grand prix season

[asp383]

ok, who else will be as sad as me & be up to watch the f1?
not a good start for hamilton.
amazing start for the new boys ... brawn team are first to land pole on their debute since jackie stewart in the early 70's.
lets hope jenson's luck continues for the rest of the season. his 1st pole for 3 years.

far too early to even think about the championship & i'm sure mclaren will soon be up to speed.

what are everyones views on the rules put back till next season regarding the driver with the most gp wins gets the championship?

personally, i think it's a bad idea, 1 driver could win 3 gp's & not even finish the rest, the remaining gp's all won by different drivers with no more than 2 wins each, but 4 or 5 drivers are always on the podium, but the driver with 3 wins & no other results wins the championship .... totally wrong, it should stay with the current points system.
some people have said it'll make for better overtaking & drivers taking more risks. you'll still end up with the faster cars out front, so i doubt it'll affect overtaking & i can't see the drivers taking extra risks as their objective is finishing the race & getting as many points as they can SAFELY, so a driver would settle for 2nd rather than attempt a risky overtake where there is a chance of crashing off & throwing away points.

i remember a couple of years ago, the driver that won the nascar championship in america never actually won a race, but was always consistent with his finishes ... consistency is what counts

[toomanyhounds]

I think everyone should let the drivers race, the stewards should back off a bit so that that if a driver wins a race, then he has won the race, to penalise a driver days or weeks later is ridiculous. to hold races under appeal so that a win may not be a win because the teams are squabbling over the shape of a diffuser is petty and takes avay from what should be the pinnacle of motorsport.

Top marks to the new boys after todays 1-2. These are engineers, drivers and tactitions at the top of their game. to build a team in just over 3 weeks is a massive 2 fingers up at all the others who spent most of last season bickering when they should have been working on this years cars.... let this be a lesson to them all. the school wimp has just given the playground bully a bloody nose and I think it is the best thing that could have happened to a sport I have always loved.

Keep the points system the way it is. if it aint broke, dont fix it

[asp383]

you're spot on! the championship should be won by the driver that is most consistent with getting points.

the rules should be made clearer, so it's not down to interpritation. as it is, the cars are scrutinered 3 times during the race weekend...
1, before free practice, if the scrutineres have passed the car legal, then they're free to qualify, then end of story, if not, then the team have to sort it before qualifying.
2, after qualifying, if anything is found to be wrong (such as was found with toyota's wings having too much flex) then peanalised to start in pit lane.
3, after the race, driver, car weights & specs, ride height, thickness of a board under the floor pan (is for ensuiring minimum ride height) & fuel are all checked, if not in specification, then the car & driver is disqualified
from that race.

the appeals system is at fault, where a team can appeal at anytime for any issue. i think the only times a team should be able to appeal is if another driver appears to have caused their driver to crash, but the appeal must be made within 5 laps of the incident & it must be dealt with before the last 10 laps of the end of the race, the stewards can use video footage & car data to do this. the current penalties are adequate, either drive through or stop/go, can't remember ever seeing a driver black flagged in f1 though.

i think it was 1 of the most exciting races for a long time & i'm glad the director decided to have us watching the battles for position, rather than keeping on button all the time. & the drama near the end that was a help to not just brawn's 1-2, but also hamiltons points. we mustn't forget tulli's effort either, to start in the pit lane & finish on the poduim shows how good a driver he is & how good the car is.

barrichello was quite lucky with having a few commings together & not suffering more than a bit of his wing being damaged & being able to have it replaced as part of his pitstop.

[toomanyhounds]

Rubens did use his car as a weapon, but the fact it held together for the duration of the race show what an amazing piece of engineering it is. wonder if honda are regretting pulling out now? apart from the engine, its all honda and it works superbly...

looking forward to the next race to see if Brawn can do it again or maclaren can get things sorted in the corners.

what do you think about energy recovery system?

[asp383]

we all know ferrari's reign was with brawn, so i'm not suprised he's managed to get a good car & team together so quickly, although honda were developing it last year & brawn has just done the fine tuning of it.

i bet honda are having some regrets lol, but guess they crunched the numbers & didn't think the car would be so compettitive.

i think it'll take a while for the other teams to get up to speed.

didn't realise untill i read a paper today that trulli got a time penalty for overtaking hamilton after the safety car was deployed, so hamilton has now been given 3rd place.

that energy recovery system looks impressive, but i think it would be fairer if all the teams had it. & it's a good idea having a limited amount per lap. i don't know what the original point for it was as why not just build the engines to give a little more power at the lower 18,000rpm? i'll try reading up a little more about it to see how it gives the extra power, whether it's by increasing the rpm slightly, or other means.

will certainly be interesting to see exactly how much of an advantage the energy recovery system cars have over the ones not fitted with it. but looking at the 1st race, if the car not fitted with the system is faster overall, then the extra boost a few seconds per lap may not make much difference at all, apart from overtaking an equally powered car

[toomanyhounds]

the whole point of the energy recovery system is to try to show the greener side of motorsport, with a hope that it would work its way down the system to road cars. like you say, mainly useful when defending or overtaking. interesting that some teams have one driver with the system one one driver without.

[asp383]

i googled the kers system & found this info from 1 of the manufacturers of a mechanical system (seems only williams may have gone for this system & the others for the electrical).
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2009/01/1...-system-works/
couldn't really find anything on the electrical system, it all talked about the mechanical systems.

[toomanyhounds]

64,000 rpm.... that is bonkers!

I hope they are right about being able to contain things if it all goes pear shaped. I have seen what was left of a ford fiesta when its fly wheel shredded itself at 5,000 rpm, not pretty.

from what I have heard on radio (Think it was coulthard talking on radio 2), electrical KERS uses the breaking system to generate and store charge, but that is as far as i got as had to get out of car and go to work.

You seem quite an avid fan. are you going to silverstone this year? I have managed to get tickets and wangle the friday off work

3 days of fast cars, warm beer and disposable bbqs. not much that can beat that... better toilet/showers wouldn't go a miss though

[asp383]

i've seen them go at near 10,000, still came through the strengthened bell housing & was the 3x 2" windows that stopped it exiting the dyno cell!!!
still couldn't see how it converts the stored energy back into the extra 80bhp though.
i was brought up within motorsport, dad used to rally & even competed in the east african safari rally a few times, then what used to the the lombard rac & well as other club rallies around the uk. i did my apprenticeship at a company (now owned by connaught engines) building their own 16v twin cam head for the mini & ford pinto, 60v quad cam for jav v12 & various other high perfoemance race engines. i was part of a build team there that did 1 dummy f1, 2 arrows & 1 leyton house f1 cars (1 of the arrows ended up in a citroen ad in late 90's starring actor bryan brown). i continued to look after a private rally team & drag cars on a private basis & still got a drag car i'm putting up for sale (it's on my profile).
i find f1 is such an expensive spectator sport compared to others that offer so much more spectator action. my younger brother went a few years ago & he said it was more the atmosphere than the race. i prefer brands to silverstone though as you can see so much more of the track in certain areas.
i remember back when the indy cars raced here, the tickets started at £40, they did a few years at the oval track built at rockingham near corby, then brands, so quite a difference in price to f1 tickets.
must admit, i went to rockingham for the 1st indy race there back in '01, travel, tickets, meals etc all laid on by snap-on + jacket, t-shirt & cap ... all i had to do was buy a new £5000 tool box lol.
i think it'll be good to see the f1 go to donnington though, that's a good track & i just hope it's not changed too much, rather grandstand & spectator areas upgraded.

[toomanyhounds]

wow.. you are even more of a motorsport nut than me. I never had the advantage of a parent who was in to the sport to support or encourage me but I went through the college rout to get basic quals in motorvehicle eng. i have raced karts, but as I grew up I found that being 6'2" and 17 stone was a big problem when you are racing against skinny midgets. was offered a season in the corgi heritage classics but work and family commitments made it impossible.

I decided that I would give my sons all the support and encouragement they need to persue any hobby they wish especially if it runs on petrol. the problem is that in a cruel twist of fate I was supplied with 2 daughters.... however the eldest has turned into a proper petrolhead and has demanded i build her a car to race around. just finishing the chassis now and about to install the 125cc engine. not bad for a 4 year old. (will post pics if interested)

you are right about brands. I watched the champ cars there 5 or so years ago and that was insane. like F1 on steroids.. oulton park, donnington and the one on angelsey are also very good tracks. we've got a place on angelsey and on a good day you can hear all the bikes and cars blasting round. Magic...