The Motorsport Thread 2015

Great racing from top to bottom today!  The F1 race was interesting and might be just the introduction to a competitive year.  Martinsville continued to prove to be one of the best tracks on NASCAR circuit with a duel for the win between Denny Hamlin and Brad K, with the former coming out on top for his first win of the year.  And IndyCar's season debut didn't disappoint, either, with Juan Pablo Montoya edging out Power for the win at St. Pete's.  This weekend's slate of races definitely restored my faith in a (hopefully) exciting year in motorsport!

I remember when Indy cars were narrow, and really had the wheels stick out, like F1. Now they are so wide and big, it almost looked like LeMans cars

The body kits I thought were a little much.  Wings on top of wings, although if it makes the racing better, then I'm all for it.  The debris was ridiculous, though.

BTW, I just ordered this for the office.  Brawn!!!






Edited by MillsLayne - March 30 2015 at 17:16

Was nice to see Kanaan get amongst them and Hawksworth could keep pace as well when he was up front but being off-cycle with them meant he ended up at the back of the top 10.

JJLehto wrote: Yeah, I hate to be this person but no, the Nordhschleife must stay!  Tragic, but it's known what that track is. This isnt F1 or Indy or Nascar with catch fences and various things to protect fans. If you are there, just like the drivers, you know what can possible happen. Hell, that Isle of Man course is even more dangerous and frankly insane. It's just too precious a gem to be removed.

I've seen enough dangerous tracks and personally seen (Swede Savage at Indy in '73)  or heard about driver's injured or worse in my time (probably close to 100), so sorry, and I have no sentimental attachment to this type of dinosaur. It was of a dangerous era and that's where it should be consigned.

Edited by SteveG - April 01 2015 at 14:18

sleeper wrote: SteveG wrote: The first Indy 500 that I saw in the flesh in 1967 included this wide body car that was as prog as you could get and was almost as quiet as an Audi diesel LMP 1. <a style="left: 179px; top: 0px; width: 486px; height: 399px;" idx="0" -bm="154" ="iol_imc"=""></a> This is from my private collection. (It's a model.) What is that? The shape reminds me of the Lotus 56 gas turbine car.

Andy Granatelli's turbine car driven by Parnelli Jones. He almost won the 500, but it broke three laps from the finish.

Ha now those were the days, look at that thing. 

Yep, 35 years on from Piquet Sr winning the Long Beach GP. Honestly I was a little disappointed in the race, not as entertaining as Buenes Aeries or Miami, you can tell that Long Beach is designed for bigger and faster cars like Indycars, the track was just too wide and fast for the FE cars. Heidfeld's run of unfortunate incidents/problems/penalties continues, though this time of his own making. Next race is at Monaco which should be interesting.

Yeah, most of the field is ex-F1 and though there were a couple of no hoppers bringing up the rear in early races they've already been replaced with decent drivers.

Practice 2 times from China, looks like it could be another competitive race between Merc and Ferrari, and even Red Bull are closing in a bit. I'm impressed with the progress McLaren are making. Well off everybody else in Australia, racing with FI and Sauber in Malaysia and looking like they may crack the top 10 here, thats some seriously quick progress.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m37.219s	-	32
2	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m37.662s	0.443s	35
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m38.311s	1.092s	24
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m38.339s	1.120s	30
5	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m38.399s	1.180s	35
6	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull/Renault	1m38.737s	1.518s	10
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m38.850s	1.631s	27
8	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1m39.032s	1.813s	26
9	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Mercedes	1m39.142s	1.923s	32
10	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1m39.275s	2.056s	29
11	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Mercedes	1m39.444s	2.225s	30
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1m39.743s	2.524s	27
13	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1m39.751s	2.532s	33
14	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m39.894s	2.675s	32
15	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m39.971s	2.752s	28
16	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m40.151s	2.932s	28
17	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m40.423s	3.204s	7
18	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m40.868s	3.649s	24
19	Roberto Merhi	Marussia/Ferrari	1m42.973s	5.754s	27
20	Will Stevens	Marussia/Ferrari	1m44.564s	7.345s	8