[legacyb4]

Hoping the best for Ralf after his accident coming into the straight.

That's something that no one in F1 likes to see...

Cheers.

[Mrjinglesusa]

Originally posted by legacyb4:
Hoping the best for Ralf after his accident coming into the straight.

That's something that no one in F1 likes to see...

Cheers.

Seems to be O.K. Sore back but no broken bones. Michael is in a league of his own this year, just like last. I'm hoping to go to the U.S. Grand Prix next year - never been to one.

[cszar2001]

The cars and tracks are relatively safe nowadays.
If someone survives the crash they`ll be fine.

[Developer]

Is Schumacher going to be disqualified? He overtook Barricchello before the finish line which is not allowed.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Developer:
Is Schumacher going to be disqualified? He overtook Barricchello before the finish line which is not allowed.

he was 0.1seconds behind Barricchello.
Shows what a racing genius Schumacher is

[Peter]

oh, and it sucked about Montoya, he had an amazing race. From last to 3rd...

[Developer]

Originally posted by Peter:
he was 0.1seconds behind Barricchello.

Where did you pull that number from? It clearly looked like he overtook him before the finish line.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Developer:
Where did you pull that number from? It clearly looked like he overtook him before the finish line.

ITV Racing Commentry

[Agasthya]

MS was first over the line.



He won't be disqualified though. He drives for Ferrari, they will just ignore it.

Pity about Montoya. He drove an amazing race and the FIA sat on their asses for 57 laps and allowed him to put his life at risk when they knew at the beginning. Absolute idiots.

[Developer]

Originally posted by Agasthya:
He won't be disqualified though. He drives for Ferrari, they will just ignore it.

Come on, they're not favouring Ferrari or something like that. All teams are treated the same.
If they measured Schumacher to be 0.1 seconds behind then that's probably true. I haven't heard about it though. It still was foolish from Schumacher because you can't calculate it with just 0.1 seconds. He must have forgotten this rule which must not happen to a man with his experience.
To me it looked like he was first, but I can't say from the photo you posted because I can't tell who is who.

[tobster]

Don't know if the following link will clarify anything for you:

- Tifosi-club discussion
BEWARE! Very biased forum!

If you agree to the arguments, photos and official FIA results put forth there while being anti-Ferrari/Schumacher at the same time - congrats, then you are above the conspiracies.

... just like me

- tobs

[Thorin]

I don't know where this 0.1 came from. All the live timing screens at the time showed 0.0 which means they passed the timing beam neck and neck. Bit daft of Schumacher to cut it so fine, but it looks like he got lucky this time. It is a little bit strange the the TV graphics live timing showed Michael in the lead at the start of lap 5 (meaning he did over take before the line), but everything else showed Rubens in the lead as they crossed the line, but with a gap to Michael of 0.0 seconds, which is a bit weird.

[Developer]

Originally posted by tobster:
If you agree to the arguments, photos and official FIA results put forth there while being anti-Ferrari/Schumacher at the same time - congrats, then you are above the conspiracies.

I'm not anti-Schumacher.

But I don't agree with the one in that forum who says it was "masterpiece of concentration and maturity". You can't control a distance of 0.0 seconds. I think it was more a risky (maybe immature) maneuver.

[velodev]

Originally posted by Agasthya:
Pity about Montoya. He drove an amazing race and the FIA sat on their asses for 57 laps and allowed him to put his life at risk when they knew at the beginning. Absolute idiots.

I completely agree... if it isn't any more evident how precious Ferrari is to FIA. They allowed two refuelings and 57 laps... besides the effort of Montoya, this doesn't come cheap. That's a waste of a couple million dollars. Not to mention the incident with Ralf's cost (but that doesn't relate to my point with the black flag)

[Agasthya]

Originally posted by Developer:
Come on, they're not favouring Ferrari or something like that. All teams are treated the same.
If they measured Schumacher to be 0.1 seconds behind then that's probably true. I haven't heard about it though. It still was foolish from Schumacher because you can't calculate it with just 0.1 seconds. He must have forgotten this rule which must not happen to a man with his experience.
To me it looked like he was first, but I can't say from the photo you posted because I can't tell who is who.

Well my point for posting that picture was that it shows MS as #1 (the timing thing). If he didn't pass before the line, there is no reason that it should show him as #1 and Rubens as #2 since Rubens had the lead at that point. Just disappointed in the FIA. They nail Montoya for something really marginal but let MS/Ferrari get away with this. It wasn't even investigated!

But who knows, they took 57 laps in penalizing Montoya so maybe we'll get a penalty for MS in the middle of next week

[Developer]

You are right, something is not quite right here.

You're image says 68 laps to go, so this was after 5 laps completed. Here's the official FIA lap chart:



After 5 laps completed it shows Schumacher at first position! So if I read the chart correctly he must have crossed the finish line ahead of Barricchello.

[ASIMO]

You gentlemen realize that this thread reads like one huge inside joke, right?

And I consider myself a would-be fan of F1 (unluckily, poor to no coverage here Stateside).

[Thorin]

Originally posted by ASIMO:
You gentlemen realize that this thread reads like one huge inside joke, right?

And I consider myself a would-be fan of F1 (unluckily, poor to no coverage here Stateside).

Yeah, it's the same as any sport I guess, it can sound quite cliquey if you're not in the know. Basically what we're arguing about is at the last race there was a safety car period, the rules state that once the safety car returns to the pitlane, the drivers can't overtake each other until they cross the start/finish line. Michael Schumacher passed his team mate on the line (the timing clocked them as 0.0 seconds apart as they crossed the line) and Michael wasn't penalised for it. It looks like they probably crossed the line at the same time, but there's been a bit of a dispute about this (as you can see above).

If you're interested in trying to follow F1 on the web, then I can recommend Pitpass

[Mrjinglesusa]

Originally posted by ASIMO:
You gentlemen realize that this thread reads like one huge inside joke, right?

And I consider myself a would-be fan of F1 (unluckily, poor to no coverage here Stateside).

if you get Speed Channel on your cable they have every race. You generally have to get up early (especially on the West Coast) for European races though. Also www.itv-f1.com has good coverage.

[ASIMO]

Originally posted by Thorin:
Yeah, it's the same as any sport I guess, it can sound quite cliquey if you're not in the know. Basically what we're arguing about is at the last race there was a safety car period, the rules state that once the safety car returns to the pitlane, the drivers can't overtake each other until they cross the start/finish line...

If you're interested in trying to follow F1 on the web, then I can recommend Pitpass

(Cue the music, sing with me...)

I can see clearly, now; the vernacular is gone.

(...and on, and on...)


Thank you for the interpretation, mate. (My guess was correct.) Those in the know, how has Honda (or Bar, for that matter) been faring? And is Bar essentially Honda or is Bar an outfit that uses Honda motors?

[Thorin]

Originally posted by ASIMO:
(Cue the music, sing with me...)

I can see clearly, now; the vernacular is gone.

(...and on, and on...)


Thank you for the interpretation, mate. (My guess was correct.) Those in the know, how has Honda (or Bar, for that matter) been faring? And is Bar essentially Honda or is Bar an outfit that uses Honda motors?

BAR stands for British American Racing, and is mostly owned by BAT (British American Tobacco). Honda supply their engines, but there is rumours that Honda may buy the team completely, or at least buy a large share in it. The team are doing very well this year (the first year they have done well). Takuma Sato scored his first podium on Sunday at Indy finishing behind both Ferrari's. He's been looking excellent recently, fast, aggressive, but unfortunately he seems to have had all the Honda engine failures. His team mate Jenson Button has scored a podium at nearly every race this year, and has had almost bullet proof reliability from his Honda engines. Heading into the second half of the season hopefully Button and Sato will continue to push each other on, and it's not completely out of the question that one of them will win a race before the end of the year. There were times during the US GP when the BAR was faster than the Ferrari.

BAR are 3rd in the constructors' championship with 58 points, ahead of them are Renault on 66, and Ferrari on 142. Button and Sato are 3rd and 7th respectively in the drivers' championship.

[velodev]

Originally posted by ASIMO:
You gentlemen realize that this thread reads like one huge inside joke, right?

And I consider myself a would-be fan of F1 (unluckily, poor to no coverage here Stateside).

Poor to no-coverage? You must be kidding, right?

[ASIMO]

Originally posted by velodev:
Poor to no-coverage? You must be kidding, right?

Other than Speed Channel (which I do not have), where else, network- or standard cable-wise? It is Nascar 90%+ of the time, from what I can gather. Then there is IndyCar.

Enlighten me.

[Mrjinglesusa]

Originally posted by ASIMO:
Other than Speed Channel (which I do not have), where else, network- or standard cable-wise?

Enlighten me.

Like I said above. Get Speed Channel. Your cable provider should be able to get it if you ask them. I had it in San Diego.

[Agasthya]

Originally posted by velodev:
Poor to no-coverage? You must be kidding, right?

Heh. I think Speed covered every single session for the USGP. They really did a fantastic job.

[Thorin]

Originally posted by Agasthya:
Heh. I think Speed covered every single session for the USGP. They really did a fantastic job.

That's pretty cool. We don't even get that for the British GP here. We normally get a brief summary of Quali 1, followed by live Quali 2 (although we got these delayed by several hours for the US and Canadian GP, as they were happening during prime time on Saturday night for us). We only ever see anything from the practice sessions if something note-worthy happens (and not always then - I don't think we saw the Sato-Massa incident from practice at the US). We then get the race live, normally with up to an hour build up, and half an hour post-race coverage, depending on when the race is on, and what else is scheduled around it. Then we get a 1 hour highlights show at about midnight after the race, and then they re-run the whole thing on a week night in the middle of the night. The coverage is pretty good really, it's just a shame that we don't get live qualifying sometimes!

[Agasthya]

Originally posted by Thorin:
That's pretty cool. We don't even get that for the British GP here. We normally get a brief summary of Quali 1, followed by live Quali 2 (although we got these delayed by several hours for the US and Canadian GP, as they were happening during prime time on Saturday night for us). We only ever see anything from the practice sessions if something note-worthy happens (and not always then - I don't think we saw the Sato-Massa incident from practice at the US). We then get the race live, normally with up to an hour build up, and half an hour post-race coverage, depending on when the race is on, and what else is scheduled around it. Then we get a 1 hour highlights show at about midnight after the race, and then they re-run the whole thing on a week night in the middle of the night. The coverage is pretty good really, it's just a shame that we don't get live qualifying sometimes!

Yeah, Speed doesn't send its reporters to each race, they just do commentary from a room in South Carolina from the world feed. So when the USGP came around and they really go crazy.

In addition to showing all the sessions, in between FP1 and FP2 they had a bunch of interviews with drivers and teams. BAR gave Steve Matchett an in depth look at their new composite gearbox. After that, Ross Brawn allowed the team into the garage and pretty much took apart the F2004 piece by piece and explained what everything did. It was really quite a sight to see.

[ASIMO]

Originally posted by Mrjinglesusa:
Like I said above. Get Speed Channel. Your cable provider should be able to get it if you ask them. I had it in San Diego.

I realize Speed Channel has coverage, but that is a premium not worth my sporadic viewing habits. I meant standard cable and network channel coverage. If I could have it my way, I would have only PBS, Comedy Central, and Speed on my TV.

NASCAR is not exactly my cup of tea.

[Chemmy]

I was planning to go to the USGP, until I realized paying for a flight to Indianapolis and staying at a Comfort Inn nowhere near the track on F1 Weekend would be just as expensive as flying to Europe to see F1 raced on a real track.

[dillerX]

i just don't get right turns.

[Agasthya]

FIA have issued an explanation:

The FIA says that "the timing page did briefly display Michael as being ahead of Rubens but then automatically corrected itself to the accurate timing for the lap. The timekeepers contacted Race Control to confirm that the system had adjusted to the correct timing".

The gap of 0.013s translates into something in the region of a metre at the speeds that the cars were then travelling. A lot of people had the impression that Schumacher was ahead before the two cars crossed the line but TV cameras do distort what one sees unless the camera is directly above or directly across from the cars. There is added confusion at Indianapolis because there is a line of bricks across the track just a few metres in front of the start-finish line and the view of the track is slightly obscured by an overhead gantry.

Whatever. Convenient "glitches"

[Developer]

All right. The FIA didn't get to correct their official lap chart yet which is posted above, but after all I'm happy Schumacher is not punished.

[Developer]

Ralf broke two vertebrae! He can not drive Formula 1 this season any more.

This is not good that it was not detected in the hospital in the USA already.

[Thorin]

Originally posted by Developer:
Ralf broke two vertebrae! He can not drive Formula 1 this season any more.

This is not good that it was not detected in the hospital in the USA already.

Just been discussing this on the F1 board I post on. Bad news for Ralf . He's out for 8-12 weeks, which means it's unlikely he'll be back this year. Williams are going to run Marc Gene this weekend, and there's already rumours that they'll try and get hold of Webber from Jaguar for the rest of the season.

There's several of us on the F1 board that are wondering if Ralf will retire now. This less than 12 months after his crash testing at Monza must make him reassess his priorities, he's got a wife, child, and a mountain of money. What reason would he have to come back and risk his life again?

[Developer]

Originally posted by Thorin:
What reason would he have to come back and risk his life again?

Ambition. He will always be overshadowed by his older brother if he never becomes champion.

This injury really should have been detected immediately.

[Thorin]

Originally posted by Developer:
Ambition. He will always be overshadowed by his older brother if he never becomes champion.

This injury really should have been detected immediately.

I know - but I don't think Ralf's hungry enough. He hasn't looked like he's wanted it badly enough since his Monza testing crash last year really, I think this'll be enough to put him off permanently. The other thing is, if he hasn't already signed for Toyota, they're bound to start looking at other drivers for the rest of this year. This is the time when contracts are signed in F1, and 12 weeks is a long time to be out of an F1 car during a season.

Edit: but yes, you're quite right, it should have been picked up straight away. It also shows how dangerous it was that it took the medical car over 2 minutes to get to him. If he'd been more seriously injured, he could have been dead in that time .

[Developer]

Originally posted by Thorin:
I know - but I don't think Ralf's hungry enough.

It can be hard to have a brother like this. I think he will continue to try to become champion. And don't forget Willi Weber as motivating force. My guess is that if he has a competitive car next year in which he can become champion, he will continue. If he will be in an uncompetitive cockpit, I would understand if he quits (and by god, you can have a happy life hitting this [not work-safe] instead of walls at 200 mph).

It also shows how dangerous it was that it took the medical car over 2 minutes to get to him. If he'd been more seriously injured, he could have been dead in that time .

Yes, it's silly that the medical car has to take a full lap in such serious accidents. This reflects badly on Formula 1. And it's silly that broken bones have not been detected immediately. This reflects badly on the hospital he was taken to.

Why does Indianapolis not have a gravel zones anyway? This isn't a city course like Montreal and Monaco, is it?

[Thorin]

Originally posted by Developer:
Why does Indianapolis not have a gravel zones anyway? This isn't a city course like Montreal and Monaco, is it?

The race is run using part of the oval (the same course they use for the Indy 500). That's the bit that Ralf crashed on. In indy cars they just have concrete walls all round the oval, no gravel traps or run off areas, so there's gravel traps on the twisty (slow) bits at indy, but concrete walls round the 160-210mph section. Go figure!

Only time will tell whether Ralf recovers well enough, and is hungry enough to return I guess.

[Agasthya]

Ralf was a bit unlucky. He missed the Safer Barriers (the soft ones) by about 10 feet. If he had hit those instead of the concrete, he wouldn't have suffered these injuries.