F1

Apparently there’s a loophole which says if you have a failure (like Massa in Singapore) you can still line up.

Cue any team who knows they won’t make it sending out drivers in sabotaged cars.

Great so HRT will be sending out partially broken cars?

I dont think they will do, they got pride. I back them for a much better show next year. I think people are putting the nails in the coffins far too soon.

I’m really not at all for this 107% rule. We did fine without it this year.

It was really only done to appease Ferrari. There have only been one or two cases where a car has been outside 107% this year, but Alonso got held up by a Virgin (that was well off the racing line) in Montreal. Luca was livid and Ferrari went on their rants about how the new teams didn’t deserve to be on the grid, so the placate them, the FIA re-introduced the 107% rule. I seriously doubt any of the new teams – even Hispania – will be under it next year. Certainly not on a regular basis.

If that is the reason, it’s a fairly pathetic one. Ferrari are, arguably the biggest team with plenty of money, with two of the best drivers on the grid etc. etc… If they can’t pass a Virgin or any other car for that matter, tough. They really need to get over themselves. Also Luca D.M. and “The Horse Whisperer” can quit throwing their toys out of the pram everytime something doesn’t go there way.

The “F” in F1 stands for Formula not Ferrari.

That was my reaction. Alonso got held up by the Virgin on the back straight between turns seven and eight. The racing line out of turn seven puts the cars on the left hand side of the circuit. The Virgin in question – di Grassi, I think – was on the right. He’d clearly spotted Alonso in his rear view mirrors and moved over to let him through. Button got by the Ferrari by holding the racing line, so we really have to ask ourselves: what the hell was Alonso doing off the racing line in the first place!?

Even if di Grassi held Alonso up coming out of the corner, Ferrari have to realise that while drivers racing for position have right of way, drivers yielding position have the right to take the best racing line. It’s impractical and inappropriate to expect a driver to take a bad racing line just because a leader has appeared in his mirrors. All that we can ask is that the lapped driver get out of the way at the earliest possible practical opportunity, usually on a straight. Look at the way Hamilton, Vettel and Glock (or maybe di Grassi) all entered the first corner in Barcelona at the same time as the Virgin came out of the pits. What were we expecting him to do, pull over to one side whilst the bigger kids drove through?

If a top team can’t set a time in qualifying I think they can still race as then the’ll look at practice times and see if they’re on the pace so I don’t think it’s like HRT could skip quali and then race if they were worried they wouldn’t make it.

I don’t think just because Fernando got held up once that’s the reason the rule is back. That’s more to do with the blue flag rule not being obeyed but it will have probably had a big impact on Ferrari’s attitude towards the new teams. However, Ferrari ahted the new teams as soon as they saw how slow they were plus the fact that if they fail they could (in theory in a paranoid world) betray FOTA and go running to Bernie. Do they really want three weak teams in FOTA?

We had 26 cars on one track on the same day in the early 90´s and traffic was part of the deal.

If the small teams fly their whole equipment to Australia and aren´t allowed to race they can´t learn anything about their cars and will not improve in Malaysia as well.

So they won´t get better and richer to suit Bernie´s expectations.

Actually, it won’t make much difference. With the exception of only a couple of drivers at a couple of races, all the new teams would actually have lined up on the grid this season, even with the 107% rule.

And you have to assume that they’re going to improve for 2011. In short, I bet it will never actually be put into practice.