F1 Fanatic round-up: 7/5/2010

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Practice for the Spanish Grand Prix is coming up later today. Join us for live commenting later today, I’ll be joining in from the track during both sessions. Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

Drivers want Monaco qualifying split (Autosport)

Terrible idea. Coping with traffic is part of racing: Traffic a greater challenge in next races

Remembering Gilles at play (MotorSport)

Former March F1 and F2 team manager Ray Wardell: Gilles was driving us in a rental car and we arrived at the track and the gate was closed. So I got out and opened it, and Gilles pulled the car through and stopped. As I was getting back in the car he decided he was going to do a tyre burnout. He just lit the rear tyres up on the rental car and kept going until one burst! There was so much smoke I couldn’t breathe and I thought, ‘What the hell have I got involved in here?'”

Legendary commentator on campus (CU Today)

“At Indianapolis, [Murray] Walker’s leaving party saw over 300 people turn up; from Ecclestone to circuit and team owners, members and drivers. Among whom, included a rather bewildered Michael Schumacher, who could not understand Walker’s English sense of humour. ‘Tony Jardine had wrote down things I had said on pieces of paper, that people had to read out,’ regales Walker, ‘Michael said, ‘This party is for you, but these people are laughing at you’, to which I replied ‘That’s just who they are’.”

Comment of the day

DaveW on Mercedes’s radical new airbox:

Has anyone noticed that, in only the second season with the current radical aerodynamic limitations, we have seen the most radical, innovative aero developments in recent memory. This is great stuff. I think this proves that it is nearly impossible to constrain aero development and related performance gains by constraining the appearance of certain pieces of carbon fibre in certain places.
DaveW

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Peter Dixon!

On this day in F1

Denny Hulme scored his first Formula 1 victory in the Monaco Grand Prix on this day in 1967. Unusually, he went on to win the world championship in the same year he scored his maiden win.

Lewis Hamilton nearly repeated that feat in 2007, but fell short. So who was the last driver to score his first F1 victory and claim the world championship in the same season? Post your answer in the comments…

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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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41 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 7/5/2010”

  1. coping with traffic is part of racing? well so is overtaking, fuel mileage, tire degradation, pit strategy, and driver/mechanical endurance, all of which count for very little if anything at all in qualifying, compared to the race.

    I think splitting the field for q1 can be a good idea, though there are flaws. They can take Indycar’s road course procedure, which randomly splits cars into two groups with the top six in each group advancing to the second round, but then there will sometimes be cars who would qualify in the other group but fail to in their own. So then you could take the top 12 times from both groups combined, but then you have the problem that one group may set their lap times in different track conditions than the other.

    It’s a difficult problem for sure.

    1. I think the new teams should qualify for P19-P24 in Q3 without the rest, and then the established teams should participate in Q2 with P11-P18 knocked out so we’ll have a normal Q3.

      1. “I think the new teams should qualify for P19-P24 in Q3 without the rest,” should be Q1

      2. What if a driver for an established team crashes before they set a lap?

  2. I’d have to say Keke Rosberg. I think that is right, Prost, Senna, Schumacher, Mansell, Hill, Alonso, Villeneuve, Hakkinen, Hamilton Raikkonen and Button all had their wins prior to their title seasons.

    Oh and I think if split quali is sort of good, stops the risk of big incidents, but does take away the element of precision timing and clearing traffic. Maybe Schumi can park it again, just for fun…

    1. Ned Flanders
      7th May 2010, 1:33

      Hakkinen of course came close- his first win was the final GP of 1997, and he won his first championship the following season.

      And, what’s more, it was one of the more controversial victories in recent F1 history; he was helped by both internal and intra team orders, as Jaques Villeneuve and David Coulthard both moved over for him. So I think Mika deserves a mention

    2. I think Keke is right…

    3. Wonder if Nico could follow in his father’s footsteps this year.

    4. Guiseppe Farina in 1950 is the only one I can think of – but that was by default, as that was the first F1 championship to be held and nobody had competed in an ‘official’ Formula One race before!

  3. Myles Woerner
    7th May 2010, 1:50

    What the hell is Coventry University? Why would he go there? Why would he not come visit us at the University of Michigan? Damn. Maybe next year

    1. Magnificent Geoffrey
      7th May 2010, 2:55

      I’d imagine Sir Murray would go to Coventry University, because it’s in Britain.

  4. Rubbish Dave
    7th May 2010, 1:59

    While I agree that dealing with traffic is part if racing, I’m far from convinced that it should be decisive in qualifying.

    They are two quite different things.

  5. Perhaps the teams can agree to go out in groups in Q1?

    1. sounds like the best idea. a gentlemen’s agreement that agrees for the 3 new teams to have the first 5-7 minutes to themselves.

      1. So what happens if it rains after those 5-7 minutes? :)

        1. Doesn’t matter. The smaller teams won’t agree to that they desperately want to get into Q2.

  6. Murray, what a legend.

    I’m not sure I totally agree with DaveW. The double diffusers were a loop-hole that could have been easily closed before it became a problem – ironically, the person who first mentioned the issue was Ross Brawn. The outwash front wing, which has received far less attention despite producing far more downforce, could also be counteracted by regulation.

    Apart from those, there haven’t been any other major innovations that have contributed to the problem of turbulent wakes, except perhaps the F-duct, which allows McLaren to run more wing. How much effect that has on increasing the wake, I have no idea of.

    1. I agree with DaveW in the implication that the teams will always find a way. But having found a way, it can then be curtailed by the regulations, cancelling it out. It might be negative reaction, but the only other way seems to be letting things get to a ridiculous point before trying to cut everything – which, given that downforce levels will soon get back to 2008 levels, doesn’t seem to be at all effective.

    2. The F-duckt actually improves the wake for a following car on the straights.

      1. I was wondering about that. Could you point me to some sites that explain this?

  7. the split qualifying is a difficult one. the article says senna has proposed it, not the front runners (who are the ones who’ll be hampered). so in terms of safety it would probably be a good thing. but the race will be the same situation so i think the drivers will just have to adapt. we could get a pretty interesting race regardless. maybe a super mixed up grid again. who knows

  8. I personally would rather they just increase the Q1 session to something like 40 minutes.

  9. “I can’t tell you about A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play,” joked Murray, “but I can tell you that Trill makes Budgies bounce!”

    what the hell does that mean??!!

    1. HounslowBusGarage
      7th May 2010, 9:31

      Murray used to work in advertising in the UK. He’s just recalling some of the (awful) advertising slogans he may have had a hand in from the 50’s and 60’s.

  10. I’m sad that I didn’t get into F1 until after Walker had left. I’ve watched a number of the old broadcasts with him and Hunt together and it really was a joy to listen to. He sounds so excitable in a way that reminds me of some sort of jolly, but forgetful grandpa.

    It’s like the end of the article says, F1 needs him back :C

  11. inc0mmunicado
    7th May 2010, 6:03

    Farina, Brabham, Hulme, and Rosberg were the only drivers to achieve winning for the first time in the same year as winning their first championship. And Farina was the only one to do both as a rookie.

    1. You can hardly call Farina a rookie. Formula One existed already before the first official championship in which Farina took part since 1947 (in a Maserati).

      Only in 1950 it was formalized into a World Championship.

      1. Quite right Sasquatsch. Basically whoever would have won in 50 would be a rookie as it was the first year of the sport. The EDC was really the closest thing to F1 before that but it’s still confusing as it was a series started from scratch.

  12. I am not really in favour of having a split qualifying, but if they do it, it should not mean having backmarkers in one groop and the faster cars in the other, as qualifying is the first and only part of the weekend where we establish who gets to be where.

    So it would have to be 2 sessions for 12 cars each, the 16 fastest cars continuing. But as has been pointed out before by TommyC this has its problems with changing conditions (like in Malaysia, what would it have looked like).

    I think Gilles Villeneuve was a great driver and racer, glad to say at least these kind of deaths do not happen anymore.

  13. Did any of you hear something about Klein not having a current super licence?

    So he will probably not be able to drive, or does he have to do his 300 km on friday to be applicable for it?

    picked this up on F1technical.net

    1. Klien did drive.

      1. Doesn’t not having a superlicence only restrict you from racing, and not testing.

        1. He got his super licence 10 minutes before the start of the session.

  14. Good Idea I think, I thought it would be before the season even started. Too much chance of a slow car deciding the race without something being done.

  15. I hate the idea of split qually, It is pathetic, they never needed it in the past.

    To be honest, as a viewer, I want one of the Ferraris to be knocked out in Q1, then I get to see the mayhem on the next day! Recently, and I can’t remember what race it was, but the Mclaren and Ferrari cars stuffed up qually and started from the back.

    I remember that race being rated very highly by many people.

    1. And does anyone actually think the teams could agree on how to split it? and won’t the weather and track conditions change between sessions?

  16. My initial reaction is that I am against a qualifying split as traffic is just one of the problems drivers have to face. There are also the problems of how do you split the cars and the track conditions will never be the same for both sets of drivers as even if the weather remained the track usually gets quicker later on when after more rubber has been laid down, especially on a street circuit like Monaco where it is being proposed for.

  17. All this moaning about traffic at Monaco is unnecessary. If the drivers don’t think that they are up to the task then maybe they should hand their cars over to someone who does.

    We’ve had wide gaps between the front runners and the back markers before and everyone managed just fine.

  18. Ciaran Walsh
    7th May 2010, 16:59

    List of drivers who their first race and the Championship in the same year:
    1950:Nino Farina(1950 British Grand Prix)
    1959:Jack Brabham (1959 Monaco Grand Prix)
    1962:Graham Hill (1962 Dutch Grand Prix)
    1967:Denny Hulme (1967 Monaco Grand Prix)
    1982:Keke Rosberg (1982 Swiss Grand Prix)

  19. Just posted this on Autosport, will copy here, for UK guys:

    Unless you’ve been living in a bubble, you may know that we’re in a Hung Parliament, and as thus scheduling times for the F1 on BBC this weekend are affected. (Thought this deserved a separate thread as there’s a lot of Brits here, not many of whom visit the F1 thread)

    Original Schedule – Tomorrow
    12:15 to 14:15 – BBC One (quali start: 13:00)

    Revised Schedule – Tomorrow
    12:15 to 12:45 – BBC Red Button
    12:45 to 14:15 – BBC One (quali start: 13:00)

    The revised schedule is subject to change, if there is any Breaking News in the morning (or even Sunday) with regard to the Government, then Qualifying will probably get bumped to BBC Two and maybe also be shown on BBC One on a tape delay. Same applies for the Race.

    To those recording: I suggest you manually record both BBC One and BBC Two, as the chances of it changing channels at late notice is highly likely.

    1. Thanks very much Dave! Wonderful help :)
      Rumours are no deal in the morning so hopefully f1 won’t get moved again

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