Formula 1 - 2008 Season

[Bludd]

Thanks, Dave. I have it bookmarked now.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Here's a little piece that tries to put some perspective on things.

Linked in the comments was a new related story from Singapore that highlights why Hamilton, irrespective of what he does on track, will continue gaining fans.

And, Bludd, I would suggest that you add the Times Online F1 section to that list. Ed's blog especially adds some interesting insight into GP weekends (and assocaited events).

Anything from a British source which is about Hamilton cant be viewed as balanced. That piece of writing is another great example of that.

My view on this is that Lewis is like any aspiring champion who does the business on the track and talks the talk off it.

No they dont. I dont know any sportsman that turned out to be a real champion big mouth all the time and comparing himself with arguebly the best sportsman ever in his sport.

Anyway Hamilton better make sure he wins the WDC between now and 2 to 3 years because as soon as Vettel gets in one of the red cars its going to be bye bye hamilton because Vettel is the one how's going to be really good, not hamilton.

 

[RobertR1]

Qualifying:

1. Massa
2. Hamilton
3. Kimi

The start will be the most important part of the race tomorrow. Unless it rains....

 

[Nappe1]

Qualifying:

1. Massa
2. Hamilton
3. Kimi

The start will be the most important part of the race tomorrow. Unless it rains....

and unless someone does "Wall of Champions" as in Montreal. Then we'll have safety car fest, which again turns the whole pit strategy stuff up side down.

There was some really close calls in Qualify.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Yeah probably going to be boring tomorrow. Only upside is that the image is nice to look at. Lights bounce of the cars real nice and you see alot more detail in the cars than normally. Also with the red hot brakes and exhausts hopefully we atleast get some nice pictures. And ofcourse with the cars sparkling, kinda like back in the 90's. It would be so awsome to see all the cars sparkle again when they start the race. Though that probably wont happen...

 

[Bludd]

Oh, Fernando Alonso. He would have bumped Lewis Hamilton out of Q1 if he didn't have that fuel pressure problem.

Massa drove a great lap, though. Me may win this championship yet.

But, aaaaagh, the Renault was quick here. Alonso was fastest in P2 and P3. This sucks. Hope it rains tomorrow.

 

[Kaotik]

Oh, Fernando Alonso. He would have bumped Lewis Hamilton out of Q1 if he didn't have that fuel pressure problem.

Massa drove a great lap, though. Me may win this championship yet.

But, aaaaagh, the Renault was quick here. Alonso was fastest in P2 and P3. This sucks. Hope it rains tomorrow.

Indeed, Massas lap was pretty much perfect. Shame on Kimi having his rear slip a bit at the start of the fast lap, would have ended up 2nd without it.

And damn shame that they lowered the.. uhm.. red'n'white thingys in corners on one part of the track, now everyone just pretty much drives straight through the chicane without even slowing down

 

[Rys]

From all the in-car I've seen of that section of the track, every driver brakes and stays off the throttle until the car has passed the 2nd apex. Should be a great race I think, despite lack of overtaking.

My bet is on 3 safety cars before race finish

 

[Kaotik]

OMG Massa took the bloody fueling hose with him

edit: It was the systems / fuelers fault, Massa got green light in the system before moving
edit2: And looks like Räikkönen lost a lot of time due waiting behind Massa at pits

 

[Gerry]

Ferrari have to dump that semi-automatic pit-lane system. It's a bloody liability. Anyway, Raikkonen just bashed it into the wall so no points for Ferrari at all today.

Alonso wins. Hamilton settles for 3rd.

And hurrah for Williams and Rosberg finishing second! That stop-and-go actually worked out pretty well for them.

 

[infinity4]

The funniest thing is Raikkonen got the fastest lap yet again.

 

[Deepak]

Massa/Raikonnen - Hero to Zero
Alonso - Zero to Hero

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

You cant really blame Massa though. Raikonnen you can. I dont know what is up with him. He does mediocore at best and than sometimes during the end of the races he suddenly goes really fast when its to late. And ofcourse crashing the car like some idiot for the second time.


But yeah Ferrari did a pretty much perfect job at screwing up their chances of a WDC title and if things keep up they can forget about the constructors too.

Rosberg and Vettel did good, especially Vettel, in the top 5 again while he didnt really gain a advantage from the SC like Alonso and rosberg did. Not to downplay anything Alonso did because he still had to do it but without the SC he would have gotten nowhere. But that is part of the sport. I think he also deserved it. The renault isnt really fast but as big of a cock Alonso may be you cant say he isnt working his butt of this whole season.

 

[Kaotik]

You cant really blame Massa though. Raikonnen you can. I dont know what is up with him. He does mediocore at best and than sometimes during the end of the races he suddenly goes really fast when its to late. And ofcourse crashing the car like some idiot for the second time.

Second time?
You're referring to Spa where everyone went wide etc all the time and Räikkönen just had bad luck on having wall on of those times in front of him (and in where apparently his tyre might have punctured before actually hitting the wall)
And this time, ye, he was too aggressive on the curbs and right side of the car bounced too long time in the air > nothing he could have done at that point.

There was quite good analysis of Räikkönen's problems somewhere, the car was good for him in the beginning for couple first races, but the first big aero package after the start of the season screwed things up, Räikkönen likes oversteering car, while Massa prefers understeering, and after the first aero package the car became increasingly understeering causing Räikkönen problems on getting the settings right to his liking, he can still drive like hell (as seen from.. what, 10(?) fastest laps this season, too) but isn't comfortable with car / as fast as he could be

 

[Bludd]

Hahahahaha!! Fernando Alonso! Woohooo!

This was a much better race than Valencia. We had incidents and overtaking maneuvers and big drama.

Renault's 3-stop strategy was ruined by Trulli, and in Alonso's first pit stop they changed it to a 2-stopper. And then Piquet crashed. And then Ferrari's crappy traffic-light system ruined Massa's race and then Kimi crashed and then Alonso won! He had been fast all weekend, yesterday's misfortune is made up for by today's good fortune. Hammy can now finish second behind Massa for every race that is left and still win the championship.

GO ALONSO!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I feel sorry for Massa as this might have ruined the championship for him, and it wasn't his fault...

I absolutely hate the safety car, I see dreams of torching it! First you have a race going one way and then some mofo makes a mistake and suddenly a Pandoras box is applied to the race...

They should freeze the situation in the race and do a restart using the current positions as starting lineup. That way people would still get extra drama, and it would be less likely to F*** up everybodys race.

 

[Ike Turner]

I absolutely hate the safety car, I see dreams of torching it!

Noo!!Don't hate on the SL63 BLack!

 

[Gerry]

Actually, a couple of questions regarding Massa and his pit-lane antics and subsequent drive-through penalty.

1) What was the difference between yesterday and the Valencia incident? Both incidents involved a dangerous release from the pit-lane - one was penalised, one wasn't.
2) This semi-automatic system of Ferrari's. I understand it involves buttons being pushed - one when the tyres are changed, one when the fuelling is done, etc. Obviously yesteryday looked like the fuelling button was pushed prematurely. The question is though, in such a system, is there no control whatsoever for delaying a driver so that they don't crash into another car in the pit-lane? You can't really expect Massa to make the call, so if the light goes green he'll floor it. How did the FIA green-light (so to speak) a system which seems to have such an inherent flaw? Couldn't they have another button which controls whether it's safe to exit or not?

 

[Dave Baumann]

Actually, a couple of questions regarding Massa and his pit-lane antics and subsequent drive-through penalty.

1) What was the difference between yesterday and the Valencia incident? Both incidents involved a dangerous release from the pit-lane - one was penalised, one wasn't.

Although I've not seen an official ruling yet, all the reports indicate that the penalty was for being released into the path of Sutil as he was coming up the pits. I think the only difference here was that in the prior case he "didn't gain a sporting advantage", but thats still some fuzzy and less than transparent application of the rules.

2) This semi-automatic system of Ferrari's. I understand it involves buttons being pushed - one when the tyres are changed, one when the fuelling is done, etc. Obviously yesteryday looked like the fuelling button was pushed prematurely. The question is though, in such a system, is there no control whatsoever for delaying a driver so that they don't crash into another car in the pit-lane? You can't really expect Massa to make the call, so if the light goes green he'll floor it. How did the FIA green-light (so to speak) a system which seems to have such an inherent flaw? Couldn't they have another button which controls whether it's safe to exit or not?

Reading the Times report today it seems that the system normally operates automatically once the fuel hose is released. In the case of yesterday's incident they apparently overrode that because they had stacked both Kimi behind Massa in the pits, then someone pressed the green light button before they were supposed to. However, if the system does normally work automtically upon release of the fuel hose then thats pretty bad because it is prone to the types of exit incidents we've seen - part of the job of the lollipop man is not just to watch for all the the pit crew finishing their job but also for oncoming traffic; a fuel man cannot do that becuase he neither has the visibility nor (if he could see) can he keep the fuel nozzle on there to prevent a green light because it would still be filling!

The pit system isn't generally under the bounds of the FIA and, as long as they have a safe method, the feams can use whatever mechanism they like to release the cars. However, its sounding like the FIA may intervene in this instance and make Ferrari get rid pf it if they don't themselves.

 

[Tokelil]

I'm pretty sure I read after the Kimi incident, that a guy on the pitwall can overrule the automatic release if he sees trafic. So it is a pitwall guys job to hold him back in that case. Sounds safe enough for me, if it is all he has to do. Apparently he slept..