The Official 2010 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

top ten drivers have to race on the very same ones they qualified in, expect Rubens to do well!




LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat

LS. Wrote:
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> top ten drivers have to race on the very same ones
> they qualified in, expect Rubens to do well!

Maybe Sutil as well though, because he qualified on hard tyres (although I'm not sure if his best lap was on hards or softs)

Great work by the top 3 in particular, and also by Kubica and Sutil to get amongst the big teams.

Also, the layout extension isn't quite as bad as I thought it was, but I don't think it will add any overtaking

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X (@ed24f1)

I want to see the Hulk's race pace! :D


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Yeah, Rubens is looking handily placed to do good things tomorrow, and the tyre rules could play into his hands very nicely.

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So far been great weekend!!! Not much to say except visually the RedBull's and Ferrari's are amazing. The Ferrari is able to pick up the throttle very quickly whilst the RedBull has been carrying alot of speed into turn1, the Mclaren looked abit clumsy too (with locking). The other car I noticed who could carry speed and pick up the throttle was Kubica. Sat at turn1 grandstand across from TV... Fantastic stuff!

Tomorrow, the sight and sound of 24 cars racing towards turn1 is something i will never forget. Im sure there will be an accident!! The track is totally different to what I ever thought. Ive been before, twice however not on race weekends and it looked wide, flat but in reality its not that wide,a nd the banking on the final turn is pretty big!! The first turn looks so much tighter than I ever thought too!

On Thursday got to do pitlane walk.. got picture with Bruno, and his autograph. Buemi too! Other than that it was fantastic to get close to the cars. I took a few shots will show the good ones when I get home. I recorded a video too, Mclaren engine fire up. Tomorrow I will try capture start and run upto the turn. The sound is nothing short of amazing.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

Interesting comment on formula1.com, apparently HRT are still running the Cosworth engine in 'safe mode' because they're not yet sure of how it works with the car. So they should be able to instantly gain a couple of seconds per lap when that's turned up fully in Melbourne.

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Yeah, DC said something fairly similar - at least along the lines that Dallara are highly competent chassis manufacturers; once the team have sufficiently explored the capabilities of what they have right now they should be considerably faster - maybe Senna's statement that they should be faster than Virgin and Lotus will ring true in the near future. I think I may have been too harsh on them on Friday, and I am glad that my, and the folks at 5Live, interpretation about the eligibility to qualify turned out to be wrong.
Chandhok has shot up in my estimations - his performance was at the least very brave, and in front of the cameras he seemed extremely friendly and down to earth.

I don't know about the rest of you, but while generally I like the new graphics a lot, I really missed the sidebar on the left that had all the runners and their positions being updated live during the qualifying. Seeing who was in trouble, who was safe and who posed a last second threat was great, as was the visual flurry of activity that always went with an end of the session. Without it it really made me think I was missing a lot of stuff going on that the commentators couldn't tell me and the TV director didn't seem to want to show...
Kinda took away some of the magic, if that makes any sense?

Does anyone else think so?

zulu_85 Wrote:
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> I don't know about the rest of you, but while
> generally I like the new graphics a lot, I really
> missed the sidebar on the left that had all the
> runners and their positions being updated live
> during the qualifying. Seeing who was in trouble,
> who was safe and who posed a last second threat
> was great, as was the visual flurry of activity
> that always went with an end of the session.
> Without it it really made me think I was missing a
> lot of stuff going on that the commentators
> couldn't tell me and the TV director didn't seem
> to want to show...
> Kinda took away some of the magic, if that makes
> any sense?
>
> Does anyone else think so?


Mate, I agree. I really wanted that sidebar as I had no idea who was where in the Qualifying...

yeah me too

Yeah it was a bit hopeless without the side bar, other than that alright though.

___________________________________________________________________
Waiting for March.

Does anyone know if Dallara will be constantly improving the HRT car as the season continues? Or will HRT have to do that themselves?

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Incident 2k9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> zulu_85 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > I don't know about the rest of you, but while
> > generally I like the new graphics a lot, I
> really
> > missed the sidebar on the left that had all the
> > runners and their positions being updated live
> > during the qualifying. Seeing who was in
> trouble,
> > who was safe and who posed a last second threat
> > was great, as was the visual flurry of activity
> > that always went with an end of the session.
> > Without it it really made me think I was missing
> a
> > lot of stuff going on that the commentators
> > couldn't tell me and the TV director didn't
> seem
> > to want to show...
> > Kinda took away some of the magic, if that
> makes
> > any sense?
> >
> > Does anyone else think so?
>
>
> Mate, I agree. I really wanted that sidebar as I
> had no idea who was where in the Qualifying...

I don't watch F1 without the official live timing open these days. It's just loads better than the F1 tv graphics.

I do wonder how long Schumacher will persevere with being rusty, given his stance on being truly competitive; and whether something will crop up as an opportunity to bail halfway into the season. Something tells me he isn't where he thought he would be!

I know the first race hasn't even begun, and he has done a fantastic job so far, but I just have had this inkling since they signed such a strong driver in Heidfeld as a reserve.

We will see as the year unfolds! I am betting that neck injury... :P


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Coincidence: MS qualified 7th, like his first race in Belgium 1991

Incident 2k9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> zulu_85 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > I don't know about the rest of you, but while
> > generally I like the new graphics a lot, I
> really
> > missed the sidebar on the left that had all the
> > runners and their positions being updated live
> > during the qualifying. Seeing who was in
> trouble,
> > who was safe and who posed a last second threat
> > was great, as was the visual flurry of activity
> > that always went with an end of the session.
> > Without it it really made me think I was missing
> a
> > lot of stuff going on that the commentators
> > couldn't tell me and the TV director didn't
> seem
> > to want to show...
> > Kinda took away some of the magic, if that
> makes
> > any sense?
> >
> > Does anyone else think so?
>
>
> Mate, I agree. I really wanted that sidebar as I
> had no idea who was where in the Qualifying...


i think it has more to do about the director/production than the system itself....
it was a real disaster, the only way to know the temp resuts was keeping the calculations in your head.... really frustrating

danm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I do wonder how long Schumacher will persevere
> with being rusty, given his stance on being truly
> competitive; and whether something will crop up as
> an opportunity to bail halfway into the season.
> Something tells me he isn't where he thought he
> would be!
>
> I know the first race hasn't even begun, and he
> has done a fantastic job so far, but I just have
> had this inkling since they signed such a strong
> driver in Heidfeld as a reserve.
>
> We will see as the year unfolds! I am betting that
> neck injury... :P

Let's see how he does over the first few races before assuming he'll want to bail. Remembering that he will still be pretty rusty at the moment - he's only done a handful of testing days in this Merc, before that he did some laps in a 2007 Ferrari fitted with slicks last summer, and before that he hadn't driven an F1 car at all for well over a year; and the cars have changed significantly since he last raced in 2006. So he's likely to take several races to get fully up to speed. Meantime, a P7 grid slot in his comeback race, 3-4 tenths and 2 places behind Nico, is hardly a disaster. He didn't look unhappy about the situation after quali either, which is a telling sign.

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yep, and he's been quite consistent in practices as well,
considering he only lost .1 tenth out of his time from q2 to q3, compared to other drivers loosing .5 i'd say he's doing good
he's been 4 tenths shy of niko in all practice sessions... for qualy he was only .3

no need to mention that niko's been pushing really hard this past 3 years while Michael's been sitting around shooting the breeze

Damn. Go Michael & Alonso!.. Alonso really fit on that Jet looking F10 CAr, as for michael having driving for a long time with the regulations he fits as if now this new regulations doesnt work to him very much but im pretty sure he'll be up to the front outpacing his teammate once he establish his confident and driving style to that mercedes benz car. Hoping he'll be up to the front soon challenging for the title!

BTW guys - for any one with an iphone, there is the free live timing app available from f1.com,
Either go to [mobile.formula1.com] on your ipohone, or download it via itunes.

You can of course get the $40(AUD) app which gives the placement of the cars, but I much prefer FREE!

Need to register with f1.com prior. glad I just realised with 2 hours to go til the race!

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2013 - Nando must come through..

Schumacher was still improving even as qualifying was unfolding. It's not like he's hideously off the pace and single-lap qualifying was never going to be his strongest area in his comeback. He'll not be losing much sleep over it yet I suspect.

Keep in mind he's 41 and at that age you learn new things a lot slower than a 20 year old does. His speed won't have gone, it'll just take him longer to tap into it than it would have done 20 years ago. He hasn't driven competitively for 3 and a half years - to put that into perspective, that's the time frame between him making his debut and winning the title!

More of a concern will be if his race-craft, adaptability and thinking on his feet is still lacking by the time the European season comes along.

This also happens to be one of Rosberg's best tracks, and regardless of what people were saying, I still think he was one of the best drivers last season, so in my opinion the benchmark is set high. It'll be interesting to see how well Rosberg performs now he has the pressure of driving a car potentially capable of winning races and even challenging for the title.