The Motorsport Thread 2014

Who knows. These are athletes in one of the most directly individual sports there are... they all are hot heads and egomaniacs. I'd not be surprised if he was pissed Massa stole the show. 

^Small wonder. I never cared for Piquet and his grade school mentality when he was racing.

Amazingly Caterham will be back on the grid in Abu Dhabi next week. No indication of who will be driving, Ericsson has said he's severed all ties to the team and Kobayashi, whilst still under contract, has said he'll keep an eye on developments and make a decision from there.

A great last weekend overall for NASCAR in Homestead.  All three races were close, entertaining, and we have a new Sprint Cup champion with Kevin Harvick edging Ryan Newman for the title.

I didn't really want him to win it, but he was the most deserving of the four drivers.

Man With Hat wrote: Eh.   But then again, I'm not a fan of this format so it's hard for me to be objective.

I don't care for it much, either, but at least he's been a factor all year long.  I can really only put three other drivers in that category: Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Jeff Gordon.  Those four drivers were consistently strong everywhere.  It didn't matter what race it was, they were always factors.

It would've been a travesty (albeit hilarious at the same time), had Ryan Newman been crowned champion yesterday.  He seemed strong in only two races this year; Talladega and Homestead (both in the Chase).  Otherwise, he was just a top 15 or top 20 car all year without much in the way of DNFs or other issues.  Consistent, but not championship-worthy, and much different from Matt Kenseth's 2003 season where he only had one win, but a ton of top 5s and 10s. 


Edited by MillsLayne - November 17 2014 at 17:30

I preferred Logano, too.  He gets a lot of undeserving hate from people (must look too young or like a kid or something) and he's proven this year that he's among the best in the sport today. 

And according to Jayski.com, here would be the champions under the old systems:

Classic - Jeff Gordon (ugh, would've been his 7th title, too)
2013 Chase Rules - Joey Logano


Edited by MillsLayne - November 18 2014 at 04:29

Practice times from Abu Dhabi.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m42.113s	-	35
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m42.196s	0.083s	37
3	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren/Mercedes	1m42.895s	0.782s	37
4	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull/Renault	1m42.959s	0.846s	33
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m43.070s	0.957s	34
6	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m43.183s	1.070s	32
7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m43.489s	1.376s	33
8	Jenson Button	McLaren/Mercedes	1m43.503s	1.390s	23
9	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m43.546s	1.433s	38
10	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m43.558s	1.445s	34
11	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m43.746s	1.633s	37
12	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Renault	1m44.005s	1.892s	38
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m44.068s	1.955s	32
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m44.157s	2.044s	39
15	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber/Ferrari	1m44.316s	2.203s	38
16	Adrian Sutil	Sauber/Ferrari	1m44.763s	2.650s	37
17	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Renault	1m44.986s	2.873s	35
18	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham/Renault	1m45.505s	3.392s	38
19	Will Stevens	Caterham/Renault	1m47.057s	4.944s	34
20	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	-	-	2

Good effort from Rosberg to put it on poll, though Hamilton is usually faster on race day anyway. The Red Bulls failed the post qualy load deflection test on the front wing and have been sent to the back of the grid, so it should be fun watching them come through the field tomorrow.

And Lewis takes it, excellent victory and a deserved champion. Fair play to Nico who went along to congratulate him in the waiting room afterwards before the podium.