Gaston

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  • #210885
    Gaston
    Participant

    Well, here’s my attempt at polishing a bit the translation posted by Journeyer. Makes also for good practice! Of course it would be helpful if a native German speaker gave it a look.

    I caught the song when it was first aired (I switched to RTL after the BBC transmission ended) and thought it was pretty cool. Glad to see I was not the only one :)

    So, here’s my two cents:

    KING ON FOUR WHEELS

    This is it: the storage room of all storage rooms
    all these tapes store loads of dreams of men
    21 years of successes – seven World Championships
    and the following scenes of Schumi stand out the most

    Ninety-one: after just one race in Jordan
    the talent was poached by Benetton on Bernie’s orders
    the young bloke from Kerpen does not want to fool around with the stars
    “…and simply gain as much experience as possible!”

    One year later, first time on the podium in Mexico
    he provides strong races, not sex scandals
    Flavio helps him loads with mountains of tips
    the victory in Spa makes him the heir of Graf Berghe von Trips

    CHORUS:
    For most you have been for ages the King on Four Wheels
    comparable to none, no one can hold a candle to you
    you are parking the car – and won’t set fastest laps again
    but one cannot achieve more – you are the King on Four Wheels!

    Little by little Formula 1 moves into focus all across Germany
    Millions tune in, if he is to be one of the top three
    He begins strongly in 94, but everything changes in one blow
    in the day in which Ayrton Senna dies

    But the show must go on and the Earth keeps on turning,
    Schumi sits at the top, Hill is knocked down to second
    despite the plank farce and a little too much passion
    he wins in Adelaide the World Championship for the first time

    MS: “Unbelievable feeling…

    The first victory in Hockenheim, the rain race from Spa
    he says yes to Corinna – are there pretty pictures of that? Sure!
    he signs in Maranello – time for the career jump
    but before that he celebrates in Benetton his second Championship triumph!

    “I am a proud Schumacher fan!”
    “World Champion for the second time! What else can I say?”
    “Awesome!
    “Five, four, three, two, one!”

    (CHORUS)

    After problems at the start in Ferrari he is soon Mister Scuderia
    So much for the shot at Villeneuve! After all, one drove like that before!
    He becomes a father: Welcome, Gina Maria!
    And in Switzerland he dribbles now and then in the Third Division

    Suddenly he is invincible, in the car with Ross up front
    Jean Todt sets him afloat, he wins five titles with Ross Brawn,
    he makes his opponents look old, like Ozzy Osborne
    and he even fools Ralf every time

    He is Unesco Ambassador and an Italian popular hero in Ferrari
    Schumi donates 10 million dollars for the victims of the tsunami
    In 2006 he puts his foot down, retires, is not eager anymore
    “in this sense, the decision was not really that difficult anymore”

    (CHORUS)

    But a Schumacher cannot be only an advisor or a water carrier
    His comeback in 2010 mega-fascinates the masses
    all of a sudden there are many class opponents
    he does not drive as aggressively anymore, actually rather relaxed

    Now you put your helmet aside and drive the car into the garage
    you pull the handbrake and see the last 21 years in the side mirror
    pull the key out of the ignition – while you pause for a moment
    even if the car now sleeps, you remain the fastest man in the world

    Always if it’s raining and one is on the wheel
    cruising, one must think of you
    and then the street becomes a bit oily
    many think about Fritz Walter, but everyone about the Rain Master

    (CHORUS)

    #182038
    Gaston
    Participant

    Hey guys, how is it going? I am also planning to go to Monza with GA tickets – unfortunately only on Sunday (we’re driving from Switzerland and back on the same day). Since we cannot explore on Friday, I really appreciate your tips on where the good GA zones are :)

    This is going to be my second F1 race, pretty excited about it!

    #202331
    Gaston
    Participant

    Best Driver: Sebastian Vettel
    Worst Driver: Jenson Button
    Best Team: Red Bull Racing, for getting the strategy spot-on
    Worst Team: McLaren
    Best Overtake: Just take any of the ones Perez did, that’s all there is.
    Best Funny- moment: Kovalainen driving with a broken front wing, perhaps?
    Most Surprising Result: Webber having a good start and keeping first place.
    Least Surprising Result: Webber finishing in first place after managing not to lose it at the start.
    Special Mention to: Heikki Kovalainen, both Force India drivers
    Race Rating: 6/10 – perhaps dull by 2012 standards, but there was enough tension strategy-wise to keep it interesting.

    #202349
    Gaston
    Participant

    First time watching the Indy 500, and I really enjoyed it. Gutted for Sato, but an awesome finish nonetheless.

    #200659
    Gaston
    Participant

    It seems to me that putting Sutil on Massa’s seat would make sense, much more than Fisichella.

    #175172
    Gaston
    Participant

    Best Driver: Lewis Hamilton

    Worst Driver: Karun Chandhok

    Best Team: Ferrari

    Worst Team: Williams

    Best Overtake: Hamilton on Alonso

    Best Funny- moment: Alonso riding Webber’s Red Bull back to the pits

    Most Surprising Result: Hamilton winning.

    Least Surprising Result: Webber not being able to hold to P1.

    Special Mention to: Adrian Sutil

    Race Rating: 8/10

    #174559
    Gaston
    Participant

    I also think that subjective analysis is okay… I mean, after all, that’s one fun thing about sports: discussing with your friends or in a forum whether you agree or not with a given judgement. If it all were down to a number, perhaps it wouldn’t be that fun. But my geek side always makes me wonder about this kind of stuff, heh.

    So doing a bit more of googling I stumbled upon the Elo rating system, which is a system often used to rank chess players. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

    The Elo system, as used in chess, tries to determine the relative skill of players based on the results of each match-up. The basic idea is the following: say player A (rating: 2500) plays against player B (rating: 2200). Since A has a better ranking than B, he is “expected” to win, so he would gain fewer points by beating B than player B would by beating A (same thing goes with losing points, if player B is beaten by player A, he loses fewer points than would player A if he is beaten by player B).

    The original system was not really designed for multi-player games (such as Formula 1) but there are variations that allow for this (you could treat each 2-driver combination as an individual match, for example). Of course that this doesn’t solve the issue of “separating car from driver” (even though you could make a rating system for teams, too) but it could probably yield some interesting results.

    #174556
    Gaston
    Participant

    LL, I wish I had something clearer in mind, but I’ll give it a shot! ;)

    Precisely, the great difficulty with Formula 1 compared to other sports is that players compete using unequal equipment. Even rules are changed often, which is something that doesn’t happen in other sports.

    But precisely, the “holy grail” of any such system would be to remove the external factor of unequal equipment, thus making it possible to compare drivers who drive different cars.

    I don’t know exactly how this could be done, but my intuition tells me that there should be a way of “normalizing” the data as to remove the “car variable”. One idea that comes to mind is to compare all the data to a common benchmark. For example, you could take all lap times of a given race and compare them to the circuit’s fastest ever lap, and then somehow analyze the deviations in order to determine how much of it is down to the car and how much down to the driver.

    #173600
    Gaston
    Participant

    It means that they don’t have any sponsor as part of the GP’s official name.

    It’s crazy that Santander sponsors four different GP’s! As to why there are so few sponsors on the track billboards, I have no idea. I think it would make sense for sponsors to demand exclusivity, but I don’t think that’s the reason here. I’m pretty sure that, for example, I have seen both Santander and UBS billboards in at least a grand prix this year.

    #172921
    Gaston
    Participant

    ajassat, that’s a pretty interesting document, thanks for sharing.

    This is also something that I often wonder about: how do you go about making a mathematical model for optimizing the race strategy which takes into account tyre degradation, fuel consumption, etc. Due to my work, I have some experience with optimization problems (obviously not related to F1, sadly!) and I have thought for some time that it would be interesting to develop at least a simplified version of this problem for [nerd] fun.

    #172988
    Gaston
    Participant

    Improved! With revised spelling! :D http://troll.me?p=8487

    Now, this is somewhat unrelated, but I find it surreal to compare the extent of Red Bull’s involvement in sports to the fact that, after all, they just sell three products. Makes you wonder what their business really is.

    #172975
    Gaston
    Participant

    Well, I have to post this somewhere, so I’ll do it here ;) http://troll.me?p=8206

    Like Geoffrey, I think it’s very unlikely. But I think it will be interesting to see how much of HRT’s advertising space will be taken by Red Bull, considering the livery is full of “cool spots”. It would be really weird to see three teams with “Red Bull” on their sidepods.

    #172482
    Gaston
    Participant

    Well, for me, Formula 1 has come and gone in three phases, so I’ll list my drivers accordingly:

    Group 1

    1. Schumacher

    2. Hakkinen

    3. Barrichello

    4. Villeneuve

    5. Frentzen

    Group 2

    6. Montoya

    7. Raikkonen

    8. Alonso

    Group 3

    9. Hamilton

    10. Vettel

    It’s kind of an odd distribution, but I suppose that, as one becomes older and more knowledgeable about the sport, it’s inevitable to judge drivers in a more objective (and perhaps harsher) manner. Nonetheless, objectively speaking, I do think that the current field of drivers is in general more talented than that of, say, 1997.

    #172480
    Gaston
    Participant

    I hold Heinz-Harald Frentzen in high regard. I would have liked his career to last a few more years, and to have more competitive cars.

    #165831
    Gaston
    Participant

    Best Driver: Webber, definitely.

    Worst Driver: As a Venezuelan, I’m sad to say Maldonado.

    Best Team: McLaren

    Worst Team: Williams. They’re looking horrible.

    Best Overtake: Hamilton on Button

    Best Funny-moment: Button wanting to get his tyres replaced by the RBR pit crew, because they are faster.

    Most Surprising Result: Webber on 3rd (unsurprisingly the most surprising!)

    Least Surprising Result: Hispania being last.

    Special Mention to: Rosberg, for making us think that Mercedes could have won this one.

    Race Rating: 10/10

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)