Cars! Speed! Adrenaline!
Parades! No Passing! Grossly unbalanced “competition” (“We’re not winning? Throw more money at it!”).
For better or worse, practice for the Aussie Grand Prix! Far Side of the World, so it will be late Saturday (Left Coast Time).
I used to die for F1 and now I almost forgot it existed! Any good season preview rundowns out there?
Mercedes have a fancyh new exhaust system that works in conjunction with DRS to supposedly make them faster on the straight. Redbull are supposed to have some fancy exhaust system too.
The nose drop on most of the cars looks terrible. There’s obviously some kind of aero advantage to it for so many of the teams to have come up with it, but…ugh.
Other than that, I didn’t really pay much attention during the offseason.
The nose drop is mainly due to new regulations on nose height and undercarriage height and stuff like that.
You’d think that they’d just raise the overall profile of the chassis rather than making them look like that. It’s the year of the platypus.
All I ask for this season is not another year of Vettel domination. I know we might be watching something legendary in him, but it’s pretty damn boring when one guy gets the poll and wins the race every weekend.
McLaren was able to do it. Not sure why the other teams couldn’t figure it out.
I think I heard McLaren’s front profile was already high enough last year to comply with the new regulations.
I guess it still comes down to whether he can attack.
There’s an aerodynamic advantage to having the maximum amount of airflow under the chassis, so they can make it look nice with a gradient rather than a step, (especially as the cars are longer this year), they just don’t necessarily want to.
The rule only gives designers 150mm to drop 75mm in height, so it’s going to be quite a severe bump for teams who sit the chassis as high as they can for as far as they can.
You’ll see several cars with vents in or just behind the step which will pull air back up from underneath and “reattach” the airflow after the step.
Agreed. He seems like a really nice guy but it’s boring to watch him win again and again.
Sebring is on effing ESPN 3 (webcast)?!? No real TV?
Yeah, I know, not formula 1, but the cars are infinitely sexier.
Interesting grid for Australia. If a Lotus was going to be in the top 3, I woulda thought it’d be Kimi Raikonnen, not some Romanian dude. Schuey at #4, ahead of Webber and the worries about Vettel dominating are on hold. Ferrari are way off the pace.
Actually, the McLarens are much faster than anybody else.
Assume I have no cable or satellite, since I don’t. Is there some way for me to legally purchase a digital feed of the race live? Ideally to display on an apple tv.
Try www.speedtv.com - I see a live streaming option. It says concluded at the moment, but I imagine that is for the qualifying.
I think speed’s website only streams practices 1 and 3, the only sessions not on Speed TV proper.
1:00 am here in the EST, I can’t believe I am going to try to stay up and watch this thing live.
I’m getting too old for this shit.
12 hours of Sebring wasn’t enough for me (well, okay, I was mostly playing board games), but at least I have the advantage of Left Coast Time.
Anyone but Vettel is the battlecry. Well, okay, I still despise Fernando.
And only one Lotus! Jimmy Clark! Patrick McGoohan! Romain…who? Well, it’s black and gold, I’m rooting for it.
Romain Grosjean, and I’m rooting for him to not screw up in the actual race today. His qualifying was damn good, but this is the first time he’ll be up front with the sharks in the wheel-to-wheel portion of this competition.
No, there isn’t. Go call a friend and tell them you want to watch their cable TV while he/she sleeps. That’s what I did.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT.
.
COMMENTS AFTER THIS POST CONTAIN SPOILERS.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.