Formula 1 thread

[tifosi77]

Hamilton: "I have something in my eye!"

Spoiler:

Yeah, Nico's middle finger.

Sorry, still not buying that Rosberg is innocent of the qualifying faux pas. And I'm also still in 'sell' mode on him overall, despite the today's result.

[tifosi77]

Johnny Herbert and Anthony Davidson have a seriously wonky discussion about Rosberg's qualifying incident. Needless to say, I'm not swayed by Ant's theory.

[youtube][/youtube]

[tifosi77]

Raikkonen on-board

Kimster had an eventful race, that's for sure. The ham-handed attempt to overtake Gutierrez a the hairpin near the end of the race was comical.

[MRandall25]

A big thanks to you guys for not posting the results (watching my DVR right now).

It was funny. Spent all day avoiding anything F1 related yesterday, then opened the Sports section of the PG this morning and saw the winner on the 1st inside page :face:

[tifosi77]

Yeah, I figure spoiler tags or radio silence for at least 3-4 days, or until all thread regulars chime in on the results.

I stopped following a friend on Facebook a little while ago because of his penchant for posting the race results IMMEDIATELY following the race. No joke, the checkers would fall and he'd jump on Facebook with stuff like "Congratulations on the win to Jenson Button - tough drive early, but after Alonso retired it was smooth sailing." He lives in Malaysia, so the races were on at like 11 pm for him. He was completely tone deaf to the fact that all of his F1 fan friends were in Europe or North America and might have to time shift their viewing.

[dodint]

Watched the Indy 500 in a hotel, and attended the Coca-Cola 600 (lots of fun had), and caught the F1 race on the DVR when I got home last night.

While trying not to be "that guy", as a Vettel fan I'm ready to throw in the towel on RBR and the season in general. RBR can't even put him in a car as reliable as his teammates. It would look petulant, but if I were him I'd have my agent talking to other teams now. Between not being able to get full practices in and not making it to Lap 6 he doesn't stand a chance. Really a **** way for a 5x title hunt to fizzle out. It's my biggest complaint with F1. They whine about the costs of racing, but overhaul the rulebook annually. I'd like to see a 5 year rulebook freeze, I think the machines and racing you'd have in that fifth year would be off the charts. Not only would the tech be vetted by then, but you wouldn't have teams giving up halfway through the season to focus on next years car. That happens everyear, but one reason BMW did so poorly and fell out of the sport its last season is because they kept trying through the last race the season before instead of phoning it in and developing next years car. Same deal with RBR to an extent this year.

Monaco always sucks, hope someone that picks that race as their first race like the chap above comes back and watches something fun, like Spa or COTA.

[tifosi77]

I absolutely love watching street races - they are the last of the old style circuits that made use of public roadways before purpose-built facilities were constructed. The racing - in terms of the wheel-to-wheel stuff - is usually non-existent, but the driving is unparalleled. There just aren't that many places in F1 where the driver can have as big an impact on the overall performance as Monaco, and where you can actually see that impact as a spectator. So I'm happy it stays on the calendar just for that aspect.

Re the five-year rule freeze..... they have been doing that for several years now with regard to the engines. The V8 era was brought in specifically for the purpose of ticking the power clock back a bit and forcing manufacturers to work in a more restrictive environment. Crikey, at the end of the V10 era, motors were spinning at 20,000 rpm and producing roughly 1,000 bhp. Not sure how effective that was, as some manufacturers (like Renault) ended the V8 era with something north of 90% different parts than what they started with..... that doesn't sound like much of a 'freeze'.

The current turbo V6s hybrids were brought in at the behest of the manufacturers to make F1 powerplants more relevant to the things they were putting in their road cars. Frankly, I do not know how much engineering trickles down from F1 to road cars, but I know Soichiro Honda used to require new engineers spend two years in F1 before ever being allowed to work on a road car, because he felt it honed their analytical and decision making skills.

So the current 'freeze' was worded much more carefully. The development will be frozen for 8% of various power unit components to be frozen in development by next year. That will go up to 23% in 2016, then 35% in 2018 and 95% the year after. (I don't know if Honda gets a grace period, or if they've already homologated their power unit.) The thing that baffles me is that the freeze is by weight. Surely there's a better way to do that?

[tifosi77]

I guess this goes here....

Krohn Racing and The Stig heading to Le Mans on last-minute invite

Joining the duo will be Brit Ben Collins, who has three appearances in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, most recently in 2011, where he finished fourth in the LMP2 class with RML (Ray Mallock Ltd.) Racing. Collins has competed in motor racing since 1994 in numerous categories besides sports cars, including Formula Three, Indy Light, GT racing and stock cars. He recently finished fifth in the FIA WEC race at Silverstone in a Ferrari 458. Additionally, Collins, formerly known as "The Stig" on the popular TV show "Top Gear", has multiple credits in the entertainment industry as a precision and stunt driver, as well as a television presenter and talent.

I found out reading Collins' autobiography that I actually saw him race in person, 1999 Indy Lights at Long Beach. Woot.

[dodint]

Yeah, are we doing LeMans chatter here? I'm happy with that if everyone else is.

[tifosi77]

Didn't want to pollute the Pet Peeve thread, so I'm moving this here.

One of the great things about watching F1 in Europe is that the broadcast is unbroken. I was annoyed with commercials before, but having actually watched a full Sky/BBC F1 broadcast I now know what I'm missing. If there was a Center Ice for F1 where I could buy the Sky feed I'd pay a kings ransom for it.

Don't know how long you've been following the sport, but back in the late 90s - early 2000s Bernie offered a digital PPV package called F1 Digital. It had 8 channels, one of which was all on-boards presented with no commentary, and another was live timing and scoring. The current graphics package on the world feed are evolutions of the images created for F1D.

It cost about $20 per race, so the 2014 season would cost close to $400.

It was only ever available in the States for a total of perhaps four or five races in the five years the service was running.

[dodint]

I started watching in 2005 or so. I got to see BMW F1 born, then die. And Robert Kubica's career, for that matter.

What you're describing is somewhat overkill, but hopefully we'll have something like that online eventually. Seems kind of progressive for Bernie who didn't start shooting F1 in HD until 2010 or something archaic like that.

[tifosi77]

I think F1D was in HiDef.

The production equipment sat dormant for seven or eight years as Bernie thumbed his nose at the teams. He wanted the teams to invest in the digital infrastructure to help defray the huge start up costs. The teams declined, and about a year later is when Bernie wrapped it all up.

At the time, people said it was shortsighted of the teams, similar to their not accepting Bernie's offer for them to buy equal shares of the TV revenue back in the mid 1970s. But to my way of thinking, Bernie shouldn't be asking the teams to cough up any dough..... he acquired the right to bear that burden when he licensed the commercial rights to F1 for 100-years and paid only $313 million.

[OutofFoil]

So, I'm just starting to get into F1, and I have a meeting next week in Zeltweg, Austria, home of the Red Bull Rimg and the Austrian Grand Prix that will be run a week after I leave. I have a free day on Thursday, would it be worth my time to venture over to the track? Any chance I'll see anything but an empty track? I do know next Tuesday they've organized a team building activity involving KTM Xbows and dinner at the track which actually has me excited to go on a business trip where I have to teach most of the week. Any tips on what I should look for there? When do drivers come in for the race? Just curious as there aren't many nice hotels in the area, so if they're probably staying in one of two places, of which I'll be in one. I wanna see the cars go fast!

[MRandall25]

From what I've gathered, drivers don't really show up at a venue/city until the practice rounds start, or some time right before.

For example, the NBC broadcast before/during Monaco said Lewis Hamilton went from the race in Bahrain to Florida for dinner with Will Smith during that week, then spent time in Haiti working with charities.


It's perfectly possible I'm incorrect, though.

[OutofFoil]

I didn't imagine they'd be there early unless there was some extra practice to get in, but one can always hope. I just think seeing those cars up close on the track during practice or something in F1 would be awesome to witness in person. It's got to be a spectacle.

[tifosi77]

Teams tend to arrive on or about the Wednesday before the race. Drivers have to be there no later than Thursday (Wednesday for Monaco; press/media day for every event), and it's rare for drivers to be early.

Just checked the Red Bull Ring's schedule; the track is dark June 12, with no scheduled activities. However, being a big F1 fan I'd be remiss if I passed up the chance to visit a Grand Prix venue, even if there was nothing going on. (You may have more important things to do with your time, but I certainly do not. ) Red Bull organizes a big air show at the local air base, but I think 2014 is a down year for the event.

One thing to keep in mind; Zeltweg is on the floor of a valley, but the Red Bull Ring is actually up on the side of a mountain that defines the north side of that valley. It's very steep and picturesque. At the very least, I'd want to see if I could go to the track just for photography purposes.

[OutofFoil]

Thanks Tif,

I've been to Zeltweg many times, my R&D department is based there. It's beautiful. Work is having a teambuilding there next Tuesday, said something about a KTM Xbow and laps. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll take plenty of pics and post up if you'd like.. They do the airshow every two years and I've heard its awesome. It's where I'm moving for the next 2-3 years, so I'll definitely catch it.

[tifosi77]

Yeah, the Air Power thing is supposed to be pretty epic. Lots of exotic metal in the skies. Eurofighters, Rafales, Gripens..... good times.

I mis-read your original post, didn't realize you were actually taking part of the KTM track day stuff. If you do not post a lot of pictures of that, I shall become quite cross.

[Shyster]

There's more action in the first lap of this British hatchback race than in most F1 weekends:

[youtube][/youtube]

The best part to me is #28 closing the glove box after it pops open. Unfortunately, I think he took fatal damage later on.

[tifosi77]

That's totally normal in the lower categories. There's a huge variation in the talent level between the drivers, which just isn't the case in the top flight. The difference between Fernando Alonso and Pastor Maldonado might only be .7 per lap over 20 laps. From the best to the back in tin tops, there might be a 5 or 6 second delta.

[tifosi77]

Fernando Alonso tops FP1 (by a whopping .016s) over Hamilton and Rosberg. Looking forward to FP2, which I will be able to watch live here at work.

[tifosi77]

Normal service restored in FP2, Mercedes 1-2 (HAM-ROS).

Good news is all the cars are bunched up a bit more, versus where everyone was in Melbourne. In Oz, there were only five cars within a second of the quick time, and in Montreal there are about nine. Sadly, the gap from Merc to the fastest non-Merc is still about half a second...... and that's probably still with Merc leaving performance on the table.

[dodint]

In case anyone has already forgotten what a proper F1 car sounds like, here, go back in time and get yourselves some goosebumps:

[youtube][/youtube]

Also, The Chain.

[tifosi77]

Fantastic race, start to finish.

Spoiler:

From the get go, I've been saying that the only thing between Mercedes and a perfect season was the dual-headed monster of reliability and on-track incidents. No one was catching them on pace. Well, we sorta had a bit of both this weekend.

When Hamilton passed Rosberg near the end, I honestly thought they touched. There was a wisp of smoke visible from the helicopter shot, and then when Hamilton started having problems a few corners later I was practically screaming at the TV as none of the commentators seemed to take notice. That carried right through to the end when they finally showed the on-board footage.... and it was clear there was a good half foot between the cars as Hamilton passed. The puff of smoke was the brake failure. Derp.

Rosberg cutting the chicane......... this racing fan believes that Nico is becoming quite the dab hand at the professional foul. Again, I don't think he intentionally locked up and dragged a tire for 50 meters, but once he did he certainly availed himself of the opportunity to bag an extra hundred meters of full throttle running into the second DRS zone to make sure Hamilton could not exploit the error. He then backed off in the first two corners to eliminate the advantage gained, in terms of time, but the benefit was already derived. If I had been a steward, I would have liked to have seen Rosberg's telemetry while he was off track; if he was above 90% while in the runoff, I'd have given him a penalty. It would have robbed the fans of the spectacle of an on-track battle, as Matchett was saying, but then Nico had sort of already taken care of that himself.

Then at the very end, I was indignant towards Massa for the Perez incident. How could a driver so comprehensively cock it up that close to a result? Then they showed Massa's on-board..... and Perez quite noticeably jinks to his left just as he brakes. Derp 2.0. He has, rightfully, been given a 5-place grid penalty for changing his line in the braking zone and causing a collision. And a very nasty one, at that. That's one of a few corners at that circuit that has trees right near the verge, so I shudder to think what might have happened had Massa gone airborne with that speed differential. Btw, that accident gives some indication as to the massive power of an F1 car's brakes; Perez only dropped anchor about 5 meters ahead of Massa, and look at the effect it had on his speed.

Very excited for Ricciardo. I have a new driver to root for this season, and it's all the better for being Vettel's team mate.

[dodint]

Yeah, nice race to reenergize my F1 fandom. A simliar result in Austria and things will be interesting as we approach the back end of the season. The tinfoil hat brigade is already out in full force talking about secret tests and Mercedes having to move out of the hotel because it was owned by Dietrich Mateschitz.

Did you catch Freds comments after the race? Along the lines that the car is just bad and they lucked into some points this week. Specifically said without the incidents on track ahead of them they would've came away without any points. Salty.