1) Work out whats important and concentrate on that

2) Unless you can control it, dont worry about it

3) Stop setting goals, instead do things for enjoyment

If this is classed as a second home, then there is likely to be tax due on the increase in value of that property over time.
HMRC will assess any transactions on an “arms length” basis regardless if you purchase it or its gifted.
So the tax liability will be based on its “value” rather than the transaction price
The tax due will be broadly the same in both scenarios.
(hopefully that makes sense)

Depending on the value of your mothers estate it may end up being more tax efficient to wait and for it to be passed via inheritance.

You’ll need to speak to a Tax advisor, who will be able to run you through the specifics.

Am I alone in that I don’t want to see lots of overtaking?

The thing with most motorsport is that due to qualifying, the fastest cars start at the front.
So typically those behind dont have the pace to overtake. Its only when one car starts out of position, or the cars are of a similar speed then overtaking is possible.

I’d rather have quality over quantity too

The current regulations seem to have helped with this.
Although unsure if its the car concept or Wind tunnel/CFD limits which have helped close up the field

At Baku the top 7 cars were within one second of each other (would have been 8 without Landos incident)
In the past that could have been just 2 cars from the same team

Some are saying this could be a test to see if Lawson is suitable to replace Perez in ’25.

Its a shame for Danny, but for some reason he didnt seem able to adapt to the current generation of cars.

I reckon the drivers are pretty much behind Verstappen on this

If you watch the post race FIA press conference Lando backed Max and gave very limited answers as well.

If you’re Dutch the F-bomb is just another word. If you’re not a native English speaker these things will happen (see Yuki’s outburst)

If F1 want the drivers to be personalities then these things are going to happen and a fine would be acceptable.
Otherwise you just go back to the 2000’s where Kimi would say 3 words across a whole press conference….

Lando delivered, but was lucky not to crash on several occasions.

McLaren were keeping Oscar out as long as possible, to cover off the safety car risk.
(if there had been one Oscar would have pitted and exited ahead of Max, and could have backed him up at the restart to help out Lando)
I’m sure they worked out, that without a SC Max was out of range. 3rd was the best he could achieve under normal racing, so it was worth the gamble.

Its a must win race for Lando today if he wants to challenge for the championship

Neither of those links say it wasnt legal (or was legal)
Its just in the grey area between them, which is what F1 has always been about.

The FIA are now just clarifying the rules, removing some of the grey area and McLaren (and others) will be making modifications ahead of using that type of wing again.

Anyway…Lando & Max on the front row for tomorrow. Could get spicy again….

Give him a car that he likes and he’ll win everything, but at the same time, anyone paired with him looks amateur by comparison

The same thing happened at Benetton, with Schumacher & Brundle.
At the time nobody knew how good Schumacher was, and Brundle looked poor in comparison.
Flavio dropped him for Patrese and that gap to Schumacher grew.

Flavios always said in hindsight, they should have kept Brundle.

To be fair to Checco, the car has been a handful this year.
Even Max couldnt get any performance out of it at Baku.

Hopefully they drop Ricciardo and put Lawson in the seat for next year.

Theres a difference between having a lead driver due to one of them having a pace advantage and a #1/#2 driver due to decisions.

McLaren/Williams/Mercedes have always let the drivers sort it out between them.

Ferrari had a 1/2 system in the Michael days, but will have to operate on a equal basis once Lewis arrives.

RedBull have generally operated a 1/2 system throughout the Seb/Max periods.

(all the other teams arnt competitive enough for it to matter)

The issue McLaren have is that Lando is only ahead, because of the preferential treatment he had at the start of the season. He was given all of latest upgrades with Oscar having to run a B spec car (plus Oscar was still developing)
Post Imola, Oscar has outscored everyone on the grid.

The constructors title is still up for grabs by either McLaren/Ferrari/RedBull, so all of the teams need to keep both drivers motivated to maximise the points to the end of the season.

And no team plans for their lead driver being injured

This is the issue of having a number 1/2 driver.
If something happens to your lead driver it puts you in a difficult position as a team.

Lets say that Max looses faith in RB and moves elsewhere.
Now you’re stuck with Checco and having to convince another top line driver to a team, where one has just left believing its no longer a title winning team.

Looks like the majority of the blame is with Sainz.
He was drifting into the middle of the track, crowding out Perez.
Also worth noting that with the sunset, the visibility wouldn’t have been great in that section of the circuit.

Amazing drive by Oscar.
Inspired move to take the lead and then soaked up the pressure until Charles tyres ran out.

Strong recovery drive by Lando to chip away at Max’s lead
Colapinto delivered on Williams faith to score points along with Bearman

Need to see the Perez/Sainz incident again to see what happened

Unless we have a SC tomorrow its going to be a recovery drive from Lando to get back into the top 10 and scrape a few points.

Bit of a double whammy as Max should extend his championship lead and Oscar to close the gap to Lando, which makes backing Lando for the rest of the year more difficult.

Also, if Charles can win that would take him to similar points to Lando.

Good to see that Williams decision to go with Colapinto is paying off.

Its not as simple as the headlines though.

From the press conferences, its not going to be as simple as Oscar moving out of the way, or giving up wins for Lando.

For those of you who took the full test and already have a car licence, is it all practical on the bike stuff or is there any theory as well?

You still need to do all 4 parts:
CBT – really Easy
Theory – Very similar to the car one. Plenty of apps out there to practice the questions
Mod1 (skills) – I’d say the hardest one, driving around cones in a car park
Mod2 (road) – If you have a car licence & ride a bike, its fairly straight forward.

For the 2 practical tests its work having a few days with an instructor, to learn a few test routes for the awkward section of road you may end up on and to point out any bad habits you may have.

Wholesale prices generally go up in winter (more demand) and then reduce in summer (less demand)

Personally I dont think there will be much difference in total costs over the next 12 months if you fix or stay on the capped rate.

It’ll be more important to read the small print on the rates, as some of the deals have different fixed/variable charges, so it depends on if you have high/low consumption to if you’ll really save or not.

I’d say that Aston will win a race before Audi do.

Very interesting inverview with Newey

Sounds like he didnt want to go to another top team or disrupt his family life so Ferrari was never going to be option.

Aston was the option where Newey feels the resources are there to turn the team into Championship contention in the next 5 years, and allows him to withdrawn into a consultancy role to work on special projects once he has finished with F1 (like Gordon Murray)

Since the 80’s the UK has become a less equal society, with the gap between the poor and rich widening. Where did all of the money handed out in the pandemic go?

It all flowed from the Government to the rich.

The taxation system needs to be overhauled to recover that money, by overhauling the “wealth” taxes, such as Council Tax, Capital Gains and Inheritance. All of which will be unpopular and may not achieve any additional tax in this parliament.

You’re mixing up cause and effect.

Why do you think you need to run at a deficit after a recession?

Tax incomes reduce as the economy shrinks, and welfare costs go up because people need support due to job losses.

1817-1821 depression 1819

1823-1836 depression 1837

1852-1857 depression 1857

1867-1873 depression 1873

1880-1893 depression 1893

>100 years ago when the economic system was very different

1920-1930 depression 1929

1998-2001 recession 2001 Followed by the Great Recession

Both caused by Stock Market bubbles

And we are due another one, when the crypto bubble pops

Why does this take so much explaining?

Because you never explain it properly?

Everyone criticises Max for not having an equal driver in the second RedBull and that it dimmishes his achievements as a WC, if he hasnt beaten another WC in the same car.

If Lando wants to be WC then he needs to beat Piastri first, who was the faster of the 2 drivers today.

Another great race.

Charles pulls of the strategic gamble to win in front of the Tifosi. Must have been a great atmosphere at Monza.

Bold pass by Piastri on lap 1 and although its not great for Landos title aspirations, its good to see a team allowing their drivers to race.

RedBull continue to be on the backfoot (and i’m expecting that to remain the same for Baku & Singapore), so Max is going to have to grind out the results to hang onto this championship.

Also a solid race debut for Colapinto bringing it home in 12th.

At that rate they’ll lose the constructor’s championship in the next few races

If they finish the race in grid order, then McLaren will be ahead in the constructors tomorrow.

It’ll also be interesting to see Max and Lewis next to each other on the grid tomorrow…

My guess is that Piastri’s lawyers and McLaren’s lawyers will be charging triple-time working out how much it would cost to buy him out of his contract and put Max into a McLaren for next year.

I’d say that Zack would rather win with the drivers he has than swap for Max.

In ’26 its all about who can develop the best engine.  Can RB Powertrains produce a competitive engine or do you go with Honda and Newey to Aston?

Nine races to go. If Norris wins them all and Verstappen is second then (fastest laps aside) Norris will finish seven points off the WDC. Precisely the number of points they took from him in Hungary. Now they need at least two one-two finishes, and they need them in the right order.

You now have Piastri on-side, so you can ask him to play the team game and finish P2 to Lando for the rest of the year, which is what they need him to do to help Lando catch Max.

And still they’re doing baffling things: why would they ask Norris early in the race who he thinks he’s racing against?

Dont take all of the radio messages literally. Many of them can be code for something agreed pre-race.  It could have easily been “are you cruising with plenty of pace in hand?”.

I’m not a Woody fan but hes showing his ability this year. Although to be fair (apart from Silverstone) I dont think we’re seeing Lewis at 100% this year.

It wont take that many races for McLaren to overhaul Red Bull to lead the constructors championship.

We just need Piastri and others to be getting between Lando and Max to make the drivers championship interesting.

Remind me how this is a good performance by George

Mercedes had the 4th quickest car this weekend. 7th & 8th was the best they could do.

George couldnt improve as he was car limited, and Lewis recovered to where he should have been.

If you’ve just locked yourself into a 5 year fixed that you’re struggling to pay, a 6 month interest only situation is only kicking the can further down the road. What happens in the following 4.5 year period?

You’ll have to speak to your lender to find out what approach they would take. Its either increase the term of the whole mortgage, or increase your repayment amounts over the life of your existing mortgage deal.

You’re probably going to have to jump through a lot of hoops to get the lender to agree to pausing things, especially if you’ve only recently agreed to a fixed rate deal. Cross your fingers and read the small print.

I’d just find a local shop where you can try them out and find one which is the most comfortable for you.

It might be more expensive than buying off the internet, but considering the number of hours you’ll spend using it, it’ll be money well spent.

You’ll likely need to set it up in a childs trust, so its protected from any tax liability.

Unsure on the rates of those specific products, but generally of you shop around you can get ~4% for instant access and ~5% fixed rate/term products at the moment.

Premium Bonds are really poor value for 99% of people.

What i would like to know is why Redbull have no interest in Tusnoda

Hes just part of the Honda deal

Toto has just been playing with RedBull around a potential Max move.

All of the top teams in recent memory have been focused around a single driver. Either Ayrton at McLaren, Michael at Ferrari or Lewis at Mercedes, and Max currently enjoys that position at RB.

If Max was to move he would have to fit in with an existing team and have accept all of the compromises, that that involves (strong teammates, Jos’s ego be reigned in)

Toto seems to be putting his eggs in the Antonelli basket

Perez also retaining his seat for the rest of the season:
Red Bull decides not to drop Perez mid-season – The Race (the-race.com)

I’m sure the conclusion was Riciardo/Lawson wouldnt have been much of a upgrade

Assuming the worn tyres were the cause, he also didn’t have a weight advantage for the whole race, just the latter stages.

Reading between the lines from things which Karun has said it could also have been his plank wear was too high as well. Many times during the race several cars were striking the ground hard through Eau Rouge/Raidilion and you could see remnants of the plank on the track.

I cant find if the data was released, so it might be that many cars failed on this. The FIA may have decided to turn a blind eye to that part of scrutineering, as it wouldnt have looked good for the sport if the whole top 10 had have been DSQ.

I wonder if it’s fuel

You cant use fuel as ballast, so the cars have to be weighed with an empty tank.

Extra tyre wear didnt help, and nobody thought a one stop was possible. Even at the time it was thought Woody would finish 5th if he stopped, or continued. Little to lose so worth the gamble and it kinda paid off.

Everyone knows that they dont do a cool-down lap at Spa, so that should have been within their calculations, but Mercedes just got it wrong on that car.

Confirmed that Russel has been DQd

Real shame as he did a really good job at managing the one stop race

I wouldn’t see it being a foregone conclusion just yet.

The RedBull will work well around Spa, but Max is going to have to work through a lot of (fast) traffic to get to the front and hopefully Lando can stretch out enough of a gap to hold him off.

I’m sure Lewis’s opinion was that if Max wanted to divebomb and risk a collision, he wasnt going to prevent it.

Lewis had nothing to lose

Max should have done a Lauda/Prost and took the points which were on offer at Hungary.