It turns out you can have an interesting Russian Grand Prix, it just needs a tight title race, at least one engine change penalty *and* rain.
Ferrari also get a cookie for Carlos Sainz jnr's performance, which was helped by somehow, Ferrari playing the strategy game mostly right, twice. Which is a good sign. Now, to get a better engine in that car.
The look is that fella at the back of the pub that everyone is wary of. It's speaks of willingness to do things that other people think are unreasonable. It works against reason.#JoshuaUsyk I try to base my predictions on reason, and reason says Joshua. The glint in Usyk's eye 👁️ says something odd happens.
— sportstweet (@kpfssport) September 25, 2021
The author states that his aim is not to give all the information about any one area but instead to give an overview of interesting facts from many areas. He succeeds in this - while I was reading it, I would tell my Mum some of the fun facts when she rang me. So I feel a little churlish saying I almost wish the author had included fewer things so he could spend more time on less so there would be less bouncing about between topics. Less bouncing about might also make the book read more smoothly, and might have ironed out a couple of peculiarities, for instance, on one page there is a truly terrible description of enzymes, what they are and how they work, and then, not more than two pages later, there's a perfectly good and workable description of the same thing.
The book is a fun race through some interesting science, but I am left with a feeling that less would have been more.
In my F1 scorecard, I feel Ferrari have earned half a cookie and a red card.
The half a cookie is for the sneaky Leclerc pit stop during the safety car period that shaved seconds off the time taken to get into and out of the pits.
The red card is for the uselessness of the card that basically meant that getting round the Ferrari was easier than some of the Monza corners. It's not good enough.
Of course, yet another mediocre Ferrari performance is not what people will remember. Nor will it be Daniel Ricciardo's glorious victory. No, it'll be Hamilton and Verstappen's idiot crash that will be remembered.
All hail the halo!
I don't have a car in this year's title fight - mine are half the track away due to their lawnmower-like lack of power. The first time I saw the crash at normal speed, I thought it was a racing incident. After several re-viewings, that's still my opinion. You've got two very determined drivers who need to beat the other one to win the World Title, for there not to be a crash in that situation would require both of them to be very different people.
On the other hand: Max, this sort of radio message is begging to be punished, and I really can't blame the F1 for cracking down.
This does mean that Sochi might be an interesting race, possibly the first time that's been said after the first time a Grand Prix was run there.
I have very little to say about the Dutch Grand Prix, Ferrari did neither badly nor well and team orders remain aggravating but understandable.
I also have very little to say because I spent last weekend in Newcastle at Magic Weekend.
Newcastle was an excellent host again and I had an excellent seat.
The first match up was Castleford Tigers vs Salford Red Devils, which was enjoyable despite some local difficulties for L.
Meet the Castleford Tiger:
I was the one with difficulties with the next match, because it was Saints vs Catalan Dragons and Saints enjoy making me suffer. It was first in the table vs second in the table and if Catalans won, they'd win the League Leaders shield.
The horrible, lovely boys
Before it all went horribly wrong, I was lucky enough to be in the corner where Tommy Makinson scored one of his Makinson-special tries. He really is poetry in motion.
The only other possible positive to take from the Great Catalans Disaster is that L. now knows why I worry even when Saints are 20 points up. That is the joy of being a Saints fan, 20 points down with ten minutes to go, we can still win the match, 20 points up with ten to go, we can still lose the match.
Which is what happened this time. With Catalan equalising with a conversion after the full time hooters sounded, and winning in the second period of golden point extra time with a drop goal after Saints missed twice.
Complete with Leeds fans suddenly deciding to cheer for Catalans. I can go off people you know!
After the Great Catalans Disaster, Leeds vs Hull FC was up next.
It featured Danny Houghton who is L's favourite player (mine is any one of the 13+4 replacements for Saints or any of the team who weren't in the starting 17. And no, you can't make me choose.)
This match too went to two periods of extra time and was won with a drop goal.
First day reports from the Guardian
Two matches with multiple periods of extra time and a serious injury delay at the end of the Saints vs Catalans meant it was very, very late when the day finished, because the first match only started at 3. Well allegedly at 3 and actually at 3.15, with every match further delayed, and there was no way it would have ended on time even before the match-related delays. Sunday's slate of matches started at 1, and there's no reason why Saturday's matches shouldn't as well.
Golden Point is also a really stupid system, to the point that neither I, nor anyone I asked, had the first clue what would happen if no one scored in the second period of extra time. If a rule is so abstruse no one knows it, it needs to be rethought.
Before the start of the second day of matches, I got close to the three World Cups (men's, women's and wheelchair)
I do worry that this is the closest anyone English will get to at least two of those.
Huddersfield vs Wakefield was up next.
Meet the Huddersfield Giant:
The other Huddersfield Giant that was spotted was Eorl Crabtree, who remains well, Big Eorl. He was in the stadium doing some presenting for the Huddersfield half time.
The second match was Warrington vs Wigan.
Given Saints had lost, the only way of rescuing the weekend from a rugby point of view was for Wigan to lose. This meant I was relying on Warrington, which is not a position one wishes to find themselves in.
For once, Warrington did not screw up, winning 10-6 (Guardian match report).
Warrington's fans also won "noisiest per capita" (Hull KR won noisiest overall)
L also pointed out how excellent Liam Farrell was. I will grant that if he didn't play for Wigan I would acknowledge that he is a fine and ferocious tackler. The problem is that he plays for Wigan.
The last match of the weekend was Hull KR vs Leigh.
The Airlie Bird catches rugby balls
The mascot spent most of the half time trying to kick a rugby ball over the posts. He almost made it too. That I choose to talk about this might tell you what the game was like.
There were many handling errors.
I spent most of the match with some very lovely Castleford fans who, like me, were cheering Leigh on because oh they were trying. Leigh, much like the Italian rugby union team, do not lack for effort. It's just the last touch is not quite there and then the last 20 minutes goes horribly wrong.
Some feedback from non-fans who had been brought to the game by friends or booze included that even they spotted that the refs were glaringly inconsistent, most frustratingly on high hits, and they couldn't understand the points of the physios and water carriers who swarmed, myrmidon-like, at every stoppage in play. I suppose as someone who watches League regularly, I just don't notice them anymore.
I enjoyed myself immensely, except for 20 minutes at the end of the Saints match, and would recommend going to anyone who gets the chance.
Ferrari figure first
There is a red card for Ferrari for that qualifying performance. Even if the Sunday deluge hadn't happened, even though Spa is one of the better circuits for overtaking on the F1 calendar, eleventh and thirteenth just isn't good enough (it doesn't matter that the positions were improved by penalties for other people). Both cars were behind one of the Williams cars, and the second Ferrari was behind both William cars. That means not just the amazing George Russell doing incredible, impossible things in that Williams, but also Nicholas Latifi who is not as good at getting the inexplicable out of the Williams.
It wouldn't have been acceptable even without the Sunday weirdness.
I didn't like the post-2011-Canadian-Grand-Prix rule change, because it was obviously a commercially-mandated decision rather than a sporting one, and reduced the amount of flexibility the race director had when things went wrong. Those are precisely the times when you need more flexibility.
I don't think that the Belgian GP was salvageable with that amount of rain (running it on Monday was a pipe dream due to likely lack of marshals), but running for just enough laps to get it to half points is decidedly fishy. Running it that way when there was no chance of overtaking was a parade of cars that shouldn't have counted as a race, no matter how happy George Russell's second place makes me.
