Ecclestone in push for Chinese F1 race
'“We have a contract until 2010 with an option for five years after that,” Mr Ecclestone told the Financial Times. “We will talk to them about it, and meet up and see how we can help them.”' If only he were so eager to keep some of the events on the calendar that actually have an F1 history and are held at decent circuits.
"The Frenchman was clocked at 212kph in a zone where the allowed speed limit is 130kph."
Random musings about customer cars
"The FIA is slowly marching F1 down a path that will end up with a single spec series. The beauty of F1 in years gone by has been the immense variety in design – Colin Chapman, Peter Wright and Ken Tyrrell are heroes to us all. It is still possibly to recapture those glory days if the FIA regulates properly (for example, by, say, setting horsepower limits rather than spec engines). The likelihood is that it won't. GP2, F1, F2, A1 &mdsah; who cares … it will all be the same. That will be very sad."
Fry indicates Button will stay put
"Honda CEO Nick Fry has indicated that the team will offer Jenson Button a new contract despite his bad season."
Red Bull did not release any lap times, but one team official said, “We’ve been impressed by how consistent Sebastien has been today, and how he just got into the car and went for it. If he’d pussyfooted around then it would have been impossible to get heat into tyres and brakes, but he went for it from his first lap.”
Youngsters flocking to emulate Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton's world championship victory is good news for kart track owners in Britain.
"F1 aficionados and fans always accuse NASCAR of operating like the WWF, saying NASCAR is just for show and is not real. Not to irritate the open wheel fans but … what constitutes a show in your opinion? Wouldn’t you call a “show” a race in which Barrichello is forced to give up the win because the team ordered him to do so? That smacks of a staged show, a fixed race, to me. Hell, all they’re missing is the script."
I had to check the date on this NASCAR article because a lot of the 'facts' quoted about F1 are past their 'use by' date: team orders were banned after the Austria furore (although are still used as we discussed here earlier), traction control has been banned as have pit-to-car telemetry adjustments. I appreciate the author didn't intend the piece as a hachet job on F1, but it still comes across that way.
These are articles I’ve found and bookmarked using Delicious. View my Delicious profile to see what else I’m reading and recommend other links to me.
doctorvee
16th November 2008, 13:13
Team orders are fine — it’s part of motor racing and always has been. But phantom cautions are simply not cool.
beneboy
16th November 2008, 13:35
If only that were true today.
If you took the paint of modern F1 cars most people would have trouble telling them apart (James Allen has this problem even with the paint).
Rather than the push for homologation or “Spec” cars I’d much rather the teams had a lot more freedom in their designs.
Bring back some of the freedom and ingenuity that led to many of the brilliant cars and ideas we’ve had in the past, even if most of them were ultimately banned.
See https://www.racefans.net/category/regular-features/banned/ for some of the most memorable of these (6 Wheel Tyrrell is one of my favourites).
beneboy
16th November 2008, 13:46
Barrcihello not going to Honda’s Barcelona Test:
http://www.itv-f1.com/news_article.aspx?id=44616