All F1 2004 Discussions

I have to agree that last Sunday's F1 GP was probably the most boring I've ever seen!

I got back in time to watch the "highlights" but there *weren't* any!

Listening to the commentators afterwards, one said that apparently Renault had calculated that with the modern car designs, you have to be *eleven* car lengths behind someone else to avoid the "dirty air" caused by all the spoilers that give the cars their massive amounts of downforced.

I also agreed with his comment that the sport needs to do some seriously hard thinking about the aerodynamic setups because unless you have a circuit like Bahrain, the older ones remove practicaly any chance of the sort of slipstream overtaking manouevres the sport used to see

[paulyoung666]

just seen this , hopefully this will be an interesting series , i get the feeling that it is going to be some good sport

[sherer]

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

just seen this , hopefully this will be an interesting series , i get the feeling that it is going to be some good sport

yeah i'd read about this awhile ago. It was a fall out of the Premier F1 thing that was going to link Football with motorracing with Man U, Leeds, Barca, Benfica etc branding the cars.

That never happened and the idea was pushed onto this series instead. It's all payed for with Middle East \ Arab etc money. It all depends on the drivers Villeneuve and Hakkinen were mentioned but not sure if they will get either now. Might end up with an Alesi, Frentzen, Salo type driver.

What annoys me with this series and also the GP2 which will replace F3000 is that it is a great chance to build a car with small wings, huge slick tyres and little aerodynamics but mechanical grip instead. This is what all of the F1 fans want. If the series worked they could then go to the F1 teams and say we done what everyone wants to hapened in F1 and it's worked, either that or it won't and a different solution will have to be found.

Instead all these series produce cars like mini F1 cars and then the racing becomes rubbbish. F3000 used to be good but no it's just the same as F1 with very little overtaking because of the aerodynamics of the cars and i think this A1 and GP2 will be the same

[sherer]

Shuey second on the grid. Unless it rains that's the end of any excitement in this GP

[stormrider]

Originally Posted by sherer

Shuey second on the grid. Unless it rains that's the end of any excitement in this GP

Even if it rains there'll be no excitement, Bridgestone have the best inters and wets, plus Schumi is the rain master. No I think we need a dry race, renaults to blast away from the line and Kimi to come through the pack.

[iadom]

Just got back from a visit to my brother in Surrey, if you are ever in the vicinity of Woking then I can recommend a visit to the Brooklands museum. Fantastic collection of old racing cars, the Napier Railton was my particular favourite. Also lots of aircraft and related items. To actually stand on what is left of the old banked track and imagine in your minds eye John Cobb doing 145 mph in the Railton,

The Loch Ness Wellington bomber is brilliant.

This is the 24 litre beast, beautiful or what?

[carlingman]

Having just come back from Italy myself.

Although I must admit not exactly liking the Kraut Schumakker but must say the Ferrari Museum in Maranello is well worth a visit if ever your over there.

[Matth]

Originally Posted by sherer

Shuey second on the grid. Unless it rains that's the end of any excitement in this GP

Famous last words!

What a Race - mind you, most of the excitement was of the wrong kind.

Crashes, blowouts and er, more crashes and blowouts. Does Coulthard have the record for the most mishaps and still finishing in the points?

Serene progress for Michael, eventually being gifted back all the places lost at the start, and definitely drive of the day for Raikonnen - strategy, tyres and racing, and a lack of any BAD luck, all came together for him for a change.

[paulyoung666]

i was amazed to see rubens rear wing being changed in the pits , iirc this is the first time i have seen it happen during a race

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

i was amazed to see rubens rear wing being changed in the pits , iirc this is the first time i have seen it happen during a race

Changing a rear wing takes several minutes, on tracks where lap times are in the one minute twenties for example, it means that by the time the work's done you're about three laps down and you may as well go home.

However because Spa is so long and with the safety car deployed, it gave them enough time to change the wing and get Barrichello back out before he lost a lap.

Of course there's also the point that a rear wing failure (eg Raikonnens a race or two ago) is usually pretty catastrophic so you don't get much time to do anything about it!

[paulyoung666]

tbh i was surprised they were allowed to do it from a safety point of view , seen as it is so critical

[sherer]

it was an exciting race but tbh there still wasn't really any overtaking.. it was because of the crashes etc that it was exciting which isn't really what i want to see. Shame we really that McLaren have taken so long to get on the pace.

Bad news for the express writer who said he would run round Silverstone naked if they won a race this season

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

tbh i was surprised they were allowed to do it from a safety point of view , seen as it is so critical

But practically *every* part on an F1 car is critical! Should they have been forced to retire the car instead of fix it?

What about all those cars that lose front wings?

[sherer]

i seem to remember that when the SC was first brought in it couldn't be deployed until after the first three laps of a race.. i think they have sadly got rid of that rule

[sherer]

i think i've worked out one of the problems with F1. Basically every circuit is the same with tight fiddly corners and a few straights os if your car works well at one circuit it will work well at most of them. No longer do we have the high speed flat out no chicane Hockenheim and Monza and the 14 mile Nurburgring and the old Spa and Octreichring, them moving onto Silerstone and then Monaco and Reims.

With all the circuits being variations of each other the best car at one will be the bestcar at most of them

The other problem is the drivers and engineers have so much scope for changing the wing settings etc that they can make each car suit each circuit. Maybe we need to keep the settings closed off os that then the driver has to adapt to each circuit rather than alter the car