Monterey Historics, down one F1 Ferrari

[GIBSON]

This is getting sad, today we lost a F1 Ferrari in turn 6, not sure what happened or how much damage but it seems fairly well
bent. Driver is fine.
The sound of the 2003 Schumie car was incredible, tomorrow he gets his clear laps for the record, we'll see what he can do.
Shoud be fun.

[tchanson]

Originally posted by SoCal911SC
Wow, Schumacher is there and he's gonna take some hot laps for a record?

Cool!

Sure! Apparently his points lead is so dominating that he's just decided to skip the Hungaroring altogether tomorrow...

Tim

[trj911]

SoCal come on in out of the sun. Scumacher will be racing tomorrow, but not at Laguna.

[CarreraS2]

LOL! That's what I get when my cable company took away Speed Channel from me a few months ago.

Bruce's sentence had 2 completely separate subjects in the same sentence. Was too much for me to comprehend!

[sammyg2]

I dumped my cable after they dumped speed channel. now I gots dish network, channel 150 is almost all I watch

[tchanson]

Sure, Brian...blame the cable guy....

As an aside, Bruce, what are the details of the 2003 ex-Schumi car there? Is this some sort of factory demo/exhibition run or is there actually a 2003 chassis in private hands?

Any sign of the ex-Schumacher, 2000 championship winning car that sold at auction in Monaco in June ?

Photos!

Tim

[GIBSON]

Sorry my track reports aren't very clear. I'll try to do better

The 2003 Ex-Schumie car is indeed a full-factory owned and supported car with factory techs making sure everything is right.
If you looked into the garage you would swear you were at a F1 race, the support is first class. Not all the cars running in the F1 group are quite as well supported but Ferrari wants to put on a good show so they all look very good.
The factory test driver who is behind the wheel of the 2003 car is obviously very quick, in fact it's said he is "as quick" as the man himself, just not as race smart.
Tomorrow we'll have the run where he gets the track to himself, that should be interested as today he had to pick his way through slower F1 cars.
Don't know about the car you mentioned but I'd be surprised if it wasn't here. If I owned a Ferrari F1 car I know where it would be this weekend.
I'm having a hard time getting photos because I'm working the races as well but I'm sure there will be lots posted by Wayne and others.

[Jack Olsen]

What kind of lap time are they expecting from the F1 car?

[emcon5]

So is there a new lap record?

Tom

[TomTurtle]

Attached are some shots of the F1 Ferraris running at Monterey/Laguna Historics today. The sound of the Ferraris at full throttle was incredibile and hard to describe; really made me want to go to a F1 race! Note the people plugging their ears on pit row!

There were a total of seven of varying vintages. They tried to break the track record with Shumey's 2003 car but fell short; the record was 1:07 something; set in 1999 by Helio Castroneves in a CART car, best they could do was 1:09 something. The 2003 car is the one with the large white area aft of the cockpit.

[Doug E]

Tom - Great pics ... thanks. Interesting info about the lap times as well.

Any other pics from the weekend ?

[rlh930]

Pics from Laguna....

How do I explain THIS to the wife?



Champ Cars? We don't need no stinkin' Champ Cars!

[Trust Me]

No new record

[Jack Olsen]

Wow! The whole nose broke off?

That was a pretty expensive weekend for Ferrari.

[jyl]

How the heck did the Ferrari F1 that wrecked at the Historics yesterday suffer the kind of damage show in the photo above?

Those cars are supposed to have extreme protection for the driver pod, I've seen footage of accidents where every corner, the nose, and the whole drivetrain was ripped off and the driver's pod remained intact (e.g. Webber at the Malaysian GP last year, I think it was).

This was a relatively recent Ferrari. So how is it excusable that the driver ended up with his legs hanging out of the car? Any details on the crash?

(I was at the Historics but didn't see the incident.)

[993.986.]

Anybody remember when the Shadow Team (always all black cars) ran an exhibition "race" between its F1 and Can Am cars at Laguna Seca? I think it was in the early 70's. If I remember right, it was a 25 lap feature. The F1 cars lapped the Can Am cars...twice. I've been a die-hard F1 fan since then.

[rlh930]

Given some of the crashes I've seen on TV, I also was astonished that the thing broke clean in half. But it turns out that this was a 1999 car, the same year as Schumacher's crash at Silverstone. Check out this picture of Schumi's car after the crash. Similar. Hmmmm.....

[rlh930]

The crash looked like the classic rookie mistake - too much speed out of the corner (turn 6), let off/apply brakes, spin to the inside. He hit the inside tire barrier at about a 45 degree angle. The nose stuck, levering the car around and breaking the back end off, then both pieces slid down the track about a hundred feet. Mr. Kroymans is very lucky to be alive, much less uninjured.

[lateapex911]

yes that is quite remarkable.....something is very fishy there.

Amazing that the driver is uninjured.

(I'm sure that if I were in the same situation, my ego and intellect would be heavily buised...along with the wallet!)

WOW...

[TomTurtle]

More pics below as requested.

All in all a fantastic 3 day weekend with the Concorso Italiano and two days of Historics. They had more than 500 Ferraris at the Concorso and actually spelled out "Ferrari" with about 50 red beauties for an aerial shot! I skipped the Pebble Concours; too many crowds. This year was special because of the Ferrari 50th celebrations; even so, highly recommend you attend next year - well worth your money! Ferrari club races going on at Laguna most of next week - wish I could attend those too!

Ferrari 375MM from Pan American Road Race

Original Pan American 550 Spyder. Currently owned by the Porsche museum. Originally privately owned, rumor has it it was exchanged by the owner for a 356 AND a 950 series racer owned by the museum.

Chrysler ME 412 supercar; one of two. This is was the test platform. It ran a few laps and was very impressive! Prospective ALMS car?

ME 412 details:


Ferrari F50 in garage

Just another Ferrari F1 car! Note the people with ther ears plugged! What a sound!