Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

[joecct]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

If Indycar didn't have such a bug up their *** they would be at the Glen this weekend. And I would be there.

Back in the old days this was a big race weekend at the Glen. Formula 5000, 6 hr enduro race and something else.

I miss Formula 5000. Somewhere I have pictures of Mario in his car driving thru the boot.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

F1 in Austin...I really hope it works but just don't understand why Austin?

Because the city ($4 MM) and the state ($25 MM) are willing to put up a metric assload of money for it.

 

[MattS]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

A CNN clip about Alexander Rossi

 

[Timothy A]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

F1....Wow. Where did Alonso ge tall that speed in the second half of the race? RB was losing ground to him every lap after the last pit stop. I expected Vettel to chase him down easily. Did they just decide to save the engines? Anyway, a great win for the prancing stallion.

IRL...what a bunch losers, with all the contact in the race, totally unprofessional. If I want to watch that kind of crap, I'll go to the local 1/2 mile dirt track and watch the local boys.

 

[SteveP]

IRL...what a bunch losers, with all the contact in the race, totally unprofessional. If I want to watch that kind of crap, I'll go to the local 1/2 mile dirt track and watch the local boys.

It looked like the afternoon rush hour on the Don Valley Parkway! Easily the worst Toronto race in its 25-year history

 

[solovsfett]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

F1....Wow. Where did Alonso ge tall that speed in the second half of the race? RB was losing ground to him every lap after the last pit stop. I expected Vettel to chase him down easily. Did they just decide to save the engines? Anyway, a great win for the prancing stallion.

IRL...what a bunch losers, with all the contact in the race, totally unprofessional. If I want to watch that kind of crap, I'll go to the local 1/2 mile dirt track and watch the local boys.

I Ferrari are for real and can take it to Red Bull now.

Re: Toronto, I don't get it, some of these guys lost their minds, sticking their noses in where it didn't belong and then complaining when they get chopped off.

Franchitti, Briscoe and Hunter-Reay especially.

good grief

 

[solovsfett]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

A CNN clip about Alexander Rossi

wow! I hadn't heard of him previously though I'm not as up on the test drivers in F1 (well except Bruno who seems screwed now).

I hope this kid makes it to the show, it would be very exciting as long as he's not Scott Speed (another "can't miss" prospect)

 

[MattS]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I Ferrari are for real and can take it to Red Bull now.

Re: Toronto, I don't get it, some of these guys lost their minds, sticking their noses in where it didn't belong and then complaining when they get chopped off.

Franchitti, Briscoe and Hunter-Reay especially.

good grief

I agree about Ferrari. I think they can take the fight to RB. I don't there is enough racing left (and RB is still very, very tough) to make a championship run but certainly get some wins.

Toronto was a horrible race. Just plain awful! But I did love the post wreck interview of Will Power. Loved him calling Dario for what he is...a whiner hypocrite. Oh and him calling Tagliani a "wanker"!

wow! I hadn't heard of him previously though I'm not as up on the test drivers in F1 (well except Bruno who seems screwed now).

I hope this kid makes it to the show, it would be very exciting as long as he's not Scott Speed (another "can't miss" prospect)

I think Rossi is the real deal. Not sure if he can get the backing he will need to make a real F1 seat, but he does have the potential. I have been following him for about a year or so now and he's been making steady progress. Hope it continues.

 

[MattS]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

****. I am feeling left out. Tim's been twice and now you. I am going to have to try to make that three of us!

I am no longer left out! I made this week's mailbag. Although Miller screwed up and broke my two part email into two sections and accreddited the first part to some person called Chad, Bourbon, IN. Oh well.

 

[Timothy A]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I am no longer left out! I made this week's mailbag. Although Miller screwed up and broke my two part email into two sections and accreddited the first part to some person called Chad, Bourbon, IN. Oh well.

Now I feel bad about not reading the mailbag. I thought it would just be filled with Toronto emails, and, after watching the race, I had little interest re-hashing all the bs that went on in that race. Anyway - GOOD JOB! The USCHO posters own Miller's Mailbag.

On a related note, Miller wanted hate, now he's got it.

 

[Timothy A]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

F1 Alonso is hanging right in there with RBR in practice so far.

Indy I sure expect a much cleaner race this weekend.

We've got DVR now, so I'll be recording the races and watching the Sunday night.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Hoping someone can comment about the IndyCar race- missed the whole thing.

The F1 race was pretty good. Not super, but there were passes, but most like the old days, via pitting.

Hamilton and Alonso got great starts from the dirty side of the track- Alonso had Vettel for an instant. Pretty interesting that the spit of rain seemed to affect the line on a cold track vs the non line.

Then Vettel struggled and even got passed by Masa, who led him until them both pitting on the last lap of the race. After both Ferrari and RBR pulled off some GREAT stops for Weber and Alonso, both teams decided to take their time for the last stops, although Ferrari had one guy drinking too much Coffee vs. the guy drinking Red Bull, and Masa was just over a second slower than Vettel. Still- BOTH were over 2 seconds slower, total, than their team mates. oops.

As a Hamilton fan, I was worried at the end that he pitted early for the hard tires vs. both Alonso and Weber, but once he went out, his speeds were right with both drivers, and Weber's gamble didn't even come close to even taking second from Alonso. Nobody was realistically close to the qualifying times.

Fun to see some of the passes in the back.

Very big bummer to see Button not finish. Power steering failure?? When was the last time that happened? His kindness to the tires looked to maybe not stop one extra time, and maybe some extra speed late on the tires.

Next week, back on Speed, early in the morning, and in Hungary.

 

[solovsfett]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

awesome to see Hamilton back on top of the podium!

does Ferrari look to be a real contender now as far as Alonso's recent performances?

I only caught 1/2 the Indycar race.


#1 Tagliani and Viso made two of the most bone-headed passing attempts I've seen since...well, toronto

tags took out Rahal and that's a shame cause Rahal is starting to come one and could/should be a top 5 guy week in week out

The KV cars were strong at the start, but I'm not sure what happend to Sato. Kanaan finished 4th

Power, Castroneves, Franchitti 1, 2, 3. solid racing at the end.

good to see Justin Wilson finish in the top 6

 

[solovsfett]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Bruno Senna may replace Nick Heidfeld?

http://www.yallaf1.com/2011/07/25/heidfeld-could-lose-renault-drive-to-senna/

 

[alfablue]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

does Ferrari look to be a real contender now as far as Alonso's recent performances?

I think both Ferrari and McLaren have become real contenders to Red Bull. A little late, granted, but the rest of the season should be interesting.

Too bad nobody else has really decided to join them at the pointy end of the grid. Mercedes has some improvement, Renault/Lotus seems to be declining, Force India is a little better- but some of these tracks has favored their cars anyway. The rest, well.... Of the newbies, Lotus/Renault/Cosworth seems to be the best of the worst, but that's saying nothing. HRT has announced a buy out + a lot of re-do.

Read about the HRT program in Racecar Engineering- when the original program contracted the chassis to Dallara. Apparently, Dallara has a whole program for improvements on the car, but at HRT changed hands, they were dropped. yea, that has worked out really well.

 

[Timothy A]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Indy...I just about passed out when I saw Sato had the pole when I fired up the DVR. Anyway, Sato got punted (and stalled) by Hunter-Crash-Rea, a few laps after Sato made slight bobble while in the lead that Power, Dixon and Franchitti pounced on. I felt bad for Sato. In a case like that, at the end of the race, the Punter and Puntee should swap finish positions. It doesn't doesn't totally make up for the punting, but justice would be served better. Overall a rather entertaining race. I was on the edge of my seat wondering if Helio was going to try and pass Power or not. During the broadcast, it was mentioned that Helio has had brake problems all year and this was the first race where they have worked right. That might explain his crashing others out earlier in the yr. Maybe there is hope for the broadcasts, they actually flashed a "fasted lap" time once.

F1 was an awesome race. Great action, lots to drama. Massa's crew really blew it at the end there, ouch. I am convinced Vettel is a pansy when it comes to passing. When he ends up in a fight for position where he's chasing someone, he just can't put a pass together. He was right behind Massa for the last 3rd of the race, he should have been able to dust him off no problem.

 

[solovsfett]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

F1 was an awesome race. Great action, lots to drama. Massa's crew really blew it at the end there, ouch. I am convinced Vettel is a pansy when it comes to passing. When he ends up in a fight for position where he's chasing someone, he just can't put a pass together. He was right behind Massa for the last 3rd of the race, he should have been able to dust him off no problem.

and that's EXACTLY why Vettel cannot be compared to Senna or some of the other all-time greats imo.

man I hope Ferrari and Mclaren make it as difficult as possible from here out for SV. I'm also hoping Weber can continue to improve performances down the stretch

 

[Runsub5]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

.......
F1 was an awesome race. Great action, lots to drama. Massa's crew really blew it at the end there, ouch. I am convinced Vettel is a pansy when it comes to passing. When he ends up in a fight for position where he's chasing someone, he just can't put a pass together. He was right behind Massa for the last 3rd of the race, he should have been able to dust him off no problem.

I agree, great race. No safety car and only a couple of local yellows. Nice to see McLaren and Ferrari now competing with Red Bull.

 

[MattS]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I finally got through both the F1 and the Indycar races.

I think Indycar was a decent race for an airport course. I really dislike those type of courses. In my opinion they are even worse than temporary street courses. And those are pretty bad. Airport courses take the worst part of street courses (flat no elevation change) and combine it with the worst part of road courses (too much run off so there is no real penalty for a mistake) and combine them. Ugh.

I was a little surprised to see Helio run so well but I guess if that is true about his braking system being fixed then I understand the dramatic turnaround. I think a perfect example of how valuable a veteran driver can be to a team is the Andretti / KV change of Kaanan. I think that KV's turnaround is in no small part to Kaanan and Andretti's continued demise. Oh and it was good to see Wilson have a good run.



F1: A very good race. Some decent passing and some interesting strategy guesses. I am sure RB and Ferrari both thought some rain was going to hit and with where Vettel and Massa were running it was worth the gamble to wait to see if it would hit. Neither was going to win without something dramatic happening and at worst they would end up like they did. I think McLaren and Ferrari have almost caught up to RB in term of performance. I don't think they are quite there yet but are closing in fast.

Vettel is an excellent driver but in no way is he, at this time, in the same category at the all time greats such as Senna. Vettel's strength is running extremely fast when he is at the head of the pack. Once he gets into traffic that can actually give him some trouble (not backmarkers) then he becomes average. I would think that if someone reviewed most of his passes against tough competition (McLaren, Ferrari, and Weber) then we would see his trouble. If my memory serves, I think he either crashes into them or never gets a good clean overtake. Not being able to get by Massa is a good example. As much as I like Massa he has a slightly inferior car and had (I think?) more worn tires yet he held off Vettel pretty easily for a long stint.

 

[Timothy A]

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Vettel is an excellent driver but in no way is he, at this time, in the same category at the all time greats such as Senna. Vettel's strength is running extremely fast when he is at the head of the pack. Once he gets into traffic that can actually give him some trouble (not backmarkers) then he becomes average. I would think that if someone reviewed most of his passes against tough competition (McLaren, Ferrari, and Weber) then we would see his trouble. If my memory serves, I think he either crashes into them or never gets a good clean overtake. Not being able to get by Massa is a good example. As much as I like Massa he has a slightly inferior car and had (I think?) more worn tires yet he held off Vettel pretty easily for a long stint.

Since we all agree on Vettel's passing problems, I'll throw this thought out there: Is Vettel the most underwhelming world champion ever? I can't recall a driver who won it all who never really "fought" for positions.