Magny Cours

  • Thread starter Eagle
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Well, this was a boring race. The only really interesting thing during the race was Trulli-Barrichello-Button competing for the third place.

Ferrari did amazing job again. Schumacher wins after four stops and Rubens takes the third place in the last corner.

Renault did a good race indeed, 2nd and 4th, but they could have done better. Trulli must be disappointed because of Barrichello´s overtake..

Bar was a bit disappoinding in my opinion today. Sato had again engine related problems and Button was 5th. He was battling with Trulli before his third pitstop, but after that, Rubens passed him.

McLaren and the new car.. Big disappoint in my opinion. 6th and 7th are positions they could have got with the old car too. Well, I hope this is just because of the fact the car is so new.

Williams was disappointing too. They had loads of new aerodynamics, but Montoya had serious problems with the balance of the car and Gene was just "slow".

Jaguar had a good race, both of their cars could finish, and they were relatively fast. Sadly, they didn´t get points.

Sauber was doing pretty average job, though I wouldn´t have been surprised if Fisichella had scored some points.

Toyota was good in the free practise but then in the race they couldn´t race anywhere near points. Panis got a bad start and I´m sure he wasn´t very excited ´cause of that.

Jordan was slow as usual. Nothing special from them.
Same with Minardi. Baumgartner retired and Bruni finished atleast three laps off the pace.

Some of my thoughts again, thanks for reading. :)

Cheers :cheers:
 
Well I felt that was a far more interesting race than most of the French efforts we'd seen. Even if the outcome was the same, the way in which they got there stretched it out for a while. And Rubens penultimate corner efforts, what can you say. Did he even brake? Talk about going deep.

McLaren weren't there in the race, but we've seen that from a lot of teams this season, at least they got another double hit of points. Williams' advancements came to nothing. Kudos to Alonso, never expected him to hold on as well as he did, great job. Well done Renault again, they're the best of the rest consistently in 2004. BAR really didn't look stunning, they were hoping to win here.

Who else could swap to a 4 stop strategy mid race and still emerge victorious? It's staggering. 9/10.
 
Yet another legendary run for Schumacher, how does he do it!? 17 seconds in 15 laps.................. It's a shame there aren't more like him.
 
Eagle
Who else could swap to a 4 stop strategy mid race and still emerge victorious? It's staggering. 9/10.

No-one. And the trouble is that I'm going to go into the office tomorrow and be faced with a barrage of "another dull Schumacher victory" comments. :rolleyes:

Vintage race today. Not in terms of events, but in terms of the strategies and the psychology.
 
heero 12
Yet another legendary run for Schumacher, how does he do it!? 17 seconds in 15 laps.................. It's a shame there aren't more like him.

You serious? he won? I'm not watching the replay tonight.
 
I did not even watch the race this morning. It really is hard to waake up for such a boring race, or a race that is known to be boring. I woke up in time to watch it, put my contacts in so I could see, and then laid right back down, thus falling asleep. I think I caught a lap or two before I went back to sleep, but I do not remember. I was just tired to stay up and watch the race. I may or may not watch the replay later tonight; I have yet to decide and do not even know if I will even be home.
 
I was a little skeptical when the race started. With Alonso in P1 and Schumacher in P2... I was expecting to see a repeat of Imola. But I stuck it through to see how the first round of pit stops would go.
When Schumacher pitted first BEHIND Alonso... I thought... "Wow... that probably isn't what Ferrari wanted." And that's when the race took on a new life.
I think these days the excitement of the races lay in watching the "unexpected" happen. Not so much the action on the track itself.
Schumacher really deserves this win, I think. The race commentators where all surprised when he pitted early for his 3rd stop. They did their calculations and basically said that if Alonso keeps up his current pace, Schumacher would need to have a 20+ second gap ahead of Alonso if he wants to stay ahead after he makes his 4th stop. And that's exactly what he did. He ended up amassing a 23 second gap between himself and Alonso. Awesome driving.
 
This was not a boring race, not in the slightest. Schumi got pushed incredibly hard, resorting to a 4 stop strategy to pull off a brilliant win. Alonso really gave him a fight. Rubens went from 10th to 3rd with a great last lap pass to get on the podium. Decisions were made on the fly behind the wheel and in the pit boxes, strategy was revised again and again.. if you are a fan of motorsport this race had it all.
 
After this i think it is obvious that technical restrictions aren't going to bring shumacher down. The only way to even it out will be to handicap him with a minimum blood-alchohol level on race day. :dunce:👍

It was an awesome race. Renault did great. Baricello and Shumi made all the difference themselves.
 
An amazing Schumacher performance. 4 stops and still a winner. A clear demonstration of the tactical brilliance of Ross Brawn. They knew they didnt have the raw pace to pass Alonso on the track, so adopt a super risky strategy to pass him in the pits. Outstanding. And Schumi pulling the two fastest laps of the race on his first two outlaps after his second pit stop :eek:

Excellent drive by Rubens too. I hope Sato was watching how to make a risky passing attempt whole-heartedly. Trulli must be kicking himself.

Another average performance by the McLarens. More then half a minute off the pace, means I cant see a great improvement in the new car. Williams had another day to forget, along with Sauber and Jaguar. Toyota needs to get rid of both Da Matta and Panis. Both utterly useless.

On another note, that chicane leading onto the pit straight is terrible. It means that one car cannot follow another car closely though it, or the pit straight, or Estoril. Meaning Adelaide falls away as an overtaking spot. Boo.
 
Am I the only one who noticed how freakin' narrow the pit lane was or at least it seemed that way to me?

So how good was Barrichello's passing move? I left to go watch fireworks with about 20 laps left in the race, instead of watching the rest of the race.

What is Toyota's problem? By this I mean, at times they have shown they can be extremely quick and then the rest of the time extremely slow. They really do need to get things worked out. Though Mike I do agree with you that it seems both of their drivers are useless, I just read an idea of a writer in the F1 magazine to keep Panis and get Coulthard. Since both of them are veterans, they can help to get the program going at Toyota and get the much needed data that the team needs. It made some sense to me and seems like a good idea, though I kinda question my own sense here.
 
VashTheStampede
Am I the only one who noticed how freakin' narrow the pit lane was or at least it seemed that way to me?

So how good was Barrichello's passing move? I left to go watch fireworks with about 20 laps left in the race, instead of watching the rest of the race.

What is Toyota's problem? By this I mean, at times they have shown they can be extremely quick and then the rest of the time extremely slow. They really do need to get things worked out. Though Mike I do agree with you that it seems both of their drivers are useless, I just read an idea of a writer in the F1 magazine to keep Panis and get Coulthard. Since both of them are veterans, they can help to get the program going at Toyota and get the much needed data that the team needs. It made some sense to me and seems like a good idea, though I kinda question my own sense here.

I agree with you that the only reason to keep Panis would be on account of his experience. Whether Toyota can afford to keep a "test" driver in a racing seat, I dunno. DC and Ralf would be my choice.

As for Rubens move, it was into the last right hander prior to the final chicane. He got a run at Trulli down the hill leading into that last right hander and made a "last-of-the-late-brakers" attempt down the inside. He relied a lot on Trulli seeing him, otherwise it could have ended in tears. Trulli should have covered that line and made it impossible for Rubens to take the inside. Looks like he is returnint to form just before Silverstone - where he won last year.
 
You really think DC and Ralf could work well together? I don't what I think of that situation. DC would be a good sign because of his experience; Ralf on the other hand, I don't really know what I think of Ralf anymore.
 
He didn't suggest Ralf, he suggested keeping Panis, I too don't feel Ralf would make that big a difference. I find it strange with the amount of money they're spending Toyota can't do better than they are, they're being beaten by teams that are on a privateer level compared to them.

Anyway, I think now's a poor time to discuss Ralf because he's not a position to answer any of those critics by driving better.

I'm glad to see so many people enjoyed the GP, it was far better than 2003's event and the stands looked pack, bodes well for it's longevity. After the huge bailout they had to pay to get a round this year I was glad to see people attending, I think having a French car on pole helped a bit, there were some very blue and yellow regions of stands. I thought the race was exciting and featured some decent overtaking, and I agree the last chicane is terrible, the opening turn doesn't help the run onto the straight to Adelaide either.

I've found amazingly little to disagree with which is always welcome :D The pitlane didn't seem that narrow to me, no worse than some of the other tracks the circus visits.
 
Toyota needs better drivers, Jaguar needs better cars. I say take Panis and Da Matta, stick them in Jags, paint the whole lot red and send them to Ferrari to end the Schubens dominance.

Or not.

At any rate, I think Trulli did extremely well until that horrific final pass. He tends to get overlooked sometimes.

And did anyone else notice that Montoya was driving like he needs glasses? I mean seriously most of the mistakes he made (and there were plenty) seemed to be as a result of double vision on his part.
 
I really enjoyed the race... some great tactics, brilliant driving (by more then just MS), great passing (Rubens at the end... ballsy, but impressive) and nice to see almost the entire grid finish (2 DNFs i believe - Sato + Baumgartner).

It'd be interesting to stick Schumacher in a Sauber and see what kind of times he could post... just for s^%&ts and giggles... might show just how money a driver he is.

And what's the deal with Sato???!?!? This guy blows his engine every other race... but they claim it's not his fault??!?! WTF!! Button doesn't do it...

And as for Toyota... they need to get some solid drivers in their stat... Panis needs to retire, and Da Matta just hasn't worked out in F1. Since Villeneuve came over from Champ Cars and won the driver's championship they all think they can do it, but Montoya and Da Matta weren't the driver Jacques was in champ cars.
 
I think Toyota has a good pair of cars in their garage. Both Da Matta and Panis showed that the Toyota's can keep up with the top pace at Indianapolis. During the 1st qualyfing sessions they were both near the top of the time sheets.

What I think Toyota needs to do is give a couple of test drivers racing seats... and nurture them for the next few years. Or maybe even a veteran/test driver duo.

They just really need a set of drivers who will push the car.
 
Is this Toyota's second or third full year to be in F1? Either way though, they are still a very young team and just need time to develop. But just SouL said, Toyota needs to find find that will stay there and bring the program along, a la someone like Michael Schumacher and what he did for Ferrari.

Didn't the announcers say something about the engine letting go for Sato always after a pit stop and something about when it heats up there it just does not like to last?
 
That was mentioned a few races ago, at the Nurburgring, after both McLarens and Sato's engine exploded shortly after their respective pitstops - Sato's was somewhat extended due to his nose cone needing replacement whilst Raikkonen and Coulthard simply suffered the Mercedes curse.

According to what I heard from James Allen and Martin Brundle, Jenson Button said there is actually something that Sato does differently that affects his engine. However, again the Honda expired on the lap directly after a pit stop, so perhaps they're just trying to run the engine a bit too hot to get more performance from the aero package.

As for Toyota, I don't think much of their car nor their drivers in all honesty. Panis had a brilliant streak - 7 years ago. Since then he hasn't done much sadly. This is Toyota's 3rd full year of Formula 1 competition, they had a 3 year campaign in mind as seems the stable in motor racing these days (Bentley at Le Mans for example), but it certainly hasn't come to fruition yet. The cars have shown great pace from time to time, but have been utterly incapable of performing in a race, or even qualifying.

Maybe Montoya was high - if any of you got the ITV coverage you'd have noticed the split screen of his face in the cockpit vs Michael Schumacher's, Montoya sure looked calm.
 
Well what I heard from the announcers and what they said about the Honda engine is that it really does not like heat and too much at all will make it go. For some reason, Sato's engine builds more heat up in the pits as compared to Jenson's and thus the Honda engine just cannot take it and lets go after leading the pits. Or at least this is to effect of what they said or something along the lines of what they said, I did not pay it a whole lot of attention.
 
Perhaps there's actually something different about how Sato keeps the car in the pits then? From every story I can see online and at the BAR site itself, they just don't know.
 
Well maybe then, it is just a string of unfortunate mechanical failures that seemingly have only happened to Taku. :dunce:
 
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