Formula 1 Discussion Thread

[Camisado]

My boyfriend managed to go to Spa-Francorchamps, I thought I'd leave you any pictures he'd posted on his travels. I'm sorry there aren't any cars in them. xD;

Picture 1
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Picture 3

 

[Ivysaur]

...if tehre is a race I'd like to watch live is this one XD (or Canada). He's a really lucky dude.

 

[(=Nemesis=)]

In case this is seen as flame bait, let me just stick a great big

IMO

in front of it.


I wish I lived in the 1980s... when F1 was still just about racing, and very little else. I think the only major highlights of the 1990s were Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher going head-to-head throughout, but that didn't happen much after 1995. Still, it was hilarious in Monaco last year when Schumey thought he could overtake on the same lap a safety car was out, and it turned out that Damon was the guy with the final say in whether or not it was cheating. XD Bit of a boring race otherwise, except I was surprised by just how speedy the cars have become in the last ten years.

But during that time... when teams realised they could just order their Number 2 drivers around... and when FIA made the cars so difficult to handle that overtaking became rare rather than constant... I'm not sure why anyone watches them live. Seems to me you could just wait to hear if a race was watchable or not and then decide whether to see it on iPlayer or something, rather than spend two hours every other Sunday watching some large Scalextrics.

 

[Ivysaur]

In the 80's and 90's, cars were technologically underdeveloped, most of them were unstable, and a good chunk of teams were anything but professional. The main result is that accidents were more prominent, teams would repeatedly fail to qualify, and cars would get much more mixed in the starting grid due to mistakes during qualifying. Cars were harder to control back them, and much harder to keep on track, that's why there were more accidents around.

But, nowadays, a qualifying session gives you several chances to do a good lap and get in your natural grid position, and even HRT can qualify and finish races without major problems due to the strict reliability rules imposed by FIA to avoid major accidents. So, what can we do? Make cars more unstable, so they blow up more often? I assure you that, if the Bulls, Mclaren and Ferrari started in mid-grid (or even in the back!), they'd be in the top 6 by the second pit stop.

Oh, and I'm sad you didn't mention people like Senna, Prost or Hakkinen during the 90's. And last year was probably one of the most exciting championships in decades.

 

[Captain Fabio]

Well, Monza never fails to impress. Mental couple of first laps, fairly large crash, MSC doing really well, awesome driving from the front runners!

:D​

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[Ivysaur]

And Vettel could win the championship in Singapore. Just compare this season with last year's :\ I'm glad we didn't have Bahrein or the championship could be over already.

Well, let's look at the other championship, which is as exciting as ever:

2- Alonso - 172
3- Button - 167
4- Webber - 167 (no wins)

 

[Kenshin5]

I have a feeling it may end.

Alonso
Button
Hamilton
Webber

To me Mark really hasn't done that much this year that really wowed me. Quite frankly I was surprised he racked up this many points as it stands. At least for me I have heard almost nothing about him. As for the race this week MSC was taking it to Hamilton. Oh noes he is blocking me not like I haven't done that plenty of times to other people in the past! Also did they ever say why Button went to the pits on his last hot lap in Q3? I could have swore he was up on mostly everyone in two of the three sectors on the last lap.

 

[Ivysaur]

Well, we have a new youngest two-times world champion! Also the Japan race was surprisingly fun, I wonder what would have happened if Jenson hadn't been able to save fuel during the SC period, he barely made it to the goal.

I wish all the races this season had been like this one though. Four cars in 6 seconds.

 

[Kenshin5]

I wonder more how this Championship run would have been if Jenson didn't have to retire what 3 times? Compared to Vettel 0 retirements this season. Loved seeing Michael in P1 for the first time since 06. And there was some spotty driving from Vettel blocking Jenson at the beginning as well as Hamilton usual bs. All and all good race, and OMG Webber didn't lose his position at the start O=.

 

[Eruption]

The most dissapointing title race for years is over then...

I want the 2007 season back. :'(

As with all other races not in a similar timezone to me, I didn't watch it so I can't contribute better opinions unfortunately.

 

[Captain Fabio]

I do agree this year was a little boring and predictable for the winning slot, took the edge off a little, but no doubt the battle for second place will be awesome.​

​

 

[Kenshin5]

The most dissapointing title race for years is over then...

I want the 2007 season back. :'(

As with all other races not in a similar timezone to me, I didn't watch it so I can't contribute better opinions unfortunately.

You really didn't much tbh. From what I really not a whole lot of overtaking outside of Rosberg making his charge through the field. There was only two minor racing incidents that were looked into farther and that was about it.

Vettel could have maybe cut the ending closer if he didn't exit the pits in traffic but it is what it is.

 

[Ivysaur]

Well, I personally think it was one of the most entertaining races this year. Vettel ran away in the start after pushing Jenson into the grass, and Hamilton took advantage and got second. But his insane tyre degradation made him stop first, and that same problem made Vettel lose most of his 5 second advantage over Jenson. A lap later, Fernando was cutting down on Jenson as well, and, when all did their pit stops, they three were in a 4 second gap. The same thing pretty much happened during the second stint, but this time Vettel got a bit of traffic and ended up losing P1 to Jenson.

Then a SC popped in, so the marshals could clean some debris from Massa's car after one of Hamilton's trademark overtakings, as well as a part of Michael's car Webber took with himself. That reduced the differences even more, allowing Fernando (who consistently was the last one to stop) to jump Vettel in the pits a bit later. Jenson ran away while Vettel tried to overtake Fernando during 4 frentic laps until a lapped car got between both, allowing Fernando to get enough space to nullify Vettel's DRS help.

Finally, with 7 laps to go, Fernando and Vettel started taking Jenson a second per lap, because the McLaren was running low on fuel and couldn't go as fast. Fernando managed to cut the gap down from 8 to 1.1 seconds, and who knws what could have happened if the race had been a couple of laps longer.

Also Michael led the race for almost 10 laps and that's awesome in itself.

 

[Hikamaru]

Well done Sebastian Vettel for becoming the youngest-ever Formula 1 driver to win consecutive titles.

At least his teammate at Red Bull is an Australian!

Now Australia has two players in the Formula 1, Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo!

We still have a few races to go in the lead-up to the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix, which comes after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. I bet the 2012 season will be huge!

 

[Kenshin5]

Great race for the top 5 through out the race. Especially the battle between Hamilton and Webber. Kind of a shame Michael got took out be Petrov. And I hope they fix that pit exit since it doesn't seem the safest or most practical pit exit. I lawl at the story how they weren't doing work at the track since last year and the teams where hungry so they went to their areas to get some and there was still the food in their fridges from last year xD. Kudos to Red Bull clutching the constructors and Vettel being the second driver to win double digit wins.

 

[Ivysaur]

Hadn't Vettel been there, the race would have been really exciting at the end. A shame Massa ruined Alonso and Button, they could have done better without him blocking them for so long.

Anyway, respect when respect is due, what Vettel is doing is absolutely amazing and can only be compared with Michael's golden years. Let's see how long he can keep it up for.