F1 Fanatic round-up: 26/6/2010

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It’s Grand Prix Saturday and you know what that means – get your predictions in here before final practice starts!

Done that? Good, here’s the round-up:

Links

When is a street circuit really a street circuit? (The Jakarta Post)

ESPN commentator Steve Slater, who also does PR for the Singapore Grand Prix, argues why that race and the Monaco Grand Prix are F1’s only true street tracks: “Valencia, along with Abu Dhabi, is created around a vast newly-built yacht marina, in this case originally devised to host the America’s Cup. Worse still its outlook presents TV viewers and visitors with vistas of industrial suburbs and container parks. Monaco it ain’t! ”

Exhaust Driven Diffusers (Scarbs F1)

As mentioned in John Beamer’s last technical review, the exhaust-driven diffuser was originally tried by Adrian Newey on the McLaren MP4-18 which never raced. Scarbs gives some more background on the technical innovation du jour.

Why Valencia is Lotus’s 500th Grand Prix (Joe Saward)

“[Tony] Fernandes also sought out the blessing of the Chapman Family and when Colin Chapman’s son Clive asked him whether the new team’s first victory would be a first win for Lotus Racing or the 80th victory for Lotus, Tony was very clear. It would be Lotus’s 80th.”

Europe GP – Conference 2 (FIA)

Vijay Mallya: “Let’s be clear; motor sport is not that advanced in India for a variety of reasons, to throw up drivers who would ultimately reach Formula One. We have drivers – Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandhok, and a couple of others, Armaan (Ebrahim), and there’s a boy called Patel – they’re talented drivers. Now I must decide whether they suit my requirements in Force India Formula One or not. I have been very fair, I’ve given at least one of them the opportunity in the driving simulator and I put four drivers in and I selected the best one of the lot which happened to be Paul di Resta, so it isn’t as if I’ve got a shut mind here. But I’ve got to start looking for somebody really young, and as I have said to you before and to many others, amongst 1.2 billion people there’s got to be a Lewis Hamilton somewhere.”

Comment of the day

This time 12 months ago there was a lot of support for FOTA among fans. Comments like this one from Don Speekingleesh say a lot about why that has changed:

Great. So FOTA are going down the Mosley route. Come up with an utterly moronic idea, and then quietly drop it when they realise nobody likes it and it doesn’t work anyway.
Don Speekingleesh

From the forum

Should they make Grands Prix longer? Or shorter? Or leave them as they are? Travis raises the question.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Kathryn S, Alex Bkk and Greg!

On this day in F1

In the aftermath of BMW’s maiden win in the Canadian Grand Prix I wrote that their triumph “vindicated their split from Williams” two years ago today.

At that time it was hard to foresee that a little over a year later they would announce they were leaving the sport.

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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16 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 26/6/2010”

  1. The blown diffuser article is great. Very informative. Sounds like McLaren may have more trouble implementing it than others due to their low wishbones…

  2. Vijay Mallya, Japan is still looking for their Michael Schumacher… and they have true love for racing cars, and a proper motorsport heritage…

    But keep searching…

    1. To be fair, it’s harder to find another Schumacher than it is to find another Hamilton.

  3. I’ve got to start looking for somebody really young, and as I have said to you before and to many others, amongst 1.2 billion people there’s got to be a Lewis Hamilton somewhere.

    Unfortunately for Mallya, that person was Lewis Hamilton.

    I know Force Malaysia have Lotus’ backing, but it’s still not Lotus for me; there’s no tangible evolution between the two as far as I know (please correct me on the matter if so). It’s like all the film remakes that seek to sponge off the fame of the originals.

    1. Sush Meerkat
      26th June 2010, 9:09

      They have the Chapman’s family blessing, I’m taking the “happy” opinion and saying thats good enough for me.

      If the passion’s there, its a Lotus.

      Technically Ferrari isn’t Ferrari anymore, the Old man isn’t there, they don’t have the most powerful engine (partly due to restrictions) and historically Ferrari’s weren’t easy to drive.

    2. As a very long time Lotus fan, emotionally Lotus was only Lotus when Colin Chapman was in charge as it was very much his team and his genius. But did that make the Lotus races after Chapman’s death not Lotus?…. No of course not. But if you have gone to the lengths that Fernandes seems to have done, buying the rights to the old name, getting the backing of Lotus cars and the Chapman family, building the cars as near to the old Lotus workshops as possible with quite a few of the old personnel, then I think he has done all that can reasonably be expected.

      No, for me they do not have the emotional pull of the old Lotus, that would be impossible. But I don’t have a problem with them using the name and claiming some of the heritage and I would like to see them do well…. well enough to perhaps persuade the Chapman family to let them use the final endorsement, the ACBC logo.

      1. I concur, there are only two pieces of the jigsaw missing (for me), the logo, and the British flag next to the name, but these are trivial things – like the queen without a crown, she’s still the queen. Same here, logo and British flag would be nice, but far more important is the passion Fernandes has shown for the marque.

  4. The Lotus article has won me over a bit. I’ve been one of those people saying “Lotus only by name” but I suppose if all that was left was the name then why raise a ruckus about whether they are “true” or not? I’ll cut them a little slack, especially seeing as how they’ve been doing a bang up job catching up to the field and the year isn’t even out.

  5. Vijay Mallya is picking up the drivers very carefully. He wants someone talented. I think as Steve Slater pointed out than Karun may drive for the Force India team in 2011 in the Indian GP.

  6. A little off topic.
    Wild game burgers with your US GP in Austin 2012?
    http://www.statesman.com/business/in-elroy-the-talk-is-all-about-a-770105.html
    Another website’s description of the restaurant mentioned:
    The former Elroy Sausage Company has rebranded and upped their game, adding black bear to a menu of buffalo, yak, cabrito , ostrich, kangaroo, and antelope, with plans to add chicken fried rattlesnake once they can find a reliable supplier, or at least one who isn’t dead.
    See, exotic cuisine! Don’t tell me Texas has no culture.
    (http://www.thrillist.com/austin/wild-bubbas-wild-game-grill)

    1. Really thanks for keeping us updated on this Scalextric. I wonder weater Hellmund is keeping things secred, because he does not really have all chips prepared or maybe a little bit of creating a media buzz like apple does before presenting new products.

      But i think it’s rather the first. Hardly a good thing to go proclaiming where it will be if the deal is not signed. Would push up the price a lot.

  7. On Steve Slater comments “Worse still its outlook presents TV viewers and visitors with vistas of industrial suburbs and container parks. Monaco it ain’t!”

    To be honest, that’s what I like about it. A different theme surrounding the track instead of the common rolling hills or city scape. It makes the event unique and that can only be a good thing.

    1. I read a preview where the track was dubbed as an “urban track” which seems to fit pretty well.

      I don’t mind the container terminals etc. as well. It makes for something different to watch, and actually it makes more sense to race on a industrial site than in the middle of a city (how many of you have never used industrial sites to give the car/bike a spin?).

      Only the track itself fails to offer any real challenges, walls are too far away and the run off areas are way to large and forgiving.

      1. I agree, the definition of a true street circuit should be, if you make the smallest mistake you are in the wall and your race is over.

      2. As near as I remember, Catalunya is several kilometers north of Barcelona, in an industrial estate.

        Good on ya, Texas developers, for adding features we find in European venues.

        :)

  8. Only places where you can see road markings at the Valencia circuit are on the runoff at turn 1 and between 13 and 14 but the latter ones aren’t in the direction of the circuit.

    So it isn’t really street circuit. Singapore has some sections purpose built, but turn 5 to turn 16 it’s full street circuit. Piquet corner is part of purpose built section.

Comments are closed.