F1 2009 Season

[sulky_uk]

1982 monaco race, patrese's in the lead and then spins out of the 2nd to last lap,  now in 6th, race over.....well no.......... patrese still won cause on the last 2 laps all the guys in front spun out and he crossed the line.............what a race

[OldBloke]

I remember Mansell hounding Senna around there but not being able to pass.

[TeaLeaf]

I have not seen this posted, so I thought I would add it to this thread.  I found it quite gob-smacking and I was one of the people who assumed that the FIA and Ferrari were in cahoots, but the degree to which they are/were amazed me.

Ferrari Must Play Fair or Go (Times Online)

Of one thing we can be sure. Formula One is desperately in need of new management. The present crisis in the sport, over an attempt by the FIA to introduce budget capping on the teams, has incidentally revealed details of a secret agreement it holds with Ferrari that should have no place in any professional sport.

Everyone has known for years that Ferrari, who are tomorrow launching a legal action in Paris against the governing body to try to stop the budget cap, has special treatment in Formula One. The Italian luxury sports car manufacturer is regarded by both Bernie Ecclestone, the sport's commercial rights-holder and Max Mosley, the FIA president, as the goose that lays Formula One's golden eggs, giving the championship a touch of class, glamour and historical continuity.

It is for this reason that when the Scuderia wins the manufacturers' world championship it is paid £55 million more than any other team, something that would be utterly untenable in any other sport.

Imagine Chelsea having a special deal with the FA under which they were paid tens of millions of pounds more than Manchester United or Arsenal for winning the Premier League - the notion would be laughed out of court.

Over the last two weeks, however, another more secret deal in Ferrari's favour has emerged in the course of the budget-capping row, but this time it is not with Ecclestone, but with the FIA. It appears that when the Italian team abandoned a breakaway move in 2004-05 by team bosses fed up with being starved of income by Ecclestone and returned to the FIA fold, not only did Ecclestone agree special financial arrangements for them, Mosley agreed to Ferrari having an exclusive veto over changes to the technical rules in the sport.

In other words, Ferrari would be able to stop anything they did not like or changes which they might suspect could be advantageous to their competitors or moves in technical directions which either did not suit their cars or the abilities of their designers and engineers. Ferrari could thus decide exactly how far apart the goalposts should be in what is supposed to be the world's pinnacle series in motor sport. Once again, any analogy with other sports underlines just how indefensible this arrangement is. Imagine the English cricket team having a secret deal with the ICC allowing them to veto any changes in the rules when this is not available to Pakistan, Australia or South Africa?

It is just possible to see why Ecclestone, as the commercial driving force behind the global business that is Formula One, might be allowed to vary payments to teams of differing circumstances - just. It is an altogether different case when it is the governing body itself that has chosen to favour one team against all the others in a deal which it has never admitted to up until now. The FIA is supposed to be an impartial, independent, rule-making body that sets a level playing field for all teams competing in Formula One. With this cosy backroom deal with Ferrari it has completely abandoned all those principles and cannot claim that it has acted with impartiality. Furthermore, there is no possible excuse for such favouritism; if Ferrari did not want to play in Formula One except on its own terms, Mosley should have shown the team the door, not indulged them.

The upshot is that in the French capital tomorrow Ferrari are going to the civil courts to apply for an injunction stopping Mosley introducing radical cost-cutting measures for next year, which most of the other teams now favour, because the Italians believe their secret deal, which they should never have had in the first place, has been broken by the FIA.

According to Ferrari, if the FIA wanted to impose a £40 million budget cap, it should have presented its plans to Maranello first, where the Italians could have vetoed it if they did not like it.

An FIA official admitted today that the deal has been kept secret until now (it emerged during leaked correspondence between Mosley and Luca Di Montezemolo, the Ferrari president, in the course of the budget cap row). “I am not sure it is something that we have discussed (in public),” he said. He tried to defend it by arguing that the 2005 agreement was merely a continuation of a secret arrangement with Ferrari that had been in place for years - in other words Mosley had merely endorsed a fix which he should have scrapped.

If one good thing comes out of the present crisis in Formula One, it should be the end of the feather-bedding of Ferrari, once and for all. All teams should get their fair share of the financial pot in a transparent manner and no teams should ever be given a secret right of veto over how the sport is governed. If Ferrari do not want to play a fair game, they should go elsewhere, which they are threatening to do in any case. The problem with achieving this is that Mosley and Ecclestone have run the sport for years as a double act on the telephone which is largely unaccountable. Until both of them have gone, which is unlikely to happen in the near future, the backroom deals can be expected to continue and the sport will be the poorer for it.

[Doorman]

My first instinct is to say "***k you,  Ferrari", but common sense kicks in and I think "***k you Ferrari". They have to realise that no-one is indispensible! :angry:

[obsolum]

Eh, Formula 1 has been going downhill for the past 12 years IMO. It appears now it has hit rockbottom. I haven't followed an F1 season since... '98 or '99 and I don't think I have missed much. It has gone from being an exciting spectacle to just another boring sport to watch. And all this drama surrounding it doesn't do it much good, either.

[Slider 46]

Eh, Formula 1 has been going downhill for the past 12 years IMO. It appears now it has hit rockbottom. I haven't followed an F1 season since... '98 or '99 and I don't think I have missed much. It has gone from being an exciting spectacle to just another boring sport to watch. And all this drama surrounding it doesn't do it much good, either.

Im with Ob's on this one. F1 is rockbottom. Its pants. Monaco is still a real test of any driver and i really enjoy it, but as a race, its pants too. I'm sure Bernie Ecclescake and Max Mogley will manage to f... that up sooner or later as well.

Did anyone see the MotoGp today?(Mugello) I would put good money on the fact that there were more actual overtaking manouvers in todays three races than than F1 has had in the last three years in total. Seriously.
How many actual passing manouvers do you get in any F1 race? 6? 7 maybe If your lucky? Dont include the pits thing, im talking good old fashion racing. Look at Monaco. Did anyone actualy pass anyone under normal racing circumstances?
MotoGP'S Passini and Simoncelli (250's) passed each other around six times on the last lap.:flirty:
In the 125's, seven riders crossed the line close together but they had all changed positions by the first turn. The onscreen data was out of date before it appeared on my tv!!!:g: AND, im talking mid race, not at the start. Now that is racing.:yahoo:

F1 is all about money. Sure, the drivers are the best in the world and fair play to the guys, but the whole thing is a farce. The sooner the teams opt out of that idiot Ecclestone pocket, the better.

Oh, and one last thing. MotoGp cut the track time to 45 min's a session in a bid to cut costs. All the teams tried it for four meetings and found they didn't go alot on it so its back to the hour sessions. There was none of this 'do as i say because i own this game'. Dorna Sports or Ecclestone? I know who i would rather see at the helm of F1.

Rant over...

[Lameduck]

Did anyone see the MotoGp today?(Mugello) I would put good money on the fact that there were more actual overtaking manouvers in todays three races than than F1 has had in the last three years in total. Seriously.
Now that is racing.:yahoo:

Rant over...

Excellent rant
The Italian MotoGp last weekend was as good as you say, exciting from start to finish and not just the big bikes. Changeable conditions made it better than usual. Didn't fall asleep watching, unlike Monaco when I  dozed off after a few laps:blink:

[Seany]

So much good motor sport I have no time to actually watch F1, even if I did want to:).

This weekend for example: 3x BTCC races at Oulton Park.  2x WTCC at Valencia and 2x races at Symmons Plains in the V8 Supercars.  Tintop overload, keep me going for a week that will  

Besides, bet you never saw this happen in F1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYO4yPmf5AI&feature=related :doh: :roflmao:

courtesy of last weeks WTCC

[Gnomie]

I have two problems:
1) I don't have a television
2) There's no racing on TV unless you pay tons of cash for some special channels
3) I have generally poor experiences with streaming stuff (bad quality etc)

But I agree with Seany, F1 isn't exactly top of my list..

[Slider 46]

Your right Seany, and you woudn't see anything like this either. They reckon this guy was doing about 120mph when it went wrong and about 80mph when it all came good.:clap::clap::clap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7ep1osg6vQ

[Lameduck]

Your right Seany, and you woudn't see anything like this either. They reckon this guy was doing about 120mph when it went wrong and about 80mph when it all came good.:clap::clap::clap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7ep1osg6vQ

That link is not working for me - tried the beeb
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/motorbikes/8076267.stm

And for my next trick......

[Seany]

Your right Seany, and you woudn't see anything like this either. They reckon this guy was doing about 120mph when it went wrong and about 80mph when it all came good.:clap::clap::clap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7ep1osg6vQ

Woah!:blink: best bike save ever.

[obsolum]

Woah!:blink: best bike save ever.

I don't know about that... :g: This was a pretty nice save as well!

[Lameduck]

:blink: Unbelievable :blink::blink:

[vobler]

2) There's no racing on TV unless you pay tons of cash for some special channels

Norwegian VIASAT 4 is sending 1 hour edited of every race sundays (raceday) at 1700 local. Its a free channel if you have it on your feed.

Better than nothing.