F1 Season 2013!
 

I'm beating Nick to the punch this season and I'm starting the F1 thread myself!

Season starts in just 2 weeks. Not sure where the off-season went, feels like it was just last weekend that they were running in Sao Paulo.

The Fantasy F1 site is up at http://ff1.seccs.org/ for those that want to play along.

Damnit

Can't wait to see what Hamilton can do for Mercedes. I've been a fan of his for the past two seasons. Most hate him because of his attitude I guess, but it's like being a fan of Kobe (which I am as well lol). They're talented but have their own flaws. BBC coverage ftw!!

I think Hamilton made a terrible, terrible mistake leaving McLaren.

The upside is that I'm super excited to see what Perez can do with a top-caliber car under him. I think Mexico might have a championship contender to root for, which in a way makes him also the closest thing to a US driver, as Austin will be his "home" track.

Of course, if the Ferrari this season doesn't suck like it did at the start of last season, I think Alonso will run away with the driver's championship this year. And though I've been a long time Alonso hater... I'm actually kinda rooting for him this season. He's clearly the most talented driver in the field... it would be just sorta "right" for the best driver driving a Ferrari to win again.

Anything's better than a Vettel 4-peat. I love Vettel, and we're not quite down the road of domination that the Schumacher era went down... but I'm ready for a new world champ.

I agree, Alonso was very successful last season, despite the cons of his car. I think he will be a major contendor for Vettel. If you watch BBC's TOP GEAR, season 19 episode 4 I think, Hamilton went on the show again, and during the interview he explained the switch to Mercedes. He pretty much wants to bring his experience and talent to a team that can use it more than McLaren. I honestly think he was just fed up with all of the mistakes the team made during last season, which arguably is the one reason he lost important points in some races.

I've heard Hamilton's reasons for leaving. I might even agree with him a bit on the idea of wanting a new challenge. But he does come off as a bit disingenuous about the whole thing... if he had just won 3 driver's championships in a row, I might believe the whole "new challenge" thing a bit more. The reality is that he seems like he's not happy with the team, and instead of working at improving the relationship there like a pro, he's just jumping ship.

My bet is that once he's in an uncompetitive car, and realizes that the reason Mercedes isn't improving isn't for a lack of a driver developing the chassis (they had fucking Schumacher for christsake!), it's because the engineering talent and budget at Mercedes doesn't match Red Bull, McLaren, or Ferrari, Hamilton is going to be kicking himself. If he thinks he's frustrated now with McLaren over personnel issues, just wait until his car is slower than everyone else and no amount of bad-ass driving is going to drop his lap times. I think that Hamilton's biggest weakness is his ability to communicate with the team when he's frustrated, and that's basically *the only thing* that a driver who's developing a chassis is required to do.

I fully expect to see Hamilton have a meltdown at some point in the season due to frustration over lack of pace in the car. Like throwing it off the track at trying to get into Q3 and then getting out and spiking the steering wheel on the tarmac before wandering off to go hang out with Kimi on Kimi's boat. :lol:

I guess we'll have to wait and see lol :cool:
11 days till lights out!!

I don't think I have NBC Sports. I'm screwed.

Me too. Apparently it's only included with the highest priced package Comcast offers. I'm going to check out Dish and Direct tv in bit. I was wanting to cut the cord but it's not looking good for me at the moment.

I'm switching to DirecTV as soon as the new version of the Genie DVR is released. Fuck Charter. They just raised my rate by like $30/mo by refusing to give us any package discount like they've been giving us for the last 6 years. Coupled with the worst customer service I've ever had, ever, anywhere, for anything, multiple times... it's high time to jump ship and move to somewhere just a tiny bit less shitty.

Will you let me know when that is too? same boat

Charter has the best internet in Reno, better than the cable I get out here. Their customer service is shit though. I was really surprised that they actually sent me a refund check after I returned their equipment when I left, although it's 2 months later

I'm keeping cable internet. The internet service is actually pretty good. It's the fact they want to charge me like $90/mo for the most basic package with a shitty DVR that's unacceptable.

I can get a 5-tuner, 4-room DVR with 6 times the capacity and twice as many channels with DirecTV for that same price.

The season is less than a week away!

Sign up soon if you plan to play this year.

http://ff1.seccs.org

I caught a pre-season preview show on NBC Sports, I'm feeling pretty good about the coverage. Also, it sounds like they wil be adding a 30 minute post-race show to wrap up all the loose ends right after the race...So that will be cool.

I wonder how clever I'm going to have to get with my DVR so it picks up the new coverage. I finally refined my searches so it got all of the F1 coverage on Speed last season (still had to manually record the Fox broadcasts).

Hopefully NBC will be easier. I guess I should check the schedule since it's less than a week out now.

Hmmm..I need to do the same, had it pretty dialed in before. Talk about "1st-world problems" :)

I'm getting my cable upgraded on saturday. I'll miss practice and qualifying, but catch the race. Stupid Fox, I wish Torgo's Executive Powder was real.

Direct TV guy will be out Thursday to install my Genie box. Suck it Xfinity.

Some damn good qualifying. I love those last minute shoot outs. I think Vettle, and Button will be in great shape after the first stop.

I just can't believe the soft tires are falling off after three laps.

Damn good race.

I switched to DTV also, charter was too pricey , i also ditched them for Internet. trying out AT&T U-verse. its a little annoying (to me) that you have to use their router, and can't change your SID or password. but the speeds are really good, really low latency and even where i only get 4 bars of wifi i'm still easily downloading at 14 meg/sec (don't think i ever saw that with my 30 meg charter plan) upload is 1.5

last race (which was my first one watching) was alright. other than Vettel running away with the lead , it was a good one to watch, the racing in the 2-8 positions was really good.

Yeah, everyone sorta writes off Bahrain as a "boring" race. But this year's was pretty awesome. Vettel had to fight to get that lead, even though he ran away... but getting by Rosberg and being challenged by Alonso at the start was exciting.

Then the Ferrari's were a rollercoaster ride to follow with their problems. But the best part of the race was di Resta and Grosjean fighting for 3rd, and all the side-by-side action through the esses further back in the pack between Hamilton/Perez/Webber/Button.

It's official Honda / McLaren.

Not until 2015, right? Or is it going to be next year?

Link? I'm not seeing anythign official?

n/m found it...awesome... Does this have anything to do with Lewis' move?


http://www.mclaren.com/formula1/insi...ula-1-history/

From Whitmarsh's mouth:

http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/05/16/v...ment-in-tokyo/

If we could just get Lotus and/or Caterham to be owned by the Brits, everything would be right in the world. :lol:

An exciting Monaco GP. Although thanks to red flag the DVR didn't get the last 20 laps.

McLaren seems to have picked up the pace, It'll be an interesting Canadian GP. Although Checo is being a bit too aggressive. I didn't see the incident between him and Kimi, but looking at the pictures and how kamikaze he was into Nouvelle I'd say he was driving a disappearing line. He did the same thing with Alonso. I'm just happy the McLaren is able to fight for those positions.

Sutil drove a fantastic race, Force India keeps getting better. Rosberg had a flawless weekend, 30 years after his old man. Bravo.

And the Mercedes / Pirelli secret tire test? With Pirelli not having a contract for next year this doesn't bode well.

I am not impressed....I was really hoping Mark could win a title before retirement, but it was just not meant to be. He will shine in the new Porsche's though. So long Mark Webber

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlin...3/6/14703.html

Yeah, I always thought Webber would grab a title when Red Bull got good. But really, it's his own fault... he had a great chance and threw it away spinning in Korea in 2010 (if I remember right) after Vettel had already retired. Winning that round would have pretty much made it nearly impossible for anyone but Alonso to take the lead back, and as we know Ferrari fell off at the end of that season eventually handing the title to Vettel. I think since then, Webber's always sort of blamed himself and had a small confidence problem which opened the door psychologically for Vettel to dominate the team (and F1 in general for that matter).

I think going back to sports cars, especially in the new Porsche LMP1 will be great for Webber. He'll probably win a ton of races assuming the Porsche doesn't suck (it won't, they spent so much time working up to this car with the P2 cars, I can't see how it'd suck). And his experience will be priceless for the team. Endurance sports car racing is awesome... it's cool to see some big name drivers heading that way.

Yeah, agreed on all that, Webber had the opportunity, much like Massa a few years back. The fields are so close, you may only have that one chance to win the title.

Also, Mark Webber had a pretty good run in Sports cars prior to his F1 days, and with Porsche's commitment to winning, I bet the program excels early-on.

Yeah, I'm *still* super bummed about Massa losing to Hamilton. It was an incredible storybook championship win... ruined by Hamilton's stupid last corner of the season pass for what, 6th place or something dumb? :mad:

Since his spring to the head, Massa just hasn't had the same pace as before. Not sure if it's directly related, but being out of the car for a bit and coming back to a less than competitive Ferrari leaving him to constantly have to drive for his job has just sorta taken the wind out of his sails. Especially with Alonso, who may be the best driver in the history of F1, as a teammate. How do you even compete with that?

You know, that's a good point, being Alonso's teammate must be tough, (Think Trulli, Fisichella, Massa, etc..) I used to take for granted all the wins and multiple championships Alonso put together at Renault, but all the while, his teammates were no where near as successful. Now as I watch him in what is likely the 3rd or 4th best chassis in F1, he makes the car competitive beyond where it should be. I think the closest he had to an equal pairing was with Hamilton, and I can't say for sure that either one outperformed the other substantially.

I think that is one of the things I love about F1, there is no guarantee that one chassis or driver will be dominant, but the right combination at the right time.

New Jersey not on the provisional calendar for 2014

http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/09/05/n...2014-calendar/

I'm not surprised. The general lack of any good news for more than a year kinda indicated it wasn't happening.

Austria on the other hand is a surprise to me... I hadn't heard anything about that! What track is it? Osterreichring? Is that track even open anymore? :lol:

According to Wikipedia, Austria will be run at the Red Bull Ring (formerly the A1 Ring, formerly the Osterreichring).

Yeah, Red bull has funded (big surprise) some big improvements to the circuit, it looks beautiful, should be a good venue for F1.

Oh, I totally forgot about the F1 races at the A-1 ring (that was right as I was getting into watching F1 regularly)... and I had no idea that used to be Osterreichring.

I actually didn't either. It was pretty massively reconfigured, apparently to become the A1 Ring. The Red Bull Ring looks pretty much the same as the A1 Ring, at least track wise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Ring

I'm more interested in Mexico.

Also, I predict a McLaren podium this weekend.

And sad news from Felipe Massa

(And yes, he officially released news on Instagram)

http://instagram.com/p/eFyM4QHLf1/

From 2014 i will no longer be driving for Ferrari. I would like to thank the team for all the victories and incredible moments experienced together. Thank you also to my wife and all of my family, to my fans and all my Sponsors. From each one of you I have always received a great support! Right now I want to push as hard as possible with Ferrari for the remaining 7 races. For next year, I want to find a team that can give me a competitive car to win many more races and challenge for the Championship which remains my greatest objective! Thank you all. Felipe

Can't say I'm surprised. :(

Who's in at Ferrari then? Hulkenberg? Where's Massa end up? Sauber? Lotus?

Maybe Kimi Raikonnen. Seriously.

http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/09/10/a...n-and-ferrari/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24042352

I hope its Hulkenberg.

Maybe Kobayashi? He's been driving for Ferrari in a exhibitions hasn't he? Unlikely but I'd like to see him back in F1.

Raikkonen and Alonso on the same team could be pretty messy. Plus, I'd be surprised to see Montezemolo eat crow and hire Kimi back after paying him to go away for a year.

Ferrari is best served by finding Alonso a solid #2, at least that worked great for them with Schumacher/Barrichello. I would think Hulkenberg would be a fantastic teammate at Ferrari... he's good enough to consistently earn team points, but not as good as Alonso to ensure they can focus effort on winning drivers' championships for Alonso.

Crosses fingers that Lotus somehow comes up with the money to keep Kimi...

If that's the case then I can't comprehend why they wouldn't keep Massa. He is well aware of his position as number two, and has out qualified Alonso a number of times this season. Do they really think they'll get number 1 in the constructors championship with someone who isn't really a team player, like Raikkonen.

The BBC is now confirming Raikkonen at Ferrari.