Lewis was on options, Rosberg on primes, and the situation would be swapped for the last stint.
Equally, you can have a game with no goals but exciting end to end action.
Agreed, I'm sure I remember watching a game on TV between Barnsley and Wimbledon that was 0-0 but was 1 of the most entertaining and exciting games I'd seen all season up to that point. Unfortunately you get the occasional match such as Huddersfield v Grimsby on a freezing cold Tuesday night that finishes 0-0 with around 3 efforts on goal all game, with you wondering why you put yourself through such torture given the conditions (I speak of that game having unfortunately been there and left at full time feeling like a block of ice).
F1 is no different, you'll sometimes get classic races, other times they'll be..........well, they'll be dull and there'll be naff all to talk about or get excited about.
Personally I disagree, for me, it's got to be RLM. Anything else is just........no. Don't get me wrong, I like Haven in a strange sort of way, but it has to be RLM.
I tend to drift when Jim (Roller?) is on in the am hours and start to wonder whats happening on ES.
Ah yes, that's true. Though outside night races, or broken bodywork dragging on the ground, I don't recall seeing them elsewhere since the mid-90's.
Thinking more widely about that Autosport article, I can't help but think someone has thought back to a perceived "golden era" and decided that because there were sparks and glowing brake discs etc back then, that it follows that those must have been the cause of good racing or better satisfaction from the fans.
As for the suggested safety car changes, I hate to imagine what Canada 2011 would have been like if those rules had existed. If they want to make the safety car situation better, my suggestion is to forget the tedious unlapping process and just allow lapped cars to drop to the back of the field and credit them a lap back. It's unlikely to affect the fuel situation much anyway, if they've been under the safety car for a while saving fuel.
Everyone is saying how good Bahrain was, but was that just cos the last few laps? Sure, the Merc drivers were racing and it was close, but before the safety car, Lewis was pulling away.
The FIA tried to recreate Canada with tyres, it didn't work cos it was a one off, circumstances, just as Bahrain was. Every now and then a football game will produce a 5-4 thriller, but it also produces plenty of 0-0 or 1-0 games which are a snoozefest, so does F1. It's sport
I was finding this year's Bahrain race exciting even before the safety car. There just seemed to be a lot of close racing (and not just DRS passes or tyres falling apart) through the field, and there were a lot of strategies playing out. Even without the safety car I think it would have been a tense ending to a good race.
Visually too I think it looked really good as a night race, though obviously that was just a bonus on top of the racing being good, it wouldn't have helped if the close racing wasn't there.
If they want to make the safety car situation better, my suggestion is to forget the tedious unlapping process and just allow lapped cars to drop to the back of the field and credit them a lap back.
I've always thought that the best way of handling the lapped cars would be to pull them into the pits & hold them on the red light at the end until the lead lap cars have all passed them.
I was finding Bahrain exciting even before the safety car. (Now that's a sentence I never thought I'd type ) There just seemed to be a lot of close racing (and not just DRS passes or tyres falling apart) through the field, and there were a lot of strategies playing out. Even without the safety car I think it would have been a tense ending to a good race.
Agreed, The SC made the end more interesting but the race in my opinion had been good more or less since the start.
I've always thought that the best way of handling the lapped cars would be to pull them into the pits & hold them on the red light at the end until the lead lap cars have all passed them.
That sounds like a very logical and safe way of handling it.
Wow that's crazy I agree it's best they're out of the way too, it's just curious the race director and/or rule makers are so happy to waste extra racing laps on the process when the solution would be so easy.
1. That website is more sycophantic than a North Korean newspaper, they only ever publish positive articles, the articles never have any depth or insight. They're a regurgitation of driver quotes and the most banal interviews.
2. The world feed is unavailable direct.....can you access it when the BBC isn't showing the race live? No you can't. It's access on FOM's terms only and that is restricted to the home country's broadcasting deal(s). You can't stream direct yourself or even have the option. You can't access the huge archive of past races, and the way FOM go all out to remove YouTube vids is a bit unnecessary.
3. The app, I do agree the cost is small
4. Plenty of fan involvement at the track? Have you actually been to a race before?? The only fan involvement for the majority of people is a glimpse of a driver in the pit lane or when they drive past in the drivers parade. The average punter is kept at a deliberately at arms length on the outside of the circuit. The amount of 'fanzone' attractions has been steadily decreasing year on year at the British GP. You could visit the Pirelli stand and treat yourself to a rubber key ring I suppose. Contrast that to this years WEC where I was able of my own free accord to walk into the paddock....that would cost me 000's on a F1 weekend. Even at the races there's no longer a FIA or FOM standard....it's just merchandise stalls. The teams themselves no longer bother putting up there own stand. I remember going to my first GP in 2008, visting all the teams individual stands, being handed a copy of the red bull bulletin etc....all of that is now gone.
F1 does a p*** poor job of promoting itself. To the outside world it appears a money dominated morally corrupt business.
1. When was the last time you saw an article on a sports *official website* criticising itself? That's promotional suicide. That's like putting a big banner up saying "DON'T COME TO OUR EVENTS"... That's a ridiculous argument, suggesting F1 should have articles criticising itself on it's own website... And Personally I find their technical articles very informative, and clearly written. It's only through the F1 website that i've got a decent understanding of how the ERS systems this year work. Ted Kravitz's explanations on the testing notebook were frankly confusing and muddled half the time.
2. Can you watch the WRC Feeds live and for free, globally? Can you watch IndyCar live and for free, globally, can you watch every single round of the WEC (Incl. Le Mans) live and for free, globally? Can you watch the 24 hours of Spa in it's entirety live and for free, globally? Can you watch the British GT rounds live and for free, in it's entirety, globally, online? What about WTCC? MotoGP? NASCAR? The answer to all of those is no. You either have to pay, either to a dedicated web portal or purchase a subscription to a TV package. Why should F1 be any different? F1 is supposed to be a cut above the rest. Just having the world feed as youtube stream as it's only option is not good enough IMO. It's cheap and amateur, which F1 should not be about IMO.
4. Well if things have changed since 2008 then that's a bad thing, as that was the last time I went to a Grand Prix. Personally I think that F1 could do paddock access, but then again I'm sure some nutjob crazy fan would act like an idiot, nick something or injure himself, and ruin it for everyone, just cos F1 would attract such a higher profile. Isn't F1 supposed to have a dedicated area/time where fans can get autographs from the drivers? It would be nice if that could be done as part of a "Fan's bullring", rather like the press bull-ring, but with fans on the outside, rather than press.
LeMans is an ASO run event if memory serves, and they tend to contract out coverage to tv stations to stream, I know I go back to cycling again but as the ASO run that too, they only gave ITV the rights to stream LeTour a few years ago (I'm sure Arius will correct me).
Le Mans is promoted by IMG, and has been for a very long time.
As far as I know the only motor sport that ASO is involved in is the Dakar Rally.
Its a long race, time for both. Eurosport have a decent team for Lemans and you cant miss Haven's 3am meltdown.
Haven's 3am meltdown used to be novel, but nowadays there rarely seems to be a race commentary of his that goes by without him having some kind of mental wobble... I've grown increasingly weary of him over the years, to the point that I can barely stand to wait for him to come out with his next unnecessary, completely distracting rant.
I remember him being slightly more restrained when alongside Gareth Rees or David Leslie in yesteryear. Now his many opinions, cynicism and apparent disdain for elements of the sport is just overwhelming.
Haven's 3am meltdown used to be novel, but nowadays there rarely seems to be a race commentary of his that goes by without him having some kind of mental wobble...
Well, i dont watch WTCC and hes blocked me on twitter, so im only privy to his rants at Lemans.
You know what, FOM Fan makes a valid point here. A lot of the f1 people watched in the 80s was in highlights form, so a lot of the more tedious racing could be edited out and never be seen by our eyes. Am sure if we'd had wall to wall live coverage back then there would have been plenty of dull racing that we'd have complained about.
I seem to remember there being plenty of dull races shown live in the 90s and 00s as well, but people are starting to speak of those era's as classics now. It's kinda like a historical highlights form in that the classic races and iconic moments are re-run and replayed, whilst the borefests are gathering dust on a shelf, edited out of the sport's revised history and gradually forgotten.
The Last Teammate documentary was a nice thoughtful programme tonight, and to its great credit managed to cover the events of the weekend - and the 1994 season - without needing to repeat clips of the fatal accidents.
--
(BTW anyone recording the Monaco 84 race on SSF1 at the moment is going to find there's rather a lot of grass around for a street circuit...)
EDIT: Stefmeister already posted whilst I was writing.
I didn't bother setting the Sky+ box to record Monaco 84 because I've already got it. I haven't got Silverstone '81 though - and I still haven't because I only found out 5 mins ago that they weren't showing the advertised race :-(
What I did notice in the last few mins that I saw though was to do with tobacco sponsorship. Watson's car didn't have the word Marlboro on it; it had the barcode-style black lines that I remember being used at races where tobacco sponsorship wasn't allowed. Yet the winner's truck carried banners saying Marlboro British Grand Prix.
So if Marlboro were shown as sponsors of the race, how come the word Marlboro wasn't on the McLarens?
Even accounting for Sky's sub-par HD bitrates AND the fact that the archive footage has been cropped to 16:9, the up-scaled picture quality of the majority of the archive footage is fantastic.
Proof that Previous F1 Season Reviews should be released on Blu-ray IMO (and I'm a purist, so they should be released unaltered from their original form IMO, no new commentary/narration (or at the very least, keep the original in some form, if they *have* to include a new narration and no cropping to 16:9.
Saying that, the quality of the individual shots that make up the reviews will probably not be as good (due to being a few generations down from the master IMO, when originally editing the reviews together) as presumably the 1st gen copies being used in The Last Teammate.
Comments
Agreed, I'm sure I remember watching a game on TV between Barnsley and Wimbledon that was 0-0 but was 1 of the most entertaining and exciting games I'd seen all season up to that point. Unfortunately you get the occasional match such as Huddersfield v Grimsby on a freezing cold Tuesday night that finishes 0-0 with around 3 efforts on goal all game, with you wondering why you put yourself through such torture given the conditions (I speak of that game having unfortunately been there and left at full time feeling like a block of ice).
F1 is no different, you'll sometimes get classic races, other times they'll be..........well, they'll be dull and there'll be naff all to talk about or get excited about.
I tend to drift when Jim (Roller?) is on in the am hours and start to wonder whats happening on ES.
Ah yes, that's true. Though outside night races, or broken bodywork dragging on the ground, I don't recall seeing them elsewhere since the mid-90's.
Thinking more widely about that Autosport article, I can't help but think someone has thought back to a perceived "golden era" and decided that because there were sparks and glowing brake discs etc back then, that it follows that those must have been the cause of good racing or better satisfaction from the fans.
As for the suggested safety car changes, I hate to imagine what Canada 2011 would have been like if those rules had existed. If they want to make the safety car situation better, my suggestion is to forget the tedious unlapping process and just allow lapped cars to drop to the back of the field and credit them a lap back. It's unlikely to affect the fuel situation much anyway, if they've been under the safety car for a while saving fuel.
I was finding this year's Bahrain race exciting even before the safety car. There just seemed to be a lot of close racing (and not just DRS passes or tyres falling apart) through the field, and there were a lot of strategies playing out. Even without the safety car I think it would have been a tense ending to a good race.
Visually too I think it looked really good as a night race, though obviously that was just a bonus on top of the racing being good, it wouldn't have helped if the close racing wasn't there.
I like the rule which gets the lapped cars out the way as it was really irritating in the past when a lapped car got in the way on the restarts. I remember a situation in Melbourne in 2006 where one of the Midland F1 cars was totally asleep at the restart & allowed the leader (Alonso) to have about a big lead on 2nd place before they even got to the start line.
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/5540/zy8kx.jpg
http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/9676/ctqkx.jpg
http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/6276/xhyxr.jpg
http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/1886/rv35.jpg
Agreed, The SC made the end more interesting but the race in my opinion had been good more or less since the start.
That sounds like a very logical and safe way of handling it.
Wow that's crazy
2. Can you watch the WRC Feeds live and for free, globally? Can you watch IndyCar live and for free, globally, can you watch every single round of the WEC (Incl. Le Mans) live and for free, globally? Can you watch the 24 hours of Spa in it's entirety live and for free, globally? Can you watch the British GT rounds live and for free, in it's entirety, globally, online? What about WTCC? MotoGP? NASCAR? The answer to all of those is no. You either have to pay, either to a dedicated web portal or purchase a subscription to a TV package. Why should F1 be any different? F1 is supposed to be a cut above the rest. Just having the world feed as youtube stream as it's only option is not good enough IMO. It's cheap and amateur, which F1 should not be about IMO.
4. Well if things have changed since 2008 then that's a bad thing, as that was the last time I went to a Grand Prix. Personally I think that F1 could do paddock access, but then again I'm sure some nutjob crazy fan would act like an idiot, nick something or injure himself, and ruin it for everyone, just cos F1 would attract such a higher profile. Isn't F1 supposed to have a dedicated area/time where fans can get autographs from the drivers? It would be nice if that could be done as part of a "Fan's bullring", rather like the press bull-ring, but with fans on the outside, rather than press.
Le Mans is promoted by IMG, and has been for a very long time.
As far as I know the only motor sport that ASO is involved in is the Dakar Rally.
Quite right Arius, got my ASO and ACO's confused. Getting old!
Haven's 3am meltdown used to be novel, but nowadays there rarely seems to be a race commentary of his that goes by without him having some kind of mental wobble... I've grown increasingly weary of him over the years, to the point that I can barely stand to wait for him to come out with his next unnecessary, completely distracting rant.
I remember him being slightly more restrained when alongside Gareth Rees or David Leslie in yesteryear. Now his many opinions, cynicism and apparent disdain for elements of the sport is just overwhelming.
Well, i dont watch WTCC and hes blocked me on twitter, so im only privy to his rants at Lemans.
Probably for the best.
Yep!
Yes. However, Oliver Weingarten has arranged the aptly titled 'Not a FOTA Forum', which is being held on Thursday in London.
I seem to remember there being plenty of dull races shown live in the 90s and 00s as well, but people are starting to speak of those era's as classics now. It's kinda like a historical highlights form in that the classic races and iconic moments are re-run and replayed, whilst the borefests are gathering dust on a shelf, edited out of the sport's revised history and gradually forgotten.
Looks like Silverstone 1981 to me.
--
(BTW anyone recording the Monaco 84 race on SSF1 at the moment is going to find there's rather a lot of grass around for a street circuit...)
EDIT: Stefmeister already posted whilst I was writing.
What I did notice in the last few mins that I saw though was to do with tobacco sponsorship. Watson's car didn't have the word Marlboro on it; it had the barcode-style black lines that I remember being used at races where tobacco sponsorship wasn't allowed. Yet the winner's truck carried banners saying Marlboro British Grand Prix.
So if Marlboro were shown as sponsors of the race, how come the word Marlboro wasn't on the McLarens?
Proof that Previous F1 Season Reviews should be released on Blu-ray IMO (and I'm a purist, so they should be released unaltered from their original form IMO, no new commentary/narration (or at the very least, keep the original in some form, if they *have* to include a new narration and no cropping to 16:9.
Saying that, the quality of the individual shots that make up the reviews will probably not be as good (due to being a few generations down from the master IMO, when originally editing the reviews together) as presumably the 1st gen copies being used in The Last Teammate.
Silverlight installed, cant get a picture on firefox or chrome?
Silverlight plugin is not supported for chrome on macs.
The minimum recommended requirements are:
safari 4+ and os 10.5 .7 and above
I have it installed just fine on Chrome, Mac for Netflix. I don't think that is the issue.
http://mono-project.com/Moonlight/