TBK-Light.com

You can have Bahrain [from what I can remember] but Kimi was not faster in Singapore. He finished 1 second ahead of Grosjean after they gave Romain team orders to let Kimi through. Romain was consistently 8-10 seconds up the road from him.

At no point was Kimi faster than Romain all weekend. He best Q lap was 7 tenths slower and he can thank the safety car which eradicated the gap between the two and Romain was ordered to not finish ahead of him.

Also this is F1, and no one would ever let him win if they can go past.

I don't feel that Schumacher is willing to take that extra risk and commitment it takes to win a race in a slower car, especially now that he decided to retire for good.

And I'd prefer to see him strolling through the remaining races, rather than overdoing it and crashing into people.

I feel sad that Schumacher is retiring....again. It's not that he needs Formula One so badly, it's Formula One that needs him more than ever. F1 still needs some experienced guys to contrast with the biased young drivers who go to F1 without the least sense of technical knowledge. I doubt you got so many drivers having balls to anticipate the engineer and say: "Now I want to do this or that in the car, I think it feels better when I'm on track and it's faster". Those young drivers accept everything that is said to them...well, it's normal coz they're not enough experienced, but F1 is also made by the "old foxes".

I also sense that in the last 3 years, the World press, Formula One in general and specially Mercedes has been extremely ungrateful to him. I sense there was a lack of respect for him: "Nahh the guy is old"....bulshit, I think Michael was in full shape and dedicated to a winning project. Mercedes that seems to think that a winning project is easy and comes like magic. Haven't they seen the Toyota case? Haven't they learned from it? Looks like they haven't.

Unfair is the word I define for this second Schumacher retirement.

This wanting Schumi to stay around and win another race, even be handed another race, is hilarious. He had his time, and he won more races than even his greatest fans could hope for. He really stank up the show for a good long while. Since he's been back he's just been celebrity ballast in a seat a young driver might be able to do a lot in.

F1 has benefitted from Michael's impact in the past for sure, but in no way is it relying on his presence now.

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As unfortunate as it may sound Michael has simply been F1's sideshow for the past 3 seasons. It is a shame his comeback hasn't heralded any quantifiable success, but that was the risk he decided to take.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

As much as It annoys me when as soon as a driver encroaches on his mid-30s whispers appear in the press about retirement, I don't think Micheals return has done much to further the cause of more mature drivers tbh.

However Mercedes have probably made lots more in publicity and merchandise dollars than if they'd hired a young rookie or Paffet or someone else to sit alongside Nico so maybe that was enough for them in the end.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

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When you miss first two races of the season because you couldn't fit into the car. It might be time to hang it up.

Biggest mistake Michael made was retiring in the first place. Ferrari and Michael would've been better off if they had continued on for 2007 and beyond.

Mansell did actually fit in the MP4/10. He was just very badly bruised whenever he drove it because of the shape of the cockpit.

Um.





Ignore the Bernie comment, because it's actually part of the FIAs Safety regaultions, which isn't Bernies domain. What a massive fuck up.

pics from August show the garage openings





It looks like height may be the problem, rather than actual inside area

Let's not forget that teams today are very spoiled and need at least 5 boxes to operate for all of their 2 cars....

Surely the pit lane at Melbourne and Brazil is far tighter than this one

If the garages don't comply with the FIA's regulations, then the teams have no part in deciding not to use them.

What happened at Barcelona showed that it is still massively important that the garages are safe and allow team members space to get out quickly should they need to.

If Buxton is right about this issue, then the GP cannot go ahead. I don't see how they could rectify the problem in the space of 5 weeks.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Being spoiled and requiring space for the equipment to run the cars isn't the same thing. It's not like 40 years ago when the cars could actually be run by 3 guys in a shed.

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theRacingLine.net
SportsCarArchives.com

I remember Magny-Cours, those must have been the smallest I've ever seen.

Can't see from those images, but does it have internal walls? That'd cause massive issues without screwing up measurements that'd throw the whole building out.

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theRacingLine.net
SportsCarArchives.com

I'm sure they'll sort something out.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

They will.

COTA is just about the only track in the world that will host so many major world and American based road racing series; F1, MotoGP, V8SC, Grand Am, ALMS, WEC. That place will be a hive of activity.

For me the size of those boxes looks pretty good IMO, by the way congratulations to the workers in Austin, great job! COTA looks comfortable and installations seem to be high quality ones. F1 teams are wanting too much...unbelievable! What fantasy world are they living in? The boxes are fine! Compare this to Interlagos and you'll see what's lack of space.

Picture taken by me in July at Interlagos.