Clicky

Jump to content

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

freaky2

Valencia Gp

Recommended Posts

Thought I'd post this early so you can have a place to talk tomorrow while I'll be away on my last uni exam. I don't usually watch FP, and this weekend should have been the exception, but you know how last exams are, I might party a bit too much :P

So I'll count on you gentlemen and gentle ladys, you can post away as much as you like, although I imagine that watching the Valencia FP might kill all desire of watching the "race" on Sunday (it must come somewhere in the description, I'm sure).

At this time of day the three Spanish drivers and the very talented Vito Liuzzi and Vitaly Petrov (those sound strangely similar for two countries that far apart XD) are having a positively boring press conference for the FIA, which will be partially copy-pasted here in due time assuming they say anything of interest (like Fernando's girlfriend's three sizes). My bet for the contents though goes something like: yes, we've got some improvements for this race, but not many yet; yes we think we can win/get a lot of points/get points/finish the race (insert choice depending on the driver talking); oh, we are sure that there should be a way to overtake around here, though if someone had managed to find it already it would be easier... and we will enjoy the beautiful landscape surrounding this exciting circuit *insert PR flashy smiles*.

Retransmission will resume sometime after my siesta.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A comment from FA: it's easier that Spain win against Chile that I do it here in Valencia.

Don't know what to think. Is it good or bad? eusa_think.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I still wonder why they bother with having drivers and team principals show up for those press conferences. Cut out the middle-man and just let the team's PR person do them.

I'm usually a fan of any race on any circuit, but to be honest Valencia bores the hell out of me. The only reason I even watch this race is to see the beautiful spanish women in the background.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Woohoo! Report already seems promising! I love it!

Oh, no...sorry, I said promising but I meant promiscuous. Oh, well...

Roll on Valencia!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Q: Vitaly, you are almost a local driver here and at least you have experience of the circuit as well. Do you feel that this is a home race for you given that you don’t have a proper home race?

Vitaly Petrov: No, of course my home is in Russia, but this is almost my second home as I was living here for three years as my team was here for three years, so I moved here but now my team is Renault, so I will move to England. I know the circuit quite well as all morning I was running around this circuit.

Q: You are just about to come up to complete your first half of the season. How do you think it has gone for you, a personal self-assessment as it were.

VP: Really I don’t like to speak about this. I don’t like to say something about myself, what was good. It was quite good results, quite bad races also. Canada was not so good. I think I am still learning. I have still a lot of races until the end of the year. I hope I will improve. I am pretty happy.

Q: Do you measure yourself against Robert Kubica? How do you get on with him and are you getting closer to his performances?

VP: Of course I am getting closer. Each weekend I try to be closer to him. But anyway I do my job. I try not to focus on him. I just try to focus on myself, my driving, to improve the car with the engineers and try to do good results, for example, like Turkey. Except one touch, but it was okay.

Q: To the front row, it is to some extent a second home race to you guys. What does it mean to you individually?

Jaime Alguersuari: It is always good to drive in Spain. In Barcelona it was a good environment. It is always nice to drive in your home race. For me that was Barcelona and this race is the second race I did last year after my debut and it is the first race this year that I drove last year, so it is going to be nice. Let’s see how we get on during the weekend. I am really excited.

Fernando Alonso: It is always good racing in your home country. Hopefully we will put on a good show for all the people here. As Jaime said with Barcelona and Valencia we are lucky to have these two opportunities in front of our people, so as I said hopefully we will put on a good show for them.

Pedro de la Rosa: For me it is a second opportunity in my home country in front of the Spanish fans. In Barcelona I didn't manage to finish and here I hope we will and hopefully fight for the points as well. A second opportunity and hopefully it won’t slip through my fingers.

Q: An interesting point is that you haven’t raced here before and your team-mate also hasn’t raced, whereas with Toro Rosso both of their drivers have been here before. What does that mean to you? How easy is it to learn the circuit?

PdlR: Well, I think it will not be a problem. We have on Friday two hour-and-a-half sessions and it is more than enough to learn a track. It won’t compromise the weekend, especially knowing the first session normally is very dirty here, so you cannot really learn much on set-up, so we don’t compromise the track time in changing the car. We will drive the first session, learn the track and get ready for the second one which is always more representative of the track for the Saturday and Sunday. So no issues. Just learn a new track which is always a great pleasure.

Q: I understand that quite recently you have been karting. What was the thinking behind you going karting?

JA: Because I love karting. I love karting like Formula One as I like to drive cars. Last year I did the World Cup and this year hopefully I can do another race. Between Formula One races I go to Italy to train and also in Spain here at some tracks. I train quite a lot. Karting I think is the best method to train for a driver for Formula One, for rally, whatever, as you train a lot of things and you also do cardiovascular training and at the end what you need is to drive. Also the fact I am training quite a lot on karting as we don’t have much testing in Formula One, I mean we have no testing in Formula One, so for me it is always nice and at the end it is another tool to drive.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Carlos Miquel - Diario AS) Fernando, you tested the new car at Fiorano; what were your feelings and what do you think the improvement in lap time could be?

FA: The feeling was very good. I was running behind a car with cameras, so it was very good at 60kph, very stable. We also did some laps without a car in front but we had like ten cameras on the car and on the helmet, so it was not very comfortable to drive. It was also my first time driving a Ferrari Formula One car at Fiorano, so I really have no idea but I think tomorrow we will have a better answer. We expect a step up with the car, a little bit quicker but as I said before, I think all the other teams will bring some new parts here, so I think the most important thing is to confirm that we are competitive here, as we did in Canada, and we need to keep improving the car. Silverstone, Hockenheim, Budapest… it’s not one evolution in the car, in the year and you stop. This is a job that we need to keep doing until Abu Dhabi, so there is a long way to go but we are optimistic.

Q: (Carlos Miquel - Diario AS) And Jaime and Pedro, what about your future next season?

PdlR: It’s a good question, really. I don’t really know, it’s very early. June is still too early, we should wait a little bit more, maybe a couple of months. So nothing 100 percent, but I believe I will still be in Formula One, at least that’s what I want, and it’s not looking too bad for next year.

JA: I don’t know. I don’t know what I do next race, so… I hope I can be in Formula One with the same team, with Toro Rosso and we will see.

Q: (Jaime Rodriguez - El Mundo) For all of you, are you following the World Cup and for the three Spanish drivers, what do you expect tomorrow in our match against Chile?

FA: Yes.

JA: Yeah, yeah, we follow. Spain. We will win.

FA: Easy, easy, easy. We will win. That’s for sure.

PdlR: Against Chile or the final?

FA: Chile, if we don’t win, we don’t deserve…

PdlR: Ah, I think this year is a big one for us in the World Cup. I’m very happy that Fernando already has the red T-shirt on. We will do well. I really support Spain, very, very much. I like their attitude and how the players are approaching it.

VL: I will let you know in a few hours if I follow it again. For sure we have a good chance but we will see.

VP: Yeah, I follow it but it’s bad luck the Russian team is not in the World Cup. Yes, I like watching Spain playing and I’m also living here, so I will also support Spain tomorrow.

FA: Good

As promised, the more or less interesting parts of the conference, you can find the full version on www.f1.com as usual.

What we see here is that it seems that Valencia is "a home race" for Petrov but "almost" a home race for the three Spaniards, intriguing...

The guy seems to be happy (breaking news, after all this is F1 we're talking about :P ) and seems to think he can measure up to Kubica (you'll never match that nose, better give it up before you cry in despair... and that brings me to a very nice piece of Quevedo's poetry that I always enjoyed when I had to study it at school "Érase un hombre a una nariz pegado...", oh the memories, hahah).

We also see that Alguersuari likes having fun carting, that Fernando "likes" driving a car with uncountable cameras all over it (wonder who came up with that xD) and that everyone is very patriotic (Vitaly!! XD) and crazy about football. Isn't the world a happy place.

To AleHop, I guess Alonso isn't complaining that much if he says that Spain will win easy thing :)

And a special mention for Shumikonen, I actually considered your idea of a bilingual report, but it's already too much work to try to come up with sentences in one language... maybe I'll think of a few bad jokes in Spanish to compensate. ¿Sabes el del hombre entre las dos vallas? "Vaya, hombre, vaya" :P

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I still wonder why they bother with having drivers and team principals show up for those press conferences. Cut out the middle-man and just let the team's PR person do them.

I'm usually a fan of any race on any circuit, but to be honest Valencia bores the hell out of me. The only reason I even watch this race is to see the beautiful spanish women in the background.

And that's already a feat in itself, they must be pretty alright for you to wake up at night to watch!

Woohoo! Report already seems promising! I love it!

Oh, no...sorry, I said promising but I meant promiscuous. Oh, well...

Roll on Valencia!

:lol:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Q: To the front row, it is to some extent a second home race to you guys. What does it mean to you individually?

Jaime Alguersuari: "It is always good to drive in Spain. In Barcelona it was a good environment. It is always nice to drive in your home race. For me that was Barcelona and this race is the second race I did last year after my debut and it is the first race this year that I drove last year, so it is going to be nice. Let’s see how we get on during the weekend. I am really excited."

????

Should he decide I think young Mr. Alguersuari has real potential in American politics with statements like that. tongue.gif

Bah: don't my mind me. He finds the means to impress every race weekend and his English is far superior to my Spanish. Besides, he gets to mingle with a lot of those beautiful Spanish women Mike is dreaming of...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Odd as it may seem, I actually understood that quote from young Jaime even though he apparently went to the Rumsfeld School of Spoken English.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

McLarens are looking less convincing in free practices. Red Bull for the win. Perhaps Alonso or Kubica for a podium. Would be nice to see either of them up there.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I went to f1.com to see if there was anything interesting. I read "Ferrari optimistic about blown diffuser" and thought "What good is there in a diffuser that blows up?" There, your reporter this time has a very low standard, sorry :P

But Red Bulls are top, na-na-na-na-naa-na XD

Now seriously, I'll be watching qualifying (thanks to the MotoGP race being marginally less interesting than F1 qualy). Talk to you later XD

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Q1 is over and Kobayashi took the shame spot this time joining the new teams but that was not without drama, Schumi was in that spot until his last lap and te team was telling him that he might have a Power Steering problem but he managed to get the 12th place.

Kubica

Vettel

Button

Rubens

Alonso

Webber

Massa

Hamilton

:angry: The live timing screen was reseted and I didn't have time to finish my list.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Schumi is one of the fisrt out to the track in Q2 if he was having a problem, did it was fixed or he just continued like that?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Lorenzo won yet another MotoGP race...

Oh, wait, this doesn't go here. The Mercedes take the "shame spots" of Q2, 12th and 15th, both behind the Toro Rosso of Buemi. De La Rosa and Alguersuari 16th and 17th, nothing brilliant at their home race. I'm missing someone so I guess Hulkenberg and someone else XD

EDIT: Nope, he's bad but he went through somehow :P It's the Force Indias, thanks Tommy ^^

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Lorenzo won yet another MotoGP race...

Oh, wait, this doesn't go here. The Mercedes take the "shame spots" of Q2, 12th and 15th, both behind the Toro Rosso of Buemi. De La Rosa and Alguersuari 16th and 17th, nothing brilliant at their home race. I'm missing someone so I guess Hulkenberg and someone else XD

EDIT: Nope, he's bad but he went through somehow :P It's the Force Indias, thanks Tommy ^^

:lol:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What happen to the big upgrade Ferrari had for this track? the only reason they are looking better is for the bad shape of Mercedes and Force India.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Italian Tv journalist, frustrated that Ferrari have not performed to their expectations is now witch hunting Lewis for that small error in his final attemt, calling it acrobatic etc.... :lol:

creative ways to hide from reality...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...