Welcome to my blog! I’m a big racing fan, if you hadn’t gotten that already 😂 My main blog is @captainsophiestarkwriting, a writing and fanfiction blog, so if you see that blog name popping up in your notifs it’s because I follow and reply to comments from there :)
I follow Formula E and Formula 1 Racing, and I post about both here. I’m trying to use a queue system so I have some kind of regular posting going on, but I make absolutely no promises that that’s going to last lol.
Favorite FE Drivers: Basically all of them if I’m being honest with myself. But I’ll say JEV and Andre
Favorite F1 Drivers: Lewis Hamilton, Seb Vettel, and Danny Ric, although about half the rest of the grid is tied in a close second place.
If you’re new to FE, here is a Season 9 into and here and here are a few links to other helpful posts compiling a bunch of info about the sport!
For the most part, I’m going to try to keep this a hate-free zone for all teams and drivers, so I generally won’t be posting or reblogging anything shady. The big exceptions are McLaren and Zak Brown (my personal enemy), and there might be occasional exceptions for Christian Horner and the FIA too.
A long yellow carpet had been rolled out to welcome Sebastian Vettel to Samskolan in Gothenburg on Tuesday. The four-time Formula 1 world champion was met by around 150 students from the school who took him around and showed him the work they do daily to work towards a better planet.
The visit culminated in Vettel, with "Circle of Life" from The Lion King blaring from the speakers, stepping onto a stage in the school's gymnasium to be dubbed an "environmental knight".
since dori tested the merc at silverstone today, i've seen a couple of posts about how she's the first female driver to test an f1 car since susie wolff in 2012, but that's not true; she's the first since susie to test one at silverstone specifically! tatiana calderón tested a sauber at autódromo hermanos rodríguez in 2018, and jessica hawkins tested an aston martin in 2023 at the hungaroring.
i believe that's it, but feel free to fact check me on this. it's staggering that there have only been four women to test f1 cars in the last twelve years. i hope dori's success continues, and we get more women at the "top level" like this.
if you get so angry that you purposefully crash into a guy and then end up losing the championship by two points you should be grilled about it forever idk
Liane Engeman, and how close the Netherlands came to their first Female Formula 1 driver
Read on Wordpress or click on Keep Reading to read on Tumblr
As we approach this year's running of the 12 Hours of Sebring. – A race that has been around for almost 75 years, with the 12 hours first run in 1952. The race has been held each year since, with a single exception; in 1974 it was cancelled due to the energy crisis – I'm putting the spotlight on one of many drivers to have competed in the race, Liane Engeman.
Engeman, a Dutch driver born on March 24th 1944, competed in the 12H of Sebring three times with the Ring Free Ladies’ "Motor Maids" team. All during the latter half of the 1960s together with Janet Guthrie. In 1969 Donna Mae Mims joined the female duo.
Donna Mae Mims, Janet Guthrie, and Liane Engeman, Sebring, 1969. Getty/Bettmann Archive
Their adventures at the 12H of Sebring saw a highlight in 1967 when they finished 23rd overall and won their class. In 1969 they would once again finish 23rd and sixth in their class.
In 1968 they encountered troubles and had to retire. But they were also blamed for a crash by driver Paul Hawkins – famous for being only one of two drivers to crash into the Monaco Harbor.
He blamed Engeman for a crash and went on a sexist tirade, saying women did not belong anywhere near a race track. In said crash however, their car wasn't even involved. Hawkins made contact with a completely different car. It became a huge controversy, leading to a Swiss Porsche team defending Engeman – with proof in pictures – showing she never was at the scene of the accident.
Liane Engeman started in cars from a young age. At just 15, she worked for her father's taxi service driving a frequent customer in one of the company cars. She found her way into motorsports at age 16, when she met Dutch racer Rob Slotemaker at a bus stop. He offered her a ride to Zandvoort and eventually enrolled her into his driving school.
Engeman and Rob Slotemaker during the Dutch Championship finals at Zandvoort (6 October 1974) Wikimedia/Bert Verhoeff
She borrowed cars left and right, taking to the track whenever she could. And in 1965 she would win her first race in Formula Vee. Eventually she was encouraged to move to London and worked as a housemaid for a family. Every week she would borrow a Cooper to race on tracks around the UK. She would eventually meet someone at one of these tracks that owned a Cooper, when he found out she was four seconds a lap quicker than him in the car, he allowed her to compete in it. During that time she held the lap record at Thruxton for a solid 6 months, it was then beaten by Emerson Fittipaldi.
Later on she would become an assistant to the manager at Alan Mann Racing (a Ford works team), she managed hotel stays, recorded lap times and alerted when cars had to come in for fuel, but she didn’t do what she really wanted; race. She did her job well however, and was even offered a job at Ferrari, but ultimately had to decline as she suffered from a spinal inflammation at the time.
She took a job at a traveling agency to continue financing her career. And continued to compete all over Europe in several championships. Both in open-wheel and touring cars. In 1969 she had a major crash in Brazil where her steering wheel stopped working, causing her to drive into the marsh. She only narrowly managed to crawl out of the wreckage, before she drowned.
Liane Engeman at Circuit Zandvoort during the Formula 3 race on 7 April 1969
In that same year she competed in the 24 Hours of Spa, taking 13th place overall with teammate Bob Wollek and winning their class. The following year she would also compete at the 24H of Spa, together with Belgian driver Christine Beckers. Mid-race however, Beckers was given the news that her boyfriend had died in a crash during that same race. They continued in the race, but ultimately retired with engine issues.
Throughout her relatively short career she showed flashes of brilliance several times. Taking podiums and class wins throughout the years. Some say, several disagreements with teams causing walkouts could’ve prevented her from making big strides in her professional career.
She did however come close to a Formula 1 contract around 1972, she was in talks with Lotus and BRM for a Formula 1 seat but had to decline as she found herself pregnant with twins. She quit racing and would return just once a few years later, but ultimately stepped away completely.
To finance her career, she played in several commercials, one alongside Beth Morris, and she was a stand-in for Ursula Andress in the James Bond-film Casino Royal.
Liane Engeman and Frans Lubin (her old teammate) in 2017 during recordings of the Dutch show “Andere Tijden Sport”
This weekend 5 female drivers compete at the 12H of Sebring among those one all-female team as the Iron Dames will compete with their #83 in the GTD class with Sarah Bovy, Michelle Gatting & Rahel Frey. Lilou Wadoux will be in the #21 and Sheena Monk will be driving the #021, both also in the GTD Class.
One of the most supreme things about jev is how he keeps a little list of every driver who has not professed their undying support and love for Fe and he WILL tag them in a post or show up in their comments or mention them in an interview like "fight me motherfucker meet me at tempelhof airport get in an FE car and outdrive me come here don't walk away from me come here" but he'll say it like "haha would be awesome if you came to Formula E 🤪"
"My hero is my wife, Susie, because she’s been—she’s always had it so tough to compete as a female racing driver against the other boys that sometimes haven’t been very nice to her. So, she’s my hero."
When it comes to teams finding loopholes and tricks to enhance performance, I always am of the opinion that it’s fine (and I actually enjoy it - and encourage more teams to do it) unless they get caught
And if they get caught, they deserve the relevant penalty.
However if a rule change or a change of testing is applied during the season, it is correct to not punish retrospectively because things were in line with the original tests at the time.
You shouldn’t punish someone for because they are smart enough to find a way around your rules.
Hi! What's the difference between boost mode and overtake mode, apart from the latter only being available when within 1s of another car? They both seem to be an increase in energy deployment?
Hi, I feel like this has been really poorly explained in all the press releases and everything.
I have to admit, I find batteries and PU’s and the deployment side of things confusing at the best of times but I feel like they’ve both oversimplified and overcomplicated their explanations of it
Boost, for all intents and purposes, is something that all hybrid F1 cars have had where you override whatever engine mode you're in to maximize performance, but now it has an official name.
It is essentially the button that drivers had on their steering wheel before, which allowed them to use some battery power to aid them in overtaking or defending, and it’s the same now, there’s no limit to when a driver can use it, but it does drain their battery.
These 2026 regulations limit electrical power after 290kph, even under boost mode, which effectively limits the top speed of the cars.
Overtake mode raises the electrical power limit after 337kph for one full lap after the detection point provided that the attacking car is within 1 second of the car ahead (also there is just one detection point for the entire track). This makes the acceleration near top speed which much better for the attacking car, however this is at the expense of battery, so a failed attempt to overtake will have a lasting impact on the attacking driver.
Basically Boost just uses the battery power that’s already been charged up, whilst overtake overrides the car’s engine mode and allows greater electrical power deployment. They are similar but Overtake is more powerful because of that override system
Overtake allows for full use of battery at any speed, where as Boost only allows up to a certain speed.