2013 Formula One

The new season starts this weekend! Any predictions?

I’d like to see Kimi do well this season but can anyone catch Vettel? What do you guys think?

Well, I’ve beena fan of Hamilton since he came on the scene so I’m hoping he has better luck this year. It looks like he may have the pace to challenge, but it’s very hard to tell at this early stage. It seems cars are more suited to particular tracks these days than in the past, or perhaps the machinery is more dominant than the driver in general, but perhaps that’s just a rose-tinted view of history. I mean, I remember watching races in the early '90s where the commentary would refer to the Ferrari V12s having all the straight-line speed (everyone else ran V8s or V10s), but they were heavy and so slower in the corners. This meant tracks like Monza (presumably not a coincidence :)) suited them but shorter, twisty circuits were a struggle. But nowadays it seems things are a lot more specialised than that, and driver skill and/or strategy doesn’t give you a chance to equalise if your car is just not set up correctly for the circuit. But I suppose that’s always been the case.

Half way through the season one of the top teams will lose a driver to injury and Michael Schumacher will come out of retirement, again, and win every race that remains.

My wife and I watched on the DVR yesterday. It was our first F1 race, and it was fun to watch. What do we need to know to really get the most out of F1?

I might suggest recording and watching qualifying as well–F1 is better with people being able to pass than it used to be, but still, more often than not, where you start dictates around where you finish–and the commentators usually cover any ongoing storylines during the session.

When you take out the commercials and between-session recaps, it’s only 40-45 minutes or so.

OK. We did record that, but it was mostly people sweeping the rain off the track, so we skipped to the race. (We have a 3 year old and a 9 month old; time is precious!)

I Hope ferrari will made a good championship although i don’t really like Alonso, Massa is more likable…


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Well, this race was an anomaly in this respect as the scheduled qualifying session had to be cancelled as the rain was so heavy - this is very rare. So unless your DVR is very clever, it probably recorded the session at its original time, but in fact qualifying was re-scheduled for Sunday morning (local time). I second the recommendation to watch if you have the chance - it is a lot more exciting than it used to be (it’s now three 10-minute sessions of high-pressure stuff, as opposed to an hour of slow build-up which was how it worked a few years ago).

You’re not alone there, a lot of people don’t like Alonso after, among other things, he conspicuously missed an opportunity to take a stand against racist chanting from Spanish F1 fans a few years ago, directed against Lewis Hamilton. He sort of waved it away as if it was nothing to worry about. Can’t really forgive him for that.

And don’t forget spygate and crashgate which featured Alonso in the pointy end of controversy.

I still have the race on my DVR, haven’t had time to watch it yet. I know who won though, yay! :slight_smile: The announcer of a hockey game I was watching later in the day spoilered it for me…

Well, thanks to the money-grubbing A-pipes in F1 who sold the TV rights away from Speed, I have missed watching the first 2 races. In fact, these are the first races I’ve missed in probably 20 years or so. :mad:

If I upgrade my Dish package, I’ll get royally B-F’ed financially, so I have to resort to some other nonsense situation. The bottom line is I’ll have to go down the street to watch the race. :rolleyes: I should be up and running for China in three weeks.

Sounds like Vettel really stepped in it today. I read the post-race press conference and that was bizarre. Was happy to see Kimi win one last week.

Anyway, on to China!

I’m becoming less and less a fan of Vettel the more I watch. He’s the only driver I actively root against, I don’t care who wins as long as it’s not him.

The race had plenty of bizarre moments, I’m still laughing over Hamilton going to the wrong pit box.

I like Vettle. I was at his debut race and thought it was cool to score points his first time out. I predict another championship for him.

I would have liked to see that! Really. :mad:

I was pretty shocked when that came out last season and very apprehensive. I was happy though that David Hobbs and Steve Matchett were picked up and very happy that Bob Varsha wasn’t. Lee Diffey did a great job in Australia and the entire broadcast was a big upgrade over Speed’s. Really liked the new post race show, seems like fewer ads and none of the low end local ones, though fast forwarding through them maybe I didn’t notice.

Diffey had a commitment to Indy Car today so Varsha was back with his frequent mistakes and seemed to bring the entire broadcast down.

I like Matchett, can do without the others.

The best coverage I ever saw was when I spent some time in Brazil. TV Globo showed the race, and the annoucers kept thier mouths shut unless anything of value happened that you needed to hear about. You actually heard the sounds of the cars.

I’d swear that announcers on american TV must get paid by the word, because they never shut the fuck up and yack on about nothing for the entire race.

I was shocked and apprehensive, too, and am also pleasantly surprised with how well NBC Sports is doing. I don’t mind Varsha so much, but I do like Diffey.

I miss F1 Debrief that Speed had, sort of an in-depth wrap up of the last race/preview of the coming race. NBC has post-race and pre-race shows, but they’re not quite the same.

American readers with NBC Sports Network (sorry Gatopescado) should check out the “F1 36” show they are airing later in the week… Friday evening I think. I set my DVR up to record when I saw the commercial for it over the weekend. The “36” shows are a NBC trademark with the sports they focus on (NHL, IndyCar, etc.) and tend to be really well done with a lot of inside access. I’m interested to see how much inside access they managed to get in the F1 world.

I miss the Debrief show, but they seem to think the dedicated post race wrap show covers any need for a “Debrief” the following race. I do like that we get some on-camera post-race interviews from Buxton now in the wrap show.

And of all the years for GP2 not to get a broadcast home in the US. Conor Daly managed a 7th place from a midfield grid spot with minimal testing experience in the Sprint Race on Sunday. Oh well.

Does NBC replay the race again during the day? I used to watch F1 on Speed if I was up, but I’d usually just catch the replay if there wasn’t another series running live the next day. I’ve fallen asleep during both races so far this year.

Yeah, both the Australian & Malaysian races had Sunday mid-afternoon replays, yesterday’s was pushed back a bit by the IndyCar race running long but was still shown in its entirety.

That was hilarious! Especially that it was McLaren’s pit box. When Jenson did it in 2011, it was Red Bull’s, not a former team’s, with Vettel right behind him. Also very funny.

His many mistakes and fawning over drivers girlfriends just make him look unprofessional to me. I like looking at the GFs too, but find the comments unnecessary and inappropriate. Granted he’s probably gotten better with that.

I just put on the recording to see when his first mistake happened and 1:05 after the start he wonders whether Massa was being slow away from the start to open the door for Alonso to slip through to challenge Vettel for the lead. The replay showed that absolutely did not happen and although he acknowledged that, he never should have speculated about something he obviously did not see. Now I just re-heard him misquoting “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” omitting the key word “foolish”.

Unusual for him, Matchett was also off his game. He commented a couple of times about meeting the tire regulations when that was all out the window after everyone started on intermediates. Also when Vettel radioed about Webber being too slow – get him out of the way, Matchett didn’t realize he was talking about Webber until the others corrected him.

I did catch them promo-ing that show. Definitely want to catch it. I think it’s focusing on Vettel this week.

Same here…