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tomvox1’s Watches for Sale – Vintage Eska Valjoux 22 Spillman Chrono w/Stunning Gilt Sector Dial

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT ME FOR MORE INFO ON THIS KILLER ESKA CHRONO

On offer this month of March is this rare and beautiful circa 1940s-50s Eska chronograph in Spillman case with amazing gilt sector dial, powered by the famed Valjoux 22 movement. A rather unheralded brand, Eska was founded as S. Kocher in 1918 with “Eska” being a simple phonetic version of those initials for the purposes of branding. Like a lot of mid-century manufacturers, Eska made use of the contract oversize Spillman waterproof cases and Valjoux movements to create aviator & military-style chronographs to meet the demand of the WWII and post-War era.

This example is notable not only for the large and sought after 37mm screw back Spillman case and Valjoux 22 caliber with 45-minute counter under the hood but, of course, the obvious superstar is the stunning black gilt dial with super uncommon and beautiful sector dial layout. This is one of the most sought after chronograph layouts in vintage watches, as made famous by Patek Phillipe in several of their most coveted vintage references. While I wouldn’t call this Eska inexpensive, this special piece will certainly set you back a helluva lot less than a period Patek version would.

Overall, this classic Eska chrono is in Very Good vintage condition with a stunning Very Good+ original gilt dial with complex outer chronograph scales, minute track and interior Arabic numeral sector layout for the timekeeping. The case has some wear and the lugs appear to have been given a matte finish rather than the typical polished finish seen on most Spillman cases. The venerable Valjoux 22 movement was serviced recently and is operating well, ready for years’ more faithful service for its lucky new owner.

The all-original and absolutely stunning glossy black gilt dial features complex outer calibrated Tachymeter & Telemeter chronograph scales, followed concentrically by a minute track and Arabic numeral sector dial interior for the standard timekeeping. Engine-turned sub registers for constant seconds at “9” and the 45-minute recorder at “3”, also with gilt numerals. This Eska sector dial represents beautifully on the wrist, often brightly reflecting the light when you move, and the gilt sector dial layout is absolutely stunning aesthetically, not to mention incredibly hard to find in the wild unless on a modern homage. 

There are not a lot of Spillman cased, Valjoux 22 chronographs out there and even fewer with nice black gilt dials. But a gilt/gloss sector dial Spillman cased Valjoux 22 chronograph has got to be the rarest iteration around. Make this very special vintage Eska chrono your today!

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT ME FOR MORE INFO ON THIS KILLER ESKA CHRONO

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2024 F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia — Results & aftermath

Verstappen romps to second consecutive victory in Round 2; Perez takes second for Red Bull 1-2; Leclerc P3 & pinch-hitting rookie Bearman a solid P7 to Ferrari’s delight

Despite having only two rounds of the 2024 Formula 1 season done and dusted, it’s already clear that is going to take an act of force majeure to prevent Red Bull’s peerless Max Verstappen from romping to his third consecutive Championship. This stark reality was sharply illustrated during Saturday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, where Verstappen scurried away from the pole and then played hide & seek with the other 19 cars for the rest of the race. While teammate Sergio Perez was able to improve on his P3 grid position by passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for second place early on, and then holding on to that prime podium spot to make it a Red Bull 1-2, he still ended up trailing the flying Dutchman by 13.6 seconds when the checkers flew at this tight and treacherous harborside street circuit.

Despite seeing Leclerc lose a position from his starting spot, Ferrari left Jeddah very happy with their points haul on the day. Facing the abrupt loss of their usual number two, Carlos Sainz, to an appendectomy on Friday, development driver Oliver Bearman was drafted from his F2 seat and thrown into the deep end of a Formula 1 race weekend. Facing the bleak prospect of potentially only one car scoring points in Sainz’s absence, Bearman instead acquitted himself well, first by qualifying in P11 on Friday. He then improved on that effort with a very professional race effort that saw him take advantage of his Prancing Horse’s natural pace advantage to get ahead of a slew of more experienced drivers in inferior equipment. Credit to the young Briton for keeping his car in one piece and for executing his overtakes with aggression if not always the utmost finesse. In any event, by the time the 50 laps of the Grand Prix had wound down, Bearman had worked his way up to a satisfying P7 points-scoring finish in his F1 debut. With Leclerc running a lonely race after Perez’s early pass nevertheless coming home on the podium in P3, it was all smiles in the Ferrari garage on what could have been a disastrous weekend. Barring any more health issues, Sainz should return to his seat at the next race weekend two weeks form now in Australia. But Bearman certainly did his future F1 prospects no harm with his confident and productive effort for the Scuderia on Saturday in Saudi Arabia.

Oscar Piastri, the junior member of McLaren’s team who was also a rookie last year but is now  now a second year driver to worth watching every GP, also had an excellent Saturday night on the banks of the Red Sea. The young Aussie had a race-long ding dong battle with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, with the veteran seven-time champion holding off the young Aussie repeatedly by giving a defensive driving masterclass. Piastri had pitted early on Lap 8 under Safety Car conditions after Lance Stroll of Aston Martin clipped the wall with his front left and then went spearing into the opposite barriers at Turn 23 with a broken suspension. But both McLaren and Mercedes decided to split their strategies and Hamilton was told to stay out, as was Piastri’s teammate, Lando Norris. Despite the fresher set of Hard Pirellis and his determination to haunt Hamilton’s gearbox, Piastri never could find a way by on track and only leapfrogged Lewis when he eventually pitted his Merc on Lap 37 to run the last of his race on Softs. Piastri was then free to fly as a result and Norris boxed a lap latter to deploy the same Medium-to-Soft alternate tire strategy, the latter coming out ahead of Hamilton and behind Bearman in P8. Despite Norris’s best efforts and the ostensible Soft tire advantage, the Hard-shod Bearman proved adept at holding off the McLaren for the remainder of the contest. With Bearman holding onto P7, Norris coming home P8 and Hamilton a rueful P9, Piastri bettered them all in P4, an outstanding effort by the young Aussie heading into his home race.

Fernando Alonso’s lone surviving Aston Martin salvaged P5 for the team, holding off the lead Mercedes of George Russell down the stretch. Russell finished P6, as once again Mercedes was lacking in both qualifying and real race pace compared to Ferrari and McLaren, not to mention Red Bull. Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg scored the final point in P10, in no small part to a brilliant team drive by the second Haas of Kevin Magnussen. Magnussen played moving roadblock for a passel of midfield cars with points aspirations, enabling teammate Hulkenberg to scamper away and build a pit-proof advantage for that eventual P10 finish.

Top 10 finishers of the Saudi Arabian GP:

1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 50 1:20:43.273 25
2 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 50 +13.643s 18
3 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 50 +18.639s 16
4 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 50 +32.007s 12
5 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 50 +35.759s 10
6 63 George Russell MERCEDES 50 +39.936s 8
7 38 Oliver Bearman FERRARI 50 +42.679s 6
8 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 50 +45.708s 4
9 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 50 +47.391s 2
10 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 50 +76.996s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The teams and drivers now get a much needed rest after a breakneck start to the season — the next race is in a fortnight from Down Under, the Australian GP from the scenic Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park. Can Ferrari and Leclerc use the downtime to close the gap to the supreme Verstappen and Red Bull? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

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2024 F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia — Qualifying results

Verstappen takes first Jeddah pole, Perez P3 for Red Bull; Leclerc P2, rookie sub Bearman P11 for Ferrari; Alonso shines for Aston, McLaren in the hunt as Mercedes flounder

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen made it two pole positions on the trot to start his 2024 campaign, taking his first-ever pole at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia on Friday. Verstappen edged out Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by just a shade over three-tenths, the confined quarters of the Jeddah street course somewhat neutralizing the Red Bull’s usual pace advantage. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez notched P3, while Leclerc had a substitute stablemate in rookie Oliver Bearman, drafted into service right before Free Practice 3, when the ailing Carlos Sainz was forced to have surgery for appendicitis. Bearman, who had just taken pole for the F2 feature race, acquitted himself well after being thrown into the deep end of the motorsports pool, making it to Q2 and just missing out on the final qualifying session with the eleventh fastest time.

Aston Martin found some pace after a disappointing effort in Bahrain last week and veteran Fernando Alonso wrung his car’s neck to the tune of the fourth best time in Q3. Teammate Lance Stroll couldn’t match the Spanish two-time champ’s speed and qualified a distant P10. Both of McLaren’s drivers showed fine pace, with Oscar Piastri just getting the better of teammate Lando Norris, P5 to P6. Mercedes, on the other hand, really struggled in quali trim, with George Russell only able to set the seventh fastest time and Lewis Hamilton searching for balance in the car down in P8 on the grid. Yuki Tsunoda excelled for the newly christened RB F1 team (formerly AlphaTauri, formerly Toro Rosso) with a sparkling final run that earned the fiery Japanese driver P9 for tomorrow’s race start.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Saudi Arabian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:28.171 1:28.033 1:27.472 18
2 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:28.318 1:28.112 1:27.791 23
3 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:28.638 1:28.467 1:27.807 19
4 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 1:28.706 1:28.122 1:27.846 17
5 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:28.755 1:28.343 1:28.089 22
6 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:28.805 1:28.479 1:28.132 22
7 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:28.749 1:28.448 1:28.316 22
8 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:28.994 1:28.606 1:28.460 24
9 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 1:28.988 1:28.564 1:28.547 18
10 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 1:28.250 1:28.578 1:28.572 19

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race, another Saturday special due to the upcoming Ramadan holiday, airs live beginning at Noon Eastern on ESPN2 here in the States. Hope to see you then to find out if the very tight and perilous quarters at Jeddah will throw up some real surprises!

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2024 F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Results & aftermath

Verstappen opens ’24 campaign with dominant win in Bahrain, Perez P2 as Red Bull remain car to beat; Sainz out-duels Ferrari teammate Leclerc for P3

If there were any illusions remaining from the preseason that another team and driver could truly challenge the Red Bull/Max Verstappen era of dominance that was ushered in with the ground effects spec in 2022, they were quickly shattered in Round 1 of 2024. With the 2024 season starting in Bahrain on Saturday, Verstappen simply picked up where he left off last year when he had one of the most supreme seasons in F1 history. The flying Dutchman led the race’s opening lap from the pole, holding off Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc into Turn 1, and then rapidly distanced the field in imperious fashion. By the time the 57 laps under the lights at Bahrain International Circuit were completed, he had led every lap, set the race’s fastest lap for the extra point and bested his second place teammate Sergio Perez by a whopping 22.457 seconds. With three consecutive Formula 1 World Championships under his belt, the smart money remains on Verstappen to rack up a fourth, which would tie Sebastian Vettel’s awesome title run with Red Bull from 2010 to 2013. While obviously you’ve got to hand it to a driver who is so superior to the rest of the field and so perfectly matched to his vehicle, another season of Verstappen and Red Bull crushing everyone without breaking a sweat is probably not what the Formula 1 brass — or the millions of viewers — really want to see. Still, with a new formula not scheduled to debut until 2026, it’s highly probable that, barring any sort of previously unforeseen reliability issues, it’s going to be the Max Verstappen show on most weekends the majority of the time. Get ready to hear a lot of the Dutch national anthem.

The real battles occurred for the places not on the top step and Perez was able to hold off Ferrari’s very game Carlos Sainz to make it a perfect Red Bull one-two on the day. The veteran Mexican pilot recovered from a subpar P5 qualifying effort to take the fight to George Russell’s Mercedes and the two Prancing Horses of Sainz and Charles Leclerc ahead of him. Despite running his final stint on the more delicate if faster Soft compound Pirellis, Perez was able to nurse his tires to the end and keep the Hard-shod Sainz behind him to earn second place. Nevertheless, it was a strong effort by the Spaniard as he embarks on his final season with Ferrari after being unceremoniously dumped by the Scuderia in favor of Lewis Hamilton for next year. Perhaps driving with a bit of chip on his shoulder from that surprising turn of events, Sainz made a couple off very aggressive passes on his teammate Leclerc, no team orders required, to secure that last spot on the podium. Despite being edged into fourth by his stablemate, Leclerc still had a solid effort in the newly redesigned Ferrari SF-24, particularly as he was plagued by brake or brake bias issues all race long that resulted in multiple lockups. These issues seemed to ease up for the Monegasque when he was not in the hot air of traffic and he was able to catch up and hound Russell into a mistake on Lap 46, overtaking as the Briton’s Silver Arrow slid off track at Turn 11, thereby locking down that P4 for keeps and the valuable 3-4 for Ferrari on the day.

Mercedes also had some technical issues related to overheating that dogged them early in the race in tight quarters but abated somewhat in clean air. Russell was able to keep Lando Norris’s McLaren behind him after Leclerc got by and came home a decent P5. Teammate Hamilton battled one or two gremlins of his own but improved on his poor P9 qualifying by two spots to take P7. Norris secured P6 and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri slotted in behind Hamilton in P8, essentially confirming that, with Red Bull not really in reach, the battle for second in the Constructors’ points will likely be a three-way battle between Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren. At least in this earliest of going, it looks like Aston Martin will not really be privy to that elite competition. After their blistering start to last year, the team plateaued around midway through 2023 and seem to have failed to develop during the offseason. Despite looking fairly quick in pre-season testing and the first qualifying effort of the year on Friday, Fernando Alonso could only muster a fairly distant P9 result, with teammate Lance Stroll backstopping him in P10. Stroll does deserve special mention for that otherwise pedestrian result because he not only started from twelfth on the grid but also need up facing the wrong way on the opening lap after tangling with the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg. So, a good recovery drive from the young Canadian but still, a 9-10 is not exactly where Aston dreamed they’d be today.

Top 10 finishers of the Bahrain GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 57 1:31:44.742 26
2 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 57 +22.457s 18
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 57 +25.110s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 57 +39.669s 12
5 63 George Russell MERCEDES 57 +46.788s 10
6 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 57 +48.458s 8
7 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 57 +50.324s 6
8 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 57 +56.082s 4
9 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 57 +74.887s 2
10 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 57 +93.216s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time and it’ll be another Friday qualifying/Saturday race in Saudi Arabia to accommodate the upcoming Ramadan holiday. There won’t be any time to really upgrade the cars so, look for Red Bull & Verstappen to have another romp when the action in Round 2 gets underway, though the much tighter Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit could provide some more incidents than we saw in today’s Safety Car-free running. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

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2024 F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Qualifying results

Verstappen picks up where he left off with first pole of 2024 in Bahrain; Leclerc edges Russel for second fastest; Hamilton & Perez adrift

The 2024 Formula 1 season officially kicked off with highly similar results to last year’s campaign as Red Bull’s defending three-time champion Max Verstappen once again blistered the field to take a relatively easy pole at the Bahrain International Circuit. With qualifying taking place on a rare Friday for the first two rounds of the season due to Saturday race days to accomodate the upcoming Ramadan holiday in the hosting Muslim countries, all the posing and posturing of pre-season testing and pre-qualifying practice was replace by the true test of which cars had the real pace. Once again it was the Red Bull in Verstappen’s capable hands that proved the rabbit all the others will have to chase this season. Verstappen bested the P2 of Charles Leclerc by a little over two-tenths and the typically fast-starting Monegasque was able to stay in front of George Russell’s Mercedes for P2 by a whisper thin .078 seconds. The second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, who was unceremoniously dumped for next year in favor of Lewis Hamilton in the offseason’s biggest shockwave, set the fourth fastest time, while Hamilton could muster no better than a lowly P9 on his final attempt. One wonders if all the upgrades will now go to Russell during the course of the season since Hamilton has one foot out the door and in archrival Ferrari’s camp.

As he did in the second two-thirds of 2023, Sergio Perez again rather badly trailed Verstappen for pure pace and could only manage a time good enough for fifth on tomorrow’s grid. The ageless Fernando Alonso was solid in the Aston Martin for P6 and the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri set the seventh and eighth fastest times respectively. Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas rounded out the the top ten qualifiers and will start form P10 on the grid, just as he did in last year’s Bahrain season opener.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Bahrain GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:30.031 1:29.374 1:29.179 17
2 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:30.243 1:29.165 1:29.407 19
3 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:30.350 1:29.922 1:29.485 17
4 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:29.909 1:29.573 1:29.507 18
5 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:30.221 1:29.932 1:29.537 17
6 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 1:30.179 1:29.801 1:29.542 14
7 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:30.143 1:29.941 1:29.614 15
8 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:30.531 1:30.122 1:29.683 18
9 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:30.451 1:29.718 1:29.710 18
10 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 1:30.566 1:29.851 1:30.502 18

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 10 AM Eastern on ESPN. Hope to see you then to find out if anyone can match this new year’s edition of Verstappen and Red Bull in race trim — I have my doubts!

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2023 F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi — Results & aftermath

Verstappen caps historic season with easy victory in Abu Dhabi; wins 19 out of 22 races in 2023; first driver to lead 1000 laps; Leclerc P2 but Russell’s elevation to third after Perez penalty plus Hamilton’s P9 finish earn Mercedes second in Constructors’

Red Bull’s supreme ace Max Verstappen ended his historically dominant 2023 campaign in Abu Dhabi the way he started it way back in early March in Bahrain — with a commanding and effortless win. Under the bright and colorful lights of the Yas Marina Circuit, Verstappen cruised from pole to the win in Sunday’s final Grand Prix of the year, with no other car and driver able to challenge the pace of the RB19 in his hands. Having already won his third consecutive title on a Sprint Saturday in Qatar six races ago, the flying Dutchman nevertheless put his foot down to storm his way to a remarkable 19 victories from 22 Grand Prix run this season. Only his teammate Sergio Perez, with two early season wins in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in Singapore, were able to claim any other top steps on the podium this year. If all that’s not enough of a fitting symbol of his absolute dominance, Verstappen became the first driver in Formula 1 to lead 1000 total laps in a single season. Truly, superlatives get worn thin when describing the amazing year Max and Red Bull have had in 2023, and it will go down as one of the greatest by any team or driver in the sport’s history. It is certainly in the conversation with Lewis Hamilton’s glory days at Mercedes, Michael Schumacher at Ferrari, Jim Clark at Lotus, Jackie Stewart at Terrell and Sebastian Vettel at this very same Red Bull team.

With the top spot on the podium essentially conceded once Verstappen nabbed pole for the race on Saturday, the real dramas took place behind the lead Red Bull. Chief among those was the battle between Ferrari and Mercedes for second place in the all-important Constructors’ standings. Continue reading

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tomvox1’s Watches for Sale – Vintage Favre-Leuba Square Steel BLUE Daymatic “Cioccolatone”

SOLD

Up for sale is this very cool and highly uncommon vintage Favre-Leuba Daymatic with beautiful blue dial and impressive square “Cioccolatone”-style all steel water resistant case. Like most rectangular and square watches, this wonderful late-1960s/early-1970s model wears larger than its 33 x 37mm dimensions might indicate and delivers great wrist presence, as you can see from the photo of it on my 7-inch wrist. The rather heavy and ingeniously engineered steel case features wide, downward sloping beveled edges for a distinctly muscular feel not unlike a smaller version of Heuer’s famous Monaco.

I haven’t seen more than a handful of these “Cioccolatone” Daymatic models and never with this exact case design or a blue dial, making it highly unlikely that you will run into anyone else wearing this watch in the wild. The stunning vertically brushed cobalt blue dial with original luminous also happens to be in Mint condition.

The watch itself appears unpolished and is in Very Good to Excellent overall vintage condition, showing honest wear commensurate with having been worn and enjoyed for most of its long life. The rather over-engineered and quite substantial case design features, I believe, some sort of split-crown method for removing the dial, movement and back from the top case in one piece once the locking ring has been unscrewed and thereby gaining potential access to the movement.

In addition to the signed dial, case and crown, this sporty yet elegant Favre-Leuba also comes with its likely original and period correct signed steel buckle, a nice bonus for the attentive collector. Though increasingly difficult to find, there are still some vintage watches out there where you don’t have to spend crazy money to get a ton of style on your wrist. I’d say this striking Daymatic “Cioccolatone” is proof of that.

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT ME ABOUT THIS SUPER COOL FAVRE-LEUBA DAYMATIC

SOLD

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RIP Mark Lanegan, 1964-2022

I’ve frankly struggled to process the death of the great rock vocalist Mark Lanegan since his passing at the age of 57 this past February. When someone has essentially been your musical spirit animal for 30-odd years it’s very difficult to say goodbye, particularly as Mark’s passing was just the latest in a numerous and dispiriting series of deaths of all-time greats in the music world. It wasn’t the extreme gut punch of Chris Cornell’s painful and unexpected suicide back in 2017; or the shock of Prince’s sad and seemingly pointless OD in 2016; or the extreme melancholy of a stoic David Bowie succumbing to liver cancer that same year. Lanegan was, by his own admission, a long-time hardcore drug and alcohol abuser, as well as a chain smoker, even if he had been reportedly sober for some years now. Then, he also had an extremely nasty case of COVID that put him in the hospital and even into an induced coma for far too long a spell in 2021. (A true artist, Mark wrote two emotionally honest, raw and well-received autobiographical books about those horrible experiences of addiction and illness, Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir and Devil In A Coma.)

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Borracho

A standout track from just his second solo effort, 1994’s Whiskey For the Holy Ghost , the barn burning “Borracho” shows a young artist already nearly fully formed. 

So, hearing he had died suddenly in late winter of ’22 was not exactly a complete surprise. A total bummer, yes, but one couldn’t be surprised that his extreme lifestyle, born out of a brutally unhappy childhood in rural Washington, had caught up with him and that the bill had finally come due. It wasn’t really any more surprising than Kurt Cobain cashing his check back in 1994. Mark Lanegan was every bit the self-destructive rock poet Cobain was and at least he beat the curse of 27 by about 30 years, not to mention somehow outliving his other doomed contemporaries, Andrew Wood, Layne Staley, Scott Weiland and Cornell. Though that time still seems far too brief now that he’s passed, he put it to astonishingly good use. His longevity and prolific output of exceedingly high quality material, as well as his unflinching honesty as an artist and aversion to self-indulgence, make him one of the towering if woefully underappreciated figures in Rock history. While he was often primarily noted for his work as the Screaming Trees frontman way back in the ’90s, or compared as a solo artist to Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen in a facile, shorthand way, the long view shows many more similarities with Jim Morrison (and even Rimbaud), from the brooding, almost unfathomably deep and textured baritone that could all at once rise to a banshee’s wail, to that craving for riding to the very edge of self-destruction in search of some sort of twisted enlightenment and then — for a long while, at least — returning to tell the tale as only a debauched survivor can.

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Because of This

An 8-minute, raga-inflected mini-epic from his third solo album, 1998’s Scraps at Midnight, shows Lanegan’s virtuosic understanding of dynamics in songwriting and within his own vocal range.

Lanegan put his time on this earth and his haunting and beautiful instrument to good use. If you only know Mark Lanegan from Screaming Trees or even just the hit single “Nearly Lost You” then you are really missing out. To get first things out of the way first, though, Screaming Trees themselves were way more than that one big hit from the Singles soundtrack, no matter that Mark held little fondness for his first band. They started well before most of their grunge brethren, back in the mid-1980s, and were key pioneers of that Seattle scene even if never quite fully a part of it. Their earlier recordings are well worth seeking out and show a band rapidly evolving into a semi-psychedelic hard rock powerhouse, with 1991’s Uncle Anesthesia being a particularly tight precursor to their big breakthrough, Sweet Oblivion.

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Dollar Bill

Not “Nearly Lost You” — one of the many ‘hidden gems’ hiding in plain site on Oblivion.

Oblivion, which featured “Nearly Lost You” as its breakthrough hit, is a total ass-kicker from opening to closing track. But the toxic band dynamics and the record label’s condescending view of the Trees as “inferior” to their labelmates, Alice in Chains (perhaps the Trees were not really “Grunge” enough), squelched any momentum they should’ve had. The fantastic, technically impressive follow-up four years on, Dust, failed to build any kind of commercial momentum. Continue reading

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tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — Vintage 1970s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak JUMBO 5402ST B-Series

SOLD

Up for sale, a watch that needs no introduction — Gerald Genta’s all time design classic, the original, legendary all-steel Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Jumbo reference 5402ST. This coveted and rare Royal Oak is from the second B-series produced in the mid-1970s and is in Excellent vintage condition overall with a stunning original deep gray Petite Tapisserie dial in absolute Near Mint condition. Featuring all its original case parts as far as I can tell, this Royal Oak 5402 still has its correct second generation signed bracelet clasp, correct unsigned octagonal crown, correct original date wheel and original matching Tritium slim paddle hands. The amazing integrated bracelet has minimal stretch for its age and will fit up to a 7 1/4” wrist comfortably.

This ultimate cult Royal Oak features AP’s revolutionary JLC-derived caliber 2121 ultra-thin automatic-winding calendar movement, a technical marvel with recessed rotor that enables the brilliantly engineered case to remain so thin. This magical caliber was also used in the original Patek Phillipe Nautilus 3700 and the Vacheron Contsantin 222 among others. I had wanted to send this watch to AP for a service but their new policy is to make any 5402 “like new” cosmetically, replacing crown, hands, etc and thereby destroying the vintage originality for us true collectors. So you know going forward unmolested examples like this one are going to become harder and harder to come by. In any event, instead I just had this Royal Oak fully overhauled by my watchmaker, including the installation of a new mainspring, while allowing no other cosmetic work. 

While not a safe queen, the case of this Royal Oak still has sharp chamfers & bevels that appear to me to be unpolished, while the bezel has either softened from years of cuff wear or has been lightly polished at some point in the past (never by me). The watch shows minor wear commensurate with semi-regular use over its nearly 50 years of life, though it’s still in Excellent vintage condition. To my mind, that means you don’t have to worry about babying it and can just strap it on and go when the mood strikes, which is what I’ve done for the eight or so years that I’ve owned this beauty.

The star of the show is the magnificent original Petite Tapesserie dial, which has not gone tropical as so many have and retains its original deep metallic charcoal gray color, with notes of blue in the sun. There are a few very subtle speckles showing in places from the brass beneath under magnification, an effect more noticeable by far in these macro photos than to the naked eye. The original slim hands match the dial perfectly and the appearance is absolutely stunning, looking just about like it came out of the factory yesterday save the pleasingly warm lume patina and the slight “sparkle” effect.

On the wrist, this classic ultra-slim Royal Oak is simply magic. You’ll understand all the hype once you’ve put one on and they don’t come up for sale in this sort of condition too often. Think about making this piece of watchmaking history yours today!

SOLD

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tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — Vintage Heuer Camaro 7220NT Exotic CHOCOLATE Dial

Up for sale is this absolutely stunning vintage Heuer reference 7220NT Camaro chronograph featuring a beautiful Near Mint+ Third Execution Exotic pure Chocolate dial with stunning red Tachy track and orange chrono hands. This example is in overall Excellent original vintage condition for a 50+-year-old watch and, along with its pristine dial, also retains its original brushed sunburst finish on the top of the iconic cushion-shaped Camaro case.

 SOLD

This 7220 Camaro, which Heuer heads more knowledgeable than I have dubbed the 7220NT Third Execution Exotic, has the correct 174,xxx case serial number for this specific iteration of brown dial, which was only made for a very short time.

I have also just had its famed Valjoux 72 column wheel movement fully overhauled for the convenience of the next owner, including replacement of the mainspring, so it’s good to go with all timekeeping and chronograph functions operating as they should.

Everyone seems to rave about the Panda versions of Camaros as the ne plus ultra but having owned both, this stunning and uniformly “tropical” brown dial blows them away, IMO. In fact, the dials on these are not actually “tropical” per se, as the consensus opinion of the experts is that these were born brown… and I’d have to agree!

Personally, I call this one King Camaro and I think when you peruse the pictures in different lighting conditions you’ll see why I do. After all, you find Panda dials on Carreras and Autavias but nothing as unique as this. There is just something so appropriate to the funky Camaro case shape and the late-60s/early-70s ethos that makes a deep brown dial with a red Tachy track and orange chrono hands totally work. And I know the lucky next owner will enjoy the one-of-a-kind style of this cool brown beauty as much as I have. 

 SOLD

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Men’s Cologne — Pasha de Cartier by Cartier

Pasha de Cartier is a very interesting, reasonably daring but, at its core, classic and conservative men’s fragrance. Created in 1992 by famed nose Jacques Cavallier, auteur of such varied artistic and commercial successes as Bvlgari’s Aqva Pour Homme, L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme and a yin-yang duo for Yves Saint Laurent, the archetypal male oriental, Opium Pour Homme, and the throwback wet-shaver fougère, Rive Gauche Pour Homme (among many others), Pasha is variously listed as a Woody or Fresh Aromatic but is more of a typical fougère top grafted onto a somewhat Oriental-style heart and base. That twist is where the interest lies for this yellow juice in the ornate, ribbed, bullet-shaped flaçon. As others more knowledgeable than I have noted, Pasha seems like a kind of bridge between old school barbershop scents and the last gasp of pre-aquatic, spicy masculine semi-but-not-really-powerhouses like the boozy Ungaro pour L’Homme III and the spice-rack-in-a-bottle that is Halston’s Catalyst. Pasha is frequently compared to YSL’s much admired Jazz from 1988 and I can see that — they both share a very classic citric/lavender opening zipped up by spices. But Pasha is altogether sharper, with Cavallier favoring a more focused and pared down offering of mint and mandarin orange to mate to the bracing lavender, as opposed to Jazz’s very busy mix of bergamot, artemisia and basil plus several more culinary spices like coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. The spices in Pasha are also not so well behaved and gentile as they are in Jazz, with caraway seed paired with anise giving a hint of licorice skank playing just below the surface of the brighter top notes for a classic dirty-clean trick of the nose. I also get just a hint of the notorious Kouros in the far dry down for what that’s worth, which may be due to a still-present oakmoss note laying down the bass for those aforementioned high notes. But Pasha is definitely more well behaved and user friendly than the famously difficult and iconoclastic Kouros, so no need to steel yourself for decidedly mixed reactions to that extent when you apply the Cartier.

I also hear Pasha described as sweet an awful lot but I don’t really get that in any honey or fruity sense of the word. In fact, there is a bit of austere dryness to the heart of aromatic rosewood and coriander that seems to suck out any of the juiciness of that initial burst of mandarin orange rather rapidly, leaving just the more bitter and oily peel. By the time this fine eau de toilette evolves into its base of labdanum and a creamy but not cloying sandalwood, buttressed by rather faint hints of patchouli and that fizzy and genuine-smelling oakmoss, you’ve experienced the sort of pleasant olfactory journey of something akin to a good amaro, with pronounced natural citrus fruit and sharp mint melded to slightly funky herbal-spice-woody accords. Pasha also gets compared frequently to Van Cleef & Arpel’s formerly cheap but now discontinued and coveted classic, 1989’s very forest green Tsar, perhaps due to both scents’ perceived “soapiness”. But that seems like more than a stretch to me, as there are no evergreen notes in Pasha whatsoever and it is far more refined and less in-your-face than the rather prickly, pine-juniper/oakmoss bomb that is Tsar. I’d say a more apt analog would be Dunhill’s Edition, which mines a similar hybrid aromatic fougére vein to Pasha in the way they meld traditional bright lavender-citric tops with heavy doses of spiciness, nutmeg and clove in Edition’s case, caraway, anise & coriander in Pasha’s. So, if you like the style of Edition you’ll probably also enjoy Pasha.

Pasha is strong but it’s not loud, screechy or overbearing by any means a la today’s Sauvage EDT, which could actually be considered a descendent if you squint real hard. Somewhat laughably, the famed Leffingwell/H&R Geneology chart of masculine perfumes puts Pasha in the “Fresh Fougére” category in essentially the same column as the key exemplar of that style, Drakkar Noir. Maybe in 1992 Pasha could register as “fresh” compared to, say, bruising chypres like Anteaus, Yatagan and the original, ominous Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme. But nobody in 2022 is going to think you smell particularly fresh per se when you’re sporting Pasha. Well-groomed certainly, but Pasha completely eschews any airy aldehydes, florals or really any green, forest notes whatsoever, not even coumarin, which is how you know you’re dealing with an unusual take on a fougère. In fact, it’s a little challenging to contemporary tastes upon the first few wearings, the well blended but diverse notes a bit difficult to get a handle on, not to mention its rather unsmiling and all-business manner. But the quality of the ingredients, the refined nature of its composition and its overall hearkening back to classic masculine tropes in perfumery with a creative twist should win over anyone not solely addicted to ambroxan or vanilla-laden modern “freshies” or ” blue” scents.

There’s none of that contemporary style in Pasha and it definitely skews more old school formal regarding the situations where one might wear it, be that at the office or for a fancier night out at a fine restaurant. But I also feel it works particularly well in cool weather and in outdoor situations due to the bracing nature of its overall citric spiciness and warm, creamy woodiness, both of which frankly make it unsuitable for warm weather. As mentioned above and as with so many iconic men’s fragrances, one definitely can get a “soapy” vibe off of Pasha, which perhaps is where the misguided comparisons to Tsar come into play. But for me, Pasha is the sort of luxury soap found in a fine English hotel; Tsar is a pine resin soap at a lumberjack’s camp. Both have their merits but they’re really nothing alike. Wear time is quite impressive on my skin at a solid eight-plus hours with, like Edition, notable development throughout. Projection is moderate but its subtle sillage is certainly consistently noticeable from about two feet away at its peak and you will get wafts of this from beneath your shirt until the bitter end. At the price point, about $85 on the secondary market for the larger 3.3-ounce bottle, Cartier’s Pasha is not cheap but you get what you pay for quality-wise and it’s pretty much a no brainer for the fan of traditional men’s fougères with just a bit more going on than simply lavender-bergemot-coumarin-oakmoss. While I haven’t tried any of the myriad flankers, I don’t think you can go wrong sampling the original. Pasha is a bit of an acquired taste in today’s world but one that many mature and secure guys will have no problem getting into, even if it should take a little time to do so. The potential rewards from Pasha are essentially too good to pass up giving it a few cool weather wearings to see if you can connect with it.

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tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — Vintage Mido Multifort “Extra-Flat” Gloss BLACK Radial Dial

SOLD

Newly on offer — and now newly REDUCED — is this handsome and uncommon late-1940s/early-1950s Mido Multifort “Extra-Flat” manual winder with wonderful original gloss black dial in classically sized 34mm all-steel FB/Taubert et Fils case.

This lovely midcentury Mido is powered by their high quality caliber 1200A. This cool Multifort “Extra-Flat” also features an all-stainless steel screwed case manufactured by the famed case makers, FB/Taubert et Fils, which also made cases during this era for Patek Phillipe, Vacheron and Movado.

But the main attraction is the glossy black sub-seconds dial with “copper gilt” print and original radium radially positioned Arabic numerals showing lovely patina. Overall, this great little Mido is in Very Good unpolished vintage condition with a black dial that really pops on the wrist and a wearable size that a lot of vintage Midos don’t possess (it’s the same diameter as a Rolex Date for comparison).

A really nice bit of genuine vintage style & quality for not a lot of money in today’s market. Jump on it now before its gone!

 SOLD

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tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — Vintage 1961 Omega Speedmaster ref. 2998-3 cal. 321

The time has come to let go of a very special part of my collection, as this beauty just doesn’t get the wrist time it so richly deserves anymore.  SOLD

Up for sale is this all-time classic early 1960s ref. 2998-3 Omega pre-professional Speedmaster powered by the famed Lemania-based manual wind caliber 321 chronograph movement. This is the model refereed to as the First Omega in Space, as a 2998 was on the wrist of Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra during his Sigma 7 flight in 1962, a few years prior to the Speedmaster being officially approved by NASA for all manned space missions to follow. According to the official Omega Extract from the Archives, which obviously will be passed along to the new owner, this Speedy left the factory in 1961 and was delivered to Switzerland at that time. 

This is an exceptional example of the classic and historically important Speedmaster reference 2998, with a well worn but unpolished case and a gorgeous original Radium stepped dial in absolutely Near Mint condition. The original luminous has developed a pleasing dark caramel patina, as has the matching lume of the original Alpha handset. This 2998-3 also features the correct & desirable dagger subdial hands, as well as the straight, non-luminous chrono sweep seconds. Another highlight is the original DON Tachy bezel, which shows wear commensurate to the rest of the watch with some ghosting and wonderful wabi-sabi. 

Overall, the watch is in Very Good vintage condition and it comes on a slightly later (1963) 7912 flat-link bracelet with very hard to come by number “6” end links correct for the 19mm lug width of this straight, no-crown guards case. (If for some reason you don’t want the bracelet, I’m sure we can work out an appropriate discount for the head onIy.) I have also just had the movement preemptively overhauled for the enjoyment of the next owner, so it is ready to wear with all timekeeping and chronograph functions operating well.

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Men’s Cologne — Explorer by Montblanc

First off, let’s discuss the elephant in the room when it comes to Montblanc’s Explorer, namely that it is widely considered one of the best “clones” of Creed’s genre-defining blockbuster, Aventus. That’s certainly part of the reason I bought it blind: because I wanted something more economical than Aventus. I enjoy that high-end fragrance but seeing as Aventus retails for somewhere north of four hundred bucks for 100 ml and Explorer can be had for around $100 (and often less than that via discounters like Fragrancenet.com) it seemed like a no brainer to give the Montblanc a tumble. But now having tried them both, applying the Aventus clone label to Explorer seems a bit damning with faint praise in a snobby kind of way. Yes, there are certainly similarities between Explorer (created 2019) and Aventus (2010). But there are enough differences for me to say that Explorer is not so much of a clone per se but rather a designer offering that utilizes the same modern and somewhat minimalist style that has essentially redefined masculine perfumery the way the inexpensive Davidoff Cool Water and the pricey Creed Green Irish Tweed did for the “aromatic aquatic”/”fresh fougere” in the late 1980s (although those two really do smell virtually identical).

From the Montblanc Explorer ad campaign

Instead of the rather heady and photorealistic sweet pineapple top notes of Creed’s Aventus, Explorer opens with a more astringent but still slightly sweet bergamot note which is much more fleeting than the lush tropical fruit of the Creed. It is paired with that ubiquitous pink peppercorn note now found in virtually all flagship masculines like Bleu de Chanel and Dunhill’s Icon, putting Explorer firmly in the same easy to reach for, easy to wear category as those two modern classics. They say there’s clary sage at the top, as well, but I don’t really get a lot of that and Explorer will never be mistaken for classic sage-heavy ballbusters like Antaeus and Maxim’s Pour Homme. Rather, Explorer is always a very polite and office friendly offering. Some have even claimed that it’s a more versatile cologne than Aventus, since it lacks the smoky birch tar/incense note that certain batches of that endlessly fetishized juice seem to emphasize more than others (trust me, you don’t want or need to go down that rabbit hole of Aventus batch micro-analysis — that’s its own weirdly obsessive demimonde). Instead Montblanc and the trio of perfumers who apparently worked by committee to develop this Eau de Parfum opt for a very pleasing vetiver in the heart to pair with the rather seductively salty ambroxan/Ambrofix/ambergris note that also makes Aventus such a joy to wear and such a consistent compliment getter. In some ways, I actually prefer the vetiver-ambergris pas de deux in Explorer, as it comes across like a real exotic beach experience with both the smell of the ocean and the fizz of Haitian vetiver — the coming together of the sea and the land — complimenting each other marvelously. So kudos to the creative team at Montblanc for pairing these two classic notes and blending them so well.

Where Explorer is decidedly inferior to Aventus is in terms of performance. While it gets knocked a lot for smelling “synthetic,” this is a facile criticism to make because Explorer proudly touts the use of artificial scent molecules like Ambrofix and Akigalwood. In fact, Explorer smells just as “natural” as the Creed icon and is never screechy or loud in the vein of another ambroxan-laden poster boy, Dior’s polarizing Sauvage. But frankly Explorer could use a bit more of Sauvage’s swagger because, while it is altogether classier and easier to wear, this “eau de parfum” concentration struggles to perform like even a decent eau de toilette. It could be the way it wears on my skin or perhaps I become anosmic to its scent molecules but I get only about four hours of noticeable wear time and the latter half of that is pretty much entirely as a skin scent. The promised patchouli-Akigalwood base sadly never really materializes, at least from the brand new bottle I have, making this purported “woody aromatic” actually fit the mode of an aquatic aromatic instead with a slightly soapy a very faint finish. I don’t think it is peculiar to me, though, as I can’t really smell it in on my clothes the following day when my nose has been refreshed, a test nearly all colognes that I’ve owned usually pass with flying colors.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Explorer. I think it’s not so clone-like that if you already have Aventus you would never need or want the Montblanc, especially if you’re particularly fond of this modern style of men’s scent but don’t feel like burning through the high end Creed quite so rapidly. But Aventus thrashes Explorer in terms of longevity and sillage, as do such other modern pillars of perfumery like the aforementioned Bleu de Chanel and Terre d’ Hermès. And while the price is easy enough to afford a backup bottle since you’re going to need to reapply a couple times of day if you want it to stick around, that’s still disappointing. For something that should be an ideal work or casual scent, good in all weather except the very coldest and a definite compliment getter, the poor performance really lets this juice down in the end. I keep waiting for the aeration of the recently acquired bottle — which is a really beautiful flaçon, by the way — to bring a little more punch and power to Explorer, much as time seems to benefit Aventus’s complexity and performance. But I have my doubts. Maybe you’ll have better luck, though, and on just pure wearability and enjoyment of the overall fragrance I still have to highly recommend Explorer to any guy out there looking for a can’t miss crowd pleaser at a fair price. The brief top and heart is so pleasing and frankly addictive you’ll probably forgive Explorer’s rather anticlimactic disappearing act.

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Men’s Cologne — Invasion Barbare by MDCI Parfums

I don’t often write outright negative reviews — what’s the point in that there is usually something to enjoy in most offerings out there so why take time to dwell on the negative? But for Invasion Barbare, I’ll make an exception. Because anything both this hyped and this expensive should be exceptionally good and it just isn’t to my nose. I’m not even going to go with the damning with faint praise “it’s solid but nothing special.” I’m saying that I do not like the way Invasion Barbare smells at all. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this reaction places me in the extreme minority of opinions about this highly regarded niche fragrance from the very lux MDCI Parfums. Perhaps swayed by the retail price of $250 per 75ml via Lucky Scent ($375 if you spring for the over-the-top Roman bust flaçon) or grand guru of perfume reviewers Luca Turin’s 5-star rave, people can’t seem to help gushing about this 2006-created “oriental fougère.” But I really don’t like it. For all the talk about the incredible blending of ultra-natural ingredients, IB smells highly synthetic to my nose, as well as unbalanced and flabbily “spicy” until the reasonably pleasant woody dry down. There is a notable lack of greenness in the composition with a lavender that is barely there, subsumed by violet, ginger, cardamom and vanilla notes that provide an almost oppressive warmth and sweetness. I suppose this is what makes Invasion Barbare skew “oriental” but simply put this is not how I like my fougères.

Invasion Barbare starts out with a very heavy violet accord — a note I don’t dislike at all in a many classic men’s scents from Grey Flannel to Morabito’s Or Black — but here it is somewhat flaccid/withered and paired pretty much instantly with ginger, cardamom and a very persistent vanilla, which I admit is a note I usually don’t love and I certainly don’t love it in this. If this parfum-strength juice did actually have more of that promised lavender — or more kick and brightness from the very fleeting grapefruit/bergamot top notes — it might rescue it from the claustrophobic feel I get when wearing it. But the “sharpness,” such as it is, comes from a kind of cedar note buzzing in the background through the dry down, which is pleasant enough on its own, paired with a very realistic but incongruous thyme that just adds to the overall sense of a construction out of balance. It’s also not helped by an utterly generic musk in the base that, paired with the persistent vanilla, really clings to the skin for hours on end for a kind of clean laundry meets woodsy-spiciness plus powder effect. How anyone could perceive these accords as “ultra-natural” and “of the highest quality” is beyond me. Frankly, they smell cheap and artificial and that’s with trying it in winter, undoubtably showing this fragrance in its best light. In warm weather I think it could well be unwearable.

If you want something in this vein but one hundred times better and more distinctive (again, my opinion only) search out an original bottle of vintage Gucci Pour Homme. Yes, the cedar, patchouli and general pencil shavings feel that it shares with Invasion Barbare are dialed up way higher in the lamentably discontinued Gucci PH, perhaps due to a greater concentration of Iso E Super (an ingredient I would bet is also in IB in some quantity). But that is a good thing as it doesn’t allow the ginger that they also share to become so stiflingly prominent and more patchouli would, in fact, have really helped Invasion Barbare to counterbalance its cloying vanilla/musk base notes. At least Guccci Pour Homme has a real masculine personality and doesn’t come across like it was designed by committee out of the most clichéd and synthetic aroma chemicals available after being planned on a white board in some conference room, as well as containing no unisex vanilla. Sure, Gucci Pour Homme may also be nearly as expensive on the secondary market as a brand new bottle of IB but I will take the vintage, out-of-print designer frag over this over-hyped niche offering any day of the week. For a more economical analog you could go with the original Burberry for Men, although in its current formulation it is undoubtedly less refined, more minty and less bold than either the Gucci or the IB, but does share a lot of the same general vibe and can be had for very little money.

So there it is — I don’t like Invasion Barbare. A lot of people do, however, and will praise it to the skies as one of the best fougères in the modern firmament. For me it is neither “fresh” enough or “fougère” (i.e., green) enough to be a pleasant wearing experience, much less deserving of a full bottle purchase at that extremely high price point. Worst of all, it lacks cojones and is altogether generic smelling. Your mileage may vary, of course, so I suggest sampling before you buy, as you probably should with any cologne, especially an expensive one like this. You may well like it a lot, as most reviewers seem to, and find it one of the best, most masculine, most gentlemanly scents out there. For me, it served as a fine motivation to have a vigorous workout so I could justify a second shower on the day to wash it off. So I suppose it wasn’t a total loss after all.

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Men’s Cologne — Ungaro pour L’Homme I by Emanuel Ungaro

Ungaro pour L’Homme I was the first of three Emanuel Ungaro masculine fragrances released in successive years between 1991 and 1993. Of the three, only the unapologetically macho and boozy Ungaro III is still in production, which is a pity as I and II have plenty to offer the omnivorous frag-head. That said, it’s not hard to see why the first two Ungaro pour L’Hommes were discontinued rather abruptly shortly after Salvatore Ferragamo acquired the brand from Chanel. This first one is described as an Oriental Fougere, a term that seems somewhat like an oxymoron but I suppose because there is a bit of lavender, bergamot and lemon in the composition that is the justification for this hybrid categorization and it is placed close to the infamous Zino from Davidoff on the definitive H&R Genealogy of Masculine Fragrances chart, which makes sense both conceptually and in terms of their similar styles. Like Zino, Ungaro I is primarily an Oriental scent, though it is thankfully much less musty/heavy than Zino. What you get with Ungaro is a heady rose/pathcouli/oakmoss blend with a hard to pin down musk in a base that mainly features sandalwood with hints of amber, tonka and honey. Perhaps because the bottle I have is likely from the early-to-mid-’90s (though not the first batch since it has the Roman numeral on it to distinguish it from it’s successors) I don’t really get a lot of the bright citrus top notes originally listed, though there is definitely some cool lavender up front. Mainly this is one of the most rose-forward men’s fragrances I’ve ever come across, much more so than another ostensible rose powerhouse, Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme. The Ungaro is altogether brighter than the gloomy VC&A Pour Homme with an almost photo-realistic rose accord as opposed to Van Cleef’s impression, which is submerged in massive amounts of oakmoss, spices, woody notes and leather. Sure, the oakmoss is quite prominent in Ungaro I, and since this is a vintage potion I assume it’s the real stuff, but here it seems to be dancing a pas de deux with the rose and not overwhelming it. There is a touch of sage, artemisia and pine giving this juice a forested if not really a green feel and I also get some sort of cedar-like woodiness that doesn’t seem to be in the notes. But these heart notes are fairly fleeting and quickly become submissive to a rather impressive and refined patchouli that emerges to the fore in the dry down alongside a pleasantly creamy but subtle sandalwood and just enough amber and honey to keep Ungaro I from getting overly somber.

Now, as you can probably tell from that description, the original Ungaro pour L’Homme can be a tricky scent for the uninitiated and there is something definitely throwback-gentlemanly about it that will make a younger guy raised on aquatics and sport scents run screaming for the hills at first sniff. This is a man’s eau de toilette and specifically a rather well dressed and even formal man. I wore this on New Year’s Eve and I think those sorts of special occasions are where it shines most brightly. You’d be hard pressed to pull off Ungaro I in jeans and a T-shirt or a casual meet-up for brunch with friends. This is essentially a nocturnal scent and not suitable for the office unless you are the boss and want to make a power statement to strike fear into the hearts of the millennials who work for you. It’s not even doable for your average date night unless you happen to be going to a fancy French restaurant that still has a dress code and a wine list like an encyclopedia. Undoubtedly one of the main reasons for its short time in production was that this first Ungaro pour L’Homme was asking a question that was becoming increasingly irrelevant in the ’90s when it debuted and certainly even less so as we progressed into the 2000s and beyond. That would be: What should the well-dressed man wear during some of life’s more formal occasions? There just aren’t enough of these sorts of black tie events in most people’s lives to justify something as over-the-top conservative slash dandified as Ungaro I. I enjoy wearing it but this is no one’s idea of a signature scent — it’s simply not versatile enough for that — and I probably reach for it a mere handful of times in any given year. I’m fairly sure my 3.5 oz bottle will last longer than I will. In fact, it almost feels more 1890s than 1990s and you could easily see Sean Connery’s suave, cigar smoking, ruffle-shirted rogue in The Great Train Robbery wearing this rather majestically anachronistic masculine concoction.

Ungaro pour L’Homme I does smell very, very good and if you have acquired the taste for a dominant rose note in your colognes it’s definitely worth sampling. The problem being, however, that it is discontinued as mentioned and the prices on the secondary market are quite high, like well into the $200s for full size bottles. You can find somewhat pricey decanted mini-samples on eBay from time to time, so that might be the best route to try before you really buy and spend niche money on what was always just a very good quality designer frag. Alternatively, I don’t see the comparison anywhere else but to my nose Ungaro I smells reasonably similar to Guerlain’s Heritage, at least to the latter’s current EDT formulation. For me the two share a similar bright rose note with fizzy oakmoss/patchouli/sandalwood vibes, though there isn’t any of the famed “Guerlainade” vanillin base of Heritage in the Ungaro. Heritage is also somehow more versatile even if still an acquired taste for most modern men and lends itself to casual as well as formal situations once you’ve gotten into a groove with it. But the original Ungaro pour L’Homme is simply too jarringly out of time for that kind of everyday wear. While I don’t find it as gloomy or overly dark as many people seem to and I think comparisons with animalic ball breakers like Salvador Dali Pour Homme and Balenciaga Pour Homme are misguided — de la Renta’s brooding Pour Loui this is definitely not — this eau de toilette performs more like a parfum, projecting quite strongly for the first four hours or so and then settling down to a still potent moderate phase where the patchouli really kicks in until dying down to a pleasant skin scent at around the 8-9 hour mark. I’d say it’s for a relatively mature man who is secure in his own skin, as this one will perplex most men and women under 35, if not 45. It’s definitely masculine and a borderline powerhouse but has a classiness that pulls it back from the brink of loud and uncomfortable. Given the right occasion, Ungaro pour L’Homme I is a rather stunning addition to one’s gentlemanly presentation. It’s just that finding such an occasion and an appreciative audience for this fascinating and rare out-of-print Oriental Fougere can be more of a challenge than actually finding a bottle.

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RIP Sir Sean Connery, 1930-2020

As if 2020 wasn’t already a rotten enough year, legendary Scottish actor and screen icon Sean Connery passed away on October 31 at the ripe old age of 90. The New York Times obituary is here.

The iconic incarnation of Bond…James Bond but also so much more.

While it’s only natural that the majority of tributes for this great man focused on his career and character-defining creation of James Bond on the big screen — a role that he will forever be linked with through his singular excellence even though he had not played the part in 37 years — Connery was at best ambivalent about this seminal pop culture cinematic contribution. He worked hard both during and after his time as 007 to establish a screen persona distinct from the debonair and dangerous secret agent. While Bond was undoubtedly his ticket to the big time, as early as 1964 Connery was looking to expand his horizons as an actor with his intriguingly complex role as Mark Rutland in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964) breaking down a neurotic and sexy Tippi Hedren. Even as his career-defining work as Bond turned him into a 1960s pop culture icon on a level with the Beatles, Connery bristled at the confining nature and potential career cul de sac of such a monolithic character. Indeed, he was right to worry that his entire career would be defined by Bond and he would never be able to be perceived or accepted by the public in any other manner. Famously unhappy during location filming in Japan for 1967’s You Only Live Twice and the suffocating and hysterical adulation of his fans and paparazzi there, Connery shockingly renounced the role and passed on making the next film in the series, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While 1969’s OHMSS is actually one of the greatest Bond movies in terms of plot, featuring complexities of character that wouldn’t be plumbed again until Timothy Dalton’s brief, unsuccessful tenure in the late ’80s and then the rampaging success of Daniel Craig’s current edgy and penetrating portrayal, and one-off Bond George Lazenby did a perfectly capable job, one still wonders what kind of special performance Connery might have given in that final scene mourning the death of his new bride Tracy (the lovely, late Diana Rigg), a victim of Blofeld’s vengeful drive-by shooting.

Alongside Michael Caine getting carried away with their success in John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King

After Lazenby self-destructed, Saltzman & Broccoli lured Connery back into the EON Bond fold by means of the then-unheard of amount of $1.25 million dollars for the somewhat tacky but enjoyable Vegas romp, Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Pocketing his money like any good Scotsman, Connery bid adieu to Bond and the requisite toupee for the remainder of the 1970s, embarking on a career no longer entirely beholden to the super spy. With his receding hairline a near declaration of liberation, Connery built on the grittier realism of Bond-concurrent performances in The Molly Maguires (1970) and especially Sidney Lumet’s excellent The Anderson Tapes (1971), to craft an equally charismatic but much more jaded and cynical character on screen, particularly the latter’s swaggering, unrepentant thief at large in 1970s New York City. Sure, Connery was still bigger than life, as witness his game participation in the bonkers sci-fi of Zardoz (1974) running around in only a red loincloth for most of the picture; the fantastic Kipling-derived adventure of John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (1975), finding the perfect partner for fortune hunting in Michael Caine but getting fatally carried away as a pretend god; and a very Scottish Berber bedeviling Theodore Roosevelt from afar in The Wind and the Lion (1975). But his finely crafted performances, natural as ever, now revealed men with serious flaws and character defects that made them all the more interesting, most notably delusions of grandeur and a true and sometimes self destructive soft spot for the ladies (unlike Bond’s love ’em and leave ’em ethos).

With the beautiful Audrey Hepburn as aging legends in Richard Lester’s poignant Robin and Marian

Connery embraced his middle age with Robin and Marian (1976), Richard Lester’s touching and elegiac reimagining of a post-Crusades Robin Hood returning to find Maid Marian, played by the wonderful Audrey Hepburn, a devoted nun and Nottingham unacceptably under the thumb of his old foe, the Sheriff, played by the always compelling Robert Shaw. Shaw was that rare match in equalling Connery’s natural machismo and toughness, as he had been back in the From Russia With Love days when he was a homicidal defector trained by the Russians to kill Bond. Sir Sean was back at his lighter, mischievous best in Michael Crichton’s excellent 19th Century heist extravaganza, The Great Train Robbery (1979), wonderfully paired with the always unique and equally roguish Donald Sutherland as two particularly brilliant and stylish thieves. After notable cameos in the star studded but bloated A Bridge Too Far (1977), one of several possible suspects for Poirot to consider in Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and the very trippy and enjoyable 1981 Terry Gilliam opus, Time Bandits, where he was perfectly cast as a fatherly Agamemnon, Connery gave another terrific lead performance in the criminally underrated space “western” Outland (1981), laying down the law against long odds Gary Cooper-style, only with a mining station orbiting  Jupiter as the scene of the showdown instead of a dusty frontier town. In 1983 he gave in to the siren song of a return to Bond in the “unauthorized’, non-EON Never Say Never Again, a remake of Thunderball, the rights of which were not controlled by the Fleming estate. While the film and Connery’s return as an aging but still peerless Bond have their undeniable pleasures, not least of the them very worthy opponents in Klaus Maria Brandauer’s flamboyant Largo, a lethal, leather-clad Barbara Carrera as femme fatale Fatima Blush and a delectable Kim Basinger as Domino, it was a strange lateral and some might say spiteful move by Connery. By making a Bond movie in direct competition with not only his old mates Broccoli & Saltzman but also then-current Bond, Roger Moore, it may have satisfied audiences for a double dose of 007 but it did nothing for his reputation as a somewhat irascible star prone to view producers as rip-off artists — certainly with some justification — and to cling to long-held resentments even against those who had helped launch his amazing career.

As a seasoned Irish cop instructing Kevin Costner’s green Eliot Ness on The Chicago Way in The Untouchables

Never Say Never Again was the last time Connery would revisit Bond and not only was he truly done with the legendary character but he embarked on an arguably greater chapter in his career, embracing his age to evolve into a kind of grand old man of Hollywood complete with gravitas and prestige to deliver to any larger than life role. After a fun, swashbucking turn in the silly but enjoyable fantasy of Highlander (1984) — as a Spanish swordsman, no less — Connery found the greatest critical success of his already highly accomplished career as the veteran Irish cop Jim Malone, teaching Kevin Costner’s green Eliot Ness “The Chicago Way” in order to hunt down Al Capone in Brian De Palma’s mega-hit The Untouchables (1987). The role, which the great film critic David Thomson noted culminates with his character “dying a samurai death,” won Connery that year’s supporting actor Oscar, his first and only Academy Award. It also opened up the floodgates of terrific parts to close out the ’80s and provided serious momentum well into the ’90s. He was Indiana Jones’s amusingly cantankerous dad in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), a skillful Soviet submarine commander matching wits with Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan in the smash hit The Hunt for Red October (1990) and a British publisher involved in Cold War intrigue and wooing Michelle Pfeiffer in the smart and intricate film version of Le Carré’s The Russia House (1990). As if that wasn’t enough of a third act, Connery also starred in and was executive producer on 1993’s Rising Sun, schooling Wesley Snipes in the ways of the Yakuza; likewise star and executive producer of the Simpson/Bruckheimer/Michael Bay summer blockbuster extravaganza The Rock (1996), as a long-imprisoned British commando freed to team up with Nicholas Cage to stop a group of rogue soldiers from turning Alcatraz into ground zero for a biological terror attack; and showing a lithe, cat-suited Catherine Zeta-Jones the ropes as a suave veteran thief planning a very high concept — and very high! — skyscraper robbery in Entrapment (1999). Even his last real film role, 2003’s very promising but troubled The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, offered a treat for Connery fans with his resonant portrayal of legendary adventurer Alan Quartermaine in twilight.

Connery’s cunning Soviet sub commander matches wits with Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October

So Sir Sean Connery’s passing offers us an opportunity not only to mourn the man who defined James Bond for decades of enchanted fans but also an actor of great daring and bravery who was not content to be solely pigeon-holed by Bond and actively worked to slip the potential trap of such a career-making role. That he succeeded so brilliantly is all the more proof that he was a film actor and a true movie star of the highest order, one of the last of that rare breed who was able to dominate cinema for a multi-decade span by the strength of a very fixed but adaptable screen persona. To revisit the Connery Bond films is always a pleasure and a delight of almost childlike enjoyment; to revisit his other great roles is to see the craft and skill of the mature actor whose joy in more complex parts was always evident on screen and therefore contagious to the audience, a multi-generational audience that never seemed to get enough of the great Scotsman. Godspeed, Sir Sean, and thank you for a lifetime of special performances. While we won’t see your like again we will always have your wonderful films and those many magnificent moments on screen to remember you by.

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Rolex Collector’s Notebook: The mystery of the “Neat Fonts” matte meters-first 5512 Submariner dial

Grateful thanks for this article go to timlua and HQ Milton for kindly contributing their dials and data. Thank you, gentlemen! I’m also especially indebted to the great collector & Man’s Fine Life contributor Beaumont Miller II, not only for sharing his watch photos but also for his invaluable insights about the “Neat Fonts” dial, its place in matte dial chronology and particularly his excellent observations on its similarity to the mid-1960s gilt Sub dials. My heartfelt appreciation for sharing your expertise, my friend — couldn’t have done this without you!

One of the things that makes collecting vintage watches so interesting, and Vintage Rolex in particular, is trying to decode the subtle changes that took place in ostensibly “identical” watches those many years ago. We see evolutions in movements, in cases but most intriguingly we see variations in dial layouts and typography. And just when you think you’ve figured out a dial sequence and its logical chronology, something else out of the ordinary comes along and makes you look at things with fresh eyes.

timlua's 5512 from the VRF Dial Archive -- the watch that put me on the hunt

timlua’s 5512 from the VRF Dial Archive — the watch that put me on the hunt.

Such is the case with what I call the “Neat Fonts” matte meters-first 5512 dial. I first saw this interesting dial several years ago, when a Vintage Rolex Forum member named timlua submitted his mid-1960s 5512 for the Dial Archive. I knew I had to have one… and it took me 8 more years to hunt one down. As you can clearly see and what struck me right away, the printing on this dial is not at all like what we normally see on the first generation of matte meters-first 551x dials.

A standard matte meters-frist dial -- courtesy HQ Milton

A standard matte meters-first dial — courtesy HQ Milton

Those first gen matte dials for the Submariner have always had a particularly “first draft” quality to my eye, with rather scraggly fonts and slightly uneven printing. And it makes sense that Singer, undertaking their first try at this new matte-style of dial manufacture and departing their tried and true gilt/gloss method of dial printing, might have had some teething issues with their printing techniques. But not so the “Neat Fonts” 5512 dial. You can already see the clean typography that would become a hallmark of the later 1960s and early 1970s Singer dials: nicely proportioned, flat-ish bottom Coronet with a small “mouth”; SUBMARINER text very clean with a distinctive snake-like “S”; and the depth rating pretty level with minimal jump to the numbers and open 6s.

5512MetersFirst-dial-edit

In fact, the “Neat Fonts” dial does not resemble the Mark I meters-first Sub dials at all. It actually resembles the pre-Bart gilt/gloss dials of the middle 1960s with their high standards of printing and execution. So much so that aside from the application of the SWISS – T<25 you might even think that Singer used the same dial dye for the process. Perhaps they did after figuring out how to utilize that gilt-era dye/tampon, which featured a reverse printing method, and apply it to the paint-on-top method of the matte dials. But more likely they returned to it as a template for the new matte-style dye and that is why they are so similar if not quite identical.

5513gilt-coronet 5512MetersFirst-coronet

5513gilt-depth 5512MetersFirst-depth

It also shares some characteristics with the Mark III Red Submariner dial, particularly the fonts for the depth rating, the SCOC text and the odd little feature of the dash in the “SWISS – T<25” not quite being centered over the “30” tick.

Photo courtesy Beaumont Miller II

Photo courtesy of Beaumont Miller II

5512MetersFirst-depth_SCOC

Photo derived from Vintage Rolex Forum's Classic "Everything Red Sub" by Mark Lerman

Photo derived from Vintage Rolex Forum’s Classic “Everything Red Sub” by Mark Lerman

(If you visit the great site DoubleRedSeaDweller.com you can also see that the SCOC text on the Neat Fonts and Mark III Red Sub is highly similar in format/style to the Mark I 1665 Double Red Sea-Dweller, indicating another connection there.)

Making this iteration even more interesting is that unlike just about every no-date Sub Rolex ever made, the “Neat Fonts” dial is always to the best of my knowledge found only in 5512s and never 5513s. Continue reading

2023 F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi — Qualifying results

Verstappen takes pole for final race in Abu Dhabi, earns 12th of season; Leclerc fights back for P2; Piastri best McLaren in P3 as Norris slides down to P5

Red Bull’s peerless Max Verstappen took the final pole of the season with aplomb during the last Saturday Qualifying of 2023 for tomorrow’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit. With nothing left to prove in his historically dominant World Championship campaign this year, Verstappen nevertheless outpaced the rest of the field to make it 12 total poles out of twenty-two race weekends. The flying Dutchman will go for his record-extending nineteenth victory of the season in Sunday evening’s Grand Prix under the futuristic light show of Yas Marina and it would be a brave man indeed who would bet against him.

The real battles in tomorrow’s race should be behind the now three-time champion, as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc pulled a scorching lap out of the bag at the death of Q3 to set the second fastest time and earn the right to start alongside Verstappen on the front row. That makes it five front row starts in a row for the Monegasque, including three poles, as Leclerc looks not only to end his year on a high note with another podium but also help pull the Scuderia ahead of mighty Mercedes for P2 in the all-important Constructors’ standings. But both Ferrari and Mercedes had only one car progress into the final Quali session, as George Russell outpaced teammate Lewis Hamilton to the tune of P4 to P11, while the second Prancing Horse of Carlos Sainz had a disastrous effort that saw him bounced out in Q1 and starting tomorrow down in P16. Sainz had a heavy shunt in Free Practice 2 on Friday so perhaps his car is still ailing after the rebuild but certainly the Spaniard is also lacking for pace and confidence at this sneakily tricky track. Continue reading

2023 F1 Grand Prix of Las Vegas — Results & aftermath

Verstappen aces out Leclerc for win in action packed Las Vegas GP; Leclerc salvages P2 with last lap pass on Perez

Red Bull’s peerless Max verstappen continued his historic season by taking the win in the return of the Las Vegas Grand Prix after an absence of 41 years. But it was hardly smooth sailing for the already-crowned World Champion on the brand new and quite high speed Las Vegas Street Circuit. While Verstappen made his typically superior getaway to pass the pole-sitting Ferrari of Charles Leclerc at the start of the race steaming into Turn 1, he was adjudged a tad too forceful in pushing Leclerc’s Prancing Horse off the track and was eventually handed a 5-second time penalty. Meanwhile behind the skirmish at the front, a number off cars made minor contact as they got away and compressed under braking and the debris left behind prompted a quick Virtual Safety Car for cleanup. Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso both ducked into the pits under that VSC for new front wings as a result of all that contact, which started when Alonso spun out on the slick surface. The race resumed on Lap 3 but was quickly halted again when something failed on the McLaren of Lando Norris and he went flying into the barriers in the runoff area at Turn 11. It was a heavy hit that required a full Safety Car for repairs and retrieval. Norris was eventually taken to hospital for observation but thanks fully released not long after.

The race resumed again at the end of Lap 6, with Verstappen managing the restart with aplomb but being told about the stewards’ judgement against him. With his initial set of Medium Pirellis already going off, however, Leclerc was actually able to re-pass Verstappen for the lead on Lap 16 without needing those 5-seconds, prompting the Red Bull braintrust to call their main man into the pits on the subsequent lap for a switch to fresh Hards and the serving of his sanction. Following him in were the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and the sole surviving McLaren of Oscar Piastri, who had just made contact with each other. Hamilton got the worst of the exchange and had to limp in with a puncture but Piastri also needed repairs (although the young Aussie chose to stay on Hard tires meaning he still owed a mandatory pit stop later in the race) and both drivers lost valuable track position due to the incident. Continue reading

2023 F1 Grand Prix of Las Vegas — Qualifying results

Ferrari fastest in Vegas with Leclerc taking pole, Sainz P2; Verstappen off his usual pace in P3, as shiny new street circuit & cool nighttime temps scramble field

Ferrari were unquestionably the fastest team at the brand new Las Vegas Street Circuit during midnight Saturday qualifying for Saturday night’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. Despite not really being a similar circuit, the Scuderia harkened back to their superior pace at Singapore earlier in the season, outpacing the usually dominant Red Bull of Max Verstappen. With the only real question being which of the two Prancing Horses would take pole, it was Charles Leclerc who bested teammate Carlos Sainz by a minuscule 0.044 seconds, but over three-tenths ahead of Verstappen’s best effort in Q3. Unfortunately for Sainz and Ferrari, though, the Spaniard will be assessed a ten-place grid penalty for the race after he sucked up a drain cover earlier in Free Practice 1, resulting in heavy damage to his car and the need to take a new battery outside his allotment for the year. It seems unfair that Sainz should be penalized for something completely out of his control and due to the teething issues any new street circuit is prone to encounter, but them’s the rules, as they say, and no dispensation was given by the FIA despite Ferrari’s appeals. So that demotes Sainz down to P12 despite his superb quali effort and moves Verstappen to P2 alongside Leclerc on the front row. Continue reading

2023 F1 Grand Prix of Sao Paulo — Results & aftermath

Verstappen sambas to record extending & record breaking victory in Sao Paulo; Norris takes another second place in breakout season; Alonso out-duels Perez in scintillating battle for P3

Hot on the heels of his Saturday Sprint win, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen continued his campaign of total dominance on Sunday, surviving early race chaos behind him to take yet another assured win at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil. Despite a solid effort by eventual runner-up Lando Norris of McLaren, Vertsappen was never put under any real pressure during the 71-lap contest and simply managed the race and his tries from the point all day long. Verstappen bested Norris by a comfortable 8.277-seconds in notching his record-extending seventeenth win of the season, also breaking the 71-year old record for greatest percentage of wins in a season, previously held by the legendary Ferrari pilot Alberto Ascari. With his third consecutive F1 title in the bag several races ago, Verstappen simply keeps putting the pedal to the metal and, with only two more rounds remaining in the season, it’s hard to see the flying Dutchman lifting off the throttle and giving someone else a chance at the top step. Continue reading