You gotta remember that most F1 fans weren't aware of F1 prior to God Emperor Michael 1st.

 

If civilians can't even get it "right" on stop signs, how will they determine what's a stop for race cars traveling at a zillion miles an hour? Get-out-and-wave stop? "California roll" stop? And what happens to the guy(s) behind? Oh, that's right--the car doing the rear-ending is always at fault...

 

BBC Report on Final Practice

Fernando Alonso's stunning drive saw him top the time charts in second practice for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Renault driver left it late to deny Lewis Hamilton top spot, who had earlier set the day's fastest time.

Alonso clocked one minute 45.654 seconds to edge Hamilton by just 0.098secs, despite the Englishman leading for most of the session.
The day's first session saw Hamilton narrowly beat title rival Felipe Massa by just 0.080secs.

Ferrari's Massa finished third in second practice, while Heikki Kovalainen of McLaren and Williams' Nico Rosberg took fourth and fifth, respectively.
The rain and thunderstorms that had lashed Singapore on Friday morning abated for formula one's debut under floodlights and the action on the track lived up to the much-hyped billing.

BMW Sauber's Nico Rosberg set the early pace in the evening's second session, but Hamilton soon continued from where he had left off to go top on his third lap.

As the session drew to a close Massa briefly jumped above the 23-year-old, but a superb lap saw Hamilton regain his place at the top where he had looked set to finish for the second successive session.

However, Alonso had other ideas and improved from his seventh place in first practice to finish ahead of Hamilton and place third overall.

Hamilton arrived in Singapore fresh from the disappointment of governing body the FIA rejecting his appeal against the penalty that deprived him of victory at the Belgian Grand Prix earlier this month.

He is just a point ahead of Massa going into Sunday's race but his driving during the first session made it clear just how determined he is to extend that lead this weekend.
Hamilton, sliding the McLaren aggressively around Singapore's wall-lined corners, remained top of the list for the majority of first practice, progressively lowering his times.

Red Bull's Mark Webber was the first driver to have a crash, catching a bump going in too fast at Turn 18, the corner after the track comes out from under a grandstand, just a few minutes into the session.

There were a number of spins and off-track moments but Honda's Rubens Barrichello was the only other driver to hit the wall, losing control at the final corner later in the session.

Webber said there were a number of parts of the track that would challenge the drivers, and that some changes might need to be made ahead of Saturday and Sunday.

Hamilton was in impressive form during first practice in Singapore
"It's a bit bumpier than I thought it was going to be," Webber said before his crash. "We might need to move the pit lane entry a bit - with the white line filtering us in there's going to be quite a speed differential between the guys coming in and the guys still on the track.

"[There's] a little bit of detail here and there but once we get going in anger it's going to be a challenge.

"At Turn 10 - people are going to be giving that a bit of respect for a while. That wall is quite close so if you get it wrong you're going to go in there."
Meanwhile, Toyota driver Jarno Trulli was hit with a £8,000 fine for driving the wrong way around the circuit during the opening practice session.
The Italian spun coming out of the final corner, missing the pit lane entrance.

Rather than continuing down the start-finish straight, he drove a short distance in the wrong direction in order to get into the pits.

 

Car telemetry

Alan

 

Ding ding ding -- we have a winner! Unfortunately, that's the easy part.

Who decides whether the car cut the chicane or just almost cut the chicane?
Maybe the driver is supposed to decide on his own and self-identify?
If he doesn't, who does, and then how will the driver notified?
How much time does he have to comply?
Will there be special areas identified for safe stopping?
Can drivers be penalized for impeding traffic if they don't get off the line while slowing and/or getting back up to speed?
If so, who decides, and what's the penalty?
ETC!!!!

 

How about a huge pit of jello at the chicanes!

 

Whatever happened to "go fastest"?

 

What fun qualifying that was! Felt bad for Fred's car quitting on him, dang it.

Good on Philly!

We were laughing so hard during the post quals interviews. LuHam's mike didn't work, so they cranked up Phil's to pick up LuHam's voice. Unfortunately, we got to hear every sniff, snort, gulp, and burp that Phil was doing off camera! If he'd had farted I would have been on the floor!

 

So what happened to Fred? I left the room for a couple minutes and the next I heard of him was the announcers saying he was relegated to P15.

 

Who decides? Why all those local yahoo stewards, of course.

Alan

 

Hmmmmm, wonder what's up with the silver team ? very inconsistant....hoping Lewis has 2 laps more fuel than Massa, looks like Kimi is 2 laps more than Lewis. Vettel and STR are on to something.....

Should be a great race ! That pit entrance and exit should be interesting.....

 

His engine quit on him. Varsha and Co. were speculating the ECU either fried or the curbs knocked it askew.

 

Yes, but I am really concerned with them. It's as if they were in a high-speed freeway construction zone like we have in several places here. No reason why they should be that way--even Monaco's aren't that bad, and they are dealing with a historic layout built when speeds were much lower.

Speaking of which--here are the first problems:

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2008/9/8444.html

 

Awesome race! Great to see Fernando on the top step AND another team winning a race this year. Congratulations also to Nico for his best finish yet!

I was especially impressed with Lewis' attitude towards Fernando. He reached out to congratulate the Spaniard.

I hope the Ferrari mechanic who is getting medical attention is ok.

On to Japan!

 

Though appearing disappointed, it was nice to see LH use his head with Coulthard. A sure sign of maturity

So did Piquet crash on purpose ? Let the conspiracy theory begin

Nice to see the red cars have a bad day but also hoping nothing serious for the team member hurt. That stupid light is no better than the lolipop guy......also nice to see the red car get a drive thru......but then it was blatant wasn't it ?

 

Not to take (much) from Alonso, but it did help that the red cars were eliminated from competition.

Spit, what do you mean about Piquet?

 

Why on earth would Piquet take himself out? For the SC? Waaay too many laps left in the race for that to have been a whisper of a possibility. Makes no sense at all, even in the conspiracy world. No, this was just another case of Crashino Piquet. Fred is carrying that team on his back, and Piquet isn't doing a damn thing. I suspect he's gone at the end of the season.

Through their own mistakes.

That light system has to go. I did notice on one of the last Ferrari stops, the lollipop board was back in operation.

 

But Coulthard and Red Bull almost left with the fuel hose engaged when the lollipop guy lifted too early. The lollipop man almost smashed David in the face trying to get him to stop.

 

I'm surprised that the pit entrance & exit didn't seem to have any effect at all--I was expecting a bloodbath there. I hate the course. It would be great for autocrossing (although way too long), but for F1 it was terrible for passing.

What's with Kimi? His car seems to have a magnet in it lately--and metal in the barriers.

I'm totally unimpressed with their super-zowie space-age pit light. That could easily have been a catastrophe...

 

+1
I just don't like street courses, with the exception of Monaco. Maybe attending a street race is different, but as a TV viewer I don't like them. All you see is fence and barrier, there's no passing, and with little to no runoff, attrition occurs too easily.

 

+2

I used to go to the USGP West every year, because it was the only F1 race within reach. But as a race it sucked eggs.

The cars are all way beyond the limits of street racing, and street races should be off the calendar. Even Monaco. Use Monaco for historic/vintage events.

 

I do like Monaco, not for the racing, but for the pageantry and spectacle of it. And I love watching the cars go through the hotel tunnel.

But no other street race is like it.

 

+1
Monaco has to be the most dangerous track on the calendar. I understand the ambiance (sp?), the history, the tradition and the spectacle, plus there's always great video because of the surroundings, the tunnel, etc, but that's not enough for me.

Actually, thanks to it being the slowest circuit they use, it's probably not the most dangerous to drivers, but it is for carbon fiber ..... always too much vehicular carnage. Valencia was boring. Though it's based on just the one race so far, I sort of like the Singapore circuit since it seemed fairly safe (other than the completely artificial issues caused by unnessecarily prominent curbing at turn 10) and the fact that the drivers liked it and found a few overtaking opportunities. I also like the longer tracks and it's unusual to see a long street circuit. But I think the main reason it was good as a night race is because the cityscape was less evident so it didn't seem quite so much like a street circuit.

 

Tell lol what. Wanna have a night race? Let's do it through the streets of San Francisco! You thought a Mustang sound get air on those hills?

 

San Francisco, eh? They'd have to include Lombard Street!