The Motorsport Thread (was the F1 thread)

Great Ayrton!

Was the 1970 championship locked up?

sleeper wrote: JJLehto wrote: Was the 1970 championship locked up? Like, did he know he had it won, or was is not actually decided until after his death? Rindt won it Posthumously (sp?), his nearist challenger (reigning champion Jackie Stewart I believe) couldnt get enough points in the remaining races to overhall Rindt,who had a huge lead in the championship at the time.

Sorry, but his nearest challengers were the Ferrari pair of Regazzoni and Ickx, especially Ickx who was on a roll at the end of the year, winning three of the last five races. He won the Canadian GP and people were getting nervous that he could still win the championship, and thus steal it from Rindt who was already considered the moral victor. There was a huge collective sigh of relief when Ickx had problems in the USA GP [won by Emerson Fittipaldi who had filled Rindt's shoes as Lotus team leader] and could thus no longer win the title.

JJLehto wrote: Very interesting, and there was one other question I always had that I'm not sure of. In 1984 Niki Lauda beat (Prost was it?) by    1/2 point. How exactly did he win by half a point??

Atkingani wrote: JJLehto wrote: Very interesting, and there was one other question I always had that I'm not sure of. In 1984 Niki Lauda beat (Prost was it?) by    1/2 point. How exactly did he win by half a point??   The GP Monaco ended before 1/2 of the race was done and so points were counted by half. The 1st place received 4.5 instead of 9 and etc.   An interesting situation was that Prost (the 1st place in Monaco) asked his team to lobby for ending the race (under a real flood) cause he feared the advance of the 2nd place (a young guy driving a non-competitive car: A. Senna). Well, if Prost had waited a bunch of laps even finishing in 2nd he had received 6 pts and then would be the 1984 Champion.

I've seen videos of that race and Prosts gesticulations to the clark of the course (who happened to be Ickx, a wet weather expert) made itrather clear what he thought, but people forget that both Prost AND Senna were being caught by Tyrrel driver Stephan Belophe, who probably would have won the race with Prost 3rd and ending the season a point behind Lauda.

Its fun this What If stuff isnt it.

JJLehto wrote: Wow, that's crazy! They don't still use that half race/half points rule do they?

JJLehto wrote: Wow, that's crazy! They don't still use that half race/half points rule do they? And yes Sleeper, What If IS fun.   Like, what if JJ Lehto never got injured those years back in F1?

Yes they still have the half points rule, but its now at 75% race distance. There was a lot of talk after the 2003 Brazillian GP when Alonso crashed into Webbers wreckage. People werent shaw on whether to count back 1 or 2 laps. They went back 1 in the end, which put it just past 75%, but if they went back 2 Raikkonen would have been the winner an it would have been less than 75%, so there would have been half points.

And, I thought you'd like to know that Lehto is returning to the ALMS this year in a Porsche RS Spyder at Lime Rock in July, partnered with Johnny Herbert. Thats going to be quite a line-up.

JJLehto wrote: sleeper wrote: JJLehto wrote: Wow, that's crazy! They don't still use that half race/half points rule do they? And yes Sleeper, What If IS fun.   Like, what if JJ Lehto never got injured those years back in F1? Yes they still have the half points rule, but its now at 75% race distance. There was a lot of talk after the 2003 Brazillian GP when Alonso crashed into Webbers wreckage. People werent shaw on whether to count back 1 or 2 laps. They went back 1 in the end, which put it just past 75%, but if they went back 2 Raikkonen would have been the winner an it would have been less than 75%, so there would have been half points. And, I thought you'd like to know that Lehto is returning to the ALMS this year in a Porsche RS Spyder at Lime Rock in July, partnered with Johnny Herbert. Thats going to be quite a line-up.   I actually remember that race, wild stuff. I read once that Minardi had a strategy (with Jos Verstappen) and they truly thought they would win the race.   And that is GREAT news with JJ.

Yeah, I remember Paul Stodardt ( the Minardi boss at the time) saying that Verstapen was fuelled to lap 56 (the things I remember), which was when the crash happened. Unfortunatly, Jos stuffed it at turn 3 (with about half a dozen others, inclueding MS) when running ahead of Fisichella, who wonon a similar stratagey. 

JJLehto wrote: Mmm.....that's a shame, would've been cool if Minardi won.

It would have been funny as Jos would have to have overtacken a McLaren

Its good that its only a week or so to the next race as we're going to drive ourselves mad with what ifs soon.