F1

[blobrana]

Hum,
Truly, a spectacular crash...
And seems maclaren have regained a bit of their former glory...though even with the safety car nullifying Shoes lead they still came second...
And what happened to Button? (Too much under steer)

Oh well...

- anyone see F1 women afterwards? -

[PMC]

blobrana wrote:
maclaren have regained a bit of their former glory...

And what happened to Button? (Too much under steer

- anyone see F1 women afterwards? -

@Blob

Yeah, it's good to see McLaren back near the front of the grid and bodes well for next year with Montoya & Raikkonen battling it out with (possibly) Webber in a Williams and Schuey once again.

JB seemed to struggle with a set of tyres, hence him coming into the pits during the safety car laps.  It's a shame we were denied seeing him on the podium of his home race though...

I missed the women's racing, I'd have liked to have seen all those RX8s being driven hard.  As Indy racing has proved in the US, there's no reason why women can't be competitive in motor racing, so it's time a few graduated into F1 IMHO.  

[blobrana]

Hum,
And sure enought McLaren are up there with MS ....

(German GP on now)

Watch out for the first corner...

UPDATE:
Hum,
wow, what a race. Clean 1 st corner...
unlucky for Kimi, or Button for the engine change drop in places...
13 to second! fantastic...!

And well done to Alonso .

[Vincent]

Great race from Button and Alonso, that fight just didn't want to end :-)

Pity Kimi went out, Montoya had a bad race and Coulthard couldn't keep up the pace.  Kimi was looking as good as he did last year, pity his German bad luck struck yet again :-(

Still, fantastic race!

[blobrana]

Hum,
just a reminder not to do anything today...

The  Shanghai circuit (China) today...
Check out the circuit, it has to be the best in the World Championship,
and i noticed that they`re using nifty new graphics, and we can now listen to the pit radio...

 

[X-ray]

@ Blobzie

That circuit actually has the same outline as your previous avatar!

[Vincent]

Just watched the race (there was no way I was getting up at 6am :-P).

Looks like Schumey finally had all his bad luck rolled over him today :-P

Good to see such a closely fought race at the end too - less than 2 seconds between first and third :-D

[Doobrey]

That`s gotta be one of the best races this season.
Although for a new track, a couple of the braking zones looked like a corrugated tin roof, that`s gotta hurt :-o

I wish they`d had some more interesting pit-car conversations though, I can only imagine what some of them would be..
 Pit:"David, your getting too close to Ralf"
 Pit:"Repeat, your getting too close to Ralf,back off"
 DC:"Oopsie"
 Pit:"You {bleep}wit"

[iamaboringperson]

Australia 7 March.

I  think I want to go to that one this time, rather than watch it on TV. :-)

[blobrana]

@iamaboringperson

Hum,
i thought the time zone difference was only +12 hours...

[unless, you are a timelord]

[Bezzen]

So.... who do you guys think will buy Jaguar F1?

There are a couple of potential buyers:

* Red Bull (this isa rumoured to be very likely)
* Team Arden (very interested, but can they find the money?)
* Rich russian kids

I'm hoping for Arden as that will probably make it highly like for a Swede racing next year (Wirdheim). Unfortunately I think it's not that likely so the Swede in question will probably have to race around American circuits next year.  :-(

My bet is for Red Bull. And that way we will probably have a driver's lineup of Klien (:pissed:) and Liuzzi with a young american driver as third.

[CU_AMiGA]

Michael Schumacher going to win this season, as predicted! :-D
But Jenson Button is having a very good season, i did not predict that one. :-o

[Bezzen]

But Jenson Button is having a very good season, i did not predict that one.  

Yeah, what BAR really needed was to get rid of Villeneuve apparently. It will be interesting to see BAR at Suzuka as I bet Honda will have a special engine for the home grand prix. (probably it will be really fast for 10 laps and then Sato blows it up as usual).  :-D

Button and Sato has been the best combo this year I think. Jenson for the results and Sato for the entertainment.  :-)

[PMC]

Bezzen wrote:

Button and Sato has been the best combo this year I think. Jenson for the results and Sato for the entertainment.

Some F1 things that irk / confuse me:

1) Why is Jenson Button intent on going to Williams next year?  Barring Ferrari, the BAR Honda is the package of the year plus he has the whole team built around him.  Either Williams have made him a massive offer (unlikely), or Jenson knows something about next year's car that we don't.

2) Silverstone.  Bernie gets his way and Silverstone is axed, probably in favour of some boring autodrome that has fantastic facilities for messrs Ecclestone et al to have a right old jolly-up.  

3) Ferrari and Schumacher.  The best guy in the best car deserves to win as often as he does.  Schuey makes everyone else look like rank amateurs and doesn't break into a sweat.  Obviously you can't penalise the guy for his deserved success, but having someone else win every once in a while would be nice...  

4) Jaguar.  Another team bites the dust and goes the way of Lotus, Tyrrell, Prost, Arrows, Pacific, Forti and Larrousse.  That's eight teams in ten years.  Jordan have gone from being an outside championship bet to battling to stay alive in five years, Minardi seem to hang on each year somehow.  Sooner or later it'll be a straight fight between BMW, Mercedes, Honda and Ferrari.  

Ecclestone still hasn't learned from this and seems to be content for everyone to cut budgets except him.

[Doobrey]

PMC wrote:
2) Silverstone.  Bernie gets his way and Silverstone is axed

 Wasn`t purely down to Bernie, the BRDC didn`t submit an application cos they couldn`t afford it. On the BBC`s Motorsport page, they said that the final price Bernie wanted was one of the lowest in Europe.
 It just makes me f####g mad that the Government refused to help.
 Look at China and Bahrain, how much did they pour into those tracks ?
 The Canadian GP this year only went ahead after the Canadian authorities subsidised all the teams that normally run tobacco sponsorship, to make up for the loss of revenue.

Yet in the UK, they spend £430 Million on a new Scottish parliament originally budgetted at £40M, the same on the Millenium Dome, god knows how much on rebuilding Wembley Stadium, and wanting to spend several billion on hosting the Olympics.
 But will they help out with the £3 million difference between what Bernie wants, and what the BRDC can afford??

 Obviously you can't penalise the guy for his deserved success, but having someone else win every once in a while would be nice...

 
 Look how they do it in the BTCC with success ballast. Win a race, have a sodding great lump of lead bolted to your car.
 Sounds crude, but it works. after a while it is a fairly level playing field.

4) Jaguar.  Another team bites the dust and goes the way of Lotus, Tyrrell, Prost, Arrows, Pacific, Forti and Larrousse.  That's eight teams in ten years.

 ..pedant mode engaged.
 Tyrrell became BAR.  :-D

I like Bernies suggestion that the teams could run 3 cars next season if there aren`t enough teams left.
 Yeah, good idea that.. when the FIA are trying to reduce the cost of F1, add another 50% to their running costs for another car !

[PMC]

Okay, pair point about BAR dude!  I was referring to the loss of the historic Tyrrell name.

The whole Silverstone thing sucks to me, there is talk of a London Grand Prix (with Comrade Ken giving those nasty, polluting and noisy cars free reign to race around the capital) which would be quite an event, but I can't see the infrastructre being in place for it next year.  

If Ecclestone wanted to cut F1 costs, then surely he would be trying to lower his already high fees?  

Anyway, I agree on the point that a third car would push costs even further thus putting pressure on teams like Sauber, Jordan and Minardi.  Still, at least Coulthard would be likely to keep his McLaren seat!