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Lots of nice passes, very good racing: most of it, I would say, did not involve the flappy wing. Perez was a different man. McLaren really do deserve credit for allowing their boys to race.
Certain circuits will suit certain teams but it looks like another Red Bull year. DiResta was great but can his team develop over the season like the big guns?
Nice piece here on the Minardi old boys:
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2013/04/alonso-and-webber-after-the-dinner-the-joint-200th-gp-chat/
Comments
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8019558.stm
Too bad for Mark he got stuck behind Nelson and his KERS. Otherwise he was a certainty for a solid 10th!!!
The only big team to mount a challenge would be McLaren, but they will probably cop some point penalty. TOIT are stuck in a spaghetti western rerun
and BMW are the new Honda (just without the Japanese). Renault are warm and cold. Red Bull are capable but I don't think they can sustain it for the full season,
and Toyota are Japanese, Force India are confused ,Torro Rosso going nowhere with the French Seb and Williams are full of promise and no delivery.
re; Merc - Norbert Haug's last comment was along the lines of it being unfair to jump on the bandwagon, give McLaren time, etc. (so Monaco, then!).
So here are my thoughts on the teams so far:
Red Bull: Good as usual, but the differences between Vettel and Webber could end up like in Turkey 2010.
Ferrari: Massa's back and the car is alot closer to the top. Will it be enough? They had some bad luck except for the victory. RB WILL have some troubles, too.
Mercedes still haven't found why their cars always ruin the tyres (like in 2010, 2011 and 2012).
Renault: I think they have a seriuos chance to stay within the top three as Mercedes have the old tyre-problem and McLaren is far away.
McLaren: What happened? I think they will close the gap to Renault or Ferrari like in 2009, but I will take a while.
ForceIndia: Impressive, hope they can overtake McLaren.
Sauber: Once again they were said to be fast but they are definetly weaker then last season.
ToroRosso: Same pace as Sauber, hope they can beat them in the final standings. One of the drivers will eventually go to Red Bull, for whatever job.
Williams: Like McLaren. They had such a good car in 2012, and now?! The drivers are not to bad, but I think they will have another season like 2011 (5 points).
Marussia: Bianchi makes the difference to Caterham, I think it will take some luck to score any points.
Caterham: the difference to Marussia (except for Bianchi) is very small, but I think they will stay ahead and finally score a point (took long enough).
Those guys going for it in the esses all day was really great to watch. There is something very different happenning when drivers can attack in high-downforce corners. Not saying that how it comes about is good, but certainly makes it a lot more fun to watch.
Bianchi has become something of a revelation. A bit Alonso-like when he was at Minardi. He was only a few seconds off of a struggling Richiardo for a good deal of the race, and that must give the Catterham folks some joy. Must also make them wonder about Van Der Garde.
As noted, Williams and Sauber are quite blah, though their race pace was a lot stronger than qualifying. Torro Rosso pretty lamentable, given they were only a tenth off Button's pace in qualifying. Bad luck for JEV, but worse looking for Richiardo, who did nothing all race but go backwards.
I am not as praisy about Force India. Yes, they have genuine speed, but they keep trying to finess their races by having different stop/tyre strategies. Better that they just line up with the front runners and try to peg them honestly, without all this other crap.
Vettel was on another planet - again! Watched the lap times throughout the race, and he was able to extract much quicker lap times compared to Webber throughout, and for longer. Dont know what it is, but he has had these Pirellis nailed from the start. Poor Webber cant make the tyres last more than a few laps before losing pace. I know he doesnt like these types of circuits, but whether he likes driving them or not, is hardly the point. He needs to work this stuff out, and quick, or this year will be a disaster for him.
Loved the Mclaren battle. Just loved it. Checo got a little too excited once or twice, but other than that you have to say that he at least attempted to respond to his critics. Whimarsh must have torn a groove with his arsohole on that chair watching all that.
Mercedes pace is just weird, and all you can say about them at the moment is that they have two very good drivers.
TOIT has an off day, and they seem to be having more than their fair share of them too.
Lotus are being very smart in my opinion. They dont seem to be going for fancy setups, or second geussing the tyres on the circuit. Just looking for the best long-run pace in practice; doing their best in qualifying, and exploiting their consitency during the race. Very un-flash, and so far, very effective.
Still no real indication of where everyone is at, even though we have now had 4 races. You would have to say that any of four teams can win races at this point, so let us see what heppens next.
Webbo leaving for sure Red Bull (and also F1?) at the end of the season, with Kimi ready to replace him in RBR. Webbo may replace Massa at Ferrari though!!
Alonso, after losing lots of points in Malaysia and Bahrein, and seeing that once again RBR has a better car and it will be difficult to beat, is nervous, he got denounced to Spanish police for hitting a photographer who was tring to capture a photo of him and his girlfriend at the exit of his hotel in Barna.
Unfortunately am gonna miss the race as will be flying for a stupid business trip to Kinshasa. Sh@t!!! I expect another great performance by Renault.
A: About $2
Ho ho ho
Better you than me mate.
There is certainly a lot of speculation surrounding the final outcome of Multi 21. Marko even coming out to back Ricciardo to replace Webber, but that is surely just him being his poor equivalent of cunning.
What the fans really want to see is a circumstance where both players are in a circumstance wheel-to-wheel to see what happens. Round the outside at Eau Rouge???? Don't think so.
Unrelated, is it just me, or is this back-to-back, and then three-week gap crap really undoing the interest momentum for the season? The season used to be quite compact, with two weeks between, and a three-week gap for summer break. Now the thing drags on for 9 months, with this uneven spacing and it is kind of pissing me off.
Looks like V8 guys are causing a bit of trouble. Story followed by link to the story. Haven't seen any about fans though.
Two Aussie V8 team personnel arrested, officials say
By Dave Doolittle | Friday, May 17, 2013, 03:58 PM
Two personnel for Australian V8 Supercars teams competing this weekend at Circuit of the Americas were arrested in downtown Austin this week, according to police and media reports.
Adam Fisher was arrested about 2:20 a.m. Wednesday in the 400 block of East Sixth Street on charges of public intoxication and resisting arrest, according to police. Fisher, who the Daily Telegraph said works for the Lockwood Racing team, was released from the Travis County Jail late Wednesday and reported to duty at the circuit Thursday, the newspaper said.
Mark Dutton, the engineer for Triple Eight Engineering, was arrested in the 500 block of Trinity Street about 2:40 a.m. Wednesday on charges of pedestrian in the roadway, a police spokeswoman said. He was released about 8 a.m., the newspaper said.
Austin police had no other details on the arrest. A spokesman for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office has not returned a call.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/racing/entries/2013/05/17/two_aussie_v8_team_personnel_a.html/
Looks like you didn't miss much. I saw a short highlights package from the Friday racing, and the layout they used was all esses, and short straights. Only two 'sot of' overtaking points, so the cars were strung out like a procession. Stands appeared pretty empty as well.
Dud.
I've read that some people didn't know the format and went home after the first race ended on Saturday. So that needs some adjusting as well, but the 35C temperature might have sent some away. To think F1 was originally going to run in June there.
If they could find a weekend that works between Nascar, ALMS, GrandAm, and Indycar, perhaps they could do something like the Gold Coast 600 and bring in drivers from those series as co-drivers. Might make the crowds take to the V8s more.