F1 2013 Championship

[MacLeod]

Well the provisional 2014 calander has been released and it's not too different from the one leaked a few weeks ago.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24297857

16 March: Australia (Melbourne)
30 March: Malaysia (Sepang)
6 April: Bahrain (Sakhir)
20 April: China (Shanghai)
27 April: Korea (Korea International Circuit)*
11 May: Spain (Barcelona)
25 May: Monaco (Monaco)
1 June: Grand Prix of America (New Jersey)*
8 June: Canada (Montreal)
22 June: Austria (Red Bull Ring)
6 July: Britain (Silverstone)
20 July: Germany (Hockenheim)
27 July: Hungary (Budapest)
24 August: Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps)
7 September: Italy (Monza)
21 September: Singapore (Marina Bay)
5 October: Russia (Sochi)*
12 October: Japan (Suzuka)
26 October: Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina)
9 November: USA (Austin)
16 November: Mexico (Mexico City)*
30 November: Brazil (Interlagos)



* Subject to circuit approval


Which would be a 22 race calander.

 

[Pingfah]

After losing her eye in a test drive incident, Maria De Villota has now been found dead in her hotel room.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24487701

She was in town to promote her autobiography "Life is a Gift". So, speculatively, suicide doesn't seem likely.

 

[Lonemagpie]

After losing her eye in a test drive incident, Maria De Villota has now been found dead in her hotel room.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24487701

She was in town to promote her autobiography "Life is a Gift". So, speculatively, suicide doesn't seem likely.

I was thinking suicide, but, yeah, that's a weird mix, and I saw on the BBC the locals were saying natural causes despite her age.

 

[Geckothan]

I assume by 'natural causes' they just mean not murder, suicide or accident.

My guess would be a brain haemorrhage. She could have been carrying around all sorts of undetected damage, considering what her skull looked like on the MRI after the crash.

Such a shame

 

[Mr Pointy Ears]

Vettel cab win his 4th straight championship on sunday if Alonso doesn't finish 6th or higher.

 

[Ganja Tea]

Can't wait for this one. Hamilton is starting behind the worst starter in F1 and there is no way Vettel doesn't take the lead.

 

[MacLeod]

Who knows perhaps we'll see a repeat of Senna/Prost but between Vettel and Webber. In terms of the Championship Webber has nothing to lose, Vettel on the other hand needs to finish in the points. He can still theortically lose the Championship. An engine blow up, a KERS issue etc.. Better to play it safe and aim to finish ahead of your title rivals instead, it doesn't really what position you finish so long as it's ahead.

It would be nice to see Webber win a race again before he leaves F1.

 

[Ganja Tea]

That's what I love about Vettel. He doesn't play it safe. At the end of the race when he should be managing his fuel or saving his tires he's going balls to the wall and setting fast laps because he loves to push. He will be in first by the first corner, I just hope Webber bogs at the start like he usually does and Hamilton rams his backside and takes them both out.

 

[Geckothan]

Vettel is just a petulant little shit.

*Webber goes faster than Fingerscum*
Fingerscum: MARK IS TOO SLOW GET HIM OUT OF THE WAY
*Webber goes faster than Fingerscum again*

Also, FUCK OFF GROSJEAN. Stop letting Fingerscum run away with it ffs.

Come on, engine failure for Vettel on the last lap please!

EDIT: not a bad race, though, apart from Vettel and Webber being the wrong way around on the podium. Shame about Hamilton screwing up at the start (was pretty close though, and a bit unlucky to move over JUST enough to slash his tyre).

 

[MacLeod]

Not a bad race, would have preferred a Webber Victory. Shame about Hamilton but an't say I'm liking this 2012 construction tyres with 2013 rubber. We had a tyre failure at the last rate and two tyres punctured at this race. They really shouldn't be getting punctured so easy.

 

[Geckothan]

Congratulations Adrian Newey. That is all.

 

[MacLeod]

Well roll on 2014 with the new rules coming into force it'll be interesting to see how what impact if any it'll have on the teams.

 

[Geckothan]

Well Newey will almost certainly come up with a decent car, so we'll just have to hope that Vettel doesn't get on well with the new regs (the new exhausts should make blown diffusers impossible, and the new engines will have much more torque than the V8s, so it'll be interesting to see how he adapts). Maybe Renault will make a dud engine?

If he wins it again next year, at least there's still 2015 to look forward to. Bring on McLaren-Honda!

 

[MacLeod]

Well the Red Bulls strength has been in the aero package rather than the engine package.

 

[ITL]

Yeah, I'm hoping that the technical challenges the teams will face with the new engines will level the field somewhat and take the focus away from aero packages.

BTW - not bringing in Hamilton directly after Rosberg for the second stop today was a stupid idea. They could have had two podium finishes today.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Hm, so Felipe Massa is replacing the Crash Magnet at Williams? Cool. And the Crash Magnet *may* replace Kimi at Lotus? Interesting...

 

[MacLeod]

You know that might work, with two crash magnest at Lotus Maldonado and Grosjean they might cancel each other out.

So the next questions are


Who will team up at Force India?
Who will team up at Sauber?

 

[Geckothan]

Hopefully Loldonado loses his commie oil money (PDVSA are in trouble aren't they?), so he doesn't get a drive at all. Lotus really need to hire a proper driver like The Hulk, as that would give them one of the strongest line-ups, if Grosjean can keep up his current form and not go back to his old ways.

Also, Kimi to miss the last two races of the year... surprise, surprise! Stated reason is back surgery, which is probably true, but I reckon that he originally planned to have it done in the winter break, and that he has just brought it forward a bit to spite Lotus and get some extra recovery time.

 

[MacLeod]

Well is another Vettel pole for the US GP, hopefully however we'll have a race and Mark will win would be nice for him to have one final victory before leaving F1. It also looks like Lewis poor realtive performance in the last 1 or 2 races might have been done to a damaged chasis.

And Maldonado has not been improving his chances for a drive next year, virtually accusing Williams of sabotaging his car. A lot of drivers was having handling issues during quali.

 

[Geckothan]

Well that quali pretty much sums up this era.

Even in unpredictable conditions on one of the least predictable tracks, the result at the front is still the same. Vettel might be driving the wheels off of that Red Bull, but it's just so boring to watch (it looks more like a video game). It's also frustrating to watch as well, because there's no way that Vettel is THAT far ahead of everyone else on raw talent alone (he got destroyed in F3 by di Resta, Sutil, Hamilton, and even di Grassi).

Obviously it's not all his fault that things are so boring (the real offenders are Adrian Newey's talent for finding loopholes, Red Bull's bloated budget, incompetence of other teams, the chocolate tyres, and worst of all, the rulemakers, who have banned real innovation in F1 and turned it into a battle of the budgets and/or a game of loophole cat-and-mouse), but he's still the public face of the boringness, and doesn't even seem to care that F1 has turned into a processional farce (obviously all drivers want to win, but surely they'd rather win a race than a procession?), so it's only fair that he gets some of the blame.

Anyway, good riddance to a completely miserable season, and a mostly miserable era. Hopefully Webber can get one last podium tomorrow (a win is unlikely, but you never know).

Next up it's the V6 vacuum cleaners