Formula One 2009 I

[Iskaral Pust]

I miss F1. I was a big fan of Schumacher back in the day, starting with his brief stay at Jordan, the early glory with Bennetton and the resurrection and dominance of Ferrari. Hill, Villeneuve and Hakkinen all provided good competition over the years.

I stopped watching when I moved to the US because the coverage is so crap. I still read the occasional BBC report (a little wistfully). Maybe I'll follow it a little closer this season and get back into it.

[DJDonegal]

BBC's internet coverage of the practice session is awesome. Being stuck at work I can't watch it somewhere else, but this is more than making up for it!

Barrichello is currently fastest as I type. :)

[DJDonegal]

Well both the Williams and Brawn (Barrichello ahead of Button) cars came through the first practice session in the top 6, with Ferrari (Raikonnen) and McLaren (Kovalainen) having a car each in there to round it out. The two Williams actually led the session with Rosberg ahead of Nakajima.

[Gerold Hightower]

[quote name='Slick Mongoose' post='1734830' date='Mar 26 2009, 23.41']So these controversial diffusers have been ruled legal (pending an appeal).

Why couldn't they have been ruled legal weeks ago? Is it because they weren't officially part of the car for a race until now?[/quote]
The FIA said they are legal weeks ago but apparently that isn't worth much as long as the parts in question haven't been actually used in a GP.

[Vestrit]

[quote name='williamjm' post='1734737' date='Mar 26 2009, 21.33']Is Brundle not doing the grid walks any more? I know he's still doing commentary. It'll feel odd not having a race buildup with the inevitable exchange of snide remarks between Brundle and Bernie Ecclestone. I think the most excruciating bits tended to be when the producers despatched him to interview some celebrity on the grid and Brundle and the celebrity clearly had no idea who the other was.[/quote]

Maybe he is still doing them then. Sorry, assumption on my part.

I thought the excruciating bit was the rushing around, desperately trying to find someone who will talk to him.

He had some great moments though, all captured on [url="http://www.brundlequotes.com/"]this website[/url]

[quote]Liz Hurley: “We’re going up to the first corner for the take-off, whatever they call it here.”
Martin: “It’s called the Start.”

“We’ve got 120,000 people … (Jean Todt walks across the front of the camera) … Don’t worry, Jean, we’ll cut that bit out of the programme.”

Martin: “What brings you to the grid today?”
Macey Gray: “Oh, the races.”
Martin: “Yeah, OK, I kind of guessed.”[/quote]

[williamjm]

[quote name='Vestrit' post='1735417' date='Mar 27 2009, 08.45']He had some great moments though, all captured on [url="http://www.brundlequotes.com/"]this website[/url][/quote]

He should really be ashamed of this one:
"(Martin jogs along the grid to find Bryan Adams) “Bryan! Glad I caught up with you – had to Run to You!”"

Anyway, the Friday practice times seem to suggest that Williams, Toyota, Brawn and Red Bull seem to have the pace since they're the only cars within a second of Rosberg in the second practice session (although Raikonen was also reasonably fast in the first session so maybe Ferrari aren't too far off). Mclaren look hopelessly off the pace, only the Toro Rosso looks as slow, they even seemed outpaced significantly by the Force Indias which I bet they weren't expecting.

Who do we think might take the pole? I'm tempted to go for Trulli since he's seemingly got a fast car judging from the practice times and he's always been one of the best drivers at getting the maximum pace out of his car (pity he can't do the same for an entire race distance).

[DJDonegal]

I have my ticket in my hand! Should be a good day tomorrow. :)

I've also put a $10 bet on Button finishing ahead of Hamilton in the race tomorrow. I'll quote what he said as we shook hands, "You idiot. Hamilton is the man, I look forward to drinking your $10 tomorrow."

Even before we shook hands I tried to tell him of the poor McLaren winter, and the Friday practice session times. I just hope this translates in qualifying and the race itself. :thumbsup:

[burnt hound]

Button has pole!!! With Barichello second. Wow, Brawn GP looks hot. Without effort, they drove past the competition. Buttons has pole for the fourth time in his career, but with a car this good, he'll get a lot more this season.

I thought that the Ferraris would be better than they were. With seventh and ninth place, things are not looking good for tomorrow. And if things are bleak for Ferrari, they are worse for McLaren. Ouch. Slow, slow slow.

Vettel continues to show that he is really good. Glock too. Williams are stepping up too; their car is the best one they have made in years.

I am quite optimistic about 2009: it will be a kick-ass year :thumbsup: .

[Gerold Hightower]

With KERS and the reduced downforce overtaking should have become much easier. I am not sure that the qualifying is still as vital as it used to be. We'll also have to wait and see how the cars perform over the whole distance of 300 km and how reliable they are. Then there's fuel consumption, tyre wear, and how well everybody's setup works in the race. Lots of unknowns. But so far things certainly look good for Brawn.

[theMountainGoat]

A very exciting qualifying session. Q2 was incredible - just 6 tenths of a second between first place and being out?

This bodes well for an exciting season especially if the Ferrari and McLaren add the new diffuser in a couple of races time but it does not put them a clear second ahead of the others. If everyone stays this close there could be a dozen title contendors this year.

Fairytale stuff for Brawn GP. In the words of Richard Branson "I'm one lucky bastard!"

Even if the result is overturned because of the diffuser thing it will be exciting to see if the cars really can stay close behind each other and have a genuine go at overtaking. Can't wait for the race tomorrow - have a good time DJ!

[williamjm]

[quote name='serMountainGoat' post='1736824' date='Mar 28 2009, 14.37']A very exciting qualifying session. Q2 was incredible - just 6 tenths of a second between first place and being out?[/quote]

It's probably one of the closest qualifying sessions in terms of time. I think even the back-markers like Force India are much closer now in terms of time to the leaders than they have been in the past. It certainly doesn't look like any one team is going to dominate this season, Brawn do look the team to beat at the moment but there's not a huge gap behind them and I wouldn't be surprised to see some other teams catch up during the season. It should be a fun season :)

[burnt hound]

Stupid Daylight Saving Time :tantrum: . Missed the first half because of it. Argh! What I saw was awesome. Brawn GP was as good as they looked on Saturday. Button seemed to cruise to victory, getting his second win. Barichello ended up second.

The Crash. Wow. Vettel and Kubica crashed with three laps to go. Sp spectacular. Kubica had the harder tires, so he would have overtaken Vettel anyway. The soft tires didn't seem to last very long. Perhaps Kubica could have taken Button too?

Kudos to Trulli for getting third. The Toyota's are looking good. Hamilton fourth, which was a surprise. Ferrari struck out, really struck out. BMW was actually better than I had expected. Well, I need to watch the re-run now :) .

Several teams competing for the gold, this is great!!!

[Slick Mongoose]

If Trulli's penalty is upheld, Hamilton will take 3rd. Amazing.

[theMountainGoat]

It really was a fairytale day for Brawn GP, its like Kubica and Vettel had no choice but to crash to allow Barrichello to complete the story. Very happy for Jensen he totally deserves this success and I hope that the diffuser is held up as legal so this result does not get changed. I also find it hard to believe Button did so well when his drinks bottle failed, at the end of the race he looked so fresh, did not look dehydrated at all. Pretty incredible effort and good fitness level to manage that.

As an exercise in damage limitation Hamilton could not have done better really. But then with other drivers making mistakes and Ferrari's reliability issues the McLaren would not have taken that place on performance alone. I don't expect their pace to improve much before the Spanish GP in May. I'm not sure what happened to Kimi, just looked like he lost it when he accelerated out of the corner, very strange.

Did Webber break an entire shop full of mirrors as well as his leg and shoulder? The only luck he gets is bad luck. Congratulations though to Sebastian Beumi - for a rookie who was 2 seconds off the back of the field on Friday he really did an outstanding job to bring the car home in 7th place. Why is it only drivers called Sebastian can drive for Torro Rosso?

One thing I do have to say is that it does not really look like all the aerodynamic and tyre changes have made that much difference to the overtaking abilities of the cars, Rosberg seemd to be the only one who could overtake consistently, such a shame he had that bad pit stop. I think the performance of the cars is just so close that it is really difficult to overtake. I am not convinced that KERS is the answer. I think the weight of it offsets any gain that could be made from it and I expect it will be dropped sooner or later. Perhaps they need to use a boost system similar to what is used in A1 GP. But maybe on some of the modern circuits we will see better opportunities for overtaking, the Malaysian GP next weekend will be a good test of this.

I think the technical challenge this year will be how to manage the car when using the super soft tyre. It is great for qualifying but it is a disaster in the making when used in the race. Its like everyone needs two completely different set ups to deal with the change from harder to softer tyres and whichever team can manage that the most effectively will stand the best chance of success.

Lets hope things continue the way it has started and we will be in for a very exciting year of racing.

[Brude]

That crash near the end was crazy and totally unnecessary. They had the audio of one of the two drivers (I forget which) saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," over the headset after. The announcers seemed to think it was both their faults though.

[Blue Roses]

Happy to see Britain on top - Ferrari no where and snivelling Alonso not on podium. Good result all round :thumbsup:

Well done Button - about time he got a decent car.

[Daeric]

[quote]That crash near the end was crazy and totally unnecessary. They had the audio of one of the two drivers (I forget which) saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," over the headset after. The announcers seemed to think it was both their faults though.[/quote]

That was Vetel with the sorry comments Brude.

And it does seem that Tulli's 25 second penalty is being upheld for the moment, so 3rd place for Hamilton which frankly is a brilliant result that fell into his lap considering how his car seems to be performing at the moment.

[red snow]

It looks like this season could be really close. The Brawn team, while probably the strongest, are by no means all powerful.
It's still too early to say whether the new rules are going to mean more racing as it appeared from the coverage that only Barichello and Hamilton were doing a lot of racing.
I was really impressed with Hamilton. He may not have the best car but he is showing that he is a determined racer. He may not have it so easy this year but if he continues to drive like this, he will convince naysayers he really is a worthy champion.

Good to see Button getting a good result. It will be interesting how the media will behave if this becomes his season, after been ignored for the last few years.

It was great to watch the race without any adverts and on the whole the coverage was very good. I still think the new commentary team needs a few races to work together properly though as there wuite a lot of interruptions.

[DJDonegal]

Great race, great day. Track invasion afterwards - always wanted to do that. :)

[williamjm]

I agree it was a great race. Only unfortunate part was the long safety car period in the middle of the race which did seem excessive as they seemed to keep it out for a long time after Nakajima's car had been cleared away. It was an impressive drive by Button, I guess he's the early Championship favourite although we'll have to see if the other teams can move closer to Brawn. Barichello was a bit lucky to get second after having so many incidents, but does look to have plenty of pace as well. Vettel's pace looked very close as well, he never seem to fall much further back than about 5 or 6 seconds.

I was impressed with Buemi as well, a good drive for a rookie who had been getting some early criticism. One thing that hasn't changed with the new season is Mark Webber's luck. At least he has a fast car this year, maybe he will be able to get some of the results his talent deserves.