F1 Racing in 1979

Spie

Spie

Spie

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This has to be one of the best duels of all time. 1979 French Grand Prix, Dijon - Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux battle it out ...


.. and that was for 2nd place.

These days we get excited when someone gets overtaken on the last lap because his tyres are shot. How times change.
 
Thats proper racing. But todays racing that would deem penalty by the FIA
 
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Todays racing seems like several steps back from that..

Its certainly nowhere near as exciting.
 
The nearest we had to that this year is probably Spa, Raikkonen vs Hamilton and the FIA had to ruin that.
 
I was of the understanding that the banning of the aero packs that mess up the air behind the cars and the re-introducion of full slicks is meant to help bring stuff similar to this back?
 
well there's 2 stark differences that stand out there:

1: Circuit. Its fast, flowing corners allowing different lines to be taken to have faster entry, slower exit or vise versa. Mr Tike's F1 circuits these days are good, but they often miss flowing sequences of corners. We DO see that stuff happen these days just a lot of it is missed by TV, or whatever. Also another "problem" with people wanting overtaking is they seem to forget that generally once a overtake is done, the car pulls away into the distance these days.

2: the cars. Ground effect cars, with big fat sticky slicks. almost no upper body downforce (relative to today). Problem with the new F1 rules next year is they are cutting downforce from everywhere, and if anything the ground effect is what is going to stuffer most next season with a diffuser almost half the size of this seasons. This will make following a car even worse as there wont be any ground effect still helping them once they loose upper body downforce..

Kitchster_uk said:
I was of the understanding that the banning of the aero packs that mess up the air behind the cars and the re-introducion of full slicks is meant to help bring stuff similar to this back?
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the problem is they are cutting underbody downforce (ground effect) as well. This will NOT help the car following. This is why raising the front wing stopped people following closely. Before, when it was close to the floor, it was generating downforce by ground effect as well as by the air pushing against it. The Raised front wing and it reduced its working ability. This has gone back to "normal" next year i believe. However they are cutting soooooo much off the rear ground effect that i dont see it helping too much. Dirty air kills upper body downforce, but NOT ground effect.
 
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You see, that actually entertained me. When I tried watching the F1 on Sunday, I almost fell asleep (And I actually mean that), damn I wish I was old enough to remember F1 when it was actually exciting :(
 
This is the recent (ha!) one that will always stay in my memory:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XX6lyttEryY

You just don't get racing like that any more. They were absolutely nose to tail for 3 laps solid, Mansell swarming all over the back of Senna's McLaren which virtually expired after crossing the finishing line.

If that was in 2008 we'd have had new nose cones all round. What is it with the current GP crop and their inability to race without clouting each other?

EDIT

IIRC in Monaco '92 we also had Senna doing rolling burnouts and slides on the victory lap. Great stuff :cool:
 
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Lopéz said:
What is it with the current GP crop and their inability to race without clouting each other?
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The risk has been removed, of the current crop only Barichello was racing the last time F1 suffered a fatality. You look at Kubica walking away from his Montreal crash and it's easy to see that an accident is simply treated as lost points these days.

Spie said:
Younger and less experienced.
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1979 was only Villeneuve's second season in F1.
 
Thats racing none of this crap these days, F1 is hard to watch sometimes without falling asleep.

Suprised F1 isn't being fitted with indicators for next year.
 
gillywibble said:
An absolute classic.
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the problems with this sort of thread glorifing "old f1" is everyone seems to think these battles happend every race, for the whole race. they didnt. that clip was probably the only good bit of that race also, just like today.
 
Anders0n said:
Massa v Kubica Japan '07 was pretty damn decent!
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yup, as was Schumi vs Kimi 2006 Brazil, as was Schumi and Alonso at Imola etc etc. List can go on forever really. It does still happen today, its just rare that we see it lol
 
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