The Ultimate 2010 F1 Thread
 

With the (official) start to the 2010 F1 season...

How about one season-long thread to consolidate all of PPOT's F1 rantings and ravings? No need to post spoiler alerts in the thread title. Don't come here if you haven't watched the race/qualifying and don't want to know what's already happened.

Forza Alonso. he's going to blow them all away this season. just my .02

A good result but a pretty boring race . . . I miss the refueling drama.

Ian

But the 3 second pitstops are impressive. I think Schumi should have stayed in retirement. Once you drive for Ferrari, your odds of "improving" your career are a little weak. He was unimpressive all weekend. A shame about the Renault cracked header pipe that gave Ferrari the win. Happy to see Ferrari win, but would rather they earn it through superior driving.

It was good to see Massa rebound from his injury. And yeah a tough break for Vettel but thats the chance you take when you change a design. As for Schumi 7th after 3 years isn't a terrible start.

If that race was any indication, its going to be a very boring season. Oh well, I'll continue to watch every race and hope for the best. That first pit stop by a backmarker was like the 3 Stooges were there.

The racing will get better as teams try more aggressive strategies. the tires are lasting better than they expected

Yikes, that doesn't bode well for the rest of the season. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...leys/sleep.gif One of the most boring races I've ever seen, and I can't think of anything that will make it more interesting - except to the tire engineers.

Great photo of world champions gathered at Bahrain this weekend:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1268585847.jpg



(Thanks, Joe Saward.)





Tim

It's been boring for years. Schumi started 7th and finished 6th, what is to be expected? There are only 3 or 4 passes in the whole damn race every single time, but suddenly Schum is washed up?

I was surprised that the starting grid didn't exactly reflect the results.

I have to agree about the race being boring. Bring back refueling.

Alonso! I was always a fan even when eveyone poopoo'd him at McC. His chances of a DC are probably the best in the field.

Great photo ... except for the 2 in the front row who are there for pr purposes only. They should have done a show just on those past champions with interviews and footage from the weekend. The 2 seconds that Speed showed of a few of them on track wasn't nearly enough.

Also, anybody know if Alonso changed engines like Masa did ? Interesting decision given the result and the potential implications later in the season.

alonso also got a fresh engine for the race as a precaution

Great photo of all the champions, I could name them all but couldn't figure out who the "boozer under the highway overpass" next to Mario was until I realized it was Keke!

It's too bad its not all the living champions, as by my count Kimi and Nelson Piquet are the only ones missing.





Tim

Yes, they mentioned that during the race telecast. Not sure why Piquet didn't attend (brouhaha relating to his nephew's ignoble exit last season?), and Kimi might be busy with WRC activities. Or just sleeping it off, somewhere.

Great photo. I had to stare at Damon Hill a long time before I remembered . . And Lauda looks uh, old!

As far as the race, It was no more boring than lots of F1 races for a long long time , I think that the engineers were getting their feet wet with the new regs; will they or won't they come in for tires (why Webbers team didn't bring him in with 13 or so laps to go is beyond me, new tires = 2 seconds, he had nothing to lose.) I was impressed with Lotus, Schumi did pretty well, Nico must be pretty pleased, too. Lots of good things happened.

Anyway, yay for springtime and f1 and March 14.

I was thinking during the race...

Maybe Massa's crash last year was really just practice for being Alonso's teammate.

Something no one is talking about is the advantage Redbull / Adrian Newey will have by collecting data from 4 cars.
If I understand correctly Adrian (Red Bull Design) penciled out both Red Bull and Torro Rosso cars so does that mean he can test innovation on TR cars and only use the good ideas on the RB. With a testing ban isn't that a huge advantage. Multi car teams now dominate Nascar, is that the future of F1?

I have never really liked Alonso. I am not sure why. I suspect he will be the big winner this year. Like him or not the man can drive.

Most boring race I have seen in a long time. Even the video feed (commercial F1) was stinky...

I hope it gets better quick...

I found Massa's comments in the post race interview about conserving fuel over the last 20 laps interesting. It didn't appear Alonso or other cars had that problem. I think something else was going on there - especially with the Ferrari team looking at the video of the barge board area.

That has been the case since Toro Rosso debuted, although I'm thinking this year they have had to design their own car, as there has been a slight change in the rules. I have to say though, if an idea worked, both cars would benefit. The same guy owns both teams; there's no way that he would limit one team in favor of the other one, as it would only cost him money in the end. In that past, they have been different enough that it wasn't possible, anyway.

JR

There seems to have been a problem (with something related to the aerodynamics?) that caused high engine temperatures and high fuel consumption, according to Massa. Maybe the fuel consumption thing was a red herring and the only issue was temperature.

JR

Heard today that Vettels car did not crack a header it had a bad spark plug ! All that money spent and a $2.00 spark plug lets you down.:confused:

I'm willing to bet those are $200 spark plugs :)

I had this long diatribe about the pros and cons of all the rules and what not, but I decided to stand down.

I am pipping Alonso to win his 3rd title. Ferrari has been working on this car for a long time, no surprise they are back on top. Back to the status quo with a few wildcards.

those spark plugs are hardly 2 bucks. They're smaller than your little finger, lighter than a feather, absolutely proprietary to each engine, and the manufacturer is constantly badgered to make it lighter and better - as is every component vendor for an f1 car. Hopefully for Red Bull, this is good news, because a broken header can cause significant damage. Bad plug? who knows, maybe they can shut that cylinder down and minimize the damage. They only get eight this year. For 19 races

F1 spark plugs
 

Ummm...he said $200

I'm gonna change that to $2,000. Cool pic, Herr.

Actually, he said 2.

I believe Champion is still the majority-share supplier in F1, believe it or not (from right here in the good `ol USA). They run the teams about $50/ea. but it still adds up quick when you go through 5k+ units in a season!

Anyone know how much Ross Brawn made off the sale of his eponymous team? He purchased it from Honda. Then won the championship and sold the team to Mercedes. Not that this was his primary motivation, but any idea if this was profitable for him?

And what's with the stupid rules that dictate that Sauber still has to have "BMW" in its name (whilst running Ferrari engines) in order to collect FIA money for points scored the previous season? Doesn't the FIA/Bernie feel it makes F1 look a bit silly when the team's called BMW-Sauber-Ferrari, or something ridiculous like that?

Actually, it is Saubers way of making money and pissing off Bernie and BMW

Why pose Niki Lauda in a hole (1st position, 2nd row). He looks like a hobbit. Somebody should have posed him on an apple box or an F1 front tire. Geez.

IMHO, a second photo without the prince and Bernie would've provided the best group pic.

Oh. I agree. The race was boring. I feel asleep toward the end. Maybe they need an inverted start to make it interesting. What do the pit girls wear in Bahrain?

Does Peter Windsor get his position back since his team is kaput for the season? I imagine he could glean a lot of proprietary tech data during his pit video excursions and accelerate his team's R&D progress.

Sherwood

I would imagine it was because Niki told the photographer to piss off when he was asked to stand on the second step.




Tim

Bernie yabbering about the Bahrain bore:

"Ecclestone has suggested, rather than a knee-jerk reaction now, the sport would be better served to adopt a calm, rational view and address the matter after the next three 'flyaway' grands prix in Australia, Malaysia and China.

"I don't think it (the Bahrain GP) was much different to some of the other races we had last year to be quite honest with you," said Ecclestone.

"It wasn't the sort of race that would excite most people I would suppose.

"But I think we ought to judge these things a little later on. It's a bit early. We ought to wait until we come back from China."

If those races serve up similar tedium then that would be the time to act, with a three-week gap to the following grand prix in Spain.

"There are lots and lots and lots of things that could happen to make the racing closer and better. It's a case of getting all the teams to agree," added Ecclestone.

"If everybody agrees (to two mandatory stops) then we could change it (the regulation) immediately."

Another Ecclestone proposal, one he aired recently and has again revisited, is the possibility of creating short cuts at each track.

"A driver could use it so many times a race so that if he really gets stuck behind somebody he could still get past," said Ecclestone.

"I'm pushing, but sometimes people don't understand these things too well, they don't see the advantages.

"It would be good for TV, and you'd get a lot of excitement out of it."

Again, that would require the unanimous agreement of the teams to be introduced for this season, although as Ecclestone also points out "it would be difficult for all the promoters to alter their circuits to make that happen."

From PlanetF1

Ian

Brawn was no doubt fabulously rich by most measures already, so I would figure survival of the team, not potential profit, was his motivation a year ago.

The fact that he received a reported 35M GPB, or 50M+ USD from the Germans for their share of BGP was just gravy.




Tim

Bernie never has anything useful to say. In fact, every time he opens his mouth, he usually contradicts something else he has already said.

He's like a cockroach. At his age you think he'd already have kicked the bucket, but no...

JR