I know that a lot (maybe even most) of the users here on Armor Games are American based, but I still would like to talk about the upcoming Formula 1 Championship this year!
Who is likely to become champion 2010 with the drivers?; Which team will be champion 2010?; Which rookie team will be doing great in 2010?; What driver will not fullfill the promiss to do great?; What's the best/most beautiful Grand Prix for this year's calendar of F1?; What Grand Prix would you visit if possible?; Etc...
So if there's anyone on Armor interested in this cool, fast and challenging sport... speak up!! =D
I'm pretty sure Schumi could catch one of the Renaults, but Mclarens, Ferraris and Red Bulls will be the hard ones to catch. I don't expect Schumi to score points though. It's kind of surprising that he's not doing any better than he is right now.
What about that race at Spa... man, it had some moments, but the promissed rain never showed up at the right moment... *sobs* Still a nice race to watch! =)
On the Schumacher incident... well, let's just say that it's formula 1, not the WC knitting... it's understandable that Barichello screamed over the radio with all that adrenaline running through his vains! But to keep pursuiing this thought after the race was a bit over the top if you ask me. He is a professional race car driver with a lot of experience over the years and believe me, he wasn't clear of charge in those years himself! Everyone has to do some scary risky actions to get the ahead in race car sports! If you don't, you'll never win... and besides... stepping into a race car cockpit is already taking a risk if you ask me, am I right?!
Thanx for keeping up my results waluigi! Now, the results for the Spa GP! =D
Hell yeah! Shame about button though But Hamilton is looking strong, hope he can win the 2010 season. Webber deserves it a little more, but you know, I'll back my country men no matter what Got worried when Hamilton came off near the end, though he would lose his suspension at least, luckily he recovered it.
Well, the Italian grand prix is coming up Sunday. A lot of guys are still in the title hunt. Other news: Ferrari was assessed no further penalty for their incident at the German grand prix, plus the team orders ban has come under review. I'm surprised by not giving Ferrari any further penalty, as it was obvious they gave team orders to Massa. I also think bringing back team orders would cut down on the actions more often then not, #2 drivers would have to move over for #1 drivers. That's my thoughts. comments, questions, etc.?
Of all the teams to speculate about, RBR came under a little bit of scrutiny when Vettel's engine mysteriously started overheating for a couple of laps, then magically fixed itself once Webber passed. Of course, the data clearly showed that RBR's explanation (glitch with engine settings) was legit, and Vettel blitzed the rest of the race to pit on the final lap, emerge ahead of Webber for 4th to Webber's 6th, putting THAT silliness to rest!
I notice that probably by far the weakest aspect of Webber's race is the start, and I'm pretty sure it cost him at least 2 places this time round! Those 4 points will be dearly missed, because it was only be a stroke of luck (for RBR), and extreme misfortune (for Hamilton and MLM) that Hamilton went into the 2nd chicane too hot and snapped his steering rack on Massa's rear wheel. Shame for him, he had a brilliant start. As a result Webber is now back in the lead by 7 points, and punters seem to tip in favour of him for Singapore!
But the limelight obviously belongs to team Ferrari and Alonso, with their most coveted home victory, and the first win in quite a while at that. The battle between Alonso and Button was one of the most intense seventy minutes both of them have probably ever been through in their careers, so props to them both.
As a result of this Alonso comes screaming up the ladder and the gap between the top four drivers is quite the small one indeed. I'm still backing Webber (because I'm Australian), but I get the feeling that it's going to be anybody's game right down to the last lap of the last race!
Well, the Grand Prix of Singapore happens this weekend as F1 leaves Europe for the season. Mark Webber holds a slim five point margin over lewis Hamilton. Vettel, Button, and Alonso are also still in the title hunt. What will the night race in the streets hold? Tune in sunday to find out.
And so the weekend draws to a close, and quite a bit of shifting has gone on! Alonso makes it back-to-back victories with an excellent start and nearly flawless driving the whole 2 hours. Vettel did his level best to push it, making it a tense and thrilling (for the pit crews and the spectators respectively) race, and finished a close second.
I was both surprised, disappointed, then relieved with Webber's drive, as he seemed to be quite uncomfortable the whole weekend, qualifying 5th (poor for an RBR), but was rightly happy to come away with a 3rd. On that note, Hamilton was unlucky to come out the worse off AGAIN despite being on the other end of the same kind of shunt that took him out of Monza. But IMHO it was his fault anyway, since he tried to dive in on the apex from the outside line which gave Webber absolutely no room to move.
Button, in the meanwhile, settled into his own groove and finished 4th, at times seeming to threaten Webber but never quite looming iminent as Vettel did over Alonso on the final lap.
With this, Webber retains the lead of the championship, but this time with a lead of 9 points over the new 2nd place, rapidly rising Alonso. The top 5 remain in incredibly close contention going into Suzuka, which RBR are expected to dominate and Ferrari have stated they are not so confident about! But who knows, Alonso managed to win two in completely opposite venues, so...
Backmarker disasters of the weekend: Force India should be renamed Air Force India after that awesome demonstration of the dangers of the new chicane kerbs, though that nice replay did cost Liuzzi ten grand. Also, just before the finish, Kovalainen spun his Lotus and somehow when starting up again his engine managed to chew itself to bits. The pit crew told him to try and make it to the end but evidently they didn't see the veritable bonfire engulfing the entire rear half of the Lotus, so when Kovalainen finally looked into his mirrors (or maybe it was starting to get mighty hot in the cabin...), he was stuck at the finishing line and had to put his own car out!
I'll leave the task of updating the points to somebody else, that's all from me!
Webber retains the lead of the championship, but this time with a lead of 9 points
*11 points.
I think that Alonso has good chances of winning the championship, Webber is a steady driver, but lately he didn't perform very well.
Classifications: 1. Mark Webber 202 2. Fernando Alonso 191 3. Lewis Hamilton 182 4. Sebastian Vettel 181 5. Jenson Button 177 6. Felipe Massa 125 7. Nico Rosberg 122 8. Robert Kubica 114 9. Adrian Sutil 49 10. Michael Schumacher 46
Constructors: 1. Red Bull Racing 383 2. McLaren Mercedes 359 3. Scuderia Ferrari 316 4. Mercedes F1 Team 168 5. Renault F1 Team 133 6. Force India F1 Team 62 7. Williams 57 8. BMW Sauber F1 Team 27 9. Scuderia Toro Rosso 10 10. Lotus Racing 0 11. HRT F1 Team 0 12. Virgin Racing 0
I can't believe Hamilton went out AGAIN Ferrari are really picking up the pace now, well, Alonso, luckily Massa flopped it so Ferrari don't catch up too much in constructors. Webbers comeback was pretty spectacular though, nice drive from him.
Driver standings:
01 Mark Webber 202 02 Fernando Alonso 191 03 Lewis Hamilton 182 04 Sebastian Vettel 181 05 Jenson Button 177 06 Felipe Massa 126 07 Nico Rosberg 122 08 Robert Kubica 114 09 Michael Schumacher 46 10 Adrian Sutil 46 11 Rubens Barrichello 39 12 Kamui Kobayashi 21 13 Nico Hulkenberg 20 14 Vitaly Petrov 19 15 Vitantonio Liuzzi 13
..Not much point in listing the rest.
Constructor standings:
01 RBR-Renault 383 02 McLaren-Mercedes 359 03 Ferrari 317 04 Mercedes GP 168 05 Renault 133 06 Williams-Cosworth 59 07 Force India-Mercedes 59 08 BMW Sauber-Ferrari 27 09 STR-Ferrari 10 10 Lotus-Cosworth 0
Massa started from the last position on the grid. He didn't record a time, because his gearbox had a problem, but the team elected to change the engine in his F10 as a precaution.
Well, F1 heads to Japan this weekend, in a race that is almost always run in wet conditions. Rain was actually falling so hard that qualifying had to be moved to Sunday morning. This race could be a make-or-break race our championship contenders. We'll find out soon what happens.
And now the race is over! Technically it's five from five, in terms of the five leaders in the championship finishing in the top five... but the order proves to be crucial. Vettel had command of the entire race, starting and finishing at the front. Webber drove consistently to finish second (and also elected to cane the last lap to put a spoke in Vettel's hobby of collecting purple tags, which I found funny). Alonso finished third, and it was Button and Hamilton in 4th and 5th respectively.
This order means that Webber is now leading by 14 points with 220, and Vettel and Alonso are now tied on 206! Barring any major upsets, and considering Yeongam, Korea, is an unknown quantity, it's possible that the field of 5 has been narrowed down to 3, but maybe not!
This year's Suzuka was a crazy race, or rather, I should say, a crazy start. During the warmup, di Grassi went out. Hulkenburg had a horrible start, whereas Petrov had a great one, until Petrov cut too fine across Hulkenburg, clipped him before spearing directly into the left wall. Scratch one. THEN Massa went in too hot on the inside and plowed right into Liuzzi and the very unlucky Hulkenburg, scratching all three of THEM! Kubica also had a fantastic start, jumping Webber to take second, but somehow, during the safety car period, his right wheel came off, thus eliminating Webber's issue, seeing as Kubica was just as fast around the track as he was!!!
The last casualty was Sutil, who was working hard in 10th with 3 laps to go when his engine sprung a leak, spitting oil all over his tyres and the track and forcing him into pits. Alguersari almost joined him banging wheels with an on-fire Kobayashi, who was a favourite on the track, blazing his way through four big scalps at the same hairpin to finish 7th, behind a consistent Schumacher in 6th.
Looking ahead, Korea's an unknown quantity, it being the debut. Webber's performance at Brazil has been, well, mercurial, so we'll see what happens there... my money's still on Webber but it'll still be a race down to the line!
I think you missed the Rosburg accident in that list of issues. I was not actually able to catch the race (comes on at like 2 AM in the U.S. on the east coast). However, I say the photos of the race on F1's website. It was crazy
Massa said to the journalists some days ago: "I don't compete to come second, if I did what Rubens did, then I would stop racing for Ferrari. I could win in 2011". Yet again he was disappointing, perhaps it's time for him to change team.
