Grand Prix Rejects

What a blinding vote of confidence in Vandoorne that is. Seriously, screw McLaren.

CoopsII wrote:

Aguaman wrote:Herbert calls for Alonso to retire.

Why does he hate Alonso as much as Keith hated Maldonado?

My first thought was 'Go Home Johnny Herbert!' but having read his comments I sort of see where he's coming from even if I don't fully agree with him. Certainly looking at the stats it looks like Alonso's been on the slide for some time and if he was a few years older then maybe I would agree more with JH but they guys' still young enough to deliver with a half decent car, I think.

Fernando is still good enough. He's been on this train of Alonso should retire since the last year of Ferrari.

What's ironic (don't you think?) is that F1 drivers as a species are notorious for clinging on to their careers when their best days are behind them and Herbert epitomises that as much as anybody.

If Ferrari take pole... Dick measuring runs by Mercedes confirmed.

Dig this track at night. Looks very pretty.

Haryanto ahead of Nasr. Yay

Wehrlein in Q2

Oh wait it's not the old system.

Woo 16th.

Wehrlein!

Pérez down in 18th... That's karma for you, Force India!

I miss Maldonado.

Kevin doesn't have the same charm.

They've lost a minute of Q2 due to the lights failing. Pinnacle of motorsport, this.

Wehrlein is the hero we need, but we don't deserve at this time.

Stoffel ahead of Jense.

Tsk tsk tsk.

lol this session is a flop

........my god, this is actually WORSE than Melbourne.

What in the world is Williams doing

It's too late for this qualifying. Qualifying can go bathplug off with Herbert and his ugly shirt.

Ham only 4th!
Rosberg pole again!

EDIT Not yet !

It's good, with 3 minutes to go done

Lewis gets the pole :O

New lap record at Sakhir!!!!

Slow cars? Uh? 2004 cars the best? Your ass.

I'm already seeing plenty of people proclaiming the "death of the sport".

I would like to make the point that this is qualifying. Qualifying is not the essence of the sport, it is a means to an end, and that end is to set the grid for the race.

If The Sport™ were a person, that person hasn't been killed. That person has just taken up macramé.

And suddenly, we have a new twist



That surely means a back row start for Hamilton if this is true.

East Londoner wrote:And suddenly, we have a new twist

That surely means a back row start for Hamilton if this is true.

There are rumours going round that the FIA have chosen to just reprimand Hamilton instead of giving a full penalty.

tommykl wrote:I'm already seeing plenty of people proclaiming the "death of the sport".

I would like to make the point that this is qualifying. Qualifying is not the essence of the sport, it is a means to an end, and that end is to set the grid for the race.

If The Sport™ were a person, that person hasn't been killed. That person has just taken up macramé.

Indeed. The majority of casual F1 fans never watched qualifying anyway. And to admit, I rarely watched it either. (mostly because i can't be bothered to get up as early as 1 pm )

Aguaman wrote:Herbert calls for Alonso to retire.

Why does he hate Alonso as much as Keith hated Maldonado?

I like Johnny but here he's talking bollocks. All Fernando needs to do is point to Johnny's final season in F1 which, unless I'm misremembering was pretty much utterly terrible. He could then turn round and point to Damon Hill as well, come to think of it.

Barbazza wrote:

Aguaman wrote:Herbert calls for Alonso to retire.

Why does he hate Alonso as much as Keith hated Maldonado?

I like Johnny but here he's talking bollocks. All Fernando needs to do is point to Johnny's final season in F1 which, unless I'm misremembering was pretty much utterly terrible. He could then turn round and point to Damon Hill as well, come to think of it.

Except for 2 or 3 races, where he was hit by the shittiest of lucks, yes, he was vastly outperformed by Eddie "3rd highest paid employer at Ford" Irvine.

I didn't actually see Australia, so I didn't know how bad the qualy was. But having seen it here, it's kind of unbelievable that they didn't predict this.

"Hey guys, do you know the way a lap of fuel is estimated to cost on average 1/10th of a second in lap time? So all the drivers will want just enough fuel to stop the car fuel starving as it comes back into the pits, and no one is going to take more than that? Let's set up a qualy format that starts eliminating people before they have time to make a run, stop for more fuel and then make a second run? So the end of the session is nearly a ghost town?"

Barbazza wrote:

Aguaman wrote:Herbert calls for Alonso to retire.

Why does he hate Alonso as much as Keith hated Maldonado?

I like Johnny but here he's talking bollocks. All Fernando needs to do is point to Johnny's final season in F1 which, unless I'm misremembering was pretty much utterly terrible. He could then turn round and point to Damon Hill as well, come to think of it.

Guess what? Alonso went to pay Herbert a visit!


As for qualifying, well, I understand why people rage about it, specially those within F1, but I still think it is not that bad. Sure, checkered flag with no cars running and the clock reaching zero and everything already decided looks awkward but last year we also got lots of time without anything happening on the track and people weren't furious about that. Again, it is a question of removing time to Q3 for the two runs or increasing the number of tyres (perhaps the latter with changing how the tyres behave lasting two flat out laps, like in the past). What hurt Q2 this time was teams preferring to have free choice of tyre for the race instead of trying another lap (those who had the time of course) to unseat others. Only Hulk made what he and others were supposed to do. As for Q1, well, sure the clock thing also happened here, but there was plenty of excitement during this period specially with those Werhlein and MRT heroics. We even managed to see a full lap of him! Many must forgive me but I will go against our former overlords on this one and say this kind of Q1 is probably the best format that happened in a long time for us reject lovers. There is so much more focus on the back markers! It was great to listen to Portuguese commentators backing Pascal on his run! Yet I can already imagine the Mark Webbers of this world moaning about it...

To conclude. This format still has potential. It just needs tweaking... and probably more tyres.

Daniel, we can probably brag about having the best commentator team in Europe

DanielPT wrote: It just needs tweaking....

I feel bad for thinking that this said, "it just needs more twerking."

dr-baker wrote:

DanielPT wrote: It just needs tweaking....

I feel bad for thinking that this said, "it just needs more twerking."

You.... want to see the current F1 drivers twerk....? You really want to see Hamilton twerk? Metaphorically speaking, we indeed want to see more F1 cars shaking their rear ends.

Personally - this time i watched (to see Vandoornes debut) - i think Q1 isn't that bad. It could work if they changed 90 seconds with something a bit longer, i suppose. I even think it will actually work on tracks like Monaco where starting position is more crucial than strategy.

Only just got around to watching qualifying, and it was just as shite as last time.

Wehrlein, Vandoorne and Haas were bright spots though.

dr-baker wrote:

DanielPT wrote: It just needs tweaking....

I feel bad for thinking that this said, "it just needs more twerking."

You should feel even worse for making that comment and putting horrible images in our heads

Great to see Pascal in P16. I wondered why he didn't come in, do a quick race-speed pitstop and go back out and set another lap because, being the last driver to be eliminated, he wasn't constricted to the 90 second countdown, right? So perhaps he could have made Q2, but realistically I suppose he would still have ended up only 14th/15th maybe. Considering Manor's tyre choices, probably better to save the extra set of tyres.

AndreaModa wrote:Great to see Pascal in P16. I wondered why he didn't come in, do a quick race-speed pitstop and go back out and set another lap because, being the last driver to be eliminated, he wasn't constricted to the 90 second countdown, right? So perhaps he could have made Q2, but realistically I suppose he would still have ended up only 14th/15th maybe. Considering Manor's tyre choices, probably better to save the extra set of tyres.

Because maybe Manor feel they have some genuine race pace too, and don't want to compromise their strategy?

AndreaModa wrote:Great to see Pascal in P16. I wondered why he didn't come in, do a quick race-speed pitstop and go back out and set another lap because, being the last driver to be eliminated, he wasn't constricted to the 90 second countdown, right? So perhaps he could have made Q2, but realistically I suppose he would still have ended up only 14th/15th maybe. Considering Manor's tyre choices, probably better to save the extra set of tyres.

Also, they're unable to refuel in the pits nowadays. They have to be pulled back into the garage. And I think yesterday, Brundle said that they could only refuel at a rate of 0.8 litres per hour, so it is not quick.

Watched qualifying this morning and I like the elimination in Q1, that works, there's enough time for people with the poor runs to go again, but also enough chance for the little teams to scalp. But in Q2 it was awful, at one point between 8th and 14th were covered by 2/10s but rather than let everyone have pretty much the F1 equivalent of a bare knuckle brawl to get in to Q3, drop drivers after barely any time has passed so the last six minutes are almost totally lifeless. Had Hamilton not messed up in his first run same would have happened in Q3

Q1 - current elimination
Q2 & Q3 - Old system

There I've solved it, Bernie you can have that for free, just get it done!

This wrote:

AndreaModa wrote:Great to see Pascal in P16. I wondered why he didn't come in, do a quick race-speed pitstop and go back out and set another lap because, being the last driver to be eliminated, he wasn't constricted to the 90 second countdown, right? So perhaps he could have made Q2, but realistically I suppose he would still have ended up only 14th/15th maybe. Considering Manor's tyre choices, probably better to save the extra set of tyres.

Because maybe Manor feel they have some genuine race pace too, and don't want to compromise their strategy?

If they display the same tyre wear as in Melbourne, they are insanelly screwed in the race.

Read carefully please

Hmm F1 and Eccelstone seems to screw something the fans are happy with (quali) so to reverse the curse I'm going to say this elimination qualifying is the best ever system F1 has ever use. Great excitement, action, drama. Keep it up!

DanielPT wrote:Guess what? Alonso went to pay Herbert a visit!

Brilliant. I always liked Johnny Herbert but he just got owned.

Dear HWNSNBM, this lot couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.

2005 system?

Hum.... No. One lap qualifying only please. bathplug AGREGGATE SYSTEMS.