Forrest Gump 9

M. Schumacher doesn't seem to miss a beat. Go MB!!

glassJAw

Go McLaren!!!

Gullwing

Go Lewis $10 and M. Shoemaker

Nola

Looks like Schumacher is rusty. McLaren has a slow car for now. This will be Alonso vs Vettel.

Eurosport

now that was a good call!

F1Bobby

Schumacher rusty! Yes, but I believe we'll see him on the top step of the podium some time this season. Congrats to Ferrari in a 1/2... Well done!

Don_J

enjoying it

Eurosport

i doubt it, he's mostly providing input on the development of that car. it takes awhile to get things sorted, and by the time they do the others will still be ahead.

Martinsvi

I would wait until at least 3 races are run before making any predictions. I wouldnt count Mclaren out of this at all and Mercedes will get it figured out quickly also. Redbull is the question still but with Adrian Newey designing thier cars they are going to be good. I wuold say the rest are just moving chicanes but until I see a couple more races I will hold predictions.
Last year when Button pulled out the lead he did in the fist 7 races, I knew it was over and so did Brawn, Jensen just had to cruise after that and he did, scoring in every race except spa where he was taken out by Alquesarie(?sp).
I can tell you this with almost certainty, if Mercedes gets it figured out by the 3rd race, Schumacher will be almost impossible to rule out as he will intimidate all the others out theere, even Alonso. Rosberg wont stand a chance with the team until Schumachere is gone.

Nola

Newey has been neutralized by McLaren's snorkel valve. He will not sleep until he figures it out. Since the car is already good and they need to work on reliability it should be OK.

By the time McLaren catches up the infighting will render them irrelevant, but it will be fun to watch Hambone say he is "getting stronger" each time he chokes, lies or cheats.

Alonso vs Vettel for WDC 2010.

And have you heard about the alternate F1 series? Lotus vs Virgin vs HRT vs STR. It will be a lot of fun to watch Gascoyne have the last laugh. They put on a great result today.

Forrest Gump 9

Yeah, he was doing quite well in qualifying thought.

Quicktwinturbo

Bahrain GP had the most unattractive group of women in the victory hallway?...

Forza Ferrari and MS...Didnt expect MS to win the damn thing but I think he really proved himself in the first round.

rockjock

Bump-last race just started-Schummie is out already-lucky he didn't get his head lopped off.
I want Lewis to win....and Vettle to run into Weber. Hard.

Gullwing

Very happy Alfonzo didn't win, and wish Hamilton won. Would have been ok with Webber, but Vettel was a distant third for me.

Martinsvi

Vettel winning didnt bother me 1 way or the other. At least that cheating spanish taxi driver alonso didnt win the wdc. I would have been ok with webber but I wanted to see Button repeat with a different team. Overall Button did well with a new team and new style, he an Hamilton seem to get along well also.
I knew the newey designed car was the class of the field, their only weal link was the engine, and even with the mclaren f duct they were still fast except on the true high speed tracks.
Vettel made some real bone head moves but still pulled it out in the end.

I usually can pull for ferrari but this year I found myself only pulling for massa and looking for ferrari to be an also ran like they were in the years prior to prost/mansell/schumacher..aka the mid 80's.

I was really surprised that Brawn/mercedes couldnt get it figured out this year. I was not surprised that williams couldnt.

Overall a good year, but some of the venues just suck. Most of the far east tracks should be canned except for japan and australia, all the mideast tracks should be dropped and the turkey track should be also. Basically any of the Hermann Tilke tracks, as they are just boring. They should go back to the old tracks that made them what they are and punt that dwarf ecclestone out of the marketing end, for if he has his way there wont be any tracks left in europe in the calender.

Gullwing

Yes tracks need to be upgraded. Spa is a great track, Valencia sucks. The only good street track is Monaco and that is all about history. Tilke or what ever his name is needs to be gone, his tracks suck.

rockjock

If we're outing something in F1-let's start with Bernie please
I like Turkey and Singapore-HK doesn't do it for me-
Are they fo sho coming Canadia soon? I wouldn't mind shelling out a couple $20k for a good race experience.

MB-BOB

I hoped Webber would win the WDC today. He's near the end of his career and he won't have much opportunity in the future, even with Red Bull and their obvious preference for Vettel. But Webber screwed his own chances in Korea.

Vettel is very talented, but reckless as his youthful age might suggest. He will have several opportunities to win the WDC in future years, so that's why I wanted Webber, instead.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if RBR pays Webber to retire, so they can go after Raikkonen. Kimi sucks in the World Rally Championship, and the premier ride at RBR might intice him back.

I'm glad Rosberg and the two Renaults took the title away from the Donkey (aka Alonso, the A$$). His shoving his way past teammate Massa at the pit entrance in China did it for me.

McLaren needs to step it up if Hamilton or Button are to have a chance next year.

Schumacher is finally getting his fire back last two races prior to today. Should be interesting to see if the car is improved enough to boost him (and Rosberg) past one or more of the top three (RBR, McL and Ferrari).

The wildcard for next year will be the team that adapts best to the new tire from Pirelli. Limited testing starts tomorrow in Abu Dhabi.

I'm a big fan of the European tracks as well, but the problem is the money... Very few of the European tracks can handle, let alone attract the crowds in strength sufficient to make the gate pay for even 1/3 the cost of a race (Bernie's FIA retainer). Spa attendance was off bigtime this year, and talk is already making the rounds it will alternate with other tracks to host the "European GP" within 2 years.

Love Imola, but that track is pretty well out of future consideration. I really hated it when Zandvoort was dropped to bring in Turkey. The latter track has been a dog it's entire career (albeit 25 years by now). People don't even remember Zandvoort, Zolder or Kyalami in South Africa anymore.

Whether we like it or not, the money is in the middle east and Asia, so that's where the tracks are going. Today's race was a sell-out.

And Bernie Ecclestone.... Well, the guy's a fossil for sure, but he built F1 into what it is today (for good or ill), and seems quite spry for an 80 year-old. You will have to blast him out of the sport with a nuke to get rid of him. Or we can hope that some nubile 20-something F1 camp follower sits on his lap and gives him a heart attack.

Gullwing

I'm not sure what TX will be like, kind of close enough for me to make it. But I think (for several reasons) Las Vegas would be better. Build it on the side of one of our mountains for elevation changes and you could have a great drivers track with great views and plenty of hotels nearby. Plus it is Vegas so that is a draw for people.

Bernie should go and all new FANS put in his place and other places. Does anyone care if an F1 car gets 1mpg or 4 mpg? I don't think so. Very minimum should be a V8, doesn't matter if it is 1.4 liter or 4 liter engine but keep V8 or bring back V10, or 12. Bring back some of the 80s and early 90s specs for suspension and aero.
Bring back refueling.

Martinsvi

Bob, you and I must be close to the same age as I remember all of those tracks and some more of the great ones that f1 wont use. The reason the euro tracks cant provide the numbers to support the race is the price of admission, this is all attributed to Bernie. If he cannot control the track as promoter then he prices the venue out of being able to make a financial go of it. He tried it at Silverstone as he hates not having control, and they would have been racing at donnington but the deal he made with that group was destined to fail from the begining. I have been watching f1 since I was 8 when the only way you saw it was on the wide world of sports on abc. I have been fortunate in my life to see several races at different tracks. I saw the last year it was at watkins glen, I have seen spa 2 times because work had me in holland at the same tiime, Canada is a good track and so was detroit believe it or not. As for the older tracks not being safe enough, my response is BS. They are drivers and they need to know the car as well as their own limitations. If there is no risk then there should be little or no reward.

As far as mileage and engine sizes, I dont think there should be an mileage requirements. Engine size should be limited to some size but allow the mfg's any engine configuration they wish. Tell them what the minimum weight of the car must be and what the maximum height of any part of the car can be. Let them design it with ground effects or not basically anyting goes as that is what f1 should be. Then we would see some real technology come oout of it.

But thats my opinion.

Gullwing

sounds good

Gullwing

Probably a more interesting track then some of the new ones

MB-BOB

I relate to everything you write. So yes, I think we are of a similar age.

Due to the huge speed the modern cars develop, some of the older tracks are no longer safe because they are narrow track designs and land-locked, meaning they can't physically be widened. That long sweeping first turn at Imola, for example (Tamburello is it? where Senna died) can't be made any wider with more runoff, because there is a river immediately outside the armco and bushes in that turn. And the greenies make it impossible to reroute that river... or cut down old growth trees to widen places like Monza, etc. Or get permission to chop down trees to build more grandstands to hold more paying fans.

Unlike some, I'm looking forward to Tilke's Austin track. He has some topography to work with there, unlike the more recent tracks which all are built on flat reclaimed land along sea coasts (all of the middle east tracks, indonesia, china, singapore, etc.) He can only work with the land he is provided. So naturally they are flat, hence boring for some folks. In Austin he has 200 ft of elevation changes to play with.

There is a thread about the Austin layout in the Mercedes Motorsports forum at MBWorld.

https://mbworld.org/forums/mercedes-...austin-tx.html

We'll see how it turns out.

I would like to see the return of ground effects, to facilitate the complete elimination of wings in future F1 cars. I think it would make for better racing and more diversity in the appearance of the cars, like what we saw 1960-1984. But that's just my opinion.

Martinsvi

I actually saw senna die on tv that morning. It was unfortunate. But on the other handthey could modify some of the tracks that have issues like that where it wouldnt require widening or rerouting a river. Lemans did it, and several other tracks now have "senna Chicanes". Monte Caarlo is a perfect example of a low speed high drivability circuit. They could ,ake it work if they wanted to. But Bernie doesnt. Look at how many venues he is the track promoter at vs the ones he isnt. That is the driving force behind the tracks moving.

I dont hold much hope for any tilke track, his reworking of hockenheim was attrcious, and we have already discussed alot of the others.

Anyway, now it is silly season and we will have to see what 2011 holds for us.

MB-BOB

I did as well. Actually I have that race taped, along with all races available since 1982. The first race in my tape catalog is Zolder in 1982, including the practice accident that took Gilles Villeneuve. That was tragic, too.

No videotape before then, but like you, I remember the Wide World of Sports specials from Monaco. Not sure why the most memorable events seem to focus on death, but I remember watching the Lorenzo Bandini crash at Monaco in 1967.