Post Race discussion

At this rate, he is probably on the phone to BAR.

 

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the Mc Laren mobile home as well as in the BMW meeting room in Munich on Monday morning. I can't believe how such a top notch team got itself into such a disarray.

And I'm seriously starting to wonder whether Kimi is capable of car development. Ever since Mika left the Mc Laren's went slowly but surely downhill (they still had a great season last year, but that was the car from the previous year).

 

They are pulling a 1987-1996 Ferrari on themselves.

I think Frank should make him obey the contract he signed.

 

Something that came to mind this morning durring the race. I have noticed that Kimi seems to have far more engine failures than DC does. I just wonder if KR driving style puts more stress on the engine over DC's style?

Anyone else notice this fact?

Rob

 

Yeah, the difference is, that Kimi actually puts the accelerator to the metal.


I doubt driving style is the issue as Kimi's engines expired so early in the races/training session. If anything, Mercedes might give him a higher rev range as he is (err, was) a WC contender whereas DC is just a bread winner.

 

Last time MS won the 3 first races of the season was in 2000 and that year he won the championship.
Well I remember that year , Mika only had 6 points in those three MS wins but then McLaren and Mika woke up and they had a great season.
M. Schumacher : 108 points
Mika Hakkinen : 89 points

......McLaren has 3 weeks to prepare so anything could happen.

 

What exactly IS wrong with DC? He used to be in the hunt and in the podium - now he is relegated to the mid of the pack? What happened to him?

 

At this rate, if the 2nd place in the const. race is up for grabs as much as it is, then the other teams will divide the points up allowing Ferrari a very quick wrap up of the season!

Wow BAR Honda!

Is Honda making a comeback? If so maybe we will get another NSX after all.

 

I'm very pleased and surprised with BAR / Hondas progress. I guess getting rid of JV and his $22M salary has helped a lot. Who would have thought they would do better than McLaren at such an early stage in the season.

 

I have been thinking about that myself: Did JV's departure have anything to do with their recent success? His negative energy in the pits certainly didn't help, but then again did that have such an impact? Also I was wondering how horrible he must feel now: He wasted all those years in the BAR and when they finally become competitive, he is no longer in the picture.

Personally I think it is down to the one engine rule that they do so well. Honda made probably a bullet proof engine that can rev higher than say Mercedes without exploding. Similar story goes for Ferrari (aside from having a great car and driver). I think this year it is down to the engine and BMW and Mercedes don't seem to get their act together.

Who knew? I expected it to be a battle of the tires, but they seem to be pretty evenly matched so far.

 

The driver is the main motivator or centre of the team. If he is a **** head like JV, who has no interest in developing a car how can you expect the mechanics and engineers to be motivated.

The best thing that has happened to BAR is getting Jensen and finally confirming what we all know in that JV was never that fast and immediately beaten by a newbie. Jensen now is just getting better and better, as is Sato.

Pete

 

Hhehehe, Minardi has been more consistant then Mclaren. Too bad for F1, good for Minardi. I hope the West team dumps the piece of s*** and preps last years car. They have 3 weeks. Trim that thing and slam an old engine in it and finish in the points. Sure they won't win the season but they can get a jump on next years car and have some fun doing it. Mclarens chances at a WC are nil. Kimi's chances at a WDC are nil. They may finish 3 but not any higher.

 

Where did you hear jv made 22M?

 

I thought the race was actually pretty exciting. I know a lot of people have been saying F1 is getting boring but I thought this last race was really good. Sure Ferrari is still ahead, but there was a lot of passing action going on. I'm not sure if it's the track though.

I thought Klien did a good job in the first half of the race. Especially for a rookie driver. He gave a lot of top drivers a run for their money.

As for McLaren, what can I say? I thought they'd be ahead of BMW by now. I really don't blame Kimi for the way he's been acting. All I know is that there must be some colorful language coming out of that pit area.

 

What was crazy was to watch the blimp/helicopter shots and see the Ferrari cars FLY by the other cars down the straightaways. Poor Jordan cars looked stationary!

I thought for a minute Raikkonen was secretly driving The Fire-Breathing, Car-Eating F-Oneasarus! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! ONE DAY ONLY!!

Seriously, are they building those MB engines at the Alabama plant building the ML or something??

 

They are trying to save money by using honeycomb cardboard boxes for engines. They claim the weight they save makes up for the power loss and catching fire thing.
Ad for their engines:
Hi, we have engines that can rev to 18,500! And they are very solid for over 16 miles! You can't go wrong with seldomfinish engines! Buy one and get the next sixteen free! Only $29.95! And we will throw in a set of stake knives, vacume bags and a little keychain thing.
So now you know why they have these engines.

They wanted the keychain!

 

Yes, they seem to be mired in worsening performance since Mika left. I had to laugh when one of the Speed commentators today suggested that they go back to last year's car, which of course was the car from the year before that! I'm willing to give Kimi a little slack on car development aspect because of his relatively tender age, but what's wrong with Coulthard? Can't he contribute anything?

I think the BMW/Williams setup is making good progress on the technical front, it is their drivers who seem to be the weak links, especially Ralf. JPM can be very quick and he seems to be maturing in his race sense, not taking unnecessary risks as much as he used to do.

John

 

i just saw the encore on speed


that was freaking awsome when the mclaren was shooting flames out the back


you could see the body and the wing being incinerated

 

I would have to agree there... particularly Ralf. I thought Ralf was pretty solid last year, if a bit uninspiring. But this year he has seemed surprisingly amateur. For example, WTF was that with Sato?

 

Yes he was in a lose lose situation there ... Just like with Weber last race. I'd be worried about my future if I was RS.

Pete

 

I think they should can him and switch with a driver from Minardi. RS is way too full of himself, as exemplified by his on-track attitude. One can only wonder if he thinks that given a Ferrari, he would be beating brother Michael as well.

He's almost as overpaid as that useless J. Villeneuve was. At least Frank Williams will put him in his place. Did you see Patrick Head during the race? He looked like he was going to kill someone.

--Dan

 

Talking of Minardi wich is the only other Italian team why dont Ferrari let thm have their engines instead of sauber?

 

It would cost Minardi more to lease a Ferrari motor than what there current annual budget is right now. And even if they were runninf Ferrari motors i dont think it would help them much in the results.

 

Don't get me started now. Sauber is a midfield team, Minardi is a hopeless end of field team.

Granted the current Sauber sucks, but we knew that going into the season as it was their last car developed without their new state of the art wind tunnel. The car will get better during the season, but I still don't expect much from it this year.

Minardi uses reworked Arrows parts from years past. Plleaazeee.