OT: Racing 2015 (Spoiler Alert)

[GB_Simo]

To add to the above, Ron Dennis is currently on Sky Sports F1 confirming that the option to terminate Jenson's contract isn't being taken and he'll be racing for McLaren in 2016. They can't all be right.

[Rodster]

I thought JB had enough with Honda's GP2 engine and was off to the WEC. Dennis and Honda are wasting money and talent by keeping those two. Capt Morgan is starting to lose it and no one can't blame him. I'm still amazed with 4 races left Honda is still sitting with it's majority of tokens. They should have listened to McLaren enginners and upgraded what they recommended.

[XXXIV]

They snuck that race by me...

[GB_Simo]

To add to the above, Ron Dennis is currently on Sky Sports F1 confirming that the option to terminate Jenson's contract isn't being taken and he'll be racing for McLaren in 2016. They can't all be right.

This.

Which, come to think of it, feeds into something I've been thinking on for a while. Is it me or has the standard of specialist F1 journalism plummeted like a stone in recent years? Autosport in particular has shed star writers at a rate of knots and replaced them with a staff whose stories appear to be as badly sourced as they are badly written.

If a piece appears in the name of Roebuck, Tremayne or Saward I'm happy to read it, believe it and trust that the writer has gone about his business with the necessary diligence, but beyond that, where do I need to be looking for the good stuff these days?

[pk500]

If a piece appears in the name of Roebuck, Tremayne or Saward I'm happy to read it, believe it and trust that the writer has gone about his business with the necessary diligence, but beyond that, where do I need to be looking for the good stuff these days?

Autosport refugees Charles Bradley and Jonny Noble have landed at motorsport.com. Bradley is editor in chief, and Noble continues his work in F1. Motorsport.com must have received some serious venture capital funding lately, as besides those hires it also has brought onboard top IndyCar writer David Malsher from RACER.com and former Charlotte Observer veteran Jim Utter to cover NASCAR. Utter recently just broke the story about Tony Stewart's retirement at motorsport.com.

Bookmark motorsport.com or place it into your RSS reader, Simo. It is becoming quite the destination for motorsports reporting.

Otherwise, you really need to find specialist sites or blogs for individual disciplines. I read MotoMatters.com and SuperbikePlanet.com for MotoGP, sportscar365.com for sports cars, Saward's blog and Mark Hughes at Motor Sport for F1, and Black Flag and Jalopnik for general racing snark.

I also recommend Will Buxton's blog, The Buxton Blog. Americans know Will for his pit lane reporting from F1 races for MSNBC, but he also is a very good writer.

[Rodster]

Thanks for the motorsport.com tip PK. I'll check it out for sure. Here's another one, it's sort of setup like Matt Drudge's website where it just links other peoples work and "NO" I don't visit Drudge.

http://auto-racing.alltop.com/

*Oh and there are links to AR1.com where you find out quickly why you don't want to pay for a subscription.

[Rodster]

It's absolutely raining buckets (virtually no spectators) of water in Austin atm and these guys are pushing as hard as they can because FP3 could set the grid for tomorrows race. This is why I love F1.

[fletcher21]

Anyone else kind of bored of circuit of the Americas? I love the long uphill turn 1, but it's a really boring track besides that. I could think of a lot of American tracks I'd much prefer to see f1 at, even if they're not up to standards

Road Atlanta
Road America
Laguna Seca
Mid Ohio
Sebring
Watkins Glen
hell, even infineon would seem better

Am I in the minority on this? I guess I'm just really bored with it. Take away turn 1 and it does absolutely nothing for me. No charm or anything special. The old hockenheim was one of the most basic tracks ever, but that massive straight made it a special track. I feel like f1 has some lousy tracks even compared to the good American road courses listed above.

[fletcher21]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C17kbPL3jIE


Wheel to wheel racing from the 01 German gp at hockenheim. This is better action than anything we saw today. Thanks, Bernie

[Rodster]

Hmm, the drivers seem to rave about the COTA. It reminds them of the A1 Ring with multiple elevation changes.

[fletcher21]

Hmm, the drivers seem to rave about the COTA. It reminds them of the A1 Ring with multiple elevation changes.

I'm sure every track has positive reviews from the robot like f1 drivers. Very few of them have the nerve to speak out like when Tony Stewart blamed Goodyear for a terrible tire. Maybe I'm in the minority, but cota doesn't do much for me.

[GB_Simo]

Just you, Fletch.

COTA's fast esses are as fine a sequence of corners as you'll find anywhere, you can run side-by-side for 5 corners after the back straight if the situation arises and the triple-apex right immediately following that section is delicious. There are maybe 3 or 4 corners on the entire track that aren't noteworthy in some way. The only criticism I could level at it when compared to the Glen, Roads America and Atlanta, Laguna and so on is that it lacks obvious visual charm, but it's a modern FIA Grade 1 circuit - it pretty much has to look the way it does.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C17kbPL3jIE


Wheel to wheel racing from the 01 German gp at hockenheim. This is better action than anything we saw today. Thanks, Bernie

I don't see what makes this better than Raikkonen being beaten up by the Toro Rossos, or Rosberg's duel with Hamilton, or the scrap from 6th to 10th after the last safety car, or...you get the idea. It's probably also worth noting that the "new" Hockenheim, while undoubtedly less of a unique proposition than the old, tends to provide better racing than the old layout did.

Something else I don't see is exactly how Nico Rosberg lost that race. In as clear an illustration as he's ever given of the difference between very good racing drivers and world champions, Rosberg had the race come to him on 3 separate occasions and still he couldn't close it out.

[fletcher21]

Looks like I'm watching thru nostalgia tinted glasses innit. I guess I just am basing this on how I used to adore f1, and now it doesn't move me as much. Cota is indeed fun to drive on a game. I think you nailed it that I really dislike the lack of a pretty background. That's what it is and I couldn't put my finger on it.


So is f1 better now than say 10-15 years ago?

[Dave]

I'm interested to hear what you guys think about the Kenseth-Logano incident yesterday.

Unfortunately, I see it is the logical outcome to the stupid system NASCAR put in place to create Brian France's mythical "GAME 7 MOMENTS!!!!" as often as possible. Just a complete chickensh*t move that has no place in top-level racing, in my opinion. Kenseth should be suspended for at least a race, I'd sit him the rest of the season.

But judging from the replies to people like Jeff Gluck on Twitter and the roar of the crowd, I'm in the minority.

[pk500]

I don't think anyone cares, Dave. Just look at the plummeting TV ratings and swaths of empty aluminum at most tracks.

This is typical NASCAR bullsh*t.

[Rodster]

I don't think anyone cares, Dave. Just look at the plummeting TV ratings and swaths of empty aluminum at most tracks.

This is typical NASCAR bullsh*t.

No surprise and this is what happens when you forsake your fanbase for a wider audience. Formula 1 is destined for the same future as Bernie says, the sport doesn't need Europe.

[pk500]

I don't think anyone cares, Dave. Just look at the plummeting TV ratings and swaths of empty aluminum at most tracks.

This is typical NASCAR bullsh*t.

No surprise and this is what happens when you forsake your fanbase for a wider audience. Formula 1 is destined for the same future as Bernie says, the sport doesn't need Europe.

The decision on Kenseth will serve as a bit of a harbinger for NASCAR's future direction. The series has lost all of the bandwagon fans that jumped on after Earnhardt's death in 2001 and led it to become one of the hottest sports in America by 2005.

But the changes made to cater to that fleeting fan base alienated longtime, hardcore fans.

So does NASCAR placate the base, which loves WWE on wheels, by not penalizing Kenseth further? Or does it steer back toward trying to regain mainstream traction by suspending Kenseth for at least one race, giving it a shred of respectability, law and order in the public sports arena?

Make no mistake: Kenseth's move yesterday was the equivalent of an NFL defensive lineman body-slamming Cam Newton on his shoulder four seconds after he released the ball and ending his season. The NFL would suspend that lineman for at least a few games. Only in NASCAR is a suspension for such an offense even a debatable topic. Even the NHL, with its ridiculous system of frontier on-ice justice, would suspend a player for such an egregious offense.

[GB_Simo]

A quick glance at the number of high profile drivers defending Kenseth leads me to suspect that NASCAR are going to do the square root of sod all. I have a happy knack for saying things within this thread which subsequently turn out to be completely wrong, so don't go betting the mortgage on it, but there seem to be an awful lot of pro-Kenseth public pronouncements.

Looks like I'm watching thru nostalgia tinted glasses innit. I guess I just am basing this on how I used to adore f1, and now it doesn't move me as much. Cota is indeed fun to drive on a game. I think you nailed it that I really dislike the lack of a pretty background. That's what it is and I couldn't put my finger on it.


So is f1 better now than say 10-15 years ago?

It's all subjective, isn't it? The answer depends largely on how you define "better".

An example: I'm going off memory here so my facts might not be dead on, but I watched a Spanish Grand Prix once - 1999, I think - in which I can only remember there being one overtaking move in the entire race. It was Damon Hill passing Rubens Barrichello for about 7th place, it was of absolutely no consequence and it took him about 30 laps to pull it off. That was in the modern refuelling era with tyres you could lean on for an entire stint and it was the most bored I can ever remember being while watching a sporting event. Remember: I support a League Two soccer team and I'm from the country that gave the world cricket.

There's been a recent clamour from some quarters to go back in that direction, to have cars on low fuel and able to push every lap, but when we actually had those rules in place, everyone was asking for them to be changed. Let's get rid of refuelling, let's make the tyres out of balsa wood, all of that. I happen to believe the on-track product is better for having done that and that DRS is a price worth paying if it allows overtaking. OK, it makes it very difficult to drive the masterful defensive race, as Villeneuve did in Spain in '81 or Alonso at Imola in '05, but for every brilliant defensive drive in times of old, there were 10 examples of a clearly faster car being bottled up in turbulent air and having no way around it.

You could argue that what's on offer now has a certain artificiality about it, that opening the rear wing down the straights is a gimmick and so on. You'd probably be right. I've learned to accept that it exists and that without it, the sport would be consistently serving up the kind of tedium we saw in Mexico yesterday. (As an aside, I thought it was a terrific venue, full of passionate people and with a layout close enough to the old circuits as to be instantly familiar, but it might as well have been purpose built to highlight how modern F1 cars can't follow each other closely enough to really go racing.) I suppose that means I think it's better now but the opposite viewpoint is completely understandable to me, even if it's not one I hold. It's all just personal preference.

Agreed on the lack of diversity in the background, by the way. Time was when every circuit had a real local flavour to it, not just through the scenery but through the local sponsors that used to pop up on the cars and the trackside hoardings. Now every track has to have so much run off, using a particular kind of paint and a certain grade of asphalt, displaying sponsors centrally contracted through Bernie, and there's a homogeneity to it, a sterility that I don't remember there being before. Then again, I might just be getting old.

[Dave]

Mexico was a special kind of boring, I might have stopped paying attention even as I fast forwarded the DVR.

Is it surprising that tracks lack atmosphere when F1 races take place in Baku, Abu Dhabi, etc?

Looking through the optics of Mercedes domination, what are the good old days that everyone is pining for, exactly? McLaren running wild on the field? Or was it Williams turn after that? Perhaps Schumacher's Ferrari dominance is what people want to return? F1's history is dotted with teams figuring it out and running rampant on the field. I want to see the Mercedes dominance end. But as a kid I hated McLaren because they won everything, now I have a son named Ayrton...

[pk500]

The best thing that could happen to F1 is rules stability. That helps the smaller- and medium-sized teams gain ground on the titans. Rules changes only accelerate the gap between the have's and have-nots.

Find a formula that is efficient, breeds good racing and looks toward the future -- and freeze it for three years.

[GB_Simo]

A quick glance at the number of high profile drivers defending Kenseth leads me to suspect that NASCAR are going to do the square root of sod all. I have a happy knack for saying things within this thread which subsequently turn out to be completely wrong, so don't go betting the mortgage on it, but there seem to be an awful lot of pro-Kenseth public pronouncements.

I don't call myself Mystic Sim for nothing.

[fletcher21]

I don't think anyone cares, Dave. Just look at the plummeting TV ratings and swaths of empty aluminum at most tracks.

This is typical NASCAR bullsh*t.

No surprise and this is what happens when you forsake your fanbase for a wider audience. Formula 1 is destined for the same future as Bernie says, the sport doesn't need Europe.

The decision on Kenseth will serve as a bit of a harbinger for NASCAR's future direction. The series has lost all of the bandwagon fans that jumped on after Earnhardt's death in 2001 and led it to become one of the hottest sports in America by 2005.

But the changes made to cater to that fleeting fan base alienated longtime, hardcore fans.

So does NASCAR placate the base, which loves WWE on wheels, by not penalizing Kenseth further? Or does it steer back toward trying to regain mainstream traction by suspending Kenseth for at least one race, giving it a shred of respectability, law and order in the public sports arena?

Make no mistake: Kenseth's move yesterday was the equivalent of an NFL defensive lineman body-slamming Cam Newton on his shoulder four seconds after he released the ball and ending his season. The NFL would suspend that lineman for at least a few games. Only in NASCAR is a suspension for such an offense even a debatable topic. Even the NHL, with its ridiculous system of frontier on-ice justice, would suspend a player for such an egregious offense.

After the race, Kenseth told an interviewer that it was an accident and not on purpose. Surely we should believe him, yes?

[pk500]

Believe nothing about NASCAR. It's a rudderless ship of a series.

[Rodster]

Believe nothing about NASCAR. It's a rudderless ship of a series.

The networks now control Nascrap. Nascar has become the WWE/WWF of racing. But it's nice to know that Earnhardt Jr offered a seat to Danny Ricciardo in case Red Bull doesn't go racing next year.

[fletcher21]

Believe nothing about NASCAR. It's a rudderless ship of a series.

Can it ever regain it's glory?