the one thing that really interests me is what will happen to button?
if you were williams would you be happy with your 2 drivers or would you find a way to install a driver you have already tried to resign once? or would you remember that he then dumped you (admittedly with money) to stay at the team thats now closing?
if you were button, would you sit and hope honda survive in some form or would you be looking for a seat somewhere (anywhere) else ?
personally i think it will all come down to just how highly regarded buttonis, he has a reputation for being a good smooth driver, especially in rain and someone who has a good feel for mechanical grip and can bring a car home could be very valuable this next year but his development skills could have taken a drop in image whilst at honda and this next season a driver that can develope a car is also going to be very important.
if you were williams would you be happy with your 2 drivers or would you find a way to install a driver you have already tried to resign once? or would you remember that he then dumped you (admittedly with money) to stay at the team thats now closing?
if you were button, would you sit and hope honda survive in some form or would you be looking for a seat somewhere (anywhere) else ?
personally i think it will all come down to just how highly regarded buttonis, he has a reputation for being a good smooth driver, especially in rain and someone who has a good feel for mechanical grip and can bring a car home could be very valuable this next year but his development skills could have taken a drop in image whilst at honda and this next season a driver that can develope a car is also going to be very important.
yes i do
the point is that if money was reliant on mercedes mclaren wouldn't be able to design a direct competitor to mercedes, the F1 roadcar's BMW engine was a bit difference, a bit like being in a relationship with someone and being told you really shouldn't still be having sex with your ex. the new car with a merc engine will be more a case of masturbating whilst looking at a video you and your partner made together.definatly, great move that to remove richards after a very succesfull season, honda have consistenlty medled in the team whilst toyota have stayed a respectfull distance away for most of the time.
in an ideal world prodrive would take them over but i can't help feeling that the cureent huge downturn in aston's sales ( 39 in november compared to 142 last year ) may cause richards to be cautious about getting involved
tris, notice i said ferrari and mclaren not ferrari and mercedes, whilst merc are heavily involved with mclaren, as far as i gather, like the ferrari F1 team, they are run as seperate entities with their own financing and don't involve the parent co in any expenditure.indeed the next mclaren road car appears to be in direct competition with the next merc supercar.
ferrari, despte reports that phillip morris wish to terminate their sponsorship earlier than agreed, are once again financially seperate from the road car company, indeed with ferrari road cars profit predictions dropping again they could almost be in the position of being able to inject cash into the road company (kimi's yearly wages are aprox 5 times the road cars predicted yearly profits)
re renault, like toyota and BMW most of the costs are sponsor covered, but yes i agree they may be forced out if the parent co keeps having to cut back, as i said later on, they could become an engine suplier again.
regarding superleague, i agree its a joke but apperently it's here to stay with increased numbers of teams and races next year. china would i assume be able to pick up one of a few teams ready made if the recession continues so a lot of the catch up time would be avoided, anyway i suspect any team would be run by existing racing people from an existing headquaters with a few visible china elements and a huge injection of cash.
re your final point, i agree 10000000% it will be great if the make up of F1 reverts to a '70s model and far far far far better than the standard engines plan
ferrari, despte reports that phillip morris wish to terminate their sponsorship earlier than agreed, are once again financially seperate from the road car company, indeed with ferrari road cars profit predictions dropping again they could almost be in the position of being able to inject cash into the road company (kimi's yearly wages are aprox 5 times the road cars predicted yearly profits)
re renault, like toyota and BMW most of the costs are sponsor covered, but yes i agree they may be forced out if the parent co keeps having to cut back, as i said later on, they could become an engine suplier again.
regarding superleague, i agree its a joke but apperently it's here to stay with increased numbers of teams and races next year. china would i assume be able to pick up one of a few teams ready made if the recession continues so a lot of the catch up time would be avoided, anyway i suspect any team would be run by existing racing people from an existing headquaters with a few visible china elements and a huge injection of cash.
re your final point, i agree 10000000% it will be great if the make up of F1 reverts to a '70s model and far far far far better than the standard engines plan
hmm hard to tell
top of washing machine in student hall of residence, on pool table in pub, on mini roundabout at about 3am one sunday morning, got ablow job off grilfriend once through car window when she wound it down to say hello in high street, lift in hotel in chester, car park in same hotel on bonnet of a bmw who's owner asked us to get off !!!
the trouble with choking is that you may start off with a girlfriend but end up without one unless your into necrophilia. aslo be carefull if you're doing anything extream that you didn't refuse to buy her a new pair of shoes, handbag, dress etc recently.
" many an "accident" during sex is a result of shopping frustration "!!!!!!
" many an "accident" during sex is a result of shopping frustration "!!!!!!
.237
.237
.237
.237
.228
consistent but not much chance of improvement
EDIT. did those times left handed, with right hand im about .15 slower which is a bit worrying since i'm right handed but i'll put it down to damage when i cut it down to the bone 30 years ago
.237
.237
.237
.228
consistent but not much chance of improvement
EDIT. did those times left handed, with right hand im about .15 slower which is a bit worrying since i'm right handed but i'll put it down to damage when i cut it down to the bone 30 years ago
Last edited by tinvek, .
bernie and max's idea today maybe stupid but a few years ago when the manufacturers were threatening a break away bernie pointed out that if F1 relied too much on manufacturers it would only take a change in emphasis in the car industry to see team numbers decimated and in the classical litteral sense we have ( 1 in 10 killed off for not performing adequately). as i said before other manufacturers are being squeezed and unless their F1 efforts have no net cost to them, they are bound to have to re evaluate the level of expenditure.
with the current climate, it's going to be harder to raise those sponsorship budgets which further adds to the preasure. when you look at how many F1 teams we've lost since the manufacturers became seriously involved ( for arguments sake say when renault took over benetton ) it's apparent that balancing the budgets is not going to be easy.
F1 has always had a reasonably high turnover of teams, the difference is that the manufacurers have raised the costs and standards so high that its very hard for a new team to start up, customer cars would have helped here but williams, despie being a customer team themselves when they started, oppose it as they feel that as a small constructor they would be penalised by 4 or more customer mclarens or ferraris. it's ironic that a team that are known for their love of racing have by blocking new entries possibly seriously damaged that racing.
the future? well renault have small costs and any political preasure to leave when they are laying off 5000 + workers has been reduced by alonso's late season results though if he leaves and the team fall to piquet levels of results, this may change. mclaren and ferrari are safe, both have healthy budgets with high media profiles, toyota seem to have a bullitproof relationship with panasonic and even if not toyota's size means that even with falling profits, the F1 team costs can be accomadated and of course there's the intrinsic value of surviving in F1 when a rival japanees company couldn't. BMW i assume will be ok as long as F1 revenue holds up but the parent company are suffering from a very heavy fall in profits ( if they put £ 40 mllion in the team it will equate to a tenth of profits ) and if the german Gp does go, it may feel that it's other racing efforts more accuratly reflect its possition and image.
williams, redbull and torro rosso are independants and as such will tailor their costs to their budget thoiugh the fact that berger has sold back his half of torro rosso may be some cause for concern as if bugets become squeazed, red bull may feel that merging the two teams would be prudent, and if others are struggling, then one well financed team may be able to achieve a serrious level of success. its the smallest team, force india, that may be in the best possition of the independants, they have a new technical partershp with mclaren and with their owner, they have the backing of a major industral organisation in an area of the world economy that is growing. also don't be surprised if a team involved with china happens, they've won the superleague, are developing in the space industry and as a country have a recent history of using support to promote their country's achievements and for a country that's run to comunist ideals, what would be better than winning in what to many is the ultimate capitalist sport.
in one way market forces may actually achieve what max has been trying to force on F1 if the recession contiues for any length of time, you may find that more outside suppliers become involved for assemblies such as gearboxes and possibly engines or that the existing teams are more keen to provide them to other teams, eventually we could even find ourselves ina similar situation to the '70s with ferrari and maybe 1 or 2 other teams using bespoke engines and gearboxes and the others all buying theirs either from the bespoke teams or even from an outside company or 2, renault and toyota for example may decide to leave as construcotrs and concentrate on being engine suppliers.
with the current climate, it's going to be harder to raise those sponsorship budgets which further adds to the preasure. when you look at how many F1 teams we've lost since the manufacturers became seriously involved ( for arguments sake say when renault took over benetton ) it's apparent that balancing the budgets is not going to be easy.
F1 has always had a reasonably high turnover of teams, the difference is that the manufacurers have raised the costs and standards so high that its very hard for a new team to start up, customer cars would have helped here but williams, despie being a customer team themselves when they started, oppose it as they feel that as a small constructor they would be penalised by 4 or more customer mclarens or ferraris. it's ironic that a team that are known for their love of racing have by blocking new entries possibly seriously damaged that racing.
the future? well renault have small costs and any political preasure to leave when they are laying off 5000 + workers has been reduced by alonso's late season results though if he leaves and the team fall to piquet levels of results, this may change. mclaren and ferrari are safe, both have healthy budgets with high media profiles, toyota seem to have a bullitproof relationship with panasonic and even if not toyota's size means that even with falling profits, the F1 team costs can be accomadated and of course there's the intrinsic value of surviving in F1 when a rival japanees company couldn't. BMW i assume will be ok as long as F1 revenue holds up but the parent company are suffering from a very heavy fall in profits ( if they put £ 40 mllion in the team it will equate to a tenth of profits ) and if the german Gp does go, it may feel that it's other racing efforts more accuratly reflect its possition and image.
williams, redbull and torro rosso are independants and as such will tailor their costs to their budget thoiugh the fact that berger has sold back his half of torro rosso may be some cause for concern as if bugets become squeazed, red bull may feel that merging the two teams would be prudent, and if others are struggling, then one well financed team may be able to achieve a serrious level of success. its the smallest team, force india, that may be in the best possition of the independants, they have a new technical partershp with mclaren and with their owner, they have the backing of a major industral organisation in an area of the world economy that is growing. also don't be surprised if a team involved with china happens, they've won the superleague, are developing in the space industry and as a country have a recent history of using support to promote their country's achievements and for a country that's run to comunist ideals, what would be better than winning in what to many is the ultimate capitalist sport.
in one way market forces may actually achieve what max has been trying to force on F1 if the recession contiues for any length of time, you may find that more outside suppliers become involved for assemblies such as gearboxes and possibly engines or that the existing teams are more keen to provide them to other teams, eventually we could even find ourselves ina similar situation to the '70s with ferrari and maybe 1 or 2 other teams using bespoke engines and gearboxes and the others all buying theirs either from the bespoke teams or even from an outside company or 2, renault and toyota for example may decide to leave as construcotrs and concentrate on being engine suppliers.
this is the great problem with F1 at the moment, no one wants standardised parts as the manufacturers want to design their own stuff and the fans expect it but at the same time it might only take a small further drop in trading figures for some of those manufacturers to decide to pull the plug, if by then the costs / customer car ban have driven (for example) force india and and torro rosso out, we could be left with a championship with only 12 cars in it and the remaining teams may not think they can afford to run third cars 
in fact the remaining manufacturers may decide that there is no point competing if the championship is worthless 
in fact the remaining manufacturers may decide that there is no point competing if the championship is worthless i was reading the other day that dubai may pay for a new us grand prix on a street course in vegas, apparently they own a lot of businesses there and are keen to help promote it ( not that vegas needs much more promotion!). maybe they could persuade porsche to save the german gp, acording to car mag, they are about to be the first car manufacturer to who's yearly profits will be higher than their turnover thanks to their shares in vw increasing in value by 6 billion euro !!!!!
on the one hand (foot) his fitness is bound to suffer but on the other hand (limb?) at least its his right leg so the loss of muscle strength isn't as critical unless adrian newey has come up with a car where the throttle is heavier than the brake
(i once drove an early sierra diesel where ford had inserted a peugeot diesel engine and it used a standard petrol sierra servo but with the vacuum provided by peugeot's vacuum pump rather than a petrol engines inlet manifold which, when coupled with a rather convoluted throttle arangement, meant the brake was lighter than the throttle ! )
(i once drove an early sierra diesel where ford had inserted a peugeot diesel engine and it used a standard petrol sierra servo but with the vacuum provided by peugeot's vacuum pump rather than a petrol engines inlet manifold which, when coupled with a rather convoluted throttle arangement, meant the brake was lighter than the throttle ! )
well kimi chose to leave mclaren for ferrari so i guess you make your bed and lie in it. also ferrari had plenty of abiltity to build front endy cars for schumacher even when it penalised the other team driver so you have to assume that either kimi didn't give them enough feedback from testing or they decided that they had more chance by not creating a car that favoured him over massa
on the skywatcher if you remove the eyepiece adapter, you can fit a DSLR directly to the focuser with a t ring adapter.
there's a bit more to come on the focus in the future as the sky had a bit of high mist and the scope hasn't been colminated since i collected it. a big help is i've got a viewfinder magnifier which makes any focus errors more clear.
itsthe first time i've had a chance to try the camera through it so quite pleased
there's a bit more to come on the focus in the future as the sky had a bit of high mist and the scope hasn't been colminated since i collected it. a big help is i've got a viewfinder magnifier which makes any focus errors more clear.
itsthe first time i've had a chance to try the camera through it so quite pleased
taken about 6.30 this morning when i came home through my skywatcher 150p, used elements to lift the saturation a bit but haven't cropped it at all
i'm the same, the mazda feels like my fbm or fox setups do in lfs, unless i'm really stupid i can catch a slide and even provoke one if i need some extra turn in after over doing it and it almost never spins on me unless i'm silly enough to run over a kerb lor grass on full throttle. it also sems to be remarkably forgiving when your learning a circuit ( by that i mean when you have no idea which way next, not when your relearning one with a new car), you can miss your braking point and still manage to stay away from the scenary.
ah the voice of a comparative youngster, despite the revs of the v10's i personally rate the 3lt 12cyls of the '70s as a nicer sound, especially the matra v12. when ligier stopped using it, jaque laffite had one installed in his living room so he could fire it up and listen to it in the evening whilst drinking a glass of wine, i assume he didn't have any neighbours that lived close.
http://video.google.co.uk/vide ... 12&hl=en-GB&emb=0
this has to be one of the best loking f1 cars ever
http://b.f1-facts.com/ul/a/2514
though my personal favourite is
http://www.geocities.jp/dreamworks43modelcars/lotus79_2.jpg
though i'm probably a bit odd as i prefer the 79 season sponsor and colour scheme
http://statistichef1.altervist ... %20MODELLI/Lotus%2079.bmp
http://b.f1-facts.com/ul/a/2514
though my personal favourite is
http://www.geocities.jp/dreamworks43modelcars/lotus79_2.jpg
though i'm probably a bit odd as i prefer the 79 season sponsor and colour scheme
http://statistichef1.altervist ... %20MODELLI/Lotus%2079.bmp
last year one of wogans auction items was a private concert at your house / village hall etc by katie mellua and aled jones and it went for
£ 250,000 !!!!
£ 250,000 !!!!
i read a while back that bmw have a heat exchanger system for the exhaust that developes steam at a fairly advanced stage for their road cars and they have a way of harvesting that for power or extra fuel economy but , and this makes a mockery of racing improving road cars, they won't release it yet so other f1 teams can't buy a road bmw and look at the system 
hmmm a big truck and a big gun, if you believe the old story about ahem "personal size" vs size of gun and car and compensating for a natural defficiency, then it says a lot about that guy
maybe it's all part of a microsoft plot to make us all give up and buy an xbox instead ?
the worlds worst adjusted door mirror?
i had to drive down from anglesey to bedford and back today and whilst i was going down the m6 i was doing my usual trick of looking for the drivers eyes in their door mirror before i passed them.
anway as i came up on a vectra i noticed that the driver was a good looking blonde so as i past i did a quick glance over, imagine my surprise and confusion when the driver turned out to be a grey haired eldery gent!!
all became clear when i got past and looked in my mirror, the good lucking blonde was in the passenger seat which makes me wonder...
how can anyone consider driving with their driver's door mirror so far out of adjustment that the passenger can be seen in it from behind?
p.s. the mirror looked like it was mounted correctly
anway as i came up on a vectra i noticed that the driver was a good looking blonde so as i past i did a quick glance over, imagine my surprise and confusion when the driver turned out to be a grey haired eldery gent!!
all became clear when i got past and looked in my mirror, the good lucking blonde was in the passenger seat which makes me wonder...
how can anyone consider driving with their driver's door mirror so far out of adjustment that the passenger can be seen in it from behind?
p.s. the mirror looked like it was mounted correctly
true but it's surprising how often LFS crops up in posts and it's always complementary
Did anyone else hear DC on radio 5 this morning?
quite interesting what he said about bernie, the spanish and brasilian fans and lewis.
he said that no one should judge bernie till he has the oportunity to explain his remark but they should remember that bernie always tries to play down any story so it dies away or can be sorted behind closed doors and attempt to joke rather than make a serious comment so don't read anything into his comments or believe they always reflect his views.
the fans in brazil behaved no differently to any other fans, when DC was leading in italy they would boo when the tv showed him and chear when shumi was shown. when DC broke down he was spat at and had water thrown at him by the italians because he was fighting with ferrari and because he was " a very white" scots the papers made no story from it. also the "spanish idiots" were a very small part of the spanish crowd and fans and in no way represented the feelings of the whole country.
despite what you read in the papers, all the drivers get along fine and no one "hates" or dislikes lewis, its just the papers always try to build up the slightest disagreement and take it out of context.
if you assume DC was telling the truth, which he probably was given his reputation for speaking his mind ,it rather diffuses most of the current disagrements about F1 in the popular press.
quite interesting what he said about bernie, the spanish and brasilian fans and lewis.
he said that no one should judge bernie till he has the oportunity to explain his remark but they should remember that bernie always tries to play down any story so it dies away or can be sorted behind closed doors and attempt to joke rather than make a serious comment so don't read anything into his comments or believe they always reflect his views.
the fans in brazil behaved no differently to any other fans, when DC was leading in italy they would boo when the tv showed him and chear when shumi was shown. when DC broke down he was spat at and had water thrown at him by the italians because he was fighting with ferrari and because he was " a very white" scots the papers made no story from it. also the "spanish idiots" were a very small part of the spanish crowd and fans and in no way represented the feelings of the whole country.
despite what you read in the papers, all the drivers get along fine and no one "hates" or dislikes lewis, its just the papers always try to build up the slightest disagreement and take it out of context.
if you assume DC was telling the truth, which he probably was given his reputation for speaking his mind ,it rather diffuses most of the current disagrements about F1 in the popular press.
now someone has decoded the morse that the stig was listening to ...
"strictly come dancing is **** "
and
"i like cheese"
not sure how anyone can find the first offensive though if your alergic to dairy products the second is pretty bad
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG