Racing Season 2019 (Spoiler Alert)

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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by pk500 »

A beautiful race car should look like a beautiful woman: Confident, strong and with sensual curves to spare. That's the current Indy car, and it's the antithesis of the current F1 car.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by Rodster »

I know it's only Day 1 of testing but Ferrari looks ultra-fast, Vettel was 2 secs faster than last years best preseason testing of any team. McLaren was 2nd fastest with a nice amount of mileage so hopefully they are more competitive than the last few years. Funny how Capt Morgan's luck works out, everywhere he leaves things improve much like Mourinho. :P

Mad Max was 4th fastest but the press/insiders are still saying that Honda still has it's issues to sort out. Williams has bailed out for both day 1 and 2 for whatever reason, hopefully it's not because of money issues. We've seen this play out before with teams who are strapped for cash but not a good start for their 2019 season.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by pk500 »

Williams is a mess. My favorite F1 team hopefully is not headed down the road from once-proud British powerhouse to extinction, like Tyrrell.

One really has to wonder if Claire Williams would still be Williams team principal if her last name was Kelly. It sure appears to me that her leap from team PR and marketing to team principal was a bridge too far. Sad, as she seemed like a very nice person when featured last season in an episode of Tom Clarkson's "F1: Beyond the Grid" podcast.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by GB_Simo »

PK, I worry it's a more dramatic fall than Tyrrell. The speed of this fall from relative grace feels more like the final years of Lotus, somehow. Hopefully an overly emotive first take and not a prediction of things to come. Having said that...

Rod, sometimes you can be late launching a new car because of a fraught winter but come out with an absolute rocket ship. Sometimes, as Jenson Button would tell you, it can be a title-winning monster. Sometimes, though, you can be late because you haven't built all of the parts in time to screw the car together, apparently as a result of a cock-up during the production process which a number of folk saw coming but nobody did anything to stop.

Further to that, there might be a number of whispers suggesting that while several teams have already recovered the time lost to this season's aerodynamic changes, you've managed to find precisely none of that time with your new design.

FW42 is currently expected to arrive in Barcelona at about 2am on Wednesday, which raises the distinct possibility of the car not being ready to turn a wheel until Thursday. It's not an insurmountable issue if your car is fundamentally good - Force India missed a full test in 2015 or thereabouts and ultimately had a perfectly decent year - but it's an issue that grows exponentially if the fruits of your labour turn out to be lemons.

Elsewhere in the field, don't place too much stock in year-on-year lap time comparisons, partly because it's day one and partly because it isn't going to snow in Barcelona this year.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by Rodster »

My favorite paint scheme still goes out to Torro Rosso. The royal metallic blue with red trim and the silver bull logo is tough to beat. McLaren gets my vote for a close 2nd with their papaya orange and deep blue combo which also looks great. Alfa Romeo gets my vote for 3rd.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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I came across a story this morning regarding Williams testing troubles. And the rumor is that the car just isn’t ready i.e. its not finished and parts are not the issue. Adding to the mayhem in the story indicates that a mutiny is developing at Williams. And the finger of blame is pointing squarely at Paddy Lowe and that he could be on the chopping block if this car is as bad or worse than last years car.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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Rodster wrote:I came across a story this morning regarding Williams testing troubles. And the rumor is that the car just isn’t ready i.e. its not finished and parts are not the issue. Adding to the mayhem in the story indicates that a mutiny is developing at Williams. And the finger of blame is pointing squarely at Paddy Lowe and that he could be on the chopping block if this car is as bad or worse than last years car.
Lowe has less job security right now than a drug dealer in North Korea. He'll be sacked before the season starts, as talk is that Williams' car will be WAY off the pace -- we're talking Manor or Caterham from a few years ago -- once it is built and running.

Just a sad, sad situation for a once-mighty team.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by pk500 »

Williams was 3.6 seconds off the leading pace of Nico Hulkenberg's Renault during testing this week at Barcelona:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hulk ... r/4341907/

More chilling is that Willys is 1.3 seconds behind the second-slowest team, Daddy Stroll's Money Point. The 2019 season is a disaster in the making for Williams, one that could sadly lead to its ruin.

This must kill a piece of Sir Frank every day. That's the saddest part of this scenario.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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pk500 wrote:Williams was 3.6 seconds off the leading pace of Nico Hulkenberg's Renault during testing this week at Barcelona:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hulk ... r/4341907/

More chilling is that Willys is 1.3 seconds behind the second-slowest team, Daddy Stroll's Money Point. The 2019 season is a disaster in the making for Williams, one that could sadly lead to its ruin.

This must kill a piece of Sir Frank every day. That's the saddest part of this scenario.
As both you and Adam have said, it's still preseason so that gap could drop down. You know Paddy is on the chopping block when Claire was asked about Paddy Lowe and if changes needed to be made and she deflected her answer so Paddy is done. My guess is Australia will seal his fate depending how bad Williams does in that race. If they are way off, he's gone. If they improved the car from last year he might get a reprieve. But i'll stand by my Melbourne time table for a decision from Williams.

What's really baffling is that he had a good resume when he went to Mercedes and he became an important piece of their mgmt team and then he shows up at Williams and it all falls apart. Maybe it's not him as much as a money problem that Williams has that can only be solved with an infusion of capital?

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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I'm digging the new Williams livery, love the colors. 8)

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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by Rodster »

It looks like Paddy Lowe is out at Williams. He has taken a leave of absense for personal and family reasons so says Claire Williams. And we all know pretty much what that means. Kubica even says the car his a handful.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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Rodster wrote:It looks like Paddy Lowe is out at Williams. He has taken a leave of absense for personal and family reasons so says Claire Williams. And we all know pretty much what that means. Kubica even says the car his a handful.
When will Claire face any accountability? Oh, yeah, that's right: Look at her last name.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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pk500 wrote:When will Claire face any accountability? Oh, yeah, that's right: Look at her last name.
No chance until the ship goes down and there are only 18 cars on the grid.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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Formula 1: Drive To Survive - 10 part documentary on the 2018 season released today on Netflix!!!

Wow, how did I miss this? I love both the Senna and Amy documentaries, so I cannot wait to binge watch this over the weekend!

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... i-mercedes
Skill, drama, spectacle and of course entertainment are the elements that should drive Formula One with, hopefully, a fine narrative to push the show along. Netflix certainly believes the sport has a story to tell, even though the two biggest names involved – Ferrari and Mercedes – refused to play ball when their cameras roamed the paddock last season. The result, Formula 1: Drive To Survive, is released on Friday and as it turns out, Netflix perhaps achieved something even more intriguing in their absence.

The 10-part series was made by executive producer James Gay-Rees, who was behind the biopic documentaries Senna and Amy. The hyperbolic, faintly ridiculous title aside, he and Netflix have made a very decent fist of it. The fact that it exists at all is indicative of how the sport has changed. Such a project would have been unthinkable under Bernie Ecclestone, and it shows that F1’s owners, Liberty Media, understand that they need to sell that drama, spectacle and entertainment.

That said, the series will not prove particularly revelatory to serious fans. Rather it is a pleasing recounting of the 2018 season, with some candid footage that is fascinating at times. There is plenty of slo-mo luxuriating in accidents and, inevitably, some hoary rock licks. Just once, it would be nice for a director to break that mould and see if anything other than tedious soft metal goes well with racing. Why not go mad, and try The Fall or Kitchens of Distinction? But that isn’t a concern for Netflix or Liberty. In terms of enticing in casual viewers and perhaps converting them, they have a fine appetiser for the new season, which begins in Melbourne next week.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

Post by pk500 »

Can't wait to see this, too, Don! Thanks.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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I enjoyed watching the first couple of episodes last night. They strike a decent balance between accessibility and satisfying the hard-core, though there are odd plot lines here and there that jar a bit, like a rivalry presented in episode 2 that I'm not sure actually exists. You'll work out fairly quickly who the heroes are in the eyes of the production team, which seems to be a hallmark of theirs, but their choices so far have been fine at worst and inspired at best.

If you get nothing else at all from it, you'll get Guenther Steiner, the unexpected star of the early episodes, inching his way towards his own mini-series one crushing, profanity-laden disappointment at a time.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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GB_Simo wrote:If you get nothing else at all from it, you'll get Guenther Steiner, the unexpected star of the early episodes, inching his way towards his own mini-series one crushing, profanity-laden disappointment at a time.
Heh, he is a much more compelling figure than I expected.

Some of the shots at the track in 4K are amazing, I could honestly just watch those without any story line.

One nitpick from me - it seems they sped up some of the in-car shots, doesn’t it?
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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Well it appears Renault gave Danny Ricciardo £26,500,000 exchange rate about $34.9mil reasons to leave Red Bull. Mad Max is being paid £10,000,000 exchange rate around $13mil. No way in hell he was going to get double the amount of Mad Max.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/hamilton- ... -salaries/

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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Very enjoyable start to the Indycar season at St. Pete. It was good to see Robert Wickens. Felix Rosenqvist looked pretty strong.

Watch the entire NTT IndyCar Series season opener aired on NBCSN in less than 30 minutes at link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twNYyp6m0ao

RACER: IndyCar St Pete Race Report from Robin Miller and Marshall Pruett:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azmImHXvXRY

2019 NTT IndyCar Series: St. Pete Race Highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opqdP2LwJ6w

Here is a question, has any racing game had the St. Pete's street course, officially or as a mod. I don't think I have ever seen it.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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DChaps wrote:Here is a question, has any racing game had the St. Pete's street course, officially or as a mod. I don't think I have ever seen it.
Perhaps Codemaster’s Indycar 2005? I no longer have the game so I can’t check but IIRC rFactor 1 had a track mod for St. Pete. I’ll check the Steam Workshop since I purchased rFactor 2 and there are tons of created mods for it.

Edit: The IDT mod team created the 2003 St. Pete, FL track for rFactor and was converted over to rFactor 2.

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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The last Codemasters IndyCar game came out while the IRL was still 100% ovals, so no St Pete

As a console-only gamer, I’m also waiting on Barber and Mid-Ohio (last seen in Race Pro on the 360).
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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DChaps wrote:Here is a question, has any racing game had the St. Pete's street course, officially or as a mod. I don't think I have ever seen it.
rFactor. Raced it many times.

https://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.c ... Petersburg
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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News breaking in the last few minutes of Charlie Whiting's passing at the age of 66. What a huge amount of good he did as both competitor and rule maker, and how greatly the sport will miss him.
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Re: Racing Season 2019

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Charlie Whitting will definitely be missed by F1. He’s possibly irreplaceable as he was involved with safety and knew the technical rules like the back of his hand. He was the adult keeping the kids in line. I still can’t believe Vettel told him to F-off !

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Re: Racing Season 2019

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GB_Simo wrote:News breaking in the last few minutes of Charlie Whiting's passing at the age of 66. What a huge amount of good he did as both competitor and rule maker, and how greatly the sport will miss him.
Very sad news about Charlie. My personal Charlie Whiting story:

I was doing Porsche GT3 Canada PR at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal in June 2016. Our group wasn't allowed in the F1 paddock, as all of the non-FIA support series were in the paddock down at the end of the rowing basin. But we were allowed into Race Control to work the race, as I live-tweeted the races from Race Control.

I walked into Race Control, and the only empty seat was right near Charlie. I had been in pro motorsports PR for nearly 23 years at that point, having worked the Indy 500, F1, MotoGP, sports cars, NASCAR, NHRA. I've seen and done a lot, gratefully.

But that was Charlie Whiting. Charlie F*cking Whiting. The man who runs F1 race weekends. Was I intimidated? You bet. I fully expected Charlie to look over and think, "Who is this twat interloper?"

Nope. Charlie couldn't have been nicer or more accommodating. We didn't chat that much, just a few words of pleasantries. But he was a gracious, classy, calm presence to all in Race Control and F1 paddocks around the world.

The F1 paddock is so sanitized and fortress-like that it's easy for those on the outside to believe the inner sanctum is occupied by heartless automatons. Untrue. There are some exceptional human beings in there, and Charlie sure was one of them, both from what I heard and read and from my tiny experience with him.

Godspeed, Racer.
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