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Attachment 1246 A new Formula 1 season starts this weekend in Melbourne - Australia
Any fans or critics want to discuss the season and past memories ?
At the end of last year Lewis Hamilton was looking a long shot to be the next World Champion. Recently though, he and fellow Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg posted some impressive times in winter testing.
Attachment 1248... Melbourne
This year it's a 19 race season.
There are some big differences in ticket prices for the race days.
To see the action at Melbourne this Sunday costs £66 for the cheapest tickets. Compare this with my home British Grand Prix (Silverstone) - £145.
A ticket to the glamorous Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo costs just £30.
The cheapest ticket is for the Malaysian race at just £13 and you also get access to Friday & Saturday practice & qualifying !!!!
I can report (live 2km from the Albert Park track) that leading up to the GP weekend we had a record 9 days in row over 30°C. Blue skies and balmy nights, barely a breath of wind.
The GP rolls into town and monsoon-like weather hits. Don't know if any watched the scheduled last qualifying session (Saturday afternoon Melb time), but the track was more like a river and cars were aqua planing all over the place.
Car racing's not really my thing but the whole circus that comes to town with F1 is fun...fighter jets flying around the place and an A380 doing a low fly-over you house is interesting
re ticket prices....Melbourne is becoming one of the most expensive cities in the world :mad:
coffee: $4 (about £2.80)
beer: $8-$10 (typical bar price for Stella, Peroni, Corona, Heiniken etc)
steak dinner $30 - $40 (standard pub or middle end restaurant, nothing fancy)
adult movie ticket: $19 (except tight-arse tuesday nights when cinemas drop prices to $13)
Some circuits do put on a good show for the fans besides the actual race.
I was up early UK time hoping to see qualifying, and after a delayed start, it finally got underway, then more monsoon delay and sessions 2 & 3 were cancelled until the next morning (race day) ... well at least it kept me out of my bed Saturday morning ! :pQuote:
...but the track was more like a river and cars were aqua planing all over the place
The race itself was more about strategy than going out and passing cars.
Attachment 1252 ... tyre graining
Kimi Raikkonen won by looking after his tyres and only making two pits stops for new tyres compared to his main rivals who made three stops. The Pirelli tyres are purposefully designed to have a short life necessitating pit stops. I did prefer the days when drivers used to go racing, and not have to drive within the limits of such tyre wear !
Malaysian Grand Prix - 24 March
Just a week after Australia the F1 circus has moved to Malaysia.
Attachment 1274 ... Sepang International Circuit - hot and dry with the ever-looming threat of a monsoon
The track is built on the site of a former oil palm plantation - 5,000 palm trees were planted around the circuit to replace those lost in construction.
Sebastian Vettel took pole position after another rain affected qualifying.
I enjoyed the Malaysian Grand Prix :)
Race result : 1st Sebastian Vettel, 2nd Mark Webber, 3rd Lewis Hamilton
As most sports fans will know, the race hit the headlines for Vettel disobeying team orders and passing team mate Webber after the final round of pit-stops. Whereas Hamilton's team mate Rosberg obeyed team orders and stayed behind Hamilton as he tried to save fuel.
Comedy moment of the race was when Hamilton drove into his old team McLaren's pit box. Obviously forgetting after 13 years with the team he had switched to Mercedes this year. He's not the first driver in F1 to make that mistake and I doubt he will be the last :D
Attachment 1276 ... spot the mistake - Mercedes car & McLaren pit box
Chinese Grand Prix - 14 April
F1 finally arrived in China after a three week wait for the next race.
Attachment 1316 ... Shanghai International Circuit
Shanghai has over 25 million inhabitants and growing fast. It has been said that since the 1990s, half the world's tower cranes were in Shanghai.
The circuit was built on reclaimed marshland in 2004 and required 40,000 stone pillars, each 40-80m deep to stabilise the land before building the circuit could begin.
Lewis Hamilton took pole position - his first for Mercedes.
Attachment 1318 ... all the talk before the race weekend was the aftermath of the Vettel team orders incident.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Sebastian Vettel's decision to ignore team orders in Malaysia had not undermined his authority - time will tell ??
Vettel certainly doesn't subscribe to the mantra, there's no "I" in team
lol ..... but there is an "I" in WIN
China Race result : 1st Fernando Alonso, 2nd Kimi Raikkonen, 3rd Lewis Hamilton
Attachment 1327 ... winners podium - Chinese themed trophy :cool:
Fernando Alonso won the strategy battle in Shanghai as the Grand Prix was another race of who calculated their sums correctly on Pirelli’s temperamental tyres. The drivers executed various methods for negotiating 56 laps of the circuit.
Mark Webber said of the secret of winning in this era: ‘Tyres, tyres, tyres, tyres…tyres.’
Webber had another day to forget. First he clouted into the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne and was forced back into the pits for a new nose. Then more trouble after his stop with a loose right-rear wheel. Limping back to the pits, the wheel worked its way free and rolled across the track in front of Vettel.
Attachment 1328 ... Vettel avoids Webber's wheel
It has been said that ...
Quote:
the only luck Webber has is bad luck
Talking about tyres and pit-stops ....
Attachment 1329 ... how many people does it take to change 4 wheels ?
Red Bull claim their mechanics have set a new record for the fastest ever four-wheel tyre change in Formula One.
Mark Webber was stationary for just 2.05 seconds when it had all four wheels changed on lap 19 of the Malaysian Grand Prix. The previous pit-stop record was 2.31s, recorded by the McLaren team during the 2012 German Grand Prix.
A spokesperson for Red Bull Racing said ...
Perhaps quicker is not always best though if the tyre is not on properly ???Quote:
There’s always a quicker stop out there, and it’s possible this season we’ll see the magical two-second barrier breached at some point.
Bahrain Grand Prix - 21 April
Amid ongoing protests in and around the capital city of Manama, the Bahrain Grand Prix is going ahead in the Gulf state.
Attachment 1349 ... Sakhir circuit - an oasis in the desert.
Building a circuit in the middle of the desert brings with it the problem of sand being blown all over the place, including onto the track.
Organisers spray glue on the sand around the circuit in an effort to limit the problem.
Nico Rosberg took pole postion in qualifying.
was that the race where his wheel came off?Quote:
Originally Posted by Unclefester
Another F1 related tit-bit....
F1 Group's biggest shareholder, CVC Capital Partners recently made an offer for Betfair...$1.4 billion
Betfair's board knocked it back a few days ago
No ... the fastest wheels did manage to stay on :DQuote:
was that the race where his wheel came off?
With the push for faster wheel changes, and quick release mechanisms etc. mistakes do seem more inevitable. When refuelling was allowed the wheel changes were not so rushed as the fuel took longer.
Bahrain Race result : 1st Sebastian Vettel, 2nd Kimi Raikkonen, 3rd Romain Grosjean
I enjoyed the Bahrain race.
There were plenty of on track battles, including team mates Jenson Button and Sergio Perez ... Button wasn't so impressed :)
Lotus had a good result with both their drivers on the podium.
Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso celebrated their 200 Grand Prix.
Attachment 1366 ... 200 club
Packed your bags for Monaco yet Fester? :D
ssshhh it's supposed to be a secret ! :DQuote:
Packed your bags for Monaco yet Fester? :D
... I told several dealers I would take them if I went. Although I think they only wanted to go to see celebrities etc :p
Spanish Grand Prix - 12 May
After a three week break the racing resumes in Barcelona at the start of the European season.
Attachment 1390 ...The first race was held at Circuit de Catalunya in 1991.
Overtaking can be very difficult. In 1999 there was just one overtaking move in the entire race. Of the 22 races held at the circuit, the winner has started on the front row of the grid 20 times. Pastor Maldonado was last year's surprise winner for Williams, but they have gone backwards since.
Nico Rosberg took pole postion in qualifying, with Lewis Hamilton in second position to make it an all Mercedes front row.
Attachment 1391 ... Nico celebrates pole number 2 of the season
Spanish Race result : 1st Fernando Alonso, 2nd Kimi Raikkonen, 3rd Felipe Massa
It was another race result determined by tyre wear and making only 3 pit-stops, or the need for 4 stops!
Ferrari had a 'good day at the office' with both their drivers on the podium.
Attachment 1392 ... Alonso flies the flag - his second win infront of his home crowd at Barcelona
Meanwhile, Mercedes had a 'bad day at the office' with both drivers going backwards from the start. Rosberg finishing 6th and Hamilton even further back in 12th. The Mercedes struggled once again with high tyre wear and were unable to maintain a competitive pace.
Quote of the race was probably when Hamilton was told over the team radio to look after his rear left tyre. Hamilton replied ...
Quote:
I can't drive any slower
Monaco Grand Prix - 26 May
Nothing else is quite like the Monaco GP in the F1 calendar. Narrow, undulating streets, hairpins, a tunnel, yachts, more yachts, money, celebrities, etc.
I've never been a fan of the circuit as a race, but it certainly is a spectacle.
Attachment 1424 Attachment 1425 .... plenty to see and balconies to watch the action
Former driver Nelson Piquet once described it as like ...
Two drivers have crashed into Monaco’s harbour - Italian Alberto Ascari in 1955 & Australian Paul Hawkins in 1965. Both survived, but days later Ascari died in an accident at Monza.Quote:
riding a bicycle around your living room
Part of the circuit goes past the Casino de Monte Carlo. Where recently a high stakes poker game with some top poker pros took place .... with a minimum buy-in of €500,000 euro / £425,000.
Qualifying was fun to watch as times tumbled on a drying track. Almost every driver crossing the start / finish line posting an even faster time.
Nico Rosberg took pole postion, with Lewis Hamilton in second position to make it an all Mercedes front row once again.
Overtaking is famously difficult at the circuit and so maybe the Mercedes won't go backwards this time in the race ? .... Well I hope not ! I had a punt on Hamilton winning this race a few weeks ago. If it comes of, it will pay for a trip to Monaco next year ! :)
Picked the wrong Mercedes!
Quote:
Picked the wrong Mercedes!
You win some, you lose some ! :)
Monaco Race result : 1st Nico Rosberg , 2nd Sebastian Vettel , 3rd Mark Webber
Attachment 1434 ... Nico celebrates his Monaco win, 30 years after his father Keke won the race.
Hamilton had a slight chance to take the lead on the first lap when he was almost alongside Rosberg, but he was careful to avoid any collision and slotted in behind his team-mate.
Mercedes looked in a stronger position as the slower nature of the track, and difficulty in overtaking meant they were able to control the race one-two.
Hamilton made an error when a safety car came out as a result of Felipe Massa's accident. Until the safety car, Hamilton was around 2 seconds behind Rosberg. Both drivers decided to pit in the safety car period when the cars on the track are required to slow down. Hamilton appeared to slow down too much to avoid waiting behind Rosberg in the pits and the gap was almost 11 seconds when he pitted. He came back out onto the track just behind Vettel and Webber.
Sergio Perez had an eventful race attempting several 'optimistic' overtaking moves, in one of which he collided with Raikkonen. When Raikkonen was asked if the drivers would talk to Perez, he said ...
Quote:
That won't help. Maybe someone should punch him in the face
Canadian Grand Prix - 9 June
Attachment 1473 ... Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve
The track is on an island built between the St. Lawrence River and the St. Lawrence Seaway. The circuit gets it's name from the Canadian Father of one of my favourite drivers - Jacques Villeneuve.
Attachment 1474 ... Groundhogs live around the circuit. Officials trap and relocate as many as possible before the race.
It was another wet qualifying which mixed up the the grid and tested the drivers.
Sebastian Vettel took pole postion. Williams Finnish rookie driver, Valtteri Bottas produced the 'best' result of qualifying taking third place on the grid.
Depends on what exactly we are talking about. To win the 2013 Driver Championship, the next race at Silverstone, etc.
I personally would never tell anyone who, or what they should bet on in life. It is called gambling for a reason.
If anyone wanted we could have a more detailed discussion on which circuits may favour specific driver-car combinations.
British Grand Prix - 30 June
Summer has truly arrived in Britain ... Wimbledon, Glastonbury and the British GP !
Silverstone hosted the very first F1 World Championship event in 1950 at the former wartime bomber base.
My greatest memory will always be 1991 ... watching race winner Nigel Mansell stop to give Aryton Senna a 'ride back' to the pits. TV commentators were James Hunt and the legendary Murray Walker :)
Attachment 1505 ... 1991 Senna ran out of fuel on the last lap.
2013 qualifying honours went to the Mercedes team once again. Lewis Hamilton took pole postion with Nico Rosberg in second position.