It's really a very short lap isn't it? I'm obviously glad we didn't use the whole interminable back straight but this 55-second lap really is over too soon during the duels.

Sam Bird's back on commentary after missing Mexico, is once again amazing.

Given that Nico Muller made it and Pascal Wehrlein didn't, and also Norman Nato made it and Oliver Rowland didn't, I've decided it's opposite day in Miami.

Right I've been out but now I'm back in and Miami Group B qualifying is happening. Felipe Drugovich is impressing, outqualifying team-mate Jake Dennis so far....

Never mind jobs you had, tell me five classes you took at university. (British, so much more focused. Going for "can I remember the official title?") 1. Mechanics and Relativity 2. Experimental Methods 3. Deformation Kinetics 4. Classical Dynamics 5. Electron Microscopy and Analysis

I'm a 20+ year live event professional with music, tv and sporting events experience. Let's look at some details to occur between today and August 21st. Key dates: Thu Feb 12 - Per the EO, the date track layout has to be set Mon July 20 - 30 days out (incl weekends) from series load in 1/8

I generally try and avoid being political on either account but I might reasonably observe that if your plan is to go for a very literal strategy of bread and circuses you probably do need both halves of that.

Ah we've had a boardroom shakeup and Renault no longer believe in motorsport. Tbf motorsport stopped believing in Renault some time ago, so fair enough. It'd be a pity to lose Alpine as they were genuinely competitive (well, or absolutely nowhere, but better that than reliably midfield).

Oh great they can just switch out the taillights and badges and we'll have the Hondas ready then.

This is the key quote in the release IndyCar sent out. Suggests that Bowser is going along with this.

The real giveaway will be if Acura's GTP team suddenly develops a greatly improved set of bread- and pastry-based snacks. (you all know Inter Europol are a bakery, right? That's probably important background knowledge for some of today's skeets).

This is why Formula E regularly has events that last 2-3 years and then vanish - you put on a street race through a good relationship with a local politician, they eventually get booted out, the race goes away. Sometimes at extremely short notice.

I do wonder if the fact that Alpine have now won a race and pushed Ferrari very hard in another does make Acura more confident that they can reasonably expect to win in WEC given, the, err, similarities between those cars.

Yup. 40 cars is the 'soft limit' (may not be the exact words used, but words to that affect) but up to 42 is doable, is what the ACO said at Le Mans last year.

As a side note to Honda/Inter Europol, I'll observe that Doriane Pin hinted she had a Hypercar deal for next year in the works. I have no idea why she'd end up there (I've always kind of assumed it was an Asian Le Mans Series deal, tbh) but hey, you put Doriane in the car Honda and I'm a fan.

This has been a story repeatedly, of course, but this one seems a lot more solid: - it gives a year, 2027 - there's space, because of Porsche - it names a credible partner team, Inter Europol So, Great Honda Bake-Off for Le Mans (and the rest of the season) suddenly very plausible.

Looks like Slater isn't wearing an Audi race suit yet, so obviously a) they didn't have this deal sealed away before he went to New Zealand and b) didn't feel like flying one out there for him. I mean, fair enough, I'm just noticing things.

In a not-very-surprising development Ferrari and to some extent McLaren are running much closer to Mercedes' 3rd day times on their 3rd day of testing. Hopefully everyone will now stop panicking.

Oh dear. Not clear to me if this was always a miscommunication about funding or if Ukyo Sasahara showed up at the last minute with more money and gazumped (is that a word outside British English?) him.

Lola's Miami poster is very Miami, but I'm pretty sure Zane Maloney is not actually in the boat here.

You do sort of wonder with a lot of these drivers if they have any kind of long-term plan. Tarvanichkul, Heuzenroeder and Pradel were all in GB3 last year, and Eurocup-3 is at best a sideways move. Eyckmans scored a couple of points in 8 FREC starts and this is a backwards move. What's the point?

This takes GB4 to 19 cars and it doesn't start until the last weekend of April (and even testing doesn't begin for another six weeks). Last year's series had 25 cars on the grid in round 1, which on this pace 2026 ought to beat easily. Hopefully not too easily; I think 30 is about the sensible limit

Given that they've already signed Mikkel Jensen and are heavily rumoured to have also landed Malthe Jakobsen, I'm hoping for Matieu Jaminet as the third driver for that car, tbh.

The growth here seems to be mostly driven by the LMP3 "Pro" category (Silver/Silver or Silver/Gold), now up to 24 entries or more than half the field. This does suggest that MLMC might now actually be pulling drivers out of single-seater feeder series, which is probably a good thing all around...

so Towriss is now sponsoring three out of his five main cars under the Andretti label with his AI thing, presumably because if you're getting into a field where everyone loses money you should distinguish yourself by losing as much as possible.

Right I'm glad we've got that sorted. Not entirely sure where Kubica is mentally but in the past once he's committed he's committed so it's probably fine despite what was clearly a fairly big wobble... (maybe he was just trying to remind AF Corse they have other drivers in case they forget again)

Guys has it occurred to you that there's a very simple solution to this problem

Just realised that Nick Cassidy and Antonio Felix da Costa have both clearly got somebody smart on their diaries because doing Daytona and then going straight into the Miami e-Prix (this weekend) definitely cuts down on the ol' travel time...

The problem, of course, with adding a regulation which prevents teams and team members from commenting on the Balance of Performance is that "factors I can't comment on" immediately becomes a cipher for BoP, even though there might well be other factors a team couldn't comment on in any given case.

The day after Daytona is clearly way too soon for this to be a thing.

Other than actually needing to win in F3/F2, the other ? for Slater and Audi is marketing, if he's going to replace Hulkenberg. Then again, it's not like there's a German alternative actually available. The most promising is Tramnitz, who's good enough to be a pro but not good enough for F1.

As correctly predicted by @percywolff.bsky.social and also a couple of Italian publications (actually going to FRECA rounds is probably useful in this context). It ought to work well timing wise - he's a likely F1 candidate in 2028 or 2029, which is around when Audi expected to actually be good.

The combined FCY time, 8 hours, 49 minutes 21.345 seconds, is I believe a record for a 24-hour race (the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans had around seven hours), though obviously the 2024 24 Hours of the Nurburgring had less green flag time, that was primarily red flagged.

Will Buxton is inventing additional sausage racing lore as you read this...

Another good photo for the "good to see the drivers celebrating with one of their children" genre of Malthe Jakobsen pics.

🗓️ NLS CALENDAR CHANGE CONFIRMED: The Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie has announced that NLS2 will move from March 28 to March 21 "to open the door for drivers from Formula 1 and other international racing series [read: Max Verstappen] to participate". 📸 Gedlich | #IGTC #24hNBR

Jakobsen/Quinn/Sowery/Kurtz actually being the class of the field as well as looking like the class of the field is something of a rarity. It's a very strong lineup, but also attracts drama like anything. This time all of the drama seems to have been pre-fog though.

Malthe Jakobsen has a Rolex! And some other guys I guess.

that was definitely a "Philip Nasr" wasn't it.

Congratulations to the 24 Hours of Daytona on lasting 24 Hours, you can't take these things for granted these days.

Anybody driving next to Ellis right now #Rolex24

That should probably be a penalty, tbh. Thiim was ahead, and Ellis hit him, and regained the position by doing so. I see no chance they'd give it, mind.

I'm sensing a certain amount of dissatsifaction here

Mildly terrified of the fact that the #04 seems to have this under control because that very rarely happens and when it does something generally goes wrong.

There's a certain type of Formula E fan lamenting that "Inter Europol" doesn't have the same syllable stress pattern as "Envision" for brainworm reasons.

We’re back

Daytona fog doesn't quite have the same impact as Nurburgring fog but it does have its own charm I suppose.

Unlike MSR I'm getting pretty tired so it's bedtime.

I think the #04 has now held pretty much every position in the LMP2 running order. They're not going to hold the lead, not once they have to put George Kurtz back in (though they've also not used Malthe Jakobsen yet), but it's still weirdly impressive.

Was somebody making rude gestures at the drivers from behind the camera when the Porsche drivers were getting their profile shots done?