Race of Champions, 2018

Coulthard beats Solberg to win Race of Champions

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: David Coulthard won the 2018 Race of Champions after beating world rally and rallycross champion Petter Solberg.

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Comment of the day

Todd reckons IndyCar may be onto a winner with their answer to the Halo:

Notice the Indy version has a constant curve across the face of the windscreen, on one plane/axis. The issue with the Ferrari one, is that is had a curve across the front from left to right, was curved top to bottom (albeit less so), and is was then pinched on the sides. There were simply too many compound curves with the Ferrari piece, which likely gave the driver a distorted fish-eye-type view of the track. The single curve of the IndyCar piece should do a lot better.
Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)

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Image: Race of Champions via Twitter

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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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33 comments on “Coulthard beats Solberg to win Race of Champions”

  1. Its pretty obvious he lacked guidance.

  2. SaturnVF1 (@doublestuffpenguin)
    4th February 2018, 0:25

    Solberg lost because he had to wear those comedy glasses.

    1. eROC winner Enzo Bonito who had never raced a car before that event only lost under half a second to Solberg. But more impressive was Rudy van Buren (World Fastest Gamer) who manage to beat Lando Norris and Le Mans winner Timo Bernhard.

      Maybe eSport was a sport after all.

  3. Stroll’s comment sounds a lot less edgy in the context of the article.

  4. COTD, I’m sure the Indy design is far less effective than the ones tested by the FIA.

    1. Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
      4th February 2018, 10:02

      Probably so. But I am guessing that IndyCar’s requirement is to sufficiently slow any possible debris to “survivable” speeds. It seems like FIA/F1 want their device to completely stop/deflect a flying wheel assembly from any cockpit intrusion. Hence why we have a titanium halo now.

    2. To add more strength to the structure you’d need to add more material. I think indycar wasn’t willing to think about structures like halos simply because of aesthetics whereas f1 was not willing to compromise. Indycar basically wanted the best windscreen solution whereas f1 wanted the best solution. Indycar wanted a solution that is relatively invisible whereas f1 was more willing to sacrifice aesthetics for safety.

      Not to mention that the two sports have different requirements. Indy does oval racing where the average speeds are really high. So you want to deflect everything away from the driver. As such need full frontal protection against things like pieces of rubber and any small parts flying off the cars after crashes. In indycar in ovals the cars are close to each other so when a crash happens all the cars are showered with debris because when the car in front crashes the next cars are right behind them going through all it. In f1 the debris has most of the time landed on the ground when the next cars come to the scene of accident because of bigger distances between cars. Only issue is tires which are unpredictable and bounce around a long time before coming to rest.

      So indy wants to make sure nothing gets into the cockpit because the driver is likely going 300kmh+ at the time of impact. At those speeds a structure like halo also needs to be beefier because the energies involved in 300kmh impact with heavy objects are a lot higher compared to 200kmh impacts. An f1 halo would have been half way solution for indy anyway because of that. Indy also has more pitstops which offer more chances to clear the windscreen in the pits.

      On ovals you also look more straight ahead compared to road racing where you need to have good visibility to the front right and left directions. Indycar might have issues with the halo being right in front of the driver although human stereo vision does automatically cancel it to some degree. Indycar also uses spotters to tell drivers where other cars are which indirectly helps with visibility. I still expect indy to have visual distortion but it remains to be seen whether it is too much or not.

      F1 does more racing in the rain and has less pitstops to fix visibility issues on pits. F1 also wanted beefier protection mainly against tire impacts which has been the biggest danger in open wheel racing. The halo is also useful in car to car crashes and in cases of rollover. I don’t think it is impossible to see indycar using the visor on ovals and the halo on road courses.

  5. Did you see the crowd at the Race of Champions?, empty…. like other sporting events, hosting for TV money or cash at far flung location, why not ship in some supporters… it looks terrible. Or, run the event in UK and have the stadium full, or Germany or Italy… #sellouts

    1. It came to the Olympic stadium and was nowhere near half full…

  6. Regarding the Drive-article: I never thought someone with that much experience in real life racing would do something as low as trying to take other drivers out by crashing into them intentionally.

    1. Imagine if a current F1 driver were to take another car out; even at lower speeds behind a SC.;)

    2. @jerejj, it’s not the first time that Speed had been accused of doing that either, since it appears that he deliberately crashed into another driver during another race as well.

      He has also done the same thing in real life as well after he was struck from behind during a NASCAR race in 2008, with a rival pushing him into a wall. Speed then proceeded to tour round in order to deliberately crash into him and take him out of the race (causing a crash which took another unsuspecting driver out of the race as well). There have been a number of people who have met him and described him as insufferably arrogant, egotistical and petulant, like a spoiled child that’s been told he’s had too many sweets and is now throwing a tantrum – if that is correct, then I’m sadly not surprised that he’d behave in such a way.

  7. Stroll: not only untalented but ungrateful.

    1. @hahostolze, just wondering, did you read the article itself, or just react to the headline and automatically lashed out at Stroll because he is such a popular target to attack?

      As nase notes with his comment, the quote presented there is rather lacking in context, particularly since it omits the leading question that produced that quote. Stroll was being asked what guidance Massa had given him over the year, and Stroll was saying that, contrary to the popular perception that Massa was acting as a mentor to him, that was not what Massa was doing – Massa was focussing solely on his performance.

      1. And reading Massa about the mentor ship he had with Michael Schumacher and the way he related that to Stroll it still is foolish to say the least.
        Lashing out at Stroll is quite easy when he makes these kinds of stupid remarks.

    2. The guy is used to get everything spoon fed to him. I think he blames Massa for not being there for him when Massa had to prepare for his own race. Which is indeed bad judgement from Massa, since he was hired by daddy Stroll for the sole purpose of helping Lance look as good as possible next to him.

      1. He is not ‘blaming’ Massa at all.
        Please read the article before you write a comment.

  8. I love that Scott Speed story, topped only by one of the reader comments below the article:

    “I dono, this seems like a highly realistic simulation of racing with Scott Speed.”

    1. Hahahahahahahhaa

  9. I wonder why Stroll didnt speak when Massa was still in the team & decided to talk months later…
    Also, i wonder why the team itself said multiple times that Massa was a big help for the rookie & now Stroll says something totally different…
    Its a strange comment,coz its obvious that he was getting the setups from Felipe & the engineering briefings must have been open for both.Is Stroll trying to build an leader image? Is he just trying to enlarger his ego?
    Time will tell but its better to be humble when you are at your beginning…

    1. So Hamilton is good at managing the equipment. How is that conflicting when he says “it sucks” that he needs to do that? I would think any true racer would rather just race and use his racecraft to the fullest rather than managing tyres, power units and battery charges.

      1. @patrickl Wrong one buddy🤗

        1. @miltosgreekfan Yeah the site doesn’t work very well. I posted it at the bottom.

  10. @keithcolllantine Your ROC link appears to be targeted at the incorrect page..

    1. @baron I’m passing the buck on this one: It was correct when this was published but it looks like they changed the URL because they originally put three ‘d’s in ‘David’ (just as there aren’t three ‘l’s in ‘Collantine’!)

      1. @keithcollantine haha touché but it’s c-c-cold and I’ve lost all f-f-eeling in my f-f-f-ingers.

      2. Maybe they thought the event was in Miami like last year… ‘And now, coming onto the track, D-D-D-David Coulthard!!!!!!!’

  11. They are stretching the “champions” bit in that “race of champions” quite a lot.

    1. I agree, especially since the winner Coulthard only was a champion in Formula Ford and won F3 in Macau ages ago.. ;)

  12. New owners at Sochi…. we’ve seen this one before! I give it 3 more years, tops!

    ROC is often a decent watch, good fun. I tuned in yesterday during the E-sports competition. Now can someone please tell me why, when you have a stadium (ahem) full of people and some of the best racing drivers in the world would you sit in corner and play video games? I appreciate the skill and value of E-sports… but it wasn’t shown on the big screens for the crowd to follow and the circuit they were racing on was a simulation of the real one behind them!!!
    Its no wonder ROC generates little to no interest within motorsport and for a wider audience in general!

  13. “my son switched off the TV because he thought ‘Daddy’s too old’” Ha, hah, that’s hiliarious.

    Nice to see DC kick all of the younger driver’s butts.

  14. Why David Coulthard was in a Race of Champions?

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