Vitally important they get this right, and interesting to have Pirelli now saying that their test equipment can't keep up with car development.
Here are the latest developments as of today. To recap:
1) Ferrari and Lotus designed their cars to be easy on the tires.
2) RBR cars have more downforce so they chew up tires much faster.
3) RBR gets smoked by Ferrari in Spain.
4) RBR complains
5) Pirelli gives in and says they will change the compound to the normal 2-3 stops.
6) Ferrari and Lotus criticize RBR for Ferrari winning in Spain.
7) FIA steps in and says the changes will be MUCH SMALLER to the tires so as not to be a safety issue.
So to recap again:
1) RBR leans on Pirelli to change it's tyres
2) Ferrari complains to the FIA (wink..wink)
I am so stoked for this Memorial Day Weekend of racing. This Indycar and Formula 1 season so far has been great. Unfortunately I don't have access to ESPN Classic, but they are running a lot of great Indy 500 and Racing Legends specials over the next few days. Check it out if you can:
2013 ESPN Classic Indy 500 list:
5-21-2013 1992 Indy 500 12:00 am EDT
5-21-2013 1994 Indy 500 2:00 am EDT
5-21-2013 2006 Indy 500 4:00 am EDT
5-21-2013 2000 Indy 500 7:00 am EDT
5-21-2013 Sportscentury: Tony Stewart 9:00 am EDT
5-21-2013 Sportscentury: Mario Andretti 10:00 am EDT
5-21-2013 1977 Indy 500 11:00 am EDT
5-21-2013 1989 Indy 500 12:00 pm EDT
5-21-2013 2011 Indy 500 2:00 pm EDT
5-21-2013 2006 Indy 500 4:00 pm EDT
5-21-2013 1991 Indy 500 6:00 pm EDT
5-21-2013 1999 Indy 500 8:00 pm EDT
5-21-2013 2005 Indy 500 10:00 pm EDT
5-22-2013 1967 Indy 500 12:00 am EDT
5-22-2013 1977 Indy 500 1:00 am EDT
5-22-2013 1981 Indy 500 2:00 am EDT
5-22-2013 1975 Indy 500 4:00 am EDT
5-22-2013 Sportscentury: Mario Andretti 8:00 am EDT
5-22-2013 Sportscentury: A.J. Foyt 9:00 am EDT
5-22-2013 1992 Indy 500 8:00 pm EDT
5-23-2013 1991 Indy 500 12:00 am EDT
5-23-2013 1988 Indy 500 2:00 am EDT
5-23-2013 1984 Indy 500 4:00 am EDT
5-23-2013 2001 Indy 500 7:00 am EDT
5-23-2013 2002 Indy 500 9:00 am EDT
5-23-2013 2009 Indy 500 11:00 am EDT
5-23-2013 2007 Indy 500 1:00 pm EDT
5-23-2013 2010 Indy 500 3:00 pm EDT
5-23-2013 2012 Indy 500 5:00 pm EDT
5-24-2013 1998 Indy 500 12:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 1979 Indy 500 2:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 Sportscentury: Rick Mears 3:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 1967 Indy 500 4:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 1969 Indy 500 5:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 Sportscentury: A.J. Foyt 7:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 Sportscentury: Rick Mears 8:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 Sportscentury: Al Unser Sr. 9:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 1978 Indy 500 10:00 am EDT
5-24-2013 2003 Indy 500 12:00 pm EDT
5-24-2013 2008 Indy 500 2:00 pm EDT
5-24-2013 1998 Indy 500 4:00 pm EDT
5-24-2013 1988 Indy 500 6:00 pm EDT
5-24-2013 ESPN Films: Senna 10:00 pm EDT
5-25-2013 30 For 30: Tim Richmond: To The Limit presented by Cadillac 2:00 am EDT
5-25-2013 ESPN Films: Senna 8:00 pm EDT
5-25-2013 ESPN Films: Senna 10:00 pm EDT
5-26-2013 ESPN Films: Senna 9:00 am EDT
5-28-2013 Sportscentury: Al Unser, Sr. 10:00 am EDT (<---- please note that this as well as the 1978 indy 500 will air on repeat continuously on 5-28-2013 for about 10 hours)
5-28-2013 1978 Indy 500 11:00 am EDT
5-28-2013 Sportscentury: Al Unser, Sr. 1:00 pm EDT
5-29-2013 1988 Indy 500 2:00 am EDT
5-29-2013 1983 Indy 500 9:00 am EDT
5-29-2013 1988 Indy 500 12:00 pm EDT
5-29-2013 1983 Indy 500 4:00 pm EDT
5-29-2013 1988 Indy 500 6:00 pm EDT
5-30-2012 1973 Indy 500 3:00 pm EDT
5-30-2013 1993 Indy 500 5:00 pm EDT
It was stupefying in person. Could not believe what I was seeing.
The finish also was quite a testament to the skill, courtesy and respect of the four involved drivers. That scenario almost begged for a massive accident, and thankfully it never happened.
"You know why I love boxers? I love them because they face fear. And they face it alone." - Nick Charles
"First on the throttle, last on the brakes." - @MotoGP Twitter signature
That photo finish was more than insane. I have the ultimate respect for oval racers because the slightest side by side error could result in a massive pileup. Formula 1 no longer gets my nod for balls of steel due to all the safety precautions mandated by the FIA, which i'm all for.
Fantastic Indy 500 today. Lot's of great stories, and exciting but clean driving: Carpenter, Andretti, Hunter-Reay, Munoz, Wilson. For a while I thought that it was going to be Allmendinger or Castroneves sneaking back into it, and how about that save by Hinchcliffe? It would have been great to see what would have happened if it had stayed green, but it was sweet to see TK take the victory. Paul, great job to everyone at IMS for an awesome month of May. Today starts five straight weeks of Indycar races with no break. This is the most I have enjoyed the start of an Indycar season in years. Bring on Detroit!
Unfortunately my enthusiasm for the 2 most historic races Sunday was quelled by technology. DVR was set to record the first F1 broadcast, but for some reason after I watched the GP2 rave on the DVR and exited it went live to NBCSports and the end of Monaco was on. Saw Nico jump out and was just pissed to know the results. Had to do some errands around lunch so I set the DVR for Indy. Got back and was avoiding news sites but went to a triathlon forum I frequent. Some dickwad had a brand new thread "Ironman Tony Kanaan wins Indy!" Bastard.
F308GTB wrote:Unfortunately my enthusiasm for the 2 most historic races Sunday was quelled by technology. DVR was set to record the first F1 broadcast, but for some reason after I watched the GP2 rave on the DVR and exited it went live to NBCSports and the end of Monaco was on. Saw Nico jump out and was just pissed to know the results.....
That is exactly what happened to me as well. Do you have a Comcast DVR? This actually happened to me when I pulled up the recorded show to watch. I started it from the very beginning and the first thing I see is Nico jumping out of the car. Very frustrating.
F308GTB wrote:Unfortunately my enthusiasm for the 2 most historic races Sunday was quelled by technology. DVR was set to record the first F1 broadcast, but for some reason after I watched the GP2 rave on the DVR and exited it went live to NBCSports and the end of Monaco was on. Saw Nico jump out and was just pissed to know the results.....
That is exactly what happened to me as well. Do you have a Comcast DVR? This actually happened to me when I pulled up the recorded show to watch. I started it from the very beginning and the first thing I see is Nico jumping out of the car. Very frustrating.
uverse
So it sounds like NBC totally dropped the ball on this one.
It has been a cracking start to the IndyCar season, hasn't it? Really enjoyed the 500 and I'm delighted for TK, but what really struck me was the attitude of Munoz, who was too busy being disappointed at not winning the 500 on his series debut to celebrate finishing 2nd. Whether it's a healthy, balanced viewpoint is another debate, but it's a winner's mentality if I ever saw one.
I'm not currently an Autosport Plus subscriber so haven't read the article, but Jonny Noble has written a piece on a topic I've been throwing around for a while now and I'd be interested to get some thoughts other than my own on this one.
Last October I wrote this halfway competent blog entry in which I had a think about 2013's grid and suggested that, since accepted wisdom says there are few faster than Lewis Hamilton, we were about to find out an awful lot about how good Michael Schumacher was. Nico Rosberg does not tend to match himself to his team mates, as his demolitions of Wurz and Nakajima show, and has so far lacked absolutely nothing in comparison with Lewis (and, I must admit, proven himself rather more capable of hanging around at the sharp end than I expected). Is it now reasonable to suggest that Schumi Mk II actually made a pretty decent fist of things?
I might be making this up, but wasn't there discussion that Schumi and Nico liked considerably different types of cars? I sort of remember that especially in the 2nd season, the car was developed more to Schumi's preferences which didn't help Nico.
But yes, it does seem that now that the Merc is a bit of a stronger car more consistently and that Nico does seem to be ourperforming his teammate that yes, perhaps Schumi was making a bit of gold out of straw during his time at Merc.
However in a similar vein to my first paragraph, I'm willing to believe that Nico's longer time with the team and Lewis being in first year in a totally different car for the first time since he arrived in F1 give the German a bit of an advantage that may vanish by this time next year. But it's always been really hard for me not to like Nico and not to root for him. He's always seemed to be a head down, work hard, complain rarely if ever type of guy. As opposed to some other famous sons of famous drivers particularly the Canadian ones.
Mercedes is one giant mess of a racing team and I think they will suffer long term.I think Lewis may regret making a move there. I think once his contract is up he'll probably bolt to Ferrari. You can clearly see how fragmented Mercedes is. Who the hell runs Mercedes? Is it Brawn? Is it Lauda? Is it Wolff? I think Ross Brawn wanted Lewis and Lauda wants to keep it a German team. That is just an observation from the in fighting within Mercedes after Lewis and Brittney Spears were told to hold position during the first race.
I think Lewis is by far the much better talent although Brittney has matured as a driver and I think having Michael their for 3 years giving his input helped the engineers develop the car.
Lastly, I think and it's just a hunch but you might see Webber in red next year and Massa somewhere else in F1.
Did that guy from NJ really say that? During the qual session on NBC the rep from the Grand Prix of America said the NJ course is similar to Spa. Yeah, right.
On a positive note, impressive qual by Williams, though if it's dry Sunday they'll go backwards fast.
What he said was it would "race like Spa" while having views and a visual character similar to Monaco. He also said it would race like the 'Ring and Le Mans. He's trying to sell the place, so to course he will exaggerate.
But what he's getting at is that it will be a very high speed circuit with some very long straights, unlike most street circuits, and also with massive elevation changes, unique among the higher speed street circuits, all with fantastic images of the NYC skyline in the background.
I am very happy to see there is renewed optimism about the NJ race. Two weeks ago I was thrilled to see Ron Howard insist on putting in a plug for the NJ race at the end of his interview with Buxton, and now the info mentioned by Healy about new administrative people having been hired by the NJ group who have boatloads of experience from Long Beach to Austin etc.
I've never been to a big time race, certainly never an F1 race, my favorite form of motorsport. This would be in my back yard. I could take a ferry across the Hudson and attend the event. I can't wait. I hope it happens. I need to start saving up now.
The only problem is that next uear it would occur in the middle of the World Cup.
Smart move by the New Jersey F1 group to lure Marty Hunt from Austin as its director of operations. I used to work with Marty at IMS. The dude has the personality of a floating pixel, but he's a disciplined ass-kicker who gets things done.
"You know why I love boxers? I love them because they face fear. And they face it alone." - Nick Charles
"First on the throttle, last on the brakes." - @MotoGP Twitter signature
Sad to see Webber call it quits in F1 and will be driving for Porsche next year in their sports car division. A class guy and solid driver. Anyone who can get away with calling Nico "Britney Spears" is OK in my book.
Rodster wrote:Sad to see Webber call it quits in F1 and will be driving for Porsche next year in their sports car division. A class guy and solid driver. Anyone who can get away with calling Nico "Britney Spears" is OK in my book.
Agreed. Well said.
Cue the "Raikkonen to Red Bull" rumors NOW.
"You know why I love boxers? I love them because they face fear. And they face it alone." - Nick Charles
"First on the throttle, last on the brakes." - @MotoGP Twitter signature
I think Vettel will regret losing Mark and having him replaced with Kimi. Kimi as we all know is not into politics and if RBR puts both drivers on equal footing, i'd hedge my bets on Kimi. He is one of the top 3 fastest drivers on the grid (Alonso, Kimi, Hamilton). Seb IMO slots 4th fastest only when he has a car that's dialed in. Alonso is the only driver who doesn't need the fastest car to get to the podium or take a win.
Wow, Ferrari is stuck in mediocre with 10th and 12th place. Massa needs to watch those crashes as it's beginning to happen all to often now. Too bad Ferrari pissed off Kimi as I think Alonso and Kimi would have made for an extreme pairing on the track.
Hamilton can lap the field tomorrow at Silverstone, and it won't come close to what Jorge Lorenzo achieved today by finishing fifth in the MotoGP race at Assen.
Lorenzo climbed from 12th to fifth just 36 hours after undergoing surgery that repaired his broken collarbone with a titanium plate and eight screws. Lorenzo was hurt in a fall in practice Thursday afternoon at 150 mph, had surgery Thursday night in Barcelona, flew back to Assen Friday morning, did 20 push-ups this morning with a broken collarbone to pass a medical test and then raced.
BRASS, grapefruit-sized attachments.
"You know why I love boxers? I love them because they face fear. And they face it alone." - Nick Charles
"First on the throttle, last on the brakes." - @MotoGP Twitter signature
What a race! Crazy tire insanity, but some amazing, hard, fun racing all over the field especially the final laps after that last SC. Webber and Kimi side by side through Copse! Just great stuff. Congrats to Nico. I really like that guy and I'm happy to see him continue to put in good performances.
Just great stuff. Congrats to Nico. I really like that guy and I'm happy to see him continue to put in good performances.