Formula One

i am opening this thread as a discussion for all F1 related topics such as different cars, grands prix, drivers, teams, FIA, anything F1 related. I am also using this thread to see how many fanatics we have.

Happy Racing from California!
-teh_$L!cerer

Seeing your poll just now made me start wondering how beneficial to MindArk it might be to use Formula 1 to advertise.
It would be overkill I think to become a full-season sponsor, but if they really want to make a big splash, they could do a one-race deal.
Maximum exposure (and cost) would be similar to what was done for Star Wars a few years ago... but I think going subtle might get better returns; for the first race of the season, have entropiauniverse.com written on the rear-wing of one of the team's cars.
Another idea might be to do something at the Chinese grandprix, which might just coincide perfectly with the all the CRD stuff.

well i get ur point about the website on the rear wing (example honda). But i believe MA would want to showcase their game in the form of an actual picture ad, not just some web address. I mean i was looking at the back of the Honda thinking,"wth is www.myhondaearthdream.com". And usually i would never go onto a site i dont know about for the fear of bad material inside.

And i dont think its ever happened that a game was advertised on the car. Wait, i forgot, 2004 Pescarolo C60 Judd had Gran Turismo on it. It was also all over the trackside signs at Le Mans 2004. So i guess it could be possible if EU was a really popular game that everyone wanted. Because im sure the GT series was a well trusted games series. But then again, who watches Le Mans.

I also remember seeing an ad for the Xbox 360 on the Peugeot Le Mans car last year. But that's Microsoft, and they have tons of money to mooch off of.

And i highly doubt either Ron Dennis, Bernie Eccelstone, or Jean Todt having ever heard of an MMO called Entropia Universe. Im sure they most likely dont have an Xfire, or if they are even interested in games today, or yesterday, like Pac Man. Ok maybe Pong, but im sure theyre too old for this.

Then again, most of the F1 engineers are big geeks if you take a look at them. They probably play Counter Strike : Source or anything like that. Oh and that would also mean that they would have an Xfire, where the adds for EU show up. I mean thats how i came to this game.

And it probably is a good reason why some of the cars suck hard (ie the Honda engineers are playing too much World of Warcraft).

But im even wondering where Mind Ark gets all this money to build and run the game. I know SWG and WoW make $$$ because players have to subscribe. But this game is free so i am clueless as to how MA makes money.

Anyways, could be good idea though snow_masterer.

Happy Racing!!
-teh_$L!cerer

Serious F1 fan here. Am a tifosi of scudero ...

What part of Socal are you in?

BM

F1 despite being the pinnicale of motor racing is actually quite dull, as demostrated by the fact that the politics surrounding team espionage and in team conflicts made last season the most interesting for years.

World Rally Championship is the reall daddy, everyday cars thrashed to hell and back.

Tifosi here

Ever sinse Jody Schecter won the championship in 1979.

But I agree with aridash - WRC is awesome stuff.

What can I say...

Like it, dang those cars are fast!

Click to expand...

I'm one of the TWO that chose Nascar HAHA~

That's ok though. F1 is a bore to me!

Used to love it 20 years ago when I was a kid, the days of Senna, Prost, Mansell and Piquet were great times. Last 5-10 years I lost interest since it became so hard to overtake and is too much about the vehicle technology rather than the driver skill now.

However, Lewis Hamilton doing so well last year may mean I take a bit more notice this year

hehe total Scuderia fan here (well the 2008 looks pretty good). Well lets hope that without TC that there will be more battles (and crashes too).

I also noticed how a number of people here obviously don't know what there missing out on.

@bushmeister= eh north of LA is all the info ill tell you rite now.

@aridash= WRC!?!? those guys are nuts!!!! Seriously, i would never have the balls to drive a sedan at full speed on the edge of a cliff. Though i am sorry to hear of the loss of Colin McRae (did i spell that right?). You have to commend those guys for their skills.

While not a hardcore fan of F1, I do watch it from time to time. I prefer the IRL and Indy cars to F1, but thats just my preference. NASCAR is too overrated at this point although it seems the majority of racefans disagree with me on that.

If MA was looking for the most coverage in regards to sponsoring a car, NASCAR would be the way to go. Going with Indy cars or F1 would bring it to a more upscale and international crowd though. Not saying NASCAR fans aren't upscale, but its got a certain "down home country boy" image that'll be hard to shake.

well i think differently but i respect your opinion Wizard Pwnage.

The reason i like F1 is linked to the racing sims i play. I have virtually raced on both ovals and road courses. And i rule that the road courses are more fun to drive on since there is more than turning left involved. Especially Nordchleife! That is the king of all tracks!!!

Though i am pleased to see road courses such as Infineon Raceway appearing in NASCAR. Im sure in due time, NASCAR will be more pleasing to me as it might remind me of the touring car races.

But everybody has their opinions. And speaking of wich.... does anybody have any idea whats gonna happen this coming season? Any favorites, hypothesiss? (hypothesiss wth!?!?!)

Happy Racing!!!!
-teh_$L!cerer

aridash said:

F1 despite being the pinnicale of motor racing is actually quite dull, as demostrated by the fact that the politics surrounding team espionage and in team conflicts made last season the most interesting for years.

World Rally Championship is the reall daddy, everyday cars thrashed to hell and back.

Click to expand...

Guess who has got the start/stop in WRC in Norway just outside their window

NO WAY BIRDMAN!!!! that has GOT to be effing awsome!!

Well for Formula 1, im no where near anything. But about an hour drive south in April will take you from my house to the Long Beach Grand Prix. While not striclty F1 racing, they do have Champ Cars, American Le Mans Series, street drifting and more (i guess).

And my 14-year-old legend car racer is going to France this summer to watch the infamous 24 Hours of Le Mans Endurance race. He's gonna try and bring me along too. And the best part is, my birthday is right around Le Mans weekend (well, close). If he takes me, it will be the ultimate birthday gift.

Yeah he gets alotta freebies. Just around christmas time, he and his "karting group" got to go to Europe to tour the Formula 1 testing facilities. Basically he got to see the cars before they were unveiled.

But the thing that was most intruiging was that he claimed he saw Ralf Schumacher lounging around in the Ferrari paddock. Any comments?

-teh_$L!cerer

Well, if you ask me, the F1 has lost his "speciality" long time ago. When I remember back to "old days" - just 15 years ago - nearly everything was possible. Of course there were favourites to like today, but not in the form like it is today. Back then the drivers were most important, today a half degree on a spoiler often seems to be everything. The F1 got quite too much "technicied", I loved it when "in former times" there really were fights between a mid-level and well-known teams, today this isn't possible anymore, cause like I said, a half degree on a spoiler may decide the result.

What really didn't lost it's favour is amateur-rally without everything on highest technology levels. There people are driving with the cars they have and giving their best. You will see, in professional rally sport, the Co-pilots will get replaced through navigation systems.

And in F1, flashers are in discussion too... imagine a driver get's punished for forgetting the flasher when overtaking a position

No... the genereally 98% of the kind of motorsports has lost its favour... :/

bump!!!!!!

I love Formula One but I agree with Shadowmage. F1 has always been the technical pinnacle of motorsport but it's almost a victim of it's own development. Too much relies on technical prowess and not on the driver himself. Obviously the driver needs to be competent but it just feels like the edge is gone. Races have generally become too processional because most of the cars are at a certain level and it takes either bad luck at the front or bad weather to see a non-McLaren or Ferrari winner.

Remember Damon Hill leading the Hungarian GP in an Arrows back in '97? That was awesome, even if it did break down (IIRC); can you honestly imagine seeing something like that happen today? The closest we got was Winkelhock leading at the Nurburgring last year because of the weather but as soon as the "good" cars had the right tyres on he was flattened

I'll still watch it avidly for years to come but it's certainly not as fun as it used to be

I once had a F1 computer game where you have to complete "missions" and one of them was driving Damon Hill's broken car in the 97' Hungarian Grand Prix blocking the other cars and finish the race on first position.

But just remember back on Monaco 96' (I think it was 96, but could also have been 95', don't remember exactly which year), when Olivier Panis won on his Ligier crossing the finish line just a few seconds before David Coulthard in his McLaren. I think Johnny Herbert was the third - and even last pilot - crossing the finish line and a Tyrell (I think it was driven by Salo) got in the points ranked with some laps back, but didn't finished the race like all other pilots except of the top three because of a collision with another car.

Back then drivers also were much more "rude" (if you can say it this way) in relation to today, today the drivers of the best cars know "if I don't crash my car it'll bring me in top three", so some of them are also driving like pussys.

Also remember back when Jarno Trulli driving his Prost (later Jordan) was feared among the other drivers because of his aggressive driving style at the start (about at half of the races he crashed in first five rounds with other cars while madly trying to make the one or other position), remember back when during a Gran Prix in Austria (just remember because I was there watching it ^^) Trulli was starting behind Damon Hill and short before the first curve, Hill, seeing Trulli in his back, hitting his break with all power he had and taking the car out of Trulli's "fireline" in a more or less curious action letting him pass by to re-take his position short later.

ehh well i have seen vids of earlier F1 races and i have to say, it was alot cooler watching the races because stuff was happening. These days all the stuff happens at the first 5 seconds and then thats basically the race. Back then you had fancier crashes, slipstream battles (ie monza 1971), more exciting starts (that one belgium race in the 90's), and men with big huevos!! (think of how dangerous it was to drive the F1 cars in the 50's man!!).

So to fix F1, i think we need to lose every single winglet the cars, bring back the v10's and v12's, take out the extra chicanes, make the engines bigger, replace the grooves with the slicks, and get a track with ginormous eff off straights. And get Honda to get a better car. And get Juan Pablo Montoya back. And have a dedicated F1 track in America that's right by my house too .

Though all of the suggestions may not be the best for you, i invite you to correct me or add sum of your own. Because nobody is perfect!!!

Slicerer said:

But the thing that was most intruiging was that he claimed he saw Ralf Schumacher lounging around in the Ferrari paddock. Any comments?

Click to expand...

Then I must confess that I have talked few times with Jean Todt, face to face, not in any PR-media-infos or so....

And I am "hardcore" F1-fan, followed series over 40 years now. I remember still the first time when I saw Monaco GP in swedish TV in summer 67 and I was sold.....

I found a book about Formula 1 printed in 2002 in a charity shop the other day. It details every year of the sport from 1950 and although there's tonnes of bizarre errors and inconsistencies it's an interesting read.

While going through it I remembered that PGR4 on the Xbox 360 has a couple of late 50's era F1 cars so set up a race for a laugh. The game has a photo-mode so I got a few snaps, one of which is here:

[br]Click to enlarge[/br]

Reading the book and seeing a high detail 3D model makes you realise how vulnerable the driver was in early cars. The complete lack of safety in the early days is staggering too - there's a photo in the book of a driver getting in to his car ready to race while wearing what appears to be jeans and a t-shirt!? Madness...

A #1 Fan Here.

Always a racing fan, and F1 fan most of all. Any given race may be boring, but the bigger picture of the sport has always fascinating to me. I spend more time reading about F1 winter testing than the Super Bowl during the week of the game, And I watch not only the races, but qualifying AND practice.

Why? It is a balance of skills and technology, relentless advancement between highly competitive teams. Formula does not do anything artificial to level the field like so many racing series, which serves to reward mediocrity and punish success. If a team wants to the be the best it has no other option but to beat the best. Look at how much money and effort Honda and Toyota put in and they still can't compete. Teams face regulation changes almost every year that slow the cars down, and yet manage to go faster anyway. Drivers must maintain amazing levels of concentration to pilot extremely fast and difficult cars battling for thousandths of seconds. And these are entirely different cars from team to team. As for passing - yes more would be good, but when passes are made on track, they are memorable and significant.

So yes, I'm a fan. I just can't help it.

I do think EU and F1 are good match (I would ), although the amount of sponsorship they could afford would likely be quite small.

My prediction - Kimi wins a second championship in 2008, beating Lewis and Fernando again.

try downloading the old races, from when the bmw had over 1000bhp

they could barely turn but damn they where fast

i watch F1 every chanse i got and i think its more fun now when the german ashole is out

never seen any F1 live action though but i will before i die... i watch WRC live every year has become a tradition.

i was a fan of F1 when i was a kid.. stayed up long to watch every race and session. (yes, the national austrian broadcast ORF got scammed over by bernie somewhere in the past, and has to broadcast each and every session, lol)
i also played Micropose F1GP 1 and 2 like a mad-man (well, boy) back then..

nowadays, i think F1 is a farce. it's a circus, just like the rotten monster-truck shows touring the outback in summertime. only with a unequaled budget..

also, a F1 race effects me like a pack of sleeping pills. i just cannot stay awake while watchin nothing happen and hearing the hypnotic 'broooooooooaam, brooooooaaam, broooooooooo--am....'

lol

WRC ftw!!!

Slicerer said:

ehh well i have seen vids of earlier F1 races and i have to say, it was alot cooler watching the races because stuff was happening. These days all the stuff happens at the first 5 seconds and then thats basically the race. Back then you had fancier crashes, slipstream battles (ie monza 1971), more exciting starts (that one belgium race in the 90's), and men with big huevos!! (think of how dangerous it was to drive the F1 cars in the 50's man!!).

So to fix F1, i think we need to lose every single winglet the cars, bring back the v10's and v12's, take out the extra chicanes, make the engines bigger, replace the grooves with the slicks, and get a track with ginormous eff off straights. And get Honda to get a better car. And get Juan Pablo Montoya back. And have a dedicated F1 track in America that's right by my house too .

Though all of the suggestions may not be the best for you, i invite you to correct me or add sum of your own. Because nobody is perfect!!!

Click to expand...

technically, there should be a rule of a minimum aerodynamic drag factor.
such a rule would make overtaking in F1 a regular event (the cars of the good ol' days had drag like a flat wall, so the slip-streams were long enough for the chasing car to close up).
a minimum drag factor rule would also decrease the top-speeds while increasing turn-speed (down-lift = drag).
additionally, such a rule would set a ceiling on the budget used for aerodynamic developement and thus close the gap between mid-lvl and uber-teams (today a team can buy a competitive engine, but not a competitive aerodynamic-package).

maybe bernie recruits his 'game-designers' form MA?

Trux i am all for slipstream! its so fun doing that in GT4, get up right behind a car on the Mulsanne straight and "BOOM!! HEADSHOT!!!" you fly right past the guy.
But i guess i can imagine slipstreaming now these days in F1. U get up behind the guy and you only go about a tenth of a mile per hour faster or what the crap. And i know how the slipstream works. Theres a pocket of anti-air or whatever behind a car at high speeds due to the drag produced. Since F1 cars are all about minimal drag, im guessing that pocket behind the car barely even exists.
You also have to take into consideration the tracks. There are only a select few tracks dedicated to overtaking like Monza. If they had more of a selection of trakcs that resembled Monza in a driving style way, we could have more of a show i think. Though i did miss the Italian GP this year. DANG DISH NETWORK!!! I WISH THEY DIDN"T HAVE THE EXTRA RATE ON SPEED CHANNEL!!!

BOOM!!! HEADSHOT!!!!

Since a kid. It's not as good as it once was, due to over regulation and nerfs...but if you GO WATCH the whole thing live it's awesome. A whole weekend camping over practice and the race ..can't beat it.

Been to the Spanish, French, Monaco and of course the Brit GPs over the years, and a long time ago even went for a drink with James Hunt at his bar in Marbella named after his dog.

One lottery win and I'd be at every race.

The only other event close would be this one ...which is populated with GP drivers anyway (and you get to chat to them). Festival of Speed

Season is almost here

t

ok season has started but.... DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS AT THE RACES. sadly i dont have the SPEED channel so i cannot watch the races. And i would like for it to abe a surprise for who wins and who doesnt.

If you must talk about these races, i will make a spoiler thread just for you guys, so you can talk all you want about the race. I am not being harsh, i just like surprises is all.

Happy Racing!!
-teh_$L!cerer

ok im allowing u guys to talk about the races, long as you totally explain what happened to me when i ask wth u guys are talking about...

let teh discussions begin!