F1 is boring me to death!!!!

[Joe T]

Way to go Jenson

Fran if you still got the BAR Team shirt I gave you last year stick it on and start strutting about.

They finally got a reasonably quick car thats not fallen to bits, nice steady drive by Jenson what a treat.

Agreed best GP yet, funny how the rain always brings out the racers.


Whooohooo

[Paul W]

Yabadabadoo - Great race and result, kept my attention throughout.
Really pleased for Jenson and Honda - it was a long time coming, here's to a few more like that. Alonso had a driveshaft failure - or so he said after he'd stopped.

[Paul]

A big well done to Button what an excellent drive by him and Honda.
What was MS and the team thinking about should have changed tyres when Button pitted. Red mist or what!!
Best Regards

[Keith Hardy]

Anyone think it totally ironic that Jenson wins with the former BAT car on the very same weekend that JV gets "fired" and is not likely to be seen in F1 again?

Or, is it a load of old Pollocks?

[Gary Gibbs]

First race I've watched at normal speed in a long time (not in FF). Very interesting.

[Keith Hardy]

Wow, 584 posts and 30 pages later and you've stopped complaining!

[Joe T]

Hey cmon, I suspect normal service will be resumed shortly, I doubt there will be another race like that this year.

So any conformation on the Renault problem,
I would have thought a broken shaft would have meant the car rolling to a halt, not rear wheel steering under load???

JV what a guy, I remember seeing his Truck/Hospitality wagon at BAR, it had a mirrored ceiling over the bed, Pimp my Truck!!
Mind you he was with Danni M, so right on.........

[David Morton]

Apparently Alonso had a damaged wheel nut when he finally pitted for dry tyres and not a damaged drive shaft. An interesting race no doubt. Istanbul next. Contrary to one of my previous mails , Renault did not run mass dampers in Budapest.

[Keith Hardy]

Hey Dave, you almost got a namecheck when PS said that they had their radar "up on the hill". The pressure must have been on the weathermen for sure!

Good race. By the way, I have developed a simple weather predictor that doesn't cost fortunes. If it works for you then I'd like to be involved in future F1 races. Try it and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

keith

[Pete.]

A terrific race, congratulations to Jensen a long time coming but worth the wait. I bet you Pom's are just getting over your Hangover's.


Webber to Red Bull is an interesting move. I was at a dinner where DC spoke and he was asked his opinion of Webber as a driver and his reply was "he seems to qualify well." Faint praise indeed. It will be interesting to see how they operate together.

[David Morton]

Keith,
Pressure? Pat never really exerts any pressure as such, though I know he expects accurate information from everyone. After we told the rain to stop (which it did to the minute [15:31]) we had a discussion which was really interesting re tyres. For a while I thought the rules about 'slow wet races' would be invoked.
I have to say when Alonso came off, we were away like the wind to get through the Budapest traffic and back to Zeltweg (A1 ring) to leave the equipment prior to shipping to Istanbul. But not until we were towed out by a tractor as the 'hill' was not draining all that well. Incidentally, the Budapest area had 300mm of rain in 1 hour last Wednesday and everything stopped for about 6 hours as the Pest side was knee deep in water.
What fun..........

[roaldin]

This clip - www.dairally.net/deane/Tim/renault128.wmv - gives me cause for optimism re F1. It shows that somewhere underneath all the bull...t there may still be some soul.
Play it all the way through, it takes a while to get to the good bit.
Apologies if you've seen it before, I haven't.
A big thank's to Renault for making something about F1 fun for me again.

I can't leave it there permanently.

Tim.

[Paul]

Absolutely brilliant.

[Pete.]

I'm gob smacked. excellent.

[David Morton]

They'll be hooking two cars to the same PC soon and doing duets. Maybe Paul Walton can join the team as the Sound Engineer !

[Pete.]

Has anyone sighted a shedule of races for 2007? I am trying to do some forward planning. A seach of the FIA site revealed nothing.

[David Tickle]

Hi Pete. I suppose it's best to wait for the official FIA announcements, but I found this on the Yahoo.co.uk website, F1 section:-

Malaysian date raises F1 eyebrows
Thu 10 Aug, 10:47 AM

F1 organisers at the Sepang circuit have been handed a provisional race date for 2007 of April 8, according to local press reports in Malaysia.

The news, divulged in a letter to organisers by Bernie Ecclestone's 'FOM' company, means that the dates of the first three grands prix of next season are now set.


The 2007 season will kick off in Australia on the unusually late opening date of March 18, with - also oddly - the hop to Malaysia not due to occur until a full three weeks after that.

Seven days after Sepang, the green lights will go out in Bahrain.

But the opening dates for next year have raised some eyebrows among the F1 fraternity, with the travelling circus faced with the prospect of either spending three weeks in Australia or Malaysia before round two, or making the long-haul flight back to Europe before returning to the Asian region a few days later.

Regards
Dave Tickle

[Pete.]

Thanks David, If they spend three weeks in Australia we will have turned them all into Alcoholics before they get to Malaysia. It was the Aussie date that I was most interested in so I'll work with March 18th until I hear different

[Pete.]

JACQUES Villeneuve has delivered an astonishing personal broadside at seven-times formula one champion Michael Schumacher, whom he has branded a liar who uses dirty tricks to win races.

In a report published in London's Guardian newspaper, Villeneuve said the German had nothing like the charisma or star quality of his championship-winning predecessors Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost, and that fans will quickly forget Schumacher when he stops racing.

"He's a racer, but a pure racer, nothing but a racer and, because of that, I think the day he hangs up his helmet, people will just forget him," said Villeneuve, who left formula one after being replaced in the BMW-Sauber team by Robert Kubica.

"Senna, by contrast, will never be forgotten. Some of that is the James Dean factor, of course, because he was killed in action at a young age, but not all of it. I don't even think Michael will live on in people's memories as strong or as long as Prost has — certainly not as strong or as long as Mansell has. Those people attained a hero status that Michael never has and never will."

The Canadian points to this year's unseemly Monaco Grand Prix as an example of Schumacher's real character. Having set a quick time in qualifying, he brought his car to a stop on the track, blocking the narrow circuit and preventing his main rival, Fernando Alonso, from completing his own hot lap.

For Villeneuve, the echoes of his own run-in with Schumacher at Jerez in 1997 were all too clear. During that year's European Grand Prix, Schumacher's Ferrari collided with Villeneuve's Williams, but Villeneuve was still able to claim the title.

"Michael simply isn't a great champion because he's played too many dirty tricks and because he isn't a great human being," said Villeneuve. "Yes, Senna played dirty tricks, too, but he did it with more class, more integrity. When he took Prost out at Suzuka in 1990, he said he was going to do it before the race.

"So, unlike Michael, who ridiculously insisted he was innocent at Monaco this year, Senna said, 'Yes, I did it. But I told you before the race that I was going to do it.' … Senna wasn't lying to the fans. Michael was."

The full interview with Villeneuve will be published next week in F1 Racing magazine.