F1 Most liked posts in thread: F1 - 2013

I like your idea, best get that e mail off to Bernie. :wink:

 

Yep that's the best. Especially if you get to hold the steering wheel & the wrench. Trouble is there is no TV coverage of those guys. Love it when door slammers are on the track.

 

I too like all types of racing...my point was that I get tired of the off track drama, especially in F1. To each his own, give me grassroots racing without the crowds, the hype and the off track drama.

 

I think some of these comments have a bit of culture clash in them - as I grew up with Yurpeen racing (which is what much international racing is, at heart), a lot of it seems normal to me.

F1 really is just club racing on steroids. It started with guys racing their own cars 60-80 years ago (OK, sometimes with money from that nice Mr Hitler) and then morphed into a mega-million activity with tobacco money, but some of the organisation is the same. Sure, Bernie appears to a proper white-cat-stroking mastermind/autocrat, but there's still quite a lot of stuff decided by chaps in blazers meeting as a committee, just like a club would.

It is daft to think of anyone in the US running what is a very big entertainment business without putting the spectators (or TV viewers) first, but I think F1 teams and principals want to win races more than they want to make money. A recent study showed that the majority of teams are in effect non-profit-making businesses - why make a profit when you could spend the same money going just a little bit faster?

So I hear comments here about limiting pit crew on pit stops, as though that is a normal thing to do. Sure, in an entertainment business, when competing on pit stop durations, it doesn't matter to the spectators if it's a two-second or a twenty-second stop - and if you limit the pit crew, that's a cheaper way to go racing and provide a spectacle. But if all you care about is speed, a twenty-person pit crew is faster (and many of those guys have probably driven the trucks there, so does it really cost?).

And if you wanted to protest a club race decision, you would. The idea that the club could say "that doesn't look good to the fans, so keep quiet" wouldn't apply. So we end up with some F1 rule decisions being finalised in courts! Sure everyone in the sport loses, but the guy who won in court lost less than the others, so that's a win!

 

That's why the rules need to be changed to do it. Kind of like Indy cars.

 

Well, I just watched my taped edition of the Belgian Grand Prix. Vettel simply had an amazing race from start to finish. Alonso did well by moving from 9th position to 2nd. Hamilton gave up the pole for an okay 3rd place finish. Raikkonen is sure to be unhappy dropping to 4th in championship points. Grosjean had a crappy race for Lotus and Button's pit strategy didn't work out very well either. Next stop: Italy!

 

Is Ricciardo replacing Webber?

 

It sounds like Raikkonen will stay with Lotus if they spend the $$$$ to improve his machine. I wonder if Mossa has done enough through the BGP to keep his seat with Ferrari. The 'Prancing Ponies' could use another Alonso.

 

I'm not a betting man, but I'd bet we will never see an F1 race in New Jersey.

 

Jersey ain't happinin.....it's already been canceled......permanently.

It was a daft idea for a Formula 1 course anyway.....

 

I remember that race Michael was winning but then let Mario have it for a Father's Day present. I thought it was great.

 

From my memory he didn't let Dad win, he took it. My cloudy memory remembers Michael running out of fuel. Yep that was one great race ending.

 

I must be getting old

 

They showed quite a bit of it in Practice 2. Very interesting stuff. There was no mention of what the temps were.