Allianz becomes Korean Grand Prix sponsor

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: the Korean Grand Prix finds a title sponsor for 2011.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Allianz to sponsor 2011 F1 Korean Grand Prix (The Korean Times)

“Allianz Life Korea, one of the country’s leading life insurers, said Friday that the Seoul-based outfit will sponsor the 2011 Formula 1 Korean Grand Prix, which will be held in Yeongam, South Jeolla Province, in October.”

F1 2011 | Developer Diary #2 (YouTube)

Thanks to sato113 for the tip.

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Comment of the day

Ted Bell isn’t impressed with Pirelli’s desire to bring back qualifying tyres:

[Gilles] Villeneuve was my hero.

I saw him race when he was at the top of his game. His ability to control the car was something else. He would get more out of a less than great car than others who were in superior machines. How unfortunate he refused to let up in qualifying at Zolder when it was vogue to have the “big slicks” that lasted but only a lap or two. That pursuit of being fastest in the end left a chapter of Grand Prix history unwritten.

Lying about his age to lengthen his race career and the need for a more competitive Ferrari were aspects of his persona that came unrealised. My guess is that had he lived he would have established many of the f1 records in performance.

I read this morning that the Pirelli people are suggesting a new tyre that would last for only a lap. It is painful to think that history could repeat itself if this pursuit continues. I lost my hero that day and hope that the lesson would never be forgotten.

Even Bernie suggested that more tyres are needed for each Grand Prix. Figure out a better method Pirelli. Racing isn’t better from how ridiculous your tyres perform. Your softs and super softs and really extra super softs are nothing more than a path down the wrong branch of the tree of technology.

History seems certain to repeat itself. I hope not for the memory of Gilles Villenueve.
Ted Bell

From the forum

TheWittyWeasel asks if anyone is going to the World Series by Renault race at Silverstoe next weekend, which features an F1 demo run.

Site updates

A few minor CSS tweaks yesterday.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to F1George!

On this day in F1

Following the recent announcement about Sky and BBC sharing F1 coverage in the UK from next year, this article published on F1 Fantic three years ago today makes intresting reading:

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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52 comments on “Allianz becomes Korean Grand Prix sponsor”

  1. The Allianz South and North Korean Grand Prix.

    1. you mean, as in making an alliance?

  2. is there a game nearly as incomprehensible as cricket?

    if pirelli can support qualifying tires, surely they can support soft/med/hard (same or similar all season) during the race instead, right?

      1. well played, tommy

    1. UKfanatic (@)
      14th August 2011, 2:41

      baseball

      1. American football for me- I tried watching the super bowl this year and didn’t understand what was happening and got fed up of having watched for an hour but only seeing about 10 minutes of play. I understand the play of cricket, but when they read out the scores I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

        1. being a big and long term nfl fan i have to say the coverage over here is not rookie fan friendly

        2. American football for me- I tried watching the super bowl this year and didn’t understand what was happening

          I never understood why a nation that prides itself on its virility needs to strap on forty pounds of body armour just to play a game of rugby.

          1. because hits in american/canadian football are approximate to a major car crash. without the pads, even the finest athelets would be too injured to make the owners money.

          2. Dont hit as hard then?

    2. I’ll see your cricket and raise you a synchronised swimming with an option on curling.

      1. Oh, so curling isn’t a bizarre kitchen appliances infomercial on ice? My bad.

        1. Curling is bocce ball on ice. It’s actually really simple, and makes much more sense to people who live in places where water freezes half the year. It’s just sliding rocks on ice.

      2. Curling is actually an incredibly simple really….. get your stone (or rock for the N Americans) as close as possible to the centre of the ring and you gain a point for every stone that is closer than your opponents. Don’t really need to know much else…. Think Bowls but with a fixed point.

        I suppose in your defence though, Curling isn’t a sport that is historically practised in OZ on account of lack of coldness in winters and also it’s one of the few sports that Australia doesn’t excel in… :-P

  3. F1 2011 looks really good so far!

    So did F1 2010…cripes.

    1. this F1 2011.. I think my jaw dropped. I can’t WAIT till this game comes out. I’m drooling with anticipation.

      1. Not to be too cynical but we drooled with anticipation last year too and it was riddled with bugs and glitches.

        I will buy F1 2011, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not going to build it up, in case I’m disappointed. I couldn’t handle it two years in a row. :-/

        1. But as they point out in the video, they already have most of the framework in place from F1 2010. Therefore, they can spend more time developing and fine-tuning the gameplay elements because all the hard work is already done.

          1. lets hope that works out just as they say it will.

          2. It’s pretty much a given that the first game in the series will be bug riddled. Mass Effect is a perfect example! Wonderful game though.

          3. Fair point, but I’ll use a different game as an example of what I *don’t* want to happen.

            The game I will use is Fallout 3. I love it to bits. I will never get sick of playing through it from start to finish. But the bugginess (if that’s even a word) drives me absolutely insane. The amount of times I’ve had the game crash while trying to complete a crucial stage is just ridiculous.

            When I found out there was to be a new game, Fallout: New Vegas, I nearly exploded with excitement. I preordered it months in advance. I built it up to be one of the greatest games ever. The day it dropped through the letter box, I put it straight on. I played away happily for days. Then, all of a sudden the game froze. I realise this can happen with many games so I restarted the PS3 and started playing again. More of the same, playing away, everything going fine, then it crashes again.

            This happened several times and a couple of times I just had to delete the saved game and start from scratch. I did eventually finish the game but not without frustration.

            I can’t understand how a company who build a game can let it go on public release with such glitches. They should be tested, retested and retested again to make sure any bugs or glitches are ironed out.

            I’m sorry to sound like a grumpy old man, but it does annoy me when I fork out €55 for a game that doesn’t work like I expect it to.

            Now I appreciate that haven’t had nearly as many problems with F1 2010 but I have had a few, crashes, corrupt data etc. I should say, that I don’t have access to the internet to download patches etc.

            I expect Codies to get it right this time. As I say though, I’m not getting my hopes up (nor am I for Fallout 4, but thats another days discussion).

        2. I won’t simply because F1 2010 was clearly different from its predecessors, F1 2011 is an evolution, regardless of what developers say.

  4. I read this morning that the Pirelli people are suggesting a new tyre that would last for only a lap. It is painful to think that history could repeat itself if this pursuit continues. I lost my hero that day and hope that the lesson would never be forgotten.

    Villeneuve’s death was not a direct result of the use of qualifying tyres. And in the thirty years since then, safety standards have improved so dramatically that a repeat of his accident is unlikely.

    1. I agree, but I fail to see the need for a qualifying tyre when there is a single tyre supplier. Perhaps if there were 2 it would make sense because there would at least be an element of competition driving the technology forward. As it is, what point is there to having more grippy tyres than those used in the race?

      1. I fail to see the need for a qualifying tyre when there is a single tyre supplier.

        There are several reasons, the first of which being that qualifying and racing are so very different to one another that qualifying is almost a sport in itself. Racing is about being the first man over the line ater fifty or more laps of the circuit. It’s about hounding your rivals into a mistake, executing quick pit stops, and conserving fuel and tryes over the course of the Grand Prix to be the first man home. Qualifying, on the other hand, is all about getting one perfect lap in – hitting every apex, getting on the thorttle at exactly the right moment – and pushing the limits in a car that is in a condition that it will never actually be in for the race (fresh tyres, minimal fuel). Having a qualifying tyre would supplement that and allow the drivers to go ever faster.

        The second reason is strategy. The current rule demand that the top ten drivers start on the tyres they qualified with, and since one set of tyres – usually the soft – is invariably suited to the conditions, everyone will start on the same tyres. Now, repealing the rule forcing drivers to start on the tyres they qualified with fixes this problem, but allowing drivers to use qualifying tyres would give them an extra set of fresh tyres for the race and allow them to be flexible with their start strategies. This would make the racing even more unpredictable; just imagine that Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren all qualify in the top six, but one of them – let’s say Jenson Button – goes in the opposite direction with his tyre strategy. All the other teams would have to try and predict where he would be when he gets his first stint out of the way. One of the other suggestions they made at Silverstone was to supply a prime tyre and two options, but the drivers would only have to use the prime and one of the options in the race, further mixing things up and keeping the racing fresh.

        Thirdly, qualifying tyres would encourage drivers to actualy qualify. How many times have we gotten into Q3 and one or two drivers simply stay in pit because they expect to be at the bottom end of the top ten, and so they might as well stay in and save a set of tyres? Qualifying tyres would mean everyone in the top ten would have that fresh set for the race, and even if you’ve got Kamui Kobayashi and Adrian Sutil at the bottom of the top ten, unable to compete with the front runners, they’d still be out there fighting one another for position. Pirelli have also suggested qualifying tyres because their other proposal was to force any driver who did not set a time in Q3 to start the race on the tyres he used in Q2, which would be a very unpopular rule.

    2. I agree. I don’t really understand the COTD, sorry! :P

  5. UKfanatic (@)
    14th August 2011, 2:53

    It would be very nice to hear that some group could be interested in sponsoring the Belgian GP.

    1. The Belgian Grand Prix already has sponsorship – from Royal Dutch Shell.

      1. All that money goes straight to FOM unfortunately, not to Spa.

        1. Even if it went to Spa, it would not keep the Grand Prix afloat. At the most, corporate sponsorship for a race would account for about a third of the event sanctioning fees, if that.

        2. But at least it means there is someone paying that money, instead of the Spa GP being dropped right now.

          1. But Royal Dutch Shell have been sponsoring the event for a while now and it’s still in dire straits.

          2. They haven’t PM, it was only this year that they announced that deal to sponsor Belgium, probalby saving us from losing it from next year onwards, or possibly this year already.

  6. Perhaps Rupert would be interested

  7. I’m surprised LG still haven’t taken the Korean GP title sponsorship considering they’re a South Korean company and already have a big presence in F1 on-track advertising.

    1. Perhaps because they already have that presence in on-track advertising and their position as one of the sport’s partners, they feel they don’t need to sponsor a race, or that sponsoring a race would not bring any more benefit.

      1. Yeah, I suppose, but you could say the same for Allianz.

        1. But Allianz is a different company. Their goals and their desires will be different to LG’s.

      2. Exactly. Besides it’s their home market. They don’t need to advertise themselves there, so why pay extra money?

    2. Why should they, when they already are one of the main sponsors of the whole season, giving them presence in markets they want to conquer instead of in their home market, where I guess there is not much to win for them.

  8. Hey Steph just received the book you send it to me,thanks.

  9. Just had a look about that Cricket to Sky link Keith. Interesting reading.

    I found this one comment a nice find from Ajokay https://www.racefans.net/2008/08/14/what-cricket-fans-have-to-say-about-f1-as-the-bbc-turns-its-back-on-them/comment-page-1/#comment-189483 seems you have changed your mind on the licence fee since then (BBC have probably worsened with more X-factor etc filling the screens)

    1. X Factor is on ITV, most of the programming on BBC is still rather good, though that is nothing more than opinion.

      1. Didn’t BBC just buy the rights to do something alike with another name for big money just the other week though?

        1. The Voice? It’s again from endemol guys, like Big Brother, I think. I saw the first round of it on Dutch TV, and it was pretty good bc. the jury sat with their backs to the artists, just listening, nothing about looks etc. Only after that did all the rest come, and it became less interesting :)

  10. happy birthday F1George, I think I haven’t seen you commenting much lately, but I hope you are reading this and having a great day today!

    1. Thanks :)

      1. Hope you had a nice birthday!

  11. I don’t see any reason for qualifying tyres. Qualifying should be about finding out which car is fastest over a flying lap in race conditions, not which car is fastest over a flying lap with a special set of tyres that will never get used during a race. True, they don’t run full fuel during qualifying, which is a shame, but that is far less absurd than qualifying tyres.

    Most importantly, F1 is supposed to be reducing cost. How does developing and manufacturing special qualifying tyres help that goal? There is only one answer: It doesn’t.

  12. Something for the round-up due in an hour or so (if you catch it in time Keith!)

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/14/india-formula-one-fast-living

    1. Thanks James – it’s in but thanks for checking!

Comments are closed.