The Motorsport Thread (was the F1 thread)

N Ellingworth wrote: sleeper wrote: N Ellingworth wrote: sleeper wrote: Good race, really impressed by Hamilton (wasnt expecting him to challenge Alonso this early in the season). I was, I've been keeping track of his career for the past few years and know how quick he is. I know he's extremely quick, but it was his debut on a track he has never seen before, I wasnt expecting more than a decent haul of points, 4th or 5th. The thing about Hamilton is that he's naturally quick and seeming not afraid to push a car to the edge (and beyond) even when he's not been round that track before. So given that this years Maclaren is very fast, a podium was a distinct possibility what I didn't expect was for him to be ahead of his team mate for most of the race. As for his move at the first corner that was a textbook GP2 move, I hope to see more of them throughout the year.

I see your point, and after having seen last years GP2 sprint race in Turky, I can only hope that he keeps that combative style.

Heavyfreight, expect to hear from The T sometime soon.

Heavyfreight wrote: I think that Raikkonen's performance just showed how if you put a good driver in a good reliable car then they will win.  I have always felt that had he been Schumacher's team mate in previous years then Michael would have often been second.

JJLehto wrote: Oh dear, can't let this thread fade. Well... The T, I agree with you on one part. The most successful driver. Best? That's a tough one. One of the best, but I don't know about all time.   I am biased though. I am not a fan of his.

You know, as much as I enjoy this as a sport, I'd really like them to stop it, just because it stands for everything I despise. They go around the world with huge trucks spending enormous amounts of money in building cars and massive happenings. They give the drivers millions of dollars a month, with which they could easily do good in the world, instead they go around a circle pushing out more and more carbon dioxide into the air. Most producers put more money in this one car that isn't even recyclable than they put in enviroment friendly research alltogether. It's hideously capitalistic and ignorant and it really has nothing to do with honour or skill but basically money and more money.

We pay some people 25 million a year to hit a little white ball and run around in diamonds.

Passionist wrote: You know, as much as I enjoy this as a sport, I'd really like them to stop it, just because it stands for everything I despise. They go around the world with huge trucks spending enormous amounts of money in building cars and massive happenings. They give the drivers millions of dollars a month, with which they could easily do good in the world, instead they go around a circle pushing out more and more carbon dioxide into the air. Most producers put more money in this one car that isn't even recyclable than they put in enviroment friendly research alltogether. It's hideously capitalistic and ignorant and it really has nothing to do with honour or skill but basically money and more money.

I'll start with the enviromental part first. Its true that race cars arent exactly the most economical vehicels around (top line sports cars and single seaters, and presumably stock cars, all run at about 2-5 mpg) but the entire grid of the F1 world championship uses less fuel in a whole season of racing than a single transatlantic flight. When you comparisons like this motorsport seems a whole lot less wastful. A few weeks ago I saw a program on the UK's Channel 4 called "The Great Global Warming Swindal". It was very convincing in proving that the increase of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is a byproduct, and not the cause of, global warming, which is drivin by the fluctuations in the suns magnetic field (or so it appears). Now I'm not saying that its a good idea to have all these exhaust fumes pouring into the atmosphere as there is probably more harmful chemichals in them than CO2 (and these goes for everything, not just cars). I must admit I dont know how much of a race car is recyclable, something to research there. Also, since you mentioned Carbon dioxide, you should know that F1 has been carbon neutral since 1997. The FIA has been buying these carbon shares since '97, covering not just the racing but the truck transports, air freight and the long distance flights off the personell. Whether or not you agree with the evidence for or against man-made blobal warming, the FIA has been spending a lot of money on enviromentally friendly projects and this has too be a good thing.

I wont bother trying to justify the high salaries of the front line drivers ( I garante that there arent that many drivers that earn a lot of money) because it gets a bit exceesive, but remember that some of them, especially from countries without much motorsport history, get a hell of a lot of money from personel sponsorship and merchandising.

I'm guessing that if your a fan of Formula 1 or not a "hard core" fan like I am, so I'm also guessing that you dont know about the fact that the FIA are currently working on a set of regulations, to be implemented in steps from the start of 2009 (at least thats what they hope), that will make use of energy recovery systems. Effectively these systems would would be used to recapture, for instance, the braking force and use it to assist acceleration on corner exit, meaning that the cars go faster. Now obviously this is a sport were the name of the game is to go faster, so dont expect it to get a whole lot more economical with these systems, they'll doing more with the same amount of fuel. But, many of the major manufacturers will have developed these systems to a very high level, and they can then be engineered into the road cars so that they go just as fast on less (in theory at least).     

Finally, skill has everything to do with the outcome of races. Granted, you need money to get anywere but that doesnt automatically mean that the richest team wins. Toyota has a stupidly large budget (reportedly in the region of £340 million per year), but gets absolutelly no were near the front as its too conservative both in design and managment to get there (IMO). Renault has a much smaller budget than Toyot (by maybe more than £100 million per year), and smaller than all of its nearest rivals, yet for the last 2 years has made better use of the skills of the people within the team than all of its better funded competitors. Driver skill is the final ingrediant. A good driver will always be able to get good results out of a good car, but a great driver will be able to go the extra mile. Alonso and Schumacher were fighting for the title last year and not Fisichella and Massa because they are better drivers, there skill put them ahead of their team mates more often than not.  

Does anyone know:

As far as I know, no one has. Mario Andretti has come closest, I believe, but he hasnt wone Le Mans (best result of 3rd)

Interesting.

Saw this on youtube...so I'm not very trusting of it, but:

Edited by JJLehto - March 24 2007 at 01:39