Formula 1 in 2008

[Krys TOFF]

In the disastrous one and accident victim beginning of the F1 2008, in Melbourne, it was demonstrated that the traction control" that made mediocre pilots to become good pilots", now, in their absence, he/she makes good pilots to become mediocre, since I believe, with the only exception of Lewis Hamilton, all the other ones have had problems... 

I disagree regarding pilots : Lewis was not the only one with a perfect GP regarding driver mistakes. Alonso did an awesome GP regarding his qualification and his car. Same comment apply for Bourdais, Heidfeld, Rosberg or Sato : no mistake for them.
On the other hand, numerous drivers did mistakes, that's right, starting with Ferrari drivers.

My opinion regarding this GP :
- Hamilton confirms his talent
- Bourdais confirms that he is a good driver and deserves a better car, without his engine issue he would have been 4th, resisting to Kubica, then to Alonso and Kovalainen, all with better cars than his
- Rosberg finally gets his 1st podium, he deserves it
- Alonso can bypass the limits of any car he has, he did a great race with great battles
- Honda starts to feel the effect of Ross Brawn regarding the car performance, too bad they have such crappy drivers
- Toyota is also improving, but again Jarno's possible performance was ruined by the lack of reliability of the Toyota
- Ferrari engines are fast, but not reliable this year. This may be a key issue for them in this championship
- Kovalainen still makes beginner's mistakes. He put the pitlane speed limiter on just after bypassing Alonso at the last lap, and so Alonso bypassed him again just before the finish
- McLaren strategy is still not the best. I don't think of Hamilton, he had no issue, but I think of Kovalinen who should have finished 2nd if pitstops/safety car management have been made properly by McLaren for him
- Bad strategy too from BMW. Kubica suffered from this while he could (should) have been on the podium
- On the opposite, excellent strategy of pitstops adjustements with safety cars for Toro Rosso, this is also why Bourdais was before Kubica, Alonso or Kovalainen for the last part of the race
- Force India "miraculous good results" during free runs showed nothing real in the race, but Fisico had no chance due to 1st lap accident
- Timo Glock had no luck for his 1st F1 GP, and shame to Australian GP managers who let such a mound of grass outside the race (instead of a full flat grass) that made him literally jump in the air. F1 passive security is for front/back impacts, not for up/down impacts. Glock's spine probably suffered a lot of the impact and it's not sure he can race in Malaysia this week-end.

[AbuRaf70]

Muy bueno tu comentario, Krys...  estoy de acuerdo con él...  yo quise ser breve, por eso solamente me referí a Hamilton...  tu te has tomado el trabajo de hacer un estudio minucioso de todo el gran premio, donde resaltás el trabajo realizado por los demás pilotos... 

Creo que todavía es muy prematuro sacar conclusiones definitivas, ya que se trata de la primera de las 18 competencias que habrá este año...  esperemos que el domingo que viene podamos ver nuevamente lucha entre muchos equipos y que no haya tantos abandonos.

[Krys TOFF]

Muy bueno tu comentario, Krys... 

Gracias Maestro.

Creo que todavía es muy prematuro sacar conclusiones definitivas, ya que se trata de la primera de las 18 competencias que habrá este año...  esperemos que el domingo que viene podamos ver nuevamente lucha entre muchos equipos y que no haya tantos abandonos.

Anyway, we should remind that last year Ferrari dominated 1st GP in Australia and the week after McLaren dominated in Malaysia. Maybe it will be the opposite this year.

[CTG]

Excellent driving by Lewis, bit amateur Heikki. I'm satisfied with the result; especially seeing Ferrari drivers are unable to control the car with the new rules.

[Chulk]

- Honda starts to feel the effect of Ross Brawn regarding the car performance, too bad they have such crappy drivers

Was Barrichello re-fueling while Safety car was out part of the Ross Brawn effect? It doesn't feel like RB can do such mistakes...

[AbuRaf70]

Anyway, we should remind that last year Ferrari dominated 1st GP in Australia and the week after McLaren dominated in Malaysia. Maybe it will be the opposite this year.

También hay que agregar a la lucha, a los BMW, que este año parece estar bien "afilados", no así Williams, que logró el podio por "decantación"...

Con respecto a Ross Brawn, no creo que haya sido responsable de los dos gravísimos errores cometidos por Barrichello:  repostar estando el auto de seguridad y entrar a pista con el semáforo en rojo...

[Krys TOFF]

- Honda starts to feel the effect of Ross Brawn regarding the car performance, too bad they have such crappy drivers

Was Barrichello re-fueling while Safety car was out part of the Ross Brawn effect? It doesn't feel like RB can do such mistakes...

I was talking about car's performance : Honda is back to the middle-class teams instead of end-of-the-grid teams.
Else, the Honda team showed a completely amateurism regarding pitstops and Rubens did one of his worst race ever. Maybe he doesn't know what a red light means, or he was just drunk.

Excellent driving by Lewis, bit amateur Heikki. I'm satisfied with the result; especially seeing Ferrari drivers are unable to control the car with the new rules.

Heiki was unlucky regarding pitstops management/timing from McLaren team.
Else, he did only 1 mistake : pushing the pitlane speed reducer just after bypassing Alonso, allowing Alonso to bypass him again just before the finish line.
Regarding Ferrari : Massa acted way too agressive during all the race. His problem at the start made him even more agresssive instead of claming down his temper. And in the end, his stupid accident with Coulthard made his car stop a few laps later.

I say stupid, because turn 1 wasn't best place to bypass Coulthard. Coulthard is never easy to pass, and he is agressive too. So, forcing like that was a bad option for Massa. He should have done it in turn 3 instead of turn 1, where there was much less risk to touch the 2 cars. coulthard and Massa were both responsible of this accident :
- Coulthard wanted to force Massa to brake before him and he "closed" the bypass possibility
- Massa wanted to pass anyway and when he touched the banked red/white part it pushed his car to the left, making his car go to the left. Then the hurt with the Red Bull was inevitable.

Regarding Kimi, well, he had no choice than to push hard to compensate his issue in qualification. He did well until he tried to pass Heiki. Then he pushed too hard and went to the grass. This is probably due to the fact that he could have done it well last year this way with the electronic help, but he found the limits of that kind of driving without electronic help. I think he could have waited a few too, like Massa with Coulthard, and try to find a better possibility instead of beeing this agressive, but you know, Iceman is not so icy since he drives for the "reds".
The real stupid mistake of Kimi was when he put one wheel on the grass. Without traction control, this is a real mistake.

Anyway, the supresion of traction control showed some agressive pipsqueaks that the perfect driving is an art that requires cold blood. Hamilton, Heifeld, Rosberg, Alonso, Bourdais or Kubica proved they know what that means. Kovalainen, Sato, Glock and some others are close to it, but still have some progress to do. Massa, Raikonnen, Nakajima (quite lucky to reach the finish line after 2 accidents), Coulthard, Barrichello, Piquet and Davidson can all go back to driving lessons.

Some sons of fomer F1 drivers are good, like Rosberg or promising Senna in GP2, or Villeneuve who used to be good. Some are not (or not yet) like Nakajima and Piquet. In a few years we will see if beeing a "son of" is a real meaning of potential good drivers.

También hay que agregar a la lucha, a los BMW, que este año parece estar bien "afilados", no así Williams, que logró el podio por "decantación"...

Kubica did well but was unlucky (again). Heifeld made a more "anonymous" race, but reached 2nd place. BMW is still the main outsider behind McLaren and Ferrari. Williams performance is mainly due to Rosberg. Like alonso for Renault, he can take the best of his car and get 110% of its possibilities. Put Rosberg in a McLaren and he will be a hard opponent for Lewis, like he was when they both were in GP2 some years ago.

[Chulk]

Put Rosberg in a McLaren and he will be a hard opponent for Lewis, like he was when they both were in GP2 some years ago.

I'm praying every single day for that to happen...

[AbuRaf70]

Muy lindos todos estos comentarios...  afortunadamente, solo tendremos que esperar menos de una semana para volver a ver en acción a todos los pilotos con este nuevo sistema de manejo o sin control de tracción...

Veremos como sigue BMW...  si el coche responde, sus pilotos también...  al que creo le va a ser más difícil repetir su actuación va a ser a Rosberg, ya que él va mejor que su auto... Williams todavía no encontró el camino...

[AbuRaf70]

Todavía no terminaron los incidentes del GP de Australia...   termino de escuchar en un programa de automovilismo que lo penalizaron con 10 puestos para la carrera de Malasia, a Nakayima, por haber chocado y sacado de la competencia a Kubica...

[Chulk]

Jean Todt is leaving his charge to spend more time with his family. He asumed on July 1st 1993 (Ferrari hadn't won a title since 1979 with Jody Scheckter) and now, 15 years later, we all know how well Ferrari did under Todt's guidance. Hopefully, Ferrari won't fall again as before he came. Even though I'd love to see a crappy Ferrari, it would not be good at all for F1 fans.

[Krys TOFF]

After his crash with Massa in Australia, Coulthard breaks again his car during practice session in Malaysia.
http://www.motorsportmad.com/view/4126/f1-malaysia-2008---coulthard-testing-crash

Problem is that he simply run on a small banked part in a corner and it made his suspension explode, with one of the tyres running free. This is quite dangerous, because it means that maybe if a Red Bull car is in a crash during the race one tyre can go away and hurt a stewart or even run into the public.

As they have the same chassis, this issue is also probably present in Toro Rosso cars.

A study is on-going and Red Bull cars (and Toro Rosso cars too ?) could be excluded of the race in case dangerosity of the cars is confirmed. Red Bull team had to give some explanations to the Malaysian stewarts and seems confident to be allowed to race anyway.
More infos : http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/65952

[AbuRaf70]

Pareciera que Coulthard entró en una mala racha que no lo abandona... esperemos que pueda romperla y hacer una buena carrera...  condiciones no le faltan... 

El que dió una nota buena para los de Toyota, fué Trulli, quien momentáneamente en las pruebas de clasificación, estuvo en el primer lugar...

Pero las Ferrari, impusieron su dominio con el 1-2 que espero puedan repetir en carrera...  Halmilton tendrá una estrategia distinta...?

Tal como lo presumía, Rosberg no pudo hacer una buena clasificación...  los de William no pueden hacer funcionar el auto...

[AbuRaf70]

A diferencia de lo accidentado que fue el GP de Australia, el de Malasia se destacó por ser un GP muy tranquilo, y los abandonos, se pueden considerar "normales"... y muy pocos..  pareciera que los pilotos se cuidaron más o ya se están acostumbrando a manejar sin el "control de tracción"...  o tal vez, las dos cosas...

Raikkonen se tomó revancha y ganó en forma impecable en Malasia...  el que, tal vez por estar muy presionado, cometió un imperdonable error al despistarse y perder el segundo lugar, fue Massa, además de los 8 puntos de gran valor, tanto para él como para el equipo Ferrari...   y hablando de Ferrari, que raro fue ver a Jean Todt sin el buzo antiflama, simplemente de camisa...  tal como lo había anticipado Chulk, se retiró del equipo...  pero escuché comentarios de que como Toro Rosso está a la venta, lo quiere comprar junto con su hijo... por lo que veo, se retiró de Ferrari pero no de la Fórmula Uno...

Y volviendo a la carrera, que lindo es ver en el "parque cerrado" a tres marcas distintas: Ferrari, BMW y McLaren y además, a Toyota, Red Bull y Renault en los 10 primeros lugares...  esto presagia un promisorio 2008... 

[Duplode]

A diferencia de lo accidentado que fue el GP de Australia, el de Malasia se destacó por ser un GP muy tranquilo, y los abandonos, se pueden considerar "normales"... y muy pocos..  pareciera que los pilotos se cuidaron más o ya se están acostumbrando a manejar sin el "control de tracción"...  o tal vez, las dos cosas...

Surely, except for...

(...) el que, tal vez por estar muy presionado, cometió un imperdonable error al despistarse y perder el segundo lugar, fue Massa, además de los 8 puntos de gran valor, tanto para él como para el equipo Ferrari...

...damn, right now I'm actually less motivated to support Massa than even in the worst periods of Rubens' Ferrari years  . Nevremind - current mood is: go Kubica, go!! I really really hope the BMWs keep making progress at this rate.