I don't understand why Pirelli figure they can ignore an obvious issue as long as the "top three" aren't complaining (see above) but now that they have more than a lowly Force India driver speaking up they're finally paying attention. Alonso admits tyre marbles a worry (uk.eurosport.yahoo.com / Autosport)
Gosh I'm sure all the drivers are relieved to know that the marbles are slightly different!! Whew, dodged a bullet there....
China this weekend. Remember this from last year? Buemi loses 2 wheels at once! I love the way he continues to try to steer the car. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3ybBIqBb4]YouTube - Tires breaking off at 300 km/h (185 mph)[/ame]
Indeed. The wife was going to dump him from the fantasy team after quali, but I talked her out of it knowing he was going to push like crazy. Sadly I did not have enough forethought to swap one of my drivers for him. It was an exciting race to watch. I think F1 finally hit on a formula for excitement with their tire degradation request to Pirrelli. I have not seen that much passing and position swaps in a long time. Also, did anyone notice that all but one car finished the race? Sucks for Jaime to be done in by his team like that, especially with his job supposedly on the line.
Yup. I wonder how long it's been since they had a race with such low attrition. Even both HRTs finished! :eek6: Webber's charge was even more impressive given he ran much of the race without KERS. Of course he's had more practice running without it than with it. I felt bad for Rosberg. Wonder whether we'll ever hear what really caused his fuel consumption problem... That was another fun race to watch. There's so much going on these days that it's hard to keep up, which I like...mostly. That's the only problem I have with all the pit stops. The tire degradation itself makes things interesting (along with KERS and esp. DRS) but there are so many pit-induced order changes that I can't keep up and it gets a bit confusing sometimes. I'm glad I'm watching them all via DVR this year because I'm constantly thinking "how the frick did that happen!?!?" and backing it up to see if I can figure it out before going on. It's almost always to do with the pits. If you take Alguesuarie out of the equation and figure 23 cars finished with a rough average of 3 tire stops each that's 69 pit stop order changes in a race with 56 laps. I like the other effects of tire degradation but wish it didn't come with so many stops. Oh well, the more stops, the more chances to see things like Button driving through Vettel's pit! :lol:
Makes it "interesting"... but really, so would just shaking everything up in a bag every 20 minutes, to determine the order of the cars... Has nothing to do with skill or strategy or engineering prowess... Really NOT enjoying the formula this year. Doesn't help that the SPEED commentators mange to talk about other things than what's onscreen, and are too long-winded (MATCHETT!), or get the names of the drivers wrong (Hobbs, bless his big red nose!), or completely miss what's happening... No, I'm not going to complain about Varsha... He's got a tough job keeping things orderly and tightening the leash on the Brits in the booth. So... Interesting, because nobody can possibly predict the outcome of the race, and there's lots of order changes and weird passing because driver a has the hard tires which are slippery all the time, but last slightly longer than the softs, while driver z has a brand new set of softs that aren't heated up enough yet to do him any good, but miraculously pulls off fantastic passes one ofter another... We've had this discussion already, so I won't belabor it, but in my opinion, we're now seeing the effects of all the artificial elements that have been introduced to spice up the "competition", and it's not worth it. I used to be able to follow along pretty well in my beer-induced haze, and sometimes even figure out a team's strategy, or identify something that was about to become a problem, but now it's all just random. Maybe I'll feel different in three weeks... although Turkey certainly isn't one of my favorite tracks either. Glad the start of the season is underway, but was hoping for more "order" to the whole thing. _Dave_
Well, it ceased being "racing" a long time ago and just became "the show", just like NASCAR. Speaking of NASCAR, another twobytwo race at Talledega yesterday, just like Daytona in Feb. Weird how much faster two cars linked together can go than three or more. All 4 Hendrix cars within 1 sec of each other at the finish, and a big "Thank You " To little E for Jimmy's win.
With all the gizmos and mandated crappy tires......in the end this was the best race F1 has had in awhile.... We shall see if it continues....
I'm not a fan of the KERS/DRS/Degrading tire inputs. The degrading tire only has me concered because of the volume of "klag" created and it's making passing dangerous in places it should be fine. However, I am enjoying the racing. Those guys are woring hard out there. Skill and good cars are still moving to the front so the "shake-up" isn't having a completely randomizing effect. I have enjoyed this season and will continue to do so. I used to be a NASCAR fan but I just can't watch it anymore. It just feels so boring. Calling them "stock cars" is a joke as well. Plus the fact they are the epitome of 1970s technology with thier carburetors and 355 ci OHV V8s. :rolleyes5: EDIT: Just saw last post. WOAH turbo-compounding?! Holy crap. Turbo Compounding for those that don't know...
He does make a point... Why should tax payers subsidize billionaires? ...on the other hand: is the overall economic impact on the community as a whole, large enough to make it worth the investment?
Well, here is a fun tie-in of facts. I have a good friend that I went to grad school with and worked with for 4 years. He is a German national and moved back after the project we were on was complete. We stay in contact. We were just discussing the political shift in Germany to the green party because of the public panic over Fukishima and that Germany uses a great deal of nuclear power. The conservatives in place were content to stick with using the nuclear power but the last recent election the Green Party won out on the platform of energy reform in most German states. Obviously they have other agendas as well. So, in short, you can blame the Fukushima Plant meltdown for the possible loss of the Nurburgring on the F1 circut. Something about a nuclear butterfly farting in Japan causing a billionare F1 executive to hate Germans or something...
I agree, and you ask the right question. Lots of money is spent in the area but how much of it then leaves with the circus? The other concern for the gov't accountants is it may benefit the community but that doesn't funnel a payback into the government's budget to make up for the tax money spent. It's hard to justify paying Bernie's bill with taxpayer money when they're having trouble paying for necessary services, etc. Turkey is apparently fed up with it. Turkey 'set to lose' GP in 2012 (Reuters via eurosport.yahoo.com)