I'm no fan of Toyota, but I can't help but be a fan of Trulli.

Great performance by him so far this season! I wonder how he would do in a more competitive car, because I believe there's a great deal of podium potential (if not for the Toyota that is...).

A lot of the drivers seem very equally matched. No one is running away with it yet. Very good indeed.

Quote from Mattesa :

I wonder how he would do in a more competitive car.

Renault was a competitive car when he was there. Not yet a championship winning car but still good. And look how that ended up.

Very nice race, a bit boring in the middle but less boring than most. I still like last years Q best, it was even more exiting than most of the races.

I love the TC ban more and more every minute. I'll let a few more races pass until I daclare who's a driver and who's a computer gamer. Next I'll hope they ban the paddles.

Hyvä Suomi! (since there are no swedish drivers to root for yet)

Quote from Kalev EST :

Renault was a competitive car when he was there. Not yet a championship winning car but still good. And look how that ended up.

Good point...

Well that was dull, seemed only Alonso and Heidfeld could be bothered to try to overtake anything... 2009 regs can't come soon enough

Trulli was great though, was expecting him to have half the field in a train behind him but he was genuinely quick

Poor Flippy is strugging without his Massa Control, needs to get his act together soon or he'll find Alonso/Vettel sitting in his seat next year

Quote from Jakg :

Haven't read anything past page 2 as I don't want the race result ruined, but why does F1 have these silly quali systems?

Leave them out for a few hours, x laps each, one or two cars on the track at a time, as much (or as little) fuel as you want, as many (or as little) tyres as you want etc.

Many many reasons...One of them, concentrated show for the spectactors, and the other the costs. They're trying more and more to keep the costs down...

Quote from Paranoid Android :

Many many reasons...One of them, concentrated show for the spectactors, and the other the costs. They're trying more and more to keep the costs down...

The... costs?

Quote from mythdat :

Poor Flippy is strugging without his Massa Control, needs to get his act together soon or he'll find Alonso/Vettel sitting in his seat next year

This hasn' really got anything to do with nothing, but Alonso? Why would Ferrari get him instead of Vettel? Fernando would spend most of the season crying if Kimi beat him more than twice. And he would probably return to Renault after one year at Ferrari, so his next year with Renault would be the second year of his Ferrari contract, which would be his fourth year with his McLaren contract. And Button would be jealous, because someone has made a bigger, more confusing mess with his contracts.

Wow, I was in complete aw when we had 3 wide going down the backstretch(think it was Alonso, Coulthard and Heidfeld). And then the drag race down the front straight was good. Unfortunately, that was on Lap 4(or 5) and nothing else seemed to happen pass-wise.

BTW- God, it's really hell to have to get up at 3 a.m. to watch the race, wish i lived in Europe.

Quote from mythdat :

Well that was dull, seemed only Alonso and Heidfeld could be bothered to try to overtake anything... 2009 regs can't come soon enough

I wonder are there any "radical 2009 regs". Obvioysly teams knows about this a lot more than any of us but if the changes to aerodynamics are so radical than they were in the proposal (total ban for winglets etc), that means the cars needs to be totally redesigned... and that lives kinda little time to do it if the regs applies already in 2009?

Quote from Jertje :

The... costs?

That's F1 language, it means Mr. Mummy makes more money.

Quote from Rappa Z :

Wow, I was in complete aw when we had 3 wide going down the backstretch(think it was Alonso, Coulthard and Heidfeld). And then the drag race down the front straight was good. Unfortunately, that was on Lap 4(or 5) and nothing else seemed to happen pass-wise.

BTW- God, it's really hell to have to get up at 3 a.m. to watch the race, wish i lived in Europe.

We had to get up at 6am to watch it.

The Massa spin was very, very strange. I've watched an onboard of it several times now, and I'm 95% certain he didn't lose the car from mashing the throttle too much. The corner is too fast for the wheels to spin up enough for it to spin as suddenly as it did. Also worth noting is that the engine revs rose a tiny bit, then dropped instantly which to me looked to have initiated the spin.

Edit: He may also have span the wheels a little under power, and in a haste to correct it he took his foot off the throttle suddenly, which caused the engine braking to lock up the rear wheels.

Quote from Hyperactive :

Yeah. Let's go back to the waiting game of someone to appear on the track to do one or two fast laps. It was always the same. Waiting half of the quali time to just see the cars do the 1st safe fast lap and then going back to pits. Then 20min more waiting and then the more risky attempt for the best lap. Sorry but it wasn't as good system as you make it .

Quote from Kalev EST :

And I agree with Hyperactive. The old 60 minute free quali wasn´t really good. It was just backmarkers showing their sponsor logos for the first 30-40 minutes. And a real madness in the last few minutes.

a lot like the current system isnt it?
it does have 2 main advantages though
1) it gets really exciting on rainy days
2) its not staged and doesnt make the whole shebang look like its more about the viewer figures than the racing


and the massa spin did look quite odd... it came out of nowhere id didnt hear the revs rise sharply and certainly massa wouldnt be stupid enough to mash the throttle that rapidly without expecting the car to step out

Quote from Kalev EST :

Renault was a competitive car when he was there. Not yet a championship winning car but still good. And look how that ended up.

Well he was beating Alonso untill the dispute and he left to Toyota.

Clownpaint - you should know better.

Advice - NEVER EVER LISTEN TO ANYTHING MARK BLUNDELL SAYS - HE IS A CLASS A FOOL

Engine Braking cannot be removed. It is an integral part of internal combustion gasoline engines.

What has been outlawed, through the use of common ECUs, is Engine Braking REDUCTION, whereby the throttle was applied to counteract rear wheel braking torque, and avoid lock ups. I believe some of the systems were also variable brake bias too (but I don't believe that source, and I can't remember where I heard it).

Engine braking is alive and well, and is one of the hardest things to cope with in an F1 car. It will be in F1 for as long as IC engines are, although possibly disguised by future nanny-aids introduced to allow poor drivers (like Massa) relative success.

Quote from Clownpaint :

I don't think "engine braking" caused it (it has been removed hasn't it?). But I do think it was very strange indeed. It didn't "look" like a driver error, or sound like one. But that's what the latest conclusions are from the telemetry.

When I saw the spin live it very much looked like a technical problem, but having seen a few replays I think he just overcooked it as he was applying the gas. I think the initial illusion was caused as we are so unused to seeing an F1 car like that as in previous years the TC would have long kicked in to control it.

I've never been a huge fan of Massa, although I can't deny the guy certainly has some talents. He will never be the class of the guys who are around him though. Except for the occasional strong drive he will always be struggling to keep up.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Clownpaint - you should know better.

Advice - NEVER EVER LISTEN TO ANYTHING MARK BLUNDELL SAYS - HE IS A CLASS A FOOL

Engine Braking cannot be removed. It is an integral part of internal combustion gasoline engines.

What has been outlawed, through the use of common ECUs, is Engine Braking REDUCTION, whereby the throttle was applied to counteract rear wheel braking torque, and avoid lock ups. I believe some of the systems were also variable brake bias too (but I don't believe that source, and I can't remember where I heard it).

Engine braking is alive and well, and is one of the hardest things to cope with in an F1 car. It will be in F1 for as long as IC engines are, although possibly disguised by future nanny-aids introduced to allow poor drivers (like Massa) relative success.

I've trying to explain that to some of my friends and i had to surrender. Now i just nood when someone says there is no engine braking this year as everyone is happy.


Overtaking is now even harder than before. You cannot rely en the TC when you get turbulences from the car in front so most cars will be a chase down to see who makes a mistake first..... well monaco can be pretty interesting this year.

Superb driving from kimi. Kov and Trulli (looked good that toyota) made a good race without mistakes and Hamilton was screwed up by the failure in pits. He was in a podium position for sure.

If massa didn´t have mechanical problems in the accident, then it was a rookie mistake and you cannot do that kind of mistakes if you want to be a WDC contender.

Didn´t anyone notice the pass of heidfiel over Alonso and DC at the same time and the way Alonso took the last coner to pass DC himself. One of the best moments of the season so far.

Quote from DarkTimes :

I've never been a huge fan of Massa, although I can't deny the guy certainly has some talents. He will never be the class of the guys who are around him though. Except for the occasional strong drive he will always be struggling to keep up.

It's Ferrari that I'm not a fan of, so by default I don't like Massa.. but the truth is that I do think he's pretty good. When he started out, I thought he was a real jerk.. because he WAS a jerk.. but in the year or so up til Schumaker retired, he seemed to really grow up. I think he's a late developer, but I do think he's up there now

Quote from ATic ATac :

Didn´t anyone notice the pass of heidfiel over Alonso and DC at the same time and the way Alonso took the last coner to pass DC himself. One of the best moments of the season so far.

I honestly think that it's a case of information overload at the moment. This season is seeing so much more driver-oriented brilliance than we've seen for getting on for 10 years. There are lots of absolutely brilliant moments that just aren't getting the recognition they deserve, because there are so many things to talk about right now. It's a bit annoying, but I think we'll see moves like these, RE-shown but actually noted, in a tribute video in about 3 years time, when one of the drivers (prolly DC) retires.

Quote from ATic ATac :

Overtaking is now even harder than before. You cannot rely en the TC when you get turbulences from the car in front so most cars will be a chase down to see who makes a mistake first..... well monaco can be pretty interesting this year.

I see no evidence of that. On the contrary, using the throttle will allow the drivers to balance the understeer from following another car to a degree, and allow them to race more.

Tristan.. are you sure you're quoting the right person?

Quote from SamH :

Tristan.. are you sure you're quoting the right person?

Unless its been changed since i arrived, makes sense to quote him to me.

I don't think overtaking has got "harder" as such, its probably just happening less as people don't want to risk points this early in the season.

No, he was right.

For some reason I've gone insane and can't do basic reading of names. However, I think I've removed the bits that didn't actually make sense. Thanks Sam. I suspect I was reading a post from who I wanted it to be by, rather than who it WAS by, partly because I was tricked by the full quoting of my post.

I was quoting you, but i´ve edited it as is seems that you were answering the wrong person

About the lack of overtaking and the effect of the ban of TC, I think i am making a valid point.

Aerodinamics are more important this year due to the frozen of engines and tyres. Cars are more critical every year when following another racer as the turbulences affect more (i´ve heard this from many pilots)

Why the lack of driving aids should simplify the driving when chasing another car? Logic says that without TC and engine reduction control things are more complicated for the pilot and dont help at all when following another car.

I´ll put an example.... in Malaysia, except for the first lap, how many clean overtakings do you remenber? I mean, not caused by errors, pit stops, etc. And malaysia is a circuit were is possible to overtake, is wide, has nice braking areas, etc.

Hamilton was a lot of laps following webber with a faster car and he had no chance of overtaking. He just couldnt even try! And don´t tell me Ham is a coward or a bad driver, last year he would have tried to attack, but now its almost imposible to follow a car closely whithout getting in problems.

Quote from tristancliffe :

No, he was right.

For some reason I've gone insane and can't do basic reading of names. However, I think I've removed the bits that didn't actually make sense. Thanks Sam. I suspect I was reading a post from who I wanted it to be by, rather than who it WAS by, partly because I was tricked by the full quoting of my post.

LOL Tristan, i´ve been making a long replay and i found you have corrected your answer!!