F1 2007/2008 Winter Testing and Rumours

Dutch Guy said:
You have to remember that in todays F1 it is 95% car, 5% driver that determines the success.

He is just unlucky that he drives a car that is just too slow.
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He isnt unlucky. It is his job to be ambitious and seek out the best drives possible. Senna, Prost, Mansell, Piquet and every other great, has done this in the past.

Also, in the past, the car has always dictated who won the most races, though perhaps in 2008, the car makes even more of a difference than in the past. The key is to help develop the car to your liking and get the best out of it on race weekends. Alonso is very good at this.

Hamilton's big test this year will come when he has to set up his car on his own, without copying a more experienced teammate's setup, as he did last year.
 
sunama said:
He isnt unlucky. It is his job to be ambitious and seek out the best drives possible. Senna, Prost, Mansell, Piquet and every other great, has done this in the past.
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Every other great?

Moss. Tried to aim for British wherever possible, which cost him dearly at times. Drove for Maserati in the first instance because he bought the actual car (in '54 when the Merc was dominating in the hands of a certain Mr Fangio). In the second instance, he was advised to drive for them (in '56, when a Ferrari was winning at the hands of a certain Mr Fangio) by the motoring press in England.

Hawthorn. Aside from his opening moments in the sport (where he drove a modified ERA if I remember right) he drove for Ferrari right up until he met his untimely end. And they weren't the best throughout.

Clark. Drove only for Lotus. And they also weren't the best throughout.

Stewart. Drove for BRM (who weren't all that good by that time) and for Ken Tyrell. Who wasn't the best throughout (though admittedly JYS getting a stomach ulcer one year didn't help matters).

Brabham. After leaving Cooper, he persisted with his own team for the '61 season. And '62. And '63. And '64. And '65. He had to wait until '66 before winning a title again. And then didn't win another until his retirement. I'm pretty sure that means that Brabham (the team) also wasn't the best throughout.

sunama said:
Also, in the past, the car has always dictated who won the most races
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Not always. I won't bore you with every single example - instead, I shall pick the popular one. 1982. You cannot possibly tell me that the Williams that Keke Rosberg had was better than the Ferrari (it was running a Cossie N/A motor versus the turbo of the Ferrari for a start). Ferrari only lost that year because of Didier Pironi. If he'd not played silly buggers at Imola, Gilles Villeneuve would not have crashed at Zolder and would have gone on to win the title that year.

sunama said:
though perhaps in 2008, the car makes even more of a difference than in the past. The key is to help develop the car to your liking and get the best out of it on race weekends. Alonso is very good at this.
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Won't argue there. Also won't argue that The Petulant One™ is a good dev driver....not the best ever necessarily, but a pretty good one.

sunama said:
Hamilton's big test this year will come when he has to set up his car on his own, without copying a more experienced teammate's setup, as he did last year.
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I don't think The Petulant One™ let The Messiah™ use much of his setup data after the opening round or two :)


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Regarding Hawthorn. The car he started out in was a Cooper T20 with a Bristol engine. I think the T20 started out as an ERA at some point. Or a HWM. I don't think it was the latter, but I've had several (read: lots of) beers and the memory is not entirely reliable. What I have remembered is that he drove the odd one or two races for Vanwall and Maserati, but not many.
 
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Dutch Guy said:
You have to remember that in todays F1 it is 95% car, 5% driver that determines the success.
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rubbish, F1 is far too complicated to throw silly figures like that about. I cannot for one minute imagine Mansell, Prost or Senna throwing away last years title like Hamilton and Alonso did. Drivers also need to be in a good environment, you seem to be forgetting the human factor.



He is just unlucky that he drives a car that is just too slow.
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but he was out qualified by Alonso driving a Minardi :eek:

Button has been unlucky in that too many good drivers came a long, he would have done a better job than Coulthard did at Williams and McLaren IMO, these were the days when schumacher had no real competition.
I dont think Button makes a natural team leader/motivator either.
 
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Wang Computer said:
I meant early this decade, as in the return of Renault as a works outfit after buying Benetton (and subsequently running under the Benetton name in 2001). Briatore part of a dream team? :confused:



I don't buy in to this supposed gulf in ability between the drivers you mentioned and the rest. I'd say Button, Barichello, Massa, Heidfeld, Kubica, Trulli, Webber and perhaps others are just as good. And surely winning the WC is more dependant on driving the right car for the right team than a tenth or so driving advantage over your rivals?
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Flavio has done a brilliant job of motivating team members and running a team on a low budget, its a shame its become fashionable to knock him.

You dont buy it because you seem to have no understanding that there is more to winning a world championship than being quick.

The drivers you mention are all quick, but we have no idea for example how webber would cope with the pressure of tacking a title down to the wire with the likes of michael schumacher and ferrari. There are too many factors, and a lot of hard work that goes on off the track. We also saw Alonso crack being in the wrong envirnoment, and as it turned out Hamilton did too.
Barichello, Massa just as good? they've both had their time in a vastly superior car and were happy to cripple their careers by playing second fiddle. The world champions have all been good, as for the rest we will never know.
 
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Interesting times, it appears that you have to be in red or silver to win, so Button would struggle to meat expectations where ever he went, however he's very good at backing the wrong horse.

They all keep saying that 2009 will be the year of change but I doubt it.
 
I'm sure if he pushed for a move away from Honda, there would be plenty who would be happy to take him. BMW, Red Bull and Williams might take him and they are all better than Honda.

My belief is that Button simply lacks ambition and is comfortable at Honda. He gets a nice pay cheque and is allowed to live his life how he wants to. If he moved to McLaren for example, his **** shagging days would almost certainly come to an end and he would have to have the McLaren hair cut that Alonso was forced to wear last year.

It comes back to the way the British public react to winners and losers. Hamilton and Button both have a good fan-base in Britain right now, but what if Hamilton began to dominate in the same way as Schumacher did before him? Would the British like him as much, given that Brits have a habit of loving losers...I mean, underdogs. ;)
 
Wow i honestly wish some of you worked in F1 and could get a grasp of how hard it is to make up .3 of a second. Seriously half of you post in here without a clue.
 
CS||nuTs said:
Wow i honestly wish some of you worked in F1 and could get a grasp of how hard it is to make up .3 of a second. Seriously half of you post in here without a clue.
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They all have an opinion on a job (driving an F1 car) that none of them could do!
 
PM seals Aus GP fate, Ecclestone says
09/03/08 11:15

F1-Live.com
Melbourne’s F1 future far from secure

Australia's new prime minister has personally told Bernie Ecclestone that the country will not be funding a night F1 race.

"I've spoken to Kevin Rudd and he's told me it would cost too much to re-stage the race, so I guess that's it. We won't be going to Australia for too much longer," the F1 Chief Executive is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

Ecclestone had already been told by the Melbourne race's promoters, the AGPC and the Victorian state government, that they will not be ceding to his pressure to floodlight the Albert Park circuit at their own expense.

"The only way the race could stay in Melbourne, or anywhere else in Australia, is if it is staged during the night so that the public in Europe can watch it," Ecclestone says.


He says staging the race at night will mean that F1's key audience - television viewers in Europe - no longer need to be up in the dead of the night to watch the first Grand Prix of the season.

"At the moment, it is ridiculous that people are asked not to sleep in order to see it live. That can't carry on. The alternative is to pull the race completely from Australia," Ecclestone added.
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Personally i like staying up for races.
 
knip said:
Here bloody here, half 3 in the morning for me next week, and I wont mind a bit.
Its all part of it.
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Exactly, it adds a whole different experience to watching the race. I've done it for years since I 1st started watching in 95' as a kid.
 
I can sort-of see what Bernie is getting at. F1 is a business as well as a sport (at times it's hard to see the sport side of it, mind) and if he could increase the audience by staging races during less anti-social hours then he'll make more money.

Like it or not, Bernie is first and foremost a businessman. I'm honestly surprised F1 hasn't gone down the truly sponsor-and-TV dominated route that NASCAR took*. Didn't hurt NASCAR at all, but I really don't think F1's current fanbase is ready for that sort of thing.



* - with drivers like Michael Waltrip able to get every single one of his sponsors names into a post-race interview, and virtually every top driver starring in adverts for their sponsors and the charities that they support, and legal wranglings over paintjobs that have sponsors displayed that compete with NASCAR title sponsors....
 
So, F1 preview was on ITV. Looks to be a good season.

But the "Hi, My Dad owns F1 and said I can do some presenting" apearance of Tamara Eclestone was a bit rubbish. I hope thats the last we hear of her this year (we can still see her though, shes quite hot). Doesnt she present the MotoGP or Superbikes? She refered to Kimi and Massa as the "riders"!
 
Skeeter said:
But the "Hi, My Dad owns F1 and said I can do some presenting" apearance of Tamara Eclestone was a bit rubbish. I hope thats the last we hear of her this year (we can still see her though, shes quite hot). Doesnt she present the MotoGP or Superbikes? She refered to Kimi and Massa as the "riders"!
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If she re-appears I'll give up watching the build-up to GPs. It was bloomin' cringeworthy, and you know she only got to do it because Daddy said so. She's very pretty, but can't interview for ****.
 
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