If you should see a man walking down a crowded street talking aloud to himself, don't run in the opposite direction, but run towards him, because he's a poet. You have nothing to fear from the poet - but the truth.
(Ted Joans)
But they also have to practice and memorize their pre-written no-feelings-were-hurt-in-the-making-of-this-speech speech.
I would also like to see F1 drivers participate in other series. For selfish reasons because it might bring them to the States, and just because I would respect the driver a lot more if I learned he could race in different formulae. Hell, even if one of them was a pro dragracer, I'd take that.
The problem, imo, is that F1 is so overblown and so constantly touted as the pinnacle of motorsports that few drivers would deign to participate in "lower" series, and few teams would let them because of fear of injury etc...
"Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
"No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"
maybe it has something to do with audience too.
Like, if a driver drives in another series, maybe F1 isn't that exclusive as they keep telling me.
Bertolini is the driver of the n° 1 Maserati MC12 in FIA GT, it's the factory driver, and he is also their main test driver, the faster among the other, the better tuning cars, he is involved in F1 Clienti Ferrari's program, he used to participate in early tests of previous seasons' Ferrari F1 cars.
At the same time he also work with Ferrari for both road and race cars.
Other than that he is a simple person, very kind, and a real enthusiast (Maserati fitted his previous Gransport with two turbos for a total 600 bhp, just for the sake of it, for instance).
So he drives extremely well GTs, F1s and road cars.
That's a driver.
KFL Racing Enterprises - Kicking your ass since 2008
*cough* http://theitalianjunkyard.blogspot.com/ *cough*
Exactly, sounds like a good guy.
I was very excited back when the first rumors of Valentino Rossi going into F! surfaced, because it would bring a different kind of driver into the picture.
However, I enjoy watching him on two wheels more than most drivers on four.
That is actually a good segue into another thing that annoys me about F1; you can't really see the driver. Whether or not the driver leans is very hard to make out in that tiny little cockpit, and though they have the driver camera, you cannot see their arms very well either. It is a joy to watch a driver like Fangio sawing away at the wheel, or to see the minimalist fluidity of a smooth driver. This is just another part of removing the human and emotional/visceral part of the sport, and it's the worse for it.
"Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
"No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"
I attended the Glen GP in '73, '74 & '75 and by the end of that decade, (with notable exceptions such as Gilles & Ayrton) F1 was for all intents and purposes dead. You could see fields of 30 cars trying to qualify and the Cosworth DFV ($20,000 then) allowed privateers like Alexander Hesketh a reasonable chance of winning. You could see Ronnie Peterson, Niki Lauda, or Emerson Fittipaldi literally toss a car sideways into the chute-loop, and then use the wheel and throttle to power out. Billion Euro Bernie and his "how much will you pay to play" attitude ruined the sport. Teams now spend $20,000 to have someone polish the wheel nuts on the transporters. I see "drivers" who sit in a car and have to have the pit tell them which knobs on the steering wheel to twiddle. Shows how far down the level of competition has come. Today they can't even drive through the first turn without destroying at least 4 cars.
I sort of agree henk4.
Although I do not wish to see drivers dying, the fact remains that ever since this 'Safety is king' mentality developed in F1, the sport has become increasingly uninteresting and unexciting.
It is also the reason why people generally have greater respect for the older drivers than the modern drivers.
Why do you think that to many people, Ayrton Senna is considered one of the greatest drivers of the past 30 years even though Michael Schumacher has 7 championship titles to Senna's 3.
Simply, Senna was a dangerous driver, hence, an exciting one.
Not sure if you're suggesting how bad that ended up or what.
But I still think F1 drivers are far too payed and nannied by the technicians compared to what they do on track.
Ironically, once they did something more (see Alonso and Hamilton in Malaysian last Sunday), they get a penalty...
KFL Racing Enterprises - Kicking your ass since 2008
*cough* http://theitalianjunkyard.blogspot.com/ *cough*
Of course not... though Matra's right, too. Advertisers help pay for the show, and promoters (like Bernie) realized there was much
more to be made if the marketing management was done right. They ended up with the lion's share of profit, not the (smaller) competitors. It's that accumulated weight and the required economic performance that has shaped modern racing series. Prior to the 1960s, it was still a matter of national pride to field racing teams; remember the colors? Goverments now spend absurd amounts to have an F1 race, but their shiny new tracks all lose money... a team's paint job and a little back-door support was much cheaper.
Same is true for driving talent; recently a brief encounter with one of the old guard illustrated how bitter some of them are at the small potatoes they got for risking their necks compared to the millions some modern stars are paid. But I suppose that's true of sports figures in general, isn't it?
Never own more cars than you can keep charged batteries in...
if i had 2 guys deciding the fate of a 100 million dollar exercise, id want them staying out of danger while they were away from the race weekend
roberts crash is even more frustrating considering how good this years non-lotus-non-renault is (or at least seems to be so far)
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