Celebrating Five Glorious Years of Heikki Kovalainen: Formula 1 in 2012

The EXCITEMENT that is A NUMBER OF GAZEBOS.

omg perez

omg perez
― merrick & toro rosso (haitch), Sunday, March 25, 2012 10:15 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FERRARI-powered Sauber "runs wide" before it is about to overtake a FERRARI for the lead, shock horror.

gotta lose one before you win one, i guess

Or in Michael Schumacher's case, win heaps before you lose heaps.

FERRARI-powered Sauber driven by a guy who'll probably be in the other Ferrari by Monaco "runs wide" before it is about to overtake a FERRARI for the lead, shock horror.

lol i was just going to say, how long until 'massa out' starts - it's a shame but he's just not anything like what he used to be

great race. really enjoyed it. Senna doing well this year.

Britishers: how is the Sky coverage?

Yeah this was gripping. I'd gotten used to really boring races and making the best of it that it was fantastic to have an actual race, with real competition all over the place.

Perez astonishing. It sure looks to me that a decision was made to not really try for the win, which is a shame. I think Perez was telling Alonso 'don't you think I couldn't have taken you today' immediately after getting out of the cars. I wanted him to win but it was probably best to keep the points and not piss off Ferrari.

Re Sky: this is kind of a bizarre minor point, but to me it's cool to finally see Kravitz after the BBC made sure you never, ever saw him, he's really suited to prodding at space-age monitors in the Technobubble or Skylab or whereever that studio is. Miss Jordan and DC though, Hill is fine but he's very bland compared to them.

I cannot see how Massa lasts the season. They're going to deny it to the ends of the earth, until they take him for a little drive in the woods.

It seems suspect maybe but it also seems totally nuts that Perez would have ran off the track like that on purpose.

Not suggesting that was deliberate - but if it were me driving and I'd gotten that message, I might have run off the road simply because I wasn't concentrating on the drive any longer. The pit stop thing definitely seemed like an attempt to hold Perez back, and the message got sent to drive the point home that second place suited everyone just fine. Perez took Sauber by surprise, I think. Nothing nefarious or awful, just unfortunate since he could have taken Alonso with many laps to spare. Sauber of course denies any scheming, which makes sense since from his point of view it isn't scheming to settle for second.

Gotta say it's great to have a race in which there's something to talk about instead of marvelling at somebody's 15-second lead they keep for the entire race!

Worst-case scenario at the time for Sauber would have been some horrible clash with Alonso defending like a maniac, Perez running into him, and Hamilton just gliding into first

Alex Wurz on the Austrian tv (he's pretty fantastic as a commentator, doesn't hesitate to tell the tv sports guys they're being idiotic when they're being idiotic, and actually speaks English so that pit radio bits aren't immediately followed by "well, I couldn't really hear that" any more) said he thought that was a good young driver going for it and blowing it, and that a more experienced driver probably would have backed off a bit sooner. When his sports guy co-commentator made the Ferrari shenanigans suggestion, Wurz (who never misses an opportunity to criticize Ferrari's role in F1) said he thought it was just too soon in the season for that.

Never soon for the Maranello Krew, especially when they know they've got a rubbish car. Alonso, despite being a knob, is a terrific driver and probably wrung the neck of that car get it over the line in first.

Everything in this NYT blog piece is horrific, but that last photo just broke my heart.

"A lot of kids having a go at the police."

lolwut nico on pole

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NMt76rhC764/0.jpg

Bernie Ecclestone, 81, the F1 supremo, speaking at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, said of Bahrain: "I know people who live there, and it's all very quiet and peaceful."

The comments provoked a storm on social media sites as local activists said there were fears of a clampdown on protesters to prevent disruption to the event.

Pictures emerged of Ecclestone's image being burned in Bahrain posted on a Facebook page called "Pearl Family Circle – Martyrs' Square".

Sounds promising.

Brundle with the up to date references, "I haven't been this disappointed since 'Shrek 2'."

Hey, imagine if all this great racing and overtaking was for the LEAD?

http://www.yallaf1.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/d10brn2039.jpg

"Did I ever tell you about the 1982 season?..."

Disastrous Button stop robbed us of a hell of a finish for first, but all that duelling for the other spots was pretty great. Pretty open so far this year.

Schumi's supercool "hey, shit happens" reaction to idiocy in the Mercedes pit = A++.

he seemed genuinely chuffed for Rosberg all weekend.

I'm reading someone's ~think piece~ which argues that this isn't Mercedes' first win since 1955, but rather Tyrrell's 43rd win. Which technically is sorta true and ~makes u think~.

ALSO CONTINUING ON FROM CRAIG POLLOCK'S "TRADITION OF EXCELLENCE"

Wild race!

Nice article on the technical reasons for the sudden reversal of fortune of Vettel and Webber.

I don't think a similar article can be written yet about Ferrari - Brundle mentioned at one point during Malaysia, the problem seems to be mystery performance issues that crop up between the wind tunnel/computer model/manufacturing/testing phases of building the car. So there's not much they can actually talk about in public and not much for people to find out, since they don't know themselves. That's my impression anyway ...

Big shock this race, happy for Rosberg. It was unreal seeing him in Vettel's place from last year. I agree about Schumacher's attitude (my guess is he talked to the gun guy who was suitably distraught) which was awesome. He can smell podium, and would not want to slag anyone on the team when he's that close. Also he is a total pro who actually does seem to care about people around him ... unless they get in his way. Well done Mercedes and Ross.

Disappointed for Kimi, once the tires died that was it. It was as if somebody had whacked the back of his head with a two-by-four as people passed him at will.

Love these crazy deviation-from-average-lap-time graphs.

so this is gonna be great: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17767985

I heard today on a podcast that Kimi's tires didn't fall off the cliff. He got off the racing line and picked up so many marbles he couldn't hold speed through the corners until he wore them off.

That's what the Speed Channel commentators were saying.

BBC guys were saying his tires were shot.

suck on that, BEEB! USA! USA! USA!

Yeah, I'd heard the marbles thing too. I should have taken a bit more time with that post - either way the tires prevented Kimi from doing well towards the end, I felt bad for him since I wanted him to do well ...

Independent is saying two Force India mechanics have left the country, evidently in reaction to what Gukbe linked to upthread. This whole thing is so awful.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/20/bahrain-unrest-f1-bernie-ecclestone

Ecclestone comments are...predictable.

Oooh Anonymous will bring down ... the F1 web site

If I get up early enough and actually use the F1 app for the iPad, it'll probably show purple when in fact they are the SLOWEST laps of the race.

oh no where will I get FOM's press releases/fluffy copy now

So I watched this despite my bleeding liberal heart. I have read that there might be a dead protester, which casts a pall. Force India's defense of missing P2 as a "strategy" seemed absurd and awful. I felt really bad when the footage showed some rich prince on top of a stand/building with a couch and an attractive woman at his side, then a bunch of white people in sunglasses sitting in the stands.

All that said, qualifying was pretty good! I can't remember seeing virtually every team using two sets of softs in qualifying. Apparently the sand on the track is ripping up the tyres and the optimum laps for softs is 3 and primes is 11 (though I seem to remember hyperbole like that on some tracks last year and they could stretch them longer in the actual race without a significant drop off).

I hope the race is good. Everyone seems to be locking up on turn 13 (I think that's the one) so that might help even it out. Even if Vettel gets away and makes it clear around the first corner, I imagine the tyre situation could keep it interesting and competitive. There was very little between Red Bull and McLaren.

The haze and the lack of vegetation on the track is kind of unreal, the whole thing looks like CGI to me

i think it's kind of pretty as a track. very unreal, though, yes.

i'm finally playing through F1 2011 for the Xbox btw and I can't believe how many tracks I hate. Shockingly I love the Hungarian one.

So this is going ahead then.

I HATED HATED HATED the Hungaroring when playing Grand Prix 2 back in the day, sadly it's "not too bad" today compared to some other circuits (lol Valencia).

btw can we start a fund to bring back Istanbul Park and its 'Faux Rouge'.

The Heppenheim Kid & The Ice Man are back.

I am getting a bit confused by these races tbqh.

Confused how? About what factors lead to success or failure in these races? Or just how close everybody is?

Beginning of 2011, Lotus looked fantastic - I remember at the start of China, they just blasted by everyone. By the end of 2011 you'd forgotten they were even on the track. I would love to read something on what the hell happened during 2011 for them, technically. They've sorted it out now, whatever that was.

Really rooting for Kimi with this one - like he said in interviews he really only had one chance to overtake and didn't make it.

Since you all have been mentioning the video game I looked it up - wow, that thing is amazing, it looks like a total blast. If it existed for Mac I'd be all over it (I think the online version of it is more like a manager thing rather than a racing thing?)