Five years at Indy and no one had hit that wall in an F1 car until now, I've stood there during practice and the cars are at almost full chat...

This truly changes the perplexion of the day...how did Michael pit and maintain the lead?

 

Funny thing Dom, this is F1 not NASCAR. This is the pinnacle of racing. You don’t stop a race because of debris that may or may not be there. Remember the people talking on the TV are only speculating as to what may have happened and most of the time they call it wrong. It’s just the color commentary. For all we know Ralf may have spun on his own and hit nothing at all. Only he will be able to tell us.

 

You should always take the safety of these world class drivers as well as their crews, fans, and safety workers as number one priority. Not doing so is just reckless. Just MHO.


I was up in arms about the debris prior to the announcers commentating on it. You know if the debris is obvious enough to see via a telecast, then it is of some size and should be taken seriously.

When the one guy had the cut down tire and crashed at the end of the straight away, everyone could see the debris spewn all over the end of the straight-away.

Then not laps later, Ralf had his issues. Whether or not Ralf's accident was caused by debris is a mute point. The debris was clearly there, even without the commentators saying anything about it.

Also with Ralf's accident, to have the SC drive thru the debris already on the course with the pack following, was ridiculous.

 

Agreed they should have gotten Ralf out of there sooner and yes they should have taken all the stuff off the track, but the bottom line is European rules do not apply in the US and they could have stopped the race.

F1 just goes. You don’t stop the race you don’t put a car on the track to slow them down, that’s American racing. In F1 you just race. Caution flags go out at trouble spots, but its ***** to the wall other than that.

 

Nice tire Juan.

 

Oh, OK. I guess I just have too many American ideals in my head.

 

Gee that was exciting. Makes me REALLY look forward to WRC .

 

Well Honda/BAR finished in the points again with Sato making his first podium for 3rd. I never did figure out what happened to Button, but he was out early and I didn’t think they would really give him the time of day anyway.

I don’t want to say yawn bore once the early things were over, but Ferrari has the car and drivers that will not be beat again this season. That’s why I’m a big fan of the up and coming drivers. The top guys won’t be there forever.

 

What a race it was today! Great weather, lots of MINIs in the corral, couldn't have been better. Oh, and MS won, that is like having your cake and eating it too!!

 

Yes, great week-end. The MINI corral had upwards of twenty cars (sorry, forgot to count 'em). We were along the outside wall of the oval's back straight, directly in front of the Porsche club (giving them a case of MINI envy, I'm sure). I estimate that we were about 70% MCS, 30% MC with most colors on display (don't remember seeing a VR MC though).

Couple of comments on the race. 1) whenever there is a high speed impact along the circuit, medical crew should be on the scene within 60 seconds. What the eff happened? It seemed an eternity before they got to Ralf. Had he suffered the kind of devastating injuries that Alex Zanardi suffered in 2001, he would have been dead before the doctors even got to the scene. Boo on Indy and F-1. The race should have been red flagged while they extracated him from the wreckage.

JPM changes cars seconds before the roll off on the parade lap; then the stewards black flag him nearly at the end of the race??!! What is this? Letting him needlessly run for the roses only to ****** it away after 90 minutes??!! What ever happened to the 15 minute decision or it's accepted in rulings by race stewards? This was too much, that's now two years in a row that poor officiating at Indy has cost JPM. Note to FIA, Get your act together, you are disgracing the formula.

Once again had the best seats in the house for the race. Right at the turn in point of turn one. Action seen first hand: Alonso's incredible start from ninth to third, the first corner pile up, Alonso's "exit" by way of the blown rear tire, Weber's barbequed cat, Sato and Trulli mixing it up.

Perfect week-end, see you again in '06

 

Excellent report MGCMAN!

I agree with your comments. How many minutes passed before getting to Schumacher? Not to mention the safety car driving around the wreckage, coupled with the failure to properly sweep the roadway, in addition to the late decision-making to black flag Montoya....ugh, it just never ended. It was never really determined how Michael maintained the lead while pitting...

Sndwave, I have to say I disagree with your comments about not stopping the race with F1. I can think of many races where they have been stopped, the most recent of course being in Monaco a few weeks ago. Indy has the longest section of pure flooring-it-out of all the tracks in the season starting with the fast curve where Schumacker nailed the barrier. It seems that with such a location being so fast and with a narrow line, it would be paramount to properly kill the race and thoroughly clean that area. Dirt and gravel is one thing to have on a track, but carbon fibre shards are a different story all together.

I'm more annoyed though with the time it took to get to Schumacher. Especially with the close proximity of officials, crew, and specialists. What if his car would have caught on fire? Then what about the ambulance driving away slowly being passed by the safety car and the F1 cars! Did that make any sense?

Just a pure shambles.

 

Just wanted to join the thread here - It was a very interesting race. Wish they would have pulled JPM out a heckuva lot sooner.

Hooray for Sato! I predicted he'd get better and better as the season went along, but didn't think he'd get a podium this soon. way to race! Although, he kinda sounds like Michael Jackson when he talks....

 

Yea, When Sato was "in the zone" he was noticeably faster through the first section of turns (one through six) than all others, even the Ferrari boys. It was a joy to watch him go through the field. He is fearless, and when he challenged Jarno Trulli for third going into turn one, neither driver would yield. Result, they both went off, but Sato recovered quicker than Trulli and that got him the podium. Been a long time since I've seen the Rising Sun going up with the other flags on the podium. 'Bout as long as Old Glory has been absent, +/- 1993.

 

The Way MS kept the lead after the pit is that for that lap, all the cars went throught the pit lane instead of going past the wreckage. RB, in second, was also told to pit, so they told him to stay back a little, so that they would be ready for him...no passing during a SC, MS was out, RB was in...MS comes out in P1...brilliant. Jean Todt deserves to run F1.

Poor Williams though...2 "oversights" in 2 GPs? What's going on?
Anyone hear the rumor that sine Ralf might not be racing in France, Vilneuve might? Read it on F1-live

 

One more thing,

I remember that the rules state that the driver must pit on the lap that the crew goes out onto the pit lane...is this still the case? If so, how come Sato didn't get a penalty, or get disqualified? His crew was out there, and then they decided not to do anything, so they went back in without him making a stop...

I found that very strange.

 

i was puzzled by that incident myself

 

Pole for Fernando Alonso, at the French Grand Prix. Can he pull of a victory tomorrow? So far this year only Renault has had any success against Herr Schumacher. Kind of ironic, only Schumi's old team Benetton/Renault has been able to beat him in '04, and we are in the second half of the season.

In other news, McLaren's David Coulthard (qualified 3rd) let's us know that the McLaren team is still in F1, and not F3000.

 

OK kiddies were warminig up the motors for the French GP.

 

Now I know this is the F1 thread and I know this is not the nasty discussion thread, so I’m sorry to make a comment about Ralf bringing a major lawsuit against the doctors who did his care after the accident.

You race, you take your chances, you get hurt and you may even die… It’s car racing at the sharpest point.

 

UH OH Mike just f~~ked up real bad, pulling out ahead of the poll sitter. on the warm up lap.

 

Alright Michael...enough already...you are the greatest, but...enough.

He's 21 wins from 100 wins...100 wins in Formula One.

Is that Michael's goal? Eight more grand prix in 2004, 19 predicted for '05...at this rate he'll retire at the end of '05 with his goal.

Silverstone in one week!

 

Coop I'm with you Shu may be a great driver, but I'm bored with his winning every event. I want true racing back.

 

I did miss to point out my boy Jenson came in 5th . More points for the unknown driver who I keep saying is great .

 

Schumi may be the greatest driver ever. four stop strategy on a busted game plan, Flavio outsmarts Brawn, or so it seemed. Needs to increase lead from 11 seconds to twenty seconds in ten laps. Does so. This was truly inspired driving. Alonso was FAST, faster than everybody else, except Der Weltmeister. This was one highly technical circuit (smooth surfaces easy on tires,suspension and brakes) but very demanding nonetheless. Neither Schumi nor Fernando put a wheel wrong all day, but in the final analysis Ferrari are still imposible to beat.


p.s. What did you think of the move Reubens pulled on Jarno entering the last corner of the last lap?

 

Man, that was a pretty hectic race! Highly enjoyed it! I can't believe Rubens at the last corner! Yowza! Ballsy move but paid for him. Shu is just a machine. He's amazing but I really wanted the Renault 2/3 spots...