Motorsport Off Topic Thread

TehBluebear said:
Why has GT1 died then? Bet it's a bit of a kick in the face for Sumo Power campaigning the Nissan GTRs
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There is little to no interest in GT1 cars from the manufacturers. They are to expensive to build and to far from their road cars for marketing purposes. Its a shame, but thats how the world is now.

On the flip side GT3 is massive now and still growing. The cars are much cheaper to build and therefore easier to sell to customer teams (around £300,000 IIRC). There is a GT1 World champ, a GT3 European champ, the Blancpain Endurance series, and numerous national GT championships including British GT all running GT3 spec cars. The performance balancing means there is some great close racing.

I'm not convinced about them calling 1 hour races part of an 'Endurance' series, though.
 
An F1 World Champion has ordered a one off (although second of its kind) road going version of the Mercedes powered Pagani Zonda R, with a manual gearbox because his 'company car' has a paddle shift and he wants his road car to have a manual.

It's called the Zonda 760LH....

Nice one Lewis ;)
 
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Classic pic of Lewis and Bruno rocking the fro's...

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Shimmy said:
Rumours of Webber partnering Alonso at Ferrari next year.
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For me the only surprise is that Ferrari aren't thinking of dropping Massa before the end of the current season. He's a nice guy but Ferrari and Alonso need someone to act as a rear gunner to Alonso should he keep himself in the title race. For whatever reason, Massa just doesn't seem to be capable of that right now. If the Webber Ferrari rumours are true, I guess it is because Webber and Alonso are known to be good mates and that perhaps Webber is getting fed up with being in Vettel's shadow at Red Bull; although he'd perhaps be the same at Ferrari to Alonso.

Could it be that Webber would like to drive for Ferrari as the iconic team of F1 and Ferrari have a plan for Perez or someone else to come in to partner Alonso for 2014/15 and so they have a seat for someone experience to partner Alonso for a single season?
 
MarcLister said:
For me the only surprise is that Ferrari aren't thinking of dropping Massa before the end of the current season.
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They were. They approached Button last year to join Ferrari for 2012.

The only thing about this that doesn't sit with me is that if Webber doesn't want to retire, why wouldn't Red Bull keep him? I don't think any other top line driver will be on the market (unless Hamilton jumps ship, which is looking less likely), and neither Riciardo or Vergne have set the world alight yet. For Webber to leave Red Bull but not be retiring would mean Red Bull have their sights on someone better, and I just can't see who that might be?

I can see why Ferrari might wan't Webber though. He is solid, if not spectacular. I can't see him being that happy to take on a 2nd driver role though, unless he just see's it as a retirement year.
 
Skeeter said:
They were. They approached Button last year to join Ferrari for 2012.
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I meant during this season. :) I remember hearing about the Button approach but I was referring to Ferrari not trying to get Perez from Sauber NOW or someone until the end of the season and then get Webber.

Skeeter said:
The only thing about this that doesn't sit with me is that if Webber doesn't want to retire, why wouldn't Red Bull keep him? I don't think any other top line driver will be on the market (unless Hamilton jumps ship, which is looking less likely), and neither Riciardo or Vergne have set the world alight yet. For Webber to leave Red Bull but not be retiring would mean Red Bull have their sights on someone better, and I just can't see who that might be?

I can see why Ferrari might wan't Webber though. He is solid, if not spectacular. I can't see him being that happy to take on a 2nd driver role though, unless he just see's it as a retirement year.
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I agree that it doesn't make sense really about Webber to Ferrari unless a) he wants a one-off bumber pay packet before he retires or b) he wants to have driven a Ferrari at least once in his career. Considering Torro Rosso's drivers I can't see either of them moving to Red Bull next season and whilst Hamilton is probably the only driver of the calibre and image Red Bull want in someone to partner Vettel, the likely troubles of having Vettel and Hamilton in the same team make that idea quite unlikely, for me at least.
 
I expect Ferrari have been in talks with a number of people about moves to the team either this year or next. I doubt for legal reasons anyone would be allowed to openly talk about it though. Like the Button thing, we only heard about that a couple of months ago and it apparently happened around the middle of last year.

But yeah, Webber moving to Ferrari to play second fiddle makes no sense unless RBR are pushing him out because they have someone else lined up.
 
Skeeter said:
But yeah, Webber moving to Ferrari to play second fiddle makes no sense unless RBR are pushing him out because they have someone else lined up.
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Unless he's after a challenge or a chance to fulfil a dream. If Webber left RBR to go to Williams or Renault it'd seem weird yes, leaving RBR to Ferrari makes sense.

Glaucus said:
Or it could be his dream to race at Ferrari, he wouldn't be the first one to go to Ferrari to fulfil dream before retirement.
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This is what I think is the base behind these rumours. Didn't that Jackie Stewart once say something about never having driven for Ferrari or never having won a title in a Ferrari? Something like he felt it made him less of a driver or made his reputation a little weaker?
 
But is someone just looking to tick a box before driving off into the sunset really what Ferrari needs? Surely that would just postpone the 'who do they replace Massa with' problem for a year, rather than solve it?

Just seems a bit odd to me. But its the F1 rumour mill, so who knows.
 
Skeeter said:
But is someone just looking to tick a box before driving off into the sunset really what Ferrari needs? Surely that would just postpone the 'who do they replace Massa with' problem for a year, rather than solve it?
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True. What I find more surprising is that this rumour implies that Massa is safe for the season. I really thought Ferrari would just drop Massa at some point and get someone in sooner rather than later.

Skeeter said:
Just seems a bit odd to me. But its the F1 rumour mill, so who knows.
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Well I'm fairly confident that now we've discussed and scrutinized this rumour, it won't happen. :o
 
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