Paid drivers always leave a bad taste, and quite apart from the Russia/Putin links, I'm glad he's gone. There are plenty of other more deserving drivers who never get a chance. It would be great to see everyone getting a seat purely on merit, but that's certainly not always been the case in F1, where money talks more than in some other sports.

I'm going to go with Yastremska to win this, she's been riding a huge wave in this tournament after fleeing Ukraine, and I think everyone in the crowd will want her to win the title. She may be a wild-card, but she's got the ability. And I think after the US Open last season, no-one is surprised to see a wild-card or qualifier burst through from nowhere.

Yes. Big wars tend to start as small wars that get out of hand. It's a difficult balancing act for the west, they need to help Ukraine as much as possible without this being too overt. The two options for this ending well are probably either a) give Putin a way out where he can retain some dignity and maybe somehow be able to frame it domestically as a victory, or b) destabilise Putin's support sufficiently for them to decide to "remove" him.

Sending NATO/US forces into Ukraine will not end well. But it's certainly understandable that Zelensky wants whatever help he can get.

It's all connected through conspiracy theories, and the fact that the mechanisms used to attempt to justify them are always the same, and always both intellectually inauthentic and logically indefensible.

The conspiracy theorist starts from a conclusion "I've decided that this is the case", and then either doesn't even attempt to support this assertion, or else attempts to support it by seeking out selective evidence divested of context, or quotes from carefully selected experts (or "experts"), and disregards any evidence (often the vast majority of evidence, and the vast majority of experts) that doesn't support this pre-decided conclusion.

The posts above about population control are a good illustration.
Unsupported conclusion: "Of course the elite care about people dying in the name of depopulation, why did they etch out the Georgia Guidestones then"
I then supplied charts detailing the actual data and actual trends in population change across the world over the last 60 years.
To which the response is... what? The response is nothing, because the conspiracy theorist does not accept the data I've shared, because it doesn't fit his pre-decided conclusion. Therefore the evidence I've shared is either ignored, or is dismissed as fake in some way (without, of course, supplying any evidence to support the claim that it's fraudulent).

Covid lockdowns saved lives, the evidence, as I've shared many times, is perfectly clear. Anyone who chooses to dismiss evidence without good reason is misleading themselves.
Anyone who was against lockdowns, against social distancing, against masks... is against these things from an ideological perspective, not from a reasoned perspective based on a genuine consideration of the data.

He's a fantastic player, so yes obviously something isn't right. But I think the situation at Chelsea now, over the last few days with the news that Abramovich is selling, is going to affect all the players. There is a huge amount of uncertainty at the club now, no-one knows who is going to buy it, or whether Chelsea will remain a top club.

I'm sure that for every player at the club, their mind is no longer fully on the football. And with players who were already not 100% happy, this will only exacerbate the situation.

They don't respond to scientific evidence, or any form of logic. Their positions are faith-based, they decide on a conclusion, and then only accept whatever evidence supports it (generally either outright lies or carefully selected misinformation pre-packaged and shared as memes across social media, or - more insidiously - partial facts that have been shorn of context). This is why you can never use evidence or reason to change their opinions. Not that it stops us trying...

Belarus is participating; they are actively supporting Russia. They are hosting thousands of Russian troops, their airports are used as a base by Russian fighter planes, their president has recently changed the law to enable Belarus to host Russian nuclear missiles. Lukashenko is a Putin puppet.

Videos like this do add weight to the claims that the invading army thought this would be over quickly, and brought only a couple of days' worth of rations. It was a miscalculation that hopefully the Ukrainian defenders can exploit. The Russian army's biggest weakness is probably its supply lines.

The issue of long supply lines has protected Russia in the past from Napoleon and Hitler amongst others, it looks like the Russian strength in defence may also be one of its weaknesses in attack.

Just one thing: 1+1=2.

Yeah, I don't know what to think about that. Presumably it means he thinks that this year's Red Bull car can challenge for the title, and is either the best or one of the best in the field. Otherwise I don't think he'd sign, I don't think money is his primary motivator, he just wants to win. But it's still kind of a gamble to make a long-term commitment right at the dawn of a new era, and before we've even had a chance to confirm for definite which cars are good.

Meriting this as I sometimes feel like a lone voice saying that Ronaldo is not helping them. Glad someone else sees it the same way! He was the wrong purchase for them, and he brings deficiencies to the team, notably his lack of work and lack of tracking back when out of possession. And these are deficiencies that other top teams will exploit. The downside is often masked by the upside, which is his goalscoring record. The problem is teams need to be teams, not collections of individuals.

Latest news from the Ukrainian tax office is that if you capture a Russian tank, it's not considered a taxable asset.


Ukraine is obviously in a desperate situation at the moment, but arming your population with guns and molotov cocktails, and telling them they get to keep any Russian hardware they capture is quite a creative approach.

Whilst this is true, it's also true that there is an overlap between sanctions and sport, and Putin can be damaged by this. I mean, as one example, Abramovich has been forced to sell Chelsea before the government take it away from him... Putin is an autocrat, his power is based not on popular democratic opinion, but on the small circle of elite billionaires who support him. If you damage the oligarchs, you damage Putin's base.

Of course I'm not saying that for example banning Russian Formula One drivers will cause Putin to abandon the war, just that there's an overlap here and he can be damaged by damaging his support.

It's harder than they anticipated, or the commanders are inept, or the equipment is poor. Maybe a combination of all three.

I do wonder what effect 2014 has on this. I mean, to some extent the Russians must think "Well, we waltzed into Crimea in 2014 no problem, no real opposition. So now in 2022 let's do the same again, but on a larger scale". One big difference being that the 2022 Ukranians have been hardened by 8 years of battle against Russian invaders, and are no longer the same proposition they were in 2014. Is it easier to beat an enemy who is unprepared, or an enemy that has spent the best part of a decade building itself up specifically to defend against you? I'm sure this is a part of the reason for the Russian difficulties this time around - their expectation of Ukrainian capacity to resist is 8 years out of date.

Maybe. I know there is a lot of excitement about the Ferrari in particular. But I wouldn't write Mercedes off just yet... particularly as they came #1 and #2 in the first pre-season testing. I know pre-season testing is notoriously difficult to read, but still, I think people would have been surprised if Mercedes had finished it anywhere other than at or near the top of the pack.

Yes, it's a decent thing to do and TBH I'm quite surprised he'd do that. I wonder how much influence he actually has with Putin. These sanctions are obviously affecting the oligarchs a lot, and Abramovich is no exception. Will these billionaires be putting any pressure on Putin to stop the war? Presumably the fact that he's selling Chelsea rather than trying to ride this out means that he thinks the war is likely to go on for a long time, and Putin won't back down.

Sounds plausible. Millions of people around the world are professional Bat-Cave Exploration Operatives, so the "worked as a bat-cave explorer" bit checks out. I question the delivery mechanism, though. If you are really insinuating - and I think you are - that Bat-Man eats human faeces that he finds lying around on the floor of his Bat-Cave, then I have to say it's just not realistic. The guy is actually Bruce Wayne, and a gazillionaire. He dines only at the finest restaurants, and has no need to scrabble around for faecal scraps. "Follow the money" is often sound advice, and in this instance it most likely leads to some fancy Michelin-starred place.

I think different sporting authorities are treating it differently, but FIFA will probably come out against Belarus soon enough. Other sporting authorities have, for example in Formula One racing, both Russian and Belarusian drivers have been banned from competing at the British GP. I'm sure other sports and countries will follow suit. It just takes time, no doubt they've spent ages arguing what to do about Russia, now they'll be having the same discussions about Belarus... not that Putin is going to be remotely bothered.

I don't know. The obvious way to get rid of it is raise the cars a bit higher, but anything you do in that regard reduces the ground-effect, and so slows the car.
There's an interesting article here explaining why it might cause a dilemma between qualifying and race-day... the porpoising isn't much of an issue with DRS open as it is in qualifying runs, but you're not allowed to change car set-up between qualifying and race. So do cars go for fastest possible qualifying with the car low to the ground, knowing it will mean porpoising during the race, or do they raise the body height and sacrifice qualifying performance in order for a smoother race?

Tremendous from Nadal, yes, and you'd expect him to beat Norrie every time. The Medvedev match though I think needs to be considered with regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine... I would think a lot of Russian and Ukranian (especially Ukranian) sportspeople might be somewhat distracted at the moment, and so not competing at 100%. Obviously sport is not the most important thing in the world, and when something like this is happening, sportspeople are trying to continue, but it's not surprising if their results are affected.