Story here.
Oh dear. Flavio and Pat both out. Piquet’s career in tatters.
Sad really.
I am really not sure how I feel about Piquet. I guess it’s good he told in the end, but on the other hand he also crashed his car on purpose (risking his health and that of stewards and audience members).
I ama bit scared that this could be the end of Renault in the F1, and since they provide a couple other teams with engines it could have quite a backlash. Next year we might have just three engines: mercedes, ferrari and bmw.
What with all of the recent scandals in Formula One, it’s amazing to me that the series itself is still a success. Worse, it’s not even entertaining racing to my eyes. It’s a few teams ganging up on each other to promote their lead driver, with a bunch of non-competitive backmarkers.
I’m not predicting the demise of F1, but something has to change or they will be looking at a long, slow decline. A good start would be getting rid of Ecclestone. As dictatorial as that man is, there’s no way you’ll ever convince me that he didn’t know about most, if not all, of this stuff.
Not being an FI fan, can someone explain how crashing one of thier cars on purpose helped?
IIRC, the crash required the safety car to come out which was advantageous to his teammate Alonso.
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I’ve always like F1, but every since Barichello pulled over and let Schumacher win a few years ago, I mostly stopped watching. Team orders suck.
The races are almost never close so why is that worth watching?
Cars bunch back up behind the safety car, although they are not allowed to pass. The incident let the other Renault driver quickly and easily recover most of the distance he was behind the race leader.
There’s a longstanding suspicion among NASCAR fans that the yellow flag often comes out with 10-20 laps to go without there being an actual problem, just to create an exciting finish.
There is so much money in NASCAR now teams start the race with no pit crew. They make good money just by qualifying for the race. They run a few laps and drop out due to a fake problem - they have to drop out since they have no pit crew.
Ahhh, that makes sense. Hell of a way to take one for the team though.
It’s funny. I just became an F1 fan. A lot of the times qualifying is more exciting than the actual race. Having all the cars out on the track qualifying at the same time is quite exciting to watch.
And that’s not to say the race is boring. A lot of times the leader does end up with quite a lead but that doesn’t mean there’s not interesting goings on elsewhere in the field. It seems to me as a beginner, the F1 season is more a race to the season title than a race to win the individual races. First place only scores 2 more points than second place (10 vs 8).
In fact, I hope that this causes people to re-examine the whole concept of “team” racing, in NASCAR, F1 and other formats. Racing is just not a team sport in any way, except for relay races.
Come to think of it, NASCAR relay races would rock.
I disagree, I think that completely misunderestimates the appeal of F1’s team aspect to petrol heads.
People like the nerdy stuff about fuel-to-weight ratios, pit stop strategies, whether the new rear wing will shave that crucial 1/10th second per lap.
Or the fact you have a set number of engines and tyres to last a season, or that upgrades are only permitted at certain points, or that the particular lap chosen for a pit stop can radically alter the outcome of a race.
If you want lots of overtaking there are plenty of other motorsport series where you can see it, but F1 is like a game of chess which unfolds over time.
Yeah, last place money in Cup races is pretty good.
Bah. Everyone knew Michael Schumacher took out Damon Hill on purpose in the last race of '94. That Benetton team was under Briatore too, though presumably he didn’t have anything to do with it.
Would the drivers hand the baton to each other through the window, or would there be a device on the bumper to do it?
Yes, the technology in F1 is interesting in itself, but it doesn’t have much effect on race results. Those are determined in backrooms and by chickenshit tactics like this one, not by skill or speed. Screw 'em.
Doesn’t F-1 have local/limited yellows too? NASCAR doesn’t, so something as simple as “debris” on the track will make the whole race yellow and bring out the pace car.
Yes. Just because yellow flags are showing doesn’t necessarily mean that the safety car comes out.
The ‘punishment’ given out for this offence was pathetic. It was a potential life-threatening crash in an (successful) attempt to fix a race. And the punishment is a suspended ban? When you consider the punishment McLaren faced last year for spying on a competitor; Renault should have faced at least that.
Personally I would have thrown them out of F1 permanently. I would have discouraged any team from ever employing Pique again and I would have given Alonso the evil-eye.
I guess they were ‘too big’ to throw out. That sentiment really pisses me off.
During the “Radio-active” segment this week on TWIN (This Week in Nascar, aka “The Mikey Show” -in our house anyway-), one of the late race cautions from New Hampshire prompted a question from the eventual leader, Mark Martin, to his crew chief, “Was this a ‘show’ caution?” The CC began to respond “I think it may be…” but cut himself off before saying much more than that. You could tell from the video at the time that he noticed one of the many cameras on him, and remembered that someone was taping his radio communications.
I don’t think it’s particularly “speculation,” to anyone but the most die hard NASCAR (the body, not the sport) loyalsts, or those having perverted fantasies of either Mike Helton or the current France in power. I’m still watching, but I really only want a caution when it’s REALLY called for.
NASCAR has local cautions on the road courses only. Then it would only fly for a spun/off course car that has the potential to get back under it’s own steam. Ovals get a full course caution for ALL cautions, and no racing back to the line. The field is frozen at the last timing loop passed prior to the caution flag/light. Of course, the biggest oval that NASCAR runs on is 'Dega, at 2.6miles (and near enough to 200mph for that entire length), where road courses for F1 & NASCAR are often near that length, with MUCH lower average speeds.
So how close are we now to those cheesy Syfy movies where the race cars all have oil-slicks, flamethrowers, and buzzsaws? If deliberate crashes don’t elicit any meaningful punishment from the racing authorities, why not?