I miss David Coulthard but so far I'm enjoying Sky Sports coverage which thankfully TSN has decided to so far pick up the whole pre and post race coverage. Love hearing all the ex F1 drivers especially missed Brundle. Thankfully so far Ferrarri is a match to Mercedes so hopefully the season will be more competitive.
Well that race made up for the poor qualifying!
Martin Brundle was good, but I miss David Coultard. I feel the Sky guys miss a bit more of what is going on on the track, Coultard is very eagle eyed.
From the start....looks like Mercedes needs to work out this new clutch system, Ferrari nailed it. Rosberg and Hamilton failed the start, but Hamilton a little bit more and payed a bigger price. Mercedes really needs to figure out why their care is so bad in the slipstream. If they can't start first, they seam to always be in trouble.
That crash, wow. Amazing safety features that he could just walk away from that. Gutierrez looked to shimmy a touch left, but Alonso was going waaaay to fast to make that corner. One of the views showed he would have ended up in the gravel no matter what. Probably comes down to a racing incident, I'm not sure anyone should be punished for it, though the McLaren bodywork guys are going to feel it the most!
Love the 3 tire option, that is really going to mix things up. I always wondered why they limited it to 2 before. This will give interesting options, especially under safety care situations and unexpected stoppages like yesterday.
So nice to have a deep field again. I remember one race a year or 2 ago when there were something like 16 cars starting. Monaco is going to get crowded!
Good an Haas. Loved the radio message congratulating Grosjean the end, something about "good job, Dude!". Dude. You wouldn't hear a European using that word. Had a giggle.
Poor poor Kimi. Seams his car is always the dog. That fire over his head was awesome. Like flames shooting out his ears.
I think it is way to early to see how the other teams are doing overall, going to take a few races to shake out. Not looking good for Mclaren though.
Mercedes really needs to figure out why their care is so bad in the slipstream. If they can't start first, they are in trouble.
Oh, hopefully the good part of switch to Sky is never having to hear form that dough head Eddie Jordan ever again.
I don't follow the sport much now apart from a few glances but used to love it.
I don't now what Eddie Jordan is like now but I absolutely loved the days of when they were a racing team. They were one fun team to watch and had some of the nicest cars on the grid.
Plus they went 1-2 in one of the craziest races ever.
Well that is stupid. Everyone admitted it was terrible and didn't work, so hey, lets do it again!
Quote:
Speaking to Autosport, Bernie Ecclestone explained that the Strategy Group had followed his desire to leave to elimination system for one more race.
He said: “They’re going to do what I proposed, which is leave things as they are for this race [in Bahrain].
I was against it at first (as in when it ended) and figured a change back immediately was required but Force India had an excellent point.
Q1 was the most interesting we've seen in quite some time. Q2 was meh and Q3 was awful. Why abandon it totally when it was only somewhat a failure? I loved Q1. I thought it was very exciting. Screw the Sky Sports guys who said clock watching is boring. I liked the pressure and unpredictability. It was the lack of unpredictability and the lack of second chances that ruined Q2 and Q3.
I don't know what exactly would work but how about any of the following:
Make the elimination time longer or the sessions longer so that teams can do an out lap, flying lap and in lap and change tyres/refuel as needed. Elimination didn't work because teams didn't have enough time. The 90s clock was pointless because they didn't factor in the amount of time it takes to run a fast lap and the fact that tyres are only good for a single lap.
Perhaps they need to do away with having multiple sessions altogether. Or change formats for each session. Make Q1 elimination and Q2/Q3 the old way. Or like i said before just adjust the elimination clock or the session time.
Another option would be to mandate fuel loads or tyre usage. This is less desireable because it encourages teams to clog up the track at low speeds to meet the mandated levels.
The problem is that they need a way to encourage teams to stay out and keep trying to set new times. Right now the fuel loads and tyres mean that you only have one lap to set a time and then no matter how good the driver does, his fuel load and tyres won't sustain a second lap. And if you don't set the fastest lap it takes probably 5 mins if not more to finish the in lap, get new tyres, refuel and do an out lap.
Last edited by Cecil Terwilliger; 03-24-2016 at 01:03 PM.
The one change the must make is if you start your lap before the 90s, you get to finish it. I still don't think it will work well on the longer circuits. you also don't get the exciting improvements in times with guys in the drop zone getting a good time, and the uncertainty for someone, maybe in 8th if their time will hold up at the end of the session, because once you set an OK time, the people below don't have enough chance to set a good one.
I don't think the format makes it any more exciting, and in the end, what's the point? Has anyone really complained about qualifying? There are lots of things that need fixing, just because Bernie has a vision doesn't mean it's good. I just don't understand, given the universal reaction, who still thinks it is a good idea.
Alonso reveals injuries, admits he could miss China
McLaren’s Fernando Alonso has revealed he suffered fractured ribs and a collapsed lung in his frightening crash in Melbourne 10 days ago, and admits he cannot guarantee he will be cleared to race in China in two weeks' time.
Alonso says he was determined to compete this weekend in Bahrain, but with his ribs not fully healed#doctors deemed it too risky for him to take part. And while the Spaniard insists such risks are 'very small', he concedes he cannot say decisively when he will be eligible to return.
"To summarise a little, last week [in Australia] I was okay Sunday - some knee pain but not big things. I had the green light to leave the track and everything was okay," Alonso explained in Thursday’s official FIA press conference in Bahrain.
"On Monday I had a bit of overall pain, nothing too serious. Then I flew back, arrived in Spain and the pain was a little more, so we did a proper check and I had a small pneumothorax [collapse] on the lung.
"We took advice from the doctors to relax at home and repeat the scan last Monday - the pneumothorax is gone more or less but I had some rib fractures. And because F1 is a very unique position in the car, and with the g-forces, there was a risk the fractures could move into the lung.
"It’s not like broken leg or arm where you can deal with the pain; it’s the chest where there are organs, so we cannot do much more."
Asked whether he was confident of racing in China, Alonso added: "It is not 100 percent - it will be another test I need to do in the next eight or 10 days and after that the FIA will evaluate again, as they did today.
"I will recover. I am already recovered from the pneumothorax, it’s just the ribs are not ‘glued’ let’s say, so it could be a problem. It is a very, very small risk, but I understand we all want zero risk. So it is just a matter of time. In the next 10 days it should be fine but we cannot guarantee - maybe five days, maybe 10, maybe 12."
Just watched P2. Somehow Button in the Mclaren scored P3. Incredible. Vettel had what looked like a gearbox issue. Renault is no good.
The Super soft tires have horrible deg, don't expect to see them out in the race. Probably soft and medium.
Rosberg is sitting first and has the fastest lap on this course, faster than any of the previous engines so these hybrids are really ramping up the power. Expect that record to fall in qualifying.
Watching qualifying....ugh soooo bad. Q1, 4 minutes left, and it is decided. Clock is ticking down, no one on the track. Guess what guys. It was dumb in Australia, it is still dumb.
Front runners do one lap and quit. Back end scrambles until they realize they are going to be knocked out, and sit in the bits.
Will update as this goes on. If someone though qualifying was bad before and needed fixing, this is not it. I repeat, Bernie. THIS IS NOT IT.
Ugh, so P2, basically no one on the track at 8 minutes. It didn't help that the light malfunctioned so everyone lost 1 minute. Basically doomed guys like Button and Kyvat. They got one shot, and that was it. Hulkenberg did go out in those 8 minutes and got into Q1, so good job there, but this is the worst qualifying I've ever watched. No excitement, just disappointment.
Let's see where Q3 takes us....(and yes, I'm PVRing the Oilers game to watch that next )
Q3 was better, but I wish the bottom 8 had more chance to put a second lap in. Anyway, qualifying sucks. We know it, besides that Hamilton put in the fastest time ever on this track with these engines. Good to see they are finally breaking the old records. with the hybrids.
So apparently a best 2 times proposal was made today and Christian Horner of Red Bull is the one refusing to accept a hybrid of elimination and the old system.
Naturally the Sky Sports guys are acting like elimination is the worst thing ever, until they heard about the new system. Won't someone think of the fans lol. I'm quickly getting irritated by their constant complaining about this. They don't even bother discussing what works. They just complain like old ladies at the salon complain about everything no matter what the situation is.
If we were to go back to the old system, which Bernie has said isn't an option, these Sky Sports guys would just complain that there are no cars on the track for the first 5 minutes and that pole was never in doubt.
Last edited by Cecil Terwilliger; 04-03-2016 at 08:12 AM.
Of course the curling required an extra end! and I don't get TSN 5!
Grrrrr.....
Even worse is getting all 5 channels and having it set to record every race. Of course it records the channel the race is supposed to be on and I get curling instead of the first 4 laps. There has to be a better way to do this (Shaw, tsn).