F1 2012 Championship Thread

[Geckothan]

Anyone but Vettel or Alonso, please.

[MacLeod]

Well Button topped the podium but I think we were denied the potential for a great race by Grosjean making a reckless move at the start and not for the first time this season. Though it looks like his actions has seen him handed out one of the rarer peanlties a one race ban.

Plus Maldonado has been awarded two penalties for spa with a 10 place grid drop.

[MacLeod]

Well it's a Front Row lockout for McLaren, breaking Williams record for most number of front row lockouts. Kind of a suprose that Ferrari the oldest tem in F1 didn't hold that record. But is that in part down to focusing more on one driver than the other in recent years.

In other news Ferrari President Luca Di Montezemolo has some 'interesting notions' on the future ideas for F1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/19532651

He also suggested changing the times European races run in the summer to attract a bigger television audience.
"I don't think it's good to race in July and August at 2pm when the people are in the sea or on vacation," he said. "Soccer plays at 6, 7, 8 o'clock."



Football actually plays around 12:00, 15:00. (at least in the UK yes there are some kick offs around the 17:00 and 19:00 etc.. mark). People will still be on Vacation regardless at what time you run the race. As for the sea, I wouldn't be in the sea around the UK. But taking a global view no doubt many people who watch F1 around the world might be hours away from the nearest sea. Sure Luca is no doubt viewing it from an Italian perspective.



As for a later start during the European phase of the season, that would impact on the time of the race in other countries.





Sure the idea to reduce the influence of aero is not without merit. But I'm curious how you save costs by doing more testing.

[Holdfast]

One of his other ideas was splitting the single long Sunday race into two shorter ones, like some other series do. I wouldn't like that at all; there's something really enjoyable about watching the ebb & flow of a race across a large number of laps.

I don't believe some of the teams religiously stick to the current spending limits but I do think they should be allowed to do proper track testing. It seems a silly restriction to say, yeah you can wind tunnel as much as you like, but you can't track the cars for testing purposes. And the current aero testing also has silly restrictions that actually increase the overall costs (like only being allowed to use scale models; I think something like 50% of actual size?). Aero parts don't always scale, so the wind tunnel testing isn't perfect, which means you have the cost of the tunnel testing plus then having to spend more redeveloping the parts once you get the car on the track.

Fundamentally, F1 has a problem deciding what it wants to be. Is it meant to be the pinnacle of motorsport technology & design (in which case most of the restrictions on spending/testing are illogical) or is it meant to be a relatively high-tech formula but an even playing field across the teams (in which case the current differences in car design between the teams is unfair and they should have standard base cars)?

I like it being the pinnacle, and would prefer it if it was run much more simply, with a much looser formula specification and a simple hard (but fairly high) cap on the total budget allowed per team. The more rules and restrictions, the more inefficient it becomes, leading to silly spending (like the aforementioned explosion in the cost of aero testing when track testing got limited).

Back on the actual racing, I'm actually enjoying the championship this year. Monza was quite a fun race.

[MacLeod]

Well there was a fair bit of overtaking outside of the DRS zone's at Monza, and Maldonado managed to avoid hitting anything this weekend. Perez drove a good race to finish 2nd. As for Red Bull it was a aweekend to forget, 2 Alternator failures (that's 3 this season), a DNF for Webber, there must have been some damage otherwise why not just change tyres after his spin.

While team orders are allowed Alonso was gifted 3rd place by Massa, The Championship is interesting at this point and despite not wining a race Kimi is what 4th about 39 points off the lead.

As for the Vettel drive thru, after seeing the replys I think the stewards where right to award the penalty, given the 1 car width rule.

I think LH shuld sign for McLaren, sure mcLaren may have problems with the car but they are one of a few teams you expect to be able to sort those out. What's his other option Mercedes, where are they again, they've manged 1 win so far this season. Whilst McLaren have won 5 out of 13.

[Lonemagpie]

Mercedes will take another German, should Schumi quit again - Hulkenberg, I suppose.

Ferrari's always an option for Hamilton, as Massa might get dumped, and Luca thinks Sergio Perez isn't experienced enough.

Interestingly, Paul Di Resta has signed with Jenson Button's management company this week...

[Holdfast]

MacLeod wrote:

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The Championship is interesting at this point and despite not wining a race Kimi is what 4th about 39 points off the lead.

Kimi's one of those drivers that always seems to get himself in there somehow. Dark horse for the title, perhaps. But I think it will probably come down to an Alonso/Hamilton/Vettel contest by the end and I have a sneaky feeling Alonso will somehow just about hold on. He's not my favourite driver, but he does have a Schumiesque ability to wring performance out of any car, a very competitive mindset and crucially, he's often lucky.

I think LH shuld sign for McLaren

Lonemagpie wrote:

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Interestingly, Paul Di Resta has signed with Jenson Button's management company this week...

Yeah, it's interesting. I personally think Lewis would be nuts to leave McLaren if his motivation is to win World Championships. But if I was a betting man, I'd say Di Resta will pair up with Jenson at McLaren next year and Lewis will want to go to either Ferrari or Mercedes. But Alonso would have to leave Ferrari if he went to there, as I really can't see the two of them wanting to be on the same team again, and I agree that Mercedes would prefer a German driver. So Lewis might end up somewhere bizarre, like Lotus. Would be a silly career move IMO.

[Lonemagpie]

Holdfast wrote:

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Yeah, it's interesting. I personally think Lewis would be nuts to leave McLaren if his motivation is to win World Championships.

Based on the tweets thing, maybe he is.

He should stick with McLaren, but I can see him - probably inadvertently - screwing it up and ending up elsewhere...

[Lonemagpie]

In crappier news, Professor Sid Watkins - without who's work there'd be a lot more dead drivers - has died, aged 84.

[MacLeod]

Yeah I don't think Kimi can win the Championship unless the likes of LH, SV and FA have another couple of DNF's each. Based on the recent races the question is does the Red Bull have the pace to keep up with the likes of the McLaren's and FA's Ferrari? If the Red Bull doesn't have the pace it might turn into a two horse race between FA and LH. Hopefully it'll be a last round decider.

I think perhaps have had there couple of years at the top and perhaps it'll be McLaren again. A quick look back over history shows at different times one team was more dominat than others, Williams in the early 90's, then McLaren, then Ferrari, Red bull etc..

These things come back to the top teams, so sure you could move to the more dominat team over the last few years, just to find the team you left become more dominat again.

[MacLeod]

Well it'll soon be the start of the Singapore GP weekend, of course this GP is not without it's controversies despite being a relative new GP. The Infamous 'crashgate' scandel of 2008 being the min one.

Will McLaren be able to make it 4 poles in a row, 4 victories in a row. Or will FA or SV make an impression, will Lotus finally live up to it's potential.

[Holdfast]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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In crappier news, Professor Sid Watkins - without who's work there'd be a lot more dead drivers - has died, aged 84.

These are belated condelences now, but I hadn't realised until I just read this here.

RIP Prof Watkins.

MacLeod wrote:

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Well it'll soon be the start of the Singapore GP weekend

Singapore has quickly become a highlight of the season for me. Perhaps I'm just easily pleased by floodlit racing...

[Geckothan]

In an ideal world: Teflon and Vettel to DNF and Lewis to win.

[MacLeod]

Holdfast wrote:

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Singapore has quickly become a highlight of the season for me. Perhaps I'm just easily pleased by floodlit racing...

Well at least unlike some of the other recent additions to the Calender, racing under the flood lights does add something to it. As a street circuit there aren't many run-off areas plus being in a city there isn't much sand.

[MacLeod]

Well the provisional 2013 race calander is out

17 March - Australia (Melbourne)
24 March - Malaysia (Sepang)
14 April - China (Shanghai)
21 April - Bahrain (Sakhir)
12 May - Spain (Barcelona)
26 May - Monaco
9 June - Canada (Montreal)
16 June - America (New Jersey) *
30 June - Britain (Silverstone)
21 July - Germany (Nurburgring/Hockenheim)
28 July - Hungary (Hungaroring)
1 September - Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps)
8 September - Italy (Monza)
22 September - Singapore (Marina Bay) *
6 October - Japan (Suzuka)
13 October - Korea (Yeongam) *
27 October - India (Buddh International)
3 November - Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina)
17 November - United States (Austin)
24 November - Brazil (Interlagos)


* Subject to confirmation

It looks like quite a lot of the races are back to back. With a rather long 3 week gap between the British and German GP's. With of course August being the summer break. I don't think Korea will be a great loss should it not run.