First practice for the Chinese Grand Prix is coming up soon – join us for live comments during both of today’s sessions. Here’s today’s round-up:
Links
Looking to the past for inspiration (Motorsport)
“In recent years I have sometimes struggled to maintain my enthusiasm. They all look the same, they all sound the same. They can’t overtake each other unless there’s a thunderstorm and Lewis Hamilton has a red mist inside that yellow helmet. Wandering among the cars collected by Bernie reminded me that simplicity is good – big fat tyres, tons of power, not very much grip and lots of nice engineering that neither you nor I can understand.”
Comment of the day
Fer no. 65 thinks teams applying to be in F1 should be given longer to get their plans together:
No team will work well if the rules for next year are not clear yet.
No experience and an undeveloped car (as always with new teams) and no time to design (from scratch literally) and a small team and limited resources equals a rubbish team, lapping hours slower than the others.
Maybe FIA should start looking for teams to compete not before 2012 so they can start planning, developing, hiring people, building factories sooner with less stress because of the limited time.
Fer No. 65
Site updates
The RSS feed appears to be working again now.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to SoLiD!
On this day in F1
And happy birthday to Frank Williams who turns 68 today.
macahan
16th April 2010, 4:45
Paul di Resta is 24 yrs old today.. Happy birthday to Paul wouldn’t it be sweet to get to drive a F1 car on your birthday even if was just as reserve driver??
DanThorn
16th April 2010, 14:20
It’s also Christijan Albers’ birthday today, I believe.
Rob R.
16th April 2010, 5:58
It’s actually “and lots of nice engineering that you and I can understand.”
Prisoner Monkeys
16th April 2010, 7:40
Interesting update on Ecclestone’s vision of twenty races: it cold expand to twenty-five.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82900
Klon
16th April 2010, 9:04
Oh for the love of god…
I know I am, but just to be sure: am I the only one thinking that having so many races completely endangers the value of a race, thereby causing F1 to lose value as a whole?
I mean, usually a Formula 1 World Championship Grand Prix is something to wait for, hyped by press coverage and other race series, but if he goes through with it, many will be like: Oh, geez, F1 … again. *rolleyes*
If you really want lots of races, Bernie, finally give the F1 trademark to interested circuits to have non-championship Grand Prix. That way, you’d have three advantages:
* FOM and FIA can test new countries and their ability to hold a World Championship-class event. Also, the fans could be pleased by having unoffical F1 races at historic places like Brands Hatch or Indianapolis and .
* Teams, when they choose to participate could test new drivers. Or, if that may not be desired by some teams, they could simply test there without richer teams having more advantange than they do in pre-season testing.
* Aspiring F1 teams could also be tested there. For example, a South African Grand Prix race somewhere around late January would’ve cleared the fact that USF1 was a disorganised mess.
So, my two cents…
DGR-F1
16th April 2010, 10:01
Also, if Bernie really wants the world awash with the F1 brand, why aren’t there NASCAR style Pit Stop Challenges between the the teams in potential new race locations, why isn’t more done to promote the Support Races, as they include the F1 drivers of the future, and why aren’t the teams allowed to run in other competitions such as Touring Cars, NASCAR and ALMS, where they could promote themselves and F1?
:-)
DGR-F1
16th April 2010, 10:06
Also, if Bernie really wants the world awash with the F1 branding, why isn’t there:
1. NASCAR style Pit Stop Challenges between the teams in possible future race locations?
2. More done to promote the Support Races, since these contain the F1 drivers, and maybe teams, of the future?
3. Allowance for the F1 teams (and their parent companies) to race in other series such as Touring Cars, NASCAR, DTM and ALMS, as a way to get testing time, and to promote F1 (as ‘we also race in F1’……
:-)
dsob
16th April 2010, 13:56
I shouldn’t worry too much that 20 or 25 races would cause fans to lose interest. NASCAR runs 36 races per season in their premiere “Cup Series”. And NASCAR doesn’t seem to suffer from the long schedule.
Of course, NASCAR also hasn’t turned it’s back on it’s classic tracks in their zeal to expand to new markets.
Of course, NASCAR media isn’t run by Bernie Ecclestone.
Hallard
16th April 2010, 19:37
I think that is a great idea! A potential proving ground for new teams, drivers, and circuits. As long as the sponsorship dollars are there for the extra cost it would be brilliant. I would certainly watch.
Icthyes
16th April 2010, 20:30
Brilliant idea! I would say 18 championship races and 7 non-championship races would be the best mix. It would also mean a lot more back-to-backs :-)
I do agree though, having 25 championship races threatens to devalue what a race is and how important it is. I often get bored of the Premier League between Game 10 and Game 28 unless there’s a big game on, simply because there’s so many of them.
ciaran
16th April 2010, 23:20
20 races in 2011 is ok considering it’s just one more.
But if Bernie wants 25 races then he will have to wait.The teams have to break into doing the amount of races.
Say,In the mid to late 1990’s,17 races was considered a little bit too much.Today 17 races is considered normal amount if not a enough of races.
If you slowly normalise them to doing more races than maybe in 10 years time we will look back and think that 2010 had not enough races.
wasiF1
16th April 2010, 9:37
Happy Birthday to Frank & wishes for his team so that they can win a race this season.they are still to win a race since 2004.
dsob
16th April 2010, 14:03
Concerning the “looking to the past” article…my, what a great read. This is from one of the comments there:
” … F1 obviously needs to do something to allow greater overtaking opportunities, the trouble with F1 at the moment is that there are too many vested interests concerned for a genuine resolution to this problem to be found amongst the teams, perhaps it is time for M. Todt to exercise some authority?”
Truer words were never written. And the important thing to take from that comment is this: FiA and FOTA should take note that fans are aware of what the problem really is in Formula 1 these days…we know it isn’t the cars.
Mssr. Todt could truly leave a lasting legacy, if he has the wherewithall within himself to step forward and take charge with a positive solution.
What say you, Jean Todt?
pjobmathew
16th April 2010, 15:52
I use firefox . Since a few days I have been getting this error
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression.
* Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.
PJA
16th April 2010, 16:20
I was watching the highlights of the 1980 Argentine Grand Prix on BBC Freeview last night and the difference in track safety compared to today really stood out.
Apart from standard of barriers and the fact that it was just grass runoff area instead of gravel or tarmac, the thing that really struck me was that the marshals just seemed to be standing metres away from the circuit on the grass with nothing between them and the track.
Fer no.65
17th April 2010, 1:11
it’s still happening… Look:
this is from last year, for the season finale…
obviously if F1 goes there, marshalls would be far far away the track!
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/8174/imagen013my.jpg
P. Rippon
16th April 2010, 23:30
Just read on Autosport about the weaving ban. Just cannot believe Trulli of all the drivers has the nerve to talk about this.Now we have killed another 25% of racing.Anyone remember the slipstreaming races at Monza & how they used to break the tow! Blocking is one thing but if you are not moving across when the driver behind moves across to overtake – it is completely different. I think we will all soon end up watching Indycar!
mvi
17th April 2010, 13:09
And it’s not a bad thing! It would be nice to see some more overtaking especially a little battle with the lead changing hands a few times (… thinking of Villeneuve and Arnoux). Too bad Hamilton’s weaving stopped that possible scenario with Petrov.
Fer no.65
17th April 2010, 1:11
WEEEEEE COMMENT OF THE DAY :D
first time for me :D:D:D!!