F1 Fanatic round-up: 24/6/2010
24th June 2010, 0:01 by Keith Collantine 31 Comments »
Yesterday’s story on the introduction of adjustable rear wings in 2011 generated a huge amount of reaction – make sure you cast your vote there and see what other F1 Fanatic readers have to say about the radical proposal.
Here’s today’s round-up:
Links
The 1987 Austrian Grand Prix was anything but dull (Motor Sport Musings)
“It featured three starts, a stray deer, disqualification, and of course a bruised driver.”
In conversation – Ecclestone & Alonso (F1.com)
“When I left McLaren at the end of 2007 it was already in my head that I wanted to be a Ferrari driver at some point of time. This was my goal. I did not exactly have my best time at McLaren. The history of Formula One shows clearly that Ferrari and McLaren are the strongest teams. To make my career perfect I knew that I had to go to Ferrari. At the beginning it was just a dream, but last summer the critical meetings were put in place to make this dream come true. After that everything went really quickly and I did not let this incredible opportunity pass me by.”
“The UK government should provide a mechanism to deliver a Temporary Suspension Order (in association with local authorities) that would enable a limited annual number of ‘closed road’ events to take place in England, Wales and Scotland, with the associated benefits for the regions selected.”
Exclusive Lewis Hamilton interview (Silverstone)
Video interview with Lewis Hamilton looking forward to the British Grand Prix in two weeks’ time.
Comment of the day
Not many people had anything positive to say about FOTA’s adjustable rear wing plan for 2011. Icthyes’ comment was typical of the views received:
Absolutely pathetic gimmick compromised by arbitrary constraints. All so the aero interest group don’t have to see their precious area infringed on.
FOTA have gone from standing up for F1’s integrity with their opposition to the two-tier rules to being the champions of something little better than Mario Kart. What a joke.
Icthyes
From the forum
Heard a bit of music in an F1 broadcast and want to know what it is? Twig and Journeyer can help you out with their BBC and FOM music threads.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Daniel, Andrew Smith and inc0mmunicado!
On this day in F1
On this day in 1911, in the small village of Balcarce in Argentina, a person was born who would grow up to be a dominant force in a sport that barely existed at the time.
Juan Manuel Fangio first found work as a mechanic. When he began racing cars he benefited from great mechanical sympathy which helped him both nurse his cars through the gruelling races and repair them when they did break.
Those skills served him well when he came to contest the new (and then almost entirely Euro-centric) world championship, after it began in 1950. By the time of his retirement in 1958 he had amassed five championship titles, a record that stood until 2003.
Fangio, who passed away in 1995, would have celebrated his 99th birthday today. Patrick Tambay shares his birthday with the Maestro, he is 51 today.
Ned Flanders said on 24th June 2010, 0:08
How on earth did Fangio manged to survive 9 years of racing in F1 in the 1950′s, never mind win 5 championships? Incredible.
It would be fascinating to see how the best drivers from the 1950′s might cope in modern day F1. Would they be competitive, or have standards risen since that era? I suspect the latter is more likely, but either way, Fangio’s achievements were just astounding
Scribe said on 24th June 2010, 0:23
F1 cars had no downforce then, less power but modern F1 drivers that get into them always comment first on the complete lack of grip, the tyres hardly made up for it either. Fangio was apparently the master of the four wheel drift, not something our lot do a lot of. F1 cars were closer to rally cars than the track cars we have now, so it was almost certainly a lot harder to drive the things this days, this an the almost complete evolution of F1 every 10 years makes it next to impossible to compare era’s. However, while the cars were evil to drive in his era, I suspect the quality of the feild was a lot lower.
till I reckon people like Fangio are just born to drive, were he born today I’ve no doubt he’d be winning in either rally or F1, as he would’ve trained and carbohydrate energy drinked like the others.
Scribe said on 24th June 2010, 0:24
*woops those days.
Any news on that edit button keith?
Jagged said on 24th June 2010, 0:24
After years of racing and winning marathon mountain races in South America:
“One particular race, which he won in 1940, the Gran Premio del Norte was almost 10,000 kilometres long. This race between Buenos Aires, up through the Andes to Lima, Peru and back again took nearly two weeks with stages held each day. No mechanics were allowed and any repairs would have to be completed by either the driver or co-driver at the end of each stage. Following many successes driving all makes of American modified stock cars; Fangio was sponsored by the government and sent to Europe to continue his career after the end of World War II”
F1 must have seemed like a piece of cake!
bosyber said on 24th June 2010, 7:51
Thanks for that additional info.
At the times the races were all more endurance and testing sessions because the equipment was so much more fragile and unreliable. And thus it was easy to make improvements to cars based on what was learned in these trials.
Dan Thorn said on 24th June 2010, 9:02
Once he during the Mille Miglia (I think it was the Mille Miglia) the rain was so bad it was filling the car up. At a checkpoint a mechanic shot a hole in the floor to drain the watre but it just had the effect of spurting water in Juan’s face. He kept going and by the time he finished he was in the early stages of hypothermia.
His determination was unbelievable.
Fer no.65 said on 24th June 2010, 11:26
That’s Turismo Carretera… and the funny thing is that Fangio won 2 championships there… but Juan Galvez won a lot more…
those guys at the time could’ve been capable of winning at F1 straight away… but they just didn’t want to get involved with it.
I was thinking about doing an article about Turismo Carretera as part of the “why you should watch…” gues articles… Turismo Carretera started in the 30′s and is still running…
RobR said on 24th June 2010, 0:37
Icthyes is 100% dead on. FOTA are talking out of their wind tunnels.
Tomás said on 24th June 2010, 2:17
Keith, take a look here, a photo of the new exhaust of Ferrari today:
http://theformula1.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/traseira-do-f10b-com-novo-escapamento-foto/
thaks!!!
Becken Lima said on 24th June 2010, 2:37
Fiorano “promo” with a camera on Alonso´s Helmet:
http://bit.ly/dnKhYS
Scribe said on 24th June 2010, 14:07
This video is absolutley great, an a fantastic example of why F1 should be using more headcams.
BUT, it also shows that this was clearly a test, that was a full speed blast around Fiarano, whith a practice start an even what looked like current Potenza tyres. Next we’ll here that McLaren have done a media day at Rockingham, an Mercedes just happen to have slipped one in at Hockenheim. Apart from the fact that it’s rather blatant cheating from Ferrari, more than I intially thought, it’s probably going to open the flood gates.
Testing ban has gone as far as it needs to, it’s clear that we need limited testing in F1, an now the teams are starting to get around it, I reckon the answer is for teams to get 4 full test days, with a distance limit, in season, to replace the straight line tests, it’ll make everyone happy, an crush this bit of skullduggery before it gets out of hand.
Icthyes said on 24th June 2010, 3:02
I never see these coming…thanks Keith!
Fangio becomes more fascinating every new thing I hear about him. But I always wonder how things would have gone had Nuvolari raced in the World Championship?
Dan Thorn said on 24th June 2010, 9:03
Read ‘Fangio: The Life Behind the Legend’ by Gerald Donaldson. Brilliant book.
Selidor said on 24th June 2010, 6:33
To be fair, Mario Kart has some great overtaking
Joey-Poey said on 24th June 2010, 7:45
I hear Ferrari is already in development on their red shells.
Oli said on 24th June 2010, 10:09
Renault are developing banana skins and red bull already have the oil feature from Valencia last year
BasCB said on 24th June 2010, 13:43
Webber already used it in Bahrain to fend of Kubica!
Selidor said on 25th June 2010, 10:19
Fota have agreed to ban mushrooms from 2011; Lightning set to return
BasCB said on 24th June 2010, 6:52
A lovely review of the 1987 Austrian GP!
And great background on Fangio. That was really the greatest sporter in motorsport. Surviving everything, driving things like 10.000 km races all with the cars of that day and win 5 World Championships.
Prisoner Monkeys said on 24th June 2010, 10:59
Sauber have been granted permission to drop the “BMW” from their name. They will now be known as “Sauber F1 Team”.
Tom L. said on 24th June 2010, 12:00
As of next season, though.
KNF said on 24th June 2010, 12:55
That’s assuming that they can survive until next season, which I hope they do…
Tom L. said on 24th June 2010, 12:01
I don’t understand all the furore about adjustable rear wings. As far as I’m concerned, it’s no less artificial than KERS.
BasCB said on 24th June 2010, 13:44
The difference is, Kers can be used anytime the driver feels like using it up to an output limit. The adjustable bodywork can be used only when following another car.
DGR-F1 said on 24th June 2010, 13:24
A pause for thought:
If it wasn’t for the British laws which forbid racing
on public roads, we wouldn’t have had Brooklands Circuit and F1 racing as we know it, or the Isle of Man TT……..
Ads21 said on 24th June 2010, 23:44
very true, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have road racing in Great Britain today. Road Racing is a great spectacle in Ireland and the Isle of Man and Great Britain is missing out.
and after they adopt the Manx way of road racing perhaps they should follow our example on the open roads as well. Just image a UK without speed cameras or a national speed limit…
Alec said on 24th June 2010, 16:16
For all Fangio’s sporting accomplishments, what has always stood out to me was something more important. This man was by all accounts an absolute gentleman on or off track. The Schumachers and Sennas of modern times all seem to have, to varying degrees, instances when their behavior on track is questionable. With Fangio, the only questionable behavior I’ve ever heard of involved whether he let Moss win a British grand prix on purpose! He was famous off track for his humility.
dsob said on 24th June 2010, 18:32
Don’t know if I missed this elsewhere here, but in case no one noticed, we may find out if an F1 driver can hold a Superlicense while having his road license revoked : http://www.autoevolution.com/news/hamilton-to-be-banned-from-swiss-roads-21709.html
BasCB said on 24th June 2010, 20:11
Maybe that is the background of Todt warning about misbehaviour off track having consequences on track as well.
But your right, there is no need to actually have a road driving licence to qualify for a superlicence.
matt90 said on 24th June 2010, 22:51
That was a shocking article. I don’t see how his liscence can be revoked because a group says they don’t want him driving. He did a wheelspin, which was stupid in front of police, but it was apparently for fans, and who can honestly say they’ve never ‘broken traction.’ The first quote was about her driving anyway. The idea that a politician can call for you to have your liscence removed is ridiculous.
matt90 said on 24th June 2010, 22:57
I do like the sound of those road races. Mille Miglia style! It would be good to see some small road races with professional drivers using decent cars. A Isle of man TT on a smaller scale, with sportscars and drivers who want to compete, not ones obliged to because of contracts. that way the safety issues with using normal roads isn’t so bad, because everyone is driving aware of the risks they are taking.