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

I had no idea that race was actually happening...until a friend texted me from the pits last night. Talk about a low-key event!

 

The short answer is, they originally had a June date and got it changed to November because the track wasn't going to be ready. The NASCAR scheduling sucked, but that's F1's problem, not Austin's. The race sold out.

Great race, too.

 

I like the podium stetsons.

 

A June date, in Texas? Really?

 

Yeah -- publicly they insisted they needed it moved because it would be too hot. In reality, they knew they couldn't be ready in time.

From a scheduling standpoint they've only got two options right now: paired with Canada in June, or paired with Brazil in November.

I think the June date makes much more sense, but I live in Phoenix. The threat of 90 degree weather on a race weekend doesn't faze me. Certainly, it would be hard to look at the crowd today and argue against the November date. It was a massive success.

And Z-Man, I laughed all through the podium ceremony. Those hats are brilliant.

 

I haven't watched the whole race yet, but the track looks fairly interesting.

 

It looks like HRT is history...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104673

 

Will Smoke take The Captain up on his offer to drive a Penske entry in the Indy 500? Hmmm...

 

Kinda surprised this thread has been dormant for a while, especially since the F1 season has started. Personally, I'm glad F1 in the U.S. is now on NBC Sports because I can now watch it for the first time in years. It was a bit telling this weekend, however. NBCSN had both F1 and IndyCar. When I checked the listings for Saturday night and all of Sunday, the F1 race was on live late Saturday/early Sunday and replayed twice. IndyCar was on live but not replayed.
As for the Malaysia race, it blew my mind how big of a mistake Ferrari and Alonso made by staying out with a damaged, badly sparking car after contact with Vettel. Hamilton going to the McClaren pit by mistake was pretty funny. Vettel ignoring team orders to let Webber win was poor form. I wonder if the team will penalize him for it by favoring Webber, but something tells me that if you're the three-time defending world champion, you can get away with something like that.

 

Was so pissed about that Alonso nonsense. Ferrari has since admitted it was their call, not Alonso's.

The podium was awesome in its awkwardness. Webber has no filter and I love it.

 

The Alonso thing was mystifying to me. There was no way that wing was going to hold. I can only assume they wanted to stay out until they could also switch off the inters, but that was never going to happen.

I'll say this for the Vettel thing -- it's been a while since we've had a really good villain in F1, but he's now taken the role nicely. That was the F1 equivalent of whacking your tag-team partner in the back of the head with a folding chair. What a twerp.

 

So Vettel now has a job with Infiniti. Kudos to Car and Driver for the headline.
http://blog.caranddriver.com/sebastian-vettel-named-infinitis-director-of-performance-director-of-teamwork-position-still-open-2013-new-york-auto-show/

The only problem with a Vettel-inspired Infiniti is when you try to slow the car down and stay in line, it suddenly gets silly and passes other cars. ;D