F1 2004 - Let the race begin :D

[pcchen]

Yeah. When my mother was watching it last night, she wondered why they have to race on such a dangerous track...

 

[Gubbi]

Yeah, It's complete mystery to me why they continue to have the Monaco Grand Prix, and at the same time talking about taking Spa (the best F1 track in Europe).out of the loop. Monaco is always down to chance and coincidence.

Of course it might be because the entire F1 jet set lives there

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[London Geezer]

Cutting Monaco off would be a killer for F1. After all it is the most beautiful and glamorous place they race in, wherther it's "fun" or not. Personally i find Monaco much more "fun" than the usual 1Km long straight line with a chicane, 2 long turns, one left one right, and another 1Km long straight line.

And what BZB said, if they were to lose Monaco, they would lose a whole lot of money from the rich corporate sponsors and clients who just LOVE going to Monaco.

 

[Gubbi]

Ok, so it's just the rest of us who loves racing that would love to see Monaco go.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[Diplo]

The best bit about the race, I thought, was this :

A diamond worth £200,000 embedded in the nose of a Jaguar Formula One car was lost when its rookie driver crashed in yesterday's Monaco Grand Prix.

Two flawless gems, the size of shirt buttons, were put in the nose of both Jaguar cars in a one-race-only publicity stunt for the Israeli diamond dealers Steinmetz. The cars were also advertising the forthcoming Hollywood filmOcean's 12, which involves an international diamond robbery.

But, shortly after the beginning of the race, Austrian Christian Klien, a newcomer to the Formula One scene, crashed his car nose-first into a guard rail.

Nav Sidhu, the team spokesman said: "He is a new driver, just 21 years old, and he has never driven at Monaco. It was the first lap of the race and at the Loews hairpin the cars were all bunched up. Christian drove into the back of Nick Heidfeld, the Jordan driver, and he lost his front wing. That means no down force and that means no grip. The car just careered off into the rail."

Mr Sidhu, who admitted that it had been his idea to embed the diamonds into the cars, said: "At that point, I should probably have been worried about the car or the race or the drive but, I must admit, my immediate thought was for the diamond."

Two hours later, when the race officials allowed Jaguar to inspect the car after the race, Mr Sidhu's worst fears were realised.

"It has gone. We have 100,000 people milling around trying to find a bit of crashed car across the course and I think there is going to be a lot of activity around the Loews hairpin. It is right outside the famous Mirabeau Hotel. I don't expect we are going to get it back," he said.

The diamond is not believed to have been insured.

The cost of insuring a £200,000 diamond to be driven at hundreds of miles an hour in a Formula One race would have been prohibitive.

- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=524300

 

[London Geezer]

^ ^ That is the stupidest thing i've ever ever ever heard of in my entire life. I mean.... 2 diamonds... stuck on the nose of a car... with a 21yo youngster driving it at hundreds of Km per hour.... Yes. Stupidest thing ever.

 

[Deepak]

They should have put the diamonds in Driver's helmet....

 

[Mendel]

I think someone working by the trackside, waving flags and cleaning up the track, has a very happy wife now

 

[London Geezer]

I think someone working by the trackside, waving flags and cleaning up the track, has a very happy wife now

^ ^ Wife??? You're not THAT naive are you...? The odds a guy would just give those diamonds to his wife are NONE. Anyone would sell them and buy, dont know, a house somewhere... new car... new wife!

 

[V3]

Starting grid:

1 Michael Schumacher 1:28.351
2 Takuma Sato + 0.635
3 Jarno Trulli + 0.784
4 Kimi Raikkonen + 0.786
5 Jenson Button + 0.894
6 Fernando Alonso + 0.962
7 Rubens Barrichello + 1.002
8 Juan Pablo Montoya + 1.003
9 Ralf Schumacher + 1.108
10 Olivier Panis + 1.346
11 Cristiano da Matta + 1.355
12 Mark Webber + 2.446
13 Christian Klien + 3.080
14 Nick Heidfeld + 3.253
15 Giorgio Pantano + 3.628
16 Felipe Massa + 3.631
17 Gianmaria Bruni + 5.671
18 Zsolt Baumgartner + 6.047
19 Giancarlo Fisichella
20 David Coulthard

Should be interesting. See if Sato jump the start again.

 

[Gollum]

What a surprising outcome. No seriously, I was naive enough to expect the others to put up a better fight! Instead we're back where we were before Monaco. Nice to see everybody sticks with their habbits: Michael can stop pacing only halfway through the race as he leads by a comfortable margin; McLaren's engines still go up in flames (and to a lesser degree Honda's); Montoya has as much joy as always in shoving others off the track and then claiming it wasn't his fault at all; Button is there when it counts (impressive season); race for ranks 5-12 is more interesing than 1-4...

My wishes: attach big rubber ducks onto Montoya's car next time; the new McLaren 'd better be ready soon; give people like Webber or Heidfeld faster cars; Michael and Barrichello should get a drive-through penalty for "speeding on the racetrack" if their lead is too significant...

 

[Tahir2]

After Monaco, Nubrugring (sp??) was yawn inducing.

The driver I feel most bad about is Rubens... he has the fastest car on the racetrack and a racing partner that makes him look as slow as a slug. Poor guy.. he is better than Eddie I guess

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

McLaren's new car comes out for Silverstone tyre tests next week. However, if they can't get the power and reliability out of the engine, it won't make much difference.

 

[Mendel]

McLaren's new car comes out for Silverstone tyre tests next week. However, if they can't get the power and reliability out of the engine, it won't make much difference.

I'm wondering if they'll pass the collision tests this year...

Räikkönen's this years success seems to continue...

 

[London Geezer]

*yawn*...

Again, go Shumy go, but...... yawn.

 

[rainz]

Great Site

http://f1.racing-live.com/en/index.html

RainZ

 

[Dave Baumann]

 

[vb]

Raikkonen completed 46 laps in the new car, and clocked a fastest time of 1:22.126. His time, which was 0.044 seconds slower than Fernando Alonso's P1 time, meant he finished the day in second place despite Tuesday's session being the new car's maiden outing.

It is really sad that they see an achievement being slower than Briatore's team

 

[Mendel]

In a local yellow newspaper I saw räikkönen smiling and claiming something like "The new car is better in every way" and being very positive about it! There's hope, finally!
Nice to see DB being interested about efforts of Kimi too, thanks for those shots Seems like it was raining, so I would hold those results to much value though.

 

[Mendel]

Looking closer to the images, that "additional rear wing" or somesuchthing looks interesting, wonder if it will be approved... bet it will get banned quite soon like so many great innovations in F1 in the past.