2 Grand Prix races finished already. I'd forgotten what Shanghai International Circuit looked like; cool track.

Not as exciting as Melbourne, but that's probably because the rain really spiced up AusGP at the end. Some thoughts as I watched:

• Alonso retired due to break issues in Lap 5. Not a great start to the season
• Weird to see Max lose two spots at the start of the first lap and not immediately recover
• Poor Yuki with his broken frontwing. Broke out of nowhere, too. Man just can't catch a break...
• Great little fight between Charles and Max in Lap 53. Max did eventually recover to his starting P4
• Both Haas in the points? Nice! Ocon P7 and Bearman P10

Congrats to Piastri on his 3rd F1 win! I get the feeling we're going to be seeing this McLaren 1-2 frequently. Who's in which position, we'll see. Though with the Ferraris, Russell, and Max also mixing it up up top, this should be a good season.

Next race:

Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka Circuit
Sunday, April 6, 2025

Welcome back to Formula 1! And what a start to the 2025 season with a wet track and even heavy rain in Melbourne!

First things first: Poor rookies. Hadjar was into the barriers during the formation lap. Then Doohan was out after the restart. Or was that the actual start since Hadjar triggered an aborted start? Which not a rookie, that triggered Sainz into the barriers during the safety car. Lawson then had his chance to hit the barriers during Lap 47, with Bortoletto into the walls somewhere there abouts. Though for those last two, that was during the heavy rain. Alonso, the eternal rookie, rounded out the group of wallflowers.

The only rookie to survive? Antonelli. And he ended P5! He would've ended P4, but he got a 5sec penalty for an unsafe release earlier. Regardless, impressive.

EDIT: After a successful appeal, Antonelli's 5sec penalty is removed! He regains his on-track P4, with Albon back to P5. Results updated below.

When the rain hit, it was pure chaos. All the tire strategies went out the window. Some went straight to inters, while some stayed on slicks. Max was P1. Then Hamilton was P1. But then they and everyone else went to inters. Norris ended up back in P1 and ended the race there.

Lastly, Piastri's recovery drive was something to watch. Sometime around Lap 45, he ended up beached in the grass. But he was like "Hell no," and willed that car back onto track. He dropped from P2 down to the back of the field since it took him so long to get out. But he still ended up in the points at P9. Felt like he was driving on pure frustration and anger...and it worked!

Onward to Shanghai next weekend!

Next race:

Chinese Grand Prix
Shanghai International Circuit
Sunday, March 23, 2025

The 2028 Summer Olympics are slated to be in LA. I'm curious if we will come full circle and this will be the second time in history we do not have the Olympics.

That being said, the IOC has never really been non-corrupt so I don't exactly expect change. We saw that there was very little disruption when the Olympics were held in Sochi, for example. I'm curious what others think.

PS. Wasn't sure whether to post this in society or sports, please move if appropriate, and thank you to our kind facilitators.

Going to try something a little different, guess we'll see how it goes. Main thinking is just getting baseball discussion going. So, meaning not just talking about spring training and not even just about MLB - any baseball discussion what so ever.

Don't know baseball? Good place to ask :)

I figure a kind of more casual thread to get to know other fans here would be a good thing to have before the season starts - and people can just set it a single thread to ignore if they have no interest.

I'll leave some top level comments as starting points

Anyone watching? That interception by Philly was great!

Did you watch the royal rumble? How did you like it? I thought the winner was quite unexpected, especially winning directly against John Cena. Overall the performance of both the men's and women's rumble was really good.

Hi everyone!

With my favorite F1 commentator joining the indycar crew and MBS acting crazy in F1, I want to dive into indycar a little bit this season.

I’m located in Belgium, when I checked the indycar live website it seemed like I won’t be able to stream indy500 here? (I don’t even know what indy500 is as opposed to the other Indy series? Which series should I follow? Who is awesome? Who is the stroll of indycar?)

I think it’s clear I’m a total noob here looking for some guidance. Any help is welcome, thank you!

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts who watched through the basho.

I don't have all my thoughts together yet but wanted to post this after watching the last day of the basho to get the ball rolling on any discussion.