All-purpose open-wheel (F1, IRL) racing thread

Raikkonen is back in F1, he's going to be racing for Lotus (Renault) this season.

 

Niki Lauda walked away at 29, but came back a few years later when he needed money for his airline.

 

I haven't paid much attention to F1 silly season this year. I hope Kimi enjoys scraping the bottom of the points.

 

Chief silly season headlines:

Kimi is back, paired with Grosjean at Lotus (The Artist Formerly Known as Renault).

Williams has two pay drivers -- Senna and Maldonado -- and Rubens may switch to IndyCar if his wife will let him do ovals.

Rubens, Petrov, Sutil, Liuzzi, D'Ambrosio and both Toro Rosso drivers are out of work.

The new cars that have been unveiled have spectacularly ugly front ends, with the notable exception of McLaren, which probably means McLaren got it wrong. The regulations call for a lower nose, and everyone but McLaren has created a huge bump where the front suspension connects. The new Ferrari looks like it was made out of Legos.

 

Petrov deserves better. I thought he was decent. Especially since a quick look at the 2012 grid reveals that Pedro Freaking de la Rosa has a ride.

 

Petrov did a decent job and brings money, but apparently his Russian sponsors are very slow to play. For a little while he was rumored to take Trulli's spot at Caterham but supposedly the check never came.

 

Meyers is smooth and polished, yet also gives good quotes. Pretty rare combo for a short track guy. In my experience, WoO guys are pretty good at talking with reporters while doing autographs. A few years ago at Knoxville I interviewed Joey Saldana after a race, who complained Steve Kinser kept blocking him. While he was signing autographs, I asked Kinser for his reaction. Kinser looked up for a moment, glared at me and growled "He sure cries a lot."

 

IndyCar plans to make a beer run in mid-June.

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20120210/IRL/120219975

 

RIP Irwindale?

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/story/_/id/7572437/struggling-irwindale-speedway-cancels-season

 

The rumor floating around has Lucas Oil purchasing the track and turning it into a 1/3-mile dirt track. That started at the Chili Bowl last month, so who knows how much of that is based in fact and how much is based in reality. (There was also the obligatory "Tony Stewart will buy it" rumor that seems to pop up any time a track is in trouble.)

They'll need to find a new home for the Turkey Night Grand Prix this year. It would have to be either Perris (my guess) or Bakersfield - Ventura's way too small for it and I can't imagine them moving it all the way out to Las Vegas.

 

IndyCar is eliminating double-file restarts at Indianapolis, Texas and Fontana and using heat races instead of qualifying to determine starting spots for Iowa.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20120214/SPORTS0107/120214021/Barfield-Single-file-approach-Indy-500-restarts-better?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Obviously, the double-file restarts at Indianapolis had to go. As a short-track guy, I love experimenting with heat races, although I'm not a huge fan of using practice times to set the heat race line-up - especially if one heat race is going to determine the top 10 spots.

 

The Lucas Oil rumor makes a lot of sense; Lucas is based in my town of residence, which is about 30 minutes from Irwindale.