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I meant Australia 94 and Austria 02...

And I blame that confusion on that other German...Herr Alzheimer...

How can Austria be his fault? He followed team orders just like Rubens. If your saying he cheated just because you didnt like the outcome, isn't really fair.

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How can Austria be his fault? He followed team orders just like Rubens. If your saying he cheated just because you didnt like the outcome, isn't really fair.

There's this thing called "tongue in cheek", you know?

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There's this thing called "tongue in cheek", you know?

Lol sorry, hard to tell people's expressions sometimes online, all good.

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Lol sorry, hard to tell people's expressions sometimes online, all good.

Maybe the pic of Schumacher in lederhosen could have give you a hint? :P

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Sean Edwards was a hugely talented racer and his death is massively premature and tragic in the extreme. Bad luck seems to hunt in pairs and with MDV leaving us last week, the sobering knowledge is that death is never far away for those who dare. RIP.

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There are days when I wish I had taken an interest in anything but cars as a kid. These two fatalities, and one near-near-near-miss in Houston's IndyCar race, has left me in that kind of a mood. How fun the 24 Hours of Dubai were this year; Edwards and his co-drivers won a spectacular endurance race against some nice competition. That one will stand out to me, for sure. It's a shame when passive attitudes toward safety, even attitudes outright against safety, leave racing destined to kill, and those other destinies, the ones that have Edwards productive for Porsche at Le Mans, Daytona, Sebring, and around the world, those are the ones we never see out. Peace and wellness to those who knew him. So sad.

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Sean Edwards was a hugely talented racer and his death is massively premature and tragic in the extreme. Bad luck seems to hunt in pairs and with MDV leaving us last week, the sobering knowledge is that death is never far away for those who dare. RIP.

Indeed, another sad day.

Pairs? I always thought the saying was that bad luck came in threes. I sincerely hope this is not the case.

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From Twitter:

That is the president of Watkins Glen International. An F1 test in 2015? Hmm.

They would need to make track improvements. It is a Grade II circuit (barely, in my opinion...the track has a long way to go in safety...). Barber is the only Grade IT in the U.S., with COTA and Indianapolis having Grade I status. IT can host a test, so we'll see. It would be nice if Watkins Glen made the improvements, simply because it would be helpful to the many series that do run there to have those upgrades.

Now, when such a test would take place is beyond me. Surely not in winter. It would have to be an in-season test. I guess you pair it with the Montréal swing (which may or may not include Weehawken), but that's such a grueling one as planned (three races in three weeks, with Monaco part of it, too), so having them then haul up to the Glen to test seems ridiculous...especially with Austria so soon after!

A bit confusing...but hey, they'll try.

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http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/301952/ex-mercedes-boss-haug-lands-new-job/

New job for Norbert Haug.

He surely would have been better to have around at Mercedes (both for the public and the drivers) than Lauda or the invisible Wolff. If they lose Brawn as well then they will look even more like too many chiefs and not enough indians.

Anyways, I like that he got a new job, and the kind of new job he got says a lot about the guy. Perhaps he was too good a human being for Merc.

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From Twitter:

That is the president of Watkins Glen International. An F1 test in 2015? Hmm.

They would need to make track improvements. It is a Grade II circuit (barely, in my opinion...the track has a long way to go in safety...). Barber is the only Grade IT in the U.S., with COTA and Indianapolis having Grade I status. IT can host a test, so we'll see. It would be nice if Watkins Glen made the improvements, simply because it would be helpful to the many series that do run there to have those upgrades.

Now, when such a test would take place is beyond me. Surely not in winter. It would have to be an in-season test. I guess you pair it with the Montréal swing (which may or may not include Weehawken), but that's such a grueling one as planned (three races in three weeks, with Monaco part of it, too), so having them then haul up to the Glen to test seems ridiculous...especially with Austria so soon after!

A bit confusing...but hey, they'll try.

If they want f1 to take of in the states so bad, why not support there country men and get them away from that hoolahoop racing, they need a driver to follow before additional circuits. Besides I see NASCAR like this, when you were a kid and say its your first day at a new school, you see a kid running around in circles and you see kids playing normally. Who you going to play with? Lmfao, sorry just had to get that bit out.

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If they want f1 to take of in the states so bad, why not support there country men and get them away from that hoolahoop racing, they need a driver to follow before additional circuits. Besides I see NASCAR like this, when you were a kid and say its your first day at a new school, you see a kid running around in circles and you see kids playing normally. Who you going to play with? Lmfao, sorry just had to get that bit out.

Personally, I would play with the kid running in circles. Who wants to be normal anyway??

As for the hoolahoop racing, there is a thread about the grandstands half empty or half full, saying that F1 is too expensive and that you can only see part of the track, etc. I imagine, as a participating spectator, the ovals would be quite good, you get to see the whole track, for starters and experience the atmosphere. I say I imagine, I would like to experience it first hand to see what it would actually be like, to see if it matches what my perceptions are.

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Personally, I would play with the kid running in circles. Who wants to be normal anyway??

As for the hoolahoop racing, there is a thread about the grandstands half empty or half full, saying that F1 is too expensive and that you can only see part of the track, etc. I imagine, as a participating spectator, the ovals would be quite good, you get to see the whole track, for starters and experience the atmosphere. I say I imagine, I would like to experience it first hand to see what it would actually be like, to see if it matches what my perceptions are.

Lmao, I was only stiring the pot mate, NASCAR is awesome, that close at those high speed driving something that doesn't really handle well at all is quite entertaining, definatly a certain skill required there.

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Lmao, I was only stiring the pot mate, NASCAR is awesome, that close at those high speed driving something that doesn't really handle well at all is quite entertaining, definatly a certain skill required there.

Sorry, I forgot the smiley after the 'who wants to be normal anyway' :lol:

There is no pot to stir, just thinking out loud really as to what it would be like at an oval race. I imagine it would be quite entertaining, especially as a one off. The sames goes for F1 though too, going to a race is probably something to try at least once, if you can.

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As for the hoolahoop racing, there is a thread about the grandstands half empty or half full, saying that F1 is too expensive and that you can only see part of the track, etc. I imagine, as a participating spectator, the ovals would be quite good, you get to see the whole track, for starters and experience the atmosphere. I say I imagine, I would like to experience it first hand to see what it would actually be like, to see if it matches what my perceptions are.

Having attended somewhere between 100 and 150 oval races in my life (8 at the highest level, many more for big-time ladder series, and most with the local stock cars), I think you'd enjoy it if you were looking for what you described. These are awful, awful, photos (they're actually webcam shots of physical photos that I am holding up, or just bad photos, depending...), but they illustrate (barely) some of the views, and some of the access you can get.

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If they want f1 to take of in the states so bad, why not support there country men and get them away from that hoolahoop racing, they need a driver to follow before additional circuits. Besides I see NASCAR like this, when you were a kid and say its your first day at a new school, you see a kid running around in circles and you see kids playing normally. Who you going to play with? Lmfao, sorry just had to get that bit out.

Ironically, NASCAR (International Speedway Corporation) owns Watkins Glen. :lol:

F1 has seen a 50% drop in English-language viewership here after switching channels, and I would assume people would only care about an American F1 driver if they already cared about F1 drivers in general. Hard to tell someone, "here is a person who does something that you don't think is impressive at all. That person is one of 317,000,000 people in your nation, which is about the size of Europe. Check out the race tomorrow at 5 AM."

That all said, I would love to know what Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Jimmie Johnson could have done in F1 had they devoted their entire careers to pursuing that. Tons of natural talent there, and some versatility (Stewart being an IRL and NASCAR champion, and Johnson having actually been an off-road truck and motorcycle racer until the late 90s). Oh, well.

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That all said, I would love to know what Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Jimmie Johnson could have done in F1 had they devoted their entire careers to pursuing that. Tons of natural talent there, and some versatility (Stewart being an IRL and NASCAR champion, and Johnson having actually been an off-road truck and motorcycle racer until the late 90s). Oh, well.

All I can say to that is: Sébastien Bourdais was a 4 time Champ Car champion. Now I have no clue what that means. All I know is that Champ car is?/was? one of two? top open wheel series in the US and Canada? I also know that it may or may not have been the good one.

Now I am guessing that to be Champ in most racing categories that are the top? of their field you have to be pretty good. So to be it 5 times you can't be a slouch. But even considering that he was in an STR he still did little to impress me with the driving talent of North American Drivers(yes he is French I know). Hell the average American doesn't even know that car racing can be done on something other than an oval.

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All I can say to that is: Sébastien Bourdais was a 4 time Champ Car champion. Now I have no clue what that means. All I know is that Champ car is?/was? one of two? top open wheel series in the US and Canada? I also know that it may or may not have been the good one.

Now I am guessing that to be Champ in most racing categories that are the top? of their field you have to be pretty good. So to be it 5 times you can't be a slouch. But even considering that he was in an STR he still did little to impress me with the driving talent of North American Drivers(yes he is French I know). Hell the average American doesn't even know that car racing can be done on something other than an oval.

That's a shame.

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All I can say to that is: Sébastien Bourdais was a 4 time Champ Car champion. Now I have no clue what that means. All I know is that Champ car is?/was? one of two? top open wheel series in the US and Canada? I also know that it may or may not have been the good one.

Now I am guessing that to be Champ in most racing categories that are the top? of their field you have to be pretty good. So to be it 5 times you can't be a slouch. But even considering that he was in an STR he still did little to impress me with the driving talent of North American Drivers(yes he is French I know). Hell the average American doesn't even know that car racing can be done on something other than an oval.

That's not all wrong, but...

1) The best drivers in North America are in NASCAR, by far. IndyCar died long ago and it's a series of drivers who couldn't do anything else.

2) For every Bourdais or Andretti, there was a Villeneuve or Montoya. It's pretty inconclusive, but in general, yes, CART, Champ Car, the IRL, and now IndyCar have been places for sometimes a different kind of talent, and sometimes a lesser talent...

3) My wish was the pure fantasy of those NASCAR drivers being F1 drivers from the start. I would not want to see Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, or Jimmie Johnson go to F1 now. They would be horrible. I would have loved to have seen them, as kids, continue from karting (I know that's where Stewart started, at least) into junior formulae and so on. The natural talent is absolutely amazing. Though Bourdais did train in Europe (F3000, in fact, where he won the title), he had spent so many years in Champ Car (more reliant on mechanical grip, probably still running steel brakes back then though I don't remember, etc). He needed to be an F1 reserve driver after his F3000 title, on those tracks in those cars, and still young in age. By the time he got to F1, he was too used to other machinery (he had even driven stock cars by then), too used to other tracks (predominantly street circuits in Champ Car...it has been said by those who have driven both F1 and Indy, Tomas Scheckter for one, that the ovals, not the street circuits, simulate F1 handling and driving style. Mansell and Sato have not said that, but their early performances suggested that adapting to the ovals was most natural), and probably a bit too old and accomplished (less hunger) to match Vettel.

Now, not everyone in NASCAR is very good, not at all. But the top guys, the big names, they are the absolute best drivers in North America, no question. Had they been trained for F1, rather than for stock cars, I think people would be surprised by how talented some of those drivers really are. A lot of them had ambitions to do F1 or Indy, too, but the money was in stock cars. It costs a lot of money to get into any racing, after all, and if all the sponsor money is being poured into stock cars, you have the choice of either not racing or racing stock cars. In the U.S., a lot of road racing fans lament the "lost generations" of Indy-style racing.

You see, in the early 90s and through the early 00s, all of the best prospects for Indy/Champ Car went to NASCAR. They all became stock car drivers (and very good ones). From the early 00s into the 10s, all of the best prospects went to sports cars, where they didn't need to bring a full budget (co-drivers, after all).

Because of this, the talent level in IndyCar and Champ Car dropped dramatically. None of the drivers in the U.S. ladder series were racing them. So, Bourdais dominated a series with no competition whatsoever, and always seems less impressive in a deeper field (I say this as a fan of his; he's just not as good as he looked).

Plus, one could make your argument the other way around, saying that the drivers in Europe musn't be impressive because of how poorly Montoya did in NASCAR. ;)

But that's just tongue-in-cheek; it's obviously a very different style of racing and no one could be expected to go to NASCAR from F1, or to F1 from NASCAR, and be successful.

Had they been trained to do that from the start, though? Impossible to say, but I think Kyle Busch would be magical to watch.

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And one more note on that:

Sir Jackie Stewart, perhaps due to Ford pressure, was desperate to sign Jeff Gordon in 1997, and then Tony Stewart in 1999. He saw a lot of talent there, and there was, though it would have been a disaster because the switch from NASCAR to F1 is just impossibly different.

Gordon was also the original plan for BAR Honda, or so I've been told. British American Tobacco had a plan to put Gordon in a Honda-powered CART IndyCar for a few years (those 900 hp monsters back then) in the late 90s. Then, they would start an F1 team around him. Gordon declined that offer.

Later, of course, Gordon had the Williams demo, and Stewart had the McLaren demo, all for fun and nothing more.

I guess that's all "Yesterday in F1" stuff, though. :P

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Eric

Do you think that some of the current Indycar field would be any good in F1?

e.g. Dixon, Franchitti, Power, Castro Neves, etc?

It is interesting how the flow between series causes issues, with some exceptions (e.g. our Nige and Villeneuve in year 1).

It is also interesting that Sato (who was not that slow in F1) has been popping up higher in the Indycar ratings...

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Certainly, my posts made it seem like everyone in IndyCar is worthless, which was way too harsh. It's just an odd assortment over there. So, how would they have done in F1?

It's hard to say; it's hard to even say how the GP2 champion will do in F1 sometimes.

I guess the thing to look at is how they did before IndyCar:

Castroneves was nearly tied with Tarso Marques in Formula Chevrolet, but just beat him for P2. He did well in various Formula 3 classes in South America in the early 90s, losing the 1994 Brazilian F3 title to Cristiano da Matta. In British F3 (1995), he was third, behind Oliver Gavin and Ralph Firman. He did beat a few interesting names, but none of real note. Fontana and Ralf Schumacher bested him in that year's Masters of F3, and it was off to the U.S. from there. He would have needed to be in F1 by the late 90s, then.

Formula Vauxhall champion Franchitti was P4 in British F3 (1994), with his teammate, Jan Magnussen, winning the championship by a mighty margin (scored over twice as many points as Franchitti had). He was P6 at Macau, behind Magnussen, Ralf, and other non-F1 drivers. His career moved to touring cars (effectively DTM), where he won a few races before coming to the U.S. Franchitti tested with Jaguar F1 in the early 2000s; the team was not impressed and chose Burti, who was 2.0 seconds ahead of Franchitti's best time (4.2 seconds off the lead pace).

Scott Dixon's racing went from Australia and New Zealand straight to the U.S., with him being very impressive in Formula Holden at an extremely young age. He raced against a few names that are now in V8 Supercars (like Jason Bright), so it's hard to compare to F1. But Dixon tested with Williams, and he was fairly impressive. In his first test, he was 0.8 seconds off R. Schumacher, and in his second, he was 0.7 seconds off Gené. Dixon may have worked out in F1 with more seat-time...

Will Power, then. He was successful in Australian F3 and Formula Holden against unfamiliar names, but could only manage P14 in 2003's British F3 championship. The next year, he was P9. Neither was filled with talent; Power beat Fauzy and Chandhok, but was behind Piquet, Carroll, Rossiter, and di Grassi. In the World Series by Renault of 2005, Power won two races, but missed four, ending P7. Kubica was champion; Winkelhock was P3. The only comparison available is that to Will Davison and Chanoch Nissany. Pretty inconclusive, there.

Other IndyCar test drivers included Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti with BAR/Honda. Kanaan was 1.5 seconds off Davidson, and Andretti was about the same off Klien, if I remember correctly.

Then again, Vettel, in 2005, was something like four seconds off of Webber in a test with Williams. Look how that all worked out. :P

Interesting, in my opinion, but inconclusive...I do think it shows how big of an adjustment it is to go to F1. Dixon, in my opinion, could have had the most success had he gone to Europe, but I also think Power was a "late bloomer" in racing, really finding how to use his ability a bit later on.

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We now have two young Russian rookies that are set to make their F1 debuts in March 2014. Daniil Kvyat has been signed by Toro Rosso for 2014 to partner up with JEV. Never heard of him so I've no idea what he's like. Any Russian spies floating about wanna fill us in on the kid??

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Must have a fair bit of cash, as I heard the vacant tr seat was up for purchase.

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