2003 F1 calendar

[go z racer, go]

You hit the nail on the head Carl regarding broadcast race coverage. It seems each venue chooses to focus on the Ferrari, Williams, McLaren-podium "non story" up front, while unseen battles for positions yielding a single point (sixth place) are taking place a few cars back.

Last years season ending race at Suzuka saw Jordan's Japanese driver, Sato (relegated this year as a test driver for BAR), finish in fifth place. Hardly worth noting to some however, to Teams competing for next years F1 perks (Bernie's monopoly) it was a million dollar difference. The pit shots of yellow men fixated to their monitors (for good reason too, every Honda powered car with exception to Sato's was DNF) and Sato driving above his abilities in front of his screaming home crowd (and all the factory Honda employees) for my money was refreshing.

I may have just opened my trap a bit too early concerning my predictions of yet another Ferrari's strangle hold season. It seems that Ralph Schumacher "smashed" Ferrari's Jerez lap record by over a full second today. Good news indeed for us F1 fans. I'd enjoy nothing more than to see Michael put his skills to work for an unprecedented sixth title. However, I'd really love to see him "forced" to work. That would bring out the best in him as well as the sport it's self.

This will truly be "Motorsport history in the making." I feel like I'm seven years of age again and Christmas is just around the corner!---Jerry

[Walter Moore]

Gosh, you folks have me just about talked into dropping by the track this September to watch those "foreign" cars run the "wrong direction" around the track.

I have to admit that having lived in Indianapolis for 42 years, I kind of take racing for granted. I have only actually been to "the race" once, just after the CART/IRL split. The paper that year said that "nobody" had shown up to watch the race. It took about 4 hours for the 500,000 nobodys present to get out of the track... I decided that if that was a lightly attended race, I didn't want to see the real thing. I love the racing, but hate the lines...

But the F1 cars have always interested me. I really want to hear one of those things screaming down the front straight at 18,000 RPM. I hear that the Indy track has the longest full-throttle stretch of the season. The first year they were all crying that their engines couldn't run at full boil that long without exploding. None of them did as far as I know...

I might drop by, but I just don't like crowds.

[2ManyZs]

Sorry guys, but I'm one of those people that think F1 stinks!

Racing is intended to be how well an man AND a machine can work in concert to cover the distance in the quickest time. Not how well a man can adapt to all the electronic driver aids that are so prevelent in F1 now. It has nothing to do with driver skills and "cojones", it's all a matter of which team has the resources to configure the electronic aids into the package that can beat the other teams. There are so many driver aids in these cars, it is almost a matter of which man can work the buttons on the steering wheels without crashing than it is about who can actually drive.

Give me the racing back in the 70's or 80's and even the very early 90's in F1 to see a really good show. Now that was racing the way it was intended, todays racing bears little if any resemblance to "real racing".

Take the cars and take all the electronic aids out of them such as in NASCAR, but leave the rest of the car alone and then we will see some really good racing where the driver has more than a 20% input into how the car goes around the track. Of course, without the elctronics, those cars probably wouldn't make it 10 laps without spewing their guts out all over the track.

I for one want to see more than one or two cars that have an actual chance of winning, passing and racing for the lead, and no more of this winning by 50 seconds over the second place car, or pulling over to let your "No.1" driver pass you for the win.

There's only one type of racing that puts me to sleep faster than watching NASCAR go around in circles and that's and F1 race...

I'll stick to the Trans Am, Speed World Challenge, ALMS, European Touring Car, and others for my racing "fix"...

Unless they want to run those cars on the one track in the US that really deserves and is worthy of an F1 race, Road America. Or take NASCAR or CART to one of the F1 tracks in Europe. Now that might be interesting...

Just my $.02 worth....

[Bambikiller240]

Originally posted by go z racer, go

Hey Carl, and the rest of you F1 fans, here's a little something for you all (I do more than just scribble Z graphics).

Thanks for those graphics, Jerry. I especially like the "Red Baron" one! Yeah, the Suzuka race was special for Honda and Sato, it's too bad that Eddie Jordan couldn't have found a way to reward him with a seat for this year, I guess he didn't feel any loyalty since he wasn't going to get the Honda engines for 03 anyway. I think we'll' see Sato in another team within a year or so. That drive certainly added a bit to Jordans share of the "Ecclestone Money Pie". Should be interesting to see if Jaguar can pull themselves out of the septic tank where they've been languishing for the past two years. I wonder just how much money they have pissed away with essentially nothing to show for it?

2ManyZs: First of all, I agree about Road America. I wish they could get that track up to FIA safety standards, it would be fantastic to see a F! race there while munching a Brat and quaffing a cold beer.

The majority of the driver aids are on their way out this year. Traction control, automatic shifting, even pit to car communications are expected to be banned. I suspect that radio communications may be allowed, but there won't be any systems management being controlled by the pit engineers. The economy has finally gotten the leadership of F1 to realize that you can't just fling huge sums of money into the F1 circus forever. The smaller teams are really suffering and Max Mosely has finally gotten serious about reigning in the costs. Hopefully these changes with the changes to the qualifications format will mix up the game for 2003. I do agree that the races of the past few years have gotten boring at the front of the grid, but the mid-field , and backmarkers still put on some good dices ( I just wish the local broadcasters would understand that).

It's really neat when I can watch cars that go from 0 to 100 mph in under 3 seconds, and can get from 100mph back to zero in less time than that. And 18,000 rpm 4 cycle V10 engines have a sound all of their own! I think the show is going to be better this year than the cakewalk that Ferrari enjoyed last year.

Now, if CART can see their way clear to stop with all of the damn full course yello flags everytime a car stalls on track. They just screw up the racing when it happns so often. Most racing series go through cycle where the racing gets better, and better, then for one reason or another it gets buggered up. CART was great in the eightys and early 90's too, then Honda and Toyota started flinging money around, and the series leadership got stale. They lost their way and played right into Tony George hand. I sure hope Chris Pook gets them back on track.

I love most all types of racing. I'm even enjoying a bit of IRL (at Texas Motor Speedway anyway).

[Nigel Mulvey]

My philosophy on F1 is the same as I have for all other sports. I just want to see a good race/game. Over the years I have followed the careers of many F1 drivers - Clarke, Hill Snr, Stewart, Hunt, Mansell, Hill Jnr. Using Mansell as an example, many of his attempts at the F1 championship were spoilt by the domination of the McLarens driven by Senna and Prost so when eventually Williams get it right and Mansell wins the championship (1992) he does so earlier in the season than anyone else had done previously and the races won were done so convincingly but the racing was somewhat dull. There he goes again leaving everyone behind just like Senna and Prost before him and Schumacher now.

Lets hope these new rule changes will help get the exitement back.

For the record I'm following Webber at the moment. Hopefully if an Australian were to be succesful again we might get some decent TV coverage here. Not like Channel 9's so called 'live coverage' - "it was live when we recorded it" (apologies to John Cleese).

One of the few things I miss about living in the UK is the proximity to all the circuits.

[Ed]

Some good points made. I agree with you 2many that the drivers in F1 just seem to be there for the ride. I too would like to see less driver aids. What ever happened to the good old gear shifter? Another thing I would like to see is restricting how much money these teams can spend. It seem that the big buck teams are at the front and the budget teams are always sucking fumes.

How about the "One engine one race rule"? Carl is that one of the changes to this year. You said that after quals the car gets locked up. Can they change engines?

The best races of last season were when some of the big dogs at the front had a mis start and had to start from the rear of the pack. Then watching them come from the rear sliceing and diceing there way up to the front of the pack. YEA!!

Well it should be fun to hear that V10 again. Next week!!!

[Bambikiller240]

Originally posted by Ed

Another thing I would like to see is restricting how much money these teams can spend. It seem that the big buck teams are at the front and the budget teams are always sucking fumes.

How about the "One engine one race rule"? Carl is that one of the changes to this year. You said that after quals the car gets locked up. Can they change engines?

The best races of last season were when some of the big dogs at the front had a mis start and had to start from the rear of the pack. Then watching them come from the rear sliceing and diceing there way up to the front of the pack. YEA!!

Well it should be fun to hear that V10 again. Next week!!!

Hi Ed:

Money doesn't always do it. Ferrari pissed away a hell of a lot of money for about 20 years (from 1982 onward) without any sucess at all. Jaguar hasn't done squat with all of Ford's money for the last two years either. Now, having said that, In general, the "haves" will always outpace the "have nots". but no other major racing series that I know of limits the budgets of teams. The "haves" in F1 do spend way more money than makes sense to me, and the Minardi's, Sauber's, and Jordan's of the F1 world cannot even come close to the budgets of Ferrari, McLaren, BAR, and Toyota. Maybe it is time to put a cap on the budget. I'd hate to see the technology limited because that is one part of the series that really fasinates me. It's a tough call to make.

For 2003, my understanding is that the race cars must start the race with the engine and tires (and the fuel load) that the car qualified with. I'm not sure what would be done if the qualifying engine "accidently" blew up on the cool down lap. Hopefully someone besides the teams have considered that senario!

[Caen Fred]

You are so right Carl.

It's not a money game, but more a engeniering game. And you know who they are those people that spend their time fixing trouble they created at first. So the money is only there to liberate their creativity...

We have enough monotype formula around to give everybody their chance in this type of racing, F1 is like WRC an other type thats all.

It's funny, with all that mind power, the more "restrictions" the FIA guys give to the teams, the faster the car goes the next season ??????

Just a tought, but what would look like a F1 today if the FIA didn't do any of those change :

like a 6 wheeled vacumed moving flaps wing-cars with twin-turbo all automatic runing on monster slick tires... and doing warping time almost going in the past at each gas pedal pression.