I'm not sure I'd like to see such a thing happen unless it left F1 alone. Set up a separate, short off-season series like the old IROC. They even traded cars each race to make sure no one ended up with an advantage or disadvantage due to an abberant build.

 

As I say, it will never happen. But if it did for, say, 5 races, it would probably settle once and for all who's best.

Hmmm, wonder where those races would be. Spa, for sure. Monaco, too. How about Monza, Nurburgring, Suzuka? All old tracks, coincidentally or not.

 

Breaking news:

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/231020...president.html

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/231020...n-mclaren.html

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/231020...-collapse.html

 

Well Jarno Trulli continues to fume over his coming together with Adrian Sutil at the GP of Brazil...




After arguing trackside at Interlagos and then in the stewards' room, hostilities resumed between Jarno Trulli and Adrian Sutil in the FIA press conference on Thursday.

Two weeks after they clashed at the start of the Brazilian Grand Prix, resulting in a fine for the "aggressive" Italian veteran Trulli, the pair openly argued for the benefit of the international media at Abu Dhabi's new Yas Marina Circuit.

In the presence of Force India's 26-year-old Sutil as well as Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, Trulli said he had been "extremely furious" with the German's driving.

"I've got all the evidence to show I was there and was next to him, and tomorrow we are going to discuss it," said the Toyota driver, as he waved about photos of the incident and referred to the regular pre-race drivers' briefing.

Sutil, however, said he did not feel at fault for the crash.

"It's not my problem, it's his problem. I don't know why he's freaking out like that to be honest," he said.

Trulli hit back: "I don't know if you're blind, but I can clearly show you my front wing is next to your front wing."

The tit-for-tat exchange continued, with Sutil pointing out the finer points of motor racing to Trulli, a veteran of 218 Grands Prix, and quipping: "I don't know how long you need to learn this."

Alonso confirmed that driving standards would be discussed "deeply" in Friday's briefing.

Comments...

 

I figured Trulli would finally drop it after the final drivers meeting of the year but I read somewhere he's trying to use his "evidence" as impetus to push for more clarity in the rules re track conduct. I think he has more important things to worry about, like trying to find himself a seat for next year.

I assume everyone already heard Toyota dropped out today. Should make room for Sauber-Qadbak but the FIA are saying there's no vacancy because Toyota signed the Concorde Agreement and are committed for the next three years. Hey, if they're out, they're out. Give Sauber the 13th slot on the grid now -- sooner better than later so they can start signing drivers, suppliers, etc -- and THEN waste your time litigiously trying to force Toyota to cough up some cash for no good reason.

What do we think of the new track in Abu Dhabi?

 

Nice--but I wonder if it will be successful. Track after track is showing losses after spending gobs of money; meanwhile, the classic tracks are biting the dust. Soon there will be no Japan or France, and even Spa is losing money. Germany is hemorrhaging. Turkey hasn't done well so far. Canada is questionable for 2010. China and Australia are weak. Haven't heard a peep lately about the USA.

My real gripe is the move to a no-refueling rule. After all the garbage talk about cutting costs, KERS was encouraged and now dropped, and the cars must again be totally redesigned to carry the additional weight and volume. IMO, KERS should have been continued, and fuel efficiency championed! And does anyone know when engine development will be restarted? It was another mistake to freeze an obsolete design, again in my opinion.

I haven't seen any reaction from the drivers on the additional fuel--and attendant fire hazard. No reaction about the ban on tire warmers, either.

And who will supply tires starting in 2011?

 

Yep, KERS out...for now...but I read about a proposal to bring it back in '11 or '12 as a standardized system. There you go, redesign the cars without it but to carry a full race worth of fuel and then redesign again to put KERS back...there's cost saving for ya.

The engine freeze is another issue and it's definitely here to stay for at least a while longer. The FIA agreed that there might be enough difference in power production (Merc best, others lagging) to warrant adjustments but their solution is to allow Mercedes to downgrade theirs to be more in line with the rest. Yeah, I'm sure the guys at Merc will get right on that... The next issue will be the Cosworth solution. I'd love to see the flip-flop at Merc re their view on engine equalization if the Cosworth engine outperforms the Merc. [not that I expect that to happen...just would love to watch Haug try to explain his change of heart of it does]

I heard a rumor it's gonna be Hoosier...pass it on.

 

I think they should run on Dunlop runflats. If it's good enough for us...

 

Actually, I've seen a couple of flats where the sidewalls held up long enough to (relatively competitively) get them back around to the pits for a change!

 

I've seen a flat where there is no sidewall, or wheel, or...

 

I've heard where if a driver/team feel they're going to run out of fuel, they can bring him into the pits, switch the lump off and refuel, start the engine back up and go.

I wonder if there will be any clever strategists out there who will develop a starter motor that is small, light and easily packaged (Shoot, they've already got KERS on there, just make it start the car). I would think if you timed it all out correctly, it wouldn't be much slower than the stops we have now. Although, there could be a regulation in there preventing the intentional short-fueling that I'm talking about.

Yep, cost savings. I cant really imagine that JT will be much better at leading than Mad Max. I would have liked to see Vatennan be elected, but he came off as a European/FIA Al Gore/Ross Perot hybrid....yeah, there's a mental image.

 

That's somewhat how Le Mans (LMS/ALMS) racing works. When drivers pit, they turn the engine off. Fueling is done first and while that happens no work can be done on the car, but you can do driver changes. When the fueling is complete, then work can be done, like tire changes. When everything is finished, the driver restarts the car to reenter the race.

 

I haven't seen or heard anything like that yet but I'll be on the lookout for it now. I got the feeling what will happen if someone is going to run out of fuel is.....he'll run out of fuel, handled no differently than if he runs out of brakes or the engine blows.

 

I'm pretty sure there will be no refueling at all since the excuse for it is to completely eliminate refueling rigs and the dangers that come with using them. Less equipment and personnel so reduced logistics both in travel and at the venues plus less danger in the pits.

 

There's still going to have to be some method of fueling/refueling. They aren't going to ship the chassis (Chassi plural of Chassis...whatever) with fuel in them. And they aren't going to run one fuel load for the entire weekend.

So they're still going to need the equipment to refueld between practice sessions, Quali and the race. I don't know. I'd think they'd want to be able to refuel if they needed to just to finish the race. If there's a malfunction and the engine is using more fuel than intended, then they'd be able to at least make it reach the end of the race.

I'm just curious if the FIA would have left a loophole like that in the regs. If they did. I'd be excited to see when, not if, it would be exploited.

 

Shhh--don't give his holy highness Bernie any ideas! Before you know it, he'll change the fuel type so the teams have to drive over to the local gas station for their fuel!

 

You caught me on a technicality...and poor wording.

Yes, they'll need to refuel during the weekend, but my understanding was the rule change came from the cost-cutting mindset and was intended to eliminate the fancy but expensive and high maintenance and oh so fallible high-speed rigs. I haven't thought at all about what would replace them for non-race refueling purposes and I wasn't watching F1 before they allowed mid-race refueling starting in '94 so I don't remember how they did it back then either.

For reference, here is the entire refueling section of the 2010 Sporting Regulations (19 Aug 2009 version):

 

I've never thought about how they used to fuel the cars back then.

I hadn't read the regs. They sure make it sound as though, if you run out of gas, that's it. Hmmmmm, I've got to say, I did enjoy the fuel strategy aspect of the races.

 

Kurvhugr, your car almost has the same name as my car. Mine is named Zippeee! (rhymes with weeee!). It came to me the night we ordered the car in December, '06...

 

Me, too! I used to love Michael Schumacher push ahead 8 or 9 seconds, just to cover his pit stops. And, of course, there were the disasters when the race was lost when the crew couldn't get the the rig to work...

Ironically, Mad Max wasn't in favor of Bernie's idea:

http://formula-one.speedtv.com/artic...ng-ban-medals/

I haven't heard any comments about the tire warmer ban. Will we run into a Senna-type accident?

 

I was wondering...would anyone like to go in on this with me? We could keep it at my house.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/101120...sale-ebay.html

(I haven't been able to find the listing. Probably European, but it's not on the UK or German sites.)

 

That's the bad part about being the model of the human form. I would never be able to fit into a car that Schumacher was able to drive.

When I was at the Nurburgring, they had one of DC's chassis on display that you could climb into. I couldn't fit . The only car from this year I think I might have a little bit of a chance of fitting in was the Red Bull, maybe the BMW. I only say that because Kubica, Vettel and Webber are decently tall guys.

In all seriousness, I missed the boat on being able to fit into one of these cars. When I graduated from Basic 9 years ago, they dropped me down to a whopping 145lbs. I was 6'1".

 

I could probably fit into it, but you'd have to turn the car upside-down and shake it to get me out! I sat in the back seat of a demo MINI one time, and they practically had to use a crane when the ride was over. Svelte, I am not.

 

I forgot to mention--I found the listing. It's on the German site, and as of this post, it has a little over 5 days remaining:

http://cgi.ebay.de/1994-Benetton-For...item2303c0f365

 

I know! My late wife named Zippy one day...didn't tell me though for a while. I told her I was trying to think of something clever to put on a europlate and she instantly said "Zippy." I asked why and she said "because that's his name" but the inflection was more like she added a "DUH!" at the end like I was an idiot for not already knowing. I couldn't argue with her logic and ended up with a Zippy europlate...that is, until I came across the second person who thought it was MY name and called me Zippy... That was the end of that europlate...