The F1 Thread -2007

Formula 1 is turning into one big joke. It's almost as if F1 is intentionally being turned into a soap opera in an attempt to make it more exiting.

What's next? Lewis Hamilton to be revealed as Bernie Ecclestone's long lost illegitimate son?
 
rednev said:
Formula 1 is turning into one big joke. It's almost as if F1 is intentionally being turned into a soap opera in an attempt to make it more exiting.

What's next? Lewis Hamilton to be revealed as Bernie Ecclestone's long lost illegitimate son?
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Ecclestone has been the death of this sport, it's fecking sad to see it's demise from what it was, it's been going downhill slowly for years.

He needs forcing out.
 
Of course if they hadn't have fannied about with the perfectly good points system of 10 for a win, 6 for second, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for the remaining top six places, none of this would be an issue. Even with any potential qualification, by my recknoning Kimi would still be world champion
 
crappycraperson said:
Last thing F1 needed this season.
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But typical of it all the same.

You can only shake your head in wonder at the possibility of yet another chapter to the story.

Forgive me for i don't know the inner workings as regards appeals and such and how far this could potentially go but, could McLaren take it all the way to the courts if they so wished for instance? Or to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland specifically?

Could turn into a right scandal, circus, soap opera e.t.c.
 
Brad Cantona said:
Of course if they hadn't have fannied about with the perfectly good points system of 10 for a win, 6 for second, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for the remaining top six places, none of this would be an issue. Even with any potential qualification, by my recknoning Kimi would still be world champion
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I think that was just another one of those things to increase the 'fun' in the sport as it allows for a more closer title race even if you win more than the others.

I remember Schumacher speaking out about it once but then it was probably brought in to stop him winning!

Formula One is getting infested with too much money all that jazz.
 
There is no way they'll dock them their driver's championship points to change the world championship due to how bad it would make the sport look. My guess is they will lose the constructors points as some kind of weird compromise. In reality they should be disqualified for the breach of rules though...
 
Alonso finished on the same points as Hamilton, but the Spaniard was classified as third on countback.

The problem that could yet see Hamilton installed as the first man to win the title in his first season is a fuel temperature irregularity on the Williams and BMW Sauber cars.

A statement from the sport's governing body, the FIA, said the fuel in the cars was "more than [the permitted] 10 degrees below the ambient temperature".

Filling the car with cooler fuel can give a car an advantage.

Cooler fuel is denser, so either it can mean it takes slightly less time to refuel the car or marginally more can be added in the same time.

And it would give a slight power advantage for about three laps before it returned to ambient temperature out on the track.

Excluding the cars would risk turning one of the most exciting championship finales in F1 history into a farce.

But if the cars are found to have run fuel below the legal temperature, the stewards might feel obliged to disqualify them, even though the advantage conferred would almost certainly have had no bearing on the title race.

However, there is a precedent that could be used by race stewards not to exclude them.

In 1995, the Benetton-Renault of Michael Schumacher and the Williams-Renault of David Coulthard were initially disqualified from first and second places in the Brazilian Grand Prix because their fuel did not conform to samples approved by the FIA.

But a week later the FIA reinstated the drivers' points but docked the teams their constructors' points.

In that case, though, no advantage was gained by the irregularity.
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From the BBC.

Interesting, especially if it would not have had a bearing on the results - maybe they will just fine or dock points to avoid the controversy.
 
It will probably have a similar outcome to the Carlos Tevez situation at West Ham. Governing bodies don't want titles and relegations decided by controversial 'off the field' matters.
 
McLaren are no friends of the authorities though these days right? Fruitless or not, they could make it all rather uncomfortable.

If this drags, the British press will pounce on it and stir the pot good and proper in at least the short term you'd imagine. No wya to avoid controversy here IMO.
 
I'm sure many would want the sporting outcome rather than all this, including McLaren, especially since what they have been through.

I doubt they will punish them so severely for a drop of 10 degrees and a few laps of advantage as it wouldn't have effected the outcome. (all three cars in close proximity were doing it anyway)

We'll see.
 
I wouldn't be suprised if they do hand the title to Hamilton. The FIA have never been afraid of a bit of controversy and I bet they'd rather Hamilton be the poster boy of Formula One rather than Raikkonen considering he's not exactly squeaky clean.
 
RedNome said:
A bit of perspective here please, he is a rookie, his FIRST F1 season, he has been amazing this year and will be champion sooner or later, mark my words. And just for the record no one has ever been crowned champion in their first season, ever.
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Giuseppe Farina?
 
But at the end of the day like the Tevez affair, if others are abiding by the rules, why should rule breakers get away without being punished. Seems stupid to me (btw I am quite hoping West Ham go down this year small time tossers).
Also if the fuel was in from the start could it have made a bigger impact than some think?
 
kietotheworld said:
Giuseppe Farina?
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Well, anyone who won in 1950 would have been a rookie because the championship started that year. It doesn't really count because he was 40 something and had been driving before the war.
 
kietotheworld said:
Giuseppe Farina?
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Slight technicality as he was racing Grand Prix (in 1940 he won his first race) before the inaugural World Championship in 1950 which he won (obviously a number of those years there were no races due to the war)

So not technically his debut season.
 
You would have thought that there would at least be a fine.
 
Not that I care about this irrelevance of a "sport" but it can't be a good thing when Ferrari win anything.
 
Lewis Hamilton :lol:

I see great promise for the lad as the Tim Henman of Formula One.
Hopefully we will get a whole week of "we wuz robbed" in the newspapers all week.
Together with England losing that Rugby thingy (we wuz robbed)it could be a good week for national whinging.
 
Fitzjames said:
Lewis Hamilton :lol:

I see great promise for the lad as the Tim Henman of Formula One.
Hopefully we will get a whole week of "we wuz robbed" in the newspapers all week.
Together with England losing that Rugby thingy (we wuz robbed)it could be a good week for national whinging.
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The potato famine

A great thing
 
Fitzjames said:
Lewis Hamilton :lol:

I see great promise for the lad as the Tim Henman of Formula One.
Hopefully we will get a whole week of "we wuz robbed" in the newspapers all week.
Together with England losing that Rugby thingy (we wuz robbed)it could be a good week for national whinging.
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Bullshit.
 
lizardking125 said:
Don't know why everyone's on Hamilton's back, it was his debut season and I'd say he's performed pretty fecking well.
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Im not on his back. I would have liked him to have won. (Cant say same about the Rugger Buggers).
The English press has a unique way of building people up an then knocking them down. Tim Henman should have been a hero cept most English people were turned off because he had the misfortune to be middle class.
His record is actually extremely good. But Mock the Week, They Think Its All Over....hes a national joke. And its unfair.
The media would love a British F! Champion but paradoxically they would be just as happy if Lewis Hamilton became the next Tim Henman.

Three weeks ago the Rugby Team were not fit to wear the shirt. Yet now national heroes.
England v Russia for 70 minutes the team/McLaren were heroes ..then the fan hits the shi.........oops the other way round.

Basically the English media prepare at least two stories for every event.
"Hamilton wins Title"
"Hamilto Blows It"
"Hamilton robbed by nasty people with foreign accents"
"Page 3 Stunnas comfort Lewis"
 
Fitzjames said:
Im not on his back. I would have liked him to have won. (Cant say same about the Rugger Buggers).
The English press has a unique way of building people up an then knocking them down. Tim Henman should have been a hero cept most English people were turned off because he had the misfortune to be middle class.
His record is actually extremely good. But Mock the Week, They Think Its All Over....hes a national joke. And its unfair.
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Very true about the media its a bit embarrassing really. The worse thing is that people think we all have the same opinion of what the media write. I don’t like all this stuff they have been writing today in the papers about Lewis, they are pretty much calling him a national failure.
 
lizardking125 said:
Don't know why everyone's on Hamilton's back, it was his debut season and I'd say he's performed pretty fecking well.
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To be honest, he has had an amazing season. He will be even better next season since traction control is removed and it suits his style. Expect Button also to do well if he has a good car as he is brilliant in the rain.

The dark horses for next season are BMW. They have been focussing more on next season than this. Their drivers were the only ones on the grid this season running half their practise/testing without traction control.
 
TheReligion said:
The potato famine

A great thing
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How idiot can one be for bringing this out as you talk about SPORTS?
Not that Fitz needs my defence, but just for the record: Ireland's GDP per capita is today higher than UK's. So, who's the underdog?

Hang yourself by the balls.
 
Raikkonen the playboy king

While his rivals were in Australia preparing for the first Grand Prix of the season, Kimi Raikkonen was back home in Finland taking part in a snowmobile race.

To ensure no-one found out about it, he entered the event under a false name - James Hunt, a choice of pseudonym that says much more about Formula One's new world champion than the man himself ever will.

Hunt, the 1976 world champion, is the man who most personifies the image of the Formula One playboy lifestyle, and Raikkonen is the modern driver who comes closest to following the model.

So it is in some ways a surprise that, despite his elevated status within F1, Raikkonen has virtually no profile with the public at large.

In other ways, though, it is not.

He answers the media's questions with as few words as he can get away with, in a metallic monotone of a voice, refusing to reveal almost any part of his real personality to the media.

But Raikkonen does not lack character. It is just that he prefers to hide it from all but those closest to him.

The 28-year-old Finn has a sharp mind and a laconic sense of humour, and he eschews the ascetic lifestyle and demanding work ethic of the man Ferrari signed him to replace, Michael Schumacher.

Taking part in an endurance snowmobile race on the other side of the world a week before the first race of a season in which you have joined a new team and are the favourite for the world title would be dismissed as madness by most in F1.

Most drivers would - and did - go out to Australia early, the better to get over jet lag and acclimatise.

But not only did Raikkonen do it, win the snowmobile race, and get away with it, but he then went out and won the Australian Grand Prix as well.

It is this sort of refusal to conform to F1's accepted practices that has led to Raikkonen being accused of not working hard enough at his job.

He is known to have a taste for a drink, and a few years ago he famously made the British tabloid newspapers for his antics in a London lap-dancing club.

And behaviour like that leaves Raikkonen open to criticism when things do not go his way.

The way Raikkonen chooses to live his life away from the race track is no secret in F1.

So fingers were pointed and eyebrows raised when he struggled in his next few races at Ferrari this season, being generally overshadowed by team-mate Felipe Massa, a man considered to have nowhere near Raikkonen's level of talent.

Certainly after Schumacher's willingness to devote long, long hours to the team, Ferrari found it hard to adjust to working with a man who preferred to leave the track as soon as he could after he had finished driving.

But there were other factors, too, most notably having to come to terms with a new tyre very different from that he had been used to at McLaren - a problem that sounds trivial, but which is anything but, and which also afflicted Alonso this season.

When Raikkonen did start to get on top of his new environment, he was hit by problems - some car failures, some his own mistakes.

Since the British Grand Prix in July, though, he has been F1's dominant force, taking four wins, two seconds and two thirds from nine races, and retiring from the other.

And while this is probably the last thing English sporting fans want to hear after a weekend in which the country's representatives twice stumbled on the verge of the ultimate sporting glory, it could be argued that Raikkonen is the most deserving champion this season.

That view is probably harsh on Lewis Hamilton, who has been so outstanding in his debut season, and seems certain to establish himself as the finest driver in the world over the next few seasons.

But while Raikkonen may have come late into the reckoning, the Ferrari driver finishes the season with six victories - two more than any of his rivals.

Had Hamilton's bid not been hit by such desperately bad luck in Brazil on Sunday, that would still not have been enough for the 28-year-old Finn to emerge as champion.

But Raikkonen's win tally accurately reflects his status as arguably the out-and-out fastest driver in the sport - a position to which Hamilton himself may soon lay claim.

For Hamilton is not the only driver to be hit by back luck this season - Raikkonen himself has had plenty.

The Ferrari star twice retired with mechanical failure earlier in the season, and those problems cost him 14 points - more than enough to have put him at the head of the trio of drivers going into the final race with a chance of the title, rather than the back.

Neither Hamilton nor his McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso failed to finish as a result of problems with their car, although Hamilton can now claim to have lost a handful of points as a result of his problems at Interlagos.

While F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone may rail that Raikkonen "barely talks to anyone and has done little for the sport", no-one in F1 has any doubts about his ability in the car.

Ferrari, after all, signed him for this season on a reputed stratospheric retainer of £25m as a replacement for Schumacher, the most successful driver in the history of the sport.

F1 teams do not pay out those sorts of sums without good reason, and Raikkonen was deemed worthy of it because of what he had already proved since he started his career in the sport in 2001.

Had luck gone his way, he could easily have just won his third world title rather than his first, for he came close to beating Schumacher in 2003 and Alonso in 2005 when he was driving for McLaren, the team whose hearts he has just broken.

The dramatic reversal of fortunes in Brazil on Sunday was hard on the McLaren drivers, and Hamilton in particular, for either of them would have made a worthy world champion.

But that description applies equally to the man who did win it.

And next year, with a year in his current team under his belt, he will be more formidable again.
 
Alonso: Decision in the first week of November

Decision on Alonso soon - Dennis

The future of Fernando Alonso will be decided by the first week of November, according to McLaren boss Ron Dennis.

It is anticipated that the two-time world champion will move on in the wake of a turbulent debut season with them.

But Alonso said yesterday he had not spoken to another team, while Dennis insisted the matter would be addressed over "the next two weeks."

He said: "We feel we have a pretty clear understanding of the future, but we have not discussed it in detail."

Dennis added: "The issue of the drivers is an issue we have continuously told you we will address at the end of the season, and it will be addressed over the course of the next two weeks.

"I can tell you we have given it thought, but not thought we can share with you."

With Alonso's contract at McLaren running through to 2008, and with an option for a third year, he may feel elect to ride the storm of another potentially rocky season.

The 26-year-old also surprisingly revealed yesterday that Renault would not be his first choice, even if he were to leave.

It had been widely speculated Alonso would happily return to the team that made him champion in 2005 and 2006.

Renault boss Flavio Briatore has also made no secret of his desire to see the Spaniard drive for him again.

But there are few teams in Formula One who could match Alonso's multi-million pound salary.

One door was shut last week when Felipe Massa signed a new, three-year deal with Ferrari, while Alonso closed another himself in turning his back on a move to Toyota.

Massa may have a new deal but Ferrari remain impressed with Alonso. Team president Luca di Montezemolo said: "Alonso is world class in every sense.

"I have appreciated very much his sportsmanship. He lost by one point and I believe it wasn't his fault."

Dennis has barely spoken to Alonso since their bust-up on the morning of the Hungarian Grand Prix in early August.

When asked whether he was glad the season was finally over given the stress and pressure of the spy scandal, and a number of other off-track problems, Dennis said: "Well, I am not glad it is over with the lack of a world championship.

"Understandably a few days will help the bruising, but at the end of the day it has been a great season and both drivers have got good results. It is just disappointing neither of them won the world championship."

Alonso and fellow McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton ended the season with 109 points each, just one behind champion Kimi Raikonnen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7058417.stm
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Already gone? Probably, and I bet the decision has already been made.

I do actually think there is a small possibility that he stays on for another year and actually bounces back from what I think has been a poor showing from him this season, whether his fault or not.
 
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