The SpeedTV guys did a great job of presenting the race this weekend, they are really becoming a class act. It's shown in their commentary they really love the sport.

Regarding F1, and 2010: I can't see pass Vetel for World Camp this year. I do think this is going to be his year. Look how he just handled himself, even in hardship. He has the head of a champion, it's only a matter of time.

Its a matter of reliability. If Vettel had the Brawn last year he would of destroyed Button imo. And this year doesn't seem to of got off to a good start either

Agree on the compounds rule, if that goes racing will be much better, however, with less pit stops its more boring because the cars will never overtake so atleast with the fuel stops there was a variation in the field.

Quote from Mustafur :

Agree on the compounds rule, if that goes racing will be much better, however, with less pit stops its more boring because the cars will never overtake so atleast with the fuel stops there was a variation in the field.

and with fuel stops at least you got a mechanism of some sort to attempt to pass someone...

In this race, the top teams pitted pretty early, and all did so within a couple of laps, and then everyone just cruise home for the remaining 3/5 or 2/3 of the race. If you couldn't pass someone during that one and only early pit stop, you're pretty much screwed. (Eg. Button and Webber held up behind big Schu...)

Perhaps mandatory tyre stops should be introduced. Martin Whitmarsh suggested it after the race, and although he suggested banning the DDD as well, it's too late for the latter. It's not too late for compulsory two or three tyre stops though. We might actually see drivers really pushing then.

Ban the DDD and introduce limited ground-effect next year, please.

The problem are that the tires are lasting to long... if they would just last around 100 km drivers would be forced to pit and they'd push since there is no sense about saving the tires anymore. Having that said the difference between the 2 tire sorts should be bigger like the softer compound being 1 sec faster but le'ts say only lasts 80 km. That would spice it up a bit.

But the way we have it now is that the "hard" tire seems to be an endurance tire which kills the racing for sprint cars...

Quote from samjh :

Perhaps mandatory tyre stops should be introduced. Martin Whitmarsh suggested it after the race, and although he suggested banning the DDD as well, it's too late for the latter. It's not too late for compulsory two or three tyre stops though. We might actually see drivers really pushing then.

Ban the DDD and introduce limited ground-effect next year, please.

but with such a rule change mid-season is usually quite hard...

but getting Bridgestone to mess around the tyre compound is relatively easy and no one could do anything about it, as long as they keep it to the specification/size required in the regulation~

Quote from GianniC :

Vettel's issue was an electric problem in the engine, but the unit itself is not damaged. So Renault failed Vettel, not the exhaust.

Vettel's issue was a failed spark plug, so it wasn't Renault's fault at all.

I did like the excitement of the pitstops, especially the way the cars bounced coming off the jackstands.

I didn't think the race was that boring considering the nature of the track. Although with refueling gone and tire preservation is the big story, it was a little discouraging that the tires fared as well as they did. With the high temps and sand blowing on the track, this should have been a killer track on tires. Hopefully they pick compounds for the rest of the races on the soft end of the spectrum.

Whose brilliant idea was it to move the season-opener to such a shitty track?

Anyone knows what happened to Petrov's car? Looked like suspension broke up from a hard release

Quote from BurnOut69 :

Anyone knows what happened to Petrov's car? Looked like suspension broke up from a hard release

he broke it before the stop apparently.

Quote from BurnOut69 :

Anyone knows what happened to Petrov's car? Looked like suspension broke up from a hard release

He went too hard over a curb and damaged some right front wheel suspension cable (probably named different though, one of those cables who're attached to the body and the wheel itself, kind of like those who prevent the wheel from breaking off the car during a crash, but then a cable for the actual suspension).

Thanks Dawguk for clearing that up!

Btw, I don't complain all the time. It's just a fact that F1 is getting itself lost in a load of shitrules made up by goodbusinessmen but bad sportsmen, cause that's what Bernie & Co are.

Last year was excellent racing for the most part i just cant understand how the FIA could imagine adding 160+kilos of weight to the cars could possibly make the racing better.

The only thing they have succeeded to do is slow the cars down i guess for a large part of the race which the governing bodies have been trying to do for ages.

I hope the cars over heating if they follow to close to one another can be fixed too as that will really screw up the racing bigtime.

Quote from richo :

Last year was excellent racing for the most part i just cant understand how the FIA could imagine adding 160+kilos of weight to the cars could possibly make the racing better.

The only thing they have succeeded to do is slow the cars down i guess for a large part of the race which the governing bodies have been trying to do for ages.

I hope the cars over heating if they follow to close to one another can be fixed too as that will really screw up the racing bigtime.

It's not the fuel that's the problem. It's the tyre option regulations. Having to use two separate compounds forces everyone onto the same tyre saving strategy.

Also engine and gearbox saving is another issue as well as well as the aero factor.

I wonder how much the OWG were paid ?

Quote from Intrepid :

It's not the fuel that's the problem. It's the tyre option regulations. Having to use two separate compounds forces everyone onto the same tyre saving strategy.

Also engine and gearbox saving is another issue as well as well as the aero factor.

I wonder how much the OWG were paid ?

I think what dictated the strategy was when they saw the pace of Kubica after he pitted for a brand new set of prime. Everyone was in the 2'02 and Kubica suddenly did a 2'01 on the lap after his out lap. Then Lewis came in pretty much immediately after they saw that, and everyone else has to respond to that in order not to lose the positions... (But that one lap with new tyres was enough for Lewis to jump Nico, and for Button to jump Webber)

What I think will happen in future races are that the top 4 teams will pit whenever they opened enough of a gap to enable them to come out with plenty of free air, and everyone will pit within a lap or two of each other. There are no points not pitting if your brand sparkling new set of prime is worth a sec a lap, and will last for the whole race anyway...

and I guess the OWG is paid a lot by the FIA. After all, that extra $100m from McLaren is a pretty handsome amount of money to share some of it to Max's mates...

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Whose brilliant idea was it to move the season-opener to such a shitty track?

i think dull and uninspired tracks in countries that ban alcohol are an obvious choice for the first and last race
certainly much better than australia and brazil (not sure why they decided to switch their order some time ago... then again i guess melbourne makes for better spectacle with cars the drivers and teams haven quite gotten used to yet) both of which are known to be fun loving an prone to spark enjoyable parties celebrating the race worthyness of the cars or a successful championship year

Martin Brundle after the race: "This was shit. Disaster."

I think they need to get rid of the forced pitstops (which are a gimmick anyway). Give them a set of tyres that could just about last to the end of the race without stopping, or easily gets to the end with a stop or two, with the final time about the same.

So some people trickle around careful on their tyres and not defending or overdriving. Others rocket off into the distance and make a pitstop in the hope they gain more time than they lose.

Easy.

All the OWG (which haven't done anything properly yet, so it's a long shot) is use an F1 simulator or even a current F1 car to test tyres to find which ones can just do 200 miles in the same time it takes to take a pitstop and race hard to the end.

To make the difference more extreme (i.e. to slow down the sprint option), only allow 4 or 5 people to do the pitstops, and only two wheel guns.

And with qualifying, rather than wasting fuel finding out which low fuelled cars get into low fuelled final qualifying, just have two 20 minute free for all qualifying sessions. Best time from both is your qualifying time. One hour between sessions to make changes to the car if you need them. Limit the changes allowed so as to avoid people having a qualifying setup and a race setup - i.e. semi parc ferme conditions.

This quote made me laugh

Quote :

Could we also mention at this point that the cars look horrible this season? Howlingly ugly. A length of air-conditioning duct appears to have been taped to the jet engines of a drug-running Colombian light aircraft and then backed at speed into a mobile advertising hoarding.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t ... _smith/article7062874.ece

Quote from BurnOut69 :

Anyone knows what happened to Petrov's car? Looked like suspension broke up from a hard release

Quote from GianniC :

He went too hard over a curb and damaged some right front wheel suspension cable (probably named different though, one of those cables who're attached to the body and the wheel itself, kind of like those who prevent the wheel from breaking off the car during a crash, but then a cable for the actual suspension).

No. Petrov thought so, and it looks like that from cockpit but it is wrong.
As James Allison said it was constructional defect, and on both cars at that:

Quote :

On lap 11, Vitaly reported that the car wasn't behaving normally and he began losing a lot of lap time to Barrichello. We called him into the pits for a precautionary check and found a problem with the right-front suspension pushrod that forced us to retire the car. Upon further investigation, it transpired that the pushrod had been touching on the chassis when running on very heavy fuel at the start of the race. This damaged the bolt that attaches the pushrod to the car, and meant we lost a shim from the suspension, causing the DNF. Robert preferred a slightly different ride height and was fortunate not to encounter the same problem.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82171

It's so pity! It was very good start, he became 11th and showed good pace and then retirement

Tristanclifffe for FIA president

I got even less votes than Ari Vatanen

hehe.. which is sad. I wish i've had voted but i didn't care I was expecting like most, that there will be a reason for drivers to risk something now, in regards of car controll, but turns out they are just slower in the brginning of the race. The pit crew is who decides the race

Well i'll vote for you at the next elections

on the topic of changing rules to make it more exciting:

"HRT's Karun Chandhok joked: "How about they try out my weekend programme and go straight into quali!?"