Silverstone

[Eagle]

It's that time again - new Eagle thread time!

The British GP kicks off tomorrow, following a very successful publicity run of some cars in London, where over 500,000 people turned up to watch Luca Badoer, David Coulthard, Zsolt Baumgartner, Martin Brundle, Nigel Mansell and more throw the cars around the tight London streets.

Ferrari again had all the answers in France, leaving Renault kicking themselves. BAR's hope of a breakthrough win faded quite quickly, Williams again struggled to show form, McLaren looked more promising than they have all season but could still do no better than 6th and 7th, Sauber struggled for pace, Toyota were again underwhelming after promising practice times, Minardi and Jordan stayed off the radar too.

The latest news is of course Ralf Schumacher's Toyota deal, and Bernie Eccelestone's latest idea for qualifying, but none of that will make much difference to proceedings this weekend.

So without further ado, here's the place for all your posts on the British Grand Prix.

 

[toler]

If the numbers in the press regarding the Ralf/Toyota deal (50 million €/3 years) are correct he´ll officially be the most overpaid person in the world.
I should go and hook up with his Manager to see if he could get better paying job...

50 Mio € / 3 years
16,7 Mio € / year
1,4 Mio € / Month
~ 46.500 € / Day
~ 1950 € / Hour
~ 32 € / Second

That´s just SICK, still nothing compared to his brother - and no, i´m not jealous

 

[liquidyellow]

On Ralfs signing the president of Toyota said something like ''Ralf is the best driver on the market at the moment''! Gee how positive??

I think another Schuey win this weekend sadly I dont think Button and BAR can challenge him although I hope someone does.

 

[Eagle]

Well first practice gets underway in just over 6 hours, given the amounts of testing most teams do at Silverstone I'd expect the times to be competitive right from the word go.

 

[Blake]

If the numbers in the press regarding the Ralf/Toyota deal (50 million €/3 years) are correct he´ll officially be the most overpaid person in the world.
I should go and hook up with his Manager to see if he could get better paying job...

50 Mio € / 3 years
16,7 Mio € / year
1,4 Mio € / Month
~ 46.500 € / Day
~ 1950 € / Hour
~ 32 € / Second

That´s just SICK, still nothing compared to his brother - and no, i´m not jealous

That's insane...

 

[MADDOG-99]

McLaren will do quite well this time round, Both in the top ten again and hopefuly better placed than france...

 

[DRIFT4EVA]

If things keep going the way they are. What's the bet that Bernnie will pay Ferrari to lose?

 

[toler]

1st Free Practise - Guess what!

1. Rubinho
2. Michael
3. JPM

 

[DRIFT4EVA]

I reckon if Rubhino has a chance for a win. This is it. Last year he was so competitive so........ Still. All Ferrari. I'd also be expecting Button to have a good go.

 

[Eagle]

Second practise is closing, with Raikkonen top of the table, the only man with a 1'18.

Raikkonen
Schumacher
Coulthard
Button
Trulli
Sato
Alonso
Fisichella
Barrichello
Montoya (top 10)

Williams looked a lot stronger this morning, all the other teams have really gotten it together, and McLaren's pace is a pleasant change for them. Have to see whether it amounts to anything yet.

 

[Bollocks#999]

Second Practice results:

1. 6 RAIKKONEN McLaren Mercedes M 1'18"655 0.000 Km/h 16
2. 11 FISICHELLA Sauber Petronas B 1'18"660 + 0'00"005 20
3. 1 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari B 1'19"162 + 0'00"507 14
4. 5 COULTHARD McLaren Mercedes M 1'19"287 + 0'00"632 17
5. 9 BUTTON BAR Honda M 1'19"401 + 0'00"746 19
6. 2 BARRICHELLO Ferrari B 1'19"473 + 0'00"818 22
7. 04 GENE Williams BMW M 1'19"540 + 0'00"885 20
8. 7 TRULLI Renault M 1'19"601 + 0'00"946 21
9. 10 SATO BAR Honda M 1'19"611 + 0'00"956 13
10. 12 MASSA Sauber Petronas B 1'19"676 + 0'01"021 23
11. 3 MONTOYA Williams BMW M 1'19"746 + 0'01"091 20
12. 8 ALONSO Renault M 1'19"874 + 0'01"219 30
13. 38 ZONTA Toyota M 1'20"095 + 0'01"440 35
14. 17 PANIS Toyota M 1'20"489 + 0'01"834 25
15. 16 DA MATTA Toyota M 1'20"829 + 0'02"174 19
16. 35 DAVIDSON BAR Honda M 1'20"861 + 0'02"206 14
17. 15 KLIEN Jaguar Cosworth M 1'21"073 + 0'02"418 30
18. 14 WEBBER Jaguar Cosworth M 1'21"352 + 0'02"697 27
19. 37 WIRDHEIM Jaguar Cosworth M 1'21"353 + 0'02"698 33
20. 18 HEIDFELD Jordan Ford B 1'22"365 + 0'03"710 13
21. 39 GLOCK Jordan Ford B 1'22"500 + 0'03"845 24
22. 20 BRUNI Minardi Cosworth B 1'22"516 + 0'03"861 25
23. 19 PANTANO Jordan Ford B 1'22"586 + 0'03"931 14
24. 40 LEINDERS Minardi Cosworth B 1'22"792 + 0'04"137 20
25. 21 BAUMGARTNER Minardi Cosworth B 1'23"436 + 0'04"781 23

 

[toler]

fell alseep during fp2, too bad i could have seen Fisico take 2nd....

 

[heero 12]

Why does Minardi always take last? What is making them so slow? I really hope they can step it up soon.

 

[Blake]

They don't have enough cash to put together a good enough car to compete. But who, in there right mind, would complain if they were offered a drive in one?

It's good to see Fisi up in there. Hope he can pull something similar out of the bag in qualifying.

Also good to see the McLarens back in competition. After the frnech results I thought they weren't going to be any threat for the rest of the season.

Williams are still down on pace but only by a second. Still it would be good to see a top 5 time by one of the Williams drivers.

 

[Eagle]

Sauber occasionally put in stunning lap times like these - look at Spain. They were 3rd or so in pre-qualifying, but it's never true race pace, and they generally wind up using a different strategy.

What's the last stat? You've got km/h but I think it's actually laps run...

 

[Blake]

It looks like laps run.

 

[Bollocks#999]

Kimi on pole!!!! Rubens second with Jenson third:


Grid for the British Grand Prix

1 RAIKKONEN McLaren 1m18.233s

2 BARRICHELLO Ferrari 1m18.305s

3 BUTTON BAR 1m18.580s

4 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1m18.710s

5 TRULLI Renault 1m18.715s

6 ALONSO Renault 1m18.811s

7 COULTHARD McLaren 1m19.148s

8 MONTOYA Williams 1m19.378s

9 SATO BAR 1m19.688s

10 WEBBER Jaguar 1m20.004s

11 MASSA Sauber 1m20.202s

12 PANIS Toyota 1m20.335s

13 GENE Williams 1m20.335s

14 DA MATTA Toyota 1m20.545s

15 KLIEN Jaguar 1m21.559s

16 PANTANO Jordan 1m22.458s

17 HEIDFELD Jordan 1m22.677s

18 BRUNI Minardi 1m23.437s

19 BAUMGARTNER Minardi 1m24.117s
20 FISICHELLA Sauber no time

 

[Eagle]

So much for the rain some teams were expecting. Kimi's last sector was phenomenal, to go from 0.27 down on Rubens to claim pole, but I wonder how much of his promise will convert into actual race pace. Alonso will have a fun run back to the top, Trulli will claim a few scalps on the start and from there, who knows. I'm actually predicting and praying for Rubens.

 

[Blake]

It's excellent to see the new Mercedes making an impact in its second race. I really hope Kimi can challenge Micheal toward the end of the season like he did last year. But with the point haul that Micheal already has I doubt he can REALLY be challenged.

 

[Eagle]

Actually, Kimi can't win the championship, again. With 8 races left Kimi is 80 points behind Michael, thus he would have to win every single race to draw equal, leaving him with 8 wins vs Michael's 9, so Michael would claim the title. He's well and truly out of it.

The only person with a realistic chance is Rubens. Button, Trulli, Alonso and Montoya have a prayer but I'd say that's it.

10 hours to race time ticks by.

 

[l33tc4k30fd00m]

This one just may actully be interesting... Although I shouldn't get my hopes up.

Hell, I wont even be able to watch all of it sadly enough. But I expect yet another Shumi win.

 

[Brett]

Man, I did not even watch qualifying this morning. I woke up right around the time of Montoya's qualifying and was somewhat awake, but not really. I had only heard that someone had outqualified Schumi right after he qualified, but never who. But from what I read on here, it seems that qualifying was not have bad. Is my assumption wrong here, or was qualifying good? Hopefully it will be a good race tomorrow!

 

[SouL]

Many drivers botched their pre-qualifying run in hopes of avoiding the pressumed on-coming rain during the later half of qualifying.
Schumacher claims he deliberately spun in sector 3... Rubbens also claimed he intentionaly ran wide into the grass in sector 3... both to slow down their pre-quali times to run ahead of the pack and ultimately to avoid qualifying in the rain.
Other drivers simply opted to brake and slow down to a crawl before crossing start/finish.

But it never rained. Though it was supposedly very windy during the first half of qualifying.

Schumacher took provisional P1 by quite a margin... then Barichello moved into P1. Kimi was down in the first 2 sectors and then put together an amazing 3rd sector to claim pole by .072 seconds.

Button was ahead in the first sector by some .100+ seconds... but his run eventually fell apart.

All in all... it was defintely an interesting qualifying run. A bit as exciting as last week's qualy.

 

[Eagle]

I don't see why you'd elect to deliberately spin or run wide - stopping altogether may look more like cheating but it also has less potential to damage your car.

 

[toler]

2 hours to go.
my prediction for today:
Michael
Jenson
Rubens

 

[Blake]

Actually, Kimi can't win the championship, again. With 8 races left Kimi is 80 points behind Michael, thus he would have to win every single race to draw equal, leaving him with 8 wins vs Michael's 9, so Michael would claim the title. He's well and truly out of it.

The only person with a realistic chance is Rubens. Button, Trulli, Alonso and Montoya have a prayer but I'd say that's it.

10 hours to race time ticks by.

I wasn't saying he could win the championship just that he could throw a spanne rin the works and stop this all red shenanigans (sp?).

 

[l33tc4k30fd00m]

Oh look Shumi won.

Colour me surprised.

 

[Nasadus]

If i didn't know better i would have said that Kimi used Nitro's but obviously he didn't.What an awesome start.This car is way better then the previous one,good race pace and it didn't blow up. 👍

Jarno's crash looked pretty bad,shows why they should replace the gravel/sand with tarmac.If the car had digged itself a little bit deeper Jarno would have broken his neck.

Overall i enjoyed the race,Michael would have probably won with a greater margin were it not for the safety car,that's what costed him the 20+ sec. lead.
I was hoping for Kimi to win but Ferrari was too strong once more,clearly they are the best team but not by much.A few other teams have closed the huge gap in performance when compared to last year.

I doubt we'll see a different picture for the rest of the season,i hope we do but i don't see it happening.

 

[Flerbizky]

heh...

Formula 1 ?... Isn't that that thing were cars go round on a track, and then they play the German and Italian national anthems ?....

Nice going Schumi 👍

 

[Dudley]

Oh look Shumi won.

Colour me surprised.

Way to oversimplify there champ.