Thank you for the answer, that makes sense, pity . imperial83, I did fast forward the recording a few times as I had to go to work ... but after the final pitstop I thought they were miles apart, obviously I am wrong. BTW: faking attempts to pass near the end of the race ... does not make me believe RB is not under team orders or is really trying. When RB accidentally bumps MS in an attempted pass then I will believe he is REALLY racing. I'm starting to become a Sato and JPM fan, atleast they try ... but they do make plenty of mistakes. Pete
150% agree with this statement, and have less respect for RB for accepting such terms, especially now. When he first joined Ferrari fair enough, but now that MS has won everything but RB's family, I think it is time for RB to tell Ferrari and MS to fnck off ... and I do not care if it causes friction in the team and ruins the super team. A man can only take so much. My respect for MS as a person is getting lower and lower everytime he screws over RB like he did today. Show some respect to another person MS ... a person that has given his career to helping you. I do not normally believe in playing games on the race track but it has become time for this number 2 BS to stop ... Pete
Between Schumacher's multiple moves that did constitute blocking, the two minutes it took to get to Ralf's car after the accident, and black-flagging JPM after 60 laps, you'd think NASCAR was running this show after the past 3 weeks of confusion. Barrichello drove balls out, and I think at his last pit stop they held him in the pits to give him 2 extra seconds of fuel so Michael could beat him on the front straight. He only needed 5-6 seconds odf fuel and they gave him 8 seconds' worth. IMHO when Rubens is in a position to win clean, something will come up to slow him down. Just like when Eddie Irvine was going for the championship after Michael broke his leg. God forbid someone other than Michael should compete in a Ferrari for the championship
No, i do not know what his contract states. But after seeing the race today, one clearly saw that Rubens drove his heart out. he wanted to win. He did everything short of ploughing into the back Michael. Anyone that actually saw todays race and still thinks Rubens is under team orders not to win is blind. I mean actually saw the race. Not just looked at the TV screen with the blind narrow minded anti Michael Schumacher / Ferrari sentiment. A great race from two great drivers and a great 1-2 for Ferrari.
Sorry Imperial83, this statement is not true. Now I have since learnt that on the restart he suffered wheelspin and thus this enabled MS to get up the inside, but REMEMBER the leading car controls the speed up to the start finish line after a safety car. All RB had to do was slow the pace again and this would have stuffed MS's pass. RB's car has mirrors he would have known that MS had the jump on him and did NOTHING about it. Hardly doing everything. Once RB got wheelspin, he should have backed off and tried again and kept MS guessing. I do not hate MS ... I now am getting sick and tired of MS and Ferrari screwing over RB. Now either RB lets them, or some people in Ferrari have no soul or compassion to another human being. Yawn. Ferrari winning is not important it is how they win. Winning by arguably cheating during the safety car period (ie. pitting and then resuming the lead ... which BTW is impossible during a safety car as you have to rejoin the tail of the safety car queue) and then playing a 'game' of racing simple patronises us the spectators. Ferrari are treating us all as fools and RB as the number 1 fool. Pete
This world has no shortage of critics and conspiracy theorists. (Sarcasm) Yes, ok Rubens is bound by team contract he can never ever win when he drives for Ferrari.... oh the poor Rubens.... oh Rubens is being heeled back by Ferrari. Oh this is bad for F1. Ferrari are destroying F1. Blame Ferrari for it all. They are cheating everyone. Michael win by only cheating(Sarcasm). Yes that is why Rubens is currently celebrating his 16 points from two races. Formula 1 is a team sport. You require two drivers in two cars to win the contructors championship. Talk of removing Rubens and having only Michael is ridiculous. The funny part is Ferrari won. Michael was very happy. Rubens was very happy. The true Ferrari fans were all over the moon. Whilst the conspiracy theorists and ferrari opponents keep on yelling foul. On to Magny - Cours (French GP) and the true Ferrari fans dream on for anothe Ferrari 1 - 2. Regardless of it is Michael or Rubens at the front when they cross the finishline.
Imperial83, My last comment on this. There is a right way to win in sports and a wrong way. Ferrari are currently using the wrong way . There are ethics in all things in life ... Ferrari also should never have been 1 & 2 at the end of the safety car period for the restart anyway, because the BARs did not pit ... thus somebody stuffed up and allowed the Ferraris to take the incorrect positions in the safety car queue. I have read the drivers briefing on www.f1-live.com and this is not mentioned or brushed over ... again who the hell was running the USGP, because they should be sacked! Does that make you feel good about winning? I like to win when it is fair and square and I gave it my best, not for cheating whether accidental or not. Pete
The Race officials, the FIA, the other team officials... no one says they cheated or has appealed against the result. But you must be the world authority on cheating. Does that mean that everyone in the FIA, the race officials, all the team officials (Williams, McLaren, Minardi, Jordan etc) they have all sold out. None of them have argued about the race results or how it was run? So you mean to tell me that they are all cheating. they all want ferrari to win, they all want Ferrari to be a lap ahead. You mean Eddie Jordon is just goin to let Ferrari win. You mean Sir Frank Williams is not going to yell foul if Ferrari really cheated. Oh ok!! Ferrari cheated... if you say so! I mean you must be the F1 world authority on ethics. Everyone else has apparently sold out and is just leeting Ferrari get away with being one lap down. Yeah right... it was a clear ferrari victory.
As I said on the other parallel thread, I will check my tape of the race tonight, and if you are right then no problem . With the very amature running of this USGP then anything could have happened. Note: I am not saying Ferrari deliberately cheated, but if they did pit behind a safety car queue and then rejoined in places 1 & 2 ... somebody stuffed up Pete
Yes, that is you thnking somebody stuffed up. But do you think all the team heads, all the team managers, all those officials at the race... EVERYONE STUFFED UP!!!!! No one, no one has contested the result... NOT A SINGLE OFFICIAL!!! So you think everyone stuffed up and just let Ferrari win!!!! REALLY!!!!
Good point. Personally I think the rules should change then, ie. if a full course yellow the cars that pit should not be allowed to leave until the safety car is deployed and then they can join the rear of the queue. Lets think about it. The last place we need racing drivers racing is in a full course yellow, we should be thinking about the possibly injured driver(s) NOT allowing drivers and teams to be clever with tactics. Pete
Interesting comment on the official F1 website: "He lost control of his Williams after a left-rear puncture heading into the final turn, span and hit the concrete wall on the outside of the track backwards at very high speed - his car eventually coming to rest next to the pitwall. Racefans held their breath as the German stayed almost motionless in his car - but the medical team led by Professor Sid Watkins was quickly on the scene and Ralf was extracted and sent to hospital where it was confirmed he had suffered nothing worse than bruising. He will be kept in overnight as a precautionary measure." The medical team was quickly on the scene? It seems like they are trying to downplay the incident here. Edit: And RB's comments: "Yeah, it is very unfortunate in a way. It is good to have a one-two again and we must be part of our team and everything but I am just disappointed because really, more than Canada, more than ever, I thought I had the win in my hands. I had a quick car and I was driving well and I was pushing like hell in all those laps. Unfortunately there was something on the racing track, I dont know what, a piece of white stuff, when I got out of turn four that affected my lap. I lost more than a second and a half at that stage and it was two laps to come to the pits and I didnt know whether the car was behaving or not because it was a big shunt on the wheel. That is probably the second that Michael won back." Q: And then you really had a go at Michael. RB: I did at one stage because I had new tyres and he was already using the tyres. There was no way to pass. Unfortunately he closed the door fairly and there was no point. So, again, just Canada and the US I scored 16 points, happily, but both I could have won, so there is no ifs, I go out of here happy but wanting to win sooner than ever. RB: "I am now keener than ever to win a race as soon as possible."
The official perod to contect the results is over. The results have been sent to the press and media. If someone had contested the results, there would have been a cry of murder on just about every sports news wire and the interent F1 sites like crash.net and f1live.com by now. This race is stamped sealed and shut. Ferrari 1 - 2. Great race driven by two great drivers.
Quickly on the scene my a**. The IRL "rescue" crew is usually at the car before it even stops moving - what we was today was absurd. Ralf was obviously unconcious for a period before somewhat coming to - and there wasn't anyone around to help him at all. Amazing.
Finally we agree, I could not believe the incendent with Ralf and how it was handled. It was disgusting. I could not believe that the f***king race cars were overtaking an ambulance with an injured driver. I could not belive that the ambulance took so much time to get there. I was overall disgusted that they let the race go on while a race driver could have potentially lost his life. I do not claim to know how things should be changed. But dammit if their is a race driver injured in an ambulance I know he should not have to wait for race cars to go by first. Nor there should be any for of racing, pit stops or racing tactics being deployed. Sadly the rules and how they stand force Ferrari to play the game smart or else they would not win.
Good race, as expected a Ferrari 1-2, during the mid-race RB was running faster than MS but somehow MS always end up taking the flag. Sato earned his podium finish since he had to pass half the field from 11th place after his second pit. He's the most exciting driver right now, liked how he pressured Trulli to go off the field to take over 3rd place, he's acting like a japanese jpm now, great for the sport! The William's house is a complete mess, after the Montreal incident and now JPM being black flag, you have to question how incompetent are the team's management. Mclaren is quite patethic if you consider how much money and experience they have invested in that team.
I thought the same from the first TV shot... zoomed in making all the cars seem much closer than they are. But the side shot and the in-car shots showed a MUCH different series of moves. The first move was a single direction move to block Sato. Legal and well-executed. The second move had nothing to do with Sato... Sato was well-back... rather, the second move was MS looking to pass RB on the inside. MS was moving faster than RB and was right on him. The third move was MS giving up the pass when he realized he could not make it safely and he moved back in behind RB. Thus, all the moves were legal and reasonable... unless you're watching it from the front through a zoom lens, then it looked really bad.
Sato commented on this in the post-race. This relates to your comment about using pit lane behind the safety car. Pit lane speed limit = 60 MPH. Fuel stop = ~7 sec. On track, picking through debris, around ambulance, around people picking up debris = 30 or 40 mph. Going through the pits wasn't that much slower than staying on track, and Michael had a good lead over Sato to start with. And Rubens, who came in behind Michael, didn't rejoin in second. He got second back after Sato and JPM pitted later. Rubens complained about "tire spin" on the first restart. But I also remember the first USGP at Indy, where the teams, during traditional qualifying, were playing with drafting around that same corner and down that same straight, to get lower times. Michael had experience drafting Rubens along there to get more speed. But Michael often puts down qualifying type times just before a pit. Rubens was still above the 70 sec lap times before his pits, so with his comments about "something on track", it looks like maybe some of the styrofoam that Alonso blew away got onto the track. Ralf missed the "safer" barrier in the only current banked corner in F1. Didn't Rubens hit the concrete the same place in practice a couple of years ago? Those "safer" barriers were installed on the "super speedway" for IRL cars ... which run in the other direction. Looks like they should have extended them a bit for F1. That did seem like a really long time before the emergency crew responded. But even if they had red-flagged the race, the S/F line was just beyond the accident site, so all the cars could have gone by at least once. And I remember those heavily censored videos of a course worker going out on track in the '70s ... and getting hit by an F1 car. Gruesome.
I think most everything has been said here except that indy is a disaster. They should host Formula 1 in California. Hell, thunderhill is a better venue. Would be great if laguna had the capacity. --Dan
I think I made this point earlier, but answering your comments will hopefully make my thoughts clearer. Thus we now have a situation where a serious accident has occured and we have a race between cars that have chosen to pit and cars that are treading their way around a possibly injured driver that needs medical attention. These stupid rules are encouraging the drivers to be reckless ... and putting marshalls and the injured driver at MORE risk. There should be no way that the drivers that did not pit are penalised for driving carefully around a damaged car that still contains the driver. Morally the rules are wrong and Ferrari benefited by taking advantage of an injured drivers car blocking the track. Not knocking Ferrari for this but FIA. or the people who ran the USGP. The pitlane should have been closed to not allow those that pitted to exit until the other went past ... The rules need to be changed before the next race IMO. Pete EDIT: Another reason why simply banning pitting during the safety car makes so much sense ... from a safety point of view.
I agree completely. This seems to be a very simple, obvious and much needed rule change instead of the hundreds of arcane convoluted and pretty useless rules that FIA has been introducing.
Ah. Yes, I can see that point. But just clumping up traffic behind the safety car makes for tactical advantage to whoever got behind the SC first, too. I guess that the ideal situation -- for safety and fairness -- would be to put up red lights around the track and have everyone stop wherever they are until the obstruction is cleared (a "freeze"). But that wouldn't be so good for the cars, to be sitting idling on course. Heck, even my Ferrari doesn't like sitting at a long traffic light.
How about cars are not allowed to pit until the safety car is correctly deployed and all cars are queued up behind it (and you have passed the start finish line atleast once in this format ... for the legal beagles amongst us). Thus if you pit you WILL end up and the end of the queue, and thus NO racing will occur during a full course yellow until the safety car appears, because you will not gain anything. While I am 100% a racer, safety has to come first when we are talking yellow flag situations. You cannot tell me that MS and RB did not race full speed into the pits to get that advantage ... amazing since his brother was sitting in his race car possible badly injured ... What a great thing to show my son. Now when the other guy has had an accident and may be close to dead, race real hard and gain that advantage caused by a rule opening. Don't worry about the risk, just go for it Son ... thanks to that accident you may win this one Pete
