[Foxy]

Anyone in US interested in the start of the new F1 season - if so, what do you make of the new rule changes?

I stayed up to watch - 2.00am UK time - thought the first quarter a bit of a muddle - but on the whole, it was quite a bit more interesting than last year´s race - MS gets my vote for "driver of the day" by finishing a very close fourth with half his car missing - what a star!!

Twit of the race for me, goes to Montoya, what ever did he think he was doing!! Will he ever win a grand prix?
:-(

 

[Juggernaut]

i used to tune into the F1 races now and then, never really followed the seasons though. i was mainly watching the WRC. unfortunatly, my Speed network channel was cut off of my cable and now i can´t watch either :-Y :-[

 

[MadBrad]

Thank heaven! Another F1 fan! It was 10:00 pm here(Toronto Canada) at the start. I can get it on TSN or SPEED but because I have Bell Expressvu It was the TSN broadcast on both channels, and wouldn´t you know it, TSN just used SPEED´s feed! I´m not too much of a fan of the three commentators they have. One is David Hobbs and I forget the other two guys. Oh how I miss Martin and James(tho I miss Murray more)! I will never hear from them again :-[
I liked seeing the grid shaken up a bit but in the other hand I thing the locking up of the cars overnight and having the fuel you had in qualifying makes qualifying unimportant.
Not too much of a fan of Herr Superstar. I don´t have a problem with him, I just tend to support underdogs, i guess. I´m still not convinced the Scuderia hasn´t been cheating for the past 6 years ;-)
DOD for me is either of the McLarens for coming from so far back. Kimi had bad luck. It´s nice to see the red coner isn´t infallible. Wouldn´t you say Rubens and Christiano and Firman made as much a F*%# up as Juan? Too bad Jacques was out of the points, it looked promising. Too bad he´s not in a good car. I´d be a much better Tifosi if he were in there. Speaking of BAR drivers, I hear Jensen is a loudmouth punk. Is it so?
That was the first time I´ve seen a wheel tether work! And twice at that!
Happy to see Heinz Qualify so well. I have high hopes for the Blue Oval.
Talk of MS´ car falling afoul of the tech regs after falling apart and dragging the jabrock plank aroung for so long. So he could lose those points.
Well I could go on. Let´s do this every race. ok?

 

[Foxy]

:-D Wow - thought no-one on this site but me was a F1 freak - I am a huge fan of MS although, like yourself, I sometimes wonder ....... :-? There´s no doubt that he is the most terrific driver - does make me ask myself why on earth do teams need all their paraphernalia when MS can finish so close with "a mechano set" in pieces? I agree with you about the cars being locked up after qualifying - surely some of the challenge for the pit crews and drivers, is setting up the cars in race-trim compatible with the weather and track conditions on the day of the race - of course, Ferrari are excellent at this, so is probably one of the reasons for the change. :-?

Anyway, time will tell and, yes, I´d love to chat with the other F1 fan through the season! :-D

I suspect the rumours about Button are, in part, true - I´ve also heard similar about Villeneuve - who knows!

TruBrit92Scort, 14U2C

[ This message was edited by: Foxy on 11-03-2003 12:20 ]

 

[MadBrad]

I´m more of a fan of the British drivers. But Herbert, Mansell, Hill, Coulthard, Hakkinen(SP?), Alesi, and, save the best for last, Senna(I always keep a sticker on my hardhat), are my guys.
I´m slightly surprised to see a Brit MS fan. But of course, Il Leone, the Red Number 5, turned the UK fans on to the Scarlet Concern, and boy the Italians loved him. I guess since then any ferrari pilot gets UK lovin´. Funny how the Italian Tifosi took a whole year to accept Michael. My thing about MS is this: His immense talent is undeniable. Many of his points, though, were handed to him by his teammates, and on occasion that teammate might stay well back and do some blocking to keep the mathematical title rival out of the points. This is an exaggeration, but you get the point. Hill, Hakkinen, Villeneuve, and whoever else might have a chance at it went without this luxury. They all shared their points with their teammates. Michael may or may not have gotten as many titles as he did had he driven in those conditions. Again, I have NOTHING against Michael.

 

[Foxy]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%>[TR][TD]Quote:

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

12-03-2003 at 19:19, MadBrad wrote:
I´m slightly surprised to see a Brit MS fan.

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

I´ve been a huge fan of Ferrari for a very long time and waited so many years for the team to come good again, that when MS came on to the scene I was delighted. I know team orders have always played a (perhaps) bigger part with Ferrari than other teams but nevertheless it was because of Michaels´s talent not only as a driver but as a ´setter-upper´ that Ferrari wanted him - and he has certainly more than played his part in his team´s success. I have always felt uneasy about strategic manoeuvres to win races for one particular driver but it has always been a ´team game´ and other teams have used just such methods when necessary. However, the rules have now changed and we can only wait to see how things pan-out as the season progresses. It will be interesting to see what happens when all the bits come off!!

As for Brit. drivers, my favourite as a character was Herbert - never could get a good enough car though - apparently had a torrid time with Sauber (who hasn´t). David Coulthard, sadly, talks more good races than he drives - maybe he will come good, but I suspect Kimi will be the better racer of the two.

I shall be up again at the crack of dawn for the next round! :-(

 

[MadBrad]

I was thinking about it and I think maybe the reason I am not too much into Shuey might be, besides that he is the odds on favourite, thea whoever I have been rooting for, he was always on the other side of it. Senna in 91, then Mansell, then Prost, who I think was amazing, than Hill, then Villeneuve, then Hakkinen, Well I actually was a good Tifosi when they had Alesi and Berger. Ans Mansell and Prost. Oh well. :-?

 

[stripedmx5]

F1 fans UNITE !!

Yeah, my wife and I are into it, pretty heavily. We even went to the Canadian GP two years ago. Man, you lose so much on TV. Granted, the coverage is much better on SPEED, but the video/audio feeds just don´t do justice to the actual sights, sounds, and even the smells.

We have been playing Fantasy F1 with a few buddies and it is quite fun. My team´s name last year was shuemethamoney, while this year´s is makemyrubenswithkraut. Needless to say, I am a Shuey fan. The man is unbelievably talented, but Rubens, to me, is the unsung star. Not only is he a team player, in the truest sense of the word, but even with the team working primarily for MS, Rubens seems to stay within a whisker of, if not beat, him. Terrific.

As for the new rules, some are good, and some are not. Personally, I am glad that they are going to get rid of the traction control and the auto tranny. I want to see DRIVERS, not STEERERS. I had this same argument with someone on our Fantasy group. He wants all the technology, but I want realism. If we want to take his theory to the extreme, why don´t we have computers simulate cars, drivers and tracks, and we can just watch a monitor.

Glad to hear that there are some other F1 freaks out there.

Marcus

 

[Juggernaut]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%>[TR][TD]Quote:

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

14-03-2003 at 19:59, stripedmx5 wrote:
As for the new rules, some are good, and some are not. Personally, I am glad that they are going to get rid of the traction control and the auto tranny. I want to see DRIVERS, not STEERERS. I had this same argument with someone on our Fantasy group. He wants all the technology, but I want realism. If we want to take his theory to the extreme, why don´t we have computers simulate cars, drivers and tracks, and we can just watch a monitor.

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

i totally agree, though driving in computer games is fun too :-]
i´m quite surprised that they could fit extra goodies like traction control in those puny pocket rockets! i see the need for the auto tranny though, there´s so much shifting to do in so little time through so many corners...manual would be so much more fun though :-D

 

[Foxy]

:-( Sorry - forgot to give poor Rubens a mention - he has improved beyond all recognition in the past two years and deserves a lot of credit for helping Shuey to his champs.
Good to see some more F1 fans responding. We have pretty good TV coverage in the UK - national independent station.
Sadly, I have to admit to being a "playstation" F1 driver and am TERRIBLE!
:-(

 

[MadBrad]

hey, Jugg, If you can´t believe they fit traction control and auto shifting in the cars, would it surprise you that there once was ABS and active suspension in there? And waaaaaaay back, they tried all wheel drive and even 6 wheels.

 

[Juggernaut]

nooo! the technology! it´s too much!

 

[MadBrad]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%>[TR][TD]Quote:

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

16-03-2003 at 03:03, Juggernaut wrote:
nooo! the technology! it´s too much!

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
This from a guy who could code his way into Fort Knox! A technophobe! This is a contradiction. :-]

 

[Juggernaut]

no, that´s not the contradiction - me being a technophobe with a sense of humour, there ya go :-]

i don´t think i could quite crack knox though...i´m not that far into my CS degree