So any racing fans in XPT land?

I can't say I've ever been much into NASCAR--since driving around on an oval with the turns banked, so you can't drive off the end, never seemed to be much of a sport. Well, I made a similar comment to a coworker who is a huge race fan and he made it his personal mission in life to get me into racing.

Anyway, he started telling me about Formula 1 a couple of months ago and it really seemed like a true racing sport. Apparently this season there is going to be a Grand Prix event in the USA for the first time in a while, and in a brand new track currently still under construction in Texas.

Seems interesting. Anybody out there plan on watching?

I'm pretty big into NASCAR, Formula One, and drag racing. I also used to love CART but it has gone to shit since Tony George stuck his nose into it. That Austin track looks pretty good. That part coming from the top of the hill at turn one down to turn six looks fast, fast, fast. I can't remember if Tilke had a hand in designing this track or not. If so it looks like the first track he hasn't fucked up with the possible exception of Turkey.


The braking in those F1 cars is absolutely ridiculous. Last season on Top Gear (authentic British version, not the bullshit U.S. one) Jeremy Clarkson drove what was for all purposes a Lotus F1 car on their test track. He kept fucking up his lap because he didn't have the nerve to wait until the proper breaking point, which most of the time was about 90 feet or so before the corner. He said his brain kept telling him that if he waited that long he would kill himself in this thing. It's also pretty amazing that, other than the engine and the chassis, typically the most expensive part of an F1 car is the steering wheel.

I'm a waning NASCAR fan. A lot of my fellow NASCAR watching and attending buddies have died, and my interest is faded due to my associations with them.

I hope you'll keep the F1 talk going. Maybe I'll learn something from it and get a new interest.

I was blown away that a rookie came in second to Alonso in the rain. Pretty impressive. I'll be making it to Austin for the F1 race...it's my hometown and I have to show my idiot friends from across the country that it's an awesome place.

Formula 1 Fun Fact:

According to Wikipedia, F1 cars at full speed create downforce equal to 2.5 times the weight of the car.

So, theoretically, they could drive on the ceiling. Although Wikipedia points out that this has never actually been attempted.

I think watching racing is completely uninteresting. But I thought it was cool to hear there are plans to make an exact replica of the Nurburgring in Las Vegas.

That would be one way to thin out the population a bit.

In F1 rain fucks up everything, and usually, it's for the better. The rookie was mexican Sergio Perez. His name is now being tossed around as a potential replacement for Massa at Ferrari.

Its amazing how hard it is to find video of the races online. Formula 1 seems to have a tighter control over their content than most organizations. I even joined the website to try to check out some race footage (thankfully they don't charge a fee) but the website has content of just about everything but the actual races.

So, as a newbie myself, I thought I'd use this thread as my personal notepad as I get to know the sport better.

The next race isn't until the middle of next month. So, in the next few weeks, let's meet some of the drivers and learn a little bit about the sport.

First up, in my humble, uneducated, newbie opinion is the biggest name among the current group of drivers (since he was the only one I had ever heard of as a non-follower of the sport): Michael Schumacher.




He is a 43 year old racer from Germany who came out of "retirement" 2 years ago after leaving formula one racing in 2006.

According to the Formula One website, Mike is "statistically the greatest driver the sport has ever seen."

A blurb from Wikipedia:

Schumacher is a seven-time World Champion and is widely regarded as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time. He holds many of the formula's driver records, including most championships, race victories, fastest laps, pole positions, points scored and most races won in a single season – 13 in 2004. In 2002 he became the only driver in Formula One history to finish in the top three in every race of a season and then also broke the record for most consecutive podium finishes.

He is currently driving on Team Mercedes:



In the first race (Australian Grand Prix) his car broke down and he didn't finish the race.

In the second race (Malaysian Grand Prix) he finished in 10th position and got 1 point.

Like every great former athlete who comes out of retirement, he isn't expected to be much of a factor.

Qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix where he started in 7th place:

In 1976 Niki Lauda drove for the Scuderia. He was burned up bad enough in a crash that a priest delivered his last rites. He returned to racing six weeks later and won the championship that year. He retired from from racing in 1978 to pursue other ambitions. In 1982 he came back because he needed money for a business venture. He won another championship in 1984 for McLaren.

You can't compare brown ball dribblers to F1 drivers. Schumacher is already making his teammate Rosberg look very bad this year which isn't good because Rosberg is the highest paid driver who hasn't won a race.

The current Mercedes GP team started as Tyrell back in the 50s. In '98 they became BAR (British American Racing) and used Supertec engines (Renault). In '99 they partnered with Honda. Eventually Honda bought the entire team in '05. Honda didn't have a lot of success and in '08 they decided to withdraw due to the financial crisis. They cut Ross Brawn a sweet deal to take over the team because Japanese corporate culture does not like to do lay offs. They basically sold him the team for $1 and they handed over everything including a bank account with around 100 million euros. He started negotiations with Mercedes who supplied him with engines for the '09 season at no cost. They even supplied him with engineers to adapt the chassis from Honda to Mercedes engines. That year Honda became Brawn GP. Brawn won the Championship in '09 and Mercedes promptly bought the team from Brawn.

Most of the track records were set in '03 and '04 because that was the peak of unrestricted 3 liter v10s. They didn't have RPM limits so by '04 they could turn up to 20K RPM and were making close to 1000HP. There was also a lot of aero freedom. In '06 the engine formula was changed to 2.4 liter v8s that can actually run at 22K RPM but are limited to 18K. Prior to the V8 era, most teams would use at least 2 engines per car for one weekend. Now the engines must last for 2 weekends. Gearboxes must go for five. In the turbo era of the 80s, the big teams were using 3-4 engines per car, per weekend. They actually had special engines for qualifying that were sometimes referred to as "grenades" because they could only hold together for about 4-5 laps because they ran with 6 bar (around 75 psi) of boost. They were capable of deforming the titanium gearbox cases and rendering them useless as well. And there were special qualifying tires back in the day as well. They lasted as long as the engines.

With the switch to the v8s there was also a development freeze on engines in '06 that will last through next year. Mercedes is considered the best overall engine in terms of reliability, power, and fuel efficiency. Ferrari is next. They make as much power as the Mercedes engines, but have worse economy, and are probably not as reliable. Renault are down by about 30HP on Ferrari and Mercedes, but are extremely reliable and very efficient. Their power shortfall is made up for with reliability and more importantly, their efficiency. Cosworth engines are another 30-40HP down on the Renault engines. It makes their efficiency and reliability a moot point since they're basically not competitive.

Straight line speed in F1 is of moderate value. Red Bull dominated last season and aside from HRT and Marussia, they had the slowest straight line speed of anyone. Force India tends to have the highest top speeds, but at best, they're a mid pack contender.

Wiki has a lot of good info on F1.

I am starting to develop the opinion that it is as much (or more) about the car than it is about the driver.

I saw some interview with a team owner who talked about how much money is spent on research and development. He mentioned the cost developing different components (engine, transmission, aerodynamic testing, etc) and then discussed scouting new drivers. He finished up by stating that, after all, the driver is just another component for the car. I'm sure that he was being a bit facetious, but there is some truth there. On the other hand, when somebody like Shumacher wins year after year in different cars, I think there must be some skill there (skill compared to the other F1 drivers, not compared to the average soccer mom in a minivan).

I have a few close friends that do dirt track racing. One of them, who has been doing it for 30+ years, swears that the driver is only worth +/- 3 spots. If you have the best engine/car on the track, then you should place top 3 most of the time, unless you are a terrible driver. If you have a shit engine, then it doesn't matter who you put in the car.

It depends on the weather. If it is dry it is about the car. If it is raining it is about the driver.

Next, let's meet another Hun, Sebastian Vettel, also from Germany.

He is at the beginning of his career. He is 24 years old and is the current world champion and the
previous year's world champion making him the youngest driver to win 2 consecutive world titles.



Sebastian is also the youngest driver:
1) to have taken part in an official practice session of a Grand Prix
2) to score championship points
3) to lead a race
4) to secure pole position
5) to win a race

He currently drives for Red Bull Racing which bought the Jaguar Racing team from Ford a few years back
and changed the name.



In the first race (Australian Grand Prix) he qualified to start in 6th position and finished in second place winning 18 points.

In the second race (Malaysian Grand Prix) he qualified to start in 5th position and finished in 11th place behind
Michael Schumacher winning no points, but getting some attention after another driver punctured his tire when
he was in 4th place.

The incident:



Vettel's response:



After giving him the finger, then calling him an idiot, he apparently really pissed the other driver off by calling
him a cucumber.

I don't know what that means, must be a German thing, but this apparently pissed off the other driver enough to
file a formal complaint causing Vettel to be penalized by F1.

His current salary is reported to be $12,000,000.00 a year.

His current girlfriend:

I wasn't sure who to go with next, and after some debate decided to choose:




Lewis Hamilton a 27 year old British racer who is the darling of the British press for reasons that aren't yet entirely clear to me, but I suspect have more to do with his exploits off the racetrack rather than his winning record behind the wheel. He has the longest wikipedia entry of any of the other Formula one drivers I have read so far and any race broadcast in English will devote much of their commentary to discussing Hamilton, no matter how he is doing in the race. He was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth in 2009.

His first F1 race season was 2007. He was the youngest F1 world champion in 2008 and has been a solid contender every year since.

He drives for McLaren Mercedes racing team which many have commented have the best car this season.



He finished 3rd in the Australian Grand Prix (getting 15 points) and 3rd again in Malaysia (another 15 points) and is currently in second place with a total of 30 points.

His current annual salary has been reported to be $16,250,000.00

After being engaged (for about a day) to former Pussycat Doll, Nichole Scherzinger, before breaking up, they are now apparently back together... for the time being.

Alright I get that the Formula One company pulled the video of Vettel flipping off the other driver (Narain Karthikeyan) and calling him an idiot due to "copyright infringement", but why was the other video "disabled by request?"

People are fuckin with my XPT multimedia extravaganza here.

Is this thread strictly F-1, or can you discuss a little Le Mans or other Euro racing classes in here? If so here is one bad motherfucker: McQueen Le Mans Using the subject tags you can find all kinds of cool racing info there.

You can't talk Formula One without mentioning Jackie Stewart

No, whatever anybody is interested in, but it would have to come from somebody other than me. I don't know anything about them.

Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull team was owned (and I think maybe even started?) by Jackie Stewart before he cashed it all in and sold it to Jaguar.

For the life of me I can't remember the name of it but a few years ago Speed had a documentary on about F1 drivers in the late 60s and early 70s. Those guys had some serious ornaments to drive those death traps the way they did. The lack of track safety on those courses was insane. Those drivers back then earned every piece of ass they got.

My mother went to the USGP in Watkins Glen back in '69. When Graham Hill almost got himself killed, the tire from his car landed a few feet from where she was sitting. Many drivers still held the foolish belief that you were safer if you WEREN"T strapped into the car.

F1 had a lot of deaths up through the mid 80s. You used to be able to see some rather fiery crashes on youtube. Not sure if they're still up. Imola in '94 is when Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were both killed in the same weekend. No one gave a shit about Ratzenberger, but Senna's death shocked everyone to say the least. It was mere chance that Senna died. He didn't have a single broken bone in his body. He was killed when part of the suspension went through his visor and into his brain just above his eye. Didn't even penetrate that deep. It was after that incident that people really started taking safety seriously. That's when the HANS device usage became mandatory, and the car cockpits changed to put the driver farther back and lower.

It's funny that F1 tends to not take things seriously until they decide it's time to take things seriously. The safety issue is a prime example. They didn't put a lot of emphasis on safety until Senna was killed. But now look at it. It's almost sterile in that regard. There have been some close calls, but to go 18 years in motor racing without a single death is incredible. It's like the pit stops. Pit stops used to be a rare event in F1 because they were known to take minutes to complete. Initially, F1 hired NASCAR consultants to help them quicken their pit times. Now without refueling, F1 is doing pit stops in under 3 seconds.

The movie Gran Prix is definitely worth watching. It takes place during the mid-late 60s. James Garner did his own driving. Several of the big F1 teams of the day contributed to the production. The story was typical of what you got in the 60s, but it was still able to show you what a cutthroat business it is.

Speaking of movies to watch and Senna's death. The documentary, "Senna" is available on iTunes. I thought the scene where Jackie Stewart (who had become known as a racing safety advocate by then) was interviewing Senna and questioning his somewhat aggressive driving style was pretty interesting. Senna wasn't having any of it and basically was dismissive of his questioning. On the other hand, however, I was a bit cynical about how they glossed over the cause of his accident as "unknown"--that just doesn't cut it for a documentary.

There has been a lot of discussion over the last week about not having the scheduled Grand Prix in Bahrain next month in order to protest the government crackdown over civilian "unrest". Last week both Vettel and Shumacher made public statements that the race should continue as scheduled and F1 made a statement that the race will, in fact, be held.

I generally don't give 2 shits about politics, unless I'm trolling somebody on the internet, and I don't think sporting events should be used as a political weapon; a lesson I thought the world would have learned when Carter boycotted the Olympics.

Just in case, though, does anyone know if there a way to download the clips off of YouTube of the suicide bombers blowing themselves up on the racetrack so that I can post them here after they are pulled down by F1 for copyright infringement?

Technically they haven't gone 18 years without fatalities. No drivers have died but track workers at Monza and I believe Royal Albert Park have died from getting hit with debris in wrecks.

Grand Prix is my favorite racing movie of all time. It is a bit bloated with sub-plots but the racing scenes are top notch.

You can still find most of those wrecks on YouTube either as videos in themselves or as part of tributes to drivers killed while racing. The Tom Pryce crash at Kyalami in 1977 or 1978 is particularly disturbing and graphic.

James Garner was/is into racing in a big way. Is he dead now?

Anyway, here's one of his crazy cars.

Neither did NASCAR until Dale Earnhardt got killed, and they had some big names die on the track. Fireball Roberts, Joe Weatherly, Adam Petty, one of the Allisons.

davey allison died in a helicopter crash. kenny irwin and adam petty both died in the same corner at nh.

but you're 100 percent correct. it took losing "the man" for nascar to wake up.

Clifford Allison was Bobby's other son. He died at Michigan in the early 90s.

I forgot about Richie Evans, who was a modified driver, and Neil Bonnett, who had a part in that awesomely bad film Stroker Ace with Burt Reynolds.

I remember after Earnhardt died, that snotty student from a Florida newspaper wanted a court to release the autopsy photos. What a little shit, the body was barely in the ground.

good call on clifford and neil. we should probably mention ernie irvan too. although he wasn't killed he's the walking dead now due to brain injuries.

Irvan drove another season though, with one eye. Is he really fucked up now? Can't be worse than Monty Flock or whoever it was who drove with a damned monkey in his car. Seriously. A monkey. Won races with him in there, too.

i dunno. last i heard his house burned down and he lost all his shit.

swervan could drive though. he was kyle bush minus the bitch routine.

There's a show on the Speed Channel called "The 10" where they recall the 10 best somethings in NASCAR. One was the 10 best feuds. There was a funny one where Happy Harvick stopped after a race, walked across Ricky Rudd's hood and confronted him. Then he learned why Rudd was called The Rooster. Of course the top one was Cale Yarborough and Donny Allison. Donny still says, "Cale began abusing my fist with his face."

Jimmy Spencer taught Kurt Bush a lesson one night if i remember correctly. and fucking with Ricky Rudd was never a good idea. even Earnhardt gave that guy room.

Cale Yarborough was a bad motherfucker. I think it was Darrell Waltrip that told a story about catching Cale with a few laps to go in a race. Darrell admittedly didn't have the car to beat him but he was trying to get in Cales head by using different lines and taking runs at him in. Darrell realized he was fucked with about three laps to go when he saw Cale reach up and tear his rear view mirror off and throw it in the back of the car.

Donnie was the only man in NASCAR at the time who could beat Cale's ass. Cale was a bad motherfucker. Well...except his brother Bobby and any other member of an Allison's pit crew or family. Shit was good back then.

David Pearson would have had someone else do his fighting. He didn't get excited over anything and still doesn't.

I read once that, passing Richard Petty, Dale Sr. reached out his window and gave Petty The Finger, with a big shit-eating grin on his face.

Kyle Busch needs to call up some porno whores, because they can probably recommend a good doctor for a chin implant. He could have cashed in that custom Gibson he won, if he hadn't smashed it to crap. Memo: Rowdy, you ain't no Jimi Hendrix.

I apologize for turning this into a NASCAR thread. I like any good race series. The 24 Hours of LeMans is one of the great race car events ever. And if they ever get some political stability in the Middle East, I will love to watch the Dakar Rally back on it's original soil.

Oh, and figure-8 races kick butt!

There has never been an official cause listed for the crash. There was most likely a failure in the steering because he made no effort to turn whatsoever.

No "official" cause, perhaps, but there was a manslaughter trial against Williams and I'm sure there was some pretty compelling evidence introduced. Anyway, a documentary isn't supposed to be like the nightly news cast. The movie was an hour and 40 minutes long, they could have spent 5 minutes discussing it. I just think it was either sloppy film making, a poor editing decision, or conscious decision to not address that better than they did (i.e. fear of lawsuit).

It was a good movie other than that though, but that is the same thing as having a movie that is a murder mystery end by saying, "Gee, I guess we'll never know who killed that person. THE END." Kind of leaves you flat.

A manslaughter trial is par for the course whenever shit happens in Italy. And remember, Italy has a statute of limitations on manslaughter, because they actually charged Adrian Newey but they were well past the statute of limitations so they may have held a trial against Williams F1, but the charges were dropped against Newey. BTW, for epic trolling of Brits, always refer to Adrian Newey as the murderer of Ayrton Senna. The result of such statements is pure win and then ban hammer.

The documentary was made with the consent of his family. It's been almost 20 years. Ayrton's sister, who is the mother of Bruno, lost her husband to a vehicle accident a few years later. Keep in mind that a lot of people don't have this rigid demand for "justice" like we have in the US. I'm sure the key players know the cause, but keep it to themselves. Racing is dangerous.

This weekend is the next Grand Prix event, which is to be held in Shanghai, China.




My understanding of how the weekend unfolds is:

Friday is mostly for practice.
Saturday is to determine the drivers' starting positions.
Sunday is the race.


Today, Schumacher set the fastest time, Lewis Hamilton came in second and Vettel set the third fastest time. We'll see how this holds up tomorrow.

Unofficial theme song of F1.

The track in China was designed by Herman Tilke which means minimal overtaking and maximum boredom.

The Silver Arrows qualified on pole. The last time the silver arrows had a F1 pole was 1955 with Fangio driving. Nico Rosberg who has the dubious distinction of being the highest paid F1 driver who has never produced solid results took pole. He's also the first homosexual to score an F1 pole.

Today's race outside Barcelona saw Williams return to the top step of the podium for the first time in almost 8 years. And today also happens to be Sir Frank's 70th birthday. They've really come a long way since last year which was without a doubt, their worst season in F1. Pastor Maldonado won the race, which was quite impressive because most had written him off as a "pay driver"(but he also won GP2 in 2010), and as I said, the team haven't won since '04. Pay driver's have always taken a lot of grief because some feel they take seats from more deserving drivers. As Vitaly Petrov said earlier this year, "everyone is a pay driver." And he is correct. Unless you're on a heavily funded team, your seat is only safe if the title sponsors are satisfied with you. And even then Alonso would have to consider a pay cut if Santander Bank decided to withdraw.

Today's race was pretty decent in terms of keeping my attention. Spain is usually a parade with only a few cars in the midfield changing places at the pits. Today, everyone seemed all over the place.

It's also interesting to note that the mid field teams are making a serious push this year. Williams, Lotus, and Sauber are beginning to shine, while McLaren struggles, and Red Bull has clearly been hurt by the ban on blown diffusers. Mercedes has improved, but Schumacher's luck this year has been shit. People are beginning to question how long Mercedes plans to remain in the sport. This will be a make or break year for them as the Mercedes board will be voting in a few months whether to keep the team going.

Fuck SPEED. Fuck Fox and the political statement they made today. The winner, Pastor Maldonado is from Venezuela. Venezuela is run by the socialist dictator Hugo Chavez. Most people in Venezuela seem content with his rule. In the US, we love to hate on socialism and guys like Chavez. We pretend it's due to socialism, but in reality, it's because Chavez is tolerated by his people, and he maintains his nation's sovereignty in the face of multinational corporations who want to exploit their resources. So what does this all boil down to? Pastor Maldonado is a pay driver. He is backed by PDVSA, which is the Venezuelan state owned oil company. Typically at the end of a race, they cut to the commercials. When the broadcast resumes, they show the winning drivers parking and getting out of their cars. The drivers have to immediately go for weigh in. From there, they go to the podium ceremony where the national anthems for the driver and the winning team are played, trophies handed out, and champagne is sprayed. Then they cut to a commercial. When the broadcast resumes, the top 3 drivers are moved inside for the post race press conference. They only show a portion of it. Then commentators for the network give a quick recap, go through the points standings, mention the upcoming race, and it's done. This is have they've done it since I've been watching the past few years.

Today, Maldonado won. The cameras quickly switched to other drivers. Then it switched back to him as he finished his victory lap. They showed him getting out of the car. Then they cut to a long commercial (which is unusual.) When the broadcast resumed, they were handing out trophies, then they sprayed the champagne. The anthems were done during the commercial, which I've never seen. After that, they quickly ended the broadcast and started to broadcast a fucking soccer match.

SPEED is part of Fox, and I can't help but wonder if the lack of anthems was due to the teabagger bullshit that Fox heavily endorses. As for the rest of it getting cancelled for a fucking soccer game, I think that's just pure shit. It's SPEED. It's a network that has always focused on motor racing. You think your average NASCAR viewer has any interest in watching a bunch monkeys fresh from the jungle chasing a ball around? The whole thing was just weak. F1 will never get a big following in the US as long as the broadcasters are allowed to play games.

the last f1 race at indy is probably what fucked f1 in the states.

Yesterday was Survival Sunday in the English Premier League and Fox was broadcasting every match live on some network or another they own. I was pissed about the soccer but it saved us from two hours of stupid Pinks reruns or Barrett-Jackman auctions.

By the way Chavez is a 24 carat buttnugget who deserves all the grief he gets. He wants to be the 21st century version of Castro and has done everything he can to abolish the presidential term limits in the Venezualan Constitution so he can stay in power. They still should have shown the national anthem though. It's not like he was driving the car.

I can't believe the FIA is competent enough to have actually discovered a rules package that has leveled the field but they have lucked into an incredibly compelling season so far. No team has won more than once and it's not just the fat cats at McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull that are winning. Normally by this point in the season you can narrow the championship contenders down to three or four drivers and two or three teams. Right now you can't even make a guess as to who is a contender and who isn't. None of the teams have been consistent but almost all of them have had at least one week where they either won or were a serious contender to win a race.

Michael Schumacher suffered a head injury while skiing. With a body packed in ice, in a coma, and with burr holes drilled in his head, the prognosis is grim. He will be 45 years old this Friday.

Wikipedia already has the details of his skiing accident on his page listed under the heading "Death".

British journalist Kevin Garside told CNN that Schumacher is "a very good skier" but acknowledged that he is "fearless" -- like most Formula 1 drivers.
"These people don't recognize fear like you and I do. There is no gene in their body that lets them go slow," Garside said.

Wikipedia got edited, if the incident was listed under "Death."

Massive, irrevocerable brain damage would be enough.

The gene that lets people go slow is just ridiculous.

His Wikipedia page has been edited--along with the sentence that claimed he was declared brain dead tomorrow. If, in fact, he is declared brain dead tomorrow, I bet there will be an army of conspiracy theorists simultaneously cumming in their pants.