Race Engineer: Mortar fire expected on track in 5 minutes. You have to do three qualifying-pace laps to build a big enough gap to change to steel treads!
Driver responses...
Kimi: OK.
Petrov: Don worry, I vill call Vladimir. He vill take of zdem mortarz.
Vettel: Why do I have to drive through mortars?! WHY?!!
Alonso: Dis is RIDICULOUS!!!
Lewis: Don't talk to me, man. Don't talk to me while I'm driving.
Massa: Bring me a white visor! I can't see ANYTHING!
Something odd's going on, not seen any tweets or driver comments about Bahrain situation. I mean cmon, it can't feel just like any other race meeting? Maybe Bernie has forced teams and drivers not to comment?
You need a super license to drive an F1 car period, unless you get special dispensation from the FiA. For example, Kimi did not have a super license when he was moving over to F1, and he had nothing that came close, but he was given one, as long as all drivers agreed. Richard Hammond was not given a super license, but was still allowed to drive the 2005 Renault because it was on a closed track, where he was the only one that was going to be out on it at any given time. As soon as you add other cars to the mix, you have to have a super license, because you have to have the permission of the other drives, or you have to of proved yourself in a lower series to qualify for an super license. This is all on the FiA website.
In other news, the F1 website is being DDoSed by Anonymous. Timing and Scoring is down, and they say it will be down for the whole weekend.
Can you point me to where it says this on the FIA/F1 website?
Because I can see no stipulation in the sporting regulations that drivers of F1 cars require an FIA Super Licence, except in sessions at Grand Prix weekends (an Int. A licence is required for the young driver test). Kimi received one because he comfortably won Formula Renault UK in 2000 and completed the required distance in an F1 car.
Yeah, I'll try and dig it up later on, I read them last in like 2006 when I was running SimFIA, so I read EVERYTHING on that website to get an idea of what I wanted to emulate with SimFIA.
The article says French GP is alternating with Belgian GP, but then goes on to say that both Spanish GP's will be alternating to make room for it... :S
I guess we don't know for sure. It seems like a WTF moment for sure, so hopefully they drop Valencia and alternate it with Barcelona instead of axing Spa.
What a ****ing joke. Alternating with Spa??? Good luck getting a bigger fanbase with that decision.
This just makes me want to start raving on about the ridiculous sums of money that have to be paid by the venues to be featured in the calendar, with the european traditional circuits struggling to do so and how much the middle-eastern venues (which by the way are absolute expensive borefests, therefore a WASTE OF MONEY) are favoured by the money-hungry pricks that are running FOM at the moment. So much for "cost-cutting".
For once I agree with you there. Getting rid of Valencia would be more effective than Spa, at least from a fan's POV.
Growing the fan-base doesn't rely on going to historic tracks, as you only 'discover' the historic tracks once you become a 'fan'. By that point you're already sold into the whole thing.
Bahrain, justified or not, has done more damage to growing F1's fanbase than alternating with spa will ever do.
When I think of F1 now, I think of the emperor's new clothes. People are just starting to see F1 for what it really is.
You guys act like we didn't know that Spa was looking to alternate with another track?
Sure it sucks, but it could be Magny-Cours so I'm not too upset. Also, we could have completely lost Spa altogether and alternated between the Frenchies.
Nowadays they're using the full version for pretty much every series they host, including F3.5, GT1, LMS, etc, so I see no reason why they wouldn't use it for F1 too.
I wouldn't say that Magny-Cours is garbage... IMO, it's a good tin-top and motorcycle track, but a not-so-good single seater track. Which is a bit silly since it was made for F1 in the first place.
The slightly uninspiring facilities don't help either. And oh, what about those bloody traffic jams at the exit...