Re: F1 2012 season

What an unpredictable season this is turning out to be. Congratulations to Maldonado and Williams for a superb weekend (until the post-race garage fire, at least). I hope we have a few more races at least of disruptive form to keep things interesting. 

Also, more praise for the BBC TV commentary. I particularly enjoy Gary Anderson's comments on race strategy and tech analysis. If I were in the UK I think I'd get by with the BBC highlights, web coverage and Radio 5Live full commentary on races not covered live in full, rather than pay for Sky F1. 

Reg, which car camera view did you choose this time? I'm guessing not the one suffering from massive understeer...

AReader, if we reimagine the podium as the '80s who would your Williams/Ferrari/Lotus drivers be?

Batty, your guess is as good as anyone's, although it'd be nice if it was another driver with 300-1 odds now that we've seen that is possible. 

Some thoughts after watching the race-

What will it take to stop McLaren self-sabotaging in the pitlane and garage now that both drivers are driving sensibly and the car is competitive?

Will Massa be able to turn his form slump around or is he coasting to a Ferrari exit at the end of the season? 

Will Schumacher get his act together and return to the podium this season, as Raikkonen has?

Can Force India and Toro Rosso match the performance of Williams and Sauber this season and get onto the podium?

Re: F1 2012 season

car4mh said:

AReader, if we reimagine the podium as the '80s who would your Williams/Ferrari/Lotus drivers be?

 

I was originally thinking early 80s, say Alan Jones at Williams, Villeneuve at Ferrari, and DeAngelis at Lotus, but could not find a Williams/Ferrari/Lotus combo like that.

I looked back through some of the 80s seasons on wikipedia, and found the following actual result:

Belgian GP, Spa, 25th May 1986.

1st Nigel Mansell, Williams Honda,  

2nd Ayrton Senna, Lotus Renault,  

3rd Stefan Johansson, Ferrari.

There may be more......

Re: F1 2012 season

sjharrison said:

Agreed Mark, you just can't tell what's going to happen at the moment. As a McLaren follower it was a shame to see Lewis pushed to the back, however considering this I thought he did a great job at pushing forward at least to start with, quite an achievement. I was surprised to see Maldonado on pole but I’m enjoying the mix up this year, makes it a bit more interesting to watch.

As for the BBC commentary I think it was pretty good too. I'm fortunate (in some ways) the better half can't live without sports and has sky so do get to see all the races and too be honest I really just want to watch the race so I’m not so worried where I watch it, the female presenter on Sky F1 (post-race) irritates the life out of me, so I never watch the post-race dissection anyway.

Schumacher!! Tut tut. I’m interested to know if anyone thinks this crash was not his fault though.
  

Hi SJ! Lewis seems remarkably relaxrd this season, I guess as a result of the media mauling he received last year. I agree he did an excellent job coming back through the field on a 2-stop strategy.

We don't get any pre-race or post-race content in NZ. We get from the point where the teams clear the grid prior to the formation lap, and the podium/post-race interview. I don't really miss the Jake & Eddie pre-race show although the post-race F1 Forum interviews were sometimes good. As Reg was saying earlier with Sky F1 needing to fill a channel with all sorts of content I think that's overkill so wouldn't tempt me to fork out for a subscription. 

In other news it looks like Ferrari are losing patience with Massa: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18067284

Re: F1 2012 season

Today I hit the red button on my TV controller and sat with Lewis Hamilton for several laps and then switched to Button for a chance to compare styles around the difficult Monaco circuit.I became quite angry, what a rubbish race this is.Sat with these guys via my tv screen I could almost smell their frustration. It is just follow the car in front, that is all, that is it, end of. It's seems to me that motor racing people bleat on about this race because it's what you do.Everyone says what a wonderful place it is, it's the race to win etc etc....Sorry people but it's ****.I wish somebody would have the gonads to stand up and say " actually, this is the worst track of the season." There is no overtaking which immediately means it's no longer a race. I had to go out after about 15 laps but I've no intention of wasting my time watching the recording.....Roll on the proper tracks.Oh and how many times do commentators need to say "he'd like to do well here, it's his home track" It's nearly all of their home track, they all flamin well live there, except the bloke who won it, who lives in Oxford.

Re: F1 2012 season

The end of the race reminded me of that time Giles Villeneuve kept about 5 drivers behind hm for most of a race. What a procession, but Bernie says that most fans go to see a race for the noise, and because Ferrari is in it. Monaco met those criteria again this year, and so the bbc webbersite was able to do what they always do for every race these days - proclaim it "brilliant". I believe that there is far too much F1 coverage, with reporrers beyond number hanging on he slightest detail.  BBC tv had it about right in the days of Walker abd Hunt doing their 40 minute summary on a Sunday night back in the 80s. I recreate this by DVRing the race, then reading through the BBC report onlne which usually tells what laps the notable things happened on, and I then fast forward through my recording and just watch those sequences, while trying not to listen to the awful commentators on SpeedTV. Don't get me wrong, I love F1 and Monaco, and even like most of the drivers these days, I just can't stand to watch them for very long - for sure, it's just too boring.