Category: Too Much Racing

Races Watched 2025

At the beginning of 2024 I started to log all the races I watched. Now with two years of data I wanted to see what the numbers look like. Spotify Wrapped has a lot to answer for.

I wish I’d started doing this years ago. I’d love to know how the numbers compare to 2008 through to the early 2010s. I started this blog in ’08 and I watched a heck of a lot of races in those years. I used to post weekly reviews of what I was watching at the time, but never collated it.

There are people I follow online who watch more than me, and who should take the title of ‘I Watch Too Much Racing’. Shout out to Matt White, who inspired me to start tracking, as he posts all his races to socials – and got over 750 in ’25!

Races

In 2024 (blue) I had a big push in the spring but then felt burned out. It almost felt a chore to keep up and I kept things to a bare minimum, just F1 and IndyCar, with a couple of IMSA races to round out December.

2025 (orange) was the opposite. I never got started until February, then in the spring we had bad news in the family, obviously I placed my attention there rather than watch anything. When I decided to start up again I caught up all the F1 and IndyCar and also picked up my project to watch the 2024 BTCC.

That meant I caught up fast, so by August it became the game to try to beat 2024’s total by December. I made it by just two: 134 to 132

I actually felt better about it as well, not so burned out. I was still sick of F1 by the end of November, even with a brilliant title fight to enjoy.

Continue reading “Races Watched 2025”

A Resumption

This blog started in August 2008. I haven’t posted here regularly since 2019 when life got in the way, and shortly after that Covid got in the way for all of us. Like so many bloggers before me, a lack of time and energy to upkeep a blog got the better of me. No shame in that. We are all busy. I have lost count of the motorsport blogs that have gone away – it’s almost all of them from the community we enjoyed back in the day.

Add to that, the simplicity of dumping your thoughts in 280 characters on social media and that addictive dopamine hit of likes and comments that you found yourself chasing, meant all my output was directed to Twitter.

Twitter became X and X became a racist right wing cesspit, so I’m not there any more.

Bluesky is doing a decent job of replacing it. Even if it is a lot quieter, there are really good discussions and interactions there, that remind me of the old days of Twitter some 10-15 years ago. You just have to work hard to find the right people, the right community, it takes an effort. And quite honestly a lot of the right people who used to be on Twitter are there now.

And yes, I am disappointed that what I thought were the right people, have stayed in the swamp rather than move over.

Anyway we were talking on Bluesky and it came up that having your own space away from the socials is kind of handy. If we all have to move again you need somewhere that grounds you. And I miss writing here. Something of a longer format in which to ponder. So it seems a good time to have a bash at this again.

I often have the old imposter syndrome. The thought that, since I’ve no connections, I’m in no paddock, I only watch things on TV therefore I’m no different to any other pleb like me. Why should people read me? I have nothing useful to say or add to the discourse. But that’s probably not quite true.

Certainly if you listen to broadcasters and insiders, a lot of them have no clue what fans think. So I do think it is important for fans to have a voice. And I have been watching for a long time now and that has to count for something, even if I am shouting at cloud, even though my memory is Swiss cheese and I can’t remember races I’ve watched last month never mind years ago. In modern parlance I’m very much going by vibes.

The thing I’ve been pondering is what to put here. Nobody reads race reviews, they never have, but I do enjoy journaling what I’ve been watching. I used to do that here and inspired by Matt White’s race count I brought back a series of mini reviews on socials last year and this.

I also had the idea many, many years ago, to have a weekly or monthly column. Pick a day and make sure to write something for it even if it is short.

So my goal is to do those things. It’ll be a bit shaky as I get into the swing of things. And no promises. It might flake out. Real life has been throwing a lot of things at our family. But it also reminds us to do things we enjoy. And I enjoy this.

Let’s see what happens.

A Temporary Pause

Hello.

This blog is on hold for a couple of weeks.

Overnight on Saturday, into Sunday morning, my step-mum passed away. I won’t go into the details but it was a shock and we are taking time to be with each other.

In a bit of unfortunate timing, my sister is due to be married on Sunday. After taking advice from everyone she and her fiance have bravely decided to continue.

And the funeral will come in a couple of weeks, as the coroner may need to investigate.

After the wedding when a sense of routine returns and I go back to work, whenever that is, I will need my hobby to keep me occupied in the evenings. The blog posts will return when I’m ready. I was able to watch the Paris Formula E race, for example, but I won’t be watching Baku Formula 1 or anything else for a little while.

I will watch a lot less live in the near-to-medium future. We will probably be using weekends for other things. This means a significant reduction in live Twittering. For example, the timing of the funeral and other events means I will not be providing live Twitter coverage of Indy 500 qualifying, as had been planned. It doesn’t feel very important right now.

On the positive side this break may provide an opportunity to rethink how I use social media and this blog.

Take care of yourselves.

Pat.

 

Races Watched (2019 Week 16): WEC COTA 2017

Week 16:  15-21 April 2019

A very quiet weekend in the racing world. The only active series were those I don’t follow closely, but that’s probably my fault for not following British GT as closely I should.

In the UK it was Easter Bank Holiday weekend with Good Friday and Easter Monday off work. The sun was out so I didn’t spend a lot of time indoors watching racing and I opted out of going to Oulton Park’s British GT due to other goings on.

It was a good opportunity to continue my endurance racing catch up which I did on Sunday evening. There’s little point blogging it for an audience because frankly none of you care about a race that happened 18 months ago but I did it anyway because I like the practice of writing weekly.

2017 FIA WEC – R6 – 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas
Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, USA
Took place 16th September 2017
Watched 21st April 2019

Qualifying:
LMP1:  Porsche, Porsche, Toyota, Toyota;
LMP2:  Signatech, Rebellion, Jackie Chan DC, Rebellion;
GTE Pro:  AF Corse, Ford Ganassi, Aston Martin, AF Corse;
GTE Am:  Aston Martin, Spirit of Race, Clearwater, Dempsey-Proton;

Just four cars in LMP1 for the last few races of the 2017 season and Porsche’s 919 was clearly faster than Toyota’s TS050, just as it was in Mexico. Yet the Toyotas had better low speed boost, the traction off the corner visibly better and they got past the no.2 Porsche in the early laps. Toyota then ran 1-2 by not taking tyres at the first pitstops when the Porsches did. That made a race of it for the next hour! They’d play strategy all race.

LMP2 teams were single-stinting drivers due to the high heat. Really close racing in the class. Signatech Alpine were the class of the field, though in the middle Alex Brundle’s Jackie Chan DC Racing car pulled a big lead for a while. This class was the one most affected by tyre regulations (just 4 sets for a 6 hour race) on a high degradation track, so the order changed a lot based on who was single-stinting and double-stinting tyres.

GTE Pro again had really good close, clean racing this time between the Aston of Nicki Thiim and the two AF Corse Ferraris in the first hour. Thiim had got the lead through the melee of turn one lap one when all the cars spread out wide. In the 2nd hour the Ferraris got clear. Despite qualifying last, the Porsche GTs had great race pace and caught the Ferraris.

GTE Am’s pole-sitting Aston Martin had Paul Dalla Lana driving first so we found him fall behind the Pro drivers early and the two Ferraris pull away. It turned around later when Mathias Lauda and Pedro Lamy raced through the pack.

A Safety Car just after halfway after the Gulf Porsche spun twice. That allowed the GT Porsche to catch and overtake the Ferraris for the Pro lead. But with 12 minutes to go the leading no. 51 Ferrari had a slow puncture, the pit stop put Ferrari and Porsche side by side for the lead! The Ferrari would just about come out on top.

And within 10 minutes to go the lead Porsche 919s swapped places, team orders, the No. 1 slowing to allow No. 2 to win. That gives the No.2 car its 4th consecutive win including Le Mans and a handy points lead, while No.1 failed to score back at the double-points Le Mans and so is the sacrificial lamb.

As ever in WEC the field spread out in the last couple of hours but there were stories all the way through. I was expecting to be able to F.Fwd through chunks and get the race done in 5 hours or less, I ended up not skipping any of it.

LMP1

  1. No. 2 Porsche 919 – Hartley, Bernhard, Bamber [4th win of the year];
  2. No. 1 Porsche 919 – Lotterer, Tandy, Jani;
  3. No. 8 Toyota TS050 – Buemi, Nakajima, Sarrazin;

LMP2

  1. No. 36 Signatech Alpine – Lapierre, Menezes, Negrao  [1st win of the year];
  2. No. 13 Rebellion – Piquet Jr, Beche, Heinemeier Hansson;
  3. No. 31 Rebellion – Senna, Prost, Canal  [5th podium of the year];

GTE Pro

  1. No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari – Calado, Pier Guidi  [2nd win of the year];
  2. No. 92 Porsche – Christensen, Estre;
  3. No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari – Rigon, Bird;

GTE Am

  1. No. 98 Aston Martin – Dalla Lana, Lamy, Lauda  [2nd win of the year];
  2. No. 61 Clearwater Ferrari – Sun Mok, Sawa, Griffin;
  3. No. 54 Spirit of Race Ferrari – Castellacci, Flohr, Molina;

The next WEC race was the 6 Hours of Fuji, though the ELMS 4 Hours of Spa is next on my list by calendar date.

Next Week

The weekend of 26th to 28th April, a fairly busy one depending on your interests. My pick of the week is Baku because that race is crazy fun.

  • F1 Azerbaijan GP at Baku (with F2 support);
  • Formula E in Paris;
  • VLN 3 at the Nordschleife;
  • GT Open at Paul Ricard;
  • Blancpain America at VIR;
  • WTCR at Hungaroring;
  • BTCC at Donington Park;
  • WRC in Argentina;
  • NASCAR at Talledega;

I will watch F1 and Formula E. If the weather is terrible Saturday I may stay home and watch VLN. I plan to catch up on BTCC and WTCR at the end of the year as, guess what, I’m two years behind!

Oh and it’s the London Marathon on Sunday morning and that’s often a good watch if you like endurance racing of any type.