Cars slipping and sliding on a dry track - this is fun! I only hope the running is close enough to force some of that during the race! And who thought Red Bull would be doing so well? I figured they might send Webber out on light fuel or something to make a splash in front of his home crowd but DC 5th as well?

Well, it's only the first day of practice.....must not read much into Friday practice results.

 

Yea, I check the F1 site often, but I cannot find the channel the race is aired on...

Granturismo is the only game I've ever played and I've done so every Sat and sun maorning for 2-6 hours since the game came out over a decade ago. But I still have PS2 The V8 Pescarolo rocks!!!

 

In the U.S. (your location line is blank so don't know where you are) the F1 races are carried only on the SpeedTV channel. You have to be on cable or satellite, and not every package includes it.

The exception to this is a couple races mid season are moved to Fox.

 

My Australia Race predictions

Qualifying

1) Hammy
2) Kimmmmy
3) Kovylowdown
4) Phil Massive
5) CooolTard
6) Webbo
7) Nelson Picket

other hightlights

17th Fred AlsoRan
21st The Safety Car
22nd Bernie on his morning track walk
23rd Bernies hot daughter accompanying her father
24th Bernies Wife
25th Tony Davidson - Super Happy Friends
27th Sayitaintso - Super Happy Freinds

The Race

Super fantastic start from Hammy only to lose his nosecone in the first corner courtesy of Kimmy utilizing the Schumi chop (tm) sending him to pit for a new nose, new rubber and a cry.

Meanwhile, Alsoran will move up to 16th and start to settle into a race-long duel with Jenson 'Interceptor' Button.

Up front the Ferrari of Kimmy will lap Sato's Agro in the middle of lap 2, Davidson will block him for a corner and Kimmy's lap time will be ten seconds slower for L2 than L1.

By the end of lap 10, the running order will be thus

1) Kimmy
2) Massa +12seconds
3) Koivy +12.0001
4) Webber +18
5) DeeCee + 19
6) QuickNick + 19.6

9th Hammy + 24.5

17th AlsoRan + 1:19
21st Sato +6 laps
22nd Davidson +7 laps

The first round of pitstops will see Kimmy sweep in, collect new tires explain that he is happy, top off the gas and take on the hard compound tires for a short mid-session, before sweeping out and pulling in right behind Massive, the sheer emotion of leading will cause Phil to cry so much that he will under-brake for T13 and end up in the kitty litter.

Hammy will pit from 4th for a second set of softs and a short stint, gambling that he can use the sticky rubber to catch Kimmy, while in the pits the crew will take exactly 0.714 turns off the left side of the front wing.

His first flying lap on new rubber will be a new lap record as will the next 15 while he catches Kimmy.

Meanwhile AlsoRan will finally start moving up the running order as the STR - team Seb - cars drop out due to the confusion of calling 'Seb' in for fuel and they both run out on the same lap. Leaving AlsoRan to deal with the Force India cars and some fairly eloquent hand signals moves from Fizzy Chello.

By the second and final stop, Kimmy and Hammy are running together, with Koivy waiting in the wings 15 seconds back, Nelson Picket-Fence after a race long battle with Webbo finally proves that he is his fathers son and rams the Ozzy off the track in T7, then sets about beating seven types of poop out of him in the kitty litter.

....moving AlsoRan up to 13th.

DeeCee meanwhile carries on in a strong 4th place and pits, only to find that that Renault vs Rebull brawl has spread to the pits and he has to change his own tires and fule up. Despite this, he still manages to exit the pits in sixth.

Quick Nick and Bobby cube-head are now in 4th and 5th, albeit a lap down and a final Teutonic stop does nothing to hinder their progress.

Kimmy and Hammy enter the pits together for their final stops and when I say together I mean, side-by-side, Ferrari win the battle of the pitstops, but Hammy it firmly glued to Kimmy's gearbox as they leave the pits. Kimmy is on softs, while Hammy, due to the earlier decision is on the hard compounds.

Despite this Hammy clings on and does not let Kimmy get away, sliding through turns 11 through 13 on each lap a group of visiting Japanese drift judges award him scores of between 89 and 94 for seven laps running, when he finally overtakes Kimmy while traveling sideways with smoke pouring off the wheels in a millimeter perfect Choku-Dori (using Sewer gripping technique) he is awarded maximum point ! - so wrapped up are the crowd in this that chants of 'One More Time' can be heard above the engines.

With Hammy leading, both on the track and on points, Kimmy treats the next few laps as a Tsuiso, but the soft rears start to bubble and he backs it off a little.

The last few laps therefore settle into the usual monotony of overtaking the Super Happy Friends while the cameras settle on rather unlikely battle for eight between Fizzy Chello, Jenson Interceptor and Nikki Rosberger.

Final result

1. Hammy
2. Kimmy +6 seconds
3) Heidi + 21 seconds
4) Quick Nick
5) Bobby Cuboid
6) DeeCee
7) Nakajima San
8) Nicko Rosberger

Fred AlsoRan will finish 12th

The Super-Happy Friends will finish 5th and 6th in the following Formula Ford 1600 race.


The Post-Race Interview

Hammy - 'I was a bit Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes miffed at the start when I clipped kimmi with theVodaphone McLaren, Mercedes car, but the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes team changed the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes nosecone quickly and due to the excellent Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes by the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes team I was able to make up some valuable Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes points to help the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes make a great Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes start to the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes season.


Kimmi - 'the car was not fast enough and we have a lot of work to do.'


Koivy - yeah, yeah, yeah, Hello Mum, yeah, I did it, Hello Mum, yeah, f*** you Alonso, yeah, Hello Mum, yeah, yeah, yeah !

Hammy - I really have to say that without the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes team work I would have been unable to bring the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes car home in the lead and I think that Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes did a great job and that without Ron Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes Dennis's help the Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes team would not have been so Vodaphone McLaren, Mercedes strong......

 

You should sign up and test your prognostication skills in the NAM League at picksix.com

GPTours also offers pick 8 and a free trip to Monaco.

Heck I figure if you're gonna put that much effort into it you should try to win something.

 

Fishkill, New York - about 60 miles north of NYC

Thanks for the info...I have Speed, but I have not looked that far ahead. tonight for sure!!!

 

You certainly put a lot of effort into that! Nicely done. We'll see if your nicknames catch on!

 

I like Hobb's "ol Bob Kubica" and "Phil Massa"

Of course, Kubes works for me, too.

 

Sitting with live timing on the laptop. The season about get underway....

ahhhhhhh.

Live timing is ten minutes ahead of the broadcast. So SPEED coverage isn't exactly "live."

Well now, isn't this an interesting grid! Kubica splits the McLarens, Kimi's got to fight to fight his way to the front, and Fred has some more development work to do.

 

Does anyone (but myself) have the race LIVE tomorrow night at 11:00 PM CST? (Pre-race at 10:30) I've seen the Speed Channel link, but my satellite program scheduling has it live Saturday night; taped Sunday afternoon. Pre-race is shown tomorrow night at 10:30, just as in Speed Channel listing.

It only makes sense to have it Saturday night, since it's a Pacific-side race, but what gives? I will say that it's a lot easier to see satellite scheduling than cable listings. I'd tune in tomorrow night, just in case.

Weird!

 

11 CST (pre-race at 10:30 CST) matches my local listings on TV Guide online at 12 EST (pre-race at 11:30 EST) for the live broadcast.

 

It's live on Speed today (or tomorrow at midnight in EDT).

Qualifying (and maybe the race, too) is delayed so Speed can control their programming. It gives them a chance to have their preview segment at the beginning of their broadcast and put in commercials when they want. Not so great if you're trying to use the FIA's timing while watching, of course.

(Not that anyone here cares, but NASCAR is screwed up, too. They came up with a great idea of putting select driver's radio transmissions on Sirius channels - but they are on a delay so they never match up with what is on TV. Back to our regularly scheduled thread...)

Kubica's banzai qualifying lap was brilliant! Hopefully that will be the lap they use for the pre-race show's sample lap.

Kimi's bad luck resumed. At least he had good luck when it counted - in Brazil at the end of 2007!

Alonso didn't make it to Q3, but Coulthard and Glock did (Glock since penalized a total of 10 places for a gearbox change and impeding Webber in qualifying).

Bourdais and Piquet, Jr (Piqueno?) didn't impress in their initial F1 outings, hopefully they fare better in the race.

McLaren's cars are wearing numbers 22 and 23; I had forgotten about them being relegated to the back of the line for cheating. When's the last time a McLaren wore double digits? (Not that you can see the numbers on an F1 car, of course...)

 

Go Bob!

 

Good--glad to hear confirmation of the time--on another forum the only time the OP had was the rebroadcast on Sunday.

 

One article I read said Glock's grid demotion was good news for Kimi since it moves him up one spot -- fair enough -- but failed to mention that it leaves him still behind Webber.....not an easy guy to pass.

I expect a lot of position changes in the first 10-20 seconds of the race.....and turn 1 should be great fun.....

 

this looks like a good season. love seeing the cars sliding around like that!

go BMW!

 

Well, all the schedule info I saw was off by a bit. The pre-race show did not start minutes ago.....it's "Inside Grand Prix".....looks like the pre-race show starts at midnite EST. That matches up with the clock at formula1.com that says the race starts at 0100 EST.
---------------
oops - make that 1230 EST race start

 

Would someone please solve a mystery of life for me? I see that again this year Ferrari's livery has the thick-and-thin bars on the cars and garb. Is this the scan code for a new Ferrari?

Seriously, what does it mean?

 

they are sponsored by marlboro, but they can't actually put marlboro on the car except for a couple races per year, so they run the funny bars in place of the 'marlboro' text.

 

Ah, makes sense now--thanks!

 

What an interesting race.
Bummer for Kimi and Robert.
Fred did pretty damn well finishing 4th.
Cool deal for Nick and Nico.

 

WOW! WHAT A RACE! It's gonna be a great season!

I won't spoil it for those who won't see it 'til tomorrow, or who got to the dance a little late...

I can't believe the attrition--can't remember when I've seen that many out.

 

Yup, a great race. I, also, won't be a spoiler, but.....

The best part for me is that lead car was the most boring thing to watch - they didn't show it much and I never missed it. There was action throughout the field, throughout the race.....you know, real racing! PLEASE let this be a sign of things to come this season!

Aside from that -- as daffodildeb said -- the word of the day was definitely "attrition."

 

Go ahead and spoil it. Anyone should know better then to look in here if they haven't seen the race.
I would have LOVED to see Fred finish on the podium, one more place. That would have sent a shockwave to the anti-Fred lot in the UK.

 

I guess you didn't like watching Schumi, eh?

P.S. I always liked his famous leap. I think our #1 guy is going to have to develop a trademark winning action. Any suggestions?

P.P.S. Anyone remember when Michael hoisted his teammate like a little puppy--after winning the race?