F1 2012

I suspect we're in the golden era of F1 and this may be the best year of the era.

Some of the new rule changes are going to make things interesting. Like lapped cars can get their laps back during yellow flags and a driver is only allowed one defensive maneuver to block. I caught like the last 20 laps of the race yesterday. I didn’t even know the season had started.

F1's back on again? Holy shit.

i think they've meddled too much with the rules now... who wins depends almost entirely on who can bend the rules the most without getting caught. i started to lose interest when brawn gp won it.

The only thing I hate is that DRS can't be used wherever the drivers are ballsy enough to use it. I'm not crazy about KERS being set at 8 seconds per lap too. Those rules are too artificial.

But F1 has almost always had shitty rules of some description ruining the whole thing - at least these rules are the same for everyone and there has never been this level of strong teams and drivers in the same field. Considering 15 years ago McLaren were lapping the field in Round 1, this year really is promising. Grosjean looks like the new Hamilton and if Kimi starts looking like the old Kimi we'll have six world champs with real chances of winning races and three or four other genuine challengers.

Alonso has a strong case as the greatest F1 driver ever. How he can win a race in that garbage car against history's strongest field of drivers in competitive teams is beyond imagination. He leads the championship in what is undoubtedly a worse car than the McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes, Lotus and Sauber.
And Perez has finally got the result he repeatedly hinted at last year. Shame he didn't quite make the pass - which wouldn't have been necessary anyway if the team had pitted him on the same lap as Alonso...

That was a pretty entertaining race. Caught it later in the day so they skipped over all the rain delay crap.

you can only block a pass once?
yeah, way to take half the skill out of racing.

Turbojett wrote:you can only block a pass once?
yeah, way to take half the skill out of racing.

basically created to stop schumacher

let them all go nuts with a few basic aero parts, restrict the engines in ECU only, and let them see what they can come up with.

its a bitch because everyone is loving how unpredictable the races are now so they won't change it, but its not far short of being fixed now.

Pennz, it would be a shame for you to have been too young to appreciate the Senna/Prost/Piquet era and then become disillusioned when the racing finally becomes good again. It won't last and the technical regulations have always been ridiculous. The only difference is Asia has pumped enough money into the sport to allow mid-range teams the ability to adapt to changes quickly.

Also, you need to rethink the definition of fixed. Because for a couple of years that really was occurring at a political level. Your posts really contradict each other and both relate more closely to other eras of the sport.

Swerve wrote:Pennz, it would be a shame for you to have been too young to appreciate the Senna/Prost/Piquet era and then become disillusioned when the racing finally becomes good again. It won't last and the technical regulations have always been ridiculous. The only difference is Asia has pumped enough money into the sport to allow mid-range teams the ability to adapt to changes quickly.

Also, you need to rethink the definition of fixed. Because for a couple of years that really was occurring at a political level. Your posts really contradict each other and both relate more closely to other eras of the sport.

ferrari developed over a number of years the best engineering team, the best car and won races with the best driver. the political issues were a sideline to that. now, the car that wins is the one that got lucky enough to in a very short period of time bend the latest set of rules. when they change them, its someone else's turn. teams will leave because there is a lack of opportunity to build any long term success.

Basically right on the first part but wrong on the second. Paying attention to the last three years, Red Bull has been at the pinnacle every year, with McLaren the better team of the second half of last year and clearly number one (with RBR second) this year. Brawn/Mercedes would have been in the hunt all three years except last year they failed to put their resources behind their best driver.
Ferrari have been a basket case since the Italians took over but have a driver in Alonso capable of outdriving his car.

I've decided I really like Vettle. He sounds like a really cool guy in this interview:


http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews/2012/3/13135.html

Swerve wrote:Basically right on the first part but wrong on the second. Paying attention to the last three years, Red Bull has been at the pinnacle every year, with McLaren the better team of the second half of last year and clearly number one (with RBR second) this year. Brawn/Mercedes would have been in the hunt all three years except last year they failed to put their resources behind their best driver.
Ferrari have been a basket case since the Italians took over but have a driver in Alonso capable of outdriving his car.

Brawn took the lead because they interpreted the new diffuser regs better than the others
Red Bull took the lead because they interpreted the revised diffuser regs better than the others
Mclaren are doing well now because they interpreted the new aero package regs better than the others

there is no consistency to any of it anymore

And now Mercedes are doing well because of whatever it is exactly they're doing with their double DRS thingy. I'm so far behind on any news these days it is not funny, whether what is happening in F1 or actual news, like the Australian PM dying, I wouldn't know until about a week later. This crappy having to work thing is getting in the way.

I found it weird though that even given this DRS advantage the Mercs were redlining in 7th at 313km/h for about 5 seconds down the back straight in Qually? It must make a huge difference in top end acceleration, rather than just top end speed.

Now that whatever it is their doing has been passed by the FIA we should see the other teams copying it within a couple of races.


As for this week, I'm a little confused about Webber's Q3 effort. .5 down on his Q2 run that he was able to put in. Already used tyres one would imagine, however, why they would want to start on Softs that have already done 2 full Qually runs is a mystery. Pitting early in china seems like a terrible idea when you consider that 3 tenths was all that separated 1st from Vettel ( ) in Q2, and the Red bulls don't have any spare softs to play with after using 2 sets each in Q2.

Great to see Rosberg get a win. I imagine his supporters felt like we (webber fans) did a few years back.

It seems I was probably right about webber using old tyres given how early he pitted first time. Thankfully he didn't seem to get held up to much by the back half of the field (like I was worried about) as he got cranking on the new medium tyres.

I can't say I can recall a race where there was such close racing making up a lot of the top 10 for some time. Close raceing around 9-14 seems to be pretty common but this was different. I started worrying for about a minute there that redbull was going to pull out a hold your position call for webber, however even if they did i'd like to think he wouldn't listed to such bullshit in that sort of situation.

Another sensational race. The depth of talent through the field is just crazy.

Wonderful day... Lewis Hamilton wins the Canadian GP. Seventh winner in the seventh race for F1 in 2012. I miss refueling and the strategy it gave but the Pirrelli tires and how they force strategy now really is making this ONE HELL OF A SEASON! It will probably come down to the last race and I hope McLaren bags both the driver's and constructor's championship when its done. THAT SAID WAY DA GO LEWIS HAMILTON AND MCLAREN. The only tough spot was Button's poor weekend.

I was happy to see a Lotus make the podium. Good for them.

Poor Alonzo was left out to dry at the end of that race. Maybe not pitting wasn't the best move by Ferrari.