Today In F1

[Insider 0]

He's going to NASCAR. He'll be the lead driver for Hyundai's new effort. Nigel Stepney will be his crew chief and the car will use unicorn urine for fuel. Now you know.

Honestly, Nico's either going to Brawn or Macca. I'm thinking the latter, though everyone else says the former.

I'm really hoping Qadbak Sauber get to race. I'd love to see what Adam Carroll or Mirko Bortolotti could do in Formula 1 (I'm fairly confident they'll be a Ferrari B-for-B**** squad, so it would make sense that they'd use one or both of those drivers). Scuderia Ferrari did say that Giancarlo Fisichella may race for another team in addition to his duties as test driver. Perhaps he'll partner a youngin at QS. It might possibly maybe kind of sort of be nice to have a team that didn't run on Cossies or Mercs.

I believe Sauber will want two very experienced drivers. Heidfeld will be retained, I believe and there's a whole herd of young, one-season wonder, car crashers out there to pick from if he feels the need for fresh blood. Personally, I would sign Luizzi.

[Insider 0]

- sorry - I missed this before.

Actually, I wonder who Insider is talking about - I can't think of anyone who's condoned Jnr's actions - bit of clarification would be appreciated Insidee.

I rckon KERS should be allowed without the ridiculous limitation of per lap usage. If the teams are going to develop it, then let them use it to the maximum capability. This year's introduction was a shambles.

I read it but I'm not going to trawl back through the zillions of inane posts on this subject to find it. I didn't point a finger - did I?

KERS is not racing - period. It's like drink driving should be - zero tolerance across the board. Either everyone has it or no-one does - period.

[JHS 1]

KERS is not racing - period. It's like drink driving should be - zero tolerance across the board. Either everyone has it or no-one does - period.

Who's having a period?

[Rainmaster 7]

David Richards has told me to tell you he won't be posting around here much. He's absolutely shattered by his rejection as Renault team boss. Don't worry, though. He'll recover. He's planning on partnering with a certain Master of Inclement Weather to form Raindrive Promasters, a new F1 team powered by Buick and sponsored by an unnamed company specializing in deep-fried, cheese-covered foods of various types. They have a prototype for their chassis, you can see it here. But keep that a secret for now. Dave wouldn't want that information to get into the wrong hands.

To keep this post somewhat on topic, today in F1, US F1 and Campos joined FOTA. Manor are looking to join, too. I'm confused.

That would be the bestest team eva.

[JHS 1]

Anyway, I do think that KERS is racing. It was in the rules at the start of the year for teams to use, most of them didn't, but that's their stupid fault for not using it, espacially since KERS cars are a real factor now.

But I'm a fan of the unlimited KERS idea. Basically, you give the teams basic specs like a maximum weight and size the unit can be, then let them go away and design an unlimited KERS unit. Then we'd see some action, who would produce the most powerful KERS system and how many different designs would there be to extract the most from it? Then you've got the best of both worlds, innovation and racing.

[dribbler 6]

I have sat back for weeks and now I'm ready. Way too much drama; Why is 'Crashgate' such a big deal? It's not brought the sport into disrepute, it won't bring it down and it's not all dark days and gloom. Any suggestions that it is, is utter bollocks.

This kind of sh!t has gone on for years. I'm fed up with everyone proclaiming how awful and disgusting it all is. I'm quite happy to have the drama. The only persons hurt are Symonds and Briatore. Personally I think they are the better people in the sport and shouldn't have gone. If you think it was correct for their heads to roll you have a complete lack of understanding on the inner workings of F1.

As usual, it has been completely blown out of proportion by the media, all the forum junkies and people within the sport with hidden agendas. The whole world has gone f*cking blame culture mad. No one can sneeze without sixteen f*cking forum pages of over analysis. F*cking bollocks.

No one on this stupid f*cking planet will be happy until every movement of every limb of every stupid human is frowned upon,tested, tasted and judged.

Let paranoia ensue, that's what will bring it down, not its actions.

[lewisthegreat2 0]

I believe Sauber will want two very experienced drivers. Heidfeld will be retained, I believe and there's a whole herd of young, one-season wonder, car crashers out there to pick from if he feels the need for fresh blood. Personally, I would sign Luizzi.

Is Liuzzi going to be available? I'd guess Qadbak Sauber are going to be a Ferrari B-squad, and SF had indicated Fisichella may race in addition to his reserve role, so it might make sense if Fisichella and Bortolotti or Carroll were paired to race there.

Either everyone has it or no-one does - period.

Then it accomplishes absolutely nothing. Too cars on the KERS at the same time means they're equal, and going at an even speed, and can no longer pass. You need variety and innovation to produce entertaining racing. If the cars are all the same, and the rules are all about "making everyone equal," you're going to get some Sh#tty IndyCar or NASCAR-type spec racing deal. Not cool. Without KERS, Belgium wouldn't have been so entertaining. You had one car with the KERS that was good in one sector, and another without that made up so much time under braking. Fun stuff. Too cars with the same strengths and weaknesses would have produced a single-file nose-to-tail snooze fest. I'll watch the modern-day (and more importantly, post-innovation) Indy 500 when I need to see that.

Rules should be about people (as in safety), not about cars. Give them a few specifications (four wheels, minimum weight, etc) and let them do whatever the hell they want. It's their money, their ideas. If one team wants to go all out and win, let them. If one wants to ride around in the back and focus on developing technology for road cars, let them. If one wants to do both, let them. The races will turn out to be better.

Unlimited KERS would be fun, but it needs to come with less restrictions on other aspects, too, so teams who don't want to use KERS can find other ways to innovate and develop an equally fast but entirely different package.

Yay!

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Let paranoia ensue, that's what will bring it down, not its actions.

Bah you crashisteric!

[lewisthegreat2 0]

Sauber will use Ferrari engines. I just noticed it was confirmed.

Bernie Ecclestone wants to run a USGP in New York City. Good luck with that. It won't happen. I'm sure it will be just as sucessful as the World Professional Auto Racing Drivers' Championship (FOCA) grand prix in New York was.

[JHS 1]

Sauber will use Ferrari engines. I just noticed it was confirmed.

Bernie Ecclestone wants to run a USGP in New York City. Good luck with that. It won't happen. I'm sure it will be just as sucessful as the World Professional Auto Racing Drivers' Championship (FOCA) grand prix in New York was.

Bah, you're so cynical when it comes to American based F1 projects. "USF1 won't work, an NY Grand Prix won't work" will an American based F1 projects work?

[Quiet One 15]

I have sat back for weeks and now I'm ready. Way too much drama; Why is 'Crashgate' such a big deal? It's not brought the sport into disrepute, it won't bring it down and it's not all dark days and gloom. Any suggestions that it is, is utter bollocks.

This kind of sh!t has gone on for years. I'm fed up with everyone proclaiming how awful and disgusting it all is. I'm quite happy to have the drama. The only persons hurt are Symonds and Briatore. Personally I think they are the better people in the sport and shouldn't have gone. If you think it was correct for their heads to roll you have a complete lack of understanding on the inner workings of F1.

As usual, it has been completely blown out of proportion by the media, all the forum junkies and people within the sport with hidden agendas. The whole world has gone f*cking blame culture mad. No one can sneeze without sixteen f*cking forum pages of over analysis. F*cking bollocks.

No one on this stupid f*cking planet will be happy until every movement of every limb of every stupid human is frowned upon,tested, tasted and judged.

Let paranoia ensue, that's what will bring it down, not its actions.

Why do you say that witness X is Monty?

Oh, yeah, and welcome back Steve Testing your forum muscles?

[lewisthegreat2 0]

Bah, you're so cynical when it comes to American based F1 projects. "USF1 won't work, an NY Grand Prix won't work" will an American based F1 projects work?

Well, it really has nothing to do with the US American-ness of the projects; it's just a coincidence that they both aren't particularly promising. Team US F1 are so hard to take seriously...they go from "we're competing regardless" to "we have a budget of $64,000,000" to "we need pay drivers, now!" They talked up Danica, Marco, AJ Allmendinger, Scott Speed, and Juan Pablo Montoya to get some press, when they were really just telling lies and had no intentions of ever contacting any of those drivers (they never did). Simply put, they have no where near enough money to meet their already abysmal budget, a bunch of lies (if they're lying, they're hiding something), and a chief designer who has never designed an F1 car (just worked for some backmarker teams; his last car design was the Falcon IndyCar, which ran a total of 0 races).

As for the USGP, you can't run a race in Manhattan. It's a simple fact of life. There are certain roads you just can't close for a weekend. CART tried to organize a race there in 1992, and even had Marlboro fully behind it, but the event was cancelled simply because they just couldn't get the government to support it and close the streets. An F1 race may bring some money to the government, but the amount they lose by closing that section down won't justify it.

They can have a USGP and have one that's decently attended, I'm sure, but Bernie's kidding himself if he thinks he can get NYC to pay $30,000,000 to lose money. Ecclestone knows damn well there's only one track in the USA that can host F1, and one city that will get behind it: Indianapolis. He can say "we'll never go back there," but does he really mean that, or is he trying to get IMS to offer him more and start begging for him to come back? It's pretty obvious. For the record, IMS are going through a period of failure, and probably won't be interested in a USGP.

[yurp 0]

I read it but I'm not going to trawl back through the zillions of inane posts on this subject to find it. I didn't point a finger - did I?

hmm - I'll take you word for it.

KERS is not racing - period. It's like drink driving should be - zero tolerance across the board. Either everyone has it or no-one does - period.

Exactly - and if they got rid of the stupid, per lap limitation, everyone would have it in a second. The greatest argument I've heard against KERS has actually been against the way it was implemented, not the device itself.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Team US F1 are so hard to take seriously...they go from "we're competing regardless" to "we have a budget of $64,000,000" to "we need pay drivers, now!"

Think you are right. I did a bit of googling and was surprised to see the amount of "puff" around the team, but lack of any substance. They don't even have an operational web-site yet: http://www.usgpe.com/ - if they can't even build that, what hope for a working F1 team?

[yurp 0]

Think you are right. I did a bit of googling and was surprised to see the amount of "puff" around the team, but lack of any substance. They don't even have an operational web-site yet: http://www.usgpe.com/ - if they can't even build that, what hope for a working F1 team?

oooh what a lovely font

[Jean Todt 4]

I have sat back for weeks and now I'm ready. Way too much drama; Why is 'Crashgate' such a big deal? It's not brought the sport into disrepute, it won't bring it down and it's not all dark days and gloom. Any suggestions that it is, is utter bollocks.

This kind of sh!t has gone on for years. I'm fed up with everyone proclaiming how awful and disgusting it all is. I'm quite happy to have the drama. The only persons hurt are Symonds and Briatore. Personally I think they are the better people in the sport and shouldn't have gone. If you think it was correct for their heads to roll you have a complete lack of understanding on the inner workings of F1.

As usual, it has been completely blown out of proportion by the media, all the forum junkies and people within the sport with hidden agendas. The whole world has gone f*cking blame culture mad. No one can sneeze without sixteen f*cking forum pages of over analysis. F*cking bollocks.

No one on this stupid f*cking planet will be happy until every movement of every limb of every stupid human is frowned upon,tested, tasted and judged.

Let paranoia ensue, that's what will bring it down, not its actions.

[yurp 0]

I have sat back for weeks and now I'm ready. Way too much drama; Why is 'Crashgate' such a big deal? It's not brought the sport into disrepute, it won't bring it down and it's not all dark days and gloom. Any suggestions that it is, is utter bollocks.

This kind of sh!t has gone on for years. I'm fed up with everyone proclaiming how awful and disgusting it all is. I'm quite happy to have the drama. The only persons hurt are Symonds and Briatore. Personally I think they are the better people in the sport and shouldn't have gone. If you think it was correct for their heads to roll you have a complete lack of understanding on the inner workings of F1.

As usual, it has been completely blown out of proportion by the media, all the forum junkies and people within the sport with hidden agendas. The whole world has gone f*cking blame culture mad. No one can sneeze without sixteen f*cking forum pages of over analysis. F*cking bollocks.

No one on this stupid f*cking planet will be happy until every movement of every limb of every stupid human is frowned upon,tested, tasted and judged.

Let paranoia ensue, that's what will bring it down, not its actions.

I was quite enjoying this one actually Dribs - it's got all the ingredients for a proper hollywood remake.

Spoilsport.

More seriously though - don't the two bolded bits come hand in hand - do you want gateaux and the oportunity to digest said dessert?

[lewisthegreat2 0]

Ooooh, Bernie hired someone to make a cute little Photoshop of his pretend dream NYC circuit that isn't real! Yay!

[JHS 1]

Ooooh, Bernie hired someone to make a cute little Photoshop of his pretend dream NYC circuit that isn't real! Yay!

So the track is that big it doesn't fit in NYC at all?

[lewisthegreat2 0]

Today in F1, David Richards was linked to a Renault buyout. Oh I hope so. Ol' Dave could use some new material; 'e's gettin' tired of talkin' 'bout prospective teams and saying "will yer" at the end of every sentence, will yer?

Secretly, I hope he doesn't, I want Renault to be Renault and not Prodrive Mercedes. One more Mercedes on the grid and I'm going to go retire to never watching Formula 1 again until the next race.

So the track is that big it doesn't fit in NYC at all?

I'm hoping you made this post at 2 AM, because it's implying you think there are only something like 10 streets in all of NYC and that the track takes up more than 1,214.4 km²

The map only highlights a small section of NYC, and the track seems to have little regard to existing streets after that, as if to say they can actually close roads in NYC almost all year long to build new ones just for a Grand Prix. My a##. They might as well have proposed a 1,214.4 km² circuit; it would have been equally likely.

EDIT: Disregard that circuit layout; it was made by a magazine for funsies, and has no relation to Bernie etc. Not like it mattered. There will be no USGP in New York.

[JHS 1]

Well, I just never knew that NYC was a complete Recatangle. You learn something everyday!

Yes, I heard about the Dave Richards thing too, people are speculating that he'd want to re-name it Aston Martin. I could see him becoming Team Boss if Renault so wanted him to be, but renaming the team Aston Martin.....doubt it.

But stranger things have happened. Lotus have come back for one.

Oh, and today Bernie Ecclestone said he didn't think that USF1 would happen. Awaiting some snide comment from Eric now!

[lewisthegreat2 0]

Well, I just never knew that NYC was a complete Recatangle. You learn something everyday!

It isn't...see for yourself.

Oh, and today Bernie Ecclestone said he didn't think that USF1 would happen. Awaiting some snide comment from Eric now!

Bernie has more sense than me, despite his old age. He's right. Team US F1 are bogus. I don't think they have any employees, which makes it hard to have a car out by October or whenever. They're still running out of an old NASCAR shop, which isn't exactly promising. Metal fabrication facilities won't be of much use for them.

[JHS 1]

It isn't...see for yourself.

Bernie has more sense than me, despite his old age. He's right. Team US F1 are bogus. I don't think they have any employees, which makes it hard to have a car out by October or whenever. They're still running out of an old NASCAR shop, which isn't exactly promising. Metal fabrication facilities won't be of much use for them.

It was a joke!

[lewisthegreat2 0]

It was a joke!

Thank God

Max Mosley visited the US F1 facilities in North Carolina and was highly unimpressed, voicing concern for their future. He'll be back in October to check in again on the car that will be done by October 31 (that actually will never be done).

Campos said they'll field Pedro de la Rosa or Marc Gen

[JHS 1]

Can't imagine who'd those teams would be. The 2 that had caused the most concern, Toyota and Renault, have basically said they'll stay, so I could only see Force India leaving if any teams were to leave which I believe they won't be.