[Folken]

So the greatest thing on the planet returns in what...24days? Whose up for some constructive discussions on Formula One? By constructive I mean no "Oh Schumacher sucks" "oh he's a moron, he sucks" and the like. I tried this twice no one really seemed interested:( But thrid times a charm:D So?

[Tiste Simeon]

Oh, Schumacher sucks! Oh he's a moron, he sucks!
Actually I don't really follow F1 as fanatically as Folken, but I always like watching it if I can remember to.

[garden_rake]

F1 is quality sunday monging telly, my sundays will be more chilled now its back :cool:

[kettle]

HA!! about time you came up with this thread again Folken, though I'm sure I just heard you say "Montoya sucks!!"

let the discussion begin:

I wonder what sort of season Alonso is going to have this year, with him already announcing he's driving for Mclaren next year before the winter testing even began, is Renault going to withold technical data and new parts etc from him as teams normally do when a driver announces he's leaving the team(usualy after mid season) surely they won't want all their precious secrets spilling into Ron Dennis's hands, but to do that, they are going to lose the full potential of him as a driver, though I have noticed Trulli is being hyped up by Flavio Briatore, who must be mighty pee'd off with Alonso for going behind his back and doing the deal with Ron Dennis, Alonso's got his team boss/manager mad at him and I bet Renault are none too pleased with him either, they are rumoured to be thinking of pulling out of F1 because of losing him, I wonder how many car failures he's going to have this year...

talking of failures McLaren/Mercedes seem to be having trouble with the new V8 engine, it's not been reliable in winter testing and also lacks power, other teams like Williams and Honda seem to be doing well, the fortunes at Ferrari seem to be rising, though as we have seen in seasons past, you can't take that much notice of winter testing as there often seems to be a few heads being scratched at the end of the first race with the immortal words "we did so well in testing I can't understand what went wrong". With the new V8 engines it's going to be make or break for some teams, I'm looking forward to seeing who's got it right this year...

And this year there will be 22 cars back on the grid (as long as they all qualify) so it's shaping up to be a good year methinks, though it's gonna be strange having the first race in Bahrain after having been used to Australia being the first race...

23 days, 23 hours and counting...

[megaphage]

The combination of hangover, sunday lunch and motor racing on telly create the perfect conditions for daytime sleeping. Its the whining drone of the cars that does it for me.

oh yeah, Schumacher sucks.

[garden_rake]

Fool said:

I really wish they'd finally change the rules in a way that would make overtaking easier and make it impossible for one car to have HUGE advantage over the others.

thats supposed to be A1 isnt it? lots of hype but it seems to have sunk pretty sharpish

[kettle]

they are trying to cut the costs in F1, so the smaller independant teams can play catch up with the big boys, but the thing about F1 is, that it is at the forefront of technology, so the manufacturer lead/backed teams are spending millions of dollars perfecting their engines and cars, while the smaller teams are managing on a shoestring budget. what we don't want is another Ferrari/other single team walkover like we have had in the past, last year we had Renault and Mclaren fighting it out, which was good for the sport, but they still need to address the issue of overtaking, these days they have too much aerodynamic downforce, which makes it imppossible to pass the car in front, as they are stuck in the dirty air from that car, F1 needs to get rid of some of the aerodynamic downforce and rely on mechanical grip more, bring back slicks is what I say!! more mechanical grip will mean more overtaking, which will mean better racing....

[Folken]

In my opinion last year, apart from Imola, Monaco & Japan, every race was a one horse race. It was either Kimi ran away with it or Alonso ran away with it.
Besides, there was nothing wrong with F1 to begin with. All this bs about rule changes, and cost cutting and quali changes were all created to stop Ferrari (Notice Ferrari not Schumacher), when all that was needed was the other teams to start operating and building cars like Ferrari so that their drivers could challenge Schumacher. We clearly saw in 2003, when all cars were fairly even (or should I say tyres were on a similar level) racing was fantastic.
Personally I'm happy we're going to a single tyre supplier next year, they have played a far greater role in the past 4years than black round rubber things should.

And someone mentioned aobut rules to stop 1 team from gaining such a huge advantage over the rest. Well normally when a team gains a huge advantage over the rest of the teams, their dominance last oh about 2years max. We don't need rules for that, someone, sometime is bound to make a much better car than the rest. It's been happening ever since F1 began. The only difference with Ferrari's dominance was A) It lasted FAR FAR too long and The way they went about doing it. Rubens in an inferior car is no match for Michael, but in 2002 and 2004 when even a monkey could've driven the car, letting Michael and Rubens fight it out would've been awesome, but nope. Ferrari, and most probably Michael, had to be idiots.

And who else felt like burning things when Spa was cancelled:(

[Kallor]

if you all have been following the F1 sites with any consistency, you'd know that there are efforts to make F1 more spectator friendly (in regards to overtaking), less costly (to avoid the huge differences in funding levels between manufacturer teams and independents), and more fair and transparent in regards to rules and their interpretations. the problem is that F1 IS the pinnacle of motor racing (despite what the commentators drawl on about NASCAR or, worse, Indy Racing League) and as such needs to be the leading edge in automotive technology. there are also efforts to increase the relevance of real world automotive technologies to F1 (for instance, F1 steering wheel shift paddles, once the exclusive domain of ferrari and their ilk, can now be found on an acura or a lexus) and as such must continue to push the envelope. now, the renegotiation of the television revenue deal between ol' bernie and the teams seemed to have put the manufacturers back on the path to signing the new concorde agreement, but mad max mosley slammed the door this week when he claimed that manufacturer teams shouldn't get any of the pie. in fact, i think i agree with this in a way. i, for one, would like to keep F1 as a collection of independent (not manufacturer) teams with manufacturer backing (in terms of engines, chassis, electronics, etc)...in my opinion, this would even the playing field as it would attract more manufacturers (their investment would be significantly less than having to own a team) but also push technological innovation (though i think we've kind of hit a plateau in this regard)...

@kettle...tbh, i don't think either renault nor alonso will suffer this year from alonso's 2007 defection to mclaren...see, drivers don't understand 99 % of the technical data that they produce, and wouldn't want to...second, renault is there to win races so they wouldn't sabotage themselves to get even with alonso...also alonso is a professional, as far as i know honest as well (and a good spanish catholic to boot)....i like trulli; i like the fact that he races so he doesn't have to work in the family vinyard...as far as the v8's go, i think this will certianly help to level the field...ferrari and mclaren have never had to build v8 racing engines, but bmw and cosworth (williams) and honda and toyota and renault have...i also agrree that they should rely less on downforce and more on mechanical grip (see above regarding relevant automotive technologies)

@tiste...schumacher isn't a moron, but he does suck, especially after vetoing villeneuve's bernie-proposed move to ferrari...jacques at ferrari would be proof of god for me...

@mega...there's nothing like cracking a bottle of sherry at 5:00 am on a sunday morning...

@fool...i think you'll get your wish...starting the next race in reverse order isn't fair, imo...i agree watching michael n a benetton was miore fun than watching him in a ferrari...

@rake........A1 is a great concept, but it's just having teething problems...

@jen...rule changes are necessary to keep the teams more balanced and prevent a ferrari-like runaway team as this type of dominance literally drives the fans away. also they really do, as kettle says, need to reduce the aero and increase the mechanical grip...so, having one tyre supplier will help, as will limiting the teams to what, 2 aero changes a season?...

but none of it is important. the only thing we need to remember is that the greatest inthe world starts again in less than a month...halleluhiah!

[kettle]

Indeed I did weep when I heard Spa was off the calendar Folken hopefully it should be back next year, it’s a shame Bernie couldn’t have let the race go ahead as it’s a favourite circuit with drivers and fans alike…

@ Pallor, I have to agree with you that the professionalism of Alonso and Renault wouldn’t let anything affect the race, but I think Fisi will be given the boost he needs, and that the team will no longer revolve around Alonso, even though Briatore has insisted both drivers were equal, I felt Alonso was getting all the attention last year, I only hope Fisi is up to the job and doesn’t let his attention wander mid way through the races…
as to Villeneuve, maybe if we pray really really hard we might get our wish

I can’t wait to see what the new qualifying is going to be like, it’s got to be an improvement on last year lack lustre spectacle (though why they had to mess about with a perfectly good qualifying system in the first place is beyond me) the first two 15 minute sessions should be good to watch as the cars can pull out all the stops as fuel isn’t going to be an issue, but as the last 10 cars have to run with the race fuel, I wonder if we’re going to be sat looking at an empty track for 15 minutes till someone decides to go out. At least it sounds like a step in the right direction, though you can guarantee there’s going to be a lot of complaining about getting caught in traffic and not getting a clean lap.

[Folken]

Well remember Japan last year? Schumacher, Kimi, Alonso all started from the back...dear GOD was that the best race in a long long time. Seeing Alonso and Kimi driving the wheels of their car to get past Michael, and watching Michael do the same thing except keeping them behind, and then the way the both managed to get past him...it was fabulous.

then again something like that can only work on tracks where overtaking is actually possible. Having them start from the back in Hungary or Monaco would just keep them there. No way to get past anyone on those tracks. But personally I wouldn't be a big fan of "lets get them to start from the back" business.

[kettle]

I'm with Folken/Jen and Pallor on this one, the idea of starting the race in reverse order looks good on paper, you imagine lots of overtaking and the top drivers fighting it out to get to the front, but this just isn't possible, the cars themselves are a big factor, then there's the tracks where overtaking is nigh on impossible, plus you have the factor of paying drivers, who with the best will in the world, are not the best drivers, having got their seat by bringing money to the team to contend with. I want to see the top drivers fighting it out for the race win, not stuck behind a Scuderia Toro Rosso or a Midland car or taken out by a stupid move from a rookie driver...

as to the cars being all the same, they have to all conform to the same technical specifications and rules, it's just the fact that some teams interperate these specs better and produce a championship winning car, though obviously money does play a factor in this, although if you look at last year, Ferrari which have one of the biggest budgets in F1 were getting their ass kicked....

[Folken]

That's bridgestone's fault. I've mainted this for a long time, now. All of Ferrari's success and failure can be laid at Bridgestone's feet. Tyres are playing a far greater role in the outcome then they should. It's not as in 2002,2003,2004, the cars created by Mclaren and Williams were no match for Ferrari. Their tyres were no match, and in 2003 when we had that really hot summer in Europe, Ferrari got a beating because Bridgestone couldn't cope with the heat. It's good that we're going to a one tyre championship next year, it'll put more emphasis on the quality of the cars.

And just to make another point on kettle's post. Remember Monaco a couple of years back, when DC got stuck behind that Arrows for the entire race? I'm sure if they went with a reverse order format, it'd be that situation all the time. Also that would remove qualifying...mind you I stopped watching that when they switched to the single lap format. I hope this year's system will be exciting and fun to watch. It's about time we went back to the days of Schumaher and Mika batteling it out for Pole...Suzuka 2000 anyone? Tell me that was not the best qualifying ever!