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GuzziHero

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Blundell isnt fat - hes VERY broad shouldered (which makes me wonder how he fitted into the MP4-13 when Mansell couldnt...oh thats right, its because Mansell is a whinging wastrel idiot who never could drive properly and the one time he won the title, his only realistic competition was... Ricardo Patrese...). And he did OK, to be honest. Went favourably against 'better' drivers in lower categories and gave Yamaha its only podium in 1994. Plus his Le Mans efforts.

 

Now if we're talking useless...Eddie Irvine...

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I always liked Villenueve. At least he had a bit af fire in him.... to begin with at least. His time at BAR crushed him I think. :(

 

I always got the impression that Brundell was a bit of a fairy. Brundle, although no superstar, seemed like a much more "serious" driver, got on and made the best of whatever situation he found himself in. Just horses for courses I guess.

 

Mansell was one of my heroes but there's no denying he was from a different age.

At a time when the likes of Senna and Prost were starting to understand what it takes to be a modern F1 driver, Mansell was probably drinking Brown Ale on a Saturday night and eating Sunday lunch before heading off to the race.

He probably deserved more success IMO but he was nuts to come back to F1, and to McLaren. The world had moved on by then.

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Villeneuve...I always had issues with his personality off-track. Just looking at his track performances he was...okay, but a bit meh apart from flashes of real speed (Australia, 1996 and European GP the same year (or was it 97...when he passed Schumacher round the outside of Turn 14?) spring immediately to mind).

 

Blundell...he was a good second driver, but never really showed star quality. Oh, he had his good races but you felt he always needed things to come to him rather than go out there and grab it himself. Brundle was well underrated but really was too old by the time his time came to have a good car. Though his race at Spa in 1995 was brilliant and he was a really good teammate to teach Panis the ropes.

 

I will admit...watching Mansell really duke it out with Hill for pole at Silverstone 1994 was pretty impressive. He was stunned...and possibly somewhat angry...that Hill, who wasnt a naturally fast driver (hey, he learned from Prost so thats no surprise) beat him. Even so, for a driver who had only 1 race experience of the FW14 (and he retired at Magny-Cours), it was a very impressive drive.

 

He probably found himself in a similar situation to Alessandro Zanardi when he went to Williams. Zanardi was fast in a Lotus, went and blitzed Indycar...and came back to find the cars had turned into lightspeeders. He was just totally out of his depth.

 

---

So the question HAS to be asked. Out of world champions ONLY... top ten lists, please :)

 

For me, in this order:

Fangio

Piquet

Prost

Surtees

Schumacher (too many dirty moves on and off track to be further up the list)

Senna

Stewart

Hill (no, not Damon. Graham)

Lauda

Hakkinen

 

Most people who may be considered arent because they were, in my mind, only champions because they had the best car and poor team-mates. Thats the reason Schumacher isnt higher, and Villeneuve, Alonso, Mansell dont make the list.

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Intentionally. I know Ferrari were getting FIA favouritism (hey, what else is new?) but he wouldnt have been champion if not for Laudas crash.

 

Sorry, I totally agree he was a FAB driver, a real Man Of Steel...but he was lucky there.

 

Did you hear that at one race in the Hesketh he came back to the pits with a hole in his right glove...and it turned out his gear lever had snapped so he drove the rest of the race by changing with his palm on the lever shaft :o THAT is real hero stuff.

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I hate making lists lol, but my list will definitely feature Lauda, just for the fact that he came back to drive F1 after his horrid crash at Nordschleife, even if he was to be scared into not starting. And on to the fact that he won another championship in his return to the sports in the 80s.....nerves of steel that guy....

 

On the subject of Martin Brundle, he does seem to be an impressively fast guy even past his F1 days though. I mean in his Le Mans attempts in the late 90s for Toyota he was always able to stick the car on pole for the race when there were quite a few teams fighting it out back then....even if ultimately Toyota just don't have the luck to take the race...

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Fairly uneventful qualifying we had there. Hard to say anything since we don't know how much fuel anybody is carrying. Interesting to see tho' if the Bernie-FIA fanboy club has the balls to penalise their golden boy Hamilton (both of the McLaren's) for blocking Heidi in the end.

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Fairly uneventful qualifying we had there. Hard to say anything since we don't know how much fuel anybody is carrying. Interesting to see tho' if the Bernie-FIA fanboy club has the balls to penalise their golden boy Hamilton (both of the McLaren's) for blocking Heidi in the end.

 

They did penalise them.

 

5 grid places. <_<

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Bit of a schoolboy error by Hamilton and Kovalainen IMO.

I don't think they did it maliciously. If they were they would much more subtle about it, just "accidentally" getting into a corner as the BMW did or something.

I think they just knew qualifying was over and it didn't occur to them that people might have only just started a flying lap behind them.

 

I think the McLarens were a bit unlucky too. They were the rearmost of the finishers and, as a result, the flying cars came upon them first and gave other drivers and teams time to get off the racing line.

In the TV footage you could see a Ferrari dive across to the right as Heidfeld zipped past the McLarens.

 

I know there have already been calls to alter the rules somehow so that this can never happen again.

This doesn't make any sense to me TBH.

Whatever system is in place, historically there's always been the potential for this to happen in qualifying when more than one car is

out on the track at the same time.

And, historically, the solution has always been for the drivers to have the brains to stay off the racing line and pay attention to what's going on around them.

 

I was quite surprised to see how shocked fattie-Blundell was getting about the situation; "Luckily nothing happened this time but, if we let it continue, there could be a serious incident".

Eh?

We've only been doing the single-lap qualifying for a couple of years.

Before that, drivers were often on-track at the same time doing hot-laps and in-laps. All that was required was that drivers paid a bit of attention at all times; something the McLaren boys failed to do this morning.

 

The best way to make this safer would be to time the qualifying laps from a point a couple of corners back from the pit lane so that a driver could pull into the pits almost immediately after completing a timed lap.

This would probably mean installing a new set of timing gear in another place on the circuit and, AFAIK, the receivers for the timing transponders are actually installed under the track these days so it might require digging up the track to install.

 

Thing is, you can just tell the drivers to keep their speed up on their in-lap but, in response, they're just going to say "Well, in that case, we NEED to be on the racing line to keep our speed up" and negate the whole purpose.

 

At first glance, it did seem dangerous but, if you think about it, exactly the same thing has been happening since there's been qualifying in F1.

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not quite, as they would not have been saving fuel as they don't start with the exact amount of fuel left in the car. In the one lap case 2 quali systems ago there will only be 1 car, where as the current system could be all of the cars that were running at the end of the session. In the previous iteration of the knockout system, They are required to be doing a certain percentage of their fastest lap in order to get their fuel credit reimbursed, so they have to be fast.

 

It was pretty silly though to have Kovi and Hamilton just strolling along on the racing line, you'd think its common sense for them to be driving off-line....

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In the TV footage you could see a Ferrari dive across to the right as Heidfeld zipped past the McLarens.

It was Hamilton not a Ferrari.

 

They were the rearmost of the finishers and, as a result, the flying cars came upon them first

I think Raikkonen (and Massa?) were only ones in front of the McLaren's so they were actually early finishers. But yeah, they weren't just paying enough attention. These things happen and will happen again.

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I didnt see the blocking...it isnt shown on the ITV highlights and I didnt see it live cos I was working.

 

There was some blocking in Australia but noone got penalised there...but if they genuinely did block then its their own fault.

 

However...its likely to rain tomorrow. And having owned an Italian 'masterpiece' of engineering, I expect the Ferraris to break down as soon as a drop of water hits an electrical component.

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not quite, as they would not have been saving fuel as they don't start with the exact amount of fuel left in the car. In the one lap case 2 quali systems ago there will only be 1 car, where as the current system could be all of the cars that were running at the end of the session. In the previous iteration of the knockout system, They are required to be doing a certain percentage of their fastest lap in order to get their fuel credit reimbursed, so they have to be fast.

I, erm, what? :unsure:

 

I am reading the words but I just can't make any sense of that, sorry.

 

It was Hamilton not a Ferrari.

 

I think Raikkonen (and Massa?) were only ones in front of the McLaren's so they were actually early finishers. But yeah, they weren't just paying enough attention. These things happen and will happen again.

As you just said, the 2 Ferraris were IN FRONT of the 2 McLarens.

It'd be pretty hard for Hamilton to have veered across the track AS Heidfeld was overtaking the 2 McLarens. :rolleyes:

 

On TV you saw a FERRARI, in the foreground, swerve off the racing line as Heidfeld overtook the McLarens.

Heidfeld came out of the corner, swerved around the 2 McLarens and then, I assume, the Ferrari driver (dunno which one it was) saw it happen and thought "Oshi.. I'd better move over!"

 

Don't forget, of course, that a lot of these drivers (including Hamilton and Kovalainen) have never driven in F1 when qualifying happened with more than 1 car at a time on track.

I suppose it's inevitable that they're going to make mistakes.

 

I was just making the point that I don't think they should try and change the rules just yet. The drivers just needed a wake-up call.

 

Must admit, though, I've never known why they didn't time the qualifying laps from the start of the last track sector, for example, though.

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VERY odd strategy from McLaren for Hamilton there.

 

He came into the pits stuck behind Webber and they put soft tyres on and enough fuel in for 19 laps.... and then sent him out to do the longest stint of the race! Seriously, WTF???!!!

If he had enough fuel for more laps, why did they bring him in?

Maybe cos his soft tyres were borked?

Well, in that case, why the f**k did they then put ANOTHER set of soft tyres on before sending him out to do a long middle stint?

And then, with less than 20 laps to go, they stuck hard tyres on!

Doesn't make any sense at all, especially given that he MUST have had at least 10 laps worth of fuel left in the car when he came in for the first pitstop. They knew he had fuel remaining and they knew they were putting in fuel to last until less than 20 laps from the end so WHY put soft tyres back on rather than hards?

Just didn't add up at all. :(

 

Must have been a bit of a nightmare having the hubcap flapping around on the right side all through the 2nd stint too. Probably ruined the race for us by denying him the last bit of performance he needed to catch Webber, along with the beading soft tyres.

I was half expecting him to retire during his 2nd pitstop with a goosed wheel spindle.

 

Good job by Raikkonen.

I was surprised everybody thinks Massa's car let go. It just looked, to me, like it started to drift in turn 7 and then spun in turn 8.

I'm sure the only thing the telemetry will reveal is that he had opposite lock on all the way through turn 7 and into 8.

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Yeh, the soft tyres in the middle seemed to make no sense. All I can think of was that the car was balanced for the soft tyres so they expected him to go better in the middle than if theyd put hard tyres on. But of course, he got held behind Webber who is looking less and less impressive as time goes on.

 

Time for a short poll... Is Kubica the ugliest F1 driver since Barrichello or not?

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Time for a short poll... Is Kubica the ugliest F1 driver since Barrichello or not?

What a totally stupid thing to suggest!

 

.... while Alonso is around. :P

 

Beyond that, I sometimes wonder if Lance Jackass doesn't post on here so much because he's actually Sebastian Vettel?

Think about it. Have you ever seen them in a room together? ;)

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