F1 cars at Laguna Seca? Yes please!

Whilst trundling around Youtube, I did a search for Toyota F1 and found this little gem. This video is of Ricardo Zonta breaking the official lap record at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Monterrey, California, USA in 2006. The previous record had been held by Helio Castroneves in 2002 in a turbo-powered Champ Car. But, even on medium compound tyres, Zonta managed to haul the TF106 round in 1′06.309 at an average speed of 121.504mph. Now, this has got me thinking -  how awesome would it be for the US GP not only to return to the calender, but to return at what must be simply one of the best circuits in America today.

Now some people can argue that it’s not long enough a circuit to hold an F1 event. Apparently the laptime has to be at least 70 seconds, and either chicanes or an extension would have to be installed in order to qualify. Why? Because it’s not a Tilkedrome with a wierd looking layout and no elevation changes (apart from Istanbul)? This circuit truly is a great one. Watching that onboard, you can see the awesome elevation changes – steep hills, slightly banked corners and of course, the Corkscrew, possibly the best corner in th whole of America. The camber and steepness of the Corkscrew has to be experienced to be believed. This track is kind of like the Osterreichring of North America, only with more flowing corners and it’s not so steep. When the new A1 Ring was brought in, it lost the original character that the old layout had. Changing any part of Laguna Seca would be like changing a part of the Nordschleife. You just can’t mess with something that’s so perfect and well laid out. It’s almost as if the circuit is at one with nature. The landscape around it and the general feeling of the course itself is something which must be absolutely astonishing in a modern-day F1 car.  To get 22 of them at race pace going around at once would be an ultimate experience. Don’t you think?

Although, I guess we can ask Ricardo how it feels, eh? Oh, and for the record, Sebastien Bourdais broke that record a year later in testing in 2007 in his Champ Car. Now I’m a fan of Bourdais, but on this occasion I have to say – you absolute bas…..

GP2 Live Commenting – Spain

Hey everyone and welcome to the first GP2 Live Commenting thread. The ever-exciting feeder series to F1 returns with a brand new 2008-spec car and a bunch of new drivers as well as the challengers from last year. No traction control, slick tyres and aerodynamics you’d normally find on an F1 car mean that it’s the closest thing to an F1 car that isn’t one, if that makes any sense!

So, what can we expect? Well, the GP2 Asia champion Romain Grosjean will want to make it a completely successful year by taking the crown, and ever increase his chances of moving up to a Renault drive. Reigning championship winners iSport have Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna on board, the latter out to prove he’s not just a name. Plus there’s the likes of Alvaro Parente, Luca Fillipi, Andi Zuber, Giorgio Pantano, and a host of other young talent all wanting to realise their dream of becoming a Formula 1 driver.

So, with out further ado, let’s look at the grid for the first race of the weekend and of the season:

Pos Driver                Team                 Time     

1.    Pastor Maldonado    Piquet Sports      1:27.547           
2.    Alvaro Parente         Super Nova         1:27.705  
3.    Andi Zuber              Piquet Sports      1:28.155  
4.    Bruno Senna            iSport                 1:28.273  
5.    Giorgio Pantano      Racing Eng.        1:28.290  
6.    Adrian Valles          FMS                     1:28.323  
7.    Karun Chandhok     iSport                 1:28.385  
8.    Vitaly Petrov           Campos              1:28.423  
9.    Javier Villa              Racing Eng.        1:28.562  
10.  Mike Conway          Trident               1:28.622  
11.  Romain Grosjean    ART                    1:28.684  
12.  Davide Valsecchi    Durango            1:28.713  
13.  Kamui Kobayashi    DAMS                1:28.799  
14.  Luca Filippi             ART                   1:28.868  
15.  Ben Hanley             Campos             1:28.889  
16.  Ho-Pin Tung          Trident              1:28.937  
17.  Alberto Valerio       Durango            1:29.338  
18.  Yelmer Buurman     Arden                1:29.339 
19.  Christian Bakkerud Super Nova       1:29.394  
20.  Sebastien Buemi     Arden                1:29.478  
21.  Milos Pavlovic        BCN                   1:29.618 
22.  Jerome D’Ambrosio DAMS               1:29.628 
23.  Paolo Nocera          BCN                  1:29.708 
24.  Roldan Rodriguez   FMS                  1:29.762 
25.  Diego Nunes          DPR                  1:30.343 
26.  Giacomo Ricci        DPR                  1:30.443 

NEW! GP2 Live Commenting (hopefully)

Hello everyone

If anyone is familiar with the website Sidepodcast.com, you may know they now feature a Live Commenting thread for the practice, qualifying and race sessions of every GP. Well, this gave me an idea. GP2’s overlooked here, so I would like to announce that for the GP2 races, I will be hosting a Live Commenting thread.

How to do this? Simple. The ITV website features live online feeds for all 4 of their TV channels. ITV4 is now going to show the GP2 races live, and since I don’t have Sky TV at home, at least I can still resort to that. Plus, any Live Commenting refugees from Sidepodcast can come here if they wish to continue feeding their motorsport hunger. Although, recently I’ve had troubles trying to get the live online streaming for ITV4 working, but just last night, it did start working.

So, if you fancy having some more Live Commenting fun, then be sure to head over here and join in the fun. This will be the first one I’ve done myself, so let’s hope everything goes OK! Just for everyone’s benefit, the you can find the ITV4 feed on ITV.com, and the GP2 program starts at 2:30pm GMT. I’ll be setting up the Live Commenting thread at the same time.

Hope to see you guys then!

Sorry for the absence

Hi everyone

I would just like to apologise for my absence. I’m not normally good with keeping up with this blog lark . I’ve been busy trying to sort out a job, since I decided to pull out of 6th Form/College. I will try and update when I can.

Thanks

My Bahrain GP review – or is that “Bore-ain GP?”

Well this is my first ever attempt at writing a blog, so here goes.

2008’s Bahrain GP started with Lewis Hamilton deciding to put his car into the barriers at the end of Friday’s 2nd free practice session. Looking at the TV and onboard replays, it was clear he took too much kerb and lost the rear. Now, we know Lewis likes to drive fast and use all the track, but that’s not something we normally see him do. Was he spooked? Or did his obsession of trying for a quick lap get the better of him this time?

Nevertheless, the weekend produced a new pole sitter in Robert Kubica. His stunning last effort in Q3 gave him and BMW their first start from P1. Mario Thiessen claimed they weren’t expecting it. But then they all say that don’t they? “Oh, we never thought we’d get pole, we just put him light on fuel, ran soft tyres and went out for the hell of it.” You never get the winner at Wimbledon saying “Well, even though I beat the guy 3 sets to 2, I wasn’t going for the win to be honest.” Just be honest, Mario. You wanted pole and you got it. No need to hide the fact you were pushing for it.

Anyway, the “Pole on pole” (now the most annoying saying of the weekend, thanks to the papers) threw his advantage away by giving the start to the Ferraris, who swept past when the lights went out and from then couldn’t be touched. Hamilton? He made a complete hash of the start, claiming his was late pressing the correct button. Distracted, were we, Lewis? Losing 7 places all because of 1 button. Bit ironic, no?

His efforts to try and claw his way back up the field were haulted by his arch enemy – El Diablo! Oh sorry, I mean Fernando Alonso. Lewis came out of Turn 1 on lap 2 behind him, and rather than attempting to pass the Renault the usual way, the McLaren driver decided “No, I’ll go OVER his car rather than round it!” That proved to be a rather stupid decision, as it tore off his front wing and ruined his entire race. His pace was so off, at one point Button was lapping quicker than him! Looks like the “Golden Boy from Stevenage” isn’t shining so brightly right now.

From then on, the race turned out to be one big, long, dragged-on procession. Apart from Button’s Honda trying to persuade Coulthard’s Red Bull to give him a piggyback about a 1/3 of the way through, it was, without doubt, boring. B O R I N G. These new aero regs coming out for 2009 can’t come soon enough. I thought by now we’d be seeing overtaking by the bucketload. But instead, it’s another case of “follow the leader” like we used to see when Michael Schumacher was the dominant force. If I wanted to see a long train of cars for an hour and a half, I’d go sit by the roadside. Next year sees the banning of all those stupid little winglets, horns, anvil wings, etc. and I for one will be glad to see them go. An F1 car is supposed to be a thing of automotive beauty, not some thing on wheels with the odd wierdly-shaped piece of coloured carbon fibre sticking out in odd places, just because it increases the amount of air flow to the rear wheels or something. Do you really think the average F1 fan cares about that? I think not.

By the end of the race, I’d resorted to reading the latest issue of F1 Racing. The articles I found in there were much more interesting and exciting than what was going on in Bahrain. To sum up the whole race, the Ferraris ran away with the race, Hamilton ruined his race on lap 2, there was virtually no passing and no incidents of any kind after the first 2 laps.

Oh, and just for the record, it was Felipe Massa who was the better of the two Ferraris ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Kubica.

My only hope is that the 3 week break will do everyone, including the F1 teams, good and we’ll all come back ready to see some top quality racing with plenty of shunts, spins and passing. Now, where is Round 4 taking place?…….Barcelona? Oh god help us…….