hmm, Lee McKenzie's balls havent dropped

oh, thats probably because SHE wasnt born with any. Who calls their daughter LEE? Leigh i could understand, but come on.

Last edited by PaulC2K, Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:06.

Quote from Timdpr :

I didn't realise they skipped a compound? So it's super soft/med?

AAAARGH! Safety car!

Yup, only 2 possible combinations now

Super Soft & Medium
Soft & Hard

Its nothing short of typical FIA messing for the sake of it. I never agreed with forcing them to use 2 types to begin with, but you have to think about how they'd do it.
If the track is best suited to the Soft tyre, then they almost certainly WONT use that tyre, they'll use SS/M, and if the Medium is best, they'll go S/H
I cant see them using the ideal tyre, purely because it means the other tyre will be miles from ideal. Imagine this stupid tyre rule and Indy 2005 (i think) and the trouble they had because one manufacturer brought an unsafe set of tyres. They're being forced to use something that simply does not work well, and they talk about cost cutting and driver safety while doing things like this

2 bloody laps to notice theres a car on the track all smashed up with debris over the track

On the subject of these tyres, at least those on the harder set have some free info from the other teams, they'll be able to change their strat to ensure their last stint will only be 10-11 laps im betting, you wouldnt want to plan on doing the originally expected 14-15 laps and have to do 3+ laps on unraceable tyres.

I really do think the tyre rules are a joke though, insisting on skipping a tyre compound in order to make it shit for the drivers at some point... its like some sort of pub game! each stop you get out of the car, down 2 pints, say the alphabet backwards then get back in. Stop turning things into a bloody novelty.

The cars might look ugly as hell, but i think Hamilton just proved the rule changes are positive, KERS undoubtably just allowed him to pass half a dozen of the cars ahead of him, and im sure the light fuel & soft tyres helped, but you can see the car suddenly looks tons quicker than a car without KERS.

Eddie, care to comment on the subject you supposedly wont continue to talk about?

nah, its a prancing horse, a big wooden trojan prancing horse, its how they sneeked into the Ferrari HQ armed with a hip-mounted retractable tape measure and a polaroid camera

Im going for 19 smashed up nosecones at T1.
Only because Sutil's car will stall :P

Quote from kirmy :

eddy is probably one of the best on the team, doesnt seem like he is affraid to put his point across or ask questions which other people may be affraid to, im liking the new bbc team together though

Just remember that when half the grids team staff, FIA officials etc all refuse to do an interview either by being put off by previous interviews you or a teammate etc has had where Eddie has gone in with questions people dont want to be asked. He'll soon get a reputation if he's too aggressive, and you wont get the good interviews.

Alex Ferguson refuses to do interviews with at least half the media, BBC were refused for about 8yrs, Sky Sports have been, and half the press office have at some point or another. If he doesnt like what the media have said, he doesnt speak to them and provide them any interviews to fuel future news. If half the pits dont like Eddie's style, as amusing as it might be from time to time, those people will ignore the BBC in interviews involving Eddie.
Its all very well liking people who ask the questions people want to know, but theres a good reason why the vast majority know where to draw the line, because they dont want putting in their place by whoever pays their wages.

Quote from DevilDare :

[snip...] And not that i dissagree with it, if they broke the rules they should pay for it like you said. However, why couldnt the FIA sort it before the season started. Toyota was the first one to be released with that diffuser back in January. They had 2 months to do something about it, and yet they leave it until round 2/3 when the teams are racing hard and earned their points, and then FIA comes and rips it all off....

The FIA have nothing until the first round, which is why they cant make any official judgement on the matter. Bernie n co said a while back when the 'Ferrari n co are going to be launching a complaint' stories came out, it all looks legit, he can see both sides of the arguement and has no idea which way it'll go, and regardless of the initial decision, the unhappy party will appeal it eitherway.
However, theres no scrutineering until the first round, which is why we had the first decision right at the beginning of the race weekend. They couldnt do it earlier. Maybe they should be allowed to arrange a viewing to make sure its all legal say within a month of the car launching, but atm thats not the case and they couldnt rule over it till they could see the car in an official capacity.
Its annoying that the Toyota was only checked at the end of Qual, clearly they werent stopped for random checking during the FOUR hours of free practice sessions and surely they can do those random checks then.

Quote from RockBottomWalsh :

Anyone watching the post race analysis on the BBC? what odds on Eddie and DC having a fight before malaysia

was thinking pretty much the same, he's too brash and aggressive with his style. Might be fine for interviewing him, but i can see him rubbing people up the wrong way and them not particularly liking his approach when its being broadcast live. Always thought he was a bit of an odd one to bring in, DC has technical knownledge of the sport, they have a presenter type, and i can see Eddie creating problems towards the end of the season if people are less forthcoming to be put on the spot.

Also, did he basically steal DC's question when talking to Branson? He certainly seemed to take over, and i thought he said 'and a 2nd question before David asks his' and he never had the chance.
And the BBC thought they had issues sorting on the commentry team 5 months ago! The same ego/history problems look set to continue with the guys selected.

Rear end problems in Q1.
Someone sounds bitter about last season though


Anyone else glad Eddie didnt tell us what he thinks about KERS, that its an item of avoidable cost...

Last edited by PaulC2K, Sat, 28 Mar 2009 06:50.

freeview 302 has it fine atm v odd

Im sure they'll all develop, but like FI, Brawn are on a mission to promote themselves in the hope of getting sufficient funding for future seasons, they never had the same development speed as Honda, i dont see that being better under Virgin/Brawn F1. I'd imagine they'll fix obvious issues, but i doubt they'll try new ideas, teams like Ferrari in comparison have a limitless pot of money if things arent going right for them.

Its been the same every other season, if the F1 rules banned development from April onwards, then thats one thing, but while teams are free to throw money at the car to try and go faster, thats exactly what those with the money will be doing.

I <3 u more though
You anti-party animal you

"I don't buy this idea that a team who is at the back in Oz as McLaren appear to be can develop their way to the front. At best they can hope for strong podium finishes by the Abu Dhabi... at best!"
Last season, with a track full of cars pretty much the same as previous years, saw only 6 finishers iirc, and 2 DNF's getting points (Bourdais & massa i think), so even a win is possible
Im sure all 4 teams will be flexing their muscles by the time they get to Europe, mainly cos they'll have their own version of what Ferrari, Renault etc consider illegal. As i mentioned, i doubt its coincidence they're all doing really well, and common opinion before laps were done was that it would be worth a good half sec per lap and that seems accurate.

By round 6, i'd expect things to be back to normal again, however its the damage done getting there which will probably decide the season. And i completely agree with your comment about it being a testing season, but for most teams. The changes being so drastic, it'll just take a while till people get confirmed feedback about their cars and what needs improving, then a while to come up with a solution etc.
Its a shame really, they've banned testing, and turned the season into testing for many, as if it wasnt annoying enough seeing BMW back down near the end, and Honda give up somewhere around 1995 (:razz to build their current car.

my god, someone talking about the fact that its bloody impossible to see who's on what tyre 90% of the time, just like at Fuji.
Screw the green eco BS, remove the green paint cos thats more 'green', or if you want us to be able to tell the difference, use a proper colour!

Well, as i say, i find it really hard to believe that the 4 most successful teams of the last few years have all got rubbish cars. Its probably no coincidence the 'Diffuser 3' teams are all flying, but in terms of engines, they've got to last 3 race weekends now, so no team will want to push things too far, even at limited power.

It does seem odd that you'd do a lap at the start of the hour and then wait 15min before going back out, but im sure if the team were desperate for mileage they'd be putting in those miles. I wouldnt read too much into it at the moment. Nobody knows who's got what deep down, im sure theres an element of showboating for the cameras going on by some teams, and equally some mind games going on. Its hard to call anything until qual, and i dont think we'll really know properly till after round 3-4, purely cos some cars work better under different circumstances.

im sure if they were concerned and felt they could improve by doing more laps, they'd be doing so. Same goes to Ferrari and BMW.

Are people really under the impression that the 4 best teams of the last couple of seasons are all completely off the pace? Im sure they're not on a blistering pace (Kimi isnt now hehe) but considering these laps dont mean nothing for pace, only setting up... im thinking they're all doing conservative laps because of the engine stress and the need to make them last so long now, keeping race tyres fresh, things like that.

27min, formula1.com or bbc f1 section have countdown timers for sessions

not quite what i mean.

In terms of the limit of what is possible with these regulations, we'll say brawn are at something like 70%, while Mclaren/BMW look like they're at around 60% and playing catch up.
Im saying that Mcl/BMW will find 10% very quickly, and another 10%+ over the rest of the season. But i find it hard to believe that Brawn and some of the other smaller and lesser teams will.

Ferrari/BMW/Mclaren/Renault didnt get to where they were by luck, they got there by being a superior builder of a competitive race winning car. They've had to start with a blank peice of paper due to drastic rule changes, told they cant do much testing because of drastic rule changes, and as a result of this, things are all over the place and theres a big element of luck in being correct.
These big successful teams have the ability to correct the mistakes once they know what they were, and they'll soon overtake the smaller teams.

Whether thats racing or not, i dunno, however whats as good as fact is that the results wont be a fair reflection of what to expect this season. Therefor its misleading, purely because some teams have started with something closer to perfection, but we all know they'll soon be caught and be back where they were in previous season, Places they got on merit last time, and soon will this season.

Maybe its just me, but im not interested in this random element, i expect the best to be the best, if people improve (like BMW) and become part of 'the best' then they're there by their acheivement. Being there because you got a little luckier than the rest when designing something new with limited chance to find out if it works, so for 3 races your the best but for the remaining 15/16 races your average... IMO thats just stupid.

Quote from Vain :

I thought the new regulations were rather useless in the beginning, however it has put quite a lot of teams off the rails while some smaller teams ended up in the front. I believe that the other teams that dropped behind compared to last season will catch up quickly and thus we will see a shift in balance over the course of the year, which could very well lead to an incredible championship.
E.g. Button will likely be gone and away at Australia and comfortably lead the race, but I don't think BrawnGP can maintain such a dominating position for the whole season. Thus we'll likely see several teams at the top at some point of time during the season. If we're lucky the first WDC with the race-wins system might be wide open until the last few races because no one managed to get more than 3 racewins.
Though I personally wish a swift and painfull demise to the new WDC system and the guy who thought of it.

Vain

To me, having something that is basically a lottery for half a season so some of the 'crap' teams look better than they are for a few races and makes it look like its actually been a half decent season, isnt racing.

I mean, if things are so screwed up to the point that Button or Rubens win the race this weekend, its basically more of a joke than an acheivement. Rubens coming 3rd at Silverstone was an acheivement, getting the Honda into Q2 last year was an acheivement, but winning by relative luck in the manner in which you decided to build a car which in 4 months time will most likely be mid-pack once other advanced teams have a chance to actually find out how the car handles through races cos they cant do any testing... to me thats not as much of an acheivement.
If they win consistantly then thats entirely different, but IMO winning because the rules have been messed with so much that nobody has a real starting point, extremely limited testing (track or wind tunnel), and its just a big bag of unknowns until the first race isnt interesting at all. Cos lets be honest, if Brawn win the first 2 races, your still going to be looking at them thinking it wont be long now until they fade away, Ferrari/Mclaren/Renault/BMW are coming on strong now they've solved the initial issues and in a couple of races it'll be back to normal. Its just 4-6 fake rounds until things settle down, to me thats not entertaining, its misleading, not representative of anything.
I just think it devalues honest results, not that these are dishonest, but id rather see the same 4 drivers win every single race in a season, than see 5, because one of them got lucky and everyone crashed out so some no-hoper mid pack guy wins but really never stood a hope in hell of getting a point otherwise. Thats just my opinion though, if a win is entirely on merit, the more the merrier, but freebie wins are just embarrasing.

If racing is all about the element of suprise, or not having the same results, then lets just pull names out of a hat, thus saving some money and 2hrs on a sunday afternoon.

Bernie seems to be desperate to get casual viewers watching by messing so much that it appeals to people who dont give a hoot about real racing, and instead want to see crashes and anything that allows them to talk about racing with proper race fans at work the next day.

Also, might be time someone told you that stupid wins based championship the FIA pulled out of their ass was illegal cos they announced it about 2wks after the deadline for such decisions to be made, but bernie being the ass he is still insists it'll be used in 2010 despite nobody wanting it.

Last edited by PaulC2K, Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:45.

Here is Mercury's skin for the final round, someone else would have posted it if they'd bothered asking for a skin more than 12hrs before the start.

Seeing as Mercury's 5yr anniversary is only a less than months away, figured it would be fitting to end the season with the teams original design

I wish to launch an official complaint about Eric's interpretation of the GTRs diffuser plz, ban everyone and award the victory to the safety car.

Also, u heard it hear first....
Due to the 38pt gap being as good as impossible to make up on F1rst and #low, the rumour around the pitlane is that Mercury will be running for 24hrs and demanding double points

GL everyone

feel free to move my post into a race chat thread, or just bin it

yeah, Toyota arent using it, possibly planning on going the season without it infact.

The 3rd 'all in' team was Renault... so basically its the bottom 10 if anything

Quote from J.B. :

So where's the information on who's using KERS, what kind of system they're using and how to tell when it's on? I checked autosport.com and formula1.com.

Or are they seriously arrogant and clueless enough to make this a top secret not for spectators deal? Not that I'd be surprised...

Ferrari
McLaren
Renault (not Toyota)
and Heidfeld, cos Kubica is a lanky sod and they wanna judge things with Nick first.

oh, and they mentioned in the BBC commentry that the issue of the lack of visable indication had been brought up to the FIA (or whoever it would be) to show who was using it and who wasnt, the only thing they said was that apparently the tech folks are going to make it possible so the TV folks would know who was using it and when, so viewers would know, but the trackside folks wouldnt be able to see who had KERS in their car with some sort of visual marking like the tyres have.

Last edited by PaulC2K, Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:56. Reason : corrected 3rd team using KERS

cant say i heard that tbh, although i resorted to doing some work and listening to the TV because very little was going on.

I have to say, while both sessions were a little boring in the sense that there wasnt much competitive lapping, it was auto-pilot mode for the most part, it was nice having the OPTION of being able to see these sessions and have the commentry to go with it, especially when there are so many changes and things being discussed that are worth listening to peoples opinions and such.
ITV (with the exception of James bloody Allen) used to be pretty good thanks to Brundle being on the end of the mic, and even though he wasnt there for FP 1&2, it was nice having knowledgable people behind the mic for a session which isnt going to attract the mainstream audience, so the real F1 fans actually get someone they'd appreciate listening to, rather than some Murray Walker type who basically was known for making an ass of himself while attempting to commentate (love the guy, but you want someone who knows what he's talking about) I dunno how proper sessions will sound, im guessing thats Legards job, with MB as co-commentator again, i just hope he's not James Allen mkII who makes you want to punch the TV.