F1 - Monaco

[Axel]

Hmmmm I find it a bit strange that we don't have a F1 topic on here since we are all races. Anywho, im finding this race magnificent. Monaco + Rain = ACTION!!!!

So far Sutil is my racer of the day but Hamilton is flying very nicely!!! Now i know he is a fantastic driver but crashing into that barrier benefited him hugely!!! Still 20 laps to go!

[blixabargeld]

damn! just lost it..
anyway, would be nice to make comparison between ag teams and f1 teams in terms of racing "phylosophy".. :nod

[eLhabib]

Didn't we do that already? I hear a bell ringing somewhere...

[Axel]

Nope thats just your imagination El. Anyways very good race. Very upset with Sutil not finishing, dammit Kimi!!! That was a terrible race by him.

Anyways who said F1 was boring lol.

[infoxicated]

Me.

I think it's boring. And ****.

Why even bother racing in the dry if it's the only way F1 can conjure up excitement? Just have each of the marshals point a hose at the braking areas and be done with it.

[RJ O'Connell]

I look at it differently. F1 is the kind of sport where you have to be on top of your game throughout the whole race weekend to win in the race. It's not like NASCAR where any driver could potentially win the race through total dumb luck like Kasey Kahne did this weekend at Charlowe's, even if they qualified dead last and wrecked three cars in practice.

Yeah, NASCAR and IndyCar Series racing has more overtaking on track than Formula 1, but basketball is a much higher scoring game than hockey, and I'd watch hockey over basketball ten times out of nine. 500 lead changes in a race held in a field of essentially spec race cars a great race does not necessarily make.

[infoxicated]

Nobody said anything about other forms of motorsport.

The original poster proposed that since we are all racers we could appreciate F1.

But that's the exact reason I despise F1 and all that it stands for. I am someone who appreciates racing, which means I cant get excited about F1 because it's a sterile, overhyped, money-laundering exersize that, despite all the hype and all the money, needs the assistance of something that falls out of the bloody sky for free to make it exciting.

[Rapier Racer]

I can't get into F1, I just don't see whats so good about it plus the fact I constantly get pasted at work by F1 fans for preferring NASCAR over all other motorsports, apparently it takes no skill, that must be why all the open wheel guys who came over have won a championship already. :rolleyes:

And don't talk to me about rain on race day!! ;)

[Lance]

I'd love to see Formula I if they went back to the rules of the late 30s where 750 kilogram cars that could go 200 MILES per hour ran on round-section tires about 5 inches wide on tracks like the rEal Nurbürg Ring and Donington Park with no armco barrier and with trees and grass all along the courses. Those races were ... interesting.



200MPH = 321.869 KPH
5 inches = 127 mm
750 kg = 1653.47 pounds = 14.763 hundredweight

[RJ O'Connell]

To me, it takes a separate skill set to drive a Sprint Cup car than a single-seat, open wheel race car. That's why typically, most open wheelers who move to stock/touring car racing struggle. They aren't used to constant pack racing, or driving a car twice the weight of what they're used to, that has fenders and doesn't crumple apart when it scrapes a wall at speed.

As for the champions that are struggling in NASCAR right now...Sam Hornish Jr. won titles when the IRL was still mostly comprised of the first generation of drivers who either weren't competitive or never could be competitive in CART. Dario Franchitti was close to CART titles in the 90s, but in 2007 he benefitted from racing against watered-down competition as well. Jacques Villeneuve was never competitive after 1997 and has now gone to Le Mans Series racing, which suits him far better than his situation in NASCAR was. Juan Pablo Montoya has won in the Sprint Cup series and would probably benefit from changing teams, because Ganassi isn't giving him much to work with - just ask Dario! And Carpentier and Allmendinger aren't champions, just relatively successful drivers in CART/Champ Car.

It's not that one style takes no skill whatsoever compared to the other. It's that Stock Car and Grand Prix racing require two different skill sets. And some drivers can't bridge that gap as well as others.

[infoxicated]

As for the champions that are struggling in NASCAR right now...Sam Hornish Jr. won titles when the IRL was still mostly comprised of the first generation of drivers who either weren't competitive or never could be competitive in CART. Dario Franchitti was close to CART titles in the 90s, but in 2007 he benefitted from racing against watered-down competition as well.
You just cant help yourself with writing that fiction, can you RJ? ;)

Because just about everything you said about IndyCar above is pure fantasy.

Dario winning against a watered down field?

Complete bullshit - who does actually race against the entire field? The best teams are only racing against each other, and that's the same in almost every form of motorsport.

Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon, Sam Hornish - those are the guys that Dario was racing against, and they're damn fine racing drivers - four Indy 500 winners and four series champions amongst them.

You say it was a watered down field as if the rest of the drivers just lay down and let Dario and Sam take the championship? Why then, did Dario and Sam not win their respective championships until the last lap of the final race of the season?

Who the open wheel drivers raced against has nothing to do with how they perform in NASCAR. The successful open wheel racers that have made the transition are those that came from a Sprint car or Midget background, because there it's all about driving in a way which saves the right rear - a skill that applies equally well in NASCAR. You don't get to learn that skill in most other forms of open wheel racing - IndyCar included, because the cars are set up to be more planted.

I could actually tear to shreds what you said about Villeneuve not being competitive after 1997, too, but it's clear you're so completely blinkered that it would be a pointless task. Tell me, though; do you actually believe that a racing driver as good as Villeneuve completely lost his skills overnight or was it maybe - just maybe - that the equipment he was in was inferior to the car he won the championship with?

[Darkdrium777]

I'm with foxy on the one about Villeneuve. He's been complaining ever since he won the championship that the equipment he had was very bad (Read that a lot in the papers here). And it's true, it was rubbish. All the time there was a mechanical failure that caused him to abandon the race, or finish very far from the podium. It sucks for him because he's a very good pilot. When he changed teams to his most recent one he was consistently getting in 8th place at least, with a car that, although better than the previous one, was nothing compared to a Ferrari. That's when there was no failures, or when he didn't have accidents.

[RJ O'Connell]

Dario winning against a watered down field?

Complete bullshit - who does actually race against the entire field? The best teams are only racing against each other, and that's the same in almost every form of motorsport.

Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon, Sam Hornish - those are the guys that Dario was racing against, and they're damn fine racing drivers - four Indy 500 winners and four series champions amongst them.

You say it was a watered down field as if the rest of the drivers just lay down and let Dario and Sam take the championship? Why then, did Dario and Sam not win their respective championships until the last lap of the final race of the season?

Who the open wheel drivers raced against has nothing to do with how they perform in NASCAR. The successful open wheel racers that have made the transition are those that came from a Sprint car or Midget background, because there it's all about driving in a way which saves the right rear - a skill that applies equally well in NASCAR. You don't get to learn that skill in most other forms of open wheel racing - IndyCar included, because the cars are set up to be more planted.

I could actually tear to shreds what you said about Villeneuve not being competitive after 1997, too, but it's clear you're so completely blinkered that it would be a pointless task. Tell me, though; do you actually believe that a racing driver as good as Villeneuve completely lost his skills overnight or was it maybe - just maybe - that the equipment he was in was inferior to the car he won the championship with?

I wasn't making myself clear earlier.

Sam Hornish Jr. and Dario Franchitti were the two most recent champions, and they did race against a competitive field. Keep in mind though, that before (and even after) the merge, there are still only about 6 or 7 cars that even have a realistic chance of winning any week in the IndyCar series.

And about JV. He was and still is uncompetitive after 97. And that is the result of bad equipment. I actually did pull for Jacques before it became apparent that F1 had passed him by.

And speaking of Canadian things, I'd like to talk about the upcoming race at Altima VII - er, Montreal ;). Great track, always makes for some interesting races wet or dry (Hopefully we won't see another crash like Robert Kubica's last year, though). I like to think of it as a Monaco made for the modern F1 car.

[infoxicated]

I see what you're saying, but are you telling me that anyone outside of the top 6 or 7 cars has a realistic chance of winning in F1?

Unless it's a crash fest or a rain assisted farce, then they most definitely don't. So how you, and people who think like you, can stoop to cheapen the championships earned by IndyCar drivers when you'd bow at the feet of a cheat like Schumacher or an overhyped cry baby like Alonso is completely laughable.

On the subject of the Canadian GP - it's one of the few tracks that F1 visits that's worth the entrance fee. Four of my work mates are attending it, in fact - wish I could be there. :)