At last, F1 has found the answer. For too long F1 has been a parade, a gentleman/gentlewoman no contact, woke sport. But, on Sunday, F1 brought back the biff and F1 is a must watch again.
Mad Max and Leaping Lando went at it hard. For the first time in years there are at least two cars faster than Max's. And this year five different drivers from four different teams have won a race.
On lap 52, Max and Lando pitted. At one stage Max was nearly 8 seconds ahead but the Red Bull pit crew stuffed up the tyre change and Norris was suddenly on Max's back. It was unrelenting with Lando dive bombing Max, and Maxie cutting him off. Then on lap 64 of 71, Lando dive-bombed, Max went to cut him off, the two cars biffed, Max lost a tyre and Lando took the lead. But wait. Lando's back tyre came off and the car and driver were fudged. Lando was out of the race. "The entire population in the world (knows) who is responsible – except for a group of people," said McLaren team boss Andrea Stella.
Georgie Russell took the lead, Oscar P drove brilliantly to come in second, Carl Sainz third, then Hamo and Mad Max.
And now it's time for the next episode of The Wonderful World of Wheels. Let's go over to soon-to-be-communist soap dodger land and our brave reporter, Dino Buratti, on the front line of Chinese cars with a sporting British moniker. Yes, I'm looking at you MG.
Dino was testing the MG4 and noticed the lane-assist system twice pulled the car on to the wrong side of the road; and on a narrower country road the lane-assist system steered the MG4 towards an oncoming vehicle. MG's English HQ replied: "We are aware of some inconsistencies relating to the lane-departure warning system which can make the system oversensitive under certain conditions."
And in septic land, Ford is recalling more than 550,000 pick-up trucks in the US because the transmissions can unexpectedly downshift to first gear no matter how fast the trucks are going.
One car that won't let you down is the 2008 Force India-Ferrari VJM01 Formula 1 racing single-seater with a bonus paint job by the great abstract expressionist artist, Dexter Brown. The first car of new Force India team, it was not only painted by Dexter but signed by Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Niki Lauda, Jackie Stewart and Stirling Moss. Yours for only $200k.
Happy birthday Norm Beechey. Born 9 July, Stormin' Norman Beechey changed the face of Australian motorsport. Norm thought cars were better going sideways than in a straight line. He is still my hero.
jc@jcp.com.au