kungtotte

Horner and Norris have both confirmed they've casually talked about the prospects. I don't think it's an accident that McLaren tied him up on the longest contract in ages.

13 hours ago, Loge said:

So we have a deal between FIA and Red Bull on the cost cap. Red Bull have accepted a penalty of $7 million (which doesn't count against the cap) and a 10% reduction of their wind tunnel time for 2023. And of course, the overspending was on stuff like catering and benefits for employees on sick leave, not car development.

But the other teams that didn't spend that extra on catering and sick leave would have to pay for those things while staying under the cost cap, which logically means cutting somewhere else. Unless the overspend is for a truly trivial amount like $100, any amount of overspend creates the room for a team to gain an advantage on track because they free up that amount elsewhere in the budget.

That's why it is critical that the penalty is harsh enough to dissuade all the other teams from strategically overspending.

If you look at a team like Mercedes or Ferrari, or even McLaren and Alpine, if push comes to shove do you think a $7 million fine that is explicitly excluded from the cost cap and 10% less wind tunnel time is enough to keep them from doing that overspend to maybe move up a spot in the WCC?

I fully understand why Mercedes and Ferrari are complaining so loudly; they know they would have had a competitive advantage if they could have spent more just like they have in the past, so for one team to be able to overspend and then possibly walk away with a slap on the wrist means the budget cap rules are ineffectual.

If they land in a decision that RB has overspent and should be punished, the penalty needs to be severe enough to dissuade Mercedes and Ferrari from also overspending. IMO the sanest course of action would be to suspend the RB team from one of the remaining GP weekends this year, preferably Mexico or Brazil. It won't affect their existing titles so you don't get any weirdness with that, but if you look at a season like 2021 it would have been a big hit to their title hopes had it happened in that season. So no team would want to risk their 202x title being lost from overspending in the past, and as such would be a strong deterrent against overspending.

Who would want to follow Joffrey...

That topic has been done to death, but let me just say this: Arya kills a lot of people in cold blood for someone who is not a cold-blooded murderer.

Robb is his father's son, no doubt. Both of them are completely stand-up, honourable men who will do what needs to be done. If they say they will do something, they will do it. If they think something is the right thing to do, they will do it.

Their downfall is thinking that everybody else is like that too.

I just thought it was SO STUPID for Robb to let that scout live, why in the world would he do that? Just so he could have some half assed boast at Tywin, "I'm gonna kill you mofo!" SO STUPID.

The scout is going to run to Lord Tywin all like "OMG Robb Stark has 18,000 men, and he's marching straight for you!", and Tywin is going to be like "LOL WHAT A NOOB. I'mma put all my guys right here and meet them head on", then what happens is that Roose Bolton shows up with only Robb's foot and locks Tywin up in battle while Robb leads his horse to defeat Jaime's host.

By letting the scout live, he is feeding Tywin false information. Deception is a crucial part of war.

I really liked the casting of the Greatjon, and how the character was played. He feels a bit like Hamish and Campbell from Braveheart (and of course, James Cosmo/Campbell plays the Old Bear!), which is pretty much exactly the mental image I had of the Greatjon when I was reading the books.

"Well, we didn't get all dressed up for nothing."