So could Rosberg in his first race, and look what he acheieved for the rest of the year - nothing (although it would appear the spark is back this year!)

The first race is always the easiest, because there is no pressure. But in every race for the rest of the year, Hamilton will be laughed at if he doesn't qualify in the top 4 or pass double world champions into T1 - he's put the pressure on himself now, and I think we'll see him wither a bit throughout the year. He'll be back next year though, refreshed and racy, but don't expect too much from Melbourne...

You're right that performances like that could add some pressure. But I think he is probably in a better enviroment to deal with any difficult situations than Nico was. At Williams the drivers are traditionally left to themselves wheras Lewis will get all the support he can dream of from Mclaren.

Quote from (-Mark-) :

Unlucky for davidson, was hoping he would get a good race, starting in 10th, but he stalled

He didn't stall, if he'd stalled they would've needed to drag his car into the pit lane to start it again, which they didn't. Just a clutch or throttle problem.

Some on board footage of the guys at the office.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWfruKcXAUI

i don't know how anybody can say that driving a perfect race from the poll to the checkered flag is easy. kimi could have got fouled up lapping slower cars or lost focus with nobody pressuring him, but he didn't, and nobody could catch him.

i thought massa did a good job too. perhaps he could have been a bit more aggressive moving up from the back of the grid, but on the other hand, it was the first race of the year, and i doubt he (or the team) wanted to take too many chances.

end then there was coulthard... that move was beyond dodgy. yikes.

Anyone else find the first race terminally dull?

I'm not usually easily bored by F1, but that was one race where I'd have been happy to spend my afternoon doing something else. At least I didn't get up in the middle of the night to watch it live...

yeah, for some reason this race didnt really hold my attention as well as races in 2006. maybe because raikkonen had such a comfortable lead for the whole race.

I was well entertained by Murray going "Look at this!! This is unbelievable!!!" as soon as two cars appeared on the same screen.

Vain

Quote from Gabkicks :

yeah, for some reason this race didnt really hold my attention as well as races in 2006. maybe because raikkonen had such a comfortable lead for the whole race.

I think it's more to do with me having a hard time giving a toss about the current crop of drivers. Not that I miss Schumacher in particular, but his generation were generally more interesting and the only ones left are Coulthard and Barrichello.

I'd give Tristan's right arm for another Villeneuve or Herbert, or for Sato to get a drive in a front-running team! I doubt that Hamilton, Vettel, Rosberg, Kubica et al are ever going to be allowed to have personalities.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

...I doubt that Hamilton, Vettel, Rosberg, Kubica et al are ever going to be allowed to have personalities.

Once they get some personality people just dislike them even more. You are more useful to your sponsors if you shut up intead of saying what you think

If you say what you are thinking - you are not thinking

But that's the essential problem! They're all so dull, so meaningless... Whether you hated or loved Schumacher, he at least produced emotions! And TV LIVES from those emotions! So if I were Ecclestone, I'd worry about the future of F1-broadcasts and thus the sport itself...

Quote from bbman :

They're all so dull, so meaningless... Whether you hated or loved Schumacher, he at least produced emotions!

That pi**es me off so much, everyone of them is playing some mister cold guy, look at me, i am so emotionless..
That's why i never liked Alonso, that guy is number one in emotionless in my book. Kimi is cold as ice, but at least he gots something in that coldness, i don't know.
And after the race, they are acting like the other one raped his mother or something like that, wtf is with that, in Moto GP, guys are so cool, happy, no matter if they win or loose, they congratulate each others, but than again, maybe that's because their races are more interesting, and there are battles in every lap.
I will probably chear for Hamilton, he atleast seems like a cool guy, at least he had smile on his face, and he congratulated Kimi like 3 times, but Kimi barely looked at him..

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Anyone else find the first race terminally dull?

I'm not usually easily bored by F1, but that was one race where I'd have been happy to spend my afternoon doing something else. At least I didn't get up in the middle of the night to watch it live...

I AM usually bored shitless by F1, but i did stay up all night to watch it, because i think Lewis Hamilton is a breath of fresh air, and i hoped to see him do well.
I certainly wasn't disappointed by his performance, and his move into T1 was fantastic...but unfortunately, as i predicted, the race was as dull as usual. Shame.
If it wasn't for the fact that Lewis is racing in F1 this season i would probably give up on it now.

am i the only one who can sit and watch an F1 race and not get bored? The amount of skill required to keep the car on the track is absolutely incredible. Kimi, yeah he did have an easy race, but keeping going at that pace for 60 odd laps is pretty amazing. I could watch the cars go round a circuit all day long

Quote from DeKo :

am i the only one who can sit and watch an F1 race and not get bored? The amount of skill required to keep the car on the track is absolutely incredible. Kimi, yeah he did have an easy race, but keeping going at that pace for 60 odd laps is pretty amazing. I could watch the cars go round a circuit all day long

Well, maybe not only one, but I sure will get bored when watching F1, they are driving in line formation then they pit and one that makes pitting better will gain places, some will not finish and some gain places, very few overtaking and not very visible battles, that is how it usually is and when I did see this last race now later it surely was same as so many years before it has been.

I watch LFS races for that time and go to some web page to review results.

Quote from DeKo :

am i the only one who can sit and watch an F1 race and not get bored? The amount of skill required to keep the car on the track is absolutely incredible. Kimi, yeah he did have an easy race, but keeping going at that pace for 60 odd laps is pretty amazing. I could watch the cars go round a circuit all day long

Nope - I'm in that boat. I must confess I did find an F1 race boring about three years ago, and actually fell asleep (sacrilege, I know), but the vast majority is edge of the seat stuff for me - just watching the cars, the drivers taming them, listening to the engine, spotting the technical stuff (comparing cambers between drivers), watching braking points and all the little nuances etc is awesome.

BTCC (for example) is racing for stupid beer-drinkers who think a big crash and sharing paint (and whole panels) makes for good entertainment... I'm quite well entertained without that. I'll give in and admit that for absolute excitement MotoGP still tops F1 though, but I don't follow MotoGP much between the races - it doesn't capture my imagination like F1 does.

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Kimi is cold as ice, but at least he gots something in that coldness, i don't know.

Yeah, I like Kimi - I think it was Autosport who described him recently as the man who'll use a single word where twenty would do. There's something elegantly withering about his use of English. Its probably a front, and I sometimes wonder if he comes across similarly in his native tongue, but I still like it. Its the 'still waters' thing....

Quote from Becky Rose :

He should have been 6th in the first third of the race. The car is clearly dominant, Massa clearly wasn't good enough for it.

You clearly don't understand F1. Massa was driving with the softer compound and a huge fuel load, he was not set up like Kimi at all, apples and oranges. He did very well to protect a set of tyres which was not suitable for a long stint. In practice and quali those tyres were lasting drivers only 3-5 laps before they grained up and became useless. Massa managed 30 laps on that tyre and overtook most of the field while doing so, all of this with one of the heaviest cars on the track.

You'll never enjoy F1 if you just watch the pretty cars going around, there's a lot more to successfully contesting an F1 race than putting a fast car on the track.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Nope - I'm in that boat. I must confess I did find an F1 race boring about three years ago, and actually fell asleep (sacrilege, I know), but the vast majority is edge of the seat stuff for me - just watching the cars, the drivers taming them, listening to the engine, spotting the technical stuff (comparing cambers between drivers), watching braking points and all the little nuances etc is awesome.

BTCC (for example) is racing for stupid beer-drinkers who think a big crash and sharing paint (and whole panels) makes for good entertainment... I'm quite well entertained without that. I'll give in and admit that for absolute excitement MotoGP still tops F1 though, but I don't follow MotoGP much between the races - it doesn't capture my imagination like F1 does.

As usual Tristan, you make a really good point, then follow it up with a really crap one that undoes all your good work.

I totally agree with you on F1. I love watching the races for the reasons you outlined. However touring car racing is not just for the entertainment yobbos. Racing very close together in cars less equipped for the purpose promotes a different skill set which is to be admired also. The fact that it ends in a crash more often than F1 does not degrade from it.

Wouldn't want to leave it at the good stuff, or people might start to think I've gone soft or, heavenforbid, start to like me!!!!

I think it does. BTCC (and this is from the last few years; it may well be different this year with the new regs) just looks like amateurs throwing cars they have no ability in around... Sure it uses different skills (really basic ones, like breathing and grunting).

If it was close racing that sometimes ended in a crash I think I could love it - okay, they're a bit feeble for racing cars, but then so is the UF1 and I love racing that. What gets me is they have close racing, and then one will remember that to overtake he can just slam into the other cars on purpose, thus making the entire motor race a complete farce (for me).

If they drove like professionals and avoided accidents then +1
As it is, using accidents on purpose to 'race' then it's -100

BTCC was great at mid-late 80's, can't bother following that now, there is now too many bricks inside the vehicles and some seem to think it is ok to plow trough other cars.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I think it does. BTCC (and this is from the last few years; it may well be different this year with the new regs)

Yeah, Tristan knows what he's talking about here... BTCC has operated under different rules from other Touring car championships for the last few years (maybe in a conscious bid to pull an audience from the 'lad mag' brigade). Hence the cars sprouted aerofoils and whatnot, and contact was officially tolerated as a racing tactic. This year BTCC will be running under the 'Super 2000' rules that govern the WTCC.

To be honest I haven't really followed BTCC since Frank Sytner was campaigning a BMW, but the few races I have seen always elicited a laugh. It was one of the few events that my non-racing friends could tolerate to watch with me, because it was more of a spectacle. It worked well as a warm up event when it preceded the British Superbikes on the TV. That was the real deal as far as I was concerned, and having sat through the BTCC, it was always satisfying to have my mates gasping at a duel between Karl Harris and Leon Haslam or whatever, and suddenly seeing why I was so into the bikes.

Hehe, Im a huge fan of F1 and Kimi's Ferrari. Nice that he won it. Kimi's radio broke down at the start of the race... it was hard for him too, that's why you see him going into the 1st pitstop so early - he has to estimate. Massa did a great job, climbing up 16 places. If he had started on the 1st row, he'd have gotten a podium finish.

Quote from Alkanphel :

Hehe, Im a huge fan of F1 and Kimi's Ferrari. Nice that he won it. Kimi's radio broke down at the start of the race... it was hard for him too, that's why you see him going into the 1st pitstop so early - he has to estimate. Massa did a great job, climbing up 16 places. If he had started on the 1st row, he'd have gotten a podium finish.

radio's failing isnt that bad, it would surprise you the amount of radios that do break, and how little can be heard from them anyway. the thing about him coming in is bollocks, dont they use the pitboards for pitstops, regardless of whether the radio is working or not?

uhm, yer, he didnt estimate anything, the pitboard said "kimi - Pit next lap"

the only thing that would of been a problem is asking the team if he wanted "turns" of wing, or tyre pressures changed