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2012 F1 Season Underway

post #1 of 87
3/21/12 at 3:47am
Thread Starter 

It's hard for me to believe that this thread hasn't been started yet.  Man, what a bunch of skiing slackers we are =)

 

So the Australian GP has come and gone, only thirty two more stops on the calendar.... or something like that.  The reflective silver cars look like the class of the field so far with Red Bull not too far behind.  The red cars look like also ran machinery with one driver who can make it half way work.  I'm kinda excited about Lotus/Renault.  RoGro looked like a world beater in qualifying then got passed by the world at the start, Kimi was taking a nap when he should have been qualifying then shocked the world in the race.  If this team gets it all together (and can keep pace with in season development) they should be fun to watch this year.  Also, kudos to Kamui Kobiashi who had a really nice run.

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post #2 of 87
3/21/12 at 4:46am

I wasn't sure the board has any F1 fans left. Good race, kind of a boring track, maybe Bernie's threats to kill it aren't a bad thing. Big McLaren fan here, so happy with the weekend and hoping for more to come. Pretty excited about Williams too. Hoping they can get out of their hole and get up there with Mercedes or at the very least with Ferrari. Speaking of Ferrari, um, Massa.... how much longer will they keep him. It's great that they gave him a chance to recover from his accident, but enough is enough, we have real drivers languishing in junk cars.

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post #3 of 87
3/21/12 at 8:05am
Thread Starter 

Two of us, at least.  Maybe a Ferrari fan will surface to keep it interesting.

 

It would sure be fun to see Williams regain their competitiveness with Senna at the wheel, eh?

 

Does FM bring $ to the table?  Is Ferrari concerned with that?  Certainly many drivers that would jump at the chance to replace him.  Perez or Hulkenburg would fit nicely, I think.

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post #4 of 87
3/21/12 at 12:02pm

Ferrari fan here....... although it hasn't been the same since Shuey dominated. But every year I keep thinking they will get their act together. Alonso is a good driver, and Massa _can_ be good - if the car is good. No way will Massa be at Ferrari next year.

 

Nice to see a glimmer of hope for Mercedes this year and that the RedBull team is struggling a bit.

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post #5 of 87
3/25/12 at 6:47pm

Weirdness. Ferrari wins. 8 different cars in the top ten. So glad to see WIlliams and Sauber running well. McLaren still looks like the fastest car in the field.

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post #6 of 87
3/25/12 at 7:43pm

What a strange race. I would have liked to see the Sauber of Perez have a proper go at Alonso at the end....

 

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post #7 of 87
3/26/12 at 1:37am
Thread Starter 

Very entertaining, I thought.  Loved Perez in the post race interview saying that he missed his chance at the win when he went off..... you could just see Fernando thinking, "Yeah, I'd have had a little something for ya, kid."

 

It will be real interesting to see how things change after three weeks of development.

 

Anyone think Felipe will last the whole season?  Until the European season?

 

Fun quote from my wife, who became an F1 fan a couple years into the Schumacher era. During the podium presentation when the Italian anthem played, "Hey, it's the F1 music!  We haven't heard this in a long time!"

 

Btw, I much prefer the old arrangement of that tune.

 

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post #8 of 87
3/31/12 at 8:53pm

I doubt Ferrari has the patience to deal with an underperforming Massa for the whole season. They are under a lot of pressure to perform and are probably willing to sacrifice a driver to do so.

 

I agree - hearing the Italian anthem was a bit of deja-vu. I liked the way Alonso egged the team on in their singing.

 

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post #9 of 87
4/14/12 at 6:51am

Crazy Qualki session today. Merc front row (but probably will fall back fast in the race). Kobayashi in third in a car that seems to have great raceday pace and tirewear. And Vettel in 11th???

 

I kind of hope it stays dry as I'd like to see everybody's true pace tomorrow. I think we'll see McLaren bring home some good points and hopefully a win. It will be really interesting to see how things work out for RBR!

 

And oh yeah, Williams didn't do too bad either. I hope they get some points too!

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post #10 of 87
4/14/12 at 12:23pm
Thread Starter 

I really enjoy this race.  Great camera shots and direction.  Should be a fun race with hard chargers at 7/11.

 

I miss fuel strategy.

 

Post qualifying, I really enjoyed P3 Schumi congratulating P1 Nico =)

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post #11 of 87
4/14/12 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bumpfreaq View Post

I miss fuel strategy.


Me too.

 

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post #12 of 87
4/15/12 at 5:33am

I won't post spoilers for any West Coasters that haven't watched their TiVo yet, but great race!

 

I will say this, I hope someone at Lotus punched himself in teh face after that fiasco. The moment that Kimi lost 2nd place I was yelling "BOX KIMI BOX!" at my TV only to see him drop 10 more spots. WTF?!? Sure he would have lost those 10 spots if he had stopped, but I think a bunch of guys would have followed him into the pits.

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post #13 of 87
4/15/12 at 10:08am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by epic View Post

Sure he would have lost those 10 spots if he had stopped, but I think a bunch of guys would have followed him into the pits.


Even if they hadn't, Kimi would have had fresh tires and a chance to take back some of those positions.  Sure was sad to see him go backward......thirteen spots in two laps, damn.

 

Yeah, fun race.  Anyone else think this is the best Tilke track?

 

 

Quote:
It will be real interesting to see how things change after three weeks of development.

 

I'd say Mercedes and Red Bull made strides.

 

 

I was thinking about the Massa situation and it should be said that Fernando is just spectacular at making a difficult car fast.  I think FM would compare much better to any other driver in the first Ferrari.

 

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post #14 of 87
4/15/12 at 10:23am


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bumpfreaq View Post


Even if they hadn't, Kimi would have had fresh tires and a chance to take back some of those positions.  Sure was sad to see him go backward......thirteen spots in two laps, damn.


I'm not sure how the math would have worked out, but he was about 19 seconds behind when he was in 2nd place. He finished 50 seconds behind. Pit stop delta was around 20 seconds? He wouldn't have done worse with a pit stop, and he would have been on fresh tires. I know they were committed to a two-stopper, but a smarter pit wall would have been able to change strategy. Maybe I'm wrong though. Kimi really did drive a good race. I think the most disappointing cars today were the two Saubers. I guess they changed the setup too far in trying to improve qualifying. Also didn't like seeing Force India so far back. I mean they were almost in the clutches of Caterham and the other wanna-bes. They are a decades old established team! I don't really like them that much, but they have good engines, technical support from McLaren and two very good drivers. Hulkenburg must have really been looking longingly at the Williams that Hugo Chavez bought out from under him for his man. He should be in a much better car, and after last year, he would have had every reason to think that Force India would be better than they are now.

 

All in all though, Hamilton and McLaren are both leading in points - I can be happy with that.

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post #15 of 87
4/15/12 at 10:24am


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bumpfreaq View Post

I was thinking about the Massa situation and it should be said that Fernando is just spectacular at making a difficult car fast.  I think FM would compare much better to any other driver in the first Ferrari.

 


I thought Massa was actually not too bad today. Alonso didn't beat him by much.

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post #16 of 87
4/19/12 at 7:43am

First-time poster, so of course it's in this thread.

 

Excited that there's such a small spread between 1st and 11th in qualifying -- augers well for the season I think. Last year was pretty boring when Lewis and Massa weren't getting into each other. Biggest concern is that now Lewis is behaving himself there aren't any true heels on the grid -- this sport needs heels almost as much as WWF does.

 

And I'm excited about seeing Massa in IndyCar next year.

 

o

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post #17 of 87
4/19/12 at 9:26am
Thread Starter 

Welcome, outlier!

 

I got fitty on Rubens =)


Edited by bumpfreaq - 4/23/12 at 10:01am
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post #18 of 87
4/23/12 at 10:15am
Thread Starter 

So.... did y'all boycott the Bahrain GP for political reasons?

 

Quite the interesting season, eh?

 

I'm quite liking the scheduling so far.  Two race weeks in a row followed by two development weeks.  It's almost like a new set of teams for each brace of races.

 

Looks like FM has some new incentive.

 

Funny, Petrov and (who was it last year...... Heidfeld?) in Renaults did nothing to capture my imagination or allegiance but change the name to Lotus and install Kimi behind the wheel and I'm looking for a good result every race!  I was really hoping the Iceman could pull it off but having both drivers on the podium was pretty darn good.  Now, if only Flavio were back.

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post #19 of 87
4/23/12 at 10:32am

I didn't want to post any spoilers before everyone saw the race. But speaking of boycotting, how about FOM and Force India?

 

I didn't really like this race. I think the tires have become too much of a focus. According to Schumacher and Rosberg, the drivers are never able to push for fear of ruining their tires. This appears to be true as the race's fastest lap was 3 seconds slower than qualifying.

 

Speaking of Rosberg... WTF?

 

Of course, my biggest disappointment of the season was with McLaren's pitstops. I really doubt it was a systemic problem though, probably just two bad rolls of the dice. Oh well. Next stop Spain.

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post #20 of 87
4/23/12 at 12:25pm

Agreed on the tire-obsession. Pirelli must have good negotiators or something. This was a relatively interesting quali this week, but still I'd prefer it if everyone went out with their best tires every time and qualified based on how fast they were. It seems silly to me that it's better to qualify 11th (with extra tires) than 10th. So, in addition to getting rid of the high-deg tires, I want them to change back to the previous qualifying rules. Oh well.

 

Also don't like that Force India (apparently) got told to shut up about the safety situation in Bahrain. With that, I'm now pulling for them no matter what David Hobbs says.

 

OTOH, I like that there are five teams so far that appear capable of winning a race. Hope it keeps going that way the rest of the season.

 

o

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post #21 of 87
4/24/12 at 9:59am
Thread Starter 

I have mixed feeling about the tire situation.  Many, many years ago I used to argue that the value and intrigue of F1 was that it was an endeavor to see who could make a car go the fastest around a track without regard to cost or competition.

 

In the last decade or more we've seen cost cutting measures one after the other and now we're seeing measures taken to improve the competition, which is to say, to make passing easier.  To me this flies in the face of what racing is about but it does make the races more exciting to watch.  I see the engineered tire degradation as just another measure to make some cars faster than others at any given time..... and it's worked pretty darn well.  It's just another factor that can be exploited to a team's advantage or it can be mismanaged to the team's detriment.

 

Believe me, I'd like to see it go away along with DRS, KERS, horsepower limits, active suspension bans, etc.  I'd love to see a race series that stipulates dimension parameters and leaves the rest to the engineers and financial backers but there are just not enough of us that would be happy to watch a really fast parade every Sunday.

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post #22 of 87
4/24/12 at 7:37pm

Meh, I like KERS.   Horsepower limits are fine.    DRS in its current implementation is ...unclean, in a slot car way.  Make it go away.    I want active suspension.   I want turbos.    I want active airflow management  (bring back the fan cars!)

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post #23 of 87
4/25/12 at 2:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by epic View Post



Quote:
Originally Posted by bumpfreaq View Post

I miss fuel strategy.


Me too.

 


+1
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post #24 of 87
5/12/12 at 8:33am

What a great Quali session! So glad to see Ham on pole and WILLIAMS on the front row!

 

Button???

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post #25 of 87
5/13/12 at 5:40am

Fun quali, interesting results. I liked that everyone was on soft for all three sessions -- I think that helps. OTOH, there needs to be some incentive for guys to come out of the pits in Q3. I liked the suggestion Steve Hobbs made (on SPEED) that everyone who makes Q3 should get an extra set of tires that are then taken away after Q3 whether they've used them or not. Oh well. Looking forward to watching the (DVR'd) race this afternoon.

 

o

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post #26 of 87
5/13/12 at 9:45am

David Hobbs. Sorry.

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post #27 of 87
5/13/12 at 3:29pm

Any more info on how the fire in the Williams garage started?  Has it been traced back to rabid Alonso fans yet? 

 

Great race though, and a great start to the season.  Who would've thought that after 5 races there would be 5 different winners from different constructors and that Williams would be one of them, and that Kimi would have Lotus competing??!

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post #28 of 87
5/14/12 at 6:58pm

Was/is there precedent for dropping HAM to the back of the grid for running out of gas? Seems like dropping him to 10th (i.e., throwing out his Q3 time) or penalizing him ten spots would have been more normal. I'm not a McLaren fan at all (except as they add to the melodrama), but it always seems like Hamilton gets the harshest sentence possible. OTOH, the team claiming force majeure was pretty awesome/ridiculous/brilliant/funny.

 

o

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post #29 of 87
5/15/12 at 4:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by outlier View Post

Was/is there precedent for dropping HAM to the back of the grid for running out of gas? Seems like dropping him to 10th (i.e., throwing out his Q3 time) or penalizing him ten spots would have been more normal. I'm not a McLaren fan at all (except as they add to the melodrama), but it always seems like Hamilton gets the harshest sentence possible. OTOH, the team claiming force majeure was pretty awesome/ridiculous/brilliant/funny.

 

o

 

I don't think there is a precedent for that at all. I figured they would just take away that lap and go with his 2nd fastest lap. There are plenty of precedents for that. The closest thing I can think of is Schumi's parking job in Monaco a few years back, but Ham's problem didn't interfere with anybody else's lap. Personally, I think that this was a great race by Hamilton, to successfully 2-stop and go from last to 8th is a hell of a race. The car certainly has pace. Hopefully the team can stop shooting itself in the foot.

 

At the end of the day though, I was so happy to see Frank Williams get such a great 70th Birthday present! Williams is one of the great core F1 teams and has been lost for so long. I hope there will be more wins for them this season.

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post #30 of 87
5/16/12 at 1:37am
Thread Starter 

Busy weekend...didn't watch the race until yesterday.  Fun race and too cool to see Williams end up in front!  How do you explain B. Senna's performance?  How many times did Lewis pass Jenson?  At least twice.

 

Over the break I watched most of an Indycar race and some of a NASCAR race.  IMO the announcing team on Speed is excellent.  I really enjoy Steve Matchett's tech POV but it's really a shame that they don't travel to the track.  Will Buxton's pretty good but I miss Peter Windsor.

 

It'd be cool to have an American driver or two to cheer for, eh?

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