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

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

Wish I'd know the race was on Fox, otherwise I would've watched the whole thing. I stumbled upon it channel-surfing.

 

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

Is the Hamilton story getting enough play? Ed Hinton's story emphasized the historical significance of this event in the Tribune papers, but it seems like most outlets are not recognizing how big this it.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-hinton11jun11,1,1354397.story?coll=chi-sportstop-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

 

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

McLaren is probably embarassed that Sato passed Alonso, but give Sato his due (for once), that was a helluva pass. He outbroke Alonso, didn't have the greatest line on the outside of the turn and still pulled it off.

Aside from Hamilton and the McLaren-Ferrari fight (increasingly tipping towards McLaren), Super Aguri's unforeseen progress is the best story of the season. The worst being the utter ineptitude of Honda and Toyota.

 

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

I absolutely love seeing Super Aguri competing so soon. I think that's great for the sport.

I've come to expect rampant stupidity from Toyota, but Honda has been shockingly bad this year. How do you consistently get your ass kicked by last year's car?

A few other notes...

-- I finally saw a partial explanation for the unexpected Davidson pit stop -- supposedly he hit a beaver.

-- Funny that it's Canada where Massa and Fisi get nailed for the red light violation -- isn't that where Villeneuve was penalized for the exact same thing a couple of years ago?

-- It's amazing that Wurz made the podium while missing a huge chunk of the rear wing assembly.

-- I'm increasingly convinced that Kimi is the most overrated driver of his generation, and may not even be top 5 right now.

-- If you're at Indy this weekend wave goodbye to Ralf Schumacher as he goes by. I'm guessing it's his last race in F1. (If I was running Toyota he'd be gone by now.)

 

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

Quick question being an open-wheel novice. Is a "Grand Prix" race defined as one with a pre-set time limit rather than a certain number of laps? I was confused by the Portland race Sunday. I know they put time limits on rain-shortened or otherwise delayed events, but what was the deal with this one?

 

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

That was a surprise to me as well, but it seems like that race has always hit the old two-hour time limit anyway.

And that wasn't a real Grand Prix race, although CART/CCWS promoters have almost always used that name. The Grand Prix was the Formula 1 race in Montreal yesterday.

 

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

Grand Prix is just French for "Grand Prize." It is most closely associated with Formula 1 racing, but they don't have any sort of exclusive claim to the term.

I assume Portland was timed simply to make sure it fit into the TV window, since Champ Car doesn't have the clout to get a network to run over its alloted time.

 

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

Champ Car is a time-buy: The series pays to be on TV. That's why its races are timed, so they can show a winner.

 

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

And that's true of every Champ Car race this year. Turned out Portland ran 103 laps instead of the 105 of the last couple of years. Not sure if those were timed races or not.
F1 races, incidentally, have a two-hour time limit, which comes into play only if there's rain.

 

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

I've been to and driven on the circuit at Montreal (in my hopped up Chrysler Grand Caravan! Stopped in the P1 slot on the grid to take a picture and nearly got ticketed) and those beavers are all over the place. One of them nearly killed itself running into Jarno Trulli's tire in Friday practice.

Didn't Al Unser Sr. run over a squirrel at Indy in the late 80s and the remains splattered all over Rick Mears?

As for Raikkonen, he's the Randy Moss of F1 drivers. On his day, he can dominate like no other.

But he's so rarely on his day and is so prone to mental lapses, he continually fucks himself over. He probably should have won the championship in '05 -- and did suffer some bad luck due to Mercedes' lack of reliability -- but hindsight tells us that maybe it wasn't all Mercedes. He seems to be a magnet for ill fortune, which his lackadasical nature doesn't help.

He's definitely slipping into mercurial mode and he's being consistently beaten by Felipe Massa, who's been better than expected, but who is supposed to be no match for Raikkonen's perceived talents.

I wonder if I still have the F1 Racing issue that had 20 or so experts rate whether they'd rather have Raikkonen or Alonso long term (published circa late '05 or early '06). The decision was heavily in Raikkonen's corner. I couldn't fathom that. Alonso has always been solid, is a damn good driver, a damn smart driver (see his rope-a-dope against Schumacher at Imola '05, probably the greatest driving performance I've seen), and someone who has a track record of elevating the team he's on (Minardi, Renault, now McLaren). I don't think there's any comparison anymore.

 

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

Agreed with all of that.

The word on Raikkonen is that he has little interest in working to set up the car properly, making him the anti-Schumacher. I don't think it's coincidental that the McLarens were unreliable while Kimi was there while Ferrari was bulletproof, and now Ferrari is getting worse while McLaren dominates.

I'd take Alonso, Hamilton, Massa and Heidfeld over Raikkonen right now. I'd consider Kubica and Rosberg, too.

Kimi strikes me as a glorified Jarno Trulli -- incredibly quick on occasion, but if things aren't perfect he zones out.

 

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

Future as in tomorrow's rate, or future as in long-term?