Welcome to Monday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
This weekend’s Caption Competition winner is Rich Hill:
You got a sense Doohan was forcing a smile on the FaceTime from Colapinto
Rich Hill
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Cathal, Explosiva, Qazuhb, The_Sigman, Charlie and Fikri!
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Johns
20th January 2025, 2:32
If anybody is going to F1 gp in vegas, i had a good experience at the wynn. And best bbq was soul belly near the strat. I am getting nothing from this just wanted to share my good experiences
Jere (@jerejj)
20th January 2025, 6:36
Reading between the lines, the wording ”I knew I wasn’t super keen on continuing in Formula 1” essentially means that he wouldn’t have necessarily accepted an offer even from Haas anymore had they offered him another full-time drive.
Therefore, like Ricciardo, he’s clearly done, which is unsurprising.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th January 2025, 7:26
Given that a few years back Kevin was already onto the way to get full in on sportscar racing, before circumstances gave him another shot at F1 with Haas to get that last shot at it. Makes sense that he’s now content to get back to the original path and pursue the stuff he was planning to do a few years earlier.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
20th January 2025, 10:08
My instinct is to say that drivers rarely choose to leave F1. But Kmag and many many others must have a moment in their career when they realise they’re never going to be F1 World Champion. For Kevin that moment must have been years ago, he was never going to get a call from Mercedes or Red Bull.
So all the training, airport terminals, 25 races and missing their kids birthdays, it must get dispiriting. On top of that, as racing driver, Kevin hasn’t won a single thing in more than a decade, like nothing. He’s not crossed the finishing line in first and knows he never will in this series.
I think Jan enjoyed himself doing other stuff after F1, so I guess Kevin might be honest when he says wants to go do other things. It makes some sense.
MichaelN
20th January 2025, 10:19
I’ve often wondered about that not-winning part. Everyone who makes it to F1 has enjoyed at least some success. Maybe not always the championship in lower categories, but often close enough. To go from that to spending years hyping yourself and the team up over a rare 10th place must be odd. Especially because the drivers would all do really well in other series. I suppose the excitement of driving F1 cars plus the outlandish income make up for the lack of sporting success.
Unicron (@unicron2002)
20th January 2025, 7:49
It’s a shame Magnussen didn’t pursue and Indycar drive (or didn’t secure one as all the top/medium spots were already taken). It would have been great to see him there and if he could do a better job than Grosjean did.
El Pollo Loco
20th January 2025, 12:35
KMag always seemed perfectly cut out for IndyCar. Maybe getting a family had something to do with it. Unlike F1, IndyCar is actually dangerous. Grosjean was predictably mediocre in IndyCar. For every impressive race, he had half-a-dozen head scratchingly poor performances and half the time he looked competitive he would end up crashing out with really dumb moves that, as usual, he insist were not his fault. So, basically, classic Grosjean.