official F1 World Championship 2011 Thread

[Subject Delta]

It's both. If it wasn't entertaining then people wouldn't watch, sponsorship would go way down and F1 wouldn't be the world phenomenon that it currently is.

It's also a sport, showing the best drivers, engineers etc. in the world of motorsport.

So what's wrong with having sprinklers on a track and make the track wet for some laps at some random point in the GP? It would showcase just how good the drivers are, the teams for having to pit and change wheels etc. and would generally just make it a better event IMO.

Formula 1 fans, on the whole tend to be pretty knowledgeable. If it's artificial and put on, it won't entertain them.

[deuz]

It's both. If it wasn't entertaining then people wouldn't watch, sponsorship would go way down and F1 wouldn't be the world phenomenon that it currently is.

It's also a sport, showing the best drivers, engineers etc. in the world of motorsport.

So what's wrong with having sprinklers on a track and make the track wet for some laps at some random point in the GP? It would showcase just how good the drivers are, the teams for having to pit and change wheels etc. and would generally just make it a better event IMO.

Well, we'll agree to disagree because i'd rather watch a normal race as opposed to some silly sideshow 'event'(it can only go down hill)? Is there any motorsport that does anything stupid like this.

Formula 1 fans, on the whole tend to be pretty knowledgeable. If it's artificial and put on, it won't entertain them.

+1

[deuz]

anyways, i think it will rain on sunday.... its been cloudy as **** up here and also down in melbourne today.

[ahmz]

Vettel amazing pole position by 8 tenths 1:23.529

TV graphic showed him do a 1:23.6 without using KERS, maybe an error? If not, amazing.

[TheLegendOfMart]

Awesome stuff i was REALLY worried about Mclaren this year but with the dead weight of faulty KERS in Q3 Hamilton is on the front row and Jenson is in a strong position he won the race from fourth last year. Its going to be interesting.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Great qualifying with a few surprises:

• McLaren are faster than one would have thought after the Barcelona test.
  
• Ferrari are nowhere near the RBR. Unless they can improve massively in the race Luca di Montezemolo will tear some of his employees a new one.
  
• Sauber. Where the **** did they find the speed?
  
• Mercedes GP were somewhat underwhelming. Here's hoping for a strong race tomorrow.
  

Rejects of the weekend: HRT. They might as well not bother competing in the championship this year.

[TheLegendOfMart]

It's both. If it wasn't entertaining then people wouldn't watch, sponsorship would go way down and F1 wouldn't be the world phenomenon that it currently is.

It's also a sport, showing the best drivers, engineers etc. in the world of motorsport.

So what's wrong with having sprinklers on a track and make the track wet for some laps at some random point in the GP? It would showcase just how good the drivers are, the teams for having to pit and change wheels etc. and would generally just make it a better event IMO.

I agree and why stop there, why not remove the KERS button from inside the car and have random light up sensors on the track that if you drive over you get a "turbo" KERS boost, maybe have contact pads so you can unlock oil slicks to use at your will, or even better put guns and missiles on the cars!!!!!!!!!

Great qualifying with a few surprises:

• McLaren are faster than one would have thought after the Barcelona test.
  
• Ferrari are nowhere near the RBR. Unless they can improve massively in the race Luca di Montezemolo will tear some of his employees a new one.
  
• Sauber. Where the **** did they find the speed?
  
• Mercedes GP were somewhat underwhelming. Here's hoping for a strong race tomorrow.
  

Rejects of the weekend: HRT. They might as well not bother competing in the championship this year.

I think Renault are also rejects this weekend, of the frontline teams anyway. After all the hype and trumpeting about this 'revolutionary' new exhaust system didnt do diddly squat for them.

[simonlang]

*opens a can of redbull* :p :laugh:

[ghostrider86]

Amazing RBR! Good Petrov. Nich "the Dick" as expected. :p

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Times from today's qualifying:

Pos  Driver                Team                  Time             
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m23.529s  + 0.778s
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m24.307s  + 0.866s
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m24.395s  + 1.250s
 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m24.779s  + 1.445s
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m24.974s  + 1.718s
 6.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault               1m25.247s  + 1.892s
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m25.421s  + 2.070s
 8.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m25.599s  + 2.097s
 9.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m25.626s  + 3.537s
10.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.066s  + 2.442s
Q2 cut-off time: 1m25.882s                          
11.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m25.971s
12.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m26.103s
13.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m26.108s
14.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m26.739s
15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth     1m26.768s
16.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1m31.407s
17.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth
Q3 cut-off time: 1m27.222s                          
18.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault               1m27.239s
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault         1m29.254s
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault         1m29.342s
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth       1m29.858s
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth       1m30.822s
23.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth          1m32.978s
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m34.2932

107% time: 1m31.266s

[what]

As I've said in IRC before, HRT are an absolute disgrace. They won't last long this year. No one will want to sponsor them if they can't even make it to race day.

Another thing I've said in IRC before now, Renault should have gone with Senna to replace Kubica. Heidfeld has proven time and again throughout his career that while he may be experienced, he isn't an exceptional driver, and todays qualifying just proved that further. With Senna they would have been dealing with an unknown and would have had two rookies in the team, but Petrov held his own in qualifying today and Senna might be a dark horse that was never given the opportunity with HRT last year.

Di Resta did well. I look forward to seeing how he does throughout the season.

Ferrari are disappointing and Massa looks awful. What was with that spinout on turn 1 as he came out of the pits? Just as much of a schoolboy error as Barichello's spin in Q2.

Vettel is on fire, but it's great to see the McLarens in the mix. I just hope they can develop positively from here rather than have another exhaust fiasco, otherwise I can see RBR running away from them very quickly.

Look forward to the race tomorrow :) Will be interesting to see how more pit stops affect things.

And just as an aside, I thought MB and DC did a great job on commentating. I never said 'what the **** are you on about?' so that's saying something.

[ghostrider86]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo1aJHz5taU

[MightyJordan]

Another thing I've said in IRC before now, Renault should have gone with Senna to replace Kubica.

Agreed. I was really hoping Renault would give Senna the chance he deserves in F1. He deserves to be in a better team than HRT.

[Subject Delta]

Great qualifying with a few surprises:

• McLaren are faster than one would have thought after the Barcelona test.
  
• Ferrari are nowhere near the RBR. Unless they can improve massively in the race Luca di Montezemolo will tear some of his employees a new one.
  
• Sauber. Where the **** did they find the speed?
  
• Mercedes GP were somewhat underwhelming. Here's hoping for a strong race tomorrow.
  

Rejects of the weekend: HRT. They might as well not bother competing in the championship this year.

In McLaren's case, agreed. They clearly are no one lap match for the red bull, however it will be very interesting to see if they can match them over a long run. In the case of Ferrari, over the past few years, they have been known to produce cars that are kind to their tyres. I would guess that the cold track may well have hampered their performance a bit, although in Q1 Alonso's car did not look all that well balanced, although it appears that the biggest chunk of his time loss always seemed to be in the third sector of the lap for some reason. As for HRT, I don't even know what they're doing on the grid, it's clear to me that they are never going to compete.

Edit: Looks like I was right about Ferrari

http://www.itv.com/formula1/news/2011/3/alonso-thinks-ferrari-tyre-plight-a-one-off-4423/

[brentaal]

Agreed. I was really hoping Renault would give Senna the chance he deserves in F1. He deserves to be in a better team than HRT.

Why exactly does he 'deserve' a chance?

[starbearer]

That was electrifying pace shown by the Red Bull reigning champion.

Concerned about Mercedes GP and Schumacher.They just didn't get their act together.I'm surprised Michael missed the cut-off.His form's been fairly reasonably recently.Well,as they can choose their tyres,and the top 10 cannot,he'll have a bit of an advantage over them.Hope Brawn comes up with a decent strategy.

Rain might make it exciting tomorrow as well,all sliding about on the Pirelli tyres.

[Subject Delta]

I watched the after quali show from the BBC, and apparently Lewis Hamilton had a failure of his KERS system on his last flying lap, which may help to explain some of the reason that he was so far off seb's time. That considered, getting 2nd was quite some achievement.

[san.W10]

RBR taking dump on Webber again ? :p

Q. Mark, it was seven-one-hundredths-of-a-second between you and Sebastian here last year. It is a lot more than that this year. What went wrong?

Mark WEBBER: Yeah. Couldn't do the times today. I was disappointed, obviously, with my performance. Seb put in a very good lap. Obviously, disappointed to get bumped off the front row as well. Tried my best. Mystified to the gap to Seb, to be honest. I will have to go through it and have a look at where I can improve and go from there. So bit frustrating, of course, but credit to the team. The guys have done an incredible job. It is not the best day for me. The bar is high but I would like to have done better today but we still have to reflect on the performance of the team today and what they have done over the winter is a great effort.

Post-qualifying press conference

after getting out his car, he was checkin SV's car :rofl:

Hamilton, Schumacher get warnings

Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg have escaped grid penalties despite being found guilty of impeding other cars during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

The FIA stewards, including three-time grand prix winner Johnny Herbert, opted only to warn the trio despite having the power to demote them on the grid for Sunday's race after viewing video evidence and hearing evidence from the drivers themselves.

Hamilton and Rosberg's offences occurred in Q2, when they were found to have baulked Vitaly Petrov and Sergio Perez respectively, while Nick Heidfeld was impeded by Schumacher during Q1.

In each case, and FIA statement indicated that "the stewards decide to warn the driver as to his future conduct."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90251

[san.W10]

Autosport forum - 'photoshopped' thread

F1 WARS

Starring:

Young Fernando Alonso as Anakin Skywalker:

Fernando Alonso as Darth Vader:

Sebastian Vettel as Luke Skywalker:

Michael Schumacher as Master Yoda:

Nico Rosberg as Princess Leia:

Bernie Ecclestone as Evil Palpatine:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :laugh:

more - http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=135088&st=760&start=760

[Subject Delta]

No conspiracy here, Seb just made Webbo look very ordinary.

[ahmz]

I watched the after quali show from the BBC, and apparently Lewis Hamilton had a failure of his KERS system on his last flying lap, which may help to explain some of the reason that he was so far off seb's time. That considered, getting 2nd was quite some achievement.

And Vettel didn't use KERS on his qualifying lap, so that's a true 8 tenths difference. Really amazing lap by Vettel.

[MightyJordan]

Autosport forum - 'photoshopped' thread

F1 WARS

*snipped*

There's a few new ones up there now...

Lewis Hamilton as Lando Calrissian and Jenson Button as Han Solo:

Mark Webber as Chewbacca:

Felipe Massa as C-3PO:

:p

[ahmz]

Race winning pass by Vettel on Button, let's see if he can hold it til the chequered flag.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Race winning pass by Vettel on Button, let's see if he can hold it til the chequered flag.

I'm not so sure yet. The RBR is harder on the tyres than the McLaren, which could play into Hamilton's hands.

[PsYcHoKiLLa]

I had problems with the timing page on F1, found out my Java was out of date, although it hadn't updated itself.

Anyone who doesn't know about the timing page....

Access it here (You need to be signed into your account on the Formula 1 site, which is free to register for), I also find it's better to try to sign in well before the race/quali start as the site gets busy obviously.