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Formula 1

i can't name anyone and haven't watched it in years, but the melbourne race recently caught my eye and the car-cam now is unbelievable. kinda made me feel bad for my mate who went to the thing cuz it was so friggin exciting on live HD.
 
I used to watch F1 as a little kid as we never had cable or satellite and it was one of the few free-to-air events on our two channels!

I lost interest the year that Ferrari sabotaged their own driver's (Eddie Irvine) chance of winning their first title in years because they wanted it to be Schumacher who was out with a broken legge.

I saw the races this year, think the new rule changes are great and delighted to see Ross Brawn finally getting the recognition he deserves. Glad Hamilton is fucked for the year. He's a robot.
 
Formula 1 has always been one of my favourite sports, but unfortunately I feel that it is dying. It should be about the best drivers in the world competing but for too long it has been about the best constructor or biggest budget. This is fine if it means pushing technological boundary's, creating the fastest machines, but by trying to create a level playing field with reduced budgets and aerodynamic rules they reduce the "competitiveness" and just swap from one dominant team to the next each year. It seems whoever can tweak the rules in their favour will dominate until the rules are changed.

I like the concept of GP1 World Cup, where all the teams are given identical cars (I think they are powered this year by Ferrarri), it's just a pity that the best drivers are missing. I honestly doubt Jenson Button would get a look in against Hamilton, Messa or Alonso if they all race the same car. But here lies the catch, there is no incentive for the big car companies to pump money into racing if there is one engine. The money would then dry up.

The flip is letting go of all the rules and let the machines rule. It is a shame that cars in the 70's were a lot "faster" compared to the common car of the time. Top speeds are essentually capped these days for safety (lame) and competitive reasons. I say let them loose. Create faster and more dangerous machines until we have a competition that is closer to "Wipeout" than what we have today. Either that or we scrap the constructors championship and just run the same cars for everyone. Hell, you could have a different supplier at each track and swap them around each year. Honda supplies for the Japanese GP, Ferrrari race at Monza, Mini's at Silverstone..;)
 
the rule changes were kind of upsetting at first, the entire look of the cars was changed and it took a while to get used to but i have to admit that i'm quite fond of them now. the smaller wing in the back doesn't look as nice as the larger wing but i do like the large front wing, it gives the cars a more aggressive look. the main reason i'm in favor of the rule changes is that it inspires innovation. it forces the teams to think of ways to change the CAR to make it faster and not pump 100's of millions of $$ into the engine. don't get me wrong, though, i love the big engines and watching the cars zip around the track at 180mph.

i loooved the malaysia race, you could see the aerodynamics of the cars when they drove through the water. beautiful :)
 
i quit following F1 when we got rid of the only U.S. race a few years ago. :\

Indy kinda sucked for F1 tho. I did make it to indy 07 for the last f1 race there it was fucking sick. The sound of an f1 car live dropping 5 gears into a hairpin turn is truely awesome
 
I would rather watch Le Mans or WRC.

If you want to see an awesome film look up "Truth In 24" on Itunes. Its a free full length film documenting Audi and how they have won the 24 hours of Le Mans so many times.
 
Haha Kay...I wonder what inspired this thread...:D

Re: the rule changes... I'm all for being cost-efficient, but the way Mosley and the FIA is going about it reminds me all too much of what Tony George did to open wheel racing in the U.S...which was critically injure the sport for personal greed.

When you have most of the teams threatening to pull out of F1 and possibly racing in a breakaway series, you are at the critical point of F1's survival. I completely disagree with Mosley's stance that F1 will survive without Ferrari. Perhaps it will...but will it survive without Ferrari, Renault, and McLaren, among others? Doubtful.

I can't believe Mosley still has his job after the Nazi hooker scandal...and now he's on the verge of destroying the world's most popular auto sport. God I hope Ecclestone wakes the hell up and figures out a good compromise.

And Busty...I agree in part that it should be about the drivers...but F1 isn't just about the drivers. It's about the cars. It's about the technology. Going with that, it's also about seeing drivers excel even when they don't drive the best car necessarily. This is what F1 is to me. A guy like Senna who showed how fantastic a driver he was even when he wasn't always in the best car.

I would love to see it just be all about how magnificent you could make the car on a limitless budget. That was part of the essence of the F1 I grew up loving. It's been sort of sad to see the limits that have gone in the past few years...

Let's just hope a compromise is figured out and F1 survives without shedding the one team that's been there from the very beginning.
 
It's nice to see Schumi coming in to fill in for Massa until he recovers, but honestly...I would've loved a surprise announcement of Bruno Senna getting a Ferrari seat. That kid is talented, and needs an F1 seat. The Senna name belongs in F1 and would have fans drooling.

Schumi is a nice consolation though. It'll be interesting to see how he does.
 
<3 F1.

Went to the race that got rained off at Sepang Raceway in Malaysia in April '09, its amazing seeing it live. TV doesn't do the sound justice.
 
My favorite asphalt racing <3

BL doesn't seem to be very into motorsports.

I'm interested to see what these new turbocharged 1.6L I-4 engines are going to be like. I don't like how they dropped redline by 3,000 rpm, but I can see 18,000 rpm being hard on engines. It should make engines last longer and save money, I just hope that trademark ripping F1 sound isn't killed too much.
 
I like f-1 but I don't know all that much about it. I would like to be a fan but the race times are weird and I don't understand all the rules and lingo. What is a KERS system?
 
KERS takes energy generated during braking and turns it into electrical energy. Each lap enough is built up before the turns that the driver has a '+60 HP' button they can press when desired; usually somewhere on a straight.

I didn't know much about it before last year, other than it was at the forefront of automotive engineering, and involved right turns. ;)

Nascar was always around because of easy watchability, but I've since found the F1 schedule on the sports network up here. The thing with F1 is that most countries with the resources and desire to host a race, do. Nascar is too Americo-centric for my tastes, old tech trying to make it seem as if it's new tech, dull drivers/announcers who don't enunciate, etc. I used to think the redneck thing was funny and endearing, but it just seems dumb and ignorant to me now.

Kimi Raikkonen is jokes for his outspoken, no shame interactions with the media, and Sebastian Vettel is simply on fire as a driver. Aside from technology, I think the driving skill is on a higher level too.
 
I don't think nascar announce team does them any favors. But I don't think its fair to compare it to f-1. Nascar and stockcar racing in general is about close action beating and banging. While f-1 is about the car and the technology. I like them both for what they are.
 
Close, pack racing definitely has it's own challenges. I think what gets me about the sport in general is the culture. I think if it matured a bit I'd enjoy watching it more. The sport is exciting and entertaining, the announcers drive me up the wall.
 
Yeah I totally understand what your saying about the culture. I guess growing up in the south I can just ignore it for the most part. I really don't care for the pack racing at Daytona and Talladega I much prefer watching the short tracks and even road courses. But NASCAR does have a lot of engineering going into the cars. I know the large teams employ hundreds of college graduate engineers for the 3-4 cars they run every week. So I think the redneck aspect is a little overplayed. watch some of the ESPN covered races later in the season and I think you might like there coverage better. allan Bestwick is a quality announcer.
 
I think the redneck aspect is a little overplayed.

That's exactly it. I know the engineering and skill of the sport requires a certain level of intellect. I know they play up the redneck thing, and that it's largely fake, but that's what is annoying. Why fake that? I guess it's to keep up old notions of the "good ol' boys" and keep the base happy. It just seems that the majority of people aren't like that anymore and I bet the fake redneck thing annoys more people than just us.

I grew up in a rural setting among a few modern rednecks; they're the ones that got me watching it as a kid. I get the redneck thing, I can play the part myself rather well actually. :P I can sort of blend in down south. I know I can't do a perfect southern accent, but I loosen up my mouth and do a decent drawl.

watch some of the ESPN covered races later in the season and I think you might like there coverage better. allan Bestwick is a quality announcer.

I'm Canadian, no ESPN. TSN might have it. I'll keep my eye open for non-FOX webcasts or somesuch though.

One of those redneck friends of mine wants to go to Pocono for a NASCAR race, but he doesn't have a passport. I'd love to go to the formula 1 race in Montreal but he hates F1; says it's too 'fruity'. Gah, Canadian rednecks.
 
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