F1 Fanatic round-up: 28/9/2010

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The results of the latest round of the F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship will be up later today.

In the meantime, here’s the round-up:

Links

New Teams’ New Drivers? (Speed)

“I have it on very good authority that Jarno Trulli will not be a Lotus driver in 2011. Apparently he’s decided to go of his own accord (which begs the question of what he’s going off to do – run his vineyard most likely), and the greatest upshot of that is that the most attractive new team in Formula 1 has a vacant seat next year. ”

Comment of the day

Damon asked a question that led to an interesting conversation. Read it all here:

If Kubica was able to regain almost all the places he had lost during the second pit stop: Would a proper two-stop strategy be faster than a one-stop strategy that everybody have chosen?
Damon

From the forum

With a film about Ayrton Senna already in the works, what other F1 personalities should be the subject of a film?

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

Alan Jones won the world championship on this day in 1980 in the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal.

In a controversial start to the race, he and title rival Nelson Piquet collided, forcing a stoppage and re-start. Piquet had to change cars and when the engine failed in his back-up car, Jones was set to be crowned champion.

Here’s footage of the start of the race. If the start area looks unfamiliar it’s because 30 years ago the start line at the Montreal circuit was at the exit of the old Pits Hairpin (now called L’Epingle) and led into a series of fast bends that are no longer there. (See Changing tracks: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for more):

Jones is to be a steward at the Korean Grand Prix this year, assuming the race goes ahead.

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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54 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 28/9/2010”

  1. No hard feelings, but I’ve been waiting for Trulli to go for a while now. There was some potential there but I don’t think we lost a world champion. He seemed to be just hanging around in F1 these last few years, although his podium at Suzuka last year was a nice swan song of a sorts. Good luck to him and hopefully his absence will make way for someone new and exciting, or maybe Petrov as part of the Renault deal, who can then be replaced (here come the Kimi rumours again!).

    1. I’m hoping that’s true and that we’ll either see Chandhok at Lotus, or Petrov, making way for a quicker driver alongside Kubica.

      1. I would think that Lotus would want a driver with a bit more experience than Chandhok for car development reasons.

        I’ve got it! Put Massa in the Lotus which opens a seat a Ferrari, which would make all this who’s going where speculation a lot more interesting!

      2. I’m sorry, but with Chandok people are letting their heart rule their head. He seems to be a lovely chap- but unfortunately that doesn’t mean he’s a particularly good racing driver.

        I’d love for someone like Chandok to go and disprove the ‘nice guys finish last’ theory, but unfortunately he just ain’t good enough. I’d love to be proved wrong, but I don’t think I will be I’m afraid

        1. You may be right, but if he isn’t given a chance in at least a mid-pack car, there’s likely no way we’ll know.

          1. I agree, the HRT is a shocking car and I personally dont think we can learn a whole lot about any drivers ability from having raced that car.. I hope Bruno Senna can also get hiself in a better car and we can see what these guys are really made of..

        2. That’s my comment of the day. He’s a great guy, and I wish him the best of luck, but people are letting their hearts rule their heads with Chandhok.

        3. Then again, Bernie is pushing quite a bit to get Karun in a drive for the Indian GP next year, so he might be there.

          Fernandez would make good friends if he did that. I think keeping Heikki is a good move though, and if Renault go for Timo or Kimi they might want to park Petrov at Lotus to keep him in the Renault stable, that would not be a bad deal for Lotus as well.

        4. I thought “nice guys finish last” had been conclusively disproved when JB got the #1 on his car for this year, personally.

          1. I thought “nice guys finish last” had been conclusively disproved when JB got the #1 on his car for this year, personally.

            Touché!

          2. lol, I love it.. Great comment..!!!

        5. I think people are letting their hearts rule them a bit, but Chandhok actually did quite well considering his first run in an F1 car was in qualifying. Even though he’s been out for a while now he’s still leading Bruno Senna (not to mention di Grassi, Glock, and Trulli!) in the standings on countback. He’s certainly got as much place in F1 as his team-mate has.

    2. I hope they don’t replace with Fauzy though, he is apparently not on the same level as Yamamoto…

      1. Ouch… but true!

  2. Why’s that Chandhok talk again. The guy was beaten by Senna who was beaten by Klien who didn’t race in the last 4 years and was beaten by anyone else. He’s atrocious as a racer, and the only reason Ecclestone wants him at the grid is because of that Indian GP.

    1. umm, because Chandok wasn’t beaten by Senna, and from his first few races it was obvious he was a talented driver just in bad machinery

      1. ^What he said.^

  3. I do agree with Damon a bit may be a second stop in the last 60-80 km of the race will definitely help driver to lap faster then the cars in front but as we saw that he was a long way behind Barrichello. We haven’t see from any top drivers trying this in 2010 in the dry track but if anyone from the back who don’t have anything to loose can try on a track where overtaking is easy then it may workout.

    1. I couldn’t help but think the same thing myself seeing Kubica’s performance in Singapore after his last stop but really, given the investment these teams have in race simulations and strategy if it was a better option we would see it week in week out..

  4. Which other F1 drivers worthy of film? I’d probably say Jim Clark, or if it’s been done before, James Hunt in his Hesketh/McLaren years, seen from the perspective of James Hunt, BBC commentator/budgie breeder…

  5. Is it just me or does someone else get the feeling Alonso will win the championship by less than 7 points?

    1. It’s my biggest fear for the season.

    2. if he does win by less than 7 points it will only enforce the reason it was done. Nobody liked it but we all (even Ferrari fans)have to get over it.

      1. It wouldn’t just “enforce the reason it was done”, it would throw more light on the fact that one team was playing to a different set of rules. Not something that is going to reflect well on F1.

        1. And the worst part is that 2010 has been one of the closest seasons of racing in years, if not decades. With five races left, we have five genuine title contenders. To have Alonso win by less than seven points would only destroy a season of fantastic racing.

          1. I hate to get into all this again but I kinda agree. Eddie Jordan made the best point – the points were gained illegally but they kept them. McLaren were deemed to have behaved illegally in 2007 and lost points because of it (and the drivers only kept theirs thanks to Bernie’s insistence). Not complying to the rules and gaining more points because of it had Tyrrell chucked out the championship one year. If they want to change the team orders ban, fine, but to let them off whilst the rule stands based on some “fact” that it’s a stupid rule and simply because they never took action before was a real farce for F1 and we were lucky that in the end the public didn’t really care about it in the end, otherwise it could have been severely damaging to F1’s image.

          2. I’m not so much thinking of the way McLaren were punished and Ferrari were not – I’m aiming at the direct connotations of the World Champion. The World Champion is supposed to be the best driver over the course of a season, but if someone needs his team to force his team-mate into moving over and let hm though (rather than catching and passing that team-mate on his own), then he is clearly not the best driver, so what claim does he have to the title of World Champion?

          3. But that can go for the 2007 champion too, yet only a very few dispute the legitimacy of that result. It would have been absolutely thrilling to see what Alonso would have done had Hamilton been one place further up in that race and relying on Fernando to move over for the title…

            But personally I do agree with you that a team order rather than the driver gifting a place puts a little asterisk on a champion.

        2. It is a matter of perception Keith. You see it as different set of rules, and unfair advantage to Fernando.

          While, I as a Ferrari fan, see it as a just compensation for not being given a shot at a constructor’s title thanks to Massa. Ferrari scored 49 points from Round 6 to Round 10 and effectively became outsiders to both titles. They were unfairly robbed off points at Valencia and were worse than the 3rd best team at Turkey.

          The only possible salvage after such torrid set of races was a faint chance of Alonso becoming WDC. And kudos to Ferrari for propelling Alonso from nowhere to 2nd in the championship.

          While Mclaren and Red Bull concentrate on both titles, Ferrari are only concentrating on one and forgone the other title, the sure loss of the constructors title is compensated by a slightly increased chance in the drivers’ race. Nothing unfair about that.

          1. see it as a just compensation for not being given a shot at a constructor’s title thanks to Massa.

            I think there are two faults in that reasoning: first, the idea that a ‘team’ can win the ‘drivers’ championship.

            Second, the idea that Massa was more to blame than Alonso for their problem. Yes, Alonso had been quicker, but he’d also made a lot of mistakes and thrown away points, particularly at races like Melbourne, Shanghai and Silverstone.

        3. yet another anti Ferrari comment from Keith

          1. I disapprove of something they’ve done, I’m not going to sugar-coat it. Care to explain what you think or are you just going to complain that other people don’t agree with you?

      2. Eddie Irvine made a good point in that in the early Schumacher years at Ferrari McLaren clearly had the best car, so backing one driver to the hilt made sense because that’s the only way they were going to win. I respect and even applaud that strategy.

        But Irvine always knew the score; Massa however thought his #2 days were over when Schumacher left. Furthermore, as Ferrari threatened to do after Germany and have since done so, they’ve got a car capable of fighting for the championship without trickery. Sure, Massa was pretty much out of it by Hockenheim, but with all the retirement dramas we’ve had since you never know. More importantly, if Alonso needed those 7 extra points because he was so far behind the others, then that’s Ferrari’s fault for their brief slump development and even more so Alonso’s fault for the mistakes he made.

        1. I agree will all thats been said but if Alo does win by less than 7 points it gives some justification to why the did it. If you ask Mclaren now if they would had done the same to win both titles in 2007 I’m sure they would give you a similar answer(or at least with Ron Dennis).

          1. Personally I find it completely arbitrary to say that if Alonso wins by less than 7 his championship will be tainted. Between Hockenheim and and the last lap of the last race of the season an unlimited number of possible things can happen on and off the track that may or may not be influenced by what was done at Hockenheim and which can swing drivers’ points totals one way or another. To put it another way, those who think that Alonso’s potential championship will be tainetd shouldn’t base their decision on how many points he wins by, because that’s leaving ethical judgment to pure chance. Personally I think too much was made of it – Massa was effectively out of the running already, if for no other reason than his overall sub-par pace on the season.

          2. To counter that, in a very recent interview Martin Withmarsh stated, that he would not want to win that way and he told Alonso so at the time (saying he would have to win it by being the best, not with TO).

          3. I think “justification” should really be “reason”. The connotations are too strong.

            Funnily enough, in 2007 it was said that any McLaren driver winning the title would be tainted by Spygate. Imagine a team orders saga too, especially with the fallout with Alonso in the background to boot. It would have been very messy.

        2. I just find it interesting that alonso has dogged controversy at every team he has gone to after renault. It puts schumi’s dominance at ferrari into perspective for me. he had built the team to a winning level and stayed there to claim the spoils and also fought for his last two years at ferrari. alonso left renault but expected preference after that which should not be the case. Just as button does not.

    3. My feeling is that Hamilton will beat Alonso to the championship on the last lap in Abu Dhabi. :D

    1. I just received my copy for the ps3 yesterday, does anybody know how to change the camera angle, I can’t find it, so I’m stuck on the default (behind the car) setting.

      Thanks,

      Nathan

      1. It’s Y on the xbox so I would assume Triangle on the PS3.

      2. Its R1 mate. ( I have to write this otherwise my comment would be deemed too short)

        1. Thank you, why is this not mentioned in the manual?

          Nathan

    2. That’s very important news. From what i saw at the discussions there is quite a bit of very annoying bugs for the avid fan to overcome.

  6. With lotus moving to renault engines and with a potentially open seat, could we see petrov move to lotus to gain more experience, while keeping a sponsorship link with renault, as part of the deal. Freeing up a Renault race seat for Raikonen to help move Renault to a top team once again.

    1. Possibly, but I just can’t see Raikkonen as being a good fit for Renault. The team is built around Robert Kubica – it kind of had to be, since he was their only driver up until the day before winter testing began – and I seriously doubt Raikkonen would like that. If he and Kubica joined Renault together and Kubica won the team over with his results, I think Raikkonen would respect that. But I can’t imagine he’d take to the present arrangement. Renault already seem suspicious of his motivations, saying they wanted to know what prompted the return.

      1. I kind of agree. Renault will need to update their mentality if kimi join them. They have for many years really put one driver up front and i doubt that will change easily.
        If a team wants to retain a driver, they will help him settle down, rather than pressure him into mistakes.

        You can’t eat your cake and have it. If you didn’t want a driver, you shouldn’t have taken the money.

  7. If I remember correctly, wasn’t the FIA inspection of Korea supposed to be today?

    1. 1 week ago I thought :/
      It was cancelled anyway.
      If the race gets canceled, 3 wins would guarentee all down to Hamilton the title !

  8. I red in detail about the possible situations behind a 2-stopper becoming viable. A key reason being chapioned by everyone is that tyres should last for less long.

    But can someone once think from the tyre company’s point of view. If tyres last less longer, all the drivers do in the press conferences is bitch about their tyres’ poor shelf-life and tyre company gets poor publicity. Pirelli tyres are going to be compared to Bridgestone ones, no doubt and does Pirelli want the first comment about their tyres to be, “These tyres go off very quickly”?? There is zero incentive for Pirelli to develop tyres which last for lesser distances.

    What can perhaps be done, is research to find a lighter fuel. Currently, as a car burns a lap of fuel, it becomes faster by about 0.1-0.2 seconds, whereas when a car runs a tyre for a lap, it becomes slower by only about 0.01-0.02 seconds, if these penalties could somehow become more equal, only then will we see a variation in strategy.

    How about letting all engine companies develop their own fuel? Anyways with the engine freeze, they don’t have much to do. It will added an extra dimension of research to an exceedingly rule-confined sport, and will definitely ‘improve the show’.

  9. “I have it on very good authority”

    So, who exactly is this authority?
    What’s your source?

    1. You need to ask Will Buxton that…

      1. I was asking him

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