F1 Fanatic round-up: 30/7/2010

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Practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix starts today so look out for the live comments posts during each session and don’t forget to send in your predictions for the race result.

Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

Felipe Massa – Budapest, one year later (Ferrari)

Video interview with Felipe Massa on his crash in Hungary last year.

Comment of the day

Sticking with Massa, why does he say ‘for sure’ all the time? Andr?â?® C has a theory:

"For sure" is a literal translation for a very common expression in Portuguese "com certeza" which means definitely so is understandable that a native portuguese speaker not so fluent in English uses so much that expression.
Andr?â?® C

From the forum

Glue asks for thoughts on Heikki Kovalainen’s performance since his move to Lotus.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Cyanide!

On this day in F1

It’s ten years to the day since Rubens Barrichello scored his first Formula 1 win in a memorable race at the Hockenheimring.

Barrichello had qualified 18th after rain on Saturday and ran light on fuel early in the race to move up the field. This required an extra pit stop which cost him time but the disadvantage was wiped away when the safety car came out.

The caution period happened for a truly bizarre reason. A former Mercedes employee, angry at his dismissal, made his way onto the track in a bid to disrupt the Mercedes-powered McLarens’ bid for victory. He certainly helped, as Barrichello was now within range of the front runners.

But an audacious gamble by Barrichello during a late rain shower sealed his maiden victory. While other headed for the pits to change tyres, Barrichello stuck to his dry-weather tyres and as the shower quickly passed he took the lead. Barrichello led home the McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard.

Like Barrichello, Jenson Button also stayed out on his dry weather tyres, gambling on the conditions in much the same way he has twice already this year. That netted him fourth place for Williams, the best result of his F1 career which at that point was only 11 races old.

Here’s two videos of the moment which changed the course of the race:

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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45 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 30/7/2010”

  1. That was a great race by Rubens! Let’s hope his Williams can do something again this weekend. Atleast they are heading in the right direction.

    1. In the very short term, maybe. In the long term, they are very much heading down. And with Phillips, RBS and Air Asia all jumping ship at the end of the year, I fear they are only going to sink further.

      (Haha great unintentional sailing meataphors!)

      1. they definitely need to hoist the mainsail and weight anchor if they want to navigate the stormy seas of another f1 season. meanwhile, a swashbucklin’ spaniard be plunderin’ much booty! yarr!

        1. While things may indeed go all Titanic for Williams in the coming months, I’m sure they will have been buoyed by their recent success.

          1. I know RBS is leaving after the contract expires for obvious reasons and Air Asia may switch to fully back Lotus now (at the moment both teams have their branding) but I haven’t heard anything about Philips leaving – in fact they upgraded their sponsorship package for second year in a row…

      2. If the rumours about a VW-Williams connection are true, the future may not be all that bleak.

        1. It was great race in the old Hockenheimring. I saw the highlights if that race & remember the way Barrchello overtook the cars in front.

          Can anyone tell me the name of the guy who had 3-4 360 spin in the wet in that race.

  2. I remember quite well that 2000 german gp (got it vhr ) it was a fantastic drive from Barrichello.
    It´s one of those races which we don´t bother to wath it again. Plenty of action since the start till the end.
    Lots, lots, lots of overtaking.
    Must be his very best win of his career.

    1. Perhaps… but Silverstone 03 runs it close. He was immense that day.

      In fact, come to think of it, he is always brilliant at Silverstone. He was on pole there in 2000, he went from last to 2nd in 2002, 3rd in 2008 and 2009 and of course 5th there the other week. He was even in 9th in 2007, which was more impressive than it sounds given how bad his Honda was that year!

      Wow I’ve gone off on a tangent. Of course none of this has any relevance to today’s round up… but when I have a ‘stat attack’ I have to share it with everyone!

      1. Rubens maybe needs to hire another guy to run on track, as he won on both of the last 2 times it happened :)

  3. For sho’ that is an interesting “for sure” theory! I remember another one I read last year on Ed Gorman’s blog:

    http://timesonline.typepad.com/formula_one/2009/08/at-spa-the-greatest-track.html

    “I couldn’t resist asking (Lewis Hamilton) about “for sure”. Amazingly Lewis has never noticed he even says it… It will be interesting to see if he carries on with it or tries to drop it. As far as “fantastic job” is concerned, I told him he was already the out-and-out title holder on that one and no one would ever get close. “Really?” he replied, incredulous.

    On the subject of where “for sure” comes from, my colleague Joe Saward had the best explanation. He believes it goes back to the era when there were many French drivers in Formula One and he reckons Jacques Lafitte may have unwittingly started it by using the French phrase “bien sur” (of course, naturally, yes etc) during interviews which then got picked up and Anglicised by the English speakers. And so it got handed down to the likes of Lewis, Jenson and Felipe.”

    1. This ‘For Sure’ thing seems to be a racing driver pheonomenon. I have been speaking to a Russian friend of mine, who, coincidently is currently driving in F2, he also says ‘For Sure’ all the time. I have been trying to re-train him to substitute more appropriate English words, unfortunately he now says ‘abso-f@”ing-lutely’ instead, should be fun if he ever makes F1!

      1. “This ‘For Sure’ thing seems to be a racing driver pheonomenon” I thnik it has spread further than that as all during the WC it was used. Jacques Lafitte really has changed the sporting world then :P

        1. Well it’s in my dictionary: “without a doubt; surely”. So either Jacques Lafitte has changed the English language, or the more likely explanation that it does actually exist, it’s just rather overused in racing circles!

    2. For sure, it comes from the romance languages like French and Portuguese, from their equivalents of bien sur.

      It’s been around so long everyone says it, include Germans (who for sure have an equivalent, sicher) and the English.

      But for sure what everyone is forgetting is that the correct English translation is, of course, of course. For sure.

  4. Man, the cars looked so twitchy under braking back then! I’ve only started watching last year so this is great to watch. Thanks, Keith.

  5. Can’t believe Barrichello’s win at Hungary was 10 years ago, great scenes. Also remember the disgruntled Mercedes employee, and Murrary describing him as a ‘mad-man’ or something similar $:)

    And, apologies for blowing my own trumpet, but I just can’t resist…

    https://www.racefans.net/2010/05/31/turkish-gp-team-by-team-mercedes/comment-page-1/#comment-379587

    1. Nah the next major scandal was the European GP safety car row, so technichally you’re completely wrong.

      Seriously though, congratulations on your spooky prediction. Make sure you put the lottery on at the weekend!

    2. ‘Now, where is Mr Half-wit?’

      Classic Murray.

  6. “and where is mr. half-wit now?” :D

    i kinda like the priest more tho
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iO1_ybL14g

    1. was it 2000 when the green lights failed (twice) with chaos on the grid?

      1. Are you thinking of Nuerburgring 1999? On the first start the lights failed, half of the drivers started to inch forward and then stopped, the other half stayed sitting on the grid!

    2. What an utter, utter nutcase. And on the subject of track invaders, here’s another from the Spanish GP. Incidentally, it’s the same guy who tried to get his hands on the trophy at the World Cup final:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2IhOymMkr0&feature=related

      1. gp2 turkey 2008, bruno senna hits a dog. he could have ended up in the same condition as the dog

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j400C3IAOC0

      2. Oh that’s Jimmy Jump! Also seen at Eurovision this year and various other sporting events over the years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Jump

    3. total nutcase! He is lucky they didn’t hit him. At those speeds it’s hard to see the lunatic there.

  7. Got to love Murray walker

    “where’s mr halfwit??”

    “ding dong are were going to have a good race”

    Brilliant

  8. After reading today’s round up I decided to re-watch the 2000 German Grand prix and what a great race that was.

    My favorite part was when a car spun and stalled on the start straight and race control decided not to bring out the safety car as it could be cleaned up before the field came by again. During this time, Murray says ‘Charlie Whiting the race director makes the right call, as he ALWAYS does’!

    It must have been Charlies first week on the job! ;)

    1. “louise was talking to alesi today. she said ‘do you want rain today?’ he said ‘i want thunderbolts, satellites, anything to help me!'”

      anyone know where to find part 7?

      1. “Ride with Rubens! It’s a joy!”

        murray, you are awesome!

  9. This is how bad Sakon Yamamoto is going, he can’t even get the press conferences right

    Q: This is a circuit you know quite well.
    SY: I know it quite well since in 2006 and 2007 I drove (becomes inaudible) and in 2008 I drove GP2, so this is the fourth time I’m here.

  10. http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/24617.html

    click here for a picture of jenson button wearing an “I didn’t beat The Stig” t-shirt

    1. CLASSIC.

      I really wish I could watch his lap. Wonder if I could track it down on youtube…

      1. I knew Barichello gave those shirts to other drivers who were on Star in a reasonably priced car (he has ”I beat the Stig” one) but I didn’t expect any of them to actually wear it. Good sport Jenson Button.

        This is Barichello’s shirt.
        http://www.attwilliams.com/system/uploads/attachments/0007/6379/rb_stig_medium.JPG

  11. Honda should get back in the game!

    Honda Motor Co Ltd reported consolidated quarterly results for the quarter ended June 30, 2010. The following table displays earnings figures along with consensus mean estimates. All numbers are in millions of Japanese yen except for per-share earnings, quoted in Japanese yen. Following forecasts/Results were prepared using US accounting principles.
    Actual Estimates % Surprise

    Revenue 2,361,463 2,274,500 3.82%
    Op Inc 234,443 131,650 78.08%
    Net Inc 272,487 98,500 176.64%
    EPS 150.27 60.08 150.10%

    1. Doesn’t that tell them leaving F1 was a good idea?

  12. Happy birthday, Cyanide!!!

    1. Thank you buddy. Appreciate it :)

  13. Does it matter if he says “for sure” or “definately” at the start of every sentence? It’s ridiculous no matter what it is.

    1. It’s probably like someone speaking English saying ‘OK’, ‘like’ or ‘yeah’ a lot. To be honest English is at least his second language so it doesn’t bother me. He’s better than me in the respect he can speak more than one language.

  14. How I miss that Orange Arrows. What a car.

    1. Yeah, great to see Pedro up there battling with the big names!

      1. I suppose he misses that car even more than we do :-D

  15. Gee thats so wierd watching that ch9 footage of that race, I vagley remember watching at the time.What I found interesting watching it over today is that after the Mercedes guy runs across the track theres a guy thats runs across the pitlane during the pitstops.

  16. I have to say, Hockenhiem 2000 is the first race i ever remember watching on TV. I think ive watched most of them since. All except most of 2007.

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