F1 Fanatic round-up: 23/7/2010

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Practice for the German Grand Prix starts today so make sure you join us for the live blogs and remember to post your predictions.

Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

German Grand Prix Thursday press conference (FIA)

Not the most exciting affair from the looks of it.

Red Bull: Driver parity best solution (Autrosport)

Christian Horner: “If the component fails through no reason of the driver – and let’s not forget that it wasn’t because Sebastian had smashed the wing, it was a component that failed – then the same rules will apply. But we will work very hard to hopefully not be in that unenviable situation again.”

Edmonton Indy could be handed to F1 promoter (CBC)

“Octane Management, promoter of the Montreal Grand Prix in the Formula One series, would be responsible for the Indy’s bottom line, though the city would still have to kick in an unspecified amount of sponsorship money.”

Comment of the day

Plenty of mourning for the lost old Hockenheimring yesterday. Here’s what -A- had to say:

There were some solid reasons for building the new track and layout as it’s being used today, but I agree with those who are saying the old circuit had a unique character.

For the drivers, navigating the motodrome with not as much downforce as they’d have liked (because set-up had to be amended because of the long straights) was a challenge – and nobody could afford to get bored on the top speed parts, because nailing the braking points and turning the car through the chicanes was essential. The old circuit also presented a challenge for engine manufacturers, as there was a lot of room on the circuit to show performance differentials between different engines.

One has to accept the change, though, I think, as obviously, the old parts of the circuit have been demolished, forest being planted in place. There’s nothing left of what once was out there.
-A-

From the forum

HounslowBusGarage wants to know When was pit-to-car radio introduced?

Site updates

I’ve fixed a bug which prevented comments people had left on images from displaying, meaning we can have lots more caption contest fun!

Let’s get started with this snap of Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher yesterday.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Matt!

On this day in F1

On this day in 1999 Jean Todt admitted he nearly replaced the injured Michael Schumacher with test driver Luca Badoer – but instead opted for Mika Salo.

Badoer finally got to drive a Ferrari ten years later, only to be dropped after two races. Looks like Todt got that one right…

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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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16 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 23/7/2010”

  1. TURKISH Grand Prix Press Conference?

    Am I missing something?

    1. Sorry – brain fade. Fixed it.

  2. That Horner article’s interesting in that they didn’t actually remove the wing from Webber’s car to place it on Vettel’s. Effectively they still sort of did though. I guess it’s really kind of just splitting hairs at that point.

    1. Something is stopping me from really accepting what Horner is saying there…

      If it’s true that the wing was already off the car and both cars were being prepped for the old wing, why has it taken so long for this explanation to surface?

      Without any contrary evidence myself I dont like to doubt what others say, but my inner cynical demon is screaming at me right now.

      1. Indeed. If they didn’t change their story every day they might still have been believable.

        As it is now, we just can’t trust a word the man says.

  3. I disagree that Salo would have necessarily been better than Badoer.

    On paper, Badoer was poor last year, but considering the circumstances and the fact that Fisichella wasn’t much better despite being in good form, I don’t think he can be judged too harshly on his performances (or have them compared to what he could have done in 1999).

    If you look at some of his performances in junior formulae and driving for the minnows, I think he did have some talent.

    1. I agree, Kimi is an exceptional driver and as we have also seen from Lewis Hamilton last year some drivers are just freaks of nature behind the wheel and can get a decent lap out of a difficult car.. I think Fisi experience really showed just how difficult the F60 was and how good a driver Kimi is.. Luca did his best and wind the clock back 10 years to when this all took place and who knows..

      1. Don’t forget that Kimi was behind Massa before Hungary last year ;)

        1. Don’t forget that Kimi hardly had a race where his car didn’t break down or underperform or when it was running fine they put full wets on for a dry track …

  4. What is Badoer is doing nowadays, is he still with the Ferrari team?

    1. He’s still listed as a test/reserve driver for the team along with Fisichella and Marc Gené:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Formula_One_season

      1. But then, Brendan Hartley is still listed as a Red Bull reserve driver…

  5. no three-peat, i had nothing…

  6. Just got my letter for priorety tickets to the 2011 Melbourne GP. Can’t wait.

    1. All the best hope you have a good time sometime after this season is over.

  7. I found some interesting reading yesterday:

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85425
    Seems Williams were really going nowhere with their developments before the drivers (Barricello mainly) got taken more into the feedback, we have only his word for it, but it makes sense. After all, he’s seen the way Honda was totally wrong with those as well.

    And a little bit of Information from another HRT driver (Also great news Chandok will be with the BBC team today). http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/239347/klien-hoping-to-drive-on-friday/
    It seems even the drivers don’t really know who’s gone drive which car when. Klein hopes he will be driving on Friday and hints the next races are still undecided between the drivers.

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