Ferrari2007 Wrote:
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> How did you feel when Alesi finally left at the
> end of 2001? I suppose he was far from his peak by
> then but it would have been similar to how I felt
> seeing Schuey and Pedro go.
I felt a curious mix of emotions. I was sad to see him retire(I absolutely loved him during his early years, a lot like Gav I think), there was almost a sense of achievement about having watched an entire career of a top F1 driver from start to finish(I'd clocked ages beforehand that he'd be my first "complete career driver" when he finally stopped), and I somehow felt old too, even though I was only 18.
Even now I think Alesi was a phenomenal talent which just got lost. His drives at Phoenix and Monaco in 1990 were genuinely Senna-esque IMO. With the right car and the right team environment and coaching, I'm pretty sure he would've been a Champion, maybe more than once too.
gav Wrote:
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> It's not Alesi I have in my avatar, it's Villeneuve.
I always thought it was Reutemann or Lauda.
gav Wrote:
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> I don't know my first race, but up until the
> mid-2000s (the first Chinese GP in 2004, when I
> was at Donington) I hadn't missed a race since
> sometime in 1989 - it might even have been the
> opener, with Mansell winning in the polystyrene
> Ferrari 640. So yeah, it's been 11 years since the
> last remaining driver retired.
Hehehe, best description of the Ferrari 640 ever. Probably one of the most polarising F1 cars I can think of. I loved it when I first watched F1 because Mansell was always doing well in it and Berger was always retiring, which made me think he was @#$%& at the time.
There's a story I have regarding the 2004 Chinese GP too as it happens. I lived in student accommodation in Dundee Uni Halls at the time(I'd moved there in May of that year) and my mate(also a massive F1 fan) was staying over for the weekend with a couple of his flatmates from Edinburgh, with the intention of watching the race at mine. I happened to be staying with a whole bunch of Erasmus students who'd recently moved in for the start of the new academic year(I was the only Scottish guy in the flat) and on the Saturday night before the race they'd been on a night out at the Union. Me and my mates had just settled down to sleep for a few hours before the GP when all my flatmates and their friends suddenly burst into the flat(My bedroom was directly above the kitchen) and the whole flat erupted. There was no way we could've got any sleep, even if my flatmates hadn't been banging on my door to invite us to join them. So we all joined the party for half an hour or so(the kitchen had been transformed into a crowded nightclub by this point) before getting a taxi over to my mate's parents' house, where we got an hour or two of sleep before watching the GP in his living room.
(Actually this was probably for the best - we weren't allowed TV in the Halls without a TV license and I'd set up a TV in the kitchen with an aerial which was meant for indoor use, plugged into the TV and perched on a wall outside the kitchen back door - it couldn't get a signal inside because the walls of the house were too thick. The reception quality was constantly fluctuating, and that weekend it was terrible for some reason. I watched those BTCC races at Donington later that Sunday on said TV, and God, the signal was
awful. So, ending up watching the GP somewhere with proper TV reception was probably a good last-minute unplanned change!)
> I know nothing of the 70s
The early 70s was the time of historic F1 that I fell in love with! Maybe because the cars looked so exaggerated with the rapidly-growing rear tyres and tall airboxes, maybe because F1 was going through such a massive period of change, but anyway it happened. I knew the result of every single race by heart at one point just by reading up on it, maybe I still do, I've not bothered testing myself on it for years. And this was before YouTube.
I have some knowledge of the late 70s, but not as much - my interest in it tails off a bit after 1976.
J i m Wrote:
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> Schumacher is probably the last of my original
> generation which means I've now been a F1 follower
> for over 20 years.
I watched the 1991 Belgian GP when I'd just turned 8. Now he's just retired for the second time and I'm 29. Holy crap! That's one rather long F1 career. :P
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2012 05:26AM by EC83.