Formula 1 thread

[CBear3]

He also said his Q lap was totally on the limit. Something tells me Fred is getting frustrated spending the last meaningful years of his career in a dinghy.

That both Mercedes had the same problem within a minute of each other was pretty interesting. It'll be fun reading the speculation.


In other news, I was disappointed to find out just how long it is from Copenhagen to Le Mans this week. I'm going to be in the South of Sweden on business the next ten days, and was trying to find something entertaining to do over the weekend.

[dodint]

No idea how I let LeMans sneak up on me every year. I forgot about it until 2 weeks ago.

[CBear3]

Ye[, I kept checking race schedules to see if there were any Nordic races or even anything in Germany. Thought it was really weird that that I couldn't find any races happening that weekend, and then it dawned on me.

[MRandall25]

That was a pretty spectacular crash. No clue how Vettel managed to avoid it.

[dodint]

Yeah, I kept waiting to see his onboard of it, but they never showed it. Hopefully it'll pop up on Youtube. My guess is pure luck, he taps the brakes when Massa comes across the bow but at that point his input window has closed.

[tifosi77]

So, with the 24 Heures du Mans 2014 approaching this weekend, there is a pretty aggressive rumor mill in the works. Reading some reports that Saturday morning before the start of the race, the FIA, WEC and ACO will be having a big press conference, at which they will make a big announcement. Speculation is that they will be naming a fifth constructor in LMP1.

Now...... who is the official starter for the race this year again? Oh yes - Fernando Alonso.

Personally, as a Ferrari fan, I would welcome a return of the Prancing Horse to the top category of endurance racing. It's actually much more in line with the company's heritage. They didn't shift their sporting focus to F1 until the mid-70s.

[dodint]

Being humbled by Ford kind of forced there hand there, didn't it?

[tifosi77]

If only Ford had agreed to allow Enzo Ferrari to remain in charge of the motorsports division and to run the Indy 500.....

Come to think of it, that would have sucked. We never would have gotten the GT40 or the tradition of the champagne spray on the podium.

[dodint]

'there hand there' gah

And yeah, the GT40 was my halo car for a long time. Right up till the McLaren F1 came along.

[tifosi77]

It's in German with no subtitles. But you don't watch a video like this because of dialog.

[youtube] Vettel and Gerhard Berger at Red Bull Ring 2014[/youtube]

[Gaucho]

To summarize what Gerhard says: my car = manly, your car = soff.

[columbia]

That's tif's type of world view. ;)

[Gaucho]

I would assume that Berger is one of the Top 10 people tif would like to have dinner with. Well, let's say Top 10 men.

[OutofFoil]

Just got back from my visit to the Red Bull Ring. Beautiful place for a race and looks to be an interesting, fast track. Didn't get to drive an Xbow as a mean dirty trick was played on me. Our guide is one of the race officials who's job is to go fetch drivers when race control deems they need to have a discussion about possible infractions during the race with them, says people walk the other way when they see him coming.

But, we did get a VIP tour. Got to see all the paddocks with obviously no equipment in them, but I stood right where RBR's cars will be in a short time (bays 6 and 7). Went up to the timing room, through the medical facilities, driver's meeting rooms, room of discipline, the RBR lounge directly adjacent to the podium, stood on the podium, and got up in the tower at the starting line. The highlight of the tour was to go into the race control room. Simply amazing. Although, one thing was strange in there, the PC's were still running XP and every wireless router (3) in the control room had the network name, log on info, and password info taped to it. Doesn't seem too secure...

The RBR lounge is ridiculous. Huge bar made completely out of carbon fiber and no expense spared, oh to be there on race day...

All this was followed by dinner at the restaurant Schönberghof overlooking the track from higher up the mountain. Pretty good day except for the dirty trick of having me think I was going to get to take a few laps... They do have open track days where you can run what you brung for 40 euros for 30 min, but unless you have sweet expensive brakes, you'll only get 1-2 laps before they're useless.

DRS zones still undecided, but the front straight before turn 1 should be one. Shouldn't be too much drama in turn 1, but turn 2 is where they expect moves to be made along with the long front straight. They anticipate an interesting race that should feature more overtaking than most circuits. As I said, beautiful place for a track, but I won't be caught dead here during race weekend, every hotel within about a 2 hour radius is booked, locals are renting their houses out for the week and making a killing. Just not enough infrastructure to support the masses that will show up.

Will post pics soon.

[tifosi77]

OoF, fantastic rundown. Can't wait to see the photos.

The A-1 Ring (former name of the circuit, which was originally known as the Österreichring) always put on good racing. It has a very basic layout, with three potential overtaking zones. (Which is three more than most current tracks) I was actually saddened when it was dropped from the calendar, because it was pretty much the last racy track.

Back it the old days, it was about twice as long as the current layout, but it still roughly followed the same path. It was fearsomely fast, too.

One other fun fact:

The driver in the McLaren is Stefan Johansson. He was doing about 180 mph at this point, having just crested a blind brow in what used to be called the Jochen Rindt Kurve. He has passed what dodint referred to as 'input window', and a few tenths after this photo was taken, that deer and that car looked quite a bit different.

Juan Pablo Montoya nearly had a run in with a deer at the track, too. And no talk of racing cars and deer is complete without a tip of the hat to Cristiano da Matta, my favorite Brazilian midget.

...room of discipline...

Context is critically important when using that kind of language.

[tifosi77]

To summarize what Gerhard says: my car = manly, your car = soff.

I saw a cutdown version of this that was only about a minute or so long. It was subtitled and that was definitely the impression I got!

I would assume that Berger is one of the Top 10 people tif would like to have dinner with. Well, let's say Top 10 men.

Maybe not top 10, but he's certainly up there.

[OutofFoil]

Ha Tif, thanks for pointing that out about the "room of discipline". I'd almost forgotten about the scandal... And well, this is Austria, so I should clear it up that there is no S&M room (that I know of) at Red Bull Ring and that it was where the drivers meet with officials to discuss penalties for rule breaking. There are no safe words in there. Other places in the town, well, I know nothing about that, but I've heard rumors since certain activities are legal here.

[OutofFoil]

I did get to see some guys practicing in rally cars on the track, one had to be picked out of the gravel after he came in too hot and straight lined it through the down hill decreasing radius sharp turn. Keep practicing or brake earlier buddy. Was at the restaurant at the time and was too far away to get a good pic with the phone, but you could tell he wasn't happy about it.

[OutofFoil]

4.3 km track length, lap record held by Michael Schumacher at 1:08something, back in the v10 era. They're expecting 1:10ish laps. No testing at all has done since it's covered in snow during allowable testing periods. Will be fun to watch. Watch turn 2, long straight carrying 300km/h into a sharp right hand 80km/h funnel of pain. He who brakes last and still makes it, has something going. If there's going to be a accident, it will be there or where the Subby straightlined it, I was told.

[tifosi77]

As long as David Coulthard isn't racing Mika Hakkinen into turn 2, I think they'll be fine.

[dodint]

...room of discipline...

Context is critically important when using that kind of language.

Max Mosley says hello.

[dodint]

Tom Pryce is the Wikipedia article of the day. That's kind of out of left field, though his birthday would've been tomorrow.

[tifosi77]

At a time and in a sport where death was not uncommon and usually violent, the Pryce accident manages to stand out. The footage makes me squeamish. I'm not normally like that about racing stuff, but there's just something so........ yeah. Same with the Lorenzo Bandini and Gilles Villeneuve crashes. I'm unaware of any footage of François Cevert's accident at Watkins Glen, but I think that would probably cause the same reaction.

Something a bit more fun:

Vettel And Ricciardo Preview The Red Bull Ring
[youtube][/youtube]

[dodint]

At a time and in a sport where death was not uncommon and usually violent, the Pryce accident manages to stand out. The footage makes me squeamish. I'm not normally like that about racing stuff, but there's just something so........ yeah.

Probably the marshal. Most F1 deaths were either not on camera or single fatalities where the driver died 'doing what he loved.' Not some guy working for free carrying a fire extinguisher across a hot track. The Pryce thing sticks out for me because for some reason I downloaded that video before I was even an F1 fan, probably in 1999 or so and I think I still have it somewhere. It's probably the single video that I've had the longest, might even be the oldest piece of data I own outside of maybe some mp3s from Napster or some pictures of when I first met my wife.

[tifosi77]

Speaking of.....

Loic Duval had a heavy shunt in practice at la Sarthe. I haven't seen video, but it looks like the car ran over a land mine made of hydrogen bombs. (Apparently the car got airborne and crashed into the catch fencing.) His further participation in this year's race has been canceled by the docs. Audi have named his replacement for the weekend: Marc Gene. The Ferrari driver.

Granted, he's only a tester for the Scuderia. And he is Audi's reserve driver, after all. But still.... will no doubt stoke the Ferrari to LMP1 rumors some more.