Don't worry, it's no where near as bad as I'm making it out to be! Here are some pics:

1: Here is from the outside of turn 1, If you look above the tunnel you can see one of the cars. You can still see most of the car, just not the whole thing.




2: Here's from farther along on the outside of turn 1. Like the other one you don't see all the car until they turn into the corner. That said you get a great view of the rest on the turn 1-6 complex!




3: Here's a view from the spot I was telling you about outside of turn 4-5. The cars rip around the two right handers and into the turn 6 hairpin. Neat place to watch practice but not qualifying as there is no view of a screen or timing stand.




4: Here's a shot from the grandstand at corner 6. I really like this spot, as the cars come in very quickly, go through the hairpin slowly then accelerate all the way through turn 7 onto the straight.




5: Here's our view of turn 13 from our seats now, really neat vantage point! Ralf's accident in '04 was horrific from this view, as he impacted right beneith us.

 

nice pics!

 

what a great race and weekend. i'm pretty worn out right now so i will just make a brief post.

i was at grandstand 31 the whole weekend, and plenty of off-track incidents at that corner. some great racing all weekend.

the F1 race itself on Sunday was the best this season i think. plenty of action and drama from the beginning. Kubica's crash was pretty horrible. thankfully it seems he will be ok, but needing recovery and that is too bad since BMW is looking stronger every race.
great to see Hamilton's first win. if he turns out to be the driver it seems he will become, i will for sure remember this race.
impressive drives from some of the others also. Heidfeld looked great all weekend. BMW is using some crazy traction control by the sounds of the car!
Alex Wurz did a great job, and Takuma Sato definitetly pulled the most surprising performance. he was pushing the car every lap, even in warm up. great to see these guys able to race the Ferraris and Mclarens.
and his teammate Davidson hit a groundhog on the track, heh.

anyway, awesome weekend as usual. only low point was my camera got lost/stolen. so i don't really have any pics to post.

 

I am very jealous of you at the moment. I will be there next year for sure. Too many weddings, significant b-days, anniversaries etc. I watched the race today while at a 3 year old's birthday party.

From what I heard Kubica broke his leg in that crash. His head was flung around quite violently and it really didn't good initially. Thankfully he'll be fine in a few weeks.

I almost died laughing when I saw the civic pace car at one of the delays. That thing must have been going flat out.

I think Alonso was lucky to get away with very little championship damage considering the number of offs he had today. I think Ron Dennis may have another Senna/Prost type scenario in his paddock by the end of the season.
Should make for very good viewing.

 

yeah the crash looked horrific in slow motion when it showed his head. the fact that he got out as he did is a testament to current F1 safety. if you stood at the end of the straight before the hairpin, it is absolutely crazy how fast they go into that corner. he must have been doing well over 200 km/h when he hit the barrier.

yeah that Civic was funny. it was going flat out for sure.
i also saw it either Saturday or Friday and it was murdering the tires and hitting VTEC right to the rev limit every time, haha. it was faster that you would think though. i wonder who was driving.

oh, i will also add that qualifying was pretty exciting again. right at the end there was the exchange of top spots and the crowd was loving it every time someone got a higher position.

 

I think it was over 150mph at the point of impact so about 240kmh. You tube has had the crash up for a few hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRqoxCF2S0

 

Nick, how was it watching from the hairpin?
Kubica's crash must have been crazy from there!
post some pics if you have them.

 

Great race and great to see Hamilton win! I'm glad he won this race, as he was the fastest all weekend and never put a wheel wrong. Had the safety car periods screwed up his race, then it would have been a real shame. As Aaron said, great to be at his first race win!

As for Kubica, it was absolutely violent to see in person. We were in stand 34 - the one that sits on the inside of the hairpin. Our seats were half way up the stand, all the way on the end of the grandstand at the entrance to the complex. Here was our view: It was taken with a long lens, so we look farther from the track than we actually were:



Here's a better indication of how close we were to the racing surface. They would go by us here flat out - what a sound!



Anyway, suddenly Kubica's car came out from beside us in the air and made horrific contact with the wall. It made little or no sound - just the rushing of air and then the shower of parts. As soon as he left the track everyone let off as well, so it was almost surreal. As we saw the tub tumble across the track, we certainly didn't think he was uninjured - great to see that was the case. It's a testament to the strength of the modern F1 car.

As a side note, I am surprised nobody (that I've seen) has asked Scott Speed about that crash. His car was parked right there, and when Kubica crashed, Speed was sitting in a chair about 15 feet away from where he first impacted the end of that wall. It must have been a seriously frightening view!

Well, off to Indy tomorrow - can't wait!

 

yeah i downloaded the race again to watch, heh.

i did not know Scott Speed was still there. that must have been close for him!

have fun at Indy. i wish i could go, should be another good one.

 

good race at Indy this weekend. but who else hates the fact that Fox is now doing the north american TV coverage? stupid Fox...

 

Ok, not back from the dead, but close! Where to begin...

USGP!

As Usual had a great time there. We went to the Sprint Car races on saturday night at Indianapolis Raceway Park - which was a great spectacle. As for the GP, the race was entertaining, and I was really happy to see Hamilton win a race cleanly after the debacle of safety cars in Montreal. I was also happy to see Vettel score a point in his debut, replacing Kubica after his accent. (BTW - did anyone see Ernesto Viso's GP2 crash in France? He was SERIOUSLY lucky to escape that one uninjured.) We had greats seats for qualifying and the race, and the Porsche Supercup was some of the best racing all weekend:









Interestingly, it was at about this time that confirmation of rumors started to appear about Ferrari's form in the previous few races. It seems that Ferrari had suffered an accident concerning the rolling road in their wind tunnel. In a business that relies on that facility running smoothly 24-7, the down time and improper data collected proved to really hurt the car for the following 3 races. Everyone wondered if they would bounce back... and France and Britain showed us they did! Strangely enough I was happy to see that! I like the fact that the championship is close and there are two teams fighting hard at the top. In the end I hope McLaren prevails, but I like it when there is a good fight.

Both France and Britain were interesting races to watch, and quite entertaining. I was especially impressed with Rosberg at Silverstone, he had a fantastic drive. The European GP should be exciting!


But I have to say that I am upset today, as we received an official letter from Indianapolis Motor Speedway early this morning stating that they and Bernie couldn't come to an agreement regarding the GP, so there will be no USGP in 2008. Bummer. I need to replace that weekend with something else that goes fast and makes noise! lol

Oh well, gotta focus on my trip in September now: The Goodwood Revival!

 

Well it has been a long time since I posted in this thread but I have been watching all the races.

McLaren find out their fate on thursday. Should be very interesting. The Coles notes version for those out of the F1 loop.

1. Ferrari documents allegedly leaked by employee.

2. Documents found in possession of McLaren employee's residence pursuant to search warrant.

FIA to figure it all out. Should be interesting considering the championship leaders are both McLaren drivers.

 

`MCLAREN REFUSE TO ACCEPT WMSC RULING`
A defiant Ron Dennis says he does not 'accept' McLaren's expulsion from the Constructors' Championship or that the FIA proved the team used secret Ferrari material to their advantage.
After an eight-hour hearing in Paris, the team were stripped of all their Constructors' points and handed an unprecedented fine of $100m.
Speaking at a press conference afterwards, team boss Dennis took solace from the World Motor Sport Council decision to permit their drivers to compete for the Drivers' Championship, but denied that it had been proved McLaren had cheated.
"The most important thing is that we go motor racing this weekend, the rest of the season and every season. This means that the drivers can continue to compete for the drivers' world championship," he declared in a statement.
"However, having been at the hearing today, I do not accept that we deserve to be penalised or our reputations damaged in this way.
"Today's evidence given to the FIA by our drivers, engineers and staff clearly demonstrated that we did not use any leaked information to gain a competitive advantage."
Dennis also insisted that, contrary to reports, the FIA had used incriminating evidence provided by Fernando Alonso and test driver Pedro de la Rosa against the team.
"Much has been made in the press and in the hearing today of emails and text messages to and from our drivers.
"The WMSC received statements from Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa stating categorically that no Ferrari information had been used by McLaren, and that they have not passed any confidential data to the team.
"The entire engineering team, in excess of 140 people, provided statements to the FIA confirming that they had never received or used Ferrari information.
"We have never denied that the information from Ferrari was in the personal possession of one of our employees, in his home. The issue is, was this information used by McLaren?
"This is not the case and has not been proven to date."
The FIA have announced that they will reveal the reasons for McLaren expulsion on Friday. McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh confirmed that the team were considering an appeal but would study the FIA's statement before making their decision.

http://www.planetf1.com/story/0,1895...727015,00.html

 

wow, $100m. i'm not quite sure how that makes sense.

this is crazy stuff...

 

Reasons for the decision will be release tomorrow. Hopefully they will make some sense of it.

 

Yeah, I'm looking forward to hear the entire story.

I read the transcript of Mike Coughlin's account of events, and I have to say that it makes him look like a total tool - and totally guilty, which is really unfortunate. While I do think that BOTH teams should be held accountable, I don't think that McLaren's improvement this year has anything remotely to with with these technical drawings being leaked.

By eveyone's account, the drawings were all of the Ferrari floor pan (aka "Tea Tray") that was illegal. It was these drawings that led to the parts being found by the FIA and deemed illegal. McLaren didn't change their car at all based on the drawings... which is why I think they let the driver's keep their points.

Should be an interesting race this weekend!

As a side note, I just got back from a week in England (Goodwood Revival - it was amazing)... and you wouldn't believe the Hamilton Hype over there. It is out of control. Every newspaper, magazine and sports show talk about him constantly to the point where I am almost convinced that they make half of it up!

 

F1 = Hanky throwing sissies! (lol) Ron Dennis should just punch Bernie in the mouth and settle it like a man! (lol)

 

Well there was a suggestion (in the drivers' emails) that McLaren exploited some tire data from the Ferrari papers...remember Ferrari was the leading Bridgestone customer for all these years while the Macs just switched from Michelin.
And Stepney and Coughlan took the docs as part of their job search at Honda and Toyota...not to give to Ron Dennis' boys. I think those 2 need to be cross-examined before throwing the book at McLaren. IMO

 

I'm just waiting for Alonso and Hamilton to take each other out.

Alonso used a trick from the Schumacher school of driving at the start of the Spa race...good for him.

 

Even though I'm a Hamilton fan.....Hamilton does that kind of start too.

 

What a race. I tried to stay up last night to watch the Chinese Grand Prix live but I just couldn't make it. I woke and watched the repeat at 8 am. There is another replay at 3 or 4pm on speed so sorry to spoil it for anyone that hasn't watched it yet.

I can't wait for Brazil, the first time in along time the title goes to the last weekend and there are 3 theoretical champions. Hamilton, Alonso and Raikonen in that order of points lead.

Hamilton wins if he wins the race or gets at least 3 points more than Alonso.

Alonso wins if he wins the race and gets 4 points more than Hamilton.

Riakonen must win plus have Alonso score 5 points or less, and Hamilton score 2 points or less.

In the event of a tie in points I think it goes to the person with most race wins.
At the moment Kimi has 5 wins with Alonso and Hamilton with 4 each.

For more info go to:

www.planetf1.com

 

yeah one of the best races of the season, some great battles and some surprises.
Hamilton still most likely has it, but it is good to see some excitement right to the end.
so....go Raikonnen!

 

Well it all gets decided tomorrow at 11:30am on speed and TSN. I can't wait.

 

if only Hamilton outqualified Massa! Then he'd almost be a lock!

 

congrats KIMI~!