F1 Fanatic round-up: 4/10/2010

Posted on

| Written by

Hope you all had a great weekend – let us know what you got up to in the comments below.

Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

Blog: Showtime in Seoul (Renault F1)

"The South Korean capital, Seoul, became the latest city to witness the sight and sound of an F1 car this afternoon as the Renault F1 Roadshow came to town.

"We rocked up in front of the City Hall and let the R29 loose on the streets of the city. J??r???me D’Ambrosio was the lucky man behind the wheel, deputising for Ho-Pin Tung who continues to recover from the back injury he picked up in GP2."

Mark Webber calm as Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso closes in (BBC F1)

"Red Bull’s Mark Webber has admitted the momentum is with Fernando Alonso and Ferrari as the Formula 1 season nears its climax with four races remaining."

Schumacher positive about Suzuka challenge (ESPN F1)

"Michael Schumacher will head to Japan next week with fond memories of the Suzuka circuit at the forefront of his mind."

Lewis Hamilton blasted for “aggressive” driving (The Mirror)

"Lewis Hamilton has been slated for being ‘too aggressive’ in the Singapore night race.

"Red Bull boss Christian Horner poured salt on the 2008 champion’s wounds over the clash with Mark Webber that saw him crash out of the last round and could spell the end of his championship hopes."

Austin F1 track builder Hermann Tilke: a real-life Lord of the Rings (Statesman.com)

"What may be the world’s greatest auto racetrack engineering company began in 1986 with a tiny strip of concrete."

Comment of the day

With team orders back in limelight, David BR says:

It’s a brave article Keith. At first, apart from being a bit taken aback, I just plain disagreed, mostly because I tend to agree with McLaren’s self-proclaimed policy of ‘amicable competition’ between drivers, with the presumption that they’ll help each other when one of them is out of the reckoning. I’m not saying I believe this is 100% true, just it seems a workable ideal. But?? it’s difficult to refute your essential point that the McLaren and Red Bull drivers are pushed to take more risks.

At the same time, do they realistically have an alternative? Button has already made his position clear, I think, that he wouldn’t accept basically working for Hamilton if McLaren decided to back only the latter while he still has a chance. And with Hamilton still ahead of him, how could they decide the opposite? The same for Red Bull. In fact it seems clear that they *did* want to back Vettel this year, but having Webber go awol wasn’t worth the bad publicity or the potential agro in the garage and on the track.

I think the point missing in your argument is Massa: he accepted being number two. Why, I don’t know. But Alonso’s advantage stems from that decision and nothing else. He didn’t get that in 2007 (from Hamilton, post Monaco), which was the real reason McLaren ‘stuck’ by their principles. Had Lewis ceded, they’d have done the same as Ferrari this season, no question.
David BR

From the forum

Will Hamilton ever leave McLaren?

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday StrFerrari4Ever and Iceshiel – hope you both a great day!

On this day in F1

Jochen Rindt won the world championship on this day in 1970 at the United States Grand Prix, despite having died almost a month earlier in an accident during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix.

At the time of his death, the Austrian driver had a 20-point lead in the world championship. As none of his rivals were able to exceed his total of 45 points by the end of the season, he became the sport’s first and only posthumous champion.

From the archives

40 years today: Rindt killed at Monza

30 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 4/10/2010”

  1. https://www.racefans.net/2009/08/30/nelson-piquet-jnr-fernando-alonso-renault-conspiracy-claim/

    I noticed this article linked in the team orders thingy yesterday and I had a scroll through the comments to see everyone’s views at the time. OK, it’s old news now, but it really is interesting looking back and seeing how sceptical some people were at the time.

    I know it’s easy to say it in hindsight, but even at the time it seemed like there was a lot to this story, with the credible journalist who broke it, Mike Doodson and Antonio Pizzonia’s cryptic comments etc.

    Of course it’s all in the past, but if you were commenting on this site 12 months ago perhaps it’s worth a look to see how your perspective has (or hasn’t) changed since

    1. At the time I wasn’t really angry at Piquet and that hasn’t changed much. It still surprises me that many people were more angry at him than Flavio.

      1. Yeah I actually felt a bit sorry for him, even though I don’t really like him

      2. “At the time I wasn’t really angry at Piquet and that hasn’t changed much. It still surprises me that many people were more angry at him than Flavio.”

        I was surprised so many seemed more angry at Flavio than at Piquet…

        Anyway, I went through the comments of old articles not so long ago and I completely disagree with myself now. I sat there reading them thinking just what a plank I sounded. God knows what I’ll think next year if I read this back and the team orders articles…

    2. Ahh I’m glad your here Ned, on an unrelated note, when you’ve got some free time go watch the Japanese MotoGP race on iPlayer to hear the commentary by Charlie Cox, the guy rumoured to take over Legard next year!.

      1. Ooh forgot there was even a race on. I like Charlie Cox, although he wouldn’t be my first choice for the F1 commentator

  2. At least Hamilton hasn’t taken out his own team-mate yet!

    Nah seriously though, there’s only one reason for Horner’s comments: mind games. The championship is coming to a crunch and the psychological battle is heating up.

    That Tilke metaphor is unintentionally hilarious: “one ring to rule them all” – given how many say his tracks are all the same!

    1. Well, Horner couldn’t have liked Whitmarsh calling Vettel a crash kid, and is no doubt another reason that he’d leap at a chance to try bring Hamilton down a little in the public eye.

      1. A bit rich coming from a guy who has one of his drivers run into the other, and then blaming the other guy for the collision…

        1. KNF, its mind games mate, why is this news coming up during the warm up to the Japanese GP?, to get under Hamiltons skin while he’s trying to get work done.

          If he’d said it last week Hamilton would have ample time to get it out of his head and focus.

          1. To be fair I’m sure I heard Horner saying this after the Grand Prix, I’m not sure if these are new comments. But hey, mind games, Hamilton probably doesn’t read the Mirror. Or search F1 sites.

  3. “What may be the world’s greatest auto racetrack engineering company began in 1986 with a tiny strip of concrete.”

    And left many wishing it had ended there as well :)

  4. ‘Michael Schumacher will head to Japan next week with fond memories of the Suzuka circuit at the forefront of his mind.’

    but that’s no really the point is it…

    1. What may be the world’s greatest auto racetrack engineering company…

      I think there might be a couple people out there who would disagree. Maybe.

      1. Whoops. Got that in the wrong place. Wasn’t meant to be in response to sato113…

    2. Oi, Schumi! Leave the fond memories at home and bring a faster car! ;)

    3. He has good memories from about every circuit except those ones which have been added since his first retirement.

  5. Big shout out to Jochen Rindt, fantastic driver, one of my personal favorites, I love the fact that his team mate Emerson Fittipaldi won the championship for him.

  6. Accidental Mick
    4th October 2010, 7:58

    Just musing on Webber’s comment. It has been years since I heard the expression “on the bounce”, is it still in common use?

  7. Happy birthday to StrFerrari4Ever and to Iceshiel!

  8. I’m glad that the comment chosen for COTD was among the very few to mention Massa’s compliance as a factor in the team orders brouhaha. It’s an open question, though I think we’ve already seen the answer this year, whether either Webber or Button would ever comply to team orders that worked to their disadvantage.

    What I think is missing from yesterday’s article and debate is that Ferrari, and Alonso in particular, have had the upper hand and the momentum because their car and Alonso have simply been performing better than anyone else on the track in the last two races and because they have cut down on various mistakes while the others have multiplied theirs. Right now McLaren and RedBull are in danger of being passed by a faster car and driver rather than by tactics.

    1. Certainly Massa has not brought anything to the Ferrari party recently, its all been down to Alonso. Could this be Massa not getting the upgrades and support he would like, or is it him behaving like a good little indian, or is it just sour grapes at being forced into No 2 yet again?
      I’m waiting for him to be replaced and to move to another team so that we can see the real Massa…..

      1. Well the day before yesterday we had a lot of comments defending Raikkonen’s post-2007 form saying that Ferrari favoured Massa in making a car that suited him (which seems an extremely stupid tactic, but there you go). Maybe Ferrari decided to put their eggs in Alonso’s basket long ago and with Massa out of it the entire development avenue has gone in the direction of making an Alonso car rather than one that somewhat favoured Alonso. It would explain things a lot really.

        1. That wouldn’t surprise me, but are Massa and Alonso really as far apart as, say, Button and Hamilton?

          Come to think of it… I’m not even sure what Massa’s driving style is!

          1. Another part of this question is about what is going on at Mercedes. This season we have seen the experienced Schuey being beaten by the younger Rosberg, alegedly as they are both adapting to a car designed around a previous driver.
            However, Mercedes still talk of Schuey as the key figure around which they will base next year’s car, and thus spirit him and them into the giddy heights of fame and fortune.
            But where does this leave Rosberg? On this year’s from he ought to be the No 1 and have the next car based around him, surely? Is he going to be content to sit in the shadow of a man he has already beaten on the track?
            And how will Mercedes cope if he doesn’t?

          2. Apparently he likes understeer whereas Raikkonen and Alonso (like Schumacher) prefer lots of front-end grip. Whereas Button likes understeer and Hamilton likes a slippery back-end as opposed to massive front grip. It may be just that McLaren have done a better job of creating a compromise car, but then again that might also be compromising both drivers.

  9. In other news, congratulations to Seb Loeb for a 7th consecutive WRC title and 60 wins. Awesome display!

  10. Perez to drive alongside kobayashi at sauber next year:

    http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2010/10/11338.html

  11. Hamilton 2010 champ if he wins in japan. If 2nd then he will have to pull something amazing off AND if 3rd sorry then lew :'(

  12. From the numbers in that article and my own estimates, it seems that Tilke has total revenus from circuit design in the order of $900M-$1.4B

    Not bad for a guy who most people think it terrible at what he does :)

Comments are closed.