The Motorsport Thread 2015

Good win by Vettel but a dull race. Both McLaren's DNFed as well as Hamilton, which was a surprise. I think Lewis is still ahead by 40+ points on Rosberg, but I'm not sure exactly. Does anyone know?

^Thanks V. Still a pretty substantial lead.

Typical Sungapore.

Maldonado got re signed for next year, yesterday. It's a shame that the Lotus/Renault team need his money so much as he's a complete moron in wheel to wheel racing, ruined Jenson's race yesterday (not that it mattered, overheating gearbox would have put him out anyway).

If Hamilotn wins in Japan this weekend I think he can afford to come second in each of the 5 races afterwards with Nico winning them all and still be champion.


Edited by sleeper - September 21 2015 at 05:39

^Yes, this type of rich 'amateur' keeps coming around until they get bored of racing or run out of money and have to go back and work on the pig farm or whatever. A shame, really.

I'm treating it the same as the VW to buy Red Bull rumours, I'll only believe it when they announce it. Since the story seemed to first turn up in the Daily Mail it certainly needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, though I do like the idea of him racing with/against Webber in the WEC (who won the race at Austin over the weekend, and the Nurburgring two weeks earlier) instead of a McLaren stuck in no mans land.

Does anyone know if David Brabham has officially retired? He was always one of my favorites and is a true technician as well as a awesome tactician. 

Ugh...Pastor, must be nice to be a pay driver. 

^Might as well just put Noriega in the car. He would probably do a better job.   And thanks for the update on Brabs.

^Is this the same Rosberg as last year? I want this impersonator arrested!

Yeah, reliability has been much better this year and Lewis has sorted out his biggest weakness from last year as well, qualifying. I don't think Rosberg's doing any worse than last year, he's just that little bit short of Hamilton everywhere.

News today, Grosjean has signed for the new Haas team for next year, as mentioned before his team mate is most likely going to be either Gutierrez or Vergne, my vote's for Vergne but I suspect Gutierrez might get it, despite the fact he hasn't done anything of note since his GP3 title 5 years ago.

Practice times from a wet Suzuka.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull/Renault	1m48.277s	-	6
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m48.300s	0.023s	8
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m48.853s	0.576s	8
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m49.097s	0.820s	10
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m50.268s	1.991s	19
6	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m50.319s	2.042s	16
7	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m50.418s	2.141s	6
8	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m50.542s	2.265s	5
9	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1m50.968s	2.691s	10
10	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Mercedes	1m51.557s	3.280s	7
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m51.674s	3.397s	11
12	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1m51.861s	3.584s	9
13	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1m51.934s	3.657s	12
14	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m52.070s	3.793s	8
15	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Mercedes	1m52.534s	4.257s	6
16	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m52.765s	4.488s	6
17	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1m55.239s	6.962s	10
18	Will Stevens	Marussia/Ferrari	1m58.059s	9.782s	6
19	Alexander Rossi	Marussia/Ferrari	1m59.419s	11.142s	7

Some good news from Indycar as well, Hinchcliff has been cleared fit to drive again and will join the privat test at Road America (!) next Monday. There are some awesome onboards from Josef Newgarden at the test earlie in the week, it's so good to see this amazing track back on the calander.