01Racing

Last year totally proved that in F1 its not the driver but the car. If Schumacher was so great how come he did so poorly last year? Its proof the the car/tire package is more important than the driver in that series. If you put Jacques in the Renault this year he would be a top 3 driver every race, just like when he was at Williams.

eViLRotor

iTrader: (2)

I totally agree that in F1 the package plays a big role.

But you can't eliminate the driver completely and say it's just the car. Would Renault have dominated with Fishichella at the helm? I don't think so. Alonso is near perfect. He's a better driver.

When Eddie Irvine had his time in the sun in '99 due to Schumacher's toasted leg, did he win the WC? Nope. Not even with Schumacher's help at Suzuka.

JV is a former World Champion. You better hope he would be top 3 in a good car, WTF!!!! But would Takuma Sato?

coldfire

iTrader: (1)

Takuma Sato? hell yes! and he would take out half the field on the way to third spot

eViLRotor

iTrader: (2)

^^^ Fair enough...

01Racing

Okay , so after 29 posts lets agree that the France family (Nascar) will own all of racing soon! Hail to Nascar!

eViLRotor

iTrader: (2)

Hmmmm....why not. All Hail NASCAR!

Hey look, even Ian and his brother like it:

coneracer

Ok, lets mention that the cars in Nascar are also offset to always turn around the corners and with banking there is very little steering input needed. Oh and how Nascar admited a years back that races were "fixed" by allowing some bending of the rules.

Nick86

iTrader: (1)

The "Bending of the Rules" has been limited in the last 10 years. Once they went to the "universal template" of the modern cars, cheating has become frowned upon. Hell, back in the 60's - 70's one team actually got away with building a car at 7/8ths scale!

I enjoy the entertainment of NASCAR, and love their marketing. What bugs me is that they are still referred to as "Stock Cars". The only thing "stock" on these things are the headlight stickers! I'd love to see them have to use the stock shell of the car they are supposed to be - like it used to be. But we all know that won't happen. Especially with "the car of tomorrow" coming. I also hate the restrictor plate racing. There are way better ways of slowing them down. As a side note I was at that Michigan CART race when Montoya and Michael had their battle - what a race!

As for F1, you have to keep in mind that the successful driver-car pairings are due in large part because the car was built for that specific driver and his style. For example, the McLaren is a predominantly understeering car, and Montoya hates understeer. The Renault responds well to an agressive turn-in which Alonso loves and Fisi doesn't. In recent years the teams who have had a clear number 1 driver to build a car for have done much better - just look at Schumacher, they even built the tires for him!


We can all hail Bill France if you like, but I will accept no such treatment of Tony George!

coldfire

iTrader: (1)

i partly agree to the whole car made for the driver thing. but, it's not like they can't tune the car for each driver, because they can. it might be better suited to a team's top driver, but it shouldn't be more than a a second or two difference/few positions on the track. sometimes it is much more, so there are other things at work there.
also, we see test driver's for teams able to pull out fast laps, so i don't think they would have 3 cars the exact same. they can tailor to a certain extent to the driver.

but it's true that someone like Alonso is able to squeeze out that extra bit of performance because the car does really suit him.

Nick86

iTrader: (1)

The biggest reason the test drivers are so fast on GP weekends is because their cars don't have to adhere to the 2 race rule for engines, therefor they have the wick turned all the way up on the cars all the time. That and they don't have to conserve tires either. That's why the testers are always slower than the race drivers during the official test sessions when all is equal.

Sure they can adjust the car to suit a driver, but then you are spending your time making sacrefices and tradeoffs to the setup. If the car handles to your liking straight out of the box, then you are golden. If not, you have to give up some aspect of the aero/handling performance to get what you are comfortable with. Nothing is free. Lets say the difference is 1/10th of a second per lap. Well, in qualifying that is 2 places on the grid. Then in a race of 70 laps that's 7 seconds - assuming there is nobody between you and your team mate. If you are behind another car and your team mate isn't then you loose more time trying to pass. And because it is so hard to do in modern F1, you end up either waiting until pit stops or trying something ill-advised. In the end you are either taken out or you finish 30 seconds behind your team mate - Just as Montoya has been doing. And we start to see why he likes the idea of NASCAR!

Terrh

iTrader: (7)

I'd rather watch NASCAR than F1.

especially road course NASCAR

01Racing

I'd rather watch NASCAR than F1.
especially road course NASCAR

Finally someone who understands what "racing" is, not lapping!!!

Terrh

iTrader: (7)

wheel to wheel action is FAR better than watching F1 cars 30 seconds apart from eachother.

I didn't read through this thread but I bet that's the gist of it

sorry, nascar is a better series for the spectator

maybe if F1 had some close competition I'd watch it. (actually I still do watch it but only when there's nothing else non-racing on tv)

and the fact that they're openwheel has nothing to do with it, ever go to a dirt track and watch 30 sprint cars (800hp, 1200lb, HUGE wings, big wide tires, kinda like an F1 car now that I think about it) battle it out on a 1/2 mile (or less!) DIRT racetrack?

now that's racing, and those are drivers.

jeez my spine is tingling just thinking about watching sprint cars again.

anyone who says "ewww nascar" is just a knee-jerk reaction because alot of the younger crowd have heard it's not as prestigious as F1.

Alak

iTrader: (9)

Nascar probably generates more money than F1 these days. I didnt belive it until I accually went to a race. They had more people there than our standing military. Than most standing militaries.

I remember watching it with my dad the first time. Hes like, oh look at that! ohh watch out! and I was like, WTF, its just cars driving. Then you pay attention and see them bumping into each other and looking for ways to pass.

Then I got satalite for awhile and they had like 12 channels devoted to in-car cameras and bumper cameras to sponsored cars.

I look forward to every race day now. And the best part about the technology being "Dated" is that I can go buy the stuff and build my own sorta Nascar fanboy setup.

My only beef is NASCAR officials are ****. Everytime a team gets an edge, they make a rule to outlaw it. I mean, it keeps it even, but how are the automakers supposed to advance their technologies?

Snrub

iTrader: (1)

I really do think that is the case with Montoya. When he is comfortable and able to perform to his best he does not drive in the same manner that other drivers do. In his 3rd race (Brazil), he was leading and I remember Martin Brundle commenting basically that Montoya got on the throttle too early and that he wasn't driving properly. This was back before traction control. Anyone who had watched Montoya in Champ Car knew that was how he drove. He was breaks the conventional wisdom about driving fast. The problem is that in F1 the edge is so fine that it is extremely difficult to drive the way Montoya does and be successful. He's had to tone down his natural way of driving. Traction control also removes any benefit to sliding the cars. Montoya ability to slide cars and still be fast is much of what I'm refering to.

There's no question that guys like MS and Kimi have incredible car control. They do use it differently though and it's more of a "stay within the edge" than "go over the edge style." Unfortunately I think that MS and Kimi are better drivers in F1's current environment. Montoya is not able to be consistant in F1, but at his absolute best, Montoya is better than anyone. Unfortunately Montoya isn't able to perform at his very best very often. I hope this makes some sense...

Cars can be setup to work for a driver, but if a car has a natural tendancy (eg. understeer/oversteer) the car will be fastest when it's not setup to try to hide all of its tendencies. In Champ Car Montoya was able to drive around a car's problem. Apparently there were a few times where he just asked Mo Nunn to get the car "close enough" and he'd do the rest. This is how a lousy qualifying would turn into a march through the field to victory. The difference is that those cars are less twitchy/snap happy/razors edge.

eViLRotor

iTrader: (2)

Well, his Epitaph can read "Theoretically he was the best"

Nick86

iTrader: (1)

Well, I've been wrong before and I was wrong here. Oh Well.

"What had been reported but not substantiated for more than a week become official Tuesday: Danica Patrick will join Andretti Green Racing in 2007.

AGR officials issued a statement shortly after noon ET, saying Patrick had signed a contract to join Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti next season. Terms of the contract were not released, nor was it immediately clear if AGR drivers Dario Franchitti and Bryan Herta will return to the team in 2007."

Snrub

iTrader: (1)

I imagine AGR liked Danica's ability to attract sponsors more than her ability. It was suggested that Dario and Herta might go to AGR's ALMS program. I wouldn't be suprised if Dario ended up in Champ Car. Newman-Hass looks to be eyeing Graham Rahal (Bobby and Kevin Kalkoven have discussed it with Carl Hass), but otherwise I suspect they would be interested in him. PKV and RuSport could probably use and pay him as well.

Nick86

iTrader: (1)

I agree.
My bet is that Herta will end up in Acura's ALMS programme and Dario will stay put. I agree that Rahal will end up with HAAS, which is a great move. As for his team mate who knows. It seems that Bruno's whining has rubbed off on Bordais, and I think he's burnt his F1 bridges. If that's the case then he'll stay with Haas and Bruno is the odd man out unless they field a 3 car team. His inefectiveness this year wont help his case either.

Or maybe Champcar and the IRL will merge and it will all be one happy family again. LOL Yeah - that'll be the day.

01Racing

Give it a couple of years and ALMS, Champ Car and IRL will all fold!

Nick86

iTrader: (1)

And sprint cars will start to grow fenders and bumpers, and only race on paved ovals!