Comments on: Vettel dominates a real car crash of a qualifying session

By: rpaco

rpaco — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:32:08 +0000

Ah, obviously your wife is the racing fan, are you by any chance an interior decorator?

By: rpaco

rpaco — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:29:34 +0000

One of them finished third!

By: Werewolf

Werewolf — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:04:10 +0000

Rpaco, you have clearly missed the point. Millions of yen have been spent on new pit buildings and hospitality areas and all you can do is worry about gravel. My heart is still pounding from the all too brief glimpses of these glorious trackside edifices in the TV feed. I think I caught sight of a working garage door in one shot. I barely noticed there were accidents until my wife said something about running late.

All I can say is fans like you do not deserve F1′s leadership.

By: James H.

James H. — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:31:57 +0000

I agree Chris. Some tracks, like Suzuka, can’t be learned on a Playstation. Suzuka deserves respect, not modifications a la Eau Rouge. At least the lessons were relatively painless, so far anyway.

By: chris

chris — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:11:45 +0000

The track is fine. Three Suzuka virgins were attacking Degner 1 like they would on their playstation’s and demonstrated a lack of respect for the race track.

By: john g

john g — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:06:31 +0000

so, lewis to do a KERS jump on trulli, possibly vettel too, who isn’t always the best starter. vettel will come through for the win as his car is stronger. everyone else gets stuck in the trulli train, but heidfeld has fuelled longer (and is good enough to keep kimi behind) so nabs 3rd. sound good?

By: James Allen

James Allen — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:36:18 +0000

Yes. Timo has a gash in his leg, some stitches required, I understand

By: Treebeard

Treebeard — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:27:07 +0000

Hi James

I believe your comment about Villeneuve being disqualified is slightly misleading as he went into the race under a suspended sentence which is why he got disqualified, I think without that he would have got a lesser penalty.

Although I do agree the drivers who set their fast times under yellow will suffer a grid penalty of some kind

By: rpaco

rpaco — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:24:09 +0000

Is it not quite clear that this circuit is not up to the required safety standard for modern F1 in terms of runoff areas. True it is one of the driver’s favourites and a great circuit, but it needs modifying, not slowing but giving tarmack areas to slow cars that go off. I gather there is a lot of bike racing here too and that modification would also make it much safer for riders.

With three “offs” of varying degrees of danger in similar places, the very small area of gravel is of little or no use at all in slowing the cars before they hit the barrier. Also in Glock’s case the conveyor belt positioning needs to be investigated.

This point was made by Mark Webber (obviously immediately after he had shaved) and needs to be taken up by FOTA. There is a chance of a full speed crash this weekend, worse than Glock’s.

By: LeighJW

LeighJW — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:07:10 +0000

This is a quote from the formula1.com website:

“There was still one final act to be played out in this session, when Buemi, having already survived a rear-end brush with the Degner Two wall in Q1, dropped his Toro Rosso on the run to 130R and spent most of it wiping the STR4 down the outer barrier and shedding debris, including his front wing. Button was lucky to weave through this before the yellows came out, and vault up to fourth at the last gasp, as was Barrichello who took sixth. Vettel set the fastest time of 1m 30.341s.”