2014 Formula 1 Season thread

Ok boys, who's going to take pole?

Obvious response is Hamilton, but I can't help but think Vettel might pull something special out of the bag.

Rats. Mom doesn't have the NBC Sports channel. I'm outta this thread until I get back to Bainbridge on Wed. Fortunately I was able to set the DVR remotely. Must avoid spoilers!

I will pick Lewis for pole and win though. Just a wild guess. Talk to y'all on Thursday!

Guessed right. Nice start for the ever smiling Aussie at the red bull team. With unknown reliability and fuel mileage, this could still be a very interesting race.

Very entertaining race.

The big winners:
Rosberg- for the easy, 2010-2013 Vettel-like win
Kevin Magnussen- a star is born
Valtteri Bottas- fabulous drive, best of the day. He should have had a podium

Other winners:
Jenson Button- lucky bastid
Niko Hulkenberg- very solid race
Daniil Kvyat- points in his first race
McLaren- good start for this storied team

The big losers:
Daniel Ricciardo- what a kick to the yarbles
Red Bull- the stewards ruing makes the weekend a total bust
Lotus- ugh
Lewis and Sebastian

Other losers:
Mercedes- win is offset by reliability of Hamiltons car
Ferrari- looked weak overall
Other losers:

Nothing much to add. I had high hopes for magnussen but he exceeded them quite a bit. His maturity both on and off track is astonishing. Sour grapes for Ricciardo, Massa and Lewis and Seb.

I was pleasantly surprised by it all. Some decent racing through the whole field. Don't really know what happened to Ferrari. Expected a bit more from them. Promising signs for Williams and McLaren though.

I always rooted for Williams and McLaren, so I think it's great for the sport to have them competetive.

The nice thing about a complete redesign is it turns all the teams on there head and you tend to see new teams go to the top.

Very, very impressed with Bottas. If Massa can manage to avoid destroying his car every race, Williams could be in for a terrific season.

It was a very entertaining race. Very happy for Nicco. Way too bad for Williams, I do think hat they have a car and driver that can challenge this season. Ferrari will figure things out and Kimi will figure out the breaks. Sorry for Daniel, but he is driving for a team that seems to think that the rules only apply when they are in Red Bull's favour. To that end I do hope that Red Bull gets more than a hand slap.

I am looking forward to Singapore. Should be another entertaining race.

I found myself on the edge of my seat throughout that race. It may not have been constant passing, but there was a nice mix of different kinds of maneuvers. McLaren's/Button's excellent strategy call yielding an undercut; Bottas cutting through the field; passes through the DRS zones; Magnussen hounding Ricciardo in a back and forth that showed the difference in strengths between the two cars. I just wished that, in the first race of a new formula, where drivers had to change their style a bit to handle the increased torque etc, that FOM had used the throttle/rpm/speed graphic a lot more. I wanted to know when and where drivers were lifting, and how long after a corner they were able to get back on full throttle.

I'm just happy that F1 is back to being cutting edge, technology wise.

I finally got to watch the race weekend and read the news associated with it.
Could the FIA screw up a sport more? How those phallic front ends are safer is beyond me. Most expensive engines ever built for racing. Boy, the new V6 is another great cost cutting measure guys! I'm sure some additional pre season testing would have been catastrophically expensive. Not. Can't say the sound was impressive over the TV. If we all think texting and driving is dangerous, it's nothing compared to managing that overly complicated power train from the wheel and is certainly going to cause accidents. Let's do Bernie's sprinkler idea next. Oof.

Riccardo got shafted. McLaren and Porsche in LM are complaining that these fuel sensors are unreliable too, so it's not just Red Bull. Why on earth they decided they needed to control the fuel flow as well after limiting the overall fuel available for the race is beyond me. One or the other makes sense, but not both. Some friend of Todt's must make the fuel sensors.

Lousy direction on the US tv feed, don't know if it was NBC or the world feed's fault. Saw the in car graphics once. No speed trap info. Saw Nico at the start, behind the safety car, and the last half of the last lap. Would have liked to see some in car footage of him hauling *** for a lap or two!

Nice drive by Nico, that was a heck of a move at the start. Too bad Kamui was so overly boisterous and ruined Felipe's day.
Some really impressive drives from the new kids, eh?

Hope more cars finish at Malaysia.

For those who think the rules only matter for one particular season, here's a nifty video about how it was always the case.

Great advances that have filtered down to our road cars have come from F1. Anti-lock brakes, traction control, etc.
I am just disgusted with the idiotic "cost cutting" nonsense in regards to testing whilst implementing a completely new formula.

Teams having problems at the start of the season is the norm. After few race they will get a grip on there issues.

Ricciardo did get shafted. By his own team. Did Red Bull actually expect to get away with ignoring multiple instructions from the FIA? Very dumb IMO. There punishment was a slap on the wrist, I feel they should of been black flagged.

rgclausen said:

Ricciardo did get shafted. By his own team. Did Red Bull actually expect to get away with ignoring multiple instructions from the FIA? Very dumb IMO. There punishment was a slap on the wrist, I feel they should of been black flagged.

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I hope they weren't using him as a guinea pig for Sebastian. He drove too good a race to deserve that.

They would have done that with Mark, why wouldn't they do it with their new gimp?

JDTTO said:

They would have done that with Mark, why wouldn't they do it with their new gimp?

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+1

Red Bull is Vettel's team. Like Webber he will be treated as a number 2.