Official F1/Motorsport thread

[Area]

True. The first third was a bit dry, but it was entertaining to see the cars disintegrating around the drivers as everything wore out.

Think i'll reserve judgement about the new rules till mid season.

[VR46]

you have to feel for both BAR lads, esp Davidson.

They should have stuck with the original engine, that'll teach them
SHould be good next week, now just wonder if Ferrari will bring their new car and Schumacher will get back in his pram.

As it a 19 race season guess they all get a new engine just for the last race.

[Alastair]

BAR definitely suffered from karma there!! Serves them right tbh.

Decent enough race, funny to see the drivers not being able to cope with knackered tyres though and keep flinging it off the road when trying to overtake. It showed the difference in skill levels though when Webber & Fisi tangled, result both out. When Raikonen & Massa(?) did almost exactly the same, Raik is calm and ends up with a place from it. Felt sorry for him though as he was doing really well on a good strategy when he had the blowout.

JV is on his way out for sure, how long will he last? Who knows but I don't think it'll be more than one more race if that.

Is M Schu driving under protest atm? Maybe he is super confident in the new car but whatever, if he carries on being so diss-interested it would have been better for everyone if he had retired

[Bassman]

I thought it interesting the Barichello gave up and drove into the garage with his car still working properly albeit with his tyres shot. I suppose it was sensible in that he didn't want to demolish the car in the closing stages of the race due to lack of grip.

At least all the engines survived two races. It would have been intriguing if tired engines started letting go before the end of the race. I wonder what would have happened if half the field failed to finish due to blown engines. Would there have been a quick rule change if it kept happening?

[mid]

Given that half of Fisi's problem was caused by crap all over that bit of the track thanks to Kimi and a few others, I wonder what they're gaining from this daft tyre measure? They keep saying "Cost Saving", but they've been so expensive to develop and manufacture (as have the engines, btw) that it would have been much cheaper to have stuck to the old method of replacing parts that didn't need to be engineered to last so long.

[VR46]

I thought it interesting the Barichello gave up and drove into the garage with his car still working properly albeit with his tyres shot. I suppose it was sensible in that he didn't want to demolish the car in the closing stages of the race due to lack of grip.

Sure he was more worried about "demolishing" his body rather than his car

[Pikman]

I found it another tedious race and feel the new rules only serve to detract from what was once a fantastic sport.

My brother, who works for Williams as an aeronautical engineer, tells me very few people within the team are happy with the new rregulations and they do not save money.

[VR46]

yeah your probably right, the money saved on making the engine last two races is probably just spent on development and testing rather than another engine !

Dunno tyre situation and if teams even pay for them ?? thought it was just a way of promoting the tyres companies foc basically.

[Pikman]

I don't know if the teams actually have to pay for the tyres, probably not.

[gtskater]

Try the official team sites. They will prob be best for up to date ones.

Or put formula 1 wallpaper, or something like that, into this image search: http://images.devilfinder.com/

I get a lot of blocked images using that so be aware if you're at work.

Here for some more:

http://www.planet-f1.com/downloads/wallpapers/

There are a few at crash too:

http://www.crash.net/uk/en/services/wallpaper.asp

Hope that helps a little

Cheers dude.

I thought the race was good......but it was a tad boring. Had its moments but overall it simply wasn't that entertaining. Flav is such a millionaire playboy. Think Ferrari will have to rush thru the 05 car then? You can bet your bottom dollar. I think we can see Fernando being a Championship winner one day.

[VR46]

poor old Montoya, another championship slipping away already ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/4386661.stm

[Richard.John]

JPM is too much like our Nige.

[Kieran76]

Not a bad race today. Pedro was very entertaining and Ferraris plan seems to have backfired. Poor old Jenson I bet he hates being at BAR at the moment, they seem to have stoodstill while other teams have improved, or maybe last year they massively over achieved. Another point for my man DC though.

Go DC!

[Morcerf]

What are people making of the new qualifying format?

Personally, I think its an absolute joke - no point whatsoever in watching the Saturday qualifying nowadays since you don't leave knowing who has pole, and the only exciting time in qualifying now is on a Sunday morning and isn't televised!

It's rather worrying that the whole F1 circus seem detached from the reality of what it is like for fans, especially when Bernie says things like :

"It looks like we got it right and finally I think we've got it the way people wanted it."

Grrrrr - bring back the 12 laps format!

[Concept]

Agreed. The choice of having two qualifying sessions is woefully stupid in terms of spectacle (although I can understand it from an advertisers/commercial point of view).

It kills the tension and pace of the each race event. The first day kind of seems... in the way.