McLaren are to set an F1 car loose on the famed Mount Panorama circuit in Bathurst, Autstralia.
Links
Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:
Lowndes to drive Button’s F1 car ahead of Melbourne Grand Prix (Adelaide Now)
“Moves are underway for V8 Supercars’ Team Vodafone star Lowndes and former Formula One champion Jenson Button to swap cars and race around the famous Mount Panorama street circuit in the lead-up to the Melbourne Grand Prix.”
Thanks to Mike for the tip
Max Mosley fights back (Financial Times)
“Maybe Max Mosley is unusually brave. Or maybe he’s just found that the best way to respond when you are cast as a depraved pervert is to reinvent yourself as a freedom fighter.”
Domenicali: "Let’s keep our feet on the ground" (Ferrari)
“On the reliability front, the first assessment can be seen as positive: the mishap that forced Felipe Massa to spend a long time in the garage yesterday is in no way the sign of some congenital defect in the car.”
“Seen the new HRT F1 2011 livery. Big improvement on last year.”
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Comment of the day
Interesting point from Duchess on the McLaren MP4-26:
You know, I’ve just realized where I have seen similar sidepods before: the Renault R28!
Just the other way around really, but similar enough.
Duchess
From the forum
Debating a major talking point for this season: how well the new Pirelli tyres will work.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Smitty and Chris Gordon-Smith!
On this day in F1
Just a few weeks before the start of the 2009 season, Toro Rosso confirmed Sebastien Bourdais would race for them.
It was hardly a ringing endorsement of the driver who had made his debut for them the year before, and sure enough he was dropped halfway through the season for Jaime Alguersuari.
Image © www.mclaren.com
Grace (@grace)
6th February 2011, 0:03
F1 car on Mt Panorama?
EPIC!
plushpile
6th February 2011, 0:40
agreed, i never thought i’d see it.
wish it was Button in the F1 around Bathurst
Regis
6th February 2011, 0:40
WOW, great news !
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
6th February 2011, 0:46
I know, can’t wait to see this!
damonsmedley (@damonsmedley)
6th February 2011, 1:01
The linked article is so filled with spelling mistakes I thought it was a joke! I am looking forward to it, too. I reckon a 1:30 would be possible. The F1 cars lap Albert Park in 1:23, and the V8 supercars take around 2 minutes I think, so it should be around the same time difference, if they were going for it. But it will probably be a very slow demonstration lap.
Hamish
6th February 2011, 1:15
If anyone wants a article with better english here a link:
http://www.foxsports.com.au/motor-sports/v8-supercars/craig-lowndes-and-jenson-button-could-swap-cars-for-hot-lap-around-mount-panorama-ahead-of-melbourne-gp/story-fn2ms9um-1226000572444
I did post the link in yesterdays round up. And here I was thinking I was to get some credit for providing another article link for the round up. I hate you Mike.
Mike (@mike)
6th February 2011, 3:31
*sad face*
I was helping…
How cool will it be if it happens? It’ll be good for F1’s popularity in Australia.
Hamish
6th February 2011, 3:44
All in good humour mate. Yea it would be good for the sport.
Ben
6th February 2011, 1:22
thats The Advertiser for you. The standard of writing, and journalism for that matter, is pretty low (which a couple of exceptions)
Julian
6th February 2011, 8:27
no exceptions, its just bad haha :p
LuvinF1
6th February 2011, 2:37
As far as spelling mistakes are concerned:
Accoridng to reseacrh at an Engilsh Univeristy, it does’nt matetr in waht odrer the lettres in a wrod are, the olny imoprtant thnig is taht the frist and lsat lteters be in the rihgt palces. The rset can be a ttoal mses and you can stlil raed it wihtout prolbem. Tihs is becasue the hmuan mnid deos not raed evrey lteter by istelf, but the wrod as a whloe.
Mike (@mike)
6th February 2011, 3:43
I love that :D
tee geba
6th February 2011, 4:43
awesome!
BBQ2
6th February 2011, 8:52
I like that LuvinF1 ….. :)
NathanBradley92 (@nathancabopino)
6th February 2011, 11:09
Fab! Maybe COTD…. We could have a non-F1 COTD related section for comments like that.
:D
Nathan
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
6th February 2011, 11:20
Definitely deserves a non F1 comment of the day! I understand that perfectly! The human brain never fails to astound me
UneedAFinn2Win
6th February 2011, 11:57
That’s a well known phenomena, and the basis for one the best burns one of my old teachers used on self proclaimed dyslexics during a test back when I was still a student.
Dyslexics would have just as much trouble comprehending that if it was written “right”.
Still cool though :)
bosyber (@bosyber)
6th February 2011, 12:16
How much time did it cost you to go and mangle every single word in that post! Great effort, and I had no problem reading it – it wasn’t even annoying, maybe because no single failure stood out among the mass.
BasCB (@bascb)
6th February 2011, 12:40
By reading your very comment, I can confirm it works!
Doesn’t mean I don’t prefer using spelling to make it easier though. This depends a lot on the reader knowing enough words to find what is meant.
Icthyes (@icthyes)
6th February 2011, 22:30
Yeh, because people who spell incorrectly always get the first and last letters correct e.g. affect v effect, specific v pacific, accept v except…
To turn Orwell’s quote around, lazy spelling is lazy thinking, or at least, lazy presentation. If you can’t get the spelling right, that’s not a good sign for the rest of it.
Ben
6th February 2011, 1:27
I suspect this will be like Heidfeld taking the car around the Nurburgring. Sounds great in theory, but the car will be jacked right up, on super-hard demo tyres, and will probably be more concerned with getting video than doing a proper lap.
Will still be good to see, but you’ll definitely get the sense its not a ridgy-didge lap. But I supposed an F1 car circulating at 80% is still a sight to behold.
Fact is Mt Panorama is way to undulating and bumpy for an F1 car to have a proper crack at it.
Pinball
6th February 2011, 9:51
The only tricky point might be the esses and the dipper, but if they track a line down the centre of the track, it should be okay.
jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
6th February 2011, 5:35
EPIC Indeed, this is going to be so massively awesome, can’t wait to see it
Stephen Jones (@aus_steve)
6th February 2011, 8:14
awesome!
sw6569 (@sw6569)
6th February 2011, 0:05
For the max mosley story see this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qg1vy#p0069t0k
For those of you who are legally minded his case is extremely interesting.
sw6569 (@sw6569)
6th February 2011, 0:06
ah the link doesn’t work apologies. I’ll see if I can find a working one
Oliver
6th February 2011, 0:23
Re comment of the day…
True only in the transposed profile of the inlet, if I can remember how it looks, other than that, there is no similarity as regards the entire sidepods.
Owen
6th February 2011, 0:27
The F1 car will have trouble around Mt. Panorama I think. The undulations in the track surface are a lot worse than even the worst F1 circuit – not to mention the Dipper – and although Craig Lowndes does have a good history in open-wheel racing, it was only in the lower formulae. I am curious as to what the V8SC organising committee thinks about it as well, considering they are afraid to directly compare the Holdens and Fords with other V8 sedans (aka, haven’t allowed any other make into the sport since it started in 1992).
Anyway, I do hope it goes ahead because it would be super interesting (like this comparison run done some years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAkcR561Sno). Let’s wait and see!
bosyber (@bosyber)
6th February 2011, 12:21
Those bumps must mean they are best of not using the MP4-25 then, it never seemed to really like undulations much.
BasCB (@bascb)
6th February 2011, 12:43
LOL
k
6th February 2011, 23:47
Yes, but he was tagged our next F1 driver for a long time…it was that season in Europe that killed it because he was expected to subsidise his teammate’s (Montoya’s) seat as well as paying for his own. He didn’t have enough money.
What is it with Helmut Marko and screwing over Australians?
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th February 2011, 0:34
You could throw up on the F110 and it would be an improvement on the livery. Although in Hispania’s defence, they did improve the livery when they removed the white early on.
Anyway, seeing the livery implies that a car is ready.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
6th February 2011, 3:40
Not necessarily. He may have seen a rendering…
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th February 2011, 4:06
By “ready”, I mean it is at a stage where, at the very least, it can be built. Hispania wouldn’t commission a livery for a car design that was not finalised.
BasCB (@bascb)
6th February 2011, 12:44
I suspect large part of the car is already packed to be shipped to Bahrain by now.
But the livery might be painted on the 2010 car.
Alex White (@alex-white)
6th February 2011, 4:08
Without being rude, I hate the way everyone is so quick to criticize HRT.. They have the right to be an F1 team, and if you look at the times last year, they wern’t any more embarrassing than Minardi were, and they finished ahead of Virgin in the championship.
Yeah – there may be worries about how much money they don’t have.. But Colin Kolles has a record of keeping teams alive on a thread of a shoestring.. I think Hispania will do a bit better than last year, This year :)
bosyber (@bosyber)
6th February 2011, 12:24
I do hope so. I think Kolles is a bit of a wheeler dealer, but he does keep teams running. I was impressed last year with how well they kept up without (m)any updates on the car.
To me, it also showed that not changing the car but instead working on understanding what you have and improving the setup can get quite good results for a lot less money than bolting on new bits all the time.
Ilanin
6th February 2011, 17:48
“They finished ahead of Virgin in the championship” literally means “they had one more 14th place finish”.
And *that* was Chandhok in Australia, five laps down but last car running.
Jonathan
6th February 2011, 0:38
No offense to Lowndes, I know he is a great V8 supercar driver, but I really hope Button would be the one driving the F1 car around Bathurst. I have always wanted to see an F1 car go through those twisty corners at full speed :(
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
6th February 2011, 0:59
There’s not a chance McLaren would let them drive the car anywhere near the limits in this run anyway so it doesn’t really make much difference
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th February 2011, 1:26
Yeah, it will never happen. There’s practically no access to the circuit for safety vehicles from the Cutting up to McPhillamy Park, and again from the bgeinning of the Esses down to Conrod Straight.
Ben
6th February 2011, 1:30
plus the car will be jacked right up and on super-hard demo tyres.
And imagine the pressure to thread it through the dipper without knocking a wheel off.
Full speed? Not a chance.
MattW
6th February 2011, 5:28
Don’t forget it will be a previous years car, not a 2011 car. Did the same thing last year when Whincup drove. So won’t matter if he smashes it up – actually Vodafone would probably prefer if he did, it would get plenty of coverage then
Baron
6th February 2011, 19:44
Anyway, a dastardly Ferrari fan will likely toss a plastic shopping bag into Craig’s radiators at the top of the Mountain :)
Eric
7th February 2011, 9:12
LOL That was a good day!
JustAnF1Fanatic (@justanf1fanatic)
6th February 2011, 3:02
Plus i doubt button has ever raced this circuit before, so i think Lowndes track experience would make up for his lafk of F1 running
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th February 2011, 4:16
Experience will help, but a V8 Supercar is vastly different to a Formula 1 car.
Oliver
6th February 2011, 0:39
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8af2ef8a-2e70-11e0-8733-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1D8ODVEbd
“If someone is a role model and they’re doing something they shouldn’t do, the last thing you want to do is expose that. You have to ask, does what this person say achieve the objective of persuading people to behave better? Whether he’s actually doing it or not is beside the point as long as it doesn’t come out.”
Ah so Masochist Max thinks its okay to be a hypocrite, or he doesn’t believe Team owners and race drivers are role models to the general public, because they are lesser men.
Did he not routinely hound team principals and drivers in an attempt to destroy their image in the public eye. And of course his selective hounding also was shown to be hypocritical as he later on desired to expose the linens of his dear friends of whom he had fallen out of favour. He might be intelligent but he is also sick and vindictive, and I have no sympathy for him.
Mike (@mike)
6th February 2011, 4:24
How wrong is that? Is he seriously suggesting that if a person is in power, they should be exempt from scrutiny? Wow…
I mean, I’d have thought that role models, leaders, political and economic mainstays of our society should be held to even higher degrees of scrutiny! Especially role models of which he suggests he is one.
Now I’ll be honest, I’m not going to criticise what he chooses to do in his own time, As long as it’s legal, he can go nuts, or be whipped, whatever he likes. And no I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business. But he is an important person, I’m sure he’d agree with that, so doesn’t he realise that part of being important is that the media WILL jump on you if you do something that makes you worth jumping on? Surely that can’t be a shock to him. If the Prince Charles did it the media would be talking about for years!
Wut? I’m sorry Max. No child is aware of that type of thing at that age, Maybe things happen then that lead them to have those interests (the whole learning from your experiences thing) , but the suggestion that there are 3 year olds thinking, “hmmm, pain… I like it.” Is not only ludicrous, but an indicator of how unattached from reality he is let alone the society around him.
3 or 4? Is he on drugs?
Listen Max, I have nothing against you amusing yourself however you like, but don’t turn this non issues, into some sort of backwards crusade against reality. I completely agree that you should have every right to express yourself feelings and partake in any legally acceptable acceptable you like. But for christ sake man, don’t use it as an excuse to remove the checks and balances that is the media on those who hold responsibility.
——————–
Lastly, Max, I’m sorry. You are not a role model. And if you are, you are such a bad one that parents would have to be inept or bribed to let their children idolise you.
bosyber (@bosyber)
6th February 2011, 12:32
Well, in a way Mosley is indeed not a general role model, he was just an important figure in motor racing; had he been caught for drunken/hazardous driving, it would have been something relevant (just like Todt’s drive safe campaign now calls for the F1 drivers to behave on the road).
I do think that his way of ruling FIA with power-plays does sort of make this escapade have some remote relevance.
On the other hand, his style of FIA presidency was bad enough by itself, as can be seen from the feelings about Todt’s very different style. Mosley certainly isn’t shown to be a hypocrite by that sexual play, just a flawed, and cheating human being, so what really is the point of the relevation, other than to smear him.
I Love The Pope
6th February 2011, 17:24
Well, none of you, including me, is perfect and exempt from criticism. We all make mistakes and we all are to be forgiven and forgive others. If you don’t think so, life must be pretty miserable for you.
Dj xo2
6th February 2011, 0:46
Bathurst amazing! tv footage dosn’t do it justice to the elavation changes…it is a mind blowing road, let alone a race track. the inclines are 2nd gear roads to do 60 km/h not to mention the declines/dipper I can feel my road car load to the limits going throught the esses.
If it happens i will be thier and I will share the photos
Spa, mecca, monte carlo, dayton, Bathurst some of the most famous and challenging race tracks in the world
explosiveface (@explosiveface)
6th February 2011, 1:15
HOLY DAMN HELL YES! I would really like to see Button have a proper thrash at Bathurst, though. When Whincup tried last year, he was about 20 seconds off the F1 pole time because he didn’t want to trash the car, and that was at Melbourne, a place with actual run off.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th February 2011, 1:24
Whincup was also twenty seconds off the pace because he was compeltely inexperienced when it came to open-wheel racers.
Stephen Jones (@aus_steve)
6th February 2011, 8:20
sadly it won’t really happen.. but still, an F1 car thrown around Bathurst in anger would be awesome!
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
6th February 2011, 1:37
HRT livery may be an improvement will the car be?
Darren
6th February 2011, 1:58
How many times have I heard another Aussie saying “I would like to see an F1 car go around Mt Panorama” now its happening! Remember Conrod Straight is nearly 2km itself and V8 supercars get up to 300kmh+..this is gonna be special!
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th February 2011, 5:30
As has been said several times before, it will not be at full speed. It’s simply far too dangerous for that.
jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
6th February 2011, 5:38
Through the dipper of course not, but on Conrod?, I think we will see some massive speed through there, even if they run a reverse track once with Jenson just boosting it down Conrod for a speed test
Stephen Jones (@aus_steve)
6th February 2011, 8:21
i’m sure they’ll give it a go down conrod
BasCB (@bascb)
6th February 2011, 12:48
But even if not at full speed, and with hard tyres and high suspension, it will still be a sight to behold.
Actually this sponsor is doing some nice things lately (the Melbourne run last year, the videos online, the McLaren launch in Berlin, now this), keep it up.
kkarl (@kkarl)
6th February 2011, 2:23
i can’t begin to imagine the buzz a F1 going around bathurst will create. Mountain straight is a climb up to the Cutting, and have way up it I think at top speed on F1 would take off. Same down Conrod, coming back down the hill, it could launch itself. Don’t even begin to think about the section from Reid thru Skyline to the Dipper and Forest Elbow, scary stuff with all that concrete and undulations. One driver to give it a red hot poke will be Lowndes. Very good driver,and one who I had wished many years ago did get a crack at open wheel racing, but didn’t. Can’t wait to see this event if it comes off.
Ben
6th February 2011, 3:26
he did have a shot at open wheelers in the UK but didn’t make anything of it.
Hamish
6th February 2011, 6:47
I do like reading the comments on the Seb Bourdais page, especially given at that point in time Button wasn’t even a guaranteed 2009 starter.
What a difference two years makes huh?
Hare (@hare)
6th February 2011, 9:47
f1 car around Bathurst.. AWESOME!!!
What kind of time do you think we’re looking at?
1.35 Button
1.40 Lowndes
I think Lowndes will be trying not to stack it :)
summers (@summers)
6th February 2011, 9:58
Robert Kubica had an accident in Ronde di Andora in his Skoda Fabia S2000. He has been transported to a hospital…
summers (@summers)
6th February 2011, 10:12
According to Savona News:
http://www.savonanews.it/2011/02/06/leggi-notizia/argomenti/cronaca-2/articolo/andora-robert-kubica-coinvolto-in-un-incidente-nelle-prove-del-rally.html
He may have some fractures…
Limiton
6th February 2011, 10:21
He is said to have multiple leg bone fractures(including femur bone). Damn. Hope he will be alright.
Mister Nillionaire
6th February 2011, 10:27
So I guess Senna’s dream came true. Now he will do the testing for Renault for a while :/
Sush Meerkat
6th February 2011, 11:59
awful news, I hope the Fabia’s OK, its a lovely car.
Sush Meerkat
6th February 2011, 12:01
Can I just say thats a crap joke from me, I couldn’t help it.
Right so if Kubica does have a broken leg, then he’ll probably miss the first two races.
Calum
6th February 2011, 11:48
Awesome, my new gravitar is up, 26 – as in MP4-
bosyber (@bosyber)
6th February 2011, 12:34
nice :)
BasCB (@bascb)
6th February 2011, 12:49
I saw it, like it Calum.
Joey-Poey
6th February 2011, 16:43
Keith, I’ve been trying to log in for the past few days and can’t recall my password. But whenever I tell it to send me a new password, it never sends one. I’ve tried both by email and username. Neither has worked.
ed24f1 (@ed24f1)
7th February 2011, 4:38
I’ve just got back from Bathurst for the 12 Hour race, but would definitely consider going back for the F1 demonstration.
Hopefully they give him some decent time in it, not just a couple of laps.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
7th February 2011, 8:11
My thread got a mention :D