lets talk motorsport......
 

as you may know, im a bit of a motorsport nut.... and the new f1 season is 6 weks away. anyone got anythoughts on the upcoming season or am i the only one willing to admit to a love of this passionate, cerebral and beautiful sport... (any motorsport, not just f1 by the way)

my personal opinion is that ferrari will either walk it or it will be a close run thing between raikkonen, alonso, the bmws and bars. not to mention the great new talents in lewis hamilton and keikki kovailenen.....

im saying ferrari because they are the only car that has a long wheelbase something which is deemed a disadvantage with the current areodynamic regulations and trends. they have either got it totally arse over elbow, which is unlikely or they have found something that everyone missed, remember all teams are using the same tyre this year and that will make a difference.

cant wait for melbourne in march........

anyway, thoughts people???????????????

I have tried to watch racing, of all sorts, but it doesn't really move me to watch it again. People are crazy about NASCAR here, but I don't get it.

I do like to keep up with the Dakar Rally, however. That is pretty wild.

i think you have to be american to get nascar. im not a fan at all. i actually find it boring! i love oval racing, the indy racing league, indy 500, champ cars whenever they race on an oval and i love touring car racing but nascar just seems too processional for my liking. i know that sounds mental as i know theyre are more overtaking in one lap of nascar than an entire season of f1 but it just doent grab me. i do see the idolisation of dale earnhart and others as beingjustified tho. i mean you cant drive flat out for 3 hours at 200 mph millimeters from cars without having divine skill. ill try again to watch daytona next month and give nascar another chance as i do every year for nearly 15 years now!

the dakar, thats just an endurance test of both man and machine. its an awesome event, the bikes are truly nuts!

I can't even be bothered with watching a minute of it, the Daytona that is. Just the thought makes me sleepy.

just incase you think motorsport is dull. watch this from an irl race in texas 3 years ago. the driver in question is swedens kenny brack. he is back this year in training for a serious testing role with a top irl team. the man should not have survived this horrible accident.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fdCsoIh2_E


and of course the hero, alex zanardi of italy. racing in the champ car series in germany in sept 2001. this accident should have killed him but instead he lost his legs pretty much instantly. he is now back bigtime and is a favourite to clinch the world touring car championship for bmw in 2007 .this man is a legend even if his f1 credentials domt show that fact!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FoKTAi3QOw


i posted these primarily to show the sheer brutality if something goes wrong, these guys were badly badly hurt but thankfully injuries are rare. i thnk its ok to watch these as the guys in question are fully recovered but i draw the line in posting crashes where people died. th most horriffic thing i saw live was the death of greg moore of canada during the final race of th 1999 champ car (CART) season in california. its on youtube, search it if u want but i dontfeel right posting it here..................

Those are pretty hard to watch. I can't imagine being in that vehicle. Crazy, they are! Gutsy.

yey!

i follow every f1 season since i remember! same to the dakar


yeah man, i've been in the first two stages of the dakar here in portugal, and followed every day action until dakar.






here's a pic from your guy robby gordon on 2nd ss portimão-málaga

this year volkswagen official team and privateer carlos sousa were very unlucky.

about f1, the first grand prix i remember is san marino 94 when senna died,

this season,
we finnaly got rid of schumacher - good pilot - not great: proved that a few times, i hated him.

i cant wait to watch raikkonen vs. alonso

F1 is fun to watch if it's on, after the fiasco 2 years ago at the US Grand Prix the networks got skeptical of airing much of it, only four races (US, Canada, Britain, and France) will be aired on broadcast

I used to watch American Le Mans Series a few years back, but that doesn't seem to be aired much anymore

yeah with schumacher gone, fairplay may creep back into the sport but then f.i.a. does stand for ferrari international aid! ive always said schumi won more than anyone else ever and so is a highly prized talent, he is a great driver but the way he goes racing will not make him a legend. i mean senna beat prost in equal machinery, schumacher beat irvine, barrichello, massa and jos verstappen in equal machinery. all competent f1 drivers but none are on the same level as prost....

as for my first f1 memory. the 1979 french grand prix, the one with arnoux and villeneuve banging wheels for 2nd place for thelast 2 laps, stuff of legends. i was almost 4 at the time. i dont think ive missed one since........

hey paul do you follow the wrc too?

i've checked the news and it's seems that gronholm won the 2nd round.



his car seems to be really fast on snow tracks compared to the citroen c2.

yeah, i keep an eye on the rallying via autosport magazine but the tv coverage in ireland and the uk is fucking appaling. but the wrc is coming to ireland in october and ill be at that with bells on because we lost the british touring car and brit formula three races this year. gotta see some sction in 07!

i think loeb is gonna have a tough year against the ford boys. that car looks the business big time! its a shame the wrc has kinda been a victim of its own success and there are less and less cars being entered. its time for a new class of car to start, keep the running costs down etc! although rallying will never be the same for me since the group b days of the audi quattros and the ford rs500s!

in f1 news. mclarens lewis hamilton is blowing peopl away in pre season testing. alonso struggling with the car! shape of things to come...... i doubt it but it adds to the anticipation.......

i dont have cable tv so... same thing here, the wrc is back to portugal this year and i'll definitely going to be there.


hehe, i've seen some pretty wild images from those beasts.


shame on me i havent checked f1 news...

Kimi Räikkönen will do really great this season in Ferarri. I'm very excited about the fight between him and Alonso.

Yeah, them cars sure go around...

What's there to talk about?

We've got a little radio controlled Subaru Imprezza rally car. My little niece loves it.

It gets raced around the house. My record for the demanding study-landing-bedroom-landing-study course (without hitting anything) is improving steadily.

oh i always wanted one those r/c's w/ small combustion engines.. but they're too expensive.

i reckon he wont. i reckon him and massa will end up taking points off one another and cancel each other out. i still reckon lewis, alonso, and now it looks like bmw is coming up good too!

whats there to talk about norma ????? tonnes of shit if you are interested!!!!

I agree. Kimi is a great driver but I really don't think he'll do it with Ferrari. I think it's going to take the team a couple of seasons to get adjusted to life without Schumacher driving for them. Schumacher was, for all his faults, the greatest driver of his era and the team seemed to worship him.

it wasnt a case of worship. michael moulded the team around him. i mean, he insisted on having second rate drivers as team mates. irvine, barrichello and massa. no offence to any of those drivers (i mean they are much finer drivers than ill ever be) but it wasnt ever gonna be a prost vs senna situation! and thats the greatest shame for 2007. racefans have been robbed of seeing wha we wanted for so long. michael in a ferrari racing with another equally fast drivr in th same team. schumi vs kimi would have been fascinating. but michael being michael decided to take the easy option and bow out at his prime........ actually he shouldnt be faulted for that (think niki laudas double retiremrnt, alan jones, damon hill, jacques villeneuve, all champions and all bowed out of racing kinda anonymously by falling out of the midfield.)

ferrari cant deliver 2 strong cars, they never could. the last time they tried, they failed miserably... prost and mansell 90, berger alesi in 95. i reckon the same will happen again and for kimis sake i hope he kicks massas arse very quickly in the first 2 races or its day day for his championship. remember massa has been a ferrari boy for 3 years now both testing and race team!!!

a bit late i know but i gotta bump by saying...
told you hamilton was good....
this year has kiimi written all over it. the new tyre regs are gonna destroy a classic season, the cars are so similar and there is no real spanner to be thrown in.....

yes you were! :)
yeah... they're not broadcasting f1 on public television anymore... shitheads.

and i missed the wrc.......

i suck


wait. new rules?

yeah, single tyre supplier..... control tyre with a soft option having to be run at some stage. check malaysia this weekend. they will be running a soft option tyre with a white ring in one the grooves or a red sidewall a la champ car...... it is kinda neutralisingthe field. i mean if they penalise everyone the for the same time, no one can gain an advantage. the cars are just gonna gradually get further apart as the year develops, i fucking hope im wrong but i got a nasty feeling about this one...... anyway. hamilton is a star!

crazyness in Canada GP, race isn't even over, but man Robert Kubica just shattered his car into the wall, and so many safety cars in this one

Amazing win for Hamilton. I had my doubts pre-season but he really is a bit of a sensation. Bernie laughing all the way to the bank. Thinking he'd struggle to find a media replacement for Schumacher and then ...bham!...he has a potential Tiger Woods in his midst.

This is looking like it really could be a fascinating season.

wow! i went to bump this one up and you guys did it for me. canada was a great race and an amazing maiden win for the 2007 world champion. alonso is so rattled, ralf schumacher is gonna be unemployed in about 2 weeks i reckon!!! he will be replaced by ryan briscoe or maybe even te japanese guy nakajima (cant think of first name, he is williams tester at the moment, stauro's son, and williams have toyota engines!!!!)

but the story is of kubicas accident... i thought we were witnessing a fatal accident on sunday, all he got was a bit of concussion and a sprained ankle, incredible!! and he is racing at indy on sunday!!!!!

for those of you that havent seen it.............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFMgeY0dvSo

looking closely you can see that roberts front wheel clipped the parked torro rosso by the wall moments before the bmw smacked head first into it at 170 mph. if he was just inches closer to theparked torro rosso he would have clipped it with the undersde of his car and definatly have cleared the wall and hit an oncoming car on the otherside... he was sooo lucky, the sport was sooo lucky!!! thank god for safety cells and moncoque and gifted designers, 5 years ago, he certainly would have not survived or at least not been able to walk again........

back to the season. its gonna be fascinating to see how kimi and fernndo deakl with their "number 2" drivers battling for the championship. i wouldnt count out heidfeld in the bmw either, he and the car is ever improving and bmw dont do losing very well in any motorsport, just look at their touring car and sportscar history.

nice to see more racefans coming out of the woodwork!

ok, its indy next and te last to be run in its current configuration, next yer they are switching to running the cars the oppisite way around (same direction as nascar/irl etc)..
my prediction.....

hamilton to win again followed by the 2 ferraris, probably massa then kimi. and heres hoping the same fate doesnt happen to the bmws and nick heidfeld as it did last year....

I'm like you; I can't see anything other than a Hamilton win in Indianapolis (mechanical issues granted). Alonso seems genuinely rattled by him and it's not only affecting his driving but his relationship with the team.

Totally agree about Ralph (who has never cut it for me anyway). Really glad to see Wurtz back in the fold. Always thought his was a better driver than his various test-driving stints suggest.

Re the crash: It makes you wonder if someone like Senna might have survived his incident had all the body advances been in place at that time. Even given that though, Kubica really is VERY lucky indeed.

yeah, i agree its nice seeing alex back up there but i reckon that was a bit of luck, safety car allowing lapped traffic thru rule, people driving thru red lights (how dumb is that, you dont do that on a normal road!!) etc etc but the williams is improving and alex is quality.....

as for robert, lucky aint the word, here is a clipping from this weeks autosport magazine, note the main photo, he actually broke and moved the reinforced concrete wall with his initial impact, his feet were exposed a all times in the crash...............

erm, how prophetic even if i do say so myself....
im off to blow my own trumpet a bit more:D

ALONSO RULES!!!!

Wow. Hamilton gets pole for the American GP. Looked during all the practice sessions like Alonso would take it but, seems like Hamilton has an answer for everything Alonso does.

hamilton is a pampered child.......... oh god, here we go with the crap!

yeah, he pulled it outof the bag AGAIN!!! this guy has awesome talent, the brightest star to shine ive seen and my first grand prix i watched was french 1979.

and why oh why do people insist on using f1 driver photos with scantily clad size zero pout demons???? my local newsagents constantly put autosport magazine right beside penthouse and fhm and erm, "nuts". i actually have to touch a copy of erm "nuts" to get at autosport.....

mr singleminded alonso fan, a photo of ferdy in a car cornering and showing the skill he has would be obviously more of an interesting picture than one with a nobody with no body! i mean even he looks browned off....
and you are obviously not a motorsport fan because if you were you wouldnt say hamilton sucks... ralf sucks, ralf sucks big time....

her ribs are grotesque. someone give her a burger or a pork chop........

oh how silly this post looks now. the toys have been thrown, ferdy is no longer on speaking terms with lewis. the kid has wiped shit all over the champions face! the season is not over but alonso is cracking! lewis's championship for the taking. alonso was tes tres dirty at hungary. i lost an awful lot of respect for him there, i thought he was a sporting chap! he tried to be clever a la mickey shoey but no he fucked up!!! mclaren and ron dennis will not tolerate that happening again!

prost vs senna again??? yep, but not thi year, next year sparks will really fly....................

check what happened dario franchitti in the irl at michigan last sunday.......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3NO_zYCvb4

i also lost loads of respect for alonso after the events at Hungary. i really wanted him to make third though. just so i could see him and lewis on the podium together - see how they dealt with it.

i have a nasty feeling that Raikennon's ferrari is going to start gaining points from lewis but, unless he cracks, on driving alone he should be home dry.

love the idea of alonso eventually having to accept the 'barrichelo' role when he can't realistically overtake lewis in the championship.

best season in years.

too right its the best season in years... ferrari are gonna have the slight edge in the next few races. monza, spa (yay, welcome back greatest circuit ever) and turkey. 3 very very good race tracks and then brazil and fuji and shanghai maybe a bit to and fro, especially fuji. its gonna be close. i an see 3 drivers, alonso, lewis and kimi coming into the last rac separated by maybe 4 points and massa languishing in 4th about another 3 behind. this will be close but im sticking with my gut feeling, lewis for the championship, if alonso doesnt resort to running him off the road (remember ferdy has brake tested folk in the past in qualifying!!!)

Because i'm bored, who do you think are F1's five all-time most talented drivers since the 70s?

I'm gonna go away and think about.

Love this thread btw