Posts by stormyviper11

Autosport thinks Hulkenberg is one of the nine penalized, while saying Rosberg should have been given a pit pass instead... 🤣

Anyway, let's take a second to talk about another driver who didn't exactly have a stellar race today...

What was his name again? 🤔 Oh, right, Seb Vettel... 😬

Webber isn't pointing the finger at Kovalainen, but he did mention the guy slowed down about 80 meters before the actual braking point... 😁 There's a massive difference in stopping power between that Lotus and the Red Bull... ☕

And here we go again with Rosberg... 😁

Frank Collins85 said:😲 We didn't even catch that on the broadcast?! What kind of red light are we talking about now? 🤷

😕 How can you say we didn't? What were you guys watching, some other channel?

It was obvious Brawn had a strategy set up for Schumacher to grab third, though looking at how Mercedes eats through tires, I'm not even sure he would've held onto it until the end...

Actually, he would have, Button was right there behind him. 😁

Mercedes thinks Schumacher shouldn't have been allowed to run with red lights on his exit from the pits

If they're actually right—and honestly, they might be—then this whole race was just one massive organizational disaster, easily the worst we've seen in years...

I mean, looking at the footage they showed during the race, it was crystal clear—the SC and the Medical car were pulling out, one after the other. Vettel had already blown past them, so he’s clearly not the issue here. But Hamilton? He overtook both vehicles, and it was obvious he did it after crossing the line where he wasn't supposed to, which is why he got penalized. The problem is, once again, the penalty hit too late to actually change anything. It didn't impact his position, so he basically snatched second place in a totally unfair way instead of finishing where he actually belonged—like seventh or eighth... Alonso and Massa ended up stuck behind the official cars and lost a massive amount of time because they weren't allowed to overtake unless those green lights flashed (and they obviously didn't). Thank God Alonso is complaining; honestly, I kind of find it refreshing. I’ve always preferred drivers who don't mince words and aren't afraid to speak their minds when things feel off!

What really bothers me is what was happening back there and why these nine drivers are under investigation. Button mentioned that during that specific lap, he didn't even notice any spots where he should have been braking earlier or slowing down...

Frank Collins85 said:Since I have no desire to dwell on the whining, the cheating, or whatever else, I will simply agree with everything my esteemed colleague stormyviper11 wrote in this post. 👍

Yeah, honestly, I wouldn't even bother diving into the history of decisions favoring Scuderia, or trying to judge the "artistry" of someone who only focuses on getting their opponent penalized instead of actually making a move to pass (if you want a lesson on how that's supposed to work, go look up "Pedro Rodriguez, 1970 BOAC 1000km")... At the end of the day, the fact remains that Ferrari got screwed in this race, and I don't get why that's such a hard pill for people to swallow...

Word on the street is the investigation is about those nine drivers being way too aggressive when they were chasing down the medical car after leaving the pits. I honestly don't know the rulebook inside out—what are the actual speed limits once you're out of the box? Anyway, there’s already rumors flying around that they might get slapped with grid penalties at Silverstone...

Alonso's got a point, but damn, stuff happens. Lewis gained an unfair edge by breaking the rules—though I honestly don't think it was intentional—and Ferrari basically threw away third and fourth place, maybe even better... Regardless, I don't see anything being changed after the fact regarding Lewis, so let the guys at Ferrari just vent all they want; they've definitely earned the right...

Major props to Kamui Kobayashi, that tactic was brilliant (honestly, if Ferrari had shown some backbone, they might not have called in Alonso and Massa, which could've kept them in third and fourth—maybe even bumped them up to second and third if Lewis gets penalized), plus those two moves at the end were insane. Yeah, the tire gap was massive, but most drivers wouldn't have had the guts to pull that off... With this, Kobayashi proved what he hinted at last year; he’s starting to look like a legitimate future champion.

There's still no official word on what this investigation is actually targeting, I assume...

Oh yeah, penalty or no penalty, 🙏 🙏 🙏 and the legendary Rubens Barrichello!

mistybear87 said:So, if we could steer the conversation back to the topic at hand for a moment—F1 then versus F1 now... you just don't see this kind of thing much anymore these days, do you?🤣🤣🤣

http://i26.tinypic.com/21e6eqp.jpg

True enough, even if it wasn't strictly F1... 🙂

Carlos Pace died in a plane crash, not on the track. ☕

We could go on forever debating how much raw driving skill Lauda actually had. Sure, I’ll give you that he didn't look like much in his early days, but man, did he level up later on. It was mostly because of that gray matter in his head—he probably had more brains than all the other drivers from the seventies combined (well, maybe not counting Fittipaldi, who was pretty close in that department). 🙂 There’s this weird trend where people try to tear Lauda down specifically because of the things I actually respect about him. He wasn't some god-given natural talent or one of those "pure" racers who would kill anyone just to grab a win. But over time, he matured into a top-tier driver who made up for any gaps in pure speed by using his intellect, his work ethic, and his ability to organize the team he was driving for.

That doesn't change the fact that, statistically speaking, Emerson Fittipaldi was playing at the level of the all-time greats during the first half of his career. And honestly, if he hadn't let family and patriotic ties get in the way of his career choices—if he'd picked the right seats—he might have actually caught up to Fangio's championship count by the end of the seventies...

Nah. 😁 It’s strictly in the realm of pure fantasy...

So, honestly, the one big wildcard I’ve been preaching about for years—banning mid-race refueling—is turning out to be a total bust. It’s because these cars have become way too identical in every single way. Even the drivers' styles aren't different enough to make tire wear or specific setups actually matter in the end...

But what really gets under my skin—and hopefully won't last forever—is getting rid of KERS. It was basically the only tech upgrade that actually made modern F1 interesting to watch.
What we actually need is some kind of way to force more diversity in how these cars perform. Like, you want some cars to be absolute rockets at the start, while others are built to dominate the final laps... But man, how do you even pull that off?
One idea is reversing the grid based on qualifying results, but if we did that, people would just game the system. To stop that kind of manipulation, you'd probably have to award championship points for qualifying sessions too...

Budweiser. 🤮
Forget Labatt or Molson, those guys are out here pushing this American garbage instead! 🤦

Anyway, what a legendary track... easily one of my all-time favorites. 🙏 🙏 🙏

urbanowl96 said:Yeah, I’ve spotted that stat about Fittipaldi somewhere before and it’s honestly wild, especially when you consider he spent a huge chunk of his career grinding in some seriously subpar machinery.
If you’re talking about that crash where Fangio broke his neck, that wasn't at the Italian Grand Prix, it was some Monza Grand Prix or something similar—basically just an exhibition race. And if I remember right, it wasn't during qualifying, it happened right in the middle of the race itself. Anyway, the thing about Fangio is that he never once DNF'd a championship race because of his own mistake, and looking back over his entire career—200 races total—I only know of two major accidents he was in. Besides this one, there was that one during a race similar to today's Dakar Rally, where his co-driver died (though I don't know much else about that specific wreck). That accident is actually why he almost never ran with a co-driver in the Mille Miglia or the Carrera Panamericana...

That was a massive race stretching across basically all of South America, and they went off the road somewhere up north in Bolivia or Peru, and the co-driver lost his life. It haunted Fangio for the rest of his days.

The whole thing at Monza was basically down to exhaustion. He’d been racing in Ireland just the day before and had an arrangement with Prince Beer to fly him out on a private jet, but Beer bailed early. He didn't want to wait around, so he just took off without him. Because of the weather, flights were grounded all over Europe, so Fangio was stuck bouncing between airports trying to find any way to get moving. He eventually wound up in Lyon, borrowed a car, and drove himself to Monza just before things kicked off. Right after the start, he hit that brutal accident and broke his neck. For the rest of his life, he couldn't even turn his head fully to one side—to the right, I think—more than a few degrees. And yet, even with a handicap like that, the guy still managed to snag four more championships...

Honestly, the answer to that legendary debate is pretty simple: the more you learn about Fangio, the more obvious it becomes that every other driver who ever lived, regardless of what they won or achieved, can only really stand there and give him a deep bow of respect. 🙂

It’d be pretty interesting to see what specific timeframe they’re actually looking at here.
For instance, Jenson Button has a pretty rough track record on paper, but you really have to look at his stats once he actually matured as a driver. Or better yet, look at his numbers specifically during the years he had a decent car... because honestly, a huge chunk of his "solid" results probably just came from him fighting through the pack in the first lap after starting mid-field. And let's not forget that back in 2007 and 2008, the guy was stuck in one of the absolute worst cars on the grid, which basically forced him into those messy situations more often. That also explains why Lewis Hamilton seems so much more "incident-free" by comparison—he just wasn't stuck in the back of the pack nearly as much.

I remember digging through some old stats for legendary drivers a while back, and it blew my mind how Emerson Fittipaldi managed to go through about 150 races—if I'm remembering that right—in an era that was absolutely wild and full of crashes, and only ended up out due to a spin or a collision four times. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure Fangio never once dropped out because of something like that (though, granted, he did have that serious wreck during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix in '52)... which just drives home my point that he truly was the Greatest of All Time.

Roger Wright94 said:Fernando Alonso is just built different when it comes to consistency. Plus, in some boring race where the car isn't even that great, he’s still gonna outdrive Jenson Button.

Look, Fernando Alonso is easily the most consistent guy and probably the best driver on the grid 95% of the time... but I get the feeling that unlike his championship years, he’s throwing some yellow laps lately. Like, he lets his emotions get the better of him sometimes and loses focus...

urbanowl96 said:.
Who do you think Montoya would pin the blame on after slamming into a wall (assuming he doesn't hit anything else first)?

What kind of question is that? Michael Schumacher, obviously. And David Coulthard too, I guess... though one would just be making fun of him while Montoya actually thought he was being serious.

A little late to the party here, I guess... 😁

...Kimi Raikkonen would’ve probably just downed a liter of vodka, decided he wasn't feeling it, and walked off to go jump over some other walls instead.