God that was boring.by gav - F1
QuoteFrantic Also I was thinking, having bigger tyres would mean more tread on wet tyres, and that would me more water displacing. Maybe all the wet start dilemma of this recent years is due to having smaller tyres As Jim said, I think the wet tyres and aerodynamics are now so good that visibility is the primary concern, not the driving conditions. There's nothing stopping them racing onby gav - F1
QuoteJ i m More points for Hass, and a point for Manor which is a wonderful achievement. If at this point someone said that a manor would be chasing down a Williams for points at the end of a race we'd have pointed and laughed. A Williams that was on 28 lap fresher tyres too, apparently... (I've not checked). That said Wehrlein did go a lap down and was only allowed back during thby gav - F1
I like that Rosberg has toughened the hell up this year and is giving Hamilton something to think about in these wheel-to-wheel battles. I don't like that Mercedes screwed Hamilton over with the timing of his first stop, which ultimately led to this situation. That said Hamilton usually cries over the radio when he thinks the team have done him over, but there was none of that today, soby gav - F1
Bloody hell the tyres are much smaller. The Bridgestones were 355mm and 380mm for the front and rear respectively (though the fronts gained an extra groove from 1999 as the car were too rear-limited). Pirelli's are 245mm and 325mm! I didn't realise the Pirelli's were that small! Who the heck thought that was a good idea?! In 2017 the front Pirelli's still won't bby gav - F1
When watching old 2002-2004 races what surprises me the most is how much more speed they carried into the corners. They all took very, very early apexes and with colossal turn in speeds. I can't understand why the cars are unable to do that now. It's not because the V10s had more torque (the biggest loss with the move down to the V8s) to minimise the loss down the following straighby gav - F1
Yeah, ironically and worryingly I think the only 'new' circuit not designed by Tilke (including the 1997-current A1 Ring!) is Singapore, which I think I'm correct in saying was done by the guys who did Melbourne. I'm not saying Singapore is great, but it's certainly different and most certainly a big challenge for the drivers and for that alone it's one of my favourby gav - F1
QuoteIncident 2k9 Remain had said it was a lie from the start. With rebates from the EU, that figure's closer to £190m. However, we had Johnson, Gove and Farage keep shouting "£350m" over and over, and people were dumb enough to believe it. £190m is about 0.02% of the UK's GDP. A drop in the ocean. A tiny little fee to have access to ready-made trade deals which can boost thatby gav - Off-Topic
It's the stable aero and power steering that makes Monza a bit more sedate than it used to be. The cars used to dart around on the straights both there and at Hockenheim, but not the cars are so planted, even with the trimmed wings, that they look so much slower. In reality they're just as fast in a straight line now as they used to be.by gav - F1
Yeah I watched it over the F1, just to spite Bernie after his comments that nobody would be watching the end of the 24 hours. It was horrible. Felt so sorry for them. I don't know if I'd feel worse for a team to go out really early in the 24 hours or in the final 6 hours or so, but not on the second last lap.by gav - Other Motorsports
Yeah that was some of the worst driving I have ever seen.by gav - F1
It's a track that is mixed for me. I love the old town section with its bonkers corners with bags of character and the two really quick corners offer a nice change, but equally I dislike the stupendous straight, the silly wide sections and the utterly retarded run-offs. I don't mind long straights (old Hockenheim and pre-2000 Monza are two of my favourite tracks, watching the cars jolby gav - F1
Oh it'll be fast, no worries about that! Perhaps it will be narrower if they're adding barriers. I hope we're not just talking about the beautiful archicture and so on and that the racing is worthy of discussion... Anyway, this was earlier this week...by gav - F1
On paper it looks better than it is in reality. It's like two Tilkedromes stitched together side-by-side, that's how wide it looks in places (obviously one fairly narrow area, but we'll see just how narrow it is in reality). If this was a proper street track it could have been a good track, but it looks more like Valencia than anything else. I can't comment about the poliby gav - F1
A dull race, only made better by the seagulls interview. :D When Seb is in that sort of form he is unmatched by anyone current and probably in the past too. It's why we loved him when he first started. I can't complain about Ferrari's strategy. It made perfect sense at the time if they were planning to make 2 stops, and as said it saved them plenty of time even with the VSC eby gav - F1
Silverstone 2003 always comes to mind. That was a cold day and they couldn't stop passing each other (other than Schumacher, who as I remember was behind Villeneuve forever).by gav - F1
I always say that the cold races are the best, so lets see what happens here. Of course it helps that we're at a fun track anyway. It sounds like the chance of rain by race time is basically zero.by gav - F1
QuoteFrantic Cars would take the old Pirelli track that is not used since the 50s i think, then a left right turn to return at the exit of the actual Curva Grande. It never dawned on me that it was the (really) old short circuit! I've read loads of guides of Monza and that old corner is even on the Grand Prix Legends version of Monza, but it never came across my mind that they'd repby gav - F1
The Ricciardo situation reminds of Vettel. Everyone loved him in the Toro Rosso and initially at Red Bull as he was a young, jovial, fun German with a British sense of humour, but when it came to a title fight they started to dislike that he occasionally came across as all serious and stuff. I think Ricciardo is now approaching Vettel's situation - not in as strong a position, but potentby gav - F1
QuoteEC83 Still working on finding a time to watch the other videos right through - I will do it! The last few days have been a bit bonkers. I didn't post the link expecting anyone to actually watch them, which is why I just stuck the short videos up. I only uploaded them those years ago as there was a dearth of videos of the tracks when we were considering Teesside, as we wanted to getby gav - Off-Topic
I had a feeling I'd already posted it, but I did a search for "karting" and "Teesside" and they returned nothing, so I thought I'd do it again. At Teesside we were provided with waterproofs to put on over the overalls, but all they did was delay how long it took for the water to soak through. It was a bitter April day, 4 degrees IIRC, but obviously being wet triby gav - Off-Topic
Good to see you've finally been! :D Since we posted here we've been to Teesside more than Warden Law, and it's much better. The Warden Law karts were so poor and slow in comparison the last few times we went - a large gap in handling and power, and utterly terrible in the wet. I got a GoPro back in 2012 and filmed the first time we went to Teesside - it was absolutely bucketby gav - Off-Topic
Haha, I've still got the D40x. I use it with the school on trips to the beach and things. The D300 is still OK for my use, but it did fall off the tripod one day while I was setting up all the flash triggers (the tripod block wasn't locked in properly) and when it landed the battery cover snapped off at one side (it still shuts, but you have to be careful doing so). I tend not to dby gav - Off-Topic
Yeah for some reason I'm really excited about this one. So much so I've even paid out for a NowTV day pass for Sky Sports rather than juggling streams, listening to it on the radio or watching it later. :\ The track looks really slippery in the wet this year, though I suppose we've had very little wet running here for so long that it's hard to remember. It looked like thby gav - F1
Assuming it's a dry race (which looks unlikely) then I guess Ricciardo needs the Mercs to come out behind other super-soft starters after their first stint, as they'll surely be quicker on their super-softs than Ricciardo will be on his with more wear on them. It's set up really well for an interesting race, so much so that I don't want it to rain! I suppose it is a long tby gav - F1
This is still my go-to forum for intellectual F1 talk about interesting matters, it's just a shame there is so little of it, but that's to be expected when the focus is GPx and obviously GP4 is soon-to-be 14 years old and I doubt many of the old regulars even have it installed any more... we might not be far off having a member or two older than the game. QuoteMuks_C where is Chby gav - Off-Topic
Fairy tale debut. Obviously a combination of factors allowed it to happen, but it was still a corking drive. Mercedes incident I thought was pretty much 50/50. Last season I was willing Rosberg to man up and take it to Hamilton on track and clearly Hamilton expected him to jump out of the way again. It was a touch late from Rosberg but I thought Hamilton drove into a gap that was always goby gav - F1
Ferrari were scarily bad, and that's why they won't win a championship in the next few years - as has been the case since 2010 or so, the car is just too 'peaky' and not consistent enough over a season. It reminded me of the year Ferrari bolted on a set of the harder tyres here and went from a nailed on podium in the first stint to being lapped in the 2nd stint. Mercedes aby gav - F1
Yup, very harsh. Can't help but feel this has been in the pipeline for a while and Russia was just the excuse they needed. They'll want Verstappen in their car to shield him from the Ferrari (and Mercedes?) radar.by gav - F1
Well that sounded a bit mad. Woke up earlier than intended so just listened to it on the radio, but even the lap charts are mad. I'll download the race later as I don't think C4's highlights will be able to do it justice!by gav - F1