238 replies to this topic

[dribbler]

Let's discuss all things Practice, Qualifying and Race here. I'm going, and with Paddock Club tickets Woo Hoo! I am also meeting Mark, Seb, Christian and Adrian at 10am on Friday. I'll get as many pics as I can!

Here's mine and my friend's tickets!



Sorry if it sounds like I'm boasting. It's 'once in a life time' stuff for me - my friend is very wealthy and bought me the tickets as a gift. He knows this means the world to me. I don't know how I will ever return the favour. It's blowing my mind at the moment....

[LabradoRacer]

Way to go, Steve. Happy for you.


Just kidding. I'm jealous, you b#####d.


The tickets are just like your language - colourful. Did give me an epileptic fit or two.


Not too hopeful about Schumi doing well as his car struggles on high-speed corners.

[BradSpeedMan]

dribbler, on 29 June 2012 - 10:30 AM, said:

Let's discuss all things Practice, Qualifying and Race here. I'm going, and with Paddock Club tickets Woo Hoo! I am also meeting Mark, Seb, Christian and Adrian at 10am on Friday. I'll get as many pics as I can!

I'm with Jay on this one.... you lucky b#####d!!!


*mumble* *mumble*

LabradoRacer, on 29 June 2012 - 10:49 AM, said:

The tickets are just like your language - colourful.

true

Edited by BradSpeedMan, 29 June 2012 - 11:13 AM.

[Quiet One]

dribbler, on 29 June 2012 - 10:30 AM, said:

Let's discuss all things Practice, Qualifying and Race here. I'm going, and with Paddock Club tickets Woo Hoo! I am also meeting Mark, Seb, Christian and Adrian at 10am on Friday. I'll get as many pics as I can!

Here's mine and my friend's tickets!

Sorry if it sounds like I'm boasting. It's 'once in a life time' stuff for me - my friend is very wealthy and bought me the tickets as a gift. He knows this means the world to me. I don't know how I will ever return the favour. It's blowing my mind at the moment....

You can return him the favour by blowing him something else, perhaps?

Just kidding. Good to see you so excited, I envy you my friend!

My prognosis for the race. Again, the RBRs seem like natural candidates. Unless alternator issues come back (very unlikely), they were almost a sec/lap faster on Valencia...Sounds like they had some hyper super duper soaped up version of their car.

I think we will see the usual. They will be struggling on Fridays, being fast but nothing special in Q1 and Q2 and suddenly Vettel will pull a lap that is 3 hours 21 minutes 25.987 seconds faster than the second one on Q3.

Maccas will do better. Lewis will do anything to fight even the rocket fueled RBRs. They MUST!

Poochies are my candidates to spoil everybody else's party this weekend. They also need to perform well at home, and their win is more than due by now.

Ferrari...well, even the great Alonso must run out of tricks sometime. I know we never consider them seriously contenders and then they come up with something, but seriously, unless the new upgrades they are bringing to Silverstone mean some radical change, Silverstone best hopes will be in the weather. That does not mean that they will not be able to come back with a reasonably good result. Alonso knows that as long as he can finish as high in the points as possible he will still be able to hold onto that lead a littel bit more, and even if he will loose it eventually to either the Maccas or the RBRs, the longer he holds onto it, the better his perspectives for a late charge.

Glock will not be able to perform as well at Silverstone as he did at Valencia, were he had one of his fastest runs of his life, according to his own words...

[pabloh20]

Quiet One, on 29 June 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

You can return him the favour by blowing him something else, perhaps?

Just kidding. Good to see you so excited, I envy you my friend!

My prognosis for the race. Again, the RBRs seem like natural candidates. Unless alternator issues come back (very unlikely), they were almost a sec/lap faster on Valencia...Sounds like they had some hyper super duper soaped up version of their car.

I think we will see the usual. They will be struggling on Fridays, being fast but nothing special in Q1 and Q2 and suddenly Vettel will pull a lap that is 3 hours 21 minutes 25.987 seconds faster than the second one on Q3.

Maccas will do better. Lewis will do anything to fight even the rocket fueled RBRs. They MUST!

Poochies are my candidates to spoil everybody else's party this weekend. They also need to perform well at home, and their win is more than due by now.

Ferrari...well, even the great Alonso must run out of tricks sometime. I know we never consider them seriously contenders and then they come up with something, but seriously, unless the new upgrades they are bringing to Silverstone mean some radical change, Silverstone best hopes will be in the weather. That does not mean that they will not be able to come back with a reasonably good result. Alonso knows that as long as he can finish as high in the points as possible he will still be able to hold onto that lead a littel bit more, and even if he will loose it eventually to either the Maccas or the RBRs, the longer he holds onto it, the better his perspectives for a late charge.

Glock will not be able to perform as well at Silverstone as he did at Valencia, were he had one of his fastest runs of his life, according to his own words...

I don't think the Ferraris have been too far off the pace for the last few races or from whenever they had the last major upgrade, was it?  I know they had a poor qualifying last time out and obviously Alonso is still dragging it along, but I don't think they are a million miles away.  Massa has been a bit closer of late, or it seems that way.  Combine that with the difficulties the teams have had consistently finding the sweet spot of the tyres and I think they will have a good race again.

[Quiet One]

pabloh20, on 29 June 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

I don't think the Ferraris have been too far off the pace for the last few races or from whenever they had the last major upgrade, was it?  I know they had a poor qualifying last time out and obviously Alonso is still dragging it along, but I don't think they are a million miles away.  Massa has been a bit closer of late, or it seems that way.  Combine that with the difficulties the teams have had consistently finding the sweet spot of the tyres and I think they will have a good race again.

They have improved lots and the car is actually good enough compared to the dreadful start of season, but they lack the overall speed of the RBRs, the Maccases, the Poochieses and the Mercedeses. The difficulty to understand the tires, the McLaren Pitstop Comedy Club and the overall inconsistency of the teams have helped mask the differences,  but they are all getting better. Tires are not that much of a mystery now for anybody. As teams slowly work out their rough edges, the Ferrari's lack of pace will become a worrysome prospect, as the biggest advantage Ferrari had was overall race pace to compensate for the lack of qualy pace.

I am not counting them out, I just find it harder to find enough objective factors to consider them as candidates. Alonso's magic sounds great and has worked great so far but you can't count on that when contemplating a future race can you? That is why it is also hard to consider the Mercs as candidates despite having a victory a Schumacher and a clearly very fast car. They just don't inspire the same level of "fast package image" the RBR can contrive. McLaren seems to be just a couple of good pitstops away from being up there. If there's any surprise is that they find it harder to put two good pitstops together than it is for other teams to make a group of other stuff work well together to finish on top of them (as Ferrari which needs to have perfect strategies, pitstops and an inspired Fernando to beat the Maccas). That is why Macca  fans are mad with them, after all, and rightfully so.

[Rainmaster]

Have a good one Steve!

I don't see Ferrari being as much of a threat either, Alonso will be doing well if he makes the podium, I think. This could be the most predictable race yet, Red Bull should run away with it by any logic, but we'll see. I'll go for Vettel and Grosjean as race favourites just like last time out.

[AleHop]

I envy Steve too. I'm going to watch it on TV with a big share ads breaks.

[AleHop]

Problem with Ferrari are the ups and downs. Everybody thought Canada was the worst track for them but performed quite well there.

I thought they were closer to Red Bull and McLaren and ahead of Lotus, Merc, FI, Williams... 2nd or 3rd row would have confirmed that in Valencia but they dind't get through to Q3.

It's all down to a big upgrade working as expected for them in Silverstone.

Edited by AleHop, 29 June 2012 - 01:36 PM.

[Jean-Pierre]

I'd like to be there also. The Montreal race is still buzzing here. It would be great to see a British winner in a British car: the crowd would go crazy.

[HandyNZL]

Macca have some big upgrades this weekend, so hopefully (for them) they will gain some tenths.

I understand that they have also brought some big upgrades for the pitstops, and a picture was leaked just a few moments ago to the press:

[dribbler]

[JHS18]

Enjoy it - I'm very jealous.

Looks like the weather will be normal. By normal, I mean by English standards which actually means terrible.

[Massa]

From weather.com, in °F because AMERICA:



Should be fun for the television viewer.  I'm assuming Steve will be indoors and avoid being dribbled on.

[Massa]

Also, how do you guys feel about that Arena Circuit?  I've never seen the Grand Prix there, just on the old one.  Has it been an improvement?

[Quiet One]

Massa, on 04 July 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

From weather.com, in °F because AMERICA:



Should be fun for the television viewer.  I'm assuming Steve will be indoors and avoid being dribbled on.

Farenheit degrees!! Seriously, what's worng with you people? Why do you reject the God-given Celsius degrees? Is it because we are black?

[Quiet One]

On another note: McLaren has done 800 pitstop practices to get prepared for Silverstone according to the news.

Sure that number is wrong? Because there's simply not enough material time for that!

Let me see: 800 pitstops at an average of about 1 hour each...

[Massa]

Each increase of 1°C is an increase of 1.8°F.  Each increase of 1°F is an increase of 1°F.  Therefore, F is much more precise, while C is murky and leaves confusion.  Extra tenths are only good when they pertain to Alonso.

Of course then they throw "feels like" temperatures at you.  If 60°F feels like 55°F then how do we know that 55°F feels like when the day it was 55°F it felt like 52°F...well, it all feels like there are better uses for this thread than weather...

[Massa]

I missed Malaysia, I have to confess, so...what were Pirelli's wet tires like?  I haven't seen a wet race since the Bridgestone days.

[AleHop]

Massa, on 04 July 2012 - 03:08 PM, said:

...well, it all feels like there are better uses for this thread than weather...

No. If you just wanted to use something diferent you had °K.

°K > °F > °C

KFC? :?

[JHS18]

Massa, on 04 July 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

From weather.com, in °F because AMERICA:



Should be fun for the television viewer.  I'm assuming Steve will be indoors and avoid being dribbled on.

UK Weather reporting much of the same thing:

http://uk.weather.co...rstone-UKXX1916

BBC too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2637827

As for your tyre question - I don't think they're really a lot different to Bridgestones. You know, they're grooved and help displace water?

Edited by JHS18, 04 July 2012 - 04:20 PM.

[AleHop]

McLaren boss Michael not worried by Red Bull improvement

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael said: "They did take a step forward but I don't think it's as big as the pace Sebastian showed in the first stint."

http://www.bbc.co.uk...rmula1/18707542

[Massa]

AleHop, on 04 July 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

No. If you just wanted to use something diferent you had °K.

°K > °F > °C

KFC? :?

That's incredible.

I've had a gut feeling about Vettel winning the last two races.  He didn't.  So I'm not sure I'll trust my gut feeling that Vettel wins Silverstone.

Grosjean if it's dry, Schumacher if it's wet.

[Quiet One]

AleHop, on 04 July 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

McLaren boss Michael not worried by Red Bull improvement

Why would he? To paraphrase Button: that's just Vettel in an RBR!

[yurp]

Quiet One, on 04 July 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

Farenheit degrees!! Seriously, what's worng with you people? Why do you reject the God-given Celsius degrees? Is it because we are black?

Reminds me of this...
http://theoatmeal.co...ics/senior_year

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer]

Massa, on 04 July 2012 - 08:40 PM, said:

I've had a gut feeling about Vettel winning the last two races.  He didn't.  So I'm not sure I'll trust my gut feeling that Vettel wins Silverstone.

Gut feeling?

Must be all those KFCs

[JHS18]

Massa, on 04 July 2012 - 08:40 PM, said:

I've had a gut feeling about Vettel winning the last two races.  He didn't.

Says the guy who "hates" Vettel. j/k

Weather looks pretty awful for tomorrow. I very much doubt if the forecast is right whether there will be much running.

[Massa]

Am I only allowed to predict drivers I like to win races?

[JHS18]

Yes. That's the whole point of TF1.

[Massa]

Well the weatherman will be interested to know that the chance of rain is decreasing in the forecast as we get closer to it, and as the detailed hour-by-hour reports come out.  I figure there will be some rain at some time in some session but I'm not sure it will be a fully wet weekend.

Anyway, Alonso thinks the Ferrari will be suited for Silverstone while Massa thinks it might be but might not be and doesn't really know.  I guess Alonso's just a humble gentleman and doesn't want any credit for his success, and Massa doesn't want to look like a disappointment when the gap on the points table broadens even further.

That Batman movie will be partnered with Lotus this weekend.  Another Lotus partner?  Unilever (Rexona and CLEAR on the Lotus).  Coinicidentally, Unilever also partners with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in America (Degree, which is Rexona just rebranded in the States, Klondike, Hellmann's, Suave, all sorts of things).  And, as it happens, the same Batman movie sponsored Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at Michigan a few weeks ago.  Earnhardt won that race.  My Grosjean prediction looks better and better...