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I stayed up to watch it, thought it was pretty good. Sutil was a menace out there, and congrats to Schumacher making it up to fourth. Also, forget Webber/Vettel, I want Alonso/Massa. Unfortunately it looks like Redbull's going to start playing heavy favorites with Vettel again, just after Webber got a solid lead.
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They'd have to be pretty silly, not to mention blatant about it, to favour Vettel.. he'd be looking at second, whereas Webber has a much better chance of winning it. Also, I don't like Alonso more than I don't like Vettel, so I'd prefer a Red Bull to win.
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I was cheering for schumacher or massa to win but that's not too likely, so at this point I want anybody other than redbull, preferrably Ferrari.
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I was betting on Hamilton. I cheered once Vettel nearly blew up (I agree, hes an immature brat), and then saw Hamilton was nearly in position to over take Alonso but the time wasn;t right, the track was too wet. I definitely don't see McLaren winning at this point. it is a shoot out between Ferrari and RBR-Renault, and I have to swing for RBR. Vettel and Webber are just a solid pair, despite my distaste for Vettel. They can work together if the time is right.
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Man, I hate Alonso though, I cannot get behind him as champion and I tend to think Webber is kind of a d-bag as well. I like Vettel, although he is immature, I think he's grown up a lot coming down to the end here. I just cannot stand Alonso, too much controversy has followed him around his career and he strikes me as whiny and quick blame every one besides himself. If McLaren could somehow still have a shot that'd be nice too.
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I stayed up to watch it as well. It was an alright race, I guess. Alonso got VERY lucky, Sutil did some really nasty stuff to other people, and both McLaren and RBR got kicked hard in the nuts; Red Bull got more of the short end of the stick than the McLaren.
I actually cheered a bit when Sutil crashed himself out of the race.
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The track has a strange feel to it, not sure why, might be the incomplete-ness of the place with a finished track surface and mud pit everywhere else. The whole place still oozes construction site feel to it....It some how looks more isolated than desert track like Bahrain....the circuit layout is interesting though, sector 2-3 is just corner after corner....with walls everywhere....
At this point I find myself gravitate to Alonso. The guy is just good, and comes crunch time he is just showing why he was the guy who beat Michael in a straight fight in 2006, and Ferrari is coming together right now to have a fast enough car for Alonso to do his thing. Perversely I also want to see RBR fail(poor Webber though), that despite their massively superior car the team and the drivers are just not there yet to carry the championship. At this point though I think they can score the constructor(unless more weekend like this happen)....
That was a spectacular engine failure though...you can see the bits and piece shoot out the bottom of the car..
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I watched about half of it because my DVR stopped recording only a few minutes after the scheduled event so the rain delay and everything cut me off. Overall, i thought the coverage was pretty good. The commentators were great! Much better than the nascar goons. They actually made watching the race more enjoyable.
The racing was pretty good. Obviously the weather was horrible, but at the same time the weather made it good! It impresses the hell out of me that they drove in that weather! Nascar wont run if it is even a little damp out!
The thing i think i like the most was the fact that the cars weren't exactly the same. I cant attest to the engine and suspension stuff but it looked like there were a few different things done aerodynamically. One huge difference i noticed was in the area directly behind the driver.
On the lotus car, there is an intake above the driver's head and then the body slopes down. However, on the Ferrari's it seemed like instead of sloping down there was a direct connection between this intake and the rear spoiler. to draw them. Here is the lotus |\__[ and here is the ferrari |\T[
What is the point of ferrari having that? It seemed like about 70% of the cars had it too.
so clearly, f-1 cars dont have to be exactly the same. What are the requirements? What parts of the cars have to be the same? What parts of the cars can be different?
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great race.
the most irritating thing was webber's conservative approach.
Before the restart it seemed like he was trying to convince the stewerds and C.Whiting that its too dangerous to race in such conditions, obviously to walk away with half the points and therfore increasing his lead. On the otherhand ive seen races in much worse conditions before, so it seemed like webber was being selfish, and not thinking about all of us whom have been waiting, and waking up early to watch the race.
meanwhile Hamilton had already admitted that conditions were good for intermediates, and its just a wet race.
So i didnt see what all the fuss was about. More and above with the delayed restart it meant that race will go in the dark.
i think that the FIA has to adress the issue of the extreme wets, so people all over the world can normally watch these events.
Plus i totaly agree that Sutil was a menace to everyone around him, and i glad that he has been penalized.
Concerning, Vettel, is he going to get a 10 place penalty for going for his 9th engine ?
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Races like these with the safety car starts make you think going back to the deep tread monsoon tyres isnt such a bad idea.
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Bernie don't care about the rest of the world, or driver safety for that matter. He schedule these things for Continental European time, which is why they want to do night races in Asia and push back the start of Australia/Malaysia/Japan/Korea as late as they can. If they start the race like 1pm local time like the European round then the light would not have been an issue(the same reason why I think China was cut short last year). I think at the start the race was too wet, mainly because the lack of real crowning on the surface and the water is not draining. But it did get better(albeit 40+ mins later). You have to look at it the way each protagonists view. If Hamilton and Webber's situation were reversed their opinion might also. These guys are not dumb and they are trained in what to say in what situation to benefit themselves the most. Thats just how it works. More over when Webber was interviewed after his crash he did say the condition was fine then to race and it was his mistake....
Vettel doesn't have to take the 9th engine. They are allow to reuse any of the 8 engine(that did not blow up like this one did), so unless he absolutely has to, he doesn't have to use a new one.
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[url="http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87759"]autosport.com - F1 News: Heidfeld: Korea conditions 'worst ever'[/url]
Backing up the lack of drainage....Monsoon tire wouldn't help since you still can't see past the spray.
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[quote=RacingManiac;951638]
Vettel doesn't have to take the 9th engine. They are allow to reuse any of the 8 engine(that did not blow up like this one did), so unless he absolutely has to, he doesn't have to use a new one.[/quote]
So whats the deal you are only allowed to use 8 engines all season? If you use more than 8 you get a penalty or something?
Is this just engine blocks? or does this include full rebuilds?
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There are some stipulations, but generally you get 8 engines per season.(next year will be interesting with 20 races I think). Teams can file for request to replace some faulty components, but not sure to what extent. If you use more than 8, the race that you use the extra engine you get 10 position penalty in qualifying. Gearbox also has limit in that each one has to last 4 races.
The questions you asked before is best answered by reading the rule book. The gist of it is that the rule specify dimension of certain area of the car, max/min sizes, load capacity, material, flexibility, safety requirement...etc. Within those bounds team can do whatever they want. The cars are homologated at the beginning of the year to ensure its within the rule. And each race they go through inspection to make sure it is still within the rule. Differences to something like NASCAR is that they don't have a "template" that you HAVE to do something a certain way. The thing in recent years is that the scope of interpretation is getting smaller and so the cars are becoming more alike, but it is still not like NASCAR that they are generally the same car(still detail differences mind you).