Sport The Formula 1 Thread

[Halkyon]

nonsense, Shumacher has shown he still has something to bring to F1, I would argue he is being held back by the car (in qualifying) as much as anything else. He frequently finishes in the top 10, with several finishes in 4th - 6th (at least four). One of those 5th place finishes was from the back of the grid

He's being beaten by Rosberg, so either Rosberg is the most amazing driver never to win a race or Schumacher is still shit after two years.

2011 Schumacher-Rosberg

Qualified Ahead: 2-12

Average Qualifying Gap: +0.254

Finished Race ahead: 5-5

Laps spent ahead: 241-447

[SeanR]

noo joisey confirmed.

but where?

[Agent L]

A little more on the Red Bull Milton Keynes thing:

http://www.destinationmiltonkeynes.co.uk/News/Latest_News/red_bull_racing_milton_keynes

[Sidewaysbob]

You wait around for 10 years for an American GP to turn up and then you get two together. Neither of which are the track you wanted.

[Halkyon]

Good post up on Joe Sawads GP blog, follow it if you're not already (and buy his e-magazine sub damnit).

[Bruciebabie]

C&P:

I'm out here at the moment. We went for a track walk this morning and overall the track looks pretty good. There are a few questionable parts like why is there the need for yet another massively long straight. They've landscaped it to give a dip half way down it but surely it would make the track much more exciting by having some big sweeping bends. Also the track is VERY wide, particularly on the entry to turns 3, 4 and 16, presumably to encourage overtaking but its reall a bit too much, I'll put up a pic or two. Turn 10 into 11 looks pretty spectacular, think T8 istanbul or spoon at suzuka. Generally its another one of those standard format tilke tracks whichare getting a bit dull but this one looks promising.

Away from the track itself its a bit different. If you go on the grass the ground is very uneven and theres building rubble sticking up all over the place. I wouldn't be surprised to see cars going airbourne if they take to the grass. The whole place is incredibly dusty and dirty so I'd expect massive track progression on each day.

The buildings do look like they've been thrown together and the detail is pretty awful with floors and pillars not level or straight. You can definitely tell that this job was not mansged very well particularly when you compare it to Abu Dhabi where everything was perfect when we arrived for the first time. I'd say its more complete than korea was last year but the finish and quality of building work is much worse. That was to be expected though, particularly after last years commonwealth carastrophe.

The race should be good though, aparently they lowered the ticket price and so ahould be a near sell out on Sunday.

[wev]

A little more on the Red Bull Milton Keynes thing:

http://www.destinationmiltonkeynes.co.uk/News/Latest_News/red_bull_racing_milton_keynes

Thanks for that, will be requesting that I have the 10th off now

[Bruciebabie]

From James Allen. F1 start performance so far this season:

Places Gained

+25 Schumacher *

+17 Buemi #

+15 Glock

+13 Liuzzi

+12 Kovalainen

+11 Alonso***

+10 Ricciardo

+9 Di Resta,

+8 Trulli

+6 Massa, Heidfeld ******

+5 Kobayashi**

+3 D’Ambrosio

Lost places

-2, Chandhok

-3 Vettel

-8 Hamilton, Rosberg*****

-9 Sutil ##, Maldonado

-11 Alguersuari####

-13 Button,

-14 Perez ###

-16 Petrov,****

-19 Senna

-18 Barrichello

- 23 Webber

[dayte]

What do the stars and hashes mean?

[Bruciebabie]

What do the stars and hashes mean?

* Schumacher had one bad start in Australia, losing 8 places but since then has been the season’s outstanding starter. He gained 9 places in Spa and four in Monza.

** Kobayashi lost 10 places in Spain, prior to that he had gained 8 in 4 starts.

*** After losing places in the first three races, Alonso has reversed that trend. His starts in Barcelona and Monza were outstanding.

**** Petrov had a good record until he lost 4 places at the start in Valencia. He was on a +2 balance before Monza where he was taken out at the start.

***** Rosberg lost four places at the start in Silverstone and was on a +6 balance before Monza where he was taken out in the first corner

****** Heidfeld had gained 20 places but lost 12 at the start in Germany

******* Di Resta had consistent start form and gained 7 places in the first nine races, but lost 12 at the start in Germany.

# Buemi made up nine places at the start in Hungary having started 23rd on the grid

## Sutil had a positive start balance until Hungary where he lost 12 places at the start

### Perez lost nine places off the start in Hungary.

#### Alguersuari was doing well with a +6 record prior to Spa, where he was hit by another car and lost 18 places. In Monza he gained 7 places at the start.

[Halkyon]

Qualify further back than you should be according to your car's performance and you're going to make lots of places up. That could be a table of worst qualifiers.

[morcs]

Hehe, to me the sheer number of footnotes basically says "the above stats are fairly pointless"

[Halkyon]

Quite.

Does not apply to any statistics I use to prove my own points.

[dayte]

So the only ones with no valid excuse are Barrichello, Senna and Webber. Bye bye to them?

[Sidewaysbob]

And Schumacher .. just because he's schumacher

[Sidewaysbob]

Will the circuit be finished by Sunday ?

Well then, it looks like everyone who needs to has finally arrived, so let us begin.

So India then and the inaugural Formula One race at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, New Delhi. Narain Karthikeyan gets a ride in the HRT whilst Karun Chandhok gets told he’s not as good as Trulli and is relegated to Lotus pit lane tour guide for the weekend.

It’s a brand spanking new (Tilke) circuit that looks somewhat like Turkey, China and Korea. It’s more finished than Korea was last year, but it’s a bit slapped together in places with the BBC five live team questioning their commentary box having no windows earlier in the week.

No doubt it was time to turn up in the world’s fifth largest economy and try and sell some cars to the locals that aren’t dirt poor. But as with a lot of things in India these days it would appear that a lot of time has been spent writing reports and shifting farmers off the land, and not much time spent finishing off buildings with tools such as a set squares or a spirit levels.

I know it’s not the done thing, but really .... this is the fifth largest economy in the world and it still can’t build a major sporting venue without bits of it falling down before the event takes place. I suppose it’s better than having a few floaters in the swimming pool and a pack of wild dogs hanging around the competitor’s accommodation. But really, Abu Dhabi managed to build a new track without having to rebuild it the day after the first race finished.

Okay, so then this being a new track that as far as I know hasn’t been troubled by anything with an engine and sticky rubber running on it. It’s going to be extremely green and very dusty for the whole weekend; this makes it a lottery in terms of picking a finisher let alone a top ten.

Tires then, it’s all going to be about the tires, the team that gets a handle on their tires and how they’re reacting to the new circuit as it rubbers in, and comes up to speed is going to have an advantage. All the teams have topological and simulation data on the track, but no one has any experience of the surface and how it reacts to heat and the load of the tires. It’s going to be slippery and chew tires up to begin with, the question will be how long will the tires last when they get to the midpoint of the race.

Given that none of this matters though, except for Force India who are running for pride, I don’t think any of the team will be trying all that hard. Other than Force India in fact I’m struggling to think of any teams that have India sponsorship to worry about, maybe the back end of the grid will pick up some local pin money. But Ferrari doesn’t sell too many cars east of Dubai, Redbull sell a few drinks but not as much as they do in Europe, whilst McLaren has two British drivers I suppose.

Redbull then, though McLaren went very well in Korea last week, until the race when Vettel got back up to speed obviously.

Hey ... maybe Webber will finally get his act together and do something other than go backwards.

In other news New York ... sorry New Jersey USA will be getting a Grand Prix in 2013. Whoopty doo. Yet another circuit shoe horned into a city. Look Monaco is fine, we’ll have it because, well, we’ve always had it. Montreal doesn’t look like a city so that’s okay.

But have they learnt nothing from Valencia? This year all the talk on the commentary was about the architecture and the fact that they have a race. Not about the race, because yet again there wasn’t really one, just the car running around an empty dockyard which on Monday morning would be turned back into a fish market.

America has some fantastic circuits that, whilst maybe not up to FIA speck, are superb circuits for actual racing on. Lime Rock, Laguna Seca, , Road America (Elkhart Lake) and Watkins Glen all have history and more importantly Herman Tilke has been nowhere near them. Why can’t we go to these circuits? No one in Texas gives a monkies about F1 they’re all NASCAR red necks through and through. Even Indy car struggles down south these days. New York is all about the money yet again.

But hey, as long as Bernie is getting paid, it’s all good isn’t it.

Talking of Bernie, the finger pointing and “it was him I gave the money too” backside coverage that has been going on in Bavaria over the past year, has finally arrived at the courts. To recap, when CVC bought the rights to Formula one, it is alleged that Bernie paid former BayernLB bank executive Gerhard Gribkowshy just a whole shed load of cash for “advice” on selling F1. Now I don’t know about you, but if someone offered you $44 million dollars for advice, you’d expect more than a slap up meal and a round of brandies in the smoking room later.

Bernie has claimed it’s all above board and totally fine Guv’ner, whilst the Bavarian authorities continue to investigate his involvement. Everyone knows he’s a shady character, but I doubt they’ll be able to pin anything on him this time.

[dayte]

Bloody hell

[Dom B]

To recap, when CVC bought the rights to Formula one, it is alleged that Bernie paid former BayernLB bank executive Gerhard Gribkowshy just a whole shed load of cash for “advice” on selling F1. Now I don’t know about you, but if someone offered you $44 million dollars for advice, you’d expect more than a slap up meal and a round of brandies in the smoking room later.

Bernie has claimed it’s all above board and totally fine Guv’ner, whilst the Bavarian authorities continue to investigate his involvement. Everyone knows he’s a shady character, but I doubt they’ll be able to pin anything on him this time.

I don't get this. If someone offered me $44 million for advice, I'd expect $44 million, thanks very much. Did Bernie not hold up his end of the bargain then, and the bank dude has taken it to court?

[myoozikk]

One team has had some running around the track, red bull. I CERTAINLY don't think they took any data at all from their promotional run. Why would they do that???

[Dudley]

I doubt running at half speed on a half finished track using non-race tyres in a 2 year old car provided that much data tbh.

[RFT]

America has some fantastic circuits that, whilst maybe not up to FIA speck, are superb circuits for actual racing on. Lime Rock, Laguna Seca, , Road America (Elkhart Lake) and Watkins Glen all have history and more importantly Herman Tilke has been nowhere near them. Why can’t we go to these circuits?

Lime Rock: Too short.

Laguna Seca: Too Short, insanely dangerous for fast open-wheelers in the run to the corkscrew.

Road America: Too Long at 4 miles, Ironically, but would be the best bet for bringing up to spec as you could build a decent alternate layout in the infield to bypass the worst sections without ruining it.

Watkins Glen: not far off on length - could maybe be done with a pitlane move.

Sears Point - Wouldn't be bad- Indycar moved there from Laguna a couple of years ago. bit short (and looks really scabby).

And at the risk of repeating myself, if I saw Tilke within the grounds of any of those circuits, I'd be worried. I'll never forgive him for what he did to Fuji. F1 just won't visit tracks like that until they've been stripped of what made them special in the first place.

No one in Texas gives a monkies about F1 they’re all NASCAR red necks through and through. Even Indy car struggles down south these days.

The race in texas isn't about Texans. It's about Mexicans. Indycar struggles everywhere, these days.

Apart from the pointlessness of two american races (though we did, of course, used to have two, years and years ago) I quite like the look of this Noo Joisey track. It's not too stop-start fiddly (unlike Valencia or Singapore), has some fun-looking flowing sections, runs through greenery for half of it. I know I'm in the minority here, but I quite like the look of it.

[Sidewaysbob]

I ment they all know which way it goes and high much elevation change there is, that stuff will be in the simulaters now. But yeah no one has any tire or fuel data.

As for Bernie, he paid Gribkowsky in back handers to make the german bank invest in F1 (via CVC) allegidly.

Gerhard Gribkowsky, a former member of the management board of state-owned bank BayernLB, has been in jail since January, when he was arrested for allegedly accepting $44 million (31.6 million euros) from Bernie Ecclestone, president and CEO of Formula One Management, to facilitate a massive sale of shares.

and

According to German state prosecutors, Ecclestone then paid the bank manager the eight-figure sum through a bogus adviser's contract in 2005, so that he would facilitate the sale of the shares to his preferred investor. BayernLB says this surreptitious deal meant it missed out on a higher offer and lost $66.5 million.

This report seems the most open minded .. Bernie, the little scamp, has been paying banker off.

[marsh]

Call me cynical, but after the past two weeks events, the bernster smells blood to be had from indycar and is going to try and reall put the boot in. Two races over there is two too many.

[Sidewaysbob]

Indeed, i think Indy car is going to struggle next year for viewers, NASCAR is the motorsport america is watching.

[RFT]

Indycar's been seriously struggling for viewers for a long time. the average race gets less than half a million viewers in the US. there have been races this year where more UK folks have watched it via sky than americans.

[Sidewaysbob]

Not enough home grown talent I suspect.

[RFT]

well, even in the late-80s / early-90s pre-split glory days of CART IndyCar the bulk of the (winning) driving talent was non-US. They suffered massively from the years of infighting between the IRL and CART and NASCAR cleaned up. Tony George's original vison for the IRL was to take it back to more ovals and to be more american. It failed, totally.

[Sidewaysbob]

Yes Tony George has an awful lot to answer for.

[marsh]

And even their best have struggled like fuck in F1. Bourdais anyone?

[Sidewaysbob]

Bourdais is alright, he got screwed by the redbull driver program. He did alright in indy and is a Peugeot squad driver these days.

Scott Speed would be a better example, he was shit.