F1 Fanatic round-up: 27/3/2010

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It’s qualifying day for the Australian Grand Prix! Look out for our free practice three and qualifying live blogs coming soon. Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

The declining standard of F1 television coverage (Doctorvee)

An often-overlooked but very important part of the ‘improving the show’ argument.

The latest on plans to improve the Formula 1 show (James Allen)

The ‘ballast’ idea is truly horrible. Is that really the best they can come up with?

Comment of the day

Could Watkins Glen ever be used as an F1 venue again? Scootin offers some thoughts:

They added paved run-off into turn five this year, so that should be "kosher". Turn six is slow enough that no further safety improvements should be necessary.

The big turn that needs improvement is turn 11 (the right hander onto the front straight). I understand they did "something" there this winter, but I don’t know what. Previously it was really unsatisfactory – it was high-speed corner with the guardrail right there. Plus the tire wall they had in place was almost strategically placed to cause multi-car pileups when one car goes just slightly off-line.

As Keith pointed out last year though – the FIA rules prohibit F1 from running on any track with any significant elevation change (Spa being the exception due to it’s "grandfathered" status). Few who haven’t visited Watkins Glen before realise just how much elevation change there is (especially in turns 2-3-4 and 6-7-8). As much fun and challenging as the elevation changes make the track, I could easily see it not meeting the FIA’s demands.
Scootin

Site updates

Nico Rosberg and Cosowrth are the latest additions to the F1 Twitter directory.

Happy birthday!

No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

However we can wish a happy 39th birthday to David Coulthard!

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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12 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 27/3/2010”

  1. “For qualifying cars would carry ballast based on their success in the season so far. Ballast is something F1 has avoided thus far, as it is more of a touring car measure, but it might work in qualifying.”

    wonder if he’s serious about it…

    we hated qualifing sessions with race fuel… why bring back such stupidity after YEARS of annoying artificial qualys?.

    And there we were finally happy about true qualifing this year. They didn’t want that, so they choose to start the race with the same tyres they qualified. And now this.

  2. Great article about the tv coverage!.

    They are really starting to miss the standars we need now. I remember last year sometimes they were showing a Toro Rosso cruising around on last minutes of Q3.

    It’s like showing an onboard shot of a HRT in deciding moments of qualy.

    1. After seeing the FOM race video, i can only agree. A lot of good stuf never made it to the viewers.

      So maybe we have found an easy solution to improve the show. Just show us the show going on out there, the viewers will certainly have a better time looking.

  3. Lewis Hamilton has road-car impounded

    http://www.news.com.au/national/formula-one-ace-lewis-hamilton-has-car-impounded-under-anti-hoon-laws/story-e6frfkvr-1225846209403

    Silly boy does burnout on public road in Melbourne right in front of police on friday night. Car is instantly impounded, Hamilton fined.

  4. Happy Birthday DC!

  5. Fantastic post about the TV feeds – FOM/FIA are so backward it is unreal….

  6. Any one know Seb Vettels nickname from the mechanics ? I heard it was Florence but why ??

  7. An interesting background on the economics of the teams.

    Looks like Lotus did a better job at securing sponsorship than a lot of other teams. The jump from Ferrari to 2nd best McLaren is enormous and the HRT “sponsorship” deals are of F3 level at best.
    http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=40305

  8. Looks like McLaren is getting into some others for doing things controversially (Remember it was RedBull’s Horner wanting clarification on the F-duct thing).

    Brawn is right about this. The FIA should give an interpretation of the rules here, to avoid controversy.

  9. Looks like McLaren is getting into some others for doing things controversially (Remember it was RedBull’s Horner wanting clarification on the F-duct thing).

    Brawn is right about this. The FIA should give an interpretation of the rules here, to avoid controversy.
    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82461

    1. and here is an interesting speculation about a possible solution for ride hight changes
      http://www.formula1journal.com/2010/03/f1-ride-height-adjustment-red-bull-by-flood1.html

  10. I think that article about the standard of F1 coverage, is very good.

    During Bahrain, I was asking myself why FOM didn’t show much of Hulkenberg’s, Kubica’s or Sutil’s fightbacks. They may have not been fighting for points, but an overtake is an overtake, and thats what we want to see.

    Maybe people wouldn’t have been as critical towards the Bahrain GP if FOM had showed a bit more of the field, rather than just the front runners. But then again, maybe not.

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