Formula1 chat

TimS wrote:Brilliant...looking forward to it, lets hope it will be an exciting weekend, eating breakfast and watching it live...

Not sure I will be up watching it with breakfast but defiantly can't wait to see how these new cars perform and nice to hear my rival team struggling in practice lol.

TimS wrote:Brilliant...looking forward to it, lets hope it will be an exciting weekend, eating breakfast and watching it live...great

Hmmmm! That's an idea, must get some English Bacon out of the freezer.
Stocks are running low now; roll on Donington, I might buy something for the Elan as well

Just finished watching the re-run of the qualifying session and was immediately taken in by the opening music of course. Congratulations to Brawn GP and well deserved for Rubens and Jenson. Not so good for McLaren, looks like they have a lot of work do do over the next few races to get back at the top which will be a test for Lewis considering Jenson is now the top Brit lol. My team Ferrari seem in a good position to work forward but also have a lot of work to do by the sounds. The teams to set the pace at the start of the new season are defiantly Brawn GP and Red Bull.

As for the new KERS system, not sure it will be around long as the only team in the top 10 running it was Ferrari and it obviously doesn't make much difference in qualifying, probably due to its weight, but will be interesting to see what effect it has on the overtaking for those teams running it. Personally I think they should scrap the idea.

Will be setting the alarm nice and early tomorrow to see the race live ... think it will be one of the best races for a long time in F1. Hope the rest of the season follows suit.

Wot a race & wot a result for Brawn, Jenson & Rubens . Fanbloodytastic!

Great result, I'm not particularly superstisious but did you notice Lewis Hamiltons race number last year was 22 and this is the number that Jenson Button is now using, could it be a sign?

Well done the BBC.

Lucky number 22 then well spotted and as for the racing up early for the start and especially with the clocks going forward.
Well done all who work at Brawn GP good news at last.

Eddie King.

good race today, good outcome with hami being moved up to third

I told everyone that we had 'other' good British drivers!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Button keep it up!!

Great result for Jensen & team, good to see the Brits on it. Not sure I like the way the cars look, the front spoiler looks way too big and the rear wing too narrow and tall, in hindsight I think last years cars looked much better?
Looking forward to more exciting racing though, lets hope they really start showing us some incredible overtaking manouvers that we really like.

Lewis Hamilton and McLaren have been stripped of their podium finish and all points at the Australian Grand Prix.

The sport's world governing body said they were excluded "for providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards at the hearing on 29 March".

A post-race hearing promoted Hamilton from fourth to third after Jarno Trulli was penalised for passing Hamilton while the safety car was out.

Trulli and Toyota have been reinstated to third, and McLaren will not appeal.

Click here for the full story on BBC Sport

Trigger wrote:Lewis Hamilton and McLaren have been stripped of their podium finish and all points at the Australian Grand Prix.

The sport's world governing body said they were excluded "for providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards at the hearing on 29 March".

A post-race hearing promoted Hamilton from fourth to third after Jarno Trulli was penalised for passing Hamilton while the safety car was out.

Trulli and Toyota have been reinstated to third, and McLaren will not appeal.

Click here for the full story on BBC Sport

ha take that Hamilton!!

I'm waiting on a comment from Paul lol ...

no comment..........oh sod it. cant resist a rant, think it was a bit harsh, hey ho, lot o races still to go, see how the stewards want to play it.

No 22 strikes again

Now if anyone has ever been to Malaysia/Thailand etc will know.
Late afternoon, it's prone to rain (heavily) and it gets dark very quickly.

Shoot Bernie.......This was as bad an idea as holding the British GP in April.

The current drive to time races to suit European TV programming is stupid.

I don't mind getting up at 5am to watch a 2hr race, jesus we used to drive over night to get to the gates of Silverstone for 6am (OK that was 1970 something). That's what we do. Last week race I watched in a Spanish hotel before breakfast. Didn't understand a word of the commentary, just watched it.


OK whinge over.

Exciting hour, interest tyre choices and.......

Great result.

As with Schumaker and Brawn toughing out the bad Ferrari years bring their succesful era I hope
the Brawn/Button partnership has as much success.

However I'm still a Ferrari fan, but don't hold that against me.

Also not to enamouredwith the BBC team.

Whose the chap with Martin Brundle, the love child of Murrey and James Hunt........

i agree Burnie should be stoned at dawn. wally

I think the BBC's coverage is very good and is bringing in some fantastic new features to watch but it gets messed up when the stewards etc can't give a clear message to anyone and I always get lost when all the commotion begins lol. Even Lewis Hamilton at the end of the race thought he had finished 5th not 7th. I do agree I'm not at all keen on having Jonathan Legard commentating but I'm sure we'll get used to it.

It's okay dpr, I'm a big Ferrari fan too, so if Paul gets out of hand I can remove his comments.
Only kidding Paul

At a press conference held this morning at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, McLaren Group Chairman Ron Dennis announced a major restructuring of the McLaren Group.
McLaren Automotive, currently one of a number of companies within the McLaren Group, will become an independent company later this year. The launch date for the first model in the new range of McLaren sports cars will be in 2011.
As Executive Chairman of McLaren Automotive, Ron Dennis will lead the growth of the new sports car business. As of today, Ron Dennis has handed his responsibility as Chief Executive Officer of McLaren Racing to Martin Whitmarsh, who will be responsible to the board for the activities of McLaren Racing in addition to his role of Team Principal of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. more

Eddie.

Thanks for posting the news Eddie, great to hear what's going on at McLaren.

Cheers, Tim

Ferrari have threatened to quit Formula 1 at the end of the season if the sport continues with plans to introduce an optional £40m budget cap from 2010.

"No F1 in 2010 if the rules do not change," said a statement. "Ferrari does not intend to register cars for the 2010 F1 world championship."

Ferrari fear the evolution of a two-tier championship, between those teams who adopt the cap and those who do not. The teams will discuss the plans with FIA chief Max Mosley in the next week.

Ferrari, in a statement, insist their announcement is not simply posturing: "The same rules for all teams, stability of regulations, the continuity of... endeavours to methodically and progressively reduce costs, and governance of Formula 1 are priorities for the future.

Full story and report here

Are just putting a spin on this may be their going to the USA Indy car or champ car racing with there stack in the Chrysler Corporation you herd it here first.

Eddie king.

Toro Rosso Formula One driver Sebastian Bourdais (center) crashes with team mate Sebastien Buemi (left), Force India's Adrian Sutil (back), and Renault's Nelson Piquet at the start of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix at the Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo May 10. (REUTERS/Josep Loaso)

Renault also want to leave.... mm looks like Ferrari and Renault continue to throw their teddies out the pram when things go wrong for them !

Personaly it would be good to have far more teams in the sport and open up the regulations so its technical brains rather than cash that gives you the edge. We are in the best season for ages, one that lives iup to the Chapman approach....

"Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men"

Read Brawn as the wise men, Ferrari as the fools !!!

More teams in GP, we could get back to pre qualifying, grids of 26 cars with 32 entries, backmarkers mixing up the races.....

We could even have the Lotus name back on the grid where it belongs...

Just my 2p

Yes, more teams and more cars on the grids would be great, but, I do have sympathy for the teams who do not want a two tier championship.

There should be just one set of rules and one budget cap for all. A level playing field.

It is not hard to see why those that spend/invest the most in their business are the most sucsessful, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault etc. It's a bit like premiership football, before the start of the season you know that it's going to be one of the big four who win it, the rest are just making up the numbers. A price cap that levels the playing field means that there will be occasions when the smaller teams will be able to produce a car that wins, and that will make F1 more unpredictable, exciting, watchable etc. It should also allow very talented drivers to show their skill as the difference between the cars ought to be less and perhaps to a stage where the driver can really make a difference. This year the likes of McLaren and Ferrari have been out thought by Brawn, they can produce new parts but cannot test them until race day and it's hurting them. Let's see more inovation, more clever solutions not just "those who spend more win more".

But I think the real problem is the way that it is to be introduced/imposed. The different rules for different budgets means that all though you spend a shed load of money you are unlikely to win. The capped teams are to be allowed (besides a whole load of other things) moveable rear wings and this is reckoned to be worth up to 2 seconds a lap. So a team that spend s£40 mill is going to have at least a 2 second advantage over Ferrari et al who are spending over £200 million. Would you want to spend that kind of money with little prospect of winning? With the current time spread of the whole field being around 2 seconds that means Force India might win a race, would that really mean they are better than Renault, Ferrari and McLaren?

It is a simple thing to impose a budget cap, it is a whole load more difficult to implement it. Imposing a budget cut for next year is going to present difficulty for most of the current teams, as we have seen with Honda/Brawn. Honda had over 700 employees and Brawn have already had to make drastic staff cuts (already over 270 with more to follow) in view of their budget. It must be hard for those made redundant, they did nothing wrong, just the budget was not there to support so many salaries. Brawn/Honda developed their car when they had the full compliment of staff, it will start to become more difficult now as they don't have the resources of the larger teams. It is not just staff either, these larger teams have facilities that become redundant if you are not allowed to use them, wind tunnels, test tracks etc. Another problem is the time scale, to impose this for 2010, to shed all these jobs and facilities will have severe consequences for thousands of people directly employed by teams and a knock on effect to thousands of other firms that supply parts and services etc.

I'm in favour of the budget cap and just one set of rules but I think the big teams do need time to accomodate and adjust to the changes and a reducing budget over say three seasons is the way to go. I think the budget price cap, whatever it is set on should include drivers pay as well. All drivers want to be world champion, so they want/need to drive the car that has the potential to win, I don't think paying them lets say £5 mill would mean suddenly there were no F1 drivers, hell I'll do it for as little as £1! I'm not a Ferrari fan, and honestly if I won the lottery a Ferrari would not be my first choice of supercar but equally I would not want to see F1 without them or McLaren or indeed any of the current teams including the Force India.

The other issue will be policing all this. What is the true price of a BWM, Mercedes, Ferrari engine etc. If different teams use the same engine each team should pay the same. What if suppliers make a gift of technology or provide services in return for advertising space, suddenly a very small decal on the side of a McLaren could be worth 50 million in engines and gearboxes, would the same be true for Force India ?

As Simon said,

That's my 2ps worth, anyone else have anythoughts.