Sport The Formula 1 Thread

[Froettmaning]

Some are claiming that Massa wouldn't have had to refuel so early, and therefore the fuel rig hilarity wouldn't have happened, if there hadn't been the safety car - and therefore he would have won the race. I don't subscribe to that - it could have happened whenever he came in for fuel.

Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about the particular fuckup, but I think you're right - that traffic-light setup was always going to bite them in the ass at some point.

[DarthSquirrel]

[Engineer] He just asked what lap are we in.

Pat Symonds Yeah, tell him that he’s about to complete lap 8. Is that correct?

[Engineer] That’s correct yeah. I think he was asking what lap are we in though but, which he already knows.

Pat Symonds No just tell him, he is about, he’s just completing, he is about to complete lap 8.

Pwned.

That transcript (Doc 5 on the Daily Mail link) is insane! With the swearing and casual racism it reads like the transcript of a bunch of Americans playing Forza on Xbox Live not a multi-million dollar sporting/business organisation at work. I don't know if every team/race would be like that but they seem to have some kind of computer problem (somebody covering their tracks?)

[GwiDan]

The radio transcript is crazy. I couldn't believe how unprofessional they all seemed considering they're running what was at the time a top 3 team. Flavio comes across as not knowing what on earth is going on let alone which race he's at, and I think Symonds may have had a bigger role in this than I originally thought. I'm almost convinced that Moseley is behind all of this coming out now as well.

[SeanR]

Has anyone posted this yet?

http://axisofoversteer.com/blog/documents/Fit%20Of%20PK.pdf

It's a very good summary of the events, including Piquet's telemetry readings. And a throwaway factoid that I didn't know - apparently Piquet practised the "accident" in the formation lap!

thassa brilliant!

FIA adviser: Nelson Piquet Jr. says that he was asked by you to cause a deliberate crash. Is that true?

Symonds: Nelson had spoken to me the day before and suggested that. That’s all I’d really like to say.

FIA adviser: Mr. Symonds, were you aware that there was going to be a crash at Lap 14?

Symonds: I don’t want to answer that question.

[gone fishin]

The radio transcript is crazy. I couldn't believe how unprofessional they all seemed considering they're running what was at the time a top 3 team. Flavio comes across as not knowing what on earth is going on let alone which race he's at, and I think Symonds may have had a bigger role in this than I originally thought. I'm almost convinced that Moseley is behind all of this coming out now as well.

But then if you are going to pull in a stunt like they've (probably) done, you'd surely want to create an impression of crazyness. It does come across as really unprofessional, but it can be a good enough smokescreen (which it must have been until Piquet blew the cover).

I have expected someone to go "W-w-w-w-w-w-w-wwwaaaahhhh???"

[Sidewaysbob]

How about, Symonds takes the rap for this. He's been there a long time, made some money, wants to do a bit of gardening, maybe design a boat or something.

Flav maintains he is the innocent party in all of this, that it was Symonds and Piquet together who cooked the whole thing up and he didn't know anything about it. He was all set to sue Piquet for blackmail afterall.

Reanult still have the book thrown at them, they sell the team up to Flav still who still maintains his innocents. Renault go into the customer engine game with Mecachome again, quietly slipping back into the shaows for 5-6 years or so.

Just to really annoy Max, Flav brings Ron in as pit wall guru

[Sidewaysbob]

Suddenly .....

Prodrive to buy Renault ...... Could we be about to see the return of the prodigal Son ??

[JohnC]

Suddenly .....

Prodrive to buy Renault

Are you speculating or is that happening?

[DarthSquirrel]

Eh? Surely Prodive would want a UK factory?

[marsh]

I thought it was? or have they moved? Alonso was always banging on about being a relative unknown in the uk when visiting the team.

[gone fishin]

Well Alonso lives in Oxford, so I'm sure he's fairly well known there...

And Renault do have facilities in the UK, with some in France- but most of the design is done here. So it could be possible for Prodrive to buy them, but do we really need another Middle East backed team? Especially if they were to call it Aston Martin Racing... I mean, it's pretty bad in that Lotus is being used- with all of the development work to be shifted to Malaysia.

[marsh]

Is it though? the Malasians have had a stake in Lotus for years while we kid ourselves that it's a uk independant car maker.

[MrPogo]

So is there a connection between the Lotus F1 and "proper Lotus" or not? As far as I can gather there's not supposed to be any connection but the name, but seems a bit concidental this happened less than two weeks after the "proper Lotus" announced their new CEO is a chap poached from Ferrari's F1 set-up (who before that was in charge of Red Bull's entry into the sport) and this Lotus F1 team will be operating five miles from the main Lotus HQ for the forseeable future :S

[McSpeed]

Pwned.

That transcript (Doc 5 on the Daily Mail link) is insane! With the swearing and casual racism it reads like the transcript of a bunch of Americans playing Forza on Xbox Live not a multi-million dollar sporting/business organisation at work. I don't know if every team/race would be like that but they seem to have some kind of computer problem (somebody covering their tracks?)

You should hear Meerman when we play Forza on Xbox Live

[GwiDan]

Dave Richards has been seen at Renault F1 in the aftermath of today apparently, so it could happen. I don't really want AMR to take over from Renault though - the French company is a good brand to have in motorsports, and slapping an Aston badge on the front of the cars changes nothing.

[linkster]

Awesome Eddy Irvine interview on 5 Live just now.

[gone fishin]

Dave Richards has been seen at Renault F1 in the aftermath of today apparently, so it could happen. I don't really want AMR to take over from Renault though - the French company is a good brand to have in motorsports, and slapping an Aston badge on the front of the cars changes nothing.

I agree, Renault are a great brand to have in F1 and it's good to have some form of French representation (even if it's only slight) in F1. But if Prodrive/AMR do take over Renault (and have enough money from a backer- probably Middle Eastern) will this mean that Alonso would stay? With all of the plans to cut costs further in F1, maybe AMR could be in good enough contention to be at least as good enough as Ferrari for next season. Alonso is obviously happy with the team around him- which he would probably want to take some of to Ferrari- so maybe this will affect his potential move?

If they did take over, and with the whole uncertainty of Massa, I would be tempted to just stay- if I were Alonso (but if I were Alonso, I would probably just sit around on my yacht and have sex with supermodels- so what do I know?). The only reason to move would be purely financial- and any potential financial backers of AMR could meet that.

And it would make good business sense for Renault to stay in engine manufacturing for F1, with Prodrive/AMR taking over the team. They could, quite easily, go into major competition with Mercedes for engine supply.

[Paradigm]

I dislike Renault because of how commercial they are. They just gave up spending after they won the championship, whoever was in charge was happy with the PR (and subsequently every car, even a 1.2 Clio was positioned next to their F1 winning car in some glossy backdrop) and that was that. Bor-ing.

[marsh]

With Santander now sponsoring both Mclaren and Ferrari either could be seat for him, though a return to Mclaren I would say is highly unlikely.

Renault should go back to engine supply with Williams, they made some interesting tie ups back then.

[gone fishin]

Awesome Eddy Irvine interview on 5 Live just now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...one/8260448.stm

here, if anyone wants to listen... it's fantastic. And he's absolutely spot on.

There is a bit of irony about old Flav, though.. he always pushed the commercial aspects of F1, not the engineering side, and was one of the stalwarts in getting F1 to new territories and markets. In doing that, it made the sport change itself to become squeeky clean (and there's a certain sense of irony in that, with the amount of general corruption that goes on in a lot of the countries F1 has moved to) and he's been rumbled.

A few years ago, Piquet would have been given a golden handshake in being allowed to race for a couple of years and then would have faded away. Now with the whole pressure of sponsors, and manufacturers, being piled onto teams- they can't do that anymore. The sponsors have no idea of what really goes on in F1 (as Irvine alluded to in his interview, if you're a second driver- you do anything to make the first driver win, and I'm sure he did that plenty of times with Schumacher) and want results- they want 2 drivers pushing for the championship, not one.

It looks like Brawn and Red Bull are the teams following this new way of racing- both their drivers have a chance of winning the championship. The old ways of Ferrari, Mclaren and Renault/Benneton of building a team around one driver has gone. Although, funnily, the driver's championship always gets more attention than the constructors- but maybe that's not the way most sponsors (and definitely manufacturers) see it.

It might all change in a few years when the big car manufacturers have all buggered off and it's back to teams being "owned" by one person.....

[gone fishin]

With Santander now sponsoring both Mclaren and Ferrari either could be seat for him, though a return to Mclaren I would say is highly unlikely.

Renault should go back to engine supply with Williams, they made some interesting tie ups back then.

Is it definite that Alonso will go where Santander are? It seems a bit strange that a driver would change purely on the basis of sponsorship- unless it is purely financial. Although it is Ferrari! I know that ING have dropped sponsorship for Renault, but has any other sponsors been announced? Even if it ends up being Prodrive with no major sponsor, if they received enough funding it could cover it.

Especially as Santander are rebranding in the UK (great, another crappy bank) so they still have Lewis Hamilton as a frontman.

Yes, Alonso is huge in Spain- but is he really all that well known in the rest of the world (outside of F1). As you pointed out, he feels he is hardly recognised in the UK- and he lives here!

I think with the recent Massa incident, the Flavio incident and the potential buy out of Renault have all thrown some major spanners in the works with his potential move to Ferrari. We all know that Alonso likes to be the main number 1 driver, but now that Massa could still be out next year- what are Ferrari going to do? Keep Kimi? Keep Massa? Sign Alonso? Bring back Schumacher (personally, I think he would be a sponsors wet dream and much more tempting than Alonso).And with Kimi really getting back on form in the past few races- it makes the decision even harder...

And Renault had some great times with Williams- Williams do really need a bit of a shot in the arm (kick up the arse). It's a pity they can't be sponsored by Camel, as they could have brought the cars back to the old blue, white and yellow! Now that would be nice...

[GwiDan]

If Renault stay in F1, which they almost certainly are with the sacking of Briatore and Symonds (if they were leaving the sport, why would they bother?) - they will almost certainly supply Williams with engines. Williams are ditching Toyota engines as we already know, and they've already approached Mercedes High Performance engines and been turned down (possibly due to breaking ranks with FOTA earlier in the year), which only leaves Ferrari, Renault and Cosworth. I don't see Ferrari supplying them, they won't want Cosworth engines after a disasterous run of form last time round, so Renault is the only realistic option. Williams Renault sounds good, doesn't it? A change in livery from that horrible RBS branding would be good too. I like Williams, I want them to be competitive - they're a proper team instead of some executives in suits that know nothing about racing. Would be nice if they could get Adrian Newey back to design for them, since they apparently don't lack funds, just talent. Won't happen though.

[morcs]

Didn't I hear that Canon were sponsoring Williams next race? Or was it Renault?

Renault Williams with Canon sponsorship?

Edit: Ah no it's Brawn

[JohnC]

No wonder Renault didn't contest the charge.

[morcs]

[Paradigm]

Awesome.

Also: Briatore has been the most ungracious cock during this whole saga. I feel sorry for Piquet, the team were obviously a massive bunch of fuckers.

[Sidewaysbob]

Piquet is an idiot and a rubbish driver. Don't feel too sorry for him.

He had no qualms it would appear to crash the car when ask, it's even been stated it was his idea. To then turn round a year later after getting fired with a sudden attack conscience. Do me a favour. Feel sorry for the the good drivers who got passed over for this little rich boy.

[GwiDan]

I'd still like to see what he could do in a less cutthroat situation. I bet he's not as rubbish as has been shown.

[Paradigm]

He's clearly not 'rubbish', no one in F1 is. Give anyone the correct car and they'll be on the pace. It's been said that there's usually only one or two drivers on the grid that are maybe 0.2-3 seconds faster than everyone else and after that it's a level playing field. Piquet may have a few quid to chuck about but so does everyone else. No doubt the Renault team didn't try anywhere near as hard with him or his car as they have done as Alonso, and given how much of a pair of pricks Briatore and Symonds must be the mental pressure must have been extreme.

[marsh]

Blimey, flav you greedy bastard, 20% of piquets earnings for the next 5 years. I can't see him getting much out of that in the near future......