Sport The Formula 1 Thread

[Sigourney Beaver]

Let's face it. The championship will roll on to the last race barring any incredibly unforseen circumstances. If it looks like Button is going to get a good result I can assure you something will happen to make sure he doesn't.

[Bruciebabie]

Weights:

01 McLaren Mercedes Lewis Hamilton 661.0*

02 McLaren Mercedes Heikki Kovalainen 656.5*

03 Ferrari Giancarlo Fisichella 683.5*

04 Ferrari Kimi Räikkönen 651.5

05 BMW Sauber Robert Kubica 656.0

06 BMW Sauber Nick Heidfeld 650.5*

07 Renault Fernando Alonso 652.0

08 Renault Romain Grosjean 677.2*

09 Toyota Jarno Trulli 658.5

10 Toyota Kamui Kobayashi 671.6*

11 STR Ferrari Jaime Alguersuari 671.5*

12 STR Ferrari Sébastien Buemi 659.0

14 RBR Renault Mark Webber 656.0

15 RBR Renault Sebastian Vettel 683.5*

16 Williams Toyota Nico Rosberg 657.0

17 Williams Toyota Kazuki Nakajima 664.0

20 Force India Mercedes Adrian Sutil 656.5

21 Force India Mercedes Vitantonio Liuzzi 680.0*

22 Brawn Mercedes Jenson Button 672.0*

23 Brawn Mercedes Rubens Barrichello 650.5

[mexos]

Let's face it. The championship will roll on to the last race barring any incredibly unforseen circumstances. If it looks like Button is going to get a good result I can assure you something will happen to make sure he doesn't.

Are you referring to Bernie's big red button™ ? The 'make gearbox not work for just enough time then miraculously come back to life and work perfectly for the rest of the race' program from a few years ago could be an option.

[Sigourney Beaver]

Are you referring to Bernie's big red button™ ? The 'make gearbox not work for just enough time then miraculously come back to life and work perfectly for the rest of the race' program from a few years ago could be an option.

Precisely. Biggest fix in sporting history.

[Bruciebabie]

Precisely. Biggest fix in sporting history.

That isn't the only time Hamilton has pressed the wrong button on his steering wheel.

[mexos]

Bernie's been perfecting it for years. In the 90's he had a portable one, attached to a laser. Lost it in the crowd somewhere down by the hairpin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeDt6eCXUTY

:lol

[Sigourney Beaver]

It just so happened that he did it in the race he could've become the first rookie to win the championship, beating a double world champion driving the same car that possibly made use of parts from a rival car because the team cheated by nicking plans from Ferrari.

[mexos]

By bringing the gearbox back to life I always wondered if it was Mclaren's silent protest. Kind of like when a driver has been ordered to give a place up for a team mate, but then drives right up their chuff till the end of the race so everyone is reminded of what really happened.

[zxcvbnm]

Barichello's biggest weakness is his starts - I can see Raikonnen with his KERS banzai-ing it up to the front pretty quickly, and we all know Webber likes a good shunt, so my money is on a 2nd or 3rd corner coming together with Webber and Barrichello and Kimi racing off to an easy lead with Trulli acting like a rolling roadblock to hold everyone else up for him.

Button will be snivelling into his radio complaining that the other boys aren't playing fair.

[marsh]

I've got a hunch that Button might still bag some points from this.

[zxcvbnm]

It might work in Buttons favour being that far back, as he can avoid the carnage at the front.

[Hackign]

It might work in Buttons favour being that far back, as he can avoid the carnage at the front.

Yeah but he is sort of surrounded by the new guys of Formula 1.Grosjean to duff up his start then gets too aggressive into the first corner and causes a red flag situation!

[BeeJay]

Let's just hope that it's dry. Should make for an amazing race.

[myoozikk]

I'm hoping for a dry race too. They said the dry st cars would have about a second a lap over the wet cars and you can pass here. It'd be awesome.

[Bruciebabie]

It is raining there right now.

The weather forecast has thunder storms in the middle of the day and in the early evening with "cloudy" in between.

And the problem with cu nim systems is that they have so much energy that they can do what they want.

So we won't know what is going to happen till it happens.

Also remember Hungary 2006 when Button won in the wet from 14th on the grid.

Yesterday's problem in qualifying was the team's fault. They had his tyres in the wrong condition at the wrong time. Following Bernies orders.

[Bruciebabie]

Pos No Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Laps

1 23 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 1:24.100 1:21.659 1:19.576 30

2 14 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 1:24.722 1:20.803 1:19.668 28

3 20 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:24.447 1:20.753 1:19.912 28

4 9 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:24.621 1:20.635 1:20.097 29

5 4 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:23.047 1:21.378 1:20.168 30

6 12 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1:24.591 1:20.701 1:20.250 35

7 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:22.828 1:20.368 1:20.326 31

8 5 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 1:23.072 1:21.147 1:20.631 30

9 17 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:23.161 1:20.427 1:20.674 32

10 7 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:24.842 1:21.657 1:21.422 27

11 10 Kamui Kobayashi Toyota 1:24.335 1:21.960 22

12 11 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 1:24.773 1:22.231 25

13 8 Romain Grosjean Renault 1:24.394 1:22.477 23

14 22 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 1:24.297 1:22.504 23

15 21 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:24.645 12

16 15 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:25.009 13

17 2 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.052 12

18 1 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.192 11

19 6 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:25.515 11

20 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari 1:40.703 3

Overall the qualifying was deeply impressive. Very powerful, very light cars with no electronic aids running in very changeable conditions with little grip. Every driver was having multiple "moments" on every lap, often at very high speed. Lewis said he was wheelspinning down the straight, which would be at 180+ mph.

The bottom 5 are all from big teams. Which promises that next year the competitiveness will be as mixed up as this year.

The Toyota and Williams cars obviously like the wet.

Kobayashi gave us the best first qualifying performance by a rookie since Hamilton, but without the testing advantage that Hamilton had. So far the most impressive debut by a Japanese driver.

Sutil is looking like a bit of a Regenmeister, this isn't the first time he has outperformed in the wet. It would be interesting to see him develop in a different car.

Vettel certainly didn't look like the new Schumacher, he was over driving the car, fighting it all the way. He was twitching far too fast for the car to settle down and work. Webber's far slower inputs did the job better.

Buemi is definitely by far the most impressive of the current crop of rookies. A pity the production people don't give us more in car time with him. As I said before he could be on route to replace Webber at Red Bull. If he keeps developing at this rate he could become WDC potential material.

One of the driver outperformers of qualifying was Kubica. That car is a dog and BMW are leaving the sport. I am still convinced that in equal cars Robert would have the measure of Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Sutil. In other words his contemporaries.

Finaly, of the drivers, I think that Kimi outperformed significantly. This year's Ferrari is mightily difficult to drive in the dry. Multiply by 100 for yesterday's conditions. Unless something goes wrong he is on the way to a podium finish.

I think that there will be a lot of Force India and Red Bull in all next year's cars. These two have a significant aerodynamic advantage over the others.

[marsh]

Safety cars aplenty, Rubens isn't going to win this.

[Bruciebabie]

Current odds:

R Barrichello 11/8

F Alonso 33/1

H Kovalainen 100/1

M Webber 15/8

R Kubica 40/1

G Fisichella 150/1

K Raikkonen 10/1

S Buemi 40/1

V Liuzzi 150/1

J Trulli 12/1

L Hamilton 40/1

N Heidfeld 150/1

A Sutil 12/1

J Button 40/1

J Alguersuari 300/1

N Rosberg 25/1

K Nakajima 66/1

R Grosjean 300/1

S Vettel 25/1

K Kobayashi 100/1

If it is dry or even dryish then Lewis has got to be an each way bet at 40 to 1.

Interlagos is a natural KERS track and Lewis is a natural born racer. He is going to make places. And/or stuff it.

Even Kimi at 10 to 1 looks a good deal, he is the only person near the front with KERS.

If it is soaking wet then Sutil at 12/1 looks good value.

[Big Gus]

Got Kimi on an each way bet, To the podium, then the ice cream truck my friend!

[mexos]

From Jon Noble's twitter:

Have woken to blue skies in Sao Paulo. A few clouds but very different to yesterday

Ooooooooh

[mexos]

Even Kimi at 10 to 1 looks a good deal, he is the only person near the front with KERS.

No one's really mentioned it, but I was curious about just how much use KERS is in the mega wet, when the drivers are at 20% throttle down the straights. A bit useless I would have thought?

[Big Gus]

Kimi was near 20/1 before the weekend started. B)

[roskelld]

It's funny that in the run up to Qualifying people warned Brawn and Jenson to not go too conservative with their tactics.

They did exactly that (Ross's words) and look how it paid off; or didn't.

I'm impressed with Webber's performance though, he really handled those wets well, keeping the car smooth and letting the tires ease in. The results of Q2 show how he kept it together. Martin Brundle was probably right with his advice, Jenson could have done with getting a slow lap in, maybe running wide and taking the tires through the water to cool them down to help put together a final smooth run.

Still leaves us with a potentially interesting race and a messed up Fantasy F1 Grid.

[Masu]

40-1 for Button? Given this place and its rain possibility, it could be worth a quid. Maybe

[Gringo]

40-1 for Button? Given this place and its rain possibility, it could be worth a quid. Maybe

Wishful thinking and David Croft on 5live said the weather was beautiful there today! Well for now anyway.

[Masu]

Yeah unlikely but worth a pound punt. Maybe with a Hamilton and Alonso to back em up

[myoozikk]

come on a sunny race. plllleeeeaaaaseee!!!

[mexos]

come on a sunny race that turns to rainy, dries out and then rains again. plllleeeeaaaaseee!!!

Corrected for you B) It would be fun! At different points in the race, whole portions of the field would be either super fast or slow.

Can't wait for this race. I get the feeling it's going to be epic

[rafaqat]

hmm. iPlayer doesn't have the end of quali. Sky+ wasn't clever enough to switch to BBC either. balls.

[Naysonymous]

Its not surprising. Qualifying lasted almost three hours yesterday.