===== 2010 F1 Season Thread =====

Mandingo, unless you win, you know you cannot take anything away from Monoco.

I believe Ferrari is a shade ahead of McLaren but everyone is looking at Red Bull disappearing into the sunset. The gap will get even bigger if Red Bull successfully intergates a F-duct.
 
I don't really agree about Monaco...except that it's not the best place to judge the overall speed of a car. So it really adds nothing about the Red Bull either. Monaco is a driver's course. What I was talking about, though, is who had the fastest car...at Monaco.

Of course Webbo was going to be fast yesterday. He had nobody in front of him. Vettel hadn't been nearly as fast all weekend, but used the clean lane to get by Kubica on the start and then controlled the pace and served as a block the rest of the race...something the SPEED announcers never caught onto. After that, Webber just had to keep it out of the wall and cruise to the win.

He also never had Alonso to worry about in Q. That Ferrari had been the fastest car at Monaco all weekend. During the race Alonso was on such a charge that the frontrunners changed their pit strategy, coming in much earlier than anticipated for tires so that Alonso couldn't pass them in the pits. Otherwise he'd have gained even more positions.

As far as Red Bull's f-duct, we'll see how it works for them. Not everyone's has worked as well as McLaren's and Ferrari's, but Ferrari is still trying to get theirs just right ( The Link ). It's not that easy to implement, as Ferrari has found out, and so too, apparently, has Red Bull . If it was easy or if they had developed one to great benefit, it would already have been on the car. That said, it wouldn't surprise me to see one on the RB in Turkey in 2 weeks.

We're just 6 races into a long 19-race season and everything's still very close. Red Bull's not running away with anything right now and it remains to be seen if they will.

It's funny how these developmental battles often shift midseason.
 
I wouldn't count Ferrari, McLaren or Renault, even Mercedes out of it, but Red Bull is clearly the car to beat right now. Things can develop very quickly in F1, so a week or two can change the picture-new engineering developments show up and can make a significant difference. But we'll see.
Another entertaining race, with Alonso charging up from the back all the way to sixth place. Stuck wheel nuts, crash in the tunnel at high speed, all kinds of fun stuff. But a finish under the safety car was anti-climactic, not that there would have been many if any changes right at the end. Love seeing the in-car shots of the track at Monaco.
 
The tire supplier in 2011 will be either Michelin, Pirelli, or both, I suppose. Bridgestone is out. Good riddance, imho. Cooper is also out.

I wouldn't necessarily mind seeing a return of the tire war to push tire technology further.

The Link

They're possibly going from the current 13" rims to 18" next year, too. Sweet.
 
BTW, I don't know how that dude kept his head on his shoulders during the one crash where one car ended up on top of the others. That seemed like scary stuff to me.
 
Definitely. Scared the hell outta me. I keep half expecting to see a helmet come rolling out of one of those over the top collisions with a head still inside it.The Link

Chandhok says it looked worse than it was ...The Link .
 
OK...so there's a race this weekend. Kinda snuck up on us with all the chaos here in Austin this week. Practice tomorrow a.m.

Set your DVRs!



Lets hope our new course gets a trademark turn or two that's as unique and amazing as the quadruple-apex Turn 8 in Istanbul.
 
Yup, just set both DVRs for practice and qualifying, plus the race of course. I'll be out on the lake all weekend so won't get a chance to watch until late Monday night or sometime on Tuesday.
 
Yeah...we've had a camping trip planned for this weekend for some time. Leaving tomorrow afternoon.
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At least I'll get to see practice before I go. They're gonna be talking up Austin big time. As a matter of fact, that reminds me, maybe I'll ask Will Buxton over at SPEED to see what details he can get for us on the show.

One bright spot about my camping trip (other than going out with my family and enjoying them) is that I'm going to Bastrop State park and can probably swing by one of the potential sites on the way back and see if anything's happening.
 
That didn't sound too good, did it.

My trip will be fun, for sure. It's just that this is just about the worst F1 weekend EVER to be somewhere else waiting to see if my dvr records what I want to see.
 
Thanks for the reminder. I am in my final few days of two paid weeks off and have been doing some of the things I should have been doing all along instead of screwing around.
 
Tell me about it.

I have been completely useless since this news broke. Thankfully my lovely wife has been more than understanding.
 
Let's what it gets us this weekend. He's amazingly responsive to viewer questions. For those of you who don't know, Will Buxton is Speed's on site F1 trackside reporter.
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Didn't realize he posted over there, will need to check it out.

He's doing a good job on the trackside reporting. Now I look forward to hearing it when in the past it was pretty much ignored
 
SPOILER FOR PRACTICE 2 IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT OR CARE









I am watching Practice 2 on a bit of a delay. Some are changing the tires out to the Green Striped softer tire to see what it is they look for. Times are supposed to go down. We'll see because Red Bull is out and about. They really are amazing.

Mandingo, what do you make of their tweak to the rear spoiler? They explained it with a telestrator and I think I get it, heh. I guess we can expect others to follow soon. I like how they use "Helicopter" tape on it. Their drivers better remember to turn it on or off for turn 8.

That turn is going to be fun to watch and I hope that we have a turn or a couple like that which demands respect.

I was giving it some goofy thought and what I want to see for our track is a gigantic Longhorn track. Some good turns in both directions, good viewing areas and it would look cool from above. I know they won't but it would be cool.

I need to pick a favorite team and driver. I am too wishy-washy right now. If I had to pick now it would likely be Massa or Alonso. I am likely to lean to Chandhok as he has ties to Texas. He's the one whose mother lives in San Antonio. I am also leaning to Force India.

Ferrari, Force India or HRT.
 
Wow, the whole Red Bull overtaking controversy is pretty amazing and entertaining to watch. I never thought a guy could get so many fans down on him with one move, but Vettel has managed to do so. If you look at the replays though, he pretty clearly chopped back to the right across Webber while Webber merely held his line on the clean part of the track going into the corner. The only way that pass was going to happen is if Webber just rolled over and gave it to him, and he had the preferred line.

The most incredible aspect of it all is the team publicly taking sides on the incident.



Also, remember a few weeks ago when everyone was saying Alonso and maybe even Massa wouldn't make to the end of the season without getting penalized over engines? Well, if they do, they won't be the only ones:

In reply to:


 
OK, that was a hell of a race!
This could tear Red Bull apart, but we will see what transpires.
It appeared to me that Vettel was at fault, although if it had been two different teams involved you might have said "that's racing." You just don't do that to a teammate. Red Bull is also running for the constructor's championship as a team, not just individual driver honors. This doesn't make for a very good atmosphere during the team's daily afternoon tea break, I'm thinking.
 
There will be plenty of passing starting in 2013 when they go back to turbo's which have a tendency to fly apart!

There is plenty of passing during a F1 race. Unfortunately it takes place in the back of the field where no one sees it. FIA is constantly changing the rules, but the top teams seem to always be one step ahead of the FIA. KERS holds some hope to improving the up front passing, but as long as they govern how long you can use the system per lap, it will be used defensively. The recharge itself is a natural limit.

There was plenty of passing when there were two tire manufacturers, but they have already said that isn't happening again.

I have read that in 2013 along with the engine change that they are going to take away the under-the-car aero stuff which, along with wing changes, should put some action back on the track.
 
I saw that Kirk Bohl's column, and it is offensively ignorant. If the only race he has ever seen involves American sedans on a circle track, and shouldn't venture an opinion about F1. I don't know if he has even seen a NASCAR race.
He should stay with stick and ball sports, which he at least has covered for years. He was pretty good on UT baseball when that was his beat.
 
Kirk Bohl's is an "un". He is unqualified, he is unintelligent, uninformed and for sure unimaginative. His predictability is staggering. It's almost as staggering he has a job in that medium. As stated before it is glaringly obvious why he is at a paper like the AAS. He cannot do any better and is already dating up to be here. He is the reason or a primary one why I have not paid a penny to read that paper in years now. He has cost them money for sure.

I don't know why people set themselves up by reading his slop. It's easy to avoid it. See his article, move along. He does not and will not have anything worth reading unless it is his goodbye.

He should be referred to as "un" henceforth. Un and Fail are two things he possesses in great quantity.
 
Kirk Bohls knows as much about racing as he does about football.

Anyway, finally finished watching the Turkish GP, thought it was a heck of a race. Great racing at the front, lots of racing at the back, and that unbelievable attempted pass to stun Red Bull.

I'd expect the track in Austin to have some similarity to the track in Turkey, which is a track I really like. I can't wait to see this happen here.
 
Canadian GP here I come!
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Found a deal on a ticket to Hartford, Ct. Will drive the 5.5 hours from there. Still need everything else!

This will be my first F1 race. I leave here at 5:35 am tomorrow, so I'll miss practice tomorrow. I'll update y'all whenever I can!
 

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