Inside The Box

       It hasn't taken long for McLaren long to shake things up after their brutal start to the 2023 season. On Thursday we learned that McLaren and technical director James Key are parting ways.     This doesn't seem like too much of a  surprise, being as we have seen massive technical issues with the technical development of the McLaren. There was a distinct downplaying of expectations during the care reveal and the first two races have confirmed how far behind the team has been on their car development. These problems had fallen squarely on James Key's shoulders and it was only a matter of time before there was a change within the team.     Not sure how much of an impact his will have of the team this season. I doubt anything they do will catapult them into contending for points every race, but maybe getting both cars to perform consistently throughout every weekend with no avoidable problems compounding the teams ...

        The 2023 season is only 2 races long but it seems like there is a big talent gap on the grid. Most years there or 2-3 teams that are considered contenders, 3-4 teams competing in the midfield and 3-4 teams bringing up the rear. The contenders are the teams that will scoop up most of the top 8 positions each race, the midfield are teams that will fight for those two remaining point positions and the bottom tier teams are lucky to get points for the entire season. With the early sample size we have seen in Bahrain, it looks like the competitive balance has shifted.     Red Bull is in a league buy themselves. There isn't another team that you can put in the same category as them and say they have a realistic shot at the constructors or driver  championship. I would lump Aston Martin, Mercedes and Ferrari in the same tier, but teams 2-4 aren't usually considered the mid field.     McLaren is an utter disappointment this yea...

    F1 cars are amazing machines that look like beautiful rockets, and a great livery will enhance that even more. There has been some great, and not so great, liveries throughout the years. It was hard to narroe it down to just 10 but here is my list for the Top 10 FF1 liveries of all time. 10. Williams FW19       I had to have this one on the list because of Jacques Villeneuve. I was 9 when he won the drivers title in 1997 and that Rothman's livery on the Williams is one of my earliest memories. Sure, the FW18 the previous year was more dominate with Damon Hill at thew hell, but the FW19 is part of the reason why I am such an F1 fan. 9. Brabham BT52      I have always loved the look of this car. I was never really a fan of the heavy downforce, boxy looking F! cars. This car was slick and angular and the beautiful blue and white Parmalat livery is a car that pops into my head when I think of a great livery and I never even watched it race. T...

          Don't get me wrong, just making it to F1 means you an amazing driver. However, there are so many extremely talented drivers that won't even get a whiff of being able to drive in F1. With that being said, there are clearly different levels of greatness in the small subset of athletes that get to call themselves an F1 racecar driver.     There are a lot of stats in other sports, especially in North American sports, that can help determine how good a player is. In the NBA, the main definer of greatness is Rings, how many championships did you win? But there are gall of famers, all time greats (Barkley, Dominique, Nash), who do not have a ring. For those players that don't have a handful of rings there are a number of stats you can point to to determine how good they are. Points, Rebounds, Assist, Field Goal percentage, 3 point percentage, blocks, steals, usage rate, PER..etc.      With F1, there aren't too many things you can...

                  (Sky Sports) I have been a McLaren fan since the Mika days in the 90s. It has been a while since their last driver championship, Hamilton in 2008, but I don't need to have a Mercedes style dominance every year for me to enjoy watching one of my favourite teams. That being said, it has been REALLY hard being a McLaren fan for the better part of a decade, and the past 2 years have been unimaginable.    Danny Ric is smiling while he collects $18 million to NOT drive McLaren's boat. It has been impossible to see what they have in Piastri because reliability issues in testing and Bahrain has left use seeing very little of what the rookie can do.    Lando Norris performed the best he could with the disappointing car he was given last year, and we all saw the disastrous 6 stop race in the Bahrain premiere. But with all the problems we've seen, Norris hasn't been as demonstrative towards McLaren in the media that...