[Closed] F1 - Was it any good?

A classic. Absolutely brilliant. Honestly. A riot from start to finish. F1 has answered a lot of critics.

i would say it's worth watching the hi lights,, way better than the last one

Yep watched it earlier, may even watch it again later.

All I can say is Alonso on the team radio "I don't want to know" 😆

I rather liked Lewis Hamilton's impersonation of Violet Elizabeth Bott at the end...

way better than you'll be expecting after Bahrain,I shall watch again shortly

Bugger - The digital recorder crashed and hasn't recorded anything. Will catch it later

Yes it was good. Plenty of overtaking, a few spills and a victory for a driver who thought about what was going on and made a tactical choice without referring to the team.

A quality topsy turvy unpredictable race, planned on watching it on iplayer this morning whilst doing sunday morning chores - it's just finished & I've not completed any chores.

Surely there's an argument for watering the track before every race.

A race won by a genius decision, and a real gamble that worked.

worth waking up at 6am on a sunday for imo

how many toys can you get in a F1 car to throw out during the race? 🙂

Bwilliant!

Looked like the winner put it out of gear and freewheeled over the finish line. Good win.

Last one was dull as dishwater, this one was`nt 😛 proper enjoyed it i did

Come on Shumi!

Absolutely brilliant,close racing,loads of overtaking....who needs World Superbikes?

**DO NOT READ IF YOU DON@T KNOW THE RESULT**

Don't think it was a classic, think it was fairly tame really once the track was dry, still shows that overtaking is very difficult once you get in the dirty air as showed by Hamilton, 2s per lap faster than Alonso but couldn't get past, Alonso unable to get past Massa, genius decision by Button. Nice to see the young guns not intimidated by Schuey, wonder if he is having second thoughts about his comeback?

I can't see the German lasting out his 3 year contract. If it doesn't get a lot better quickly he'll be gone at the end of the year.

Nice bit of foot stamping by Ham; very funny. And as for all those folks who said that Button would hate McLaren because it was a team built around wee Lewis must be choking today. Button looked nice and comfy to me.

Have to wait and see what the next dry races are like. The race was exciting for F1, but then again so are all F1 races in wet/dry conditions. My money is on a return to boredom in the dry

I can't see the German lasting out his 3 year contract. If it doesn't get a lot better quickly he'll be gone at the end of the year.

Dunno, he didn't get where he is/was by qutting when it wasn't going his way. OTOH I suppose now he has nothing to prove.

Great race.

As for not being able to overtake because of aero - that opinion just isn't borne-out in the evidence of this race is it? Take away [i]mechanical[/i] grip and suddenly we had tons of overtaking. When the grip came back the race settled down (although was still a great watch).

I thought the Hamilton toy throwing was highly amusing. He is the one that is notoriously hard on tyres, so how he can complain that the team wanted him on newer tyres is a bit of a mystery.

The rain & mistakes caused most of the overtaking. As soon as there was a dry line we quickly had a procession of cars that couldn't overtake each other - all sat with about 1.3 secs between them & unable to do anything about it.

Overall though it was the most interesting race i have seen in years!

I reckon that Ecclestone should bring in water cannons for next year to mix things up a bit.

Good call from Button, especially if he made the decision himself (against team orders?) worked out bloody well for him in the end 🙂

Who was in that major crash with the chap who lost his wing? That could've been VERY nasty! 😯 Quite lucky really that someone wasn't seriously injured...

Wasn't tat Kobayashi in the Sauber losing the front wing and spearing into the Williams? Could have been really nasty - at least they have the extra high cockpit sides now.

Schumacher got stuck for 30 laps being teh Toro Rosso. When his team radio'd to give him a gee up, he found a way past. Not the action of a motivated racer.

He left at the top of his game, if he's come back to womble around the mid field I'll be very suprised; he'll want to be at the front.

Not the action of a motivated racer.

Not sure that's true. In the end he got past by barging past - by then it was clear that he was either going to score no points if he didn't try or could try and maybe crash out in which case nothing lost. Earlier on, that wasn't so clear.

I'm no MS fan btw. In fact I really quite dislike him but I think it's silly to say that because he couldn't get past a decent car that he's not motivated.

MS has never been much of an overtaker; he tended to make up places while the pitstops were going on. But it's funny how he could find a way past once he was given a verbal kick up the bum. If he'd have done that 30 laps earlier, he would look slightly less outclassed by his journeyman teammate.

Mark my words, empty seat at Merc next year.

[i]Mark my words, empty seat at Merc next year.
[/i]

...I think he'll be lucky to see the season out.

Slow Car + Faster Team Mate = Heidfeld gets to race again!!

And its looking like the [s]Honda[/s], [s]Brawn[/s], Merc got lucky with last years car.

Journeyman team-mate? Where do you get that from? Nico is a class act, and its no surprise that Schumacher is struggling to get on terms.

I still think that at this stage Schumacher is more concerned with developing the car and not making mistakes (although I guess you could call it a mistake to stay stuck behind the STR). Quite honestly it is a mistake to make any judgement about F1 until they get back to Europe - so I'm reserving judgement on Schumi and Mercedes. Nico, I already know is a great driver.

BTW if you think Schumacher couldn't overtake you should take a look at 1996 Spanish GP!

A couple of points

The consensus was that MS was generally faster than NR until qualifying - even then it was close - which was a step on from Bahrain. Frankly I'm not suprised that it's taking time for him to get back to where he was. I guess we'll see over the next two or three races whether that's the case.

As to getting lucky with the car, not really. While they had the time and resources to develop a great car for the start of 2009, they didn't have the cash to develop as much as the other big teams and consequently this year's car hasn't caught up the gap to the teams that was there at the end of last year (Brawn definitely didn't have the fastest car by the end of 2009). As such, they're still playing catchup a bit plus by all accounts they made a bit of a mistake in designing the weight balance a bit too far back IIRC - I reckon that this year they'll gradually move on but will probably be up there again next year.

I think Hamilton's issue is believing his own hype - actually being found out Button can be faster than him by out qualifying & racing him has come as a shock. Would've been interesting to be a fly on the wall in the Ferrari pit at the end of the race.

Nico Rosberg has made a habit of dominating his team-mates - looks like he's carrying on in the same vein at Merc
When someone does that it's usually a sign of of quality rather than consistently crap team-mates.

He quietly gets on with the job & hardly appears on most peoples radar
If the dice fall well for him, he could easily be a world champ one day

i think Micheal is in there to help develop the car,, i have worked with both him and rosburg,, ,, it was a few years ago but M is a great development driver, he gives so much information whereas rosburg is young and fast,, but he hasnt as much experience

quick story i was at a test with Benetton shummacher came in and started going through the lap describing the cars handling at every corner,, johnney Hurbert was the other driver,, when asked how the car was he just said,, ummm can i have another couple of laps,,, he was known as johney the goldfish from then on

Rosberg is more dogged than talented. He's an average driver, which means there are better candidates for World Champ at the moment. Heidfeld was always given champ-in-waiting status, but he's slipped away.

Schumacher was always feted as being a driving god when it was wet, what happened to that? He's done everything, so where's his motivation?

Let's hope for more rain this weekend, it always spices things up.

Rosberg is more dogged than talented. He's an average driver…

No mention of Kubica? I really rate Rosberg but Kubica is more of a future world champ in the waiting I reckon.

That '08 BMW was quite a way off the pace of the Mclaren and Ferarri yet he consistently stuck it up there among them - if only BMW hadn't ballsed up the '09 one. And his drive on Sunday was stellar! That Renault shouldn't be on the podium yet.

If Renault don't improve consistently, Kubica at Mercedes for 2011?

No mention of Kubica? I really rate Rosberg but Kubica is more of a future world champ in the waiting I reckon.

I get the felling with Kubica that he'll always be nearly there a bit like Barrichello I suppose
Maybe he needs better advice but he seems to 'miss out' on the really good drives

Champions of the future: Vettel, Kubica, Rosberg - probably in that order of likelihood.

Kubica's drive was brilliant. Drive of the race was probably Alonso - until he came up behind Massa he was just streaking through the field.

actually being found out Button can be faster than him by out qualifying & racing him has come as a shock.

I'm not sure that's true (fair enough in qualifying but not the race). Hamilton overtook Button fair and square at the start of the race and then lost out by being held in the pit lane. If it hadn't of been for his second stop I'd of put money on Hamilton catching Button.

Rosbergs career so far has been Team Rosberg (run by his dad - how did he get that drive?) and Williams as you say. His record of out pacing his team mate at Williams loses a bit of puff when you recall it was Nakajima (A Japanese chap driving a Toyota engine - how did he get that drive?)

Hence the journeyman comment. Only history will show whether I'm right or wrong.

Well, history certainly hasn't shown you are right, so it is pretty difficult to understand why you so confidently asserted that view in the first place. Williams tried very hard to hold on to him, so that's a good clue as to his quality. Plus he had a debut season with Mark Webber as team-mate, which you seem to have forgotten - although the car was desperately unreliable he did produce some very promising performances that year, against MW who was both extremely experienced and excessively fast.

The real shame was that **** Webber robbed us of a grandstand finale, Alonso had outbraked himself and cocked up the corner, Lewis had it about right and looked set to blast past until the Aussie Amateur f*cked it up for the viewers.

Red Bull won't put up with too many performances like that, the pressure is building.

Yeah, I was really disappointed with Webbo - I really like him for being straight talking, generally quick and a good racer and a bike rider 🙂 but the way he's going this year so far, I do worry that he's going to end up as a classic 'good driver who never quite made the grade' and will be off to a smaller/slower team next year.

I thought Webber could have had a grumble at Hamilton for moving about in the braking zone, but he took it on the chin.

Probably because he didn't want to get hit by a flying dummy or rattle.

LOL. Nah, Webbo was clearly the one who got it wrong there.

[i]I thought Webber could have had a grumble at Hamilton for moving about in the braking zone, but he took it on the chin.[/i]

I'm sorry, WHAT?

a) you're allowed to move once, he only moved once
b) he's moving to avoid alonso and line up for the pass.

Even Webber admits that he cocked up pure and simple. Some people will find any excuse to have a dig.

For anyone who's planning to record the Malaysian GP I just spotted that it's split between BBC1 (8-10) and BBC (9.55 to 11). My fancy automated recorder wouldn't have got the 2nd bit as they've thoughtfully overlapped the two shows.

Thanks for pointing that out - don't suppose my V+ box would have worked that out either.

Webber merely dived in hoping that Hamilton was going to make it stick and he would be able to capitalise on the situation. Hamilton failed, and Webber had nowhere to go. For which he apologised. Big deal.

I've no idea why so many people are against MW - fantastic driver, very straight talking, nice guy, exceptionally brave, silly-fast. What's not to like?

glenp- well done, you read my thread, yet didn't understand it. History will prove, but you'll have to wait a bit. We'll pop back in ten years time and see if he's a World Champ. I'll have a quid he isn't.

He was a team mate of Webber, who he was mostly behind; and the year after Alex Wurz, another German wunderkind who never quite lived up to the promise that he showed in the minor formulae. He wasn't bad, but he was not as good as the hype.

[b]glenp[/b]

I've no idea why so many people are against MW - fantastic driver, very straight talking, nice guy, exceptionally brave, silly-fast. What's not to like?

He made a poor start
He made many many errors
He doesn't know when to admit his lack of talent is going to prevent him from finishing. The guy makes a lot of mistakes. Too many to be a top driver.

The guy has a great attitude, is very likeable but I don't think he'll ever be Champion.

And he prevented Lewis capitalising on the mistake he forced Alonso into. That is the difference between the two.

Can't see there was much to fail to understand, ScottChegg. You used the word "journeyman", which I think is unjustified on the evidence of his career so far? Seems pretty straightforward to me. I'm not saying he definitely is going to be WDC (unlike Vettel, who will need to desperately unlucky not to get it) but I do think his class is way above "journeyman".

kona_ona - yep, MW had a scrappy race (who didn't - Alonso went to the back of the field, the race winner ran into the gravel but managed to keep going, Massa nearly caused an absolutely horrendous accident - and so-on). But where do you get this "He doesn't know when to admit his lack of talent is going to prevent him from finishing." What a crock. Lack of talent? Huh? He is among the very fastest, and he doesn't give in - what's not to like? I can't see any difference between LH and MW in that regard - in that incident Lewis just barely missed taking Alonso out for example. So MW are pretty similar as far as driving style and determination is concerned. Its just that Mark Webber isn't a cocky liar.

Lack of talent = look at his results. Hardly earth shattering.

He is an awesome driver, pretty near the top of F1. He may break through this year and produce consistent results. I hope he will, but I would bet a penny on it happening.

He doesn't give in, that's very creditable. Sure he's quick, they're all quick. But I don't believe he has the concentration needed to succeed in F1 at the top level.

in that incident Lewis just barely missed taking Alonso out for example. So MW are pretty similar as far as driving style and determination is concerned. Its just that Mark Webber isn't a cocky liar.

Point 1. Lewis [b]did[/b] miss Alonso, and would have passed him exiting the corner. He forced an error from the most complete driver on the grid.

Point 2. Webber just piled into the back of Hamilton. Not the first major error he made that day.

Point 3. I rather go for a bike ride with Mark Webber, but if my mortgage were on it I'd back Lewis Hamilton every time. 😉

I see the "journeyman" is struggling to beat his [Rain Miester] team-mate again 😉

Yer best action when there is a pile up