TBK-Light.com

I also wanna lump Mario Andretti in there as well, cause if he stayed in F1 full time he would have been a multiple champion. But he was bloody successful at pretty much anything, so I can't really place him there.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. In 1990, Ferrari were fighting for the title, whilst Williams were 3rd and would eventually finish 4th that season. Did anyone in 1990 know that Ferrari were about to enter one of the worst periods of competitiveness in their history, whilst Williams were about to become the team to beat?

Williams were on the ascendancy that season and the consensus was that they were improving alot. I seem to recall my Murray Walker year book thought he should have chosen Williams. They won a couple of races took a pole and had a few fastest laps as well. More importantly they weren't as highly politicised as Ferrari, a point I think Alesi underestimated.

Sauber already outqualified and outraced FI in Germany, matched FI in Hungary's qualifying and in the race it can't be compared as both FIs DNF

Sauber is already catching up and I won't be surprised if they are back at the top of midfield in the remaining races and next season.

Plus, I think Hulk has a lot to prove yet. He had a pole in a very odd circunstance(right tires at right time with right temperatures on them) and a also fantastic race last year in Interlagos. Aside from those, I wouldn't rate anything he has done more than "only" good and in many cases you could see speed deficit in Qs, specially when side by side with Barrichello.

I think if he go to a top team and partner somebody like Alonso or Kimi, his career will be pretty much over in F1 as I really don't think he has the raw speed of those.

Talking about hindsight, we now have a new classic one with Hamilton extremely fortunate Mclaren/Mercedes swap. Macca had the fastest car of 2012 in many tracks and were always there or thereabouts with the fastest car in each of the tracks. Mercedes were very good in qualifying in some early GPs, but that's it. A complete fiasco, speed-wise, in most of the non-early tracks.

With hindsight, it was a very good move but at the time it was announced, nobody with a good sense of the sport could have thought of it being good, thinking only on the supposed performance each of those cars would likely have this year.

Changing the subject a bit, it's curious how fame/prestige might influence people's view. In the official F1 site, there is this poll:



The historically corners with more prestige take the preference despite being bland kinks nowadays for pretty much any car with reasonable grip(not only F1 or other formulae take those easily flat out).

Pouhon is the only of those which keeps the challenge from the driving POV, still, it's much less famous and therefore is much less rated/preferred

Well, maybe people are answering from a non-driving POV, but then, how can a corner becomes someone's favourite from any perspective other than from the challenge of driving through it?!

How they like it on TV, perhaps. Or trackside?

I rate Hulkenberg as hugely talented. He has phenomenal pace and was matching Rubens from mid-2010. I can't see Sauber scoring many more points; the C32 is twitchy as hell and they're a small team so they might as well focus on 2014.

With Mercedes, I think no-one expected them to be as shambolic as they were mid-late 2012, that's for sure. But they've definitely exceeded expectations. I thought Hamilton might get lucky and win a race, but I wouldn't have thought they'd be a consistent force at the front.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

They are probably already focusing on 2014 but, still, their car seemed to have unlocked some pace from it now that is already enough to beat FI, in performance. Also, I think pretty much all of midfield(Mclaren included, obviously) will focus 100% very soon to next year.

Here's a nice read about all the implications of new regulations with James Key and Caterham's Mark Smith :
http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2013/8/14875.html

Right now this gave me the notion to be prepared for anything, be it a close pack or a very splitted one due to several reasons, for instance, the power units and not only the effect of itself but the butterfly effect on everything else.

Then you have the gearbox ratio rule which can shake the order from track to track quite a lot too. Add to the mix the current unknown about the tires and you've got a big question mark over the pecking order

McLaren has improved recently, Force India slipped back a bit but the next two circuits should be good for the latter.

Next year should be intriguing, but a lot of it will depend on budget obviously. Maybe a midfield team will find a regulation loophole or an advantage, but I don't expect the order to be drastically shaken up. It might be a case of who makes the best engine.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

What?

I read from somewhere (after Hungarian GP) that Alonso offered his service to Red Bull to help them to develop a winning car before 2008 season. His price tag was too much for Red Bull so THEY turned down the offer. Alonso approached Red Bull again during the 2008 season, when Renault's performance was not sublime, but was again turned down by RBR. Not the other way around.

Could be all just rumours, since back in the day nothing about Alonso/RBR was in the topics, if I recall it correctly.

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

BREAKING NEWS, RAIKKONEN MOVES TO GP3!!!

Koiranen promised to pay his salary on time.

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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.

hmm

GP3 too slow, Gp2 is faster than Caterham, Marussia and HRT

That's actually a myth. Unless of course you put Nasr on fresh tyres and Chilton on buggered rubber.

Meanwhile, in expected young driver news
http://www.f1zone.net/news/da-costa-in- ... eat/20017/

And sort of expected young driver news
http://www.f1zone.net/news/juncadella-e ... eal/20024/

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Have some sense of perspective. Of course the gap between fastest GP2 cars and tail end F1 is going to be small at times:

GP2... 24+ cars built by a single manufacturer and developed over a 3 year period with input from 50+ drivers.

Caterham, Marussia and HRT in F1... 6 cars built by 3 different teams and developed inhouse over a 12 month period using input from 2 or 3 drivers.

This also happens at times with MotoGP and Moto2.

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

Yes but it is very disconcerting when a secondary formula is almost as fast/sometimes faster than participants in the top formula, which suggests that they are wasting their time and don't deserve to be in the top flight when the regulations mean that they should be faster.

this

apart from the fact that I'm a Kimi fan boy, I love the way he is the only driver to really try many forms of motor racing (something which was very common some decades ago)

Only driver, wait wut!?!!

I give you Montoya:


Can't find the pictures of Montoya on a motorcross bike, I think Ron Dennis made sure they can't be found.

When the hell was Montoya racing a Mercedes DTM???

Back in the 90's

He races in the 2 ITC rounds in1996 at Silverstone.

Put the pics in spoilers for the sake of some computers.