The good year

Fernando Alonso has said Lewis Hamilton’s struggles this season are a “good reminder” as to how crucial the car is to anyone’s success. For the first time in nine seasons, Hamilton is driving in a car currently unable to fight for the championship. His race results so far have ranged from good to downright awful and after five grands prix, he has just one podium to his name largely due to a double retirement from Red Bull. It is a far cry from the form we are used to seeing from the seven-time World Champion. After the same number of races last year, he already had three wins but both he and Mercedes currently seem a far way off that achievement. Another World Champion who has found himself fighting in the midfield due to the car beneath him is Alonso and he said Hamilton’s current form is a “good reminder” as to how important the car is. “This is F1. It is not going to be a fair sport in terms of numbers,” the Spaniard told BBC Sport . “This is a team sport more … [Read more...] about Alonso: 2022 ‘good reminder’ of car’s role in Hamilton success

Click here to read the full article. This spring, six months after a crowd rush at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival killed 10 people in Houston and injured hundreds of others, the live-music business is getting ready for another festival season — its first full-scale comeback since the pandemic sidelined concerts in 2020. While the specific legal ramifications of the tragedy remain mired in litigation at press time, several broader questions for the industry continue to loom. Chief among them: Are music festivals safe, and how does the festival business ensure such a tragedy never happens again? It will likely be years before the public gets the clearest picture of what exactly went wrong at Astroworld, but those in the live business have seen it as either a perfect storm of circumstances and bad luck that lined up for a one-off tragedy or a sign of deeper problems that could have happened at any other festival. The answer is complicated, and likely somewhere in … [Read more...] about Are Big Concerts Safe? Six Months After Astroworld, Questions Linger

The Grand Prix Trust, an organisation which exists to help F1 team staff who have fallen on hard times, held a reunion lunch at Silverstone on Monday, bringing members together for the first time since the Covid-19 outbreak. Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free The organisation was set up by Sir Jackie Stewart over three decades ago, when it was originally known as the Grand Prix Mechanics’ Charitable Trust. Among its 10 trustees are its chairman Martin Brundle , F1 motorsport director Ross Brawn, former Williams designer Sir Patrick Head and Red Bull’s sporting director Jonathan Wheatley. A registered charity, the trust provides help and advice to F1 team personnel and others directly involved in the sport, including those who have worked for companies in the F1 supply chain for at least two years. Over more than three decades it has helped hundreds of F1 team staff and their families who have been affected by injury, ill health or loss of income. The … [Read more...] about How the Grand Prix Trust is reaching out to F1 team staff seeking support · RaceFans

The FIA’s clampdown on drivers wearing jewellery and non-compliant underwear prompted a mixture of criticism and derision from competitors. Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free Lewis Hamilton turned up at an FIA press conference in Miami wearing every item of jewellery he could lay his hands on, while Sebastian Vettel briefly sported a pair of boxer shorts on the outside of his overalls before one session. However Grand Prix Drivers Association chairman Alexander Wurz recently gave his full backing to the FIA’s tough new line. He described how he learned the importance of following the rules after speaking to former sportscar racer Kris Nissen, who was badly burned in a crash in 1988. Nissen, now 61, told RaceFans he believes strongly that today’s drivers should follow the FIA’s requirements on fireproof clothing. He suffered burns to more than a third of his body when his Porsche 962 sports-prototype car crashed at Fuji and caught fire. He joined … [Read more...] about Interview: “Totally ridiculous” not to follow FIA underwear rules · RaceFans

The first team principal to run Max Verstappen in Formula 1 is “convinced” he will win the championship this weekend. Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free Franz Tost described how he had been impressed by Verstappen’s mental toughness from his first practice outing for his team, at the age of 17, at no less a track than the formidable Suzuka . “I knew him from the very beginning onwards and he was already mentally strong in those days,” Tost recalled in an exclusive interview for RaceFans. “Because if you remember right there were many people who criticised us to sit him in the Formula 1 car because he was only 17 years old, and even didn’t have a driver’s licence.” Ahead of Verstappen’s practice debut at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, Tost says some journalists told him he was “completely wrong” to put such a young driver in his car. “I said to them let’s talk in five years once more, I think it’s right. In the end it was right.” After Verstappen made … [Read more...] about Verstappen was mentally tough from his first day in an F1 car – Tost interview · RaceFans

Formula 1 drivers are optimistic the revised layout of the Yas Marina will improve overtaking opportunities during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free This weekend’s race is the first to take place on the significantly revised track, with a series of alterations at key points designed to improve overtaking opportunities. The old chicane of turns five and six leading to an acute hairpin has been replaced by a single, wider hairpin which will now have just a single braking zone and allow drivers to carry more speed. At the opposite end of the circuit, the previous sequence of turns 11, 12, 13 and 14 have been combined into a single, constant-radius corner now known as turn nine. The corner has been installed with positive camber, to encourage better mid-corner grip and provide more lines of attack for drivers to take. Furthermore, almost every corner in the final sector around the track’s hotel landmark has been made shallower, … [Read more...] about Yas Marina corner modifications earn early praise from drivers · RaceFans

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 SLIDELL, La. - Tuesdays she asked for the needle in her left arm, and one afternoon in late April, Christina Seal, 41, arrived at the clinic after work. The parking lot was almost full, as usual. She had been giving plasma for nearly six months, and she had a routine locked in place. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Two Sam's Club protein shakes and an iron supplement a day to keep herself serviceable. Afterward, vitamin E oil on her skin to prevent needle scars. The routine had helped tame into normalcy what at first had felt so bizarre. "I never thought I would be in a position where I would have to sell my plasma to feed my children," she would say later. This was where inflation had driven Seal. A month earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics had announced that prices had risen 8.5% over the past year, the largest annual jump since December 1981. Fuel, food and housing costs … [Read more...] about A Louisiana teacher seeks to survive inflation, one plasma donation at a time

The ownership of property has been a game of written rules and regulations, determined by a judge or court. Now things are different, as the old-world is giving way to the new and digital age. A blockchain ecosystem provides ownership rights efficiently, eliminating the paperwork, bureaucracy and expense while guaranteeing transparency. These are tenets that everyone can accept peacefully and confidently. What is a blockchain transaction? A blockchain transaction is a digital transaction that is recorded on a public ledger. This ledger is distributed across a network of computers, so it is not controlled by any one central authority. A blockchain transaction is verified by the network of computers, so it is very secure. Blockchain transactions are transparent and cannot be tampered with. This makes them ideal for real estate transactions, which are often very complex and involve many different parties. With blockchain, all parties can see the status of the transaction at all … [Read more...] about Blockchain Technology is Revolutionizing the Real Estate Industry

Workers had one thing to say to their employers at the end of 2021: We quit. With the nation's “ quit rate ” reaching a 20-year high last November, you may be searching for ways to retain top talent. You know you have to implement a killer employee retention strategy, and fast, but how do you know what will work? It’s not easy to keep employees on board, but it can be done. Through our calculated retention strategy, my company hasn’t had an employee quit since 2016. That’s right — we made it through " The Great Resignation " without bidding farewell to a single employee. Here are some best practices for retaining employees long term. 1. Embrace flexibility People not only want flexible jobs but have come to expect them. A recent study revealed that nearly 40% of job candidates worldwide said schedule flexibility is one of the top three factors they consider when making career decisions. If you want to recruit and retain top talent, offering workplace flexibility is … [Read more...] about 5 Practical Steps to Help Your Company Survive ‘The Great Resignation’ (and Beyond)