F1 Race- Shanghai

A pretty good F1 race, it rained, but I repeat myself.

Anyone else enjoy seeing the big guys get it handed to 'em?

I was excited for Sutil until he blew it...

This has been the most interesting season in recent memory, at least so far. The mid pack teams are now front runners, and visa versa. Vettel appears to be the genuine article, and the new reigning rain master.

Yep, very entertaining. Its interesting seeing Hamilton... He seems to have the "shooting star" problem while behind, in the rain.

Any one else think that Raikkonen is starting to just make excuses? (Im a fan of him, too, so....)

If anyone is interested, its being re-aired at 4:30 eastern on speed.

Webber's best finish to date woohoo

Holy rain. Lots of passing and action, me likey.

Can anyone tell me what the heck the covers on the front wheels are? Brake cooling scoops?

what a crazy rain race.. I mean just nutty.

really great....it sucks that Fernando had gambled his pit strategy on a dry start, that cost him alot of points having started in second...oh well, there is always next week.

Yea that was a good race. Hopefully Brawn can get their wet balance sorted out. This was their first full wet race and Malaysia was the first time the car was in the wet.

I felt bad for Sutil last year when Raikkonen shunted him but he just seemed to crack under the pressure of being overtaken.

Good race overall. Can't wait till next week.

Twin_Cam wrote: Holy rain. Lots of passing and action, me likey. Can anyone tell me what the heck the covers on the front wheels are? Brake cooling scoops?

Jury's still out, teams aren't talking, but they seem to be. In theory, they suck air out of the wheel area. I think they're ugly, but you can't hold a good engineer back.

I don't know if you guys heard, but apparently the teams are all in the process of developing tunnel-style rear diffusers to keep up with the others, and I think I heard something about some of the teams utilizing new double-diffuser rear wings and redesigned fronts as well.

It's only a matter of time before the big teams start winning again...

Id love to see Brawn continue to do well. This season is exciting.

Yeah, I guess next years cars will look like a Fokker tri-wing.

How bout toyotas nifty trolley! Betcha sauber already has a prototype!

I just really liked all the 'off-track' action

Toyota's wing trolley was ingenius, but what does it say about your drivers when you have beaten off enough nose cones to think about inventing something like that?

What does it say? Its a race! stuff happens!

Well, looks to me like an incident that could happen, and what could be a massive, position-killing problem instead got done before the rubber got on.

In other words, what does it say that they are so quick to change tires? Y'know, if they took it easy the rubber would last all race....

PHeller wrote: I don't know if you guys heard, but apparently the teams are all in the process of developing tunnel-style rear diffusers to keep up with the others, and I think I heard something about some of the teams utilizing new double-diffuser rear wings and redesigned fronts as well. It's only a matter of time before the big teams start winning again...

But, Red Bull does not have the trick diffuser!!!

Awesome race. My two favorite drivers 1-2, can't wait to see RBRs pace once they get a diffuser.

SF already talking about abandoning development on the2009 car!

Twin_Cam wrote: Can anyone tell me what the heck the covers on the front wheels are? Brake cooling scoops?

I thought the opposite...keep heat in so the brakes work in the rain?

I missed the toyota trolley, what did they do??

Jamesc2123 wrote: I missed the toyota trolley, what did they do??

Basically a fancy custom built hand truck that held the wing at just the right height/angle, so it would slip onto the car once the crew had man-handled the damaged one off. It was really quick. And cool. Bet the other teams will have them shortly.

Pretty much they were able to hook up not only the nose/wing, but the 2 hydraulic quick disconnects in about the time it takes you to plug in a lamp. It was almost surreal how fast it was, really cool.

I've seen 3 nose changes in pit stops this season -- Barichello in Australia, Toyota and somebody else in China. Red Bull, maybe?

They've all been amazingly fast. But Toyota was just a fraction of a second faster, because it lined up and went straight on.

I love the fact that we just watched a berkeleying F1 race, and the hardware we're all talking about is a trolley.

Treb, this is the grm forum, right?

mel_horn wrote:

Twin_Cam wrote: Can anyone tell me what the heck the covers on the front wheels are? Brake cooling scoops?

I thought the opposite...keep heat in so the brakes work in the rain?

I think the biggest reason for the covers is aerodynamic like on bonneville cars.

I bet the wing trolley costs more than $2009.

Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 or 70 grand.