Ben Sloot

I know nothing about Forumula 1, minus information provided by the Netflix soap opera Drive to Survive and a single episode of a new podcast on Relay FM called the The Backmarkers

I watched my first complete race this weekend, the Bahrain Grand Prix, a 57 lap race between 20 drivers paired on 20 teams. The $8 million race cars (estimate?) delicately balance aerodynamics, power, suspension and safety to fly around the 3.6 mile track on the Arab island state… oh and the race runs at night.

Learning a new sport can take many forms… I learned soccer by playing growing up, basketball by living in cornfield country in central Illinois, football by playing Madden in college and professional cycling by streaming the Tour de France for 20 days of every summer in the past half of a decade.

Picking up the basics and nuances of a new sport stimulates the old noodle. I alluded to the delicate balance of the cars and the complexity of the sport… For example this evening the announces did a great job explaining the tires to this novice. 3 types of tire with positives and negative:

• Soft tires provide better grip but less durability requires drivers to stop for tire changes more frequently
• Hard tires last longer, but as I understand it reduce control in high speed cornering
• Medium tires split the difference

Teams take chances on the conditions and their competitors choices to try and gain and advantage.

Kind of like picking Bowser versus Yoshi in MarioKart – an important choice indeed.

Next race let’s talk the Drag Reduction System, which continues to baffle me.