My original comment is probably a bit harsh but I can only judge him on my personal experience and he left a very bad impression. I was nothing but polite and respectful. In addition, I would have been well within my rights to take a photo without asking him first. Unfortunately he did not reciprocate my respect and courtesy.
In 2012, drivers will not be allowed to move back onto the racing line after having moved off it to defend their position. We haven't had a huge amount of detail or clarification on this one but it has a massive implication for all the front-runners. Basically it seems not only like the end of blocking but the end of defending, too. If drivers go off line to defend their position, presumably they can't get back onto the racing line until beyond the approaching corner. So if they're blocking on the inside, they have to stay on the inside, right up until the apex of the corner. Take the last race, the Brazilian GP. This would mean that running down from Turn 3 towards Lake Descent, Turn 4, if drivers switched to the inside (as many did) they couldn't take the corner from the normal outside line, they would have to carry on straight and come at it from an impossibly tight angle and lose a ton of time running wide on the exit. Drivers wouldn't do this, they'd not only lose time on the car that was overtaking them they'd get a lot of dust on the tyres and lose time to whoever up was coming up behind. It seems to be a rule that will make drivers stay entirely on the racing line. Thus epic defences, such as Lewis Hamilton vs Mark Webber in Korea would be a thing of the past. It would also mean that tactics like Michael Schumacher's blocking of Lewis Hamilton at Monza couldn't happen either. The strategy that grand prix drivers have been using for the last forty years has been banished in the stroke of one sporting regulation. This makes F1 less like a sport, less a contest of skill and hands more of the initiative to the telemetrists in the teams. With KERS and DRS and various fuel mixes available via the steering wheel, the teams can work out for the drivers where they can manufacture a speed advantage over the car in front and as soon as they can, they'll be past. That's an over-simplification of the process, but the duel of nerve that we saw in Hamilton vs Webber and Schumi vs Hamilton in 2011 will be a thing of history. The car in front will become more like an annoyingly speedy backmarker than anything else. Which is a shame because good defending has always been a skill in F1. Unless I've read it completely wrong, the only kind of defending that can happen now is approaching very tight, slow corners where cars steaming up tight on the inside can sit on the apex and delay any advantage of the overtaking car on the outside. Thus the run from Mirabeau down to the Lowe's Hairpin at Monaco will still be fine to block on the inside because you can't get two cars round it. It is probably going to embroil the stewards in a few more contentious decisions next year, particularly over the interpretation of where defending cars are allowed to rejoin the racing line. They've got to rejoin sooner or later! Will it indeed be the apex? Could it be one car width away from the turn-in towards the apex...? Instead of sitting down with his pipe, slippers and a steaming mug of cocoa, Charlie Whiting needs to send us a DVD of some examples from the 2011 season so we can see exactly what he's going to be looking for. More importantly, the Mercedes and Mclaren teams need to start some urgent work on their race simulators... Andrew Davies
Senna and Petrov out. http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/12/grosjean-lands-lotus-comeback-drive-alongside-raikkonen/
very interesting video with Damon Hill....mentions his Schumacher thoughts. http://smibs.tv/the-flying-lap/damon-hill-2011 do what I did....dload it and stream to the big tv.
There is an interview with Paul di Resta in Gazzetta dello Sport today, ahead of an important week for the Scotsman, as he waits to learn of his confirmation in a race seat for 2012. That announcement is due to be made on Thursday. Di Resta was famously team mate to Sebastian Vettel in F3 back in 2006 and beat him in equal cars. The Scotsman is a year older than his celebrated former colleague and took longer to break into F1 because he didnt have a BMW or a Red Bull to push him forward. Invited to draw conclusions from what their past says about their relative situations today, Di Resta takes the bait, We had the same car, same engine, same tyres and I beat him, said Di Resta. I dont want to diminish Vettels achievement (this year), but he won the championship because he had the best car. He did his job, but another driver in the same car would probably have achieved the same results. I hope one day to have the same opportunity. This is fighting talk from Di Resta and rather surprising, as he is normally pretty guarded in what he says. It smacks of jealousy of course, but he clearly wants to talk himself up and the fact that he feels he can say something like this illustrates that hes obviously feeling confident with a new contract in his pocket. The expectation is that Force India will move forward with him and Nico Hulkenberg. It is a comment that will play well with the fans who diminish Vettels achievement. He says that his target for 2011 was Only to prove that I deserve my place on the grid, and notes that in midfield you have around you three or four teams all running in more or less the same way, so its a real battle. Di Resta notes that he has no official tie to Mercedes, other than the engine that sits in the back of his Force India car.
there can ever be only one. bit like saying there are two pleff's on the planet.....................even the internet isnt big enough for that.
