Formula 1 2015 Discussion

Here is the view up to turn one from where we sat. I didn't catch many good pictures of this angle, as every time something interesting happened thousands of people stood up and held up their damn phones.

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Tiltsta said:
An interesting factoid...I was talking to a corner worker on my track walk time after the race about what happens to all the car parts that fly off after crashes and he said anything big enough to pick up is returned to teams for the FIA car weigh in after the race. Apparently, even wrecked cars can be picked for random weight inspection, and they need to have the broken pieces. The teams also want the parts afterwards to see if they can determined how they failed. He said it wasn't unusual to have a runner from a team walk over to the corner after a crash with a bag to collect all the fragments.
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Back when they ran F1 at Long Beach we used to go. My uncle would get pit passes for himself and track passes so he could roam while taking pics, (He got inside the wall at the Queen's Hairpin one year and was able to lean over the track and take head-on pics of the cars as they approached the turn). One year Alan Jones hit a wall pretty hard and sheared off a side pod (this was in the ground effects era).

My uncle was in the Williams pit taking pics when the side pod came in from the track. He asked if they were going to use it and they told him he could take it.

For years my cousin had a side pod from Jones' car hung on his wall.
 
Well, Rosberg finally pulled his head out of his ass long enough to win a race. Hamilton seemed none too pleased. Great result for Williams, with Bottas 3rd and Massa 6th. I loved Bottas giving Kimi some payback! Overall, a pretty boring race, though.
 
Bottas straight up speared Kimi. No doubt about it, and I love the fact that the Race Stewards completely turned a blind eye. That incident went from "under investigation" to "no further action necessary" in the span of a couple laps. Meanwhile, they were still trying to decide what if any action to take in the Vettel/Ricciardo event on the opening lap.

Btw, that was all on Vettel. He gave Ricciardo nowhere to go. Vettel drove like a petulant little twit all day until it finally bit him hard enough to take him out completely. He just lost his shit for some reason. Both Ferrari cars coming back to the pits in pieces was not something Maranello is going to be very happy about. I suspect that with the time difference, a series of meetings and phone calls filled with spastic hand gestures and the spitting of every known Italian expletives have already taken place. Ricky Ricardo meets Sam Kinison.

Nice race for Williams again. I wish Massa could have placed higher. He was the "fastest" car on track. Nearly hit 227MPH in P3. F1 hasn't seen speed like that in a long time.
 
I disagree about the Bottas/Raikkonen incident. Kimi's infraction at Sochi was much worse. Bottas had an opening, and Kimi closed the door. Kimi knew he was there, since they were side by side in the previous turn. I'd call it a racing incident.
 
Oh, and surprise, surprise: Mateschitz has extended the end-of-October deadline for finding an engine for next year. My money's on Renault.
 
It was good to see more racing in the Americas, and great to see a return to Mexico. The track looked like a great venue for the fans with that crazy baseball stadium section, but the actual racing wasn't very exciting. Really the only highlights were how green the track surface was, and how insanely fast the cars were blasting through the speed traps. Looked like a heck of a nice podium ceremony and the Mexicans seemed really happy to have F1 back.

The slicing across the nose of a car already well committed to the apex of a corner seems to be a trend the last few weeks, as does unsafely tucking inside a car committed to the racing line. Penalties are hard to judge, as the stewards change from race to race, and it is hard to really see everything from the TV feed. Anyway, I don't have any complaints about what was handed out. I suspect the next driver's meeting will have a lot of discussion on this slamming the door on cars mid corner resulting in collisions as an unsafe practice. I imagine Charlie Whiting will be glaring at the Ferrari duo during this presentation.
 
Flatspotter said:
I disagree about the Bottas/Raikkonen incident. Kimi's infraction at Sochi was much worse. Bottas had an opening, and Kimi closed the door. Kimi knew he was there, since they were side by side in the previous turn. I'd call it a racing incident.
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That sounds a lot like an agreement. :)

Valteri made no apparent effort to avoid that contact. If you're saying that he didn't purposely crash Kimi, I agree. If you're saying he didn't purposely NOT crash Kimi, I disagree.

I have no doubt that Valteri was sporting an evil grin under that visor both during, and immediately following that incident. Kimi is his hero, and that was classic Kimi being doled out upon Kimi. I love it. Love Kimi too, but it was beautiful and poetic.
 
I finally got to see the race last night and I had been avoiding this thread until I watched it.

Wow, Vettel just came unglued. He was seeing the red mist through the whole race and drove like an idiot. That's is still a problem with him, when he's under pressure he cracks and makes mistakes. Even if Ferrari manage to match Mercedes pace next year, I don't think Vettel will win the championship.

I think that Kimi's wreck was a bit of payback from Bottas for the Sochi incident. I don't think he intended to wreck Kimi, but I don't think he was too sorry about how it turned out.

McLaren look worse now than they did at the beginning of the year. They might as well keep bringing new engines to the next few races, because they are nowhere near being competitive. I hope Honda can get that engine working better with a lot more power next year.

One thing that was fun to watch was the drivers struggling with the lack of grip due to the thin air reducing downforce. It was cool to see them sliding through the corners.
 
OGG said:
If you're saying that he didn't purposely crash Kimi, I agree. If you're saying he didn't purposely NOT crash Kimi, I disagree.
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I think we're in agreement there. :)

I'm sure that when Bottas looked in his mirror and saw Kimi at the side of the track and realized his own car was undamaged, his grin was wider than his visor.

There's still a lot of wild speculation going on about Red Bull's engine crisis. Everything from running unbranded Renaults (as if no one would know what they were) to getting bought by Renault, to running Hondas in spite of Ron Dennis' objections.
 
The unbranded Renault engine (ICE only) with Red Bull's own energy recovery system seems to be the leading rumor at this point.
 
Totally bummed out that Suzie Wolf has decided to hang up the helmet. I really like her, not only can she drive like a demon, but she is unbearably cute and beeming with personality. She was good for the sport.
 
Yeah, that's a shame, but realistically , her career was going nowhere. It's not clear to me if she's quitting racing altogether or just F1. She could probably get a ride in Indycars if she wanted to.
 
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Both Wolf and Carmen Jorda certainly have the skills to not only drive an F1 car, but do so with pace, and they both are known to be great development drivers. It is a shame neither one has managed an actual race seat. You would think some of the slower teams might consider a better team's development driver as a real catch for getting their own car up to pace. F1 really should have a female driver or two on the grid. It certainly wouldn't hurt the expansion of the appeal of the sport, and you would think a smart team could get a whole slew of new and novel sponsorship and media angles. In place of something good like this, we get unlikeable oafs like Pastor Maldanado playing bumper cars.
 
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Well that was a boring race, but I guess they can't all be thrillers. I think Max is the real deal and one of the most exciting drivers on the grid.
 
I'm already focused on next season. These constant seasons of one team completely dominating the field are starting to take a toll on my enjoyment of the sport.

It sucks.

Even IF the dominant team was my favorite team, and my favorite driver was walking away from the pack every time the lights went out, it would get old pretty quick.

In related totally bummer news, looks like the assholes running Texas are trying to reneg on their deal with the FIA, and the future of COTA hosting any further Grands Prix is in serious doubt.

In two years we went from potentially hosting two races every year (Texas and New JerseyYork), to being once again without a single event.

Meanwhile, NASCAR is stronger than ever. There is no justice in this world.
 
OGG said:
Meanwhile, NASCAR is stronger than ever. There is no justice in this world.
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Really? I keep hearing about NASCAR's plummeting ratings and track attendance.

There's talk about a race somewhere in California, but you'd have to be an idiot to host an F1 race these days. There's no way it's not going to be a huge loss in this country.

On the plus side, Indycar may be racing in Boston next year. If they do, I'll definitely be there.
 
Part of the problem is that all the advertising is controlled by FOM, so the hosting track can't even recover the sanction fee through sponsorship deals. So the only place to get any money at all is from a government source. This is something that should change IMO. Otherwise the only places that will be hosting F1 races will be in the Middle East and China.
 
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