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Subject: Formula 1 Observations
Posted by: Bloody Geoff
- Donor [9016218] Sat, Mar 08, 2003, 17:43
Hi folks,
Not sure if anyone is especially interested in Formula 1 (seems to be mainly Nascar), but I spent the day yesterday at the Melbourne GP and it was awesome so I thought I'd post a few things I noted.
First thing, the new rules for qualifying made for some great viewing. Each driver gets one flying lap to qualify, with the slowest drivers from the previous qualifying session going first.
Frentzen posted a great time early on and then Montoya put in a ripper.
Michael Schumacher was terrible all morning He wrecked the front end smacking into a wall, they rebuilt the front end of the car (in about 40 mins!!) and he came back out and spun off straight away - just very uncharacteristic mistakes. But for qualifying - I said to the person I was with "whats the bet he pulls off a blinder now that its all on the line" and sure enough he cut nearly a whole second off Montoya's time with a near perfect drive. I am a big Mclaren fan, but I have to acknowledge that Schumacher is simply amazing.
The Sauber's were a surprise, both drivers posting excellent qualifying results. The car is much better than last year, and they have last years Ferrari engine which shouldn't be a problem. Heidfeld didn't seem to be out that much, but when he was he looked great.
The BARs were good too. Button put in the quickest lap of the morning sessions and Villeneuve was consistent all day. Mind you, BAR would struggle to be worst than they were last year!!
The Renaults of Trulli and Alonso were very impressive in the early sessions, with both posting times in the top 5 or so. Their qualifying laps stunk a bit, but the cars are definitely much better than last year. Alonso test drove for Renault all last year and the experience shows.
The Toyotas were very quick also, especially straight line speed. They were also noticably the noisiest car of the lot, with Williams a close second, especially when accelerating.
For the race today its had to see anyone beating Schumacher. Raikonnen will be starting from 15th but should carve up the field early (if the McLaren doesn't break!!). The highlight of the race should be the weather which has been a bit nutty this morning. Rain one minute, sun the next, wind from the left, right and straight up or down!! If you've ever been in Melbourne, you'll know what I mean - 4 seasons in a day kind of stuff.
Anyway, sorry for the length of this post, but I'm still all fired up from yesterday and my wife just isn't that interested :-)
BG |