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No.

The problem is and has been the same for the past few seasons now AND we talk about it every year mid'ish season. At the start of each season for the past few years teams do not fully understand their cars and the Pirelli tyres. Races are unpredictable and in some cases very crazy with numbers of pit stops, etc... But come mid-season the teams get a handle on the cars and tyres and things settle down to the point where the end of the season races suffer greatly from being the complete polar opposite of the start of the season.

It is not rocket science.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
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1998 - Trulli stalls in the grid, start is aborted. 2nd start attempt and now it's Schumacher who stalls! In 3rd attemp Schumi starts furious chase for the podium, but runs over debris from Takagi/Tuero accident and is forced to retire. Häkkinen is now champion, first Finn since 1982 and Keke Rosberg. Our commentator Matti Kyllönen goes insane, as does the whole nation. This was the dawn of golden era for Finnish formula racing.



Probably not that significant or memorable race for anyone else. 1996 or 1997 weren't bad either as championship deciders, although technically the 1997 race moved it to Jerez.

2002 - McNish went through the wall after spinning out in 130R.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Agreed, but the opposite happens as well. Austin last year was mega, even though there was just the single stop.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

That's very true Phil.

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

meh no rain

not for Webber though

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Exactly! And there's also the changes to the tyres Pirelli has done, after all the problems we've seen at Silverstone, which made the tyre behaviour more predictable. But phil1993 is right about the reliability of the cars, different from the past, it's very rare to see a race ending up with a car failure, this is another factor that makes the races more predictable and less exciting. It may change in 2014, with the new turbo engines and the fuel limit reduction. The teams will have to control the fuel usage with much more carefuly and we may see cars struggling to finish a race, desperately saving fuel in the last laps.

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"The best decision is my decision!" - Balestre
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Well if there's an ERS failure they'll be probably screwed because it'll be such a massive time loss. Even after a few seasons, there's still quite a few KERS failures and most of them are on Renault powered cars so it's difficult to envisage drivers not having ERS issues.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Looking at the drivers standings, if you ignore vettel it's a very exciting championship.
It's also pretty tight between the drivers in question, coupled with a charging sauber to mix it up the battle for 2nd down the points is pretty exciting.
Still, it's hard to love a race with a almost nailed on winner.

This is one of the rare tracks I still bother watching qualy live. It's actually enjoyable to watch drivers attacking solo, while I feel the whole thing is boring and pointless on modern tracks (I'll try to go a bit faster here... Oh I can't? Meh let's just drive around the tarmac).
Driving errors get punished HARD here. Barrichello on Williams (2011?) at the first Degner and Schumacher in his last year at Spoon come to mind, along with the long list of torn race cars for a couple centimetre excursions outside the white line.

Pray it develops some rain, but apparantly it will be southeast of Japan by Monday

Added Information in the oppening post:

FIA Press Conference Schedule
Pirelli Tyre Choice
2012 Pole Position Lap

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"The best decision is my decision!" - Balestre
"Halo is for little babies, not for men" - Jeha

A track I really enjoy watching, although it could easily be a dull race.

I only saw one race where 130R was properly challenging to take full throttle; now it's flat-out every time no question.

Little changes like that just ruin awesome parts of a track.

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RantingYoof

Exactly! Of course it's great to see a car going full throttle at 130R, but it doesn't have the same challenge as in the past. I understand the change as they were worried after two huge crashes (Enge 2001 and McNish 2002), but as they added tarmac in the runoff area, there was no need to change the corner itself. At least Suzuka is a track that remained almost untouched all long the years, with only a few minor changes. The only problem is in the race with the difficult of overtaking, but anyway it's one of the most amazing tracks to watch an onboard camera. It's a track that demands a lot from drives and cars! A mixed qualifying results, like in 2005, may bring us an memorable race, as it was in 2005! But I agree with you, it could be easily a dull race.

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"The best decision is my decision!" - Balestre
"Halo is for little babies, not for men" - Jeha

They deliberately changed the 130R radius, making it less challenging to allow cars to follow more closely and create overtaking opportunities into the last chicane.

People still crashed/spun there in the last years (Buemi 2009 and Kobayashi 2011) but since then it's an easy flat even with DRS open (won't be the allowed this year obviously).

Fans already showing up to the track to watch the teams setup!, gotta say the Japanese fans shit all over any other fans around the world in terms of dedication

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3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

probably also means it's the race with the least chance to meet a driver in person.

anyway, hoping for a 1997 style race.

my most vivid memory of Suzuka is this start. Mika always had lightning reactions.

What to say about Suzuka is: Degner,130R, there is gravel
That shold say enough, but in the end it will be a dull

It would have been hilarious if the Ferrari crashed into the McLaren at turn 1, perfect mirror of the 1990 situation.

Schumacher's start from the back of the grid in 1998 was good too. Crazy-aggressive.

edited for date accuracy