Author Topic: Official Racing Thread (Read 189632 times)

amuse · « **Reply #320 on:** September 06, 2006, 04:52:56 PM »

Quote from: ctz

lol Bild has the best sources ever: Schumacher is retiring because of Mark Webber saw him drinking beer

I laughed at that clue too

. I think he will retire since he's been really desperate to win the championship this season, which means he wants to retire as a champion

I want to see Kovalainen race in F1 ... he definitely has the potential to be a world champion. Just hope he doesn't have the same luck as Raikkonen

orion · « **Reply #321 on:** September 08, 2006, 06:06:04 AM »

i hope kovalainen is as good as he is hyped up to be, finn drivers are usually pretty good. i think schumacher will retire as well, i dont mind if he does, im not a fan of him.

amuse · « **Reply #322 on:** September 09, 2006, 09:20:39 PM »

Monza qualifying is over. Some small problems for Alonso made him qualify 5th, but he's now penalised for blocking Massa and will now start 10th instead. I think this is complete bullshit. Alonso was far enough ahead and did not affect Massa's lap at all, in fact Massa probably gained maybe 0.05-0.1s by driving behind Alonso on those long fast straights. He screwed up sector 3 himself and is blaming Alonso for it.

http://f1.racing-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/060909192852.shtml

ctz · « **Reply #323 on:** September 10, 2006, 12:45:22 AM »

Well I didn't see any blocking on tv... It's kinda stupid if driving ahead is now blocking, but If the judges saw there was blocking, there's nothing you could do then. At least it's easier to Schumacher to widen the gap

amuse · « **Reply #324 on:** September 10, 2006, 04:19:38 PM »

Official: Schumacher retires from F1 and will be replaced by Kimi Raikkonen who signed a 3-year deal with the team. Massa's contract is extended to 2008 so he's safe for now

I wonder if Jean Todt and Ross Brawn will stay with the Schumacher-less Ferrari team? If they decide to leave then Ferrari will be screwed for next season.

JFC · « **Reply #325 on:** September 10, 2006, 07:27:21 PM »

Well, at least Schumi was able to do it on his own terms (i.e. he wasn't released from the team and left in obscurity). The new guy for BMW-Sauber, Kubica, had a pretty good race today at Monza. It's only his third race for them, and he had a great qualifying run, an AWESOME start, and even lead the race! Good for him.

EDIT: Gotta say THIS caught me by surprise:
From Midland F1 Racing's Official Site - The Midland Group of Companies wishes to announce the sale of 100% of its shares in Midland F1 Limited to Spyker Cars NV ("Spyker").

Another article - http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=37294

ctz · « **Reply #326 on:** September 10, 2006, 08:11:31 PM »

Schumacher's and Ferrari's announcements really left the actual GP to its shadow.

At last Renault's engine blew up. And now we have the interesting end-season I've wished for. The gap is only 2 points and there's 3 races left. Another good thing is that now Alonso can't say that Italian judges decided the championship, if he'll lose to Schumacher.

Until now I've cheered for Schumacher because I wanted the fight for championship to last till the final Grand Prix. Now when it's almost even, for some reason I still wanna Schumacher to win. It would be the best way for him to end his great career. Alonso still has time to win the second championship in the future.

I certainly hope that Jeadn Todt and Ross Brawn will continue working for Ferrari and Raikkonen. However, if they leave, I don't think it'd be disastrous or anything. Ferrari sure has other capable staff members as well.

JFC · « **Reply #327 on:** September 10, 2006, 08:17:40 PM »

Yeah, it'd be awesome if Michael could end off his career with another driver's championship. He's definitely been one of the hardest working drivers in F1 history. He's never let his head get too big, he's always worked hard and always given his best effort regardless of the circumstances.

Todt's expression after Michael crossed the line was puzzling to me. Makes me wonder what kind of backstage drama is going on with Ferrari. Seems like he doesn't want to leave.

Props to Kubica for landing a podium spot in only his 3rd race for BMW-Sauber.

amuse · « **Reply #328 on:** September 11, 2006, 04:27:20 AM »

Kubica has been really impressive so far. It makes Jacques Villeneuve look like an even bigger idiot for the negative comments he made about Kubica

ctz · « **Reply #329 on:** September 19, 2006, 02:38:03 PM »

FIA announced that the new CDG rear wing won't be used in 2008. The bigger changes to cars' aerodynamics are postponed to 2009, but GDC wing might not be included. They're making changes to chassis instead.

Well I'm not disappointed if they're making at least something to change races less boring.

fudog · « **Reply #330 on:** September 19, 2006, 08:57:56 PM »

Corvette looks to dominate this season in Le Mans GT group, but Aston Martin teams will give them a serious run for the money... i am not really into the teams like i am the cars... i know more about the cars than the drama between the teams

back to the cars Aston Martin has the power but Corvette has better handling and braking capabilities... at the last race Aston Martin car #64 lead a good portion of the race indicating that Corvette has lost its dominance... werd?

amuse · « **Reply #331 on:** September 30, 2006, 09:26:54 AM »

Wow this thread got bumped all the way back to the 2nd page

Qualifying at Shanghai is over. Bridgestones are horrible in the wet so Schumacher is going to need a miracle to get a podium finish for the race

. The weather forecast for Shanghai says there will be scattered showers, so bridgestone = lose. It was still a good qualifying result for Schumacher given that his tires were crap compared to Michelins

JFC · « **Reply #332 on:** September 30, 2006, 06:05:36 PM »

I was puzzled by those results, seeing as how over the past few seasons, the Bridgestone intermediates usually outperformed the Michelins in the rain. Well, we'll have to wait and see what the weather will be like on race day.

amuse · « **Reply #333 on:** October 01, 2006, 05:24:50 AM »

This is probably the first time I've ever checked a city's weather online every few hours to see if it's raining

. The forecast for the afternoon says light rain, so the race will be VERY interesting especially if it stops raining for awhile and the track dries up (like Hungary)

JFC · « **Reply #334 on:** October 01, 2006, 10:04:06 PM »

Well, so much for thinking that the Michelin intermediates were better than their Bridgestone counterparts.

Schumacher shows patience, no fear, and good racing strategy and decisively took and held the lead when it counted to win the race! Once the track started to dry up the Michelins just didn't perform well. Personally I liked today's race, there was quite a bit of bumper-to-bumper action (e.x. poor Heidfeld at the end of the race, if I were Sato I stay away from him for a while).

Assuming that he wasn't experiencing engine troubles midway through the race, Alonso's team really messed things up for him in this race. It looked like he might have lost a gear, but the team told a reporter that they were telling him to not drive so aggressively to conserve the tires or something like that. *yeah right* Considering that Schumi was definitely gaining ground, and that Fisichella couldn't hold him back, telling Alonso to hold back should have been the furthest thing from their mind's. They also should not have, IMO, not have waited so long to change Alonso's front tires (the left one in particular was really worn down).

So now with two races left, driver's standings are tied. Suzuka, here we come!

amuse · « **Reply #335 on:** October 02, 2006, 02:55:36 AM »

Ferrari's strategy worked beautifully. They had Schumacher go out in slicks before Fisichella which gave him a huge advantage because the tires would've been up to temperature already, so he could hunt down Fisichella and make a move while Fisichella would have to take it easy to prevent spinning out

Heidfeld got assraped by Honda

. I had a feeling something would happen when I saw the pack of cars coming down the long straight ...

The standings are tied now but IF Schumacher wins at Suzuka and Alonso were to retire, then Schumacher will win the championship (before the final race) based on tie-breaker rules. But that's a big IF because there's no way Alonso will retire ...... unless Massa runs him off the track

ferrar1 · « **Reply #336 on:** October 02, 2006, 07:28:53 AM »

Quote from: amuse

But that's a big IF because there's no way Alonso will retire ...... unless Massa runs him off the track

do not ever let ross brawn see this

alonso slowed down coz of his tires, bad pitting timings by renault. But i thought it was a good race. almost everyone joined the action in clocking fastest lap times and fastest sector times when everyone's fuel tank depleted.

there was a lot nice overtaking manoveurs, raikonnen's especially on barichello n fisichella. lots of chasing n defending actions.

i have a feeling next race will definetely be the decider, suzuka's a fast speed circuit and michael knows e track quite well. go ferrar1

amuse · « **Reply #337 on:** October 02, 2006, 07:40:59 AM »

Here's a clip of the pass Schumacher made on Alonso from the spectators' perspective

The view for turn 1 is awesome

...

orion · « **Reply #338 on:** October 03, 2006, 02:30:11 PM »

i was disappointed with the renault team, i dont really have to say why. i think that now when it come down to all the presure thats getting put on the team and alonso, they cant handle it. i want alonso to win another championship cause i dont like ferrari but at least its going down to the wire and no one can complain with that.

i wonder if schumacher wins the next race, if in the last one he would then crash into alonso on purpose like he did back in 94 or 95 to hill i think. that would be interesting...

im glad that webber finnally finished in the points even though it was lucky and 8th is pretty bad...

JFC · « **Reply #339 on:** October 04, 2006, 06:39:29 AM »

Quote from: orion

i wonder if schumacher wins the next race, if in the last one he would then crash into alonso on purpose like he did back in 94 or 95 to hill i think. that would be interesting...

im glad that webber finnally finished in the points even though it was lucky and 8th is pretty bad...

Alonso wasn't around in 94/95, perhaps you mean 2004/2005?

Yeah, it was good to see Webber score some points. Poor guy seems to be the hard-luck story this year. It'll be interesting to see how he does next year after he leaves Williams.