Formula 1 Thread

[three3-times]

meh...vettel is gonna walk this

20 seconds for Alonso slamming into Hamilton, 20 seconds for Hamilton weaving to defend his position(slightly if at all), nothing for Vettel vigorously weaving more than 3 times to defend his position from Hamilton, WHAT A JOKE!!! The FIA is now back to popularity contests and nil consistency. FAIL.

[smiggy]

You quickly changed your tune.

rubbish, after one race? vettels dominance today was only highlighted due to the damage lewis's car had. if McLaren can give lewis the car (finally) my money is on him.

Everyone weaves off the start, never seen anyone punished for it before.

[ANDY098]

[Treefrog]

Vitaly Petrov test flying the Hover conversion due 2015

A pretty good race all round, well from 2nd place down any way. Vettel seems to be unstoppable at the moment.

Good old Jensen eh, Heidfeld did pretty well too.

[ANDY098]

Heard some interesting rumours today regarding the legality of the RB7...

[R3D D3V!L]

Heard some interesting rumours today regarding the legality of the RB7...

Go on...

[ANDY098]

Vettel's car had the floor removed in scrutineering on Saturday evening, delaying all the cars being returned to their teams. A theory has emerged that they have an interesting interpretation of the rules regarding some details of the floor.

[ANDY098]

Took a slight detour past Silverstone on my way home from work. The Wing pit complex looks very good. Crap camera pic incoming.

[Firefox]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011...ton-f1-mclaren

Lewis Hamilton tells McLaren: 'Make me an F1 winner or I may leave'

• Former champion fed up with being second best to Red Bull
• 'Loyalty has its limits,' Hamilton tells the team who made him




McLaren's Lewis Hamilton sees 'no attraction whatsoever' in being a one-team man. Photograph: Crispin Thruston/Action Images

Lewis Hamilton has issued McLaren with the starkest warning yet that he is prepared to walk away from the team unless they give him a car good enough to win his second world championship.

"I have got only a short period in Formula One and I want to be competitive," he said. "I want to win championships. If you're in a good enough place and you're happy then there's no need to go anywhere. But loyalty has its limits."

Hamilton was responding to comments made by McLaren's team principle, Martin Whitmarsh, that he wanted to sign up Hamilton and his team-mate and fellow world champion Jenson Button for "another five years".

Hamilton, who won the world title with McLaren in 2008, warned the team at the start of the season that he wanted to be remembered as a multiple world champion. On Thursday he said: "I've always enjoyed racing here and would like to continue but at the end of the year you have to assess what position you're in and what's happened."
When Hamilton, who has been with the Woking-based McLaren team since signing as a child prodigy, was asked whether he envisaged staying with them for his entire career. "I don't really envisage anything, to be honest," he said.

The 26-year-old was then asked if he thought the idea of being a one-team man was intriguing. "Not really. I don't think there is any attraction to it whatsoever."
Hamilton was a brilliant rookie in 2007, when he missed winning the title by one point. But since pipping Felipe Massa the following year he has suffered two frustrating seasons.
McLaren were not even competitive at the start of the 2009 season and although Hamilton won three races last year his last victory came in the Belgian grand prix in Spa in August and he was well beaten, back in fourth place in the drivers' table.

This season is shaping up to be another disappointment for the British driver, with the German Sebastian Vettel winning the first two races in Australia and Malaysia for Red Bull and Hamilton taking only 22 points. Vettel has won the past four races, and five out of six.

According to Hamilton, Red Bull – who would be favourites to sign him if he did move on, with Mercedes the dark horses – are getting stronger and stronger.
"They're better this year," he said in the build-up to Sunday's Chinese grand prix. "They're just getting better. The car is the quickest so now they can focus on other areas. Their pit stop is the fastest. They're in and out ... boom ... it's like clockwork."

Hamilton, who has just bought one of Prince's guitars for £61,000, is regarded as the finest "racer" in Formula One, and he may have been reminded of his vast potential after signing a new agent to replace his father, Anthony, from whom he parted professionally a year ago.

Whitmarsh's apparent desire to keep his current drivers at McLaren for years to come came as a surprise to Button. "He hasn't spoken to me about that yet," the 2009 champion said. "No one has mentioned it to me. But it's lovely to hear and I'm obviously doing something right. I will grill Martin on it."

Button purchased an antique sword in Malaysia – "I was looking around the market and I thought it was amazing. It has an amazing blade on it. But I have to find out whether it is real or not" – but his focus is on finding the pace to challenge Vettel. He is second in the drivers' standings, four points better off than Hamilton, after a second place in Malaysia last weekend.

"If we get a nice clean race start, we could have a fun race and I think the pace [between McLaren and Red Bull] will be reasonably similar," Button said. "I finished three seconds behind [Vettel] [in Malaysia] but he definitely slowed down at the end but I don't think he did on every lap. Our pace was quite similar. I think we can make more headway than Red Bull, because of not really completely knowing our car and not having the perfect set-up over the past couple of races. Also we have some updates here; I don't know if Red Bull has."

The Australian Mark Webber reacted angrily when asked if he was fed up with being hit over the head with a baseball bat by Vettel, his Red Bull team-mate. The questioner was referring to Eddie Irvine's famous response when asked what it felt like to be so dominated by his then Ferrari team-mate, Michael Schumacher. Irvine said it was "like being hit over the head with a baseball bat".

Webber was furious: "Absolutely ****ing ludicrous question mate. You've known me long enough. Five wins in a row? Yeah but that doesn't mean ... he's not just beaten me. He's beaten everyone. So no one will turn up then. We may as well all stay at home.

"That's what a competitor does [come back fighting]. Nothing lasts forever. That's the way it goes. Like I said he is doing a good job and Malaysia was close between us. Tough first lap [for me] but that's what happens. Come here, see how we go ... I think ... I'll stop there."

[Arkano6]

I'd like to see the FIA stop being pussies.

NOBODY wants another 2004.

[LfCpS3]

Webber qualified at No 18 LOL.
Not good for him!

[ANDY098]

Red Bull really have no confidence in their KERS, everyone who touched Webber's car was wearing 1000V electricians gloves to protect themselves from potential electrocution.

[ANDY098]

Vettel weaving off the start...

£250 Could have been more if Button hadn't cocked up his first stop.

Good race by Webber and both Mercs in the points.

[Arkano6]

Spectacular race, we should be in for a brilliant season this year.

[Nitey]

Fantastic race, really enjoyed it

Great drives by Lewis and Mark ^_^

[ANDY098]

[crooky369]

Spacebats?

[Xelis]

Amazing race, thank you Perelli.

[ANDY098]

Le Mans test day today

Radio commentary: http://radiolemans.com/
Live timing: http://www.lemans.org/en/courses/24h...ve-timing.html


And, epic hill climb.

[ANDY098]

A couple of big crashes today...

[crooky369]

How did you find out about these crashes?

Do you know if Aussie V8's use a metal fuel tank?

[ANDY098]

Saw them on Adam Cooper's twitter.

No idea what the fuel tank is made of, it is located behind the rear axle though, i.e. in the boot.

edit:

The flexible fuel bladder must be manufactured from a reinforced material in polyamide, polyester, aramid or equivalent impregnated and coated on both sides with a fuel resistant elastomer.

http://www.v8supercars.com.au/Portal...D_Update_1.pdf
http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public...afety_tank.pdf

[crooky369]

Saw them on Adam Cooper's twitter.

No idea what the fuel tank is made of, it is located behind the rear axle though, i.e. in the boot.

edit:



http://www.v8supercars.com.au/Portal...D_Update_1.pdf
http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public...afety_tank.pdf

Pretty surprised then I thought them fuel "bags" were pretty impenetrable....

Cheers for going out your way to look!

[ANDY098]

Senna doing a lap of Spa whilst recording it on his camera phone.



I have also discovered the greatest video of all time...

[play_b3yond_313]

What a race! Man Vettel is just cleaning up. Staying 40+ laps on the same tires and still holding off Alonso. Messy finish overall, but another victory for Vettel.