hulkenbooooooooomiest 

Finally. 

Etc 

It turns out that there are circumstances where I will cheer against a Ferrari. Because finishing 3rd and where the heck ever Leclerc finished is not actually all that much better than 4th and wherever (no really, why is there a Ferrari finishing outside the points?!!!), while Hülkenberg finally getting a podium ... that's something special. 

I'm not saying that it was a long time coming but Clare Williams was his press officer when he driving for Williams. (She was adorably happy for him.) 

I loved how loud the Sauber team were for him, and that the the teams with a champagne budget used some of it to pass champagne to Sauber so they would have some. 

Second most heart-warming moment had to be Mrs. Norris hugging her son. I am not Team Lando (L is. L has been since he started. He is presently impossible and hoping to reach new heights of impossible if Lando wins the title this year.) but I am entirely happy for him. 

BBC radio were wise and knowledgeable and got Damon Hill in. He's so lovely!!!! 

Channel 4 gave me Mika Hakinnen terrifying David Coulthard in a sportscar - racers never change - and Coulthard getting to drive not just *a* vintage Alfa Romeo but the Alfa Romeo that won the first ever British Grand Prix.

I am frequently mean about Coulthard but the sheer joy he radiated. 

Why am I going on about everything but the racing? Because it was a bit of a damp squib (chapeau to Gasly for that overtake though). The rain and associated chaos robbed us viewers of racing. There wasn't even any fun chaos moments, except possibly Lance Stroll's "that's not even a strategy" somehow getting him more points than Alonso, and Alonso's epic radio whinge. 

But overall, I do not care that there wasn't much racing because

Film Review - Time Bandits

D took me to the Mockingbird Cinema (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) because, as an indie cinema, they reshow older films sometimes.

I had seen Time Bandits before, but never in the right order. As you can imagine, it has a very different effect in the right order - it works better, despite it very much being Terry Gilliam doing the child hero's journey.

And ending it very Gilliamly. (Which I define as an ending that is sort of, if not unhappy, then lacking in comfort. I think that might be the hallmark of his films, they provide no direct comforting message.)

But at least things look interesting. (I will forgive a lot for interesting)

Writing this has made me realise how difficult I find it to describe Terry Gilliam's films and my responses to them. They're very much experiences rather than a solid thing that can be described, or certainly not by me, who, I admit, comes from the science and sense end of things rather than humanities and sensibilities. I am happier with things that are and aren't, rather than -ish, but Gilliam's films are full of -ish and questions, but I like that about them. They're full of that feeling, without trying to explain everything, as opposed to some films that aim for that and then try to explain, and that never works for me. (Spoiling my review in advance, I think that's why I did not jive with 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once'.)