Nope. Turbo boost levels are still the main moaning point. Each engines are running different turbo boost levels to keep them balanced. Honda has one of the better engines so they have to run lower boosts. Therefore the 4 NGTC Hondas usually end up at the bottom of the speed charts. Same problem that plagued Plato's season last year basically.
Wider tyres is obviously a big advantages on the wet for the NGTCs, but it gets more even on the dry. AFAIK the S2000s are lighter and they are allowed more turbo boost, so they manage to stay competitive that way. Having two different sort of cars running in the same class will always be an endless can of worm, whatever the championship. But the fact is that in BTCC, NGTC is the future, and S2000 is the past. The 2 classes won't be balanced anymore in 2013, so NGTC will have a much bigger advantage. The works team are already on NGTC. The few strong independant teams(Redstone, WSR) are basically on a transition year, before they either leave, switch to NGTC, or stay with an old package that will become uncompetitive. Those factors mean that the S2000 teams aren't really in position of playing hardball off the track. They have few reasons to complain anyway, Jackson, Newsham and Collard have all proved it is possible to put a challenge for the win in the old S2000 cars.
But anyway, great racing this week-end, by far the best event so far this season.
Last edited by GreyBull [CHA], .
Go Bruno! Edo Mortara is mint too. Will be interresting to see Wickens in action in a tip-top, also.
I wouldn't say that Magny-Cours is garbage... IMO, it's a good tin-top and motorcycle track, but a not-so-good single seater track. Which is a bit silly since it was made for F1 in the first place.
The slightly uninspiring facilities don't help either. And oh, what about those bloody traffic jams at the exit...
Paul Tracy approves this.
The website doesn't seem to be working here BTW, don't know why.
The website doesn't seem to be working here BTW, don't know why.
Nowadays they're using the full version for pretty much every series they host, including F3.5, GT1, LMS, etc, so I see no reason why they wouldn't use it for F1 too.
Spot on.
Yea, I agree with RiseAgainstMe, WTCC was meh... Not as good as the 1911 Indy 500... I'd take a Ray Harroun win over a Chevy 1-2-3 any day..
WHOOPS, sorry for spoiling it for you
Oh well, on one hand spoilers do suck, but on the other hand it also sucks if you have to endlessly restrain yourself from refering to past race results.
Hmm... shame that vBulletin doesn't seem to have [spoiler] tags...
Last edited by GreyBull [CHA], .
Who said there will be 4 stops? Apart from Mustafur of course.
A 4 stops race would sure look silly. But if I recall correctly most were predicting 3 stops in China and it turned out that 2 was the way to go. So let's just wait and see shall we?
A 4 stops race would sure look silly. But if I recall correctly most were predicting 3 stops in China and it turned out that 2 was the way to go. So let's just wait and see shall we?
For his defense, Massa finished only a few seconds behing his team-mate in China, in a Safety Car free race.
Yea, plus it doesn't make much sence when they're so much forgiving during the races.
Agreed totally.
He has very big boots to fill but he did good so far. His "over the top" style might not fit as well with car racing, but too much enthousiasm is always better than not enough.
This, plus satisfy one of the main shareholders, who happens to be her husband.
Loved each one of Beaux's calls so far this year! That guy really makes a change. A big step to credibility for IndyCar.
To those(not on this forum but I've read many of those on others) who are shouting "favoritism" over the Franchitti/Newgarden clash, take note that he did give penalties to both Rahal and Helio - this shows that he's not affraid to give penalties to the big 2's drivers if needed.
I agree with the call on Rahal too. "Probation" might sound severe but at the end of the day it's just a probation, which means "warning" in nowadays' racing terms. I like that he did not give a grid penalty or something like that too, because the DNF was enough of an "effective" penalty IMO.
Good that he got rid of the "blocking rule", wasn't so convinced with that at first, but to be honest it made the racing much better. It didn't reduce the passing, and now you can see ballsy outside pass attempts like Helio at St Pete and Newgarden at Long Beach, something that was almost physically impossible with the previous ruleset
And yes boothy, you're right, clearly the current SC rules are more time-efficient.
To those(not on this forum but I've read many of those on others) who are shouting "favoritism" over the Franchitti/Newgarden clash, take note that he did give penalties to both Rahal and Helio - this shows that he's not affraid to give penalties to the big 2's drivers if needed.
I agree with the call on Rahal too. "Probation" might sound severe but at the end of the day it's just a probation, which means "warning" in nowadays' racing terms. I like that he did not give a grid penalty or something like that too, because the DNF was enough of an "effective" penalty IMO.
Good that he got rid of the "blocking rule", wasn't so convinced with that at first, but to be honest it made the racing much better. It didn't reduce the passing, and now you can see ballsy outside pass attempts like Helio at St Pete and Newgarden at Long Beach, something that was almost physically impossible with the previous ruleset
And yes boothy, you're right, clearly the current SC rules are more time-efficient.
Pretty much a non-penalty if you ask me? Just reverting the places. AFAIK, no fines/points penalty/probation/etc. It basically says "feel free to play the dirty stuff, we'll just clean the mess for you if you go a bit too far".
Nah, don't get me wrong, I'm fine with the stewards letting the drivers handle the racing. But I wish they would show a bit more class sometimes. OK, hard to pass without a bit of bumping at Brands. But Donington? Some of the moves Plato, Newsham and Jackson(among others) pulled weren't necessary, IMHO.
Donington was one of the messiest round last year too, let's just hope it's a track(or a season start) thing, and the racing gets a bit cleaner at Thurxton.
OK, I get it, the BTCC has a very liberal stance on contacts these days, but those 2 few rounds have been pretty much over-the-top on that matter...
Yes, but do you need a Superlicense to drive in F1 Friday practice?
There are no more stone-set requirements to request a Superlicense? Weird, I'm pretty sure there used to be in the past, at least.
I don't know really, in a way it's not very different from giving a family member a drive for free. A bit like Marco Andretti drives for Andretti Autosport in IndyCar, or Matt Neal and Andrew Jordan drive for their dad's team in the BTCC(which has turned into expensive club racing recently, granted).
Yes, Guerrieri is great, but seriously, he's been very disappointing last year. He got beaten by a guy who was around 13 while he was already knoking at F1's door. Not only that, but he was the one looking like a rookie, crashing out of the race at crucial moments, while Newgarden was cashing the points. No matter where you look at it this is just plain wrong. His win at Long Beach is a good first step for his 2012 redemption, but let's be honest, Vautier will be another very tough rival.
I think Verney is out of IndyCar for good, which is why I didn't think of listing him, but yea you're right, damn good driver. He's focussing on endurance now. If that's the case, he'll be the first Lights champion since the early 90s to not make any start in IndyCar. IIRC he didn't speak English anyway? No wonder why he got back to Europe. Tough to find sponsors in these conditions, not to mention the daily issues.
Yea, there's always pretty good drivers at the front on the Lights field, the problem is more in midfield and lower, indeed.
Maybe if you ignore the latter half of the field, they're not far from F2 level, but that's not being very ambitious is it? F2 is like the 6th or 7th F1 feeder series driver pool quality wise. GP3? Not there yet. Although the GP3 debuts of former IndyLights star Carmen Jorda will help to lower the bar a little bit
I don't know if it has much to do with the merger... Car counts were as high as 26 in early 2009, but they quickly dropped to 10-15 for 2010-2011. Many seem to blame it on the economy, but I can't seem to recall of any other high-profile motorsports series taking such a big hit during that period. You would've thought that Atlantics' death would've helped IndyLights, but no.
That's a huge hit when you know that they didn't change specs in the meantime, and that "IndyCar" was going stronger than it's ever been since 1995. We'll see how they recover. Car counts aren't THAT bad this year(15), but a better field quality would be nice.
Last edited by GreyBull [CHA], .
Reason : Las Vegas=/=Long Beach :|
Playing hardball to get higher sanctionning fees, surely?
You can put Webber on the list now
You can put Webber on the list now
Nothing, I belive.
Granted, Susie is one of the main shareholder's wife. If he pushed for having her as a "development driver"(whatever that means), you could argue that he could later push for her having a larger role. But at the end of the day Friday track time is very important, and giving the role to unexperienced driver would be quite a dumb move. After all, Wolff husband is a racer, and no matter how highly he might judge his wife, he probably understand that.
I'd be highly surprised if Susie does more than sim work/straightline test/a few laps in the odd private test.
Don't you need a superlicense to drive on GP week-ends anyway? Can't see Susie meeting the requirements.
True.
I don't know, I found the broadcast pretty much decent.
Granted, they might have missed one or two things, such as the Viso vs Tagliani clash. OK, they managed to mess up the grid walk again, but this was more amusing than annoying(poor Robin Miller). Apart from that it was pretty good.
IndyCars sweeps the track during the yellows, which is why the cautions are always long. Granted, NASCAR does that too, but it takes some time to do on a road/street course. They were hoping to reduce the lenghts by letting the pitlane open all the time, but does that really work? It's hard to tell, because so far this year many cautions periods have had unexpected things occuring. (ie: TK and Simona stopping on track at St Pete, Sato's car's recovery getting very wrong at Barber, Dixon stopping on track at Long Beach, etc).
I don't know, really. These days, for 3 or 4 pretty good kids, you have 11 or 12 slightly uninspiring journeymen drivers.
The series had a nice break in 2008/2009 partly thanks to reuinification, with healthy car counts, and the likes of Hildebrand, Matos, Lloyd, Hinchcliffe, Davison, Kimball, Saavedra, Beatriz, Cunningham, Plowman, Romancini. But it's pretty much gone downhill since then.
The fact that Newgarden walked away with the championship last year, despite being barely in midfield in 2010 GP3, tells a lot. Granted, he was a very young guy back then, with little car racing experience.
It'll be interresting to see where the current drivers end up. Vautier will one to watch. Maybe Guerrieri, but it's about time he makes a constistant championship challenge - the guy was already racing F3000s back in 2004! Also Saavedra if he calms down. But apart from that...? Hmm.
That said, Star Mazda and F2000 seem to be in pretty good shape, so let's see if that good form strikes Indy Lights in the next few years.
What a shame that Cunningham and Lloyd are still rideless BTW. Given the right equipment I'm sure they could be potential race winners. Now I hear that Wade is one of the favorite for the second Foyt car at Indy, would be cool if that happens.
I bet he had a flashback of Le Mans 2000 at that very moment.
FP3 was quite an oddball session, only dry practice session of the week-end, many red flags...
Just speculating, maybe they tried something that didn't work in FP3, and switched back to Dixon's set for qual? Because he looked pretty good in quali. Sure, Dixon's problems made the task of being the fastest Honda even easier, but he still had pace, and went to the fast 6 on merit.
Good to see for Wyatt... Looking forward seeing climb the American open wheel ladder
True
CRT wasn't so bad considering that it's only the first race, maybe with more development they will mix with the slower prototypes, but still, doesn't make much sence to have bikes run on such different regulations in one unique class, IMO.
I think this year again the good fights will be found in the lower categories. Moto3 was pretty good and Moto2 was epic as always.
I think it's a case of him being heavier than the others(especially Marquez), AFAIK the engines are spec.
I was kind of disappointed when Gresini picked Pirro instead of him, but in the end it's better to watch him kicking some asses in Moto2, rather than sinking on a CRT failboat.
Trying to stay positive but the whole thing is a tad uninspiring. This looks more like expensive club racing rather than Europe's take at NASCAR.
The lack of ovals is disappoiting - would've been cool to see some activity on Lausitz and Rockingham. So is the lack of "names", although it's nice to see that Harry Vaulkhard landed a drive.
I see that they're going to have a non-championship event at Daytona, what layout will they run, I assume the backstraight oval?
The lack of ovals is disappoiting - would've been cool to see some activity on Lausitz and Rockingham. So is the lack of "names", although it's nice to see that Harry Vaulkhard landed a drive.
I see that they're going to have a non-championship event at Daytona, what layout will they run, I assume the backstraight oval?
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