I only saw 4 films in the cinema this year. I am confident that my ranking will not change between now and writing up my reasoning. Warning, at the moment my write up is mostly "I agree with Christopher Nolan."
My top 4 films of 2020 are:
1 - Jojo Rabbit
2 - Away
3 - Spies in Disguise
4 - Tenet
I promise this was delayed because of work, not because I couldn't think of anything to write. I mean, I also couldn't think of anything to write, but … does any one remember either Ferrari doing anything at all in Abu Dhabi?
I mean, really?!
The only important thing that happened as far as Ferrari are concerned was that BOTH FERRARIS FINISHED BEHIND AN ALFA ROMEO!!!
Really, you let a customer team beat you!
What?!
Even Binotto accepts that this was 'not acceptable'. Do something to fix it, you're the team boss. If you can't, no one can.
I am trying to be positive about next year, but if there's no change in the technical regulation I can't see anyone beating Mercedes, definitely not Ferrari. The thing that frustrates me as Ferrari fan is not the getting beaten, it's how much Ferrari are being beaten by.
Due to complete lack of anything happening, Ferrari-wise, there has been no change to the bingo card.
L believes that Vettel bursting out into song should count as a dab for "not sure why Vettel is laughing like that, let's not do it again", but I don't think it does. I do think that Vettel transferring to Racing Point (or Aston Martin as they will be) will be good for Vettel, Ferrari and Racing Point.
I hope the team will be better for Sainz jnr. (His father is a world champion, he is Sainz jnr., whatever the F1 coverage says.)
In the other big news, while I am sad for Albon*, I am happy for Perez.
Plus, Perez has experience of always getting the worse car in a team and not letting it affect his performance so, if that's why the non-Verstappen driver in the Red Bull has been underperforming, at least it won't be new to Checo and he will be able to cope with it. I don't think that is what's been happening at Red Bull. I think the non-Verstappen drivers have been performing as well as that car lets them, and Verstappen has been outperforming the car. But that's based on gut feeling and how much better various drivers have been when they drove for Alpha Tauri, before and after driving for Red Bull, not on evidence.
I might try to write a more thorough/less unspeakably Ferrari-biased review of the year at some point, but the main thing on the to-do list from an F1 point of view is the number-crunch post I promised previously.
*OMG, the BBC F1 coverage read out one of my tweets where I pointed out the factual flaws in one of their meaner analyses of Albon's season. I am both pleased, and wish they'd not have been so unnecessarily and inaccurately mean about Albon.
I also apologise for the lack of punctuation in the tweet, I was walking home from food shopping.
Twelfth is not good enough. Ferrari have not been good enough. I can't see it changing for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this week, and I can't see it getting better next season. They are so frustrating!Mercedes have just gone all Ferrari.
— Grand Prix Diary (@GrandPrixDiary) December 6, 2020
With 2020 being 2020 I had completely forgotten that this was happening.
The actual result of the draw for the UEFA teams is here:
Group A: Portugal, Serbia, Rep of Ireland, Luxembourg
Group B: Spain, Sweden, Greece, Georgia
Group C: Italy, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria
Group D: France, Ukraine, Finland, Bosnia
Group E: Belgium, Wales, Czech Republic, Belarus
Group F: Denmark, Austria, Scotland, Israel
Group G: Netherlands, Turkey, Norway, Montenegro
Group H: Croatia, Slovakia, Russia, Slovenia
Group I: England, Poland, Hungary, Albania
Group J: Germany, Romania, Iceland, North Macedonia
(Thank you Guardian for being the only news source that had it all in writing. Dear BBC, some of us care about teams that are not the home nations.)
While this year's ceremony did serve the function of reminding me that the qualifiers were starting (as though international football ever stops any more, in between European Championships qualifiers, the European Championships, European Nations League games, World Cup qualifiers and the World Cup itself), the purpose of the draw to shake the teams up probably failed; several teams will be looking at their draw going "you again?!"
I wanted to see what the draw would look like done straight off the rankings, or straight off the rankings while avoiding prohibited clashes, excessive travel combinations and too many winter country combinations (official FIFA explanation here, significantly clearer Wikipedia explanation here).
I was then going to draw straight from the rankings, considering those rules, and the whole European Nations League finalists have to be in one of groups A-E and have a maximum of 5 teams in their group.
Done completely from the rankings, the draw looks like this:
If the prohibited clash, excessive travel and excessively cold country rules are applied, amazingly, only two sets of teams have to swap.
The first is Estonia and Kosovo, as otherwise, there are too many "too cold" countries in group E, which already contains Ukraine and Norway.
The second pair that need swapping are San Marino and Gibraltar, as putting Gibraltar into Group G would force Kazakhstan to have too many excessive travel countries, as Iceland are already in there.
If the European Nations League rules are applied, it whips Italy into group D, but only one other knock on effects, Estonia and Kosovo didn't have to swap because Ukraine and Norway are now no longer in the same group.
See, so much less fuss than the FIFA method.
No bingo update, because after that crash, I am really not feeling it. Don't worry, I have made a charitable donation in the hope that whichever divine providence was looking out for everyone realises that I am grateful and would like it if they continued to look after them all.
Nothing on how awesome Hamilton's 7th World Championship victory is. Other than it is an amazing achievement and he is awesome. I think we've discovered that I am incapable of writing hot-takes. Far better people than me have written articles about it. So has the BBC F1 correspondent.
I was glad to see the Turkish Grand Prix back because it's my favourite of the Herman Tilke-designed tracks. And the race delivered. Well, the first half did, and then they turned on the DRS "go faster" button and it all became boring.
I do not like DRS. I know why the brought it in, and I support the attempt, but DRS does not increase racing, it just makes it easier for the better cars to overtake the worse cars. It's almost impossible to defend from a DRS overtake, so it really isn't racing that we see with it, racing needs both attack and defence.
I am ridiculously happy with the result. It's amazing how well Ferrari do when the race removes the disadvantage of that cow of an engine. Even Vettel seemed re-energised (possibly because he will be in the pink Mercedes/Aston Martin next year and if it's as good as this year's Racing Point it will be a good car. I have to admit that the idea of Vettel in a good car excites me a lot).
Because of the result, I feel bad about dabbing both the "driver error" and "pitstop disaster" squares again, but truth is truth.
However, to make up for it, and in honour of both the result and correct tyre choices throughout the weekend (Red Bull seem to have caught Ferrari's poor tyre choices), I present Ferrari with two cookies of competence.
Next year, hopefully it will be more cookies than dabbed squares.
I want to preface this by stating that the RFL and Super League really did not help the Toronto Wolfpack situation and letting the other Super League teams vote on Toronto's future was asking for trouble. It was also an abdication of responsibility by Super League and the RFL.
I also don't bear Toronto Wolfpack any ill-will (my feelings about Brian McDermott are a different matter and he can continue to take a long one off a short plank). I wanted them to succeed, and I did my best to promote their cause to the unknowing.
That being said, was anyone actually surprised when it all went wrong? I know the original ownership are blaming COVID, but I suspect something similar would have happened anyway.
I suspect this because I am old enough to remember the failures of Paris Saint Germain and the Celtic Crusaders, and the successes of Catalan Dragons and the London Broncos (note, success here is defined as 'still a going concern').
What raised alarm bells with Toronto?
- A team plonked in an area with no pre-existing rugby (league) bedrock. This was true of PSG and Crusaders, it was not true of Broncos or Catalan.
- The players brought in were established stars, moving towards the twilight of their careers. I get why - name recognition, known pedigree, etc - but it means there's an increased risk of longer injuries and high wage costs, which put together means the team might not have the funds or other resources to cover when the players get injured. (This failing is not limited to expansion teams, established teams determined to reach the Super League have also done this. Looking at you, Leigh!)
These two combine to ring a third alarm bell.
- No local players, and no obvious sign of attempting to grow them. There were no Canadians on this team, even PSG had French players! Rugby league has very lenient nationality rules*, but they couldn't even find a single Australio-Canadian to play for them.
Having local players is helpful to a new team for a couple of reasons. If we assume a new team is not going to do well in its first few seasons, it needs something else to bring in the punters. Having a pre-existing local base of interest helps with that, in that situation people are already interested in rugby league, you need to do less convincing/converting. If you haven't got that but do have a local player, you can use them to build up interest.
Where expansion has worked, there have been established amateur teams.
If International Rugby League really is serious about bringing the Canadians into the rugby league fold, I think throwing them in the second-deepest end was a bad idea. There is already a US League, and adding a Canadian team or teams to that would have been a good first step. It would have prepared the ground, and allowed Toronto to build itself up.
A lot of the noise around a possible New York expansion worries me, because it's very similar to the buzz around Toronto, and it sounds like no lessons have been learnt.
*A discussion for another time, but I like this leniency and I think it's probably one of the best thing that International Rugby League the organisation have done to spread the game.
I don't know why it wasn't called the San Marino Grand Prix, I am presuming it's something to do with copyrights and deals, or that someone finally spotted that Imola is not in San Marino.
I also don't know what Ferrari were playing at. It had all been going, not well, but better, I even gave them a cookie, and then *that* horror show happened (any time that Mercedes win the Constructor's World title at Imola is a horror show). Only one new square has been dabbed and that square is pitstop disaster. A 13 second pitstop definitely counts as a pitstop disaster.
Vettel also somehow managed to screw up Bottas's race, which ... yeah, Bottas is suffering from Mark Webber's old luck. That bit of debris from Vettel's car was ridiculously big and of course, Bottas got it caught underneath his car!
Istanbul next, and mostly I'm just happy to see it back because it is my favourite of the Tilkedromes. I don't expect anything good from Ferrari, but hope springs eternal.
No new squares dabbed. Ferrari actually did well this time. Well, one of them did and I think we've all given up on Sebastian Vettel, including Vettel himself.
There was another flicker of hope, above and beyond Leclerc's result. Ferrari tried something different and clever with their tyres, and rather than it blowing up in their faces, as I had expected to happen, it turned out to be the right tyre choice. Other teams changed their strategies to match Ferrari's rather than the other way round. I haven't seen that in years. It gives me hope for the future, for next year, when Ferrari will have two drivers who give a damn.
I have dabbed the strategy fail square, and that which is dabbed cannot be undabbed, but in thanks for the strategy team bucking up their ideas, I offer the Cookie of Competence.
Keep it up!
(I have many thoughts about Hamilton breaking Schumacher's record, but they are somewhat clouded by me being both a Schumacher fan and a Ferrari fan. I am aware I am unreasonable on the matter.)
Other than Ferrari Foul-Up Bingo, this might be my last big post for a while. I'm working on a post that involves going through 11 years worth of F1 results, and some number crunching.
(Late because Microsoft decided I needed two giant Windows updates in one week and my internet is bad)
I got the start time wrong, but thankfully noticed my mistake about 10 minutes before the start. I'm glad I didn't miss any of it because there was racing, actual racing. Admittedly between Perez and Leclerc and not at the front, but actual racing. In F1!!!
There was also the sheer joy that was Nico Hülkenberg's ridiculous race weekend (briefly - was supposed to be commentating with RTL. Was in Köln at 11 am, got a phone call from Otmar Szafnauer saying can you fill in for Lance Stroll?, at the circuit by 1 pm for qualifying, qualified in last because he had had no warm up. Finished in 8th in the actual race.) Justfiably Driver of the Day.
Ferrari brought less joy (sorry Charles, I know you did your best.) Somehow, Vettel remained unpunished for his near clear-out of Kevin Magnussen (yes, I know Magnussen is just as guilty) so I can't yet dab "FIA can't save you now" because so far it still really is looking after both Ferrari drivers. I can dab "strategy decision is made, it is wrong" because did anyone think that the strategy they were using with Vettel would work?!
I shall leave you with two more links.
1 - A most excellent cartoon from Hülkenberg's instagram - https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNe5lUDbd8/?utm_source=ig_embed
2 - Mick Schumacher presents Hamilton with one of his father's helmets as Brit equals Michael's win tally - https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.must-see-mick-schumacher-presents-hamilton-with-one-of-his-fathers-helmets.7y5szvZ2hF3W5DtP1o7GWq.html Which comes with a "bring tissues" warning.
I want it known that I didn't forget about the Russian Grand Prix, I forgot about the time difference, so by the time I turned the radio on, it was all over bar the shouting.
Having listened to the replay, I don't think I missed much. There's no update to the bingo card because, yes, Leclerc bumped into Stroll, which would fit "cars crash into someone else", but I am not counting it since it didn't seem to hurt his race. And that hurts to say, Ferrari shouldn't be so poor that I can say 6th is the best a Ferrari could finish.
In the other car, well, the nearest thing to anything eventful happening there was Grosjean happening to Vettel, and Grosjean happens to everyone (I mock with affection). Possibly "and Grosjean happened" should be a square in future.
In keeping with the tradition of the Russian Grand Prix, the race was not particularly interesting, with most of the points of interest being provided by the stewards, who enabled Mercedes fans to feel got at and everyone else to feel that Mercedes weren't being punished enough. That takes some doing. If an incident is bad enough to warrant a 10 second penalty, it's bad enough to warrant penalty points.
Consistency, I'd like to see it.
Late because of work
The stacked bar charts have come out a lovely near jersey yellow. I approve of this serendipity.
Withdrawals by stage pie charts
Four stages, stages 8, 11, 17 and 19 make up almost half of the total withdrawals. According to one guide, stage 11 was supposed to be an innocuous stage and 19 was supposed to be a recovery day, so it could be due to people withdrawing due to previous damage. Or wasp stings. Which yeah, getting stung in the mouth is nasty!
Interestingly, the overall Kaplan Meier survival curve does seem to have 3 sections, which do marry up to the three weeks, with a slight slope, a deeper slope and then a slight slope again.
Visually, the individual team Kaplan Meiers are too busy to get much out of, although you can still see Ag2R's no-good bad-day. Next year, I'll see if I can get the colours to match up with the teams a bit better.
The week 3 withdrawals are pretty evenly divided.
Different withdrawal types split by week
All withdrawals, split by type
Most withdrawals were mid-stage abandonments, which again suggests that the only way of stopping riders is either damaging them beyond carrying on, or holding the World Championships that close to the TDF that time trialists withdraw to be ready for them.
I'd like to take the opportunity to link to this really neat analysis - https://twitter.com/xavierdisley/status/1308009665696063488?s=03 - where Pogacar's energy output on that amazing time trial stage is compared to that of others. It's fascinating.
Team, the FIA throw you a huge party of a Grand Prix to celebrate 1000 races. It is held at Mugello. Florence makes a fuss of you. Fans are allowed to be present.
Eighth and ninth just isn't acceptable. I mean, it's not acceptable anyway, but in this situation, it really isn't.
I never thought I'd see the day that a Ferrari had an under-powered engine. The Ferrari of my childhood was that glorious, unreliable V12 which, when it wasn't exploding in a variety of ways, was the most powerful thing going. How do you go from that to this excuse of a lawnmower engine?
It's just so frustrating.
Only one square has been dabbed, and that's the already dabbed "too indecisive to decide on a strategy." When one of your drivers says he doesn't care which strategy you choose as long as you choose one, this suggests a problem. When it's not the first time your drivers have made this statement, it suggests an on-going problem.
I've not dabbed "cars crash into someone else" since that would involve one of the Ferraris was the person doing the hitting, and neither of them did. Somehow they both avoided all the chaos, all three times, which I would like to congratulate them on.
Now, if only I could convince my Mum to stop suggesting I switch allegiance to Racing Point. No, just because they will be Aston Martin, will have Sebastian Vettel as one of their drivers and will be infinitely less frustrating than Ferrari, none of those are reasons to betray my team. Also, I might never forgive Racing Point for dropping Perez.
(I am pleased that the FIA decided not to be idiots and aren't going to reprimand Lewis Hamilton for wearing a very polite t-shirt asking for justice for Breonna Taylor (https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/12071177/lewis-hamilton-calls-for-justice-for-breonna-taylor-after-winning-tuscan-gp). Otherwise I was going to have to point out they're a driving formula that accept alcoholic drink sponsorship, and therefore really can't speak about anything anyone is wearing. Lewis Hamilton remains excellent.)
I'd just like to once again state quite how sketchy and preliminary these are. These follow on from last week's.
Lotto Soudal remain the team worst affected by withdrawals, although 3 teams are now short two riders. B&B, Decuninck- Quick Step, Ineos, Israel Start-Up Nation, Jumbo Visma, Movistar and Sunweb are the only teams that haven't lost anyone.
Stage 8 (CAZÈRES-SUR-GARONNE>LOUDENVIELLE, containing the first hors category climb of this years tour, or Nans Peters vs the mountain) remains the stage with the most withdrawals.
The withdrawals occurred on a variety of stages.
This year's number of withdrawals is about average (can I find the @LeTour tweet that said that? No, of course I can't!).
For the individual teams, you can see from the shape of the curve how suddenly the race *happened* to Ag2R-La Mondiale.
What I was interested in was if the kind of withdrawals changed over time.
They haven't really.
I am legitimately surprised that there has been only one withdrawal due to missing a time cut (and that was John Degenkolb after stage 1 happened to him almost more than it happened to anyone else except Philippe Gilbert and Rafael Valls.
Somehow they've been up many, many hills and the Grand Colombier and the only person cut was on stage 1. It's incredible.
Only one new dab, because oddly, I don't have a square for brake failure, due to an apparently forlorn hope that that would be the one thing on the car they'd make sure to get right.
Noticeably, driver error is the most marked square. Boys, this is not good enough, even if you never did hear a more piteous sound than Leclerc post-accident. Try not to do that again, Charles!
However, the Italian national anthem did ring around Monza. (Yes, I am reaching, if nothing else, Ferrari's form in the last ten years has increased my powers of reach.)
I am grateful for small mercies. Anyway, not even at maximum curmudgeon setting can I begrudge Pierre Gasly this moment. Listen to what it means to him.
The French commentators were restrained, in that way that only they can be. And we love them for it! (Given that one of the UK radio commentators was almost in tears, I think it's more than forgivable. Apparently Gasly really is that likeable.)
After a race whose only rational explanation is that the focussing of every Ferrari fan's mean thoughts finally worked, we are going to need to do it all over again this week, because I cannot deal with a world where Mercedes win at Mugello. It is not acceptable.
Start thinking mean thoughts!
Inspired by @psychemedia on Twitter/blog.ouseful.info, and his F1 charts where you could tell when something had happened and who it happened to, even if you hadn't watched the race, I wanted to do something similar for the Tour de France. Only, I still wanted to watch the stages.
Also, other people have probably done more things with times and speeds, so I thought I'd focus on withdrawals.
Can you tell which stages are the hardest from the number of withdrawals?
I couldn't decide which I liked the look of more, the version where the stages are chronological or arranged by number of withdrawals
The figures suggest that stage 8 was nasty. (Which it was, in a good way)
The whole peleton hasn't lost that many, and more than 90% of riders remain in.
(This was why I was asking if anyone had a good explainer for Kaplan Meier graphs made using R. If anyone finds one, I am still looking.)
But let's look at it by team.
This is the withdrawals by team in absolute numbers.
Now, but in percentages
And now the Kaplan Meier by team, which I acknowledge is ugly.
Mostly, Lotto Soudal appear to be cursed.
Other things I'm thinking of is dividing the withdrawals as to whether they were abandonments or do not starts and seeing how they differ, and deciding whether the DNS should be counted as belong to the stage before, or the stage they didn't start.
It'd also be interesting to see if there's a pattern in the withdrawals in the different weeks.
At the Spanish Grand Prix, Ferrari decided on a strategy ten laps after Vettel suggested it. Now far be it from me to suggest that the team on the pit-wall maybe ought to be able to think of these things before the guy in the car, but really, it's what they're paid for.
But I didn't dab the "too indecisive to decide on a strategy" square because I fell into the same trap that all sports fans fall into at some point.
Hope!
I hoped that this was a one-off, and that they weren't falling back into bad habits. The Belgian Grand Prix dashed this hope. Telling one of your drivers that you'll be going for strategy C or D, when the driver has to do very different things now depending on which of those options you go with, is not helpful. They really did need to make a decision, and make it sooner.
"Pit stop disaster" is not dabbed, because the slow pitstops weren't due to a pitstop disaster but an engine pressure leak. I'm sure Ferrari will find a way to screw up a pitstop at some point.
I have lots of horribly delayed posts, but there’s been so much Bat-news, and we all know I’m batty for Bats, so I couldn’t resist.
I have been conservative with my dabbing.
I had intended to save "mind that kerb" for suspension failures, but a steward's enquiry decided that the "mind that kerb" was the best square to mark for an incident where the engine stopped due to an electrical fault caused by going over a kerb *.
If FIA had charged Leclerc for deciding to drive round a Formula 1 race track without his safety harness done up, that would have been "FIA can't save you now", but the FIA showed more restraint than Leclerc did.
Vettel meanwhile almost gave me a chance to dab "Vettel breaks the bleep button", and Ferrari's strategy team nearly dabbed "too indecisive to decide on a strategy" due to their mis-handling of Vettel.
Like I said, I could have dabbed many more squares because Ferrari never fail to foul-up.
Vettel's unforced spin in the opening stages has lead to an answer to the question "what will I do if Ferrari screw up in the same way more than once?"
I am double-dabbing. Obviously, the square can only count once, but the frustrations mount.
The mistake was not an unexpected occurrence. Mistakes beget further mistakes, and the spin seems to be Vettel's response to pressure. I think the extra pressure is a mixture of two things, the first being exactly how bad this Ferrari is, and the second is how much better Leclerc, his own teammates, is doing in aforesaid rust-bucket.
Onwards and upwards to the Spanish Grand Prix!
L: Would you like further F1 news, even if you don't like it? (You won't like it.)
Me: Ferrari are setting their cars on fire in advance?I said this in the spirit of flippant despondency, but got "good guess" and a link to a BBC article titled Ferrari forced to make a major redesign of their car as a reply.
