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 Post subject: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 11:32 pm 
Renegade Heroes
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Hey Now everyone.

With the 2013 season of Formula 1 starting up soon (next week), I wanted to expand the coverage on the forums compared to last season. I am planning on having a post for each race of the season instead of very rarely.

To begin talking about this season a quick talk about last season. Everyone's least likeable German, Sebastian Vettel, won the Formula 1 Driver's Championship at the last race of the season over Fernando Alonzo and the rest of the Formula 1 grid. Vettel's team Red Bull Racing won the Constructor's championship easily :(. And a nice video montage to help with everything else:


Now to this season!!!
Too start off here is a list of the driver's competing this year:
Car # | Name | Brief description
Car #1 | Sebastian Vettel | A German driver who has won the Formula 1 Driver's championship for 3 years in a row now. He is also the youngest individual to win the driver's championship and a boring individual who no one likes. He also has been on The Late-Show with David Letterman:


Car #2 | Mark Webber | An Australian who is Vettel's teammate, he is like Vettel but slower...that's about it.

Car #3 | Fernando Alonso | A Spanish driver who has won 2 driver championships and races for some little team known as Ferrari. Currently everyone in Italy's hero and got second in the driver's championship in 2012 with a car so inferior that it would be like competing in NASCAR with a Prius.

Car #4 | Felipe Massa | A Brazilian driver who is Alonso's teammate at Ferrari. He lost the driver's championship in 2008 by 1 point. And had a very scary accident during the Hungary race in 2009 in which a spring from another car came loose and struck him in the head fracturing his skull. Ever since that incident he has not been the same driver and this season will most likely be his last in F1:


Car #5 | Jenson Button| A British driver for McLaren. He won the 2009 Driver's Championship and was the "second" driver for the team behind Lewis Hamilton. Now that Hamilton has switched teams, Button is the "Lead" driver for McLaren.

Car #6 | Sergio Perez| A Mexican driver who switched to McLaren from Sauber for the 2013 season. Until it was revealed that he was joining McLaren for the 2013 season it was rumored that he was going to replace Massa due to Sauber using Ferrari engines and McLaren using Mercedes-Benz engines.

Car #7 | Kimi Raikkonen| A Finnish driver that races for Lotus. He won the 2007 Drivers Championship. Americans might recognize him from his brief stint in NASCAR's Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series in 2011. He returned to Lotus last year and won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He also knows what he is doing:


Car #8 | Romain Grosjean| A French driver who is Kimi's teammate at Lotus. In the 2012 season he pretty much crashed every single race and many jokes were made about him needing glasses. He crashes more often then driver's in NASCAR do....

Car #9 | Nico Rosberg| A German driver for the Mercedes-Benz AMG team. He won one race last year at the Chinese Grand Prix. Other than that, I do not know much about him.

Car #10 | Lewis Hamilton| A British driver who is Nico's teammate. He won the 2008 Drivers Championship (which at the time made him the youngest person ever to win the Drivers Championship). Until this season he races for McLaren and is currently the fastest Formula 1 driver on the Top Gear UK Formula 1 leaderboard by a lot. Why the heck he joined Mercedes is still unclear since they are an average team compared to the teams above and he is my current favorite F1 driver.

At this point these drivers most likely be nobodies in terms of trying to win races each week so I'll just put their car number, name, country and team
Car #11 | Nico Hulkenberg | German, Sauber
Car #12 | Esteban Gutierrez | Mexican, Sauber (Rookie)
Car #14 | Paul di Resta | British, Force India
Car #15 | Adrian Sutil | German, Force India
Car #16 | Pastor Maldonado | Venezuelan, Williams. He is the most famous Pay-Driver in the world right now which most of the money came from now deceased Hugo Chavez which could cause problems in the future.
Car #17 | Valtteri Bottas | Finnish, Williams (Rookie)
Car #18 | Jean-Eric Vergne | French, Toro Rosso
Car #19 | Daniel Ricciardo | Australian, Toro Rosso
Car #20 | Charles Pic | French, Caterham
Car #21 | Giedo van der Garde | Dutch, Caterham (Rookie)
Car #22 | Jules Bianchi | French, Marussia
Car #23 | Max Chilton | British, Marussia


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:14 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:05 pm 
Renegade Heroes
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Since the rules in Formula 1 are more complicated than those in NASCAR I am just going to link to the 2013 rules and understanding the sport of Formula 1:
Understanding the Sport and the rules of Formula 1.

Now, the first race of the season: 2013 Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne.
Image

This is a street circuit which means that most of the year the walls of the track are taken down and anyone can drive on them. One of the things that makes this race interesting is for a street circuit there are sand bunkers to slow/stop cars that go off the track during most of the turns. While there are sand bunkers, the track is narrow in many places which if you lose control for just a split second your day can be done and the safety car deployed.

Some information about the race:
The amount of laps will be 58, with the circuit length being 3.295 miles. The race has been held 77 times (with the first being in 1928). McLaren has had the most wins as a constructor at this circuit with 12. Last year Lewis Hamilton for McLaren got pole (aka starting 1st for the race) with a time of 1:24:922. The eventual winner was his teammate Jenson Button who completed the race in 1 hour 34 minutes and 9.6 seconds. Hamilton ended the race in third.

When is it on???
USA: (Note: All times are in Eastern Standard Time)
Friday, March 15 - Practice #1 - 12:00am - NBC Sports Network
Friday, March 15 - Practice #2 - 1:30am - NBC Sports Network
Saturday, March 16 - Qualifying - 2am - NBC Sports Network
Saturday, March 16 - Re-Airing of Qualifying - 1:30pm - NBC Sports Network
Sunday, March 17 - Australian Grand Prix - 1:30am - NBC Sports Network
I am currently unsure how to see practice 3 - will update when I learn more.

Canada: (Note: All times are in Eastern)
Saturday, March 16 - Qualifying - 1:55am - TSN
Sunday, March 17 - Australian Grand Prix - 1:55am - TSN
As for the three practices I am not sure if they are shown in Canada.

If you do not live in the US or Canada send me a message and I will include as much as I can for watching the race!

While waiting for the season to begin watch the highlights from last year's race:


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2013 10:02 am 
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Caught the China GP and now watching the Bahrain one, good racing !

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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:55 pm 
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So I kind of forgot about posting before each race. Well I'll try to catch up with this post of what happened during each race leading up to this weekend's German Grand Prix.

So the second race of the 2013 Formula 1 season was at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This race was interesting because it was all about team orders...those who followed team orders and those that did not.

A nice quick review of the race can be found here. This result created one of the most awkward interviews because no one was happy...Webber was just about in tears:


The third race of the season was in China at the Shanghai International Circuit. This race was completely dominated by tires (as many of the upcoming races will also deal about). There was an insane amount of degradation of the tires leaving tire marbles (aka broken off pieces of tire) all over the track. A nice review can be found here. This race would lead into the most controversial race on the Formula 1 calendar, the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The fourth race of the season was pretty boring. A race review may be found here. The most interesting thing was the protests leading up to the race:


The next race was the beginning of the European tour of the Formula 1 calendar, the Spanish Grand Prix, at the worst track...*Jeremy Clarkson voice*in the world. The Circuit de Catalunya is terrible, but this years race was good for only one reason Fernando Alonso. By this point it was well known that every team is now racing to times because of the horrendous Pirelli tires, but not Fernando Alonso. He drove like a man possessed and used an extra set of tires to easily win the race. A quick review of the race may be found here.

Finally, the race of Formula 1 races...the Grand Prix of Monaco. NASCAR has the Daytona 500, Indycar has the Indianapolis 500, V8 Supercars has the Bathurst 1000 and Formula 1 has the Monaco Grand Prix. And boy was it an exciting one this year. People decided to pass and did not care if they took out cars in the process. Here is a link to a great info graphic. A review may be found here. While I can not find any good videos of this year's race, here is a weird way of showing the crashes at this years race. the most impressive thing about the Monaco race this year was the 1st turn crash in the Formula 1 feeder series GP2:


Following the Monaco Grand Prix is the first of two races in North America: The Canadian Grand Prix. Typically one of the most exciting races on the calendar due to the Wall of Champions:

this year's race was boring. Recap of the race can be found here.

And finally, last weekend's Grand Prix of Great Britain was memorable for all of the wrong reasons. Remember earlier when I spoke about the Pirelli tires coming up again...well there were at least four tires that exploded during the race and multiple other cars on the brink of having their tires blown.[EDIT] You will now need to find them on your own since F1 took them down :( [/EDIT]

A review of the race may be found here. My next post will be detailing the German Grand Prix this coming weekend and a few news worthy items about the Formula 1 season so far.

[EDIT]Removed dead videos[/edit]


Last edited by Al Fire 101 on Sat Aug 03, 2013 10:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:49 pm 
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The German Grand Prix this year will be hosted at the Nurburgring circuit. This circuit is a small section of the overall Nurburgring track. The first German Grand Prix took place in 1951 and the circuit(s) have changed location and configurations many times. Currently, the German Grand Prix switches between Nurburgring and the Hockenheim circuit. The Nurburgring has hosted Formula 1 39 times. Unfortunately, I forget how dull or exciting the previous race was so I cannot give any insight there.

Image

Some information about the race:
The race will consist of 60 laps (unless the 2 hour time limit is reached) consisting of a race distance of 308.623 km (191.769 miles). Each lap then is 5.148 km (3.199 miles). The lap record is 1:29:468 by the Michael Schumacher in 2004.

Finally, when is the race on???
In the United States:
July 5th: Free Practice 2 - NBC Sports Network at 4:30PM EST (delayed broadcast)
July 6th: Qualifying - NBC Sports Network at 8:00AM EST
July 7th: Race - CNBC at 7:30AM EST
Race re-broadcast on NBC Sports Network at noon EST

Now for some news about F1 and why you should watch it:
*If you are a NASCAR fan and wonder why the #$% you should watch Formula 1 here is a great article for you!

*Red Bull at the Malaysian Grand Prix changed all four tires on Mark Webber's car in 2.05 seconds before he was off again. While that video was taken down by Formula 1, there exists another video going through each pit crew member's point of view during a pit stop below:


*A nice time lapse video of how a Formula 1 car is build over the offseason. Unfortunately even with their 65ish million dollar annual budget they will be the last or the second last place team on the Formula 1 roster.

*The main man of Formula 1 Bernie Ecclestone probably is going to be charged with bribery soon http://jalopnik.com/why-f1-supremo-bernie-ecclestone-could-go-to-jail-an-e-506638945

*What are the stats of those crazy cars I see on TV?
Image

*Traction control is banned in Formula 1, but Red Bull Racing using crazy engine mapping techniques may have found a way to get around it: http://jalopnik.com/has-red-bull-figured-out-how-to-cheat-f1s-traction-con-514107361. No wonder that #$%*@& Vettel always has insane starts to Formula 1 races.

*Mercedes conducted a tire test with Pirelli using their current 2013 car. While the Pirelli test was legal (it was used to help determine potential tire compounds for future seasons of Formula 1), Mercedes using their current 2013 car was not. As a result Mercedes has been suspended from the young driver test (going on right now because of the British tire fiasco).

*Mark Webber announced he is leaving Formula 1 to work for Porsche's Le Man's prototype cars. Most likely this was due to Vettel and management thinking he was a 4th class driver.

*Finally, a lot of exhaust comes out of a Formula 1 car's tailpipes as show below:


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 6:44 am 
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Thanks Al

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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:47 pm 
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The German Grand Prix was pretty interesting (I only got to watch the last 20ish laps). The big news from that race was again the Pirelli tires. In the week between the British Grand Prix to the German Grand Prix Pirelli made 1000 new tires using the 2012 formula for the side walls (using Kevlar bands instead of the current steel bands) while keeping the surface the same as all tires this year. While from what I could tell these new new tires did not have the problems from the British GP, they did not last very long because of the heat wave at the Nurburgring that day.

As for race news Paul Allen, a Formula 1 Management cameraman, was hit by a tire from Mark Webber's car because his pit crew did not bolt the tire on fully. He suffered a broken collar bone and broken ribs to my knowledge....a video of the incident is below.


Before that though, Felipe Massa spun his car early in the race causing his car to stall. This forced him out of the race.

The next big incident was Jules Bianchi's Marussia car burst into flames and after he got out of the car he forgot to put the parking break on. This caused the car to slowly roll back onto the track which was pretty funny.


After that it was Vettel barely holding off the raging Lotus cars to win the race. A better recap may be found here.

The next Formula 1 race is in Hungary at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
In the United States all on NBC Sports Network:
Friday July 26th: Free Practice 2 at 8:00 A.M. EST (re-airs at 1:00 A.M. EST)
Saturday July 27th: Qualifying 8:00 A.M. EST (re-airs at 2:30 P.M. EST)
Sunday July 28th: Race 7:30 A.M. EST (re-airs at midnight)


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 10:30 am 
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great job! keep up the good work!

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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 10:54 am 
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Didn't they just approve the building of an F1 track in England ?

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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:56 pm 
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Pvt. FUBAR wrote:
Didn't they just approve the building of an F1 track in England ?

I believe you are referring to the announcement earlier this week about the "Circuit of Wales". Before I get to what will be racing at this Circuit of Wales, a quick catch-up: Earlier this week the Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council in southern Wales approved plans to build a new 280 million British Pound racing circuit. The track will cover an 830-acre area and the track's length will be 3.5 miles. A picture is embedded below. As for what motorsports will compete at this circuit, according the their website http://circuitofwales.com/ the track was designed to host MotoGP, World Superbikes and World Touring Car...there is no mention of Formula 1.

If you are looking for new Formula 1 circuits, there maybe a race in New Jersey overlooking the Manhattan skyline depending if they can accomplish everything in time or not. As well, there will be a second new circuit next year in Russia near where the Olympics will take place.

Pictures of the proposed track layout for the Circuit of Wales:
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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 4:55 pm 
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I'm not a huge racing fan, but just wanted to pop in and say this is an awesome thread. Nice work Al - you've got someone with next to no interest in F-1 watching videos and keeping up with it in a very general sort of way.


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 1:22 am 
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i grew up watching F1 and Ron Howard has made a film about a huge story from my childhood. Here's the trailer for Rush.

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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 5:00 pm 
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Well, Formula 1 is back starting tomorrow morning at the Hungarian Grand Prix before their summer break. I will start this off with the times and channels the free practice, qualifying and race will be on:

In the United States all on NBC Sports Network:
Friday July 26th: Free Practice 2 at 8:00 A.M. EST (re-airs at 1:00 A.M. EST)
Saturday July 27th: Qualifying 8:00 A.M. EST (re-airs at 2:30 P.M. EST)
Sunday July 28th: Race 7:30 A.M. EST (re-airs at midnight)

Now you might be thinking: Hungary, why the bleep does Formula 1 come to some to some country that probably does not know what a car is....let alone the sport that oozes excess wealth? The reason is the Hungaroring in Budapest, a 4.381 km (2.72 mi) circuit built in 1986. Now you might be thinking Budapest was inside the Iron Curtain during that time, how could they have a race there. Well the answer to that question is Bernie "Now Indicted For Bribery" Ecclestone wanted a race in the USSR, but one of his "friends" from Hungary suggested Budapest (note: Bernie Ecclestone only has partners which he bleeps over, he does not have friends). Ecclestone also wanted another circuit similar to the famous Monaco circuit. The result was the Hungaroring which contains only one short straight. This Hungaroring then became the first race on the Formula 1 calendar to take place inside the Iron Curtain and has been providing exciting races ever since. Some interesting facts and the circuit layout may be found below:
Image

  1. This Sunday's race will consist of 70 laps totaling 306.630km (190.531 mi).
  2. The Hungaroring has hosted all 27 Grand Prix on Hungarian soil.
  3. The circuit has changed very little over the years, the biggest change was the removal of a chicane between turns 3 and 4.
  4. Lewis Hamilton has the most wins of any current driver at this circuit with 3. The all time win leader is Michael Schumacher.
  5. This Grand Prix is one of two races 3 time Drivers Champion Sebastian Vettel has not won (thank goodness, I hope he crashes on the first lap)
  6. McLaren is the most successful manufacturer at this circuit with 11 wins, and been on the podium 11 more.
  7. This race will mark Adrian Sutil's 100th Formula 1 start.
  8. The Hungaroring is known like Monaco to be a very tough track to over take on, but interestingly the pole sitter has only won on 11 of those 27 occasions.
  9. The safety car has only been deployed twice during the last 10 races at the Hungaroring.
  10. According to Mercedes AMG, drivers are on full throttle for 59 per cent of the lap, making 48 gear changes during that time. This equates to 3,360 gear changes over the 70 lap race.
  11. And the final tidbit of information is that this is the third shortest race on the calendar (after Monaco and Canada).

Below is the race edit from last year's race:


I have posted or linked to stats in the past of how insanely quick Formula 1 cars are in the past, but I guess I have not done a good job on visually showing just how fast they are. Below is a video of how bonkers they are: (note: The "regular" car in that video is the SL63, a $146,000 530 horsepower monster of a roadster)


Your quick F1 news update since the previous race:
  1. Beginning this race (and most likely carrying on for the rest of the season) Pirelli are bring a newly constructed tire using their 2012 construction allied to the 2013 compounds
  2. As mentioned earlier, the 'boss' of Formula 1, Bernie Ecclestone has been indicted on bribery charges in Germany and if you want a recap of why he is being indicted click here.
  3. Former Formula 1 driver and current Ferrari test driver Kamui Kobayashi decided to drive a Formula 1 car into a wall during a promotional event in Moscow [insert joke here]:
  4. Honda has signed an agreement to provide McLaren with 1.6 turbocharged V6 engines beginning in 2015. Honda's racing operation will be based out of Milton Keynes, UK.
  5. Marussia, the poorest F1 team on the grid (with an annual budget of $64 million), will being using Ferrari sourced engines beginning next year instead of Cosworth engines.
  6. The Silverstone young driver test allowed teams to test the new tires and upcoming drivers to see how they perform at motorsport's highest level.

That is about it. If you have any Formula 1 questions please let me know and I will try to answer them the best I can.


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 10:32 am 
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Howdy again everyone, Formula 1 has entered their summer break so no more racing for a while. Before I get to the race recap, an interesting rule about Formula 1's summer break is that all teams must close their doors for two weeks. In other words, no one is allowed to work at all for a team during that two week span. The main reason behind this is that people who work for formula 1 teams pretty much do not sleep. Some of you may know about "crunch time" during video game development, well in Formula 1 it is crunch time all the time. Hence why this two week break is mandatory.

As for the Hungary race...I would say it was a snooze-fest. There were two main reasons for this, the first was Vettel being stuck behind Button for much of the race, while that silly Frenchmen Grosjean's was ruined by the stewards. For those of you who did not watch the race, Grosjean had just inched ahead of another driver before both drivers going into a turn on the course. Grosjean at some point, watching the replay I don't think he did, put all for tires off the track exiting the turn which gave him a drive through the pit lane penalty. For some reason Grosjean was punished, but multiple other drivers went way way way off the track while doing the same move and were not punished for it. So that was the race in a nutshell. I could not find any videos of the race nor is there any interesting news to share. The next three races are really really fun to watch: the Belgium GP at Spa, the Italian GP at Monza, and the Singapore GP on the streets of the Marina Bay. Spa is amazing because of Eau-Rouge, Monza because of the speed, and Singapore due to the insane heat and humidity and barrier walls inches away at all times and that it is the only race to take place entirely at night.

For those of you who want to watch some open wheel racing action while F1 is away, tune into Indycar.


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:16 pm 
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In a few hours Formula 1 returns after their long summer break to Belgium. You might ask, why Belgium? Well there is a little track called Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps which is not so little considering it is the longest track on the F1 calendar at 7.004 km (4.352 mi) and it has Eau Rouge. What is this Eau Rouge you speak of Al Fire 101??? Well I will let the 2005 and 2006 F1 World Champion and current Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso explain:
Fernando Alonso wrote:
"You come into the corner downhill, have a sudden change [of direction] at the bottom and then go very steep uphill. From the cockpit, you cannot see the exit and as you come over the crest, you don't know where you will land. It is a crucial corner for the timed lap, and also in the race, because you have a long uphill straight afterwards where you can lose a lot of time if you make a mistake. But it is also an important corner for the driver's feeling. It makes a special impression every lap, because you also have a compression in your body as you go through the bottom of the corner. It is very strange – but good fun as well."
This is what the corner looks like in action:


And here is a nice video just how much quicker F1 cars are compared to "normal" race cars:


Below is the track's layout:
Image

And here is a link to some interesting facts about the track.

And thanks to Lucas Di Grassi for putting a camera in front of one of his eyes here is a lap of Spa of a Formula 1 car:


Oh and before I forget...this is a highlight video from last years race. The start of the race was insane!


[edit]Replacing link with actual times and station for the race weekend[/edit]
F1 Free Practice 2: Friday, August 23rd on NBC Sports Network at 8a.m. EST (5:00a.m. PST)
F1 Qualifying: Saturday, August 24th on NBC Sports Network at 8a.m. EST (5:00a.m. PST) (Replay at 12:30p.m. EST)
F1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix: Sunday, August 25th on NBC Sports Network at 7:30a.m. EST (4:30a.m. PST)


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 8:40 pm 
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So Free Practice 1 and 2 are over and they provided some interesting results. Free Practice 1 was in the wet and saw the Spaniard, Fernando Alonso, at the top of the time sheets at 1 minute 55.198 seconds, while Paul di Resta was second with a time of 1 minute 55.224 seconds. Not much happened other than a lot of people losing control.

Free Practice 2 began and ended with a dry track that was the interesting one to watch! First there was a crash by Giedo van der Garde when he lost rear traction at the Curve Paul Frere. Then Sebastian Vettel's right rear tire punctured. Fernando also had a slowly deflating right rear tire which could have exploded if they did not catch it so soon.

The top 10 times after P2:
Pos 1: Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing-Renault - 1:49.331
Pos 2: Mark Webber - Red Bull Racing-Renault - 1:49.390
Pos 3: Romain Grosjean - Lotus-Renault - 1:50.149
Pos 4: Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 1:50.164
Pos 5: Jean-Eric Vergne - STR-Ferrari - 1:50.253
Pos 6: Kimi Raikkonen - Lotus-Renault - 1:50.318
Pos 7: Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 1:50.510
Pos 8: Sergio Perez - McLaren-Mercedes - 1:50.536
Pos 9: Nico Rosberg - Mercedes - 1:50.601
Pos 10: Paul di Resta - Force India-Mercedes - 1:50.611

Note: Other than Vettel expect everything on this list to change when it comes to qualifying results.

Event / Date / Channel / Time
F1 Qualifying: Saturday, August 24th on NBC Sports Network at 8a.m. EST (5:00a.m. PST) (Replay at 12:30p.m. EST)
F1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix: Sunday, August 25th on NBC Sports Network at 7:30a.m. EST (4:30a.m. PST)

Below is a nice virtual lap with commentary of how to do a fast lap at Spa using the Formula 1 2013 game:


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 Post subject: Re: Formula 1 2013
PostPosted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:38 pm 
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Well, I have been off my game again....but no more! The Grand Prix of Korea (South Korea that is) is this weekend...and Practice 3 / Qualifying are occurring later tonight. But before I get to this weekend's Grand Prix I attempt to help get everyone caught up on the current Formula 1 season from the results of Spa to the race tomorrow.

The Spa race was determined about two seconds after going up Eau Rouge with Vettel being dominant, Alonso attempting to catch him and Hamilton trying to keep pace. Nothing to crazy or excited happened, well other than Di Resta's crash. Poor guy, a really good race car driver might be out of a seat next year due to his height. Below is the race edit:


Then onto the Italian Grand Prix...for some reason a lot of people at that race wear red clothing with a black horse on it. Not really sure why, anyone know any car manufactures based in Italy? :D The circuit is the Autodromo di Monza, a 5.793 km piece of tarmac dedicated to speed. By far the fastest circuit on the formula 1 calendar and one of the oldest circuits in operation today. The original circuit was built in 1922 and a video I think from the movie "Grand Prix" is below of the old circuit.

From what I can tell Formula 1 started using a track closer to the current configuration in 1972. Monza is one of the deadliest circuits in the world claiming the lives of 52 drivers and 35 spectators. The current circuit is shown below:
Image
For this race Formula 1 added thermal cameras to each of the cars...which may be see during the race edit below. Di Resta was involved in another crash...poor guy :( Also, everyone's least favorite driver won again...Vettel.


The next race on the calendar was the Singapore Grand Prix. The only night race on the F1 list and the only circuit where at least one safety car has been deployed in each year of the race being held. The race takes place 5.065 km of city streets in Marina Bay. The circuit was redesigned this year removing the infamous "Singapore Sling" chicane making the circuit a second quicker per lap than last year's race. It was completely dominated by Vettel, if a safety car did not occur he most likely would have won the race by at least a minute...
The track layout and race edit are below:
Image


Finally, the Korean Grand Prix! It is pretty terrible actually and since Formula 1 has started running there 3 years ago the track has lost an estimated 140+ million dollars. Most likely this will be the final time the race is run at the circuit to make room for the United States Grand Prix in New Jersey and the Russian Grand Prix near where the Olympics are being held. The circuit has a mixture of road and street like corners and a very dangerous pit exit. Currently Hamilton has been fastest in P1 and P2...I wonder if he can keep that up in Qualifying later and the race tomorrow! A layout of the $240 million dollar circuit is below along with last year's race edit:
Image


The following are times and channels for the rest of the race's events:
Friday, October 4th, 2013
Practice 3 7:00 pm PST (not on tv)
Qualifying 10:00 pm PST (NBC Sports Network)

Saturday, October 5th, 2013
Race 11:00 pm PST (NBC Sports Network)

ALSO IF YOU HAVE YET TO SEE THE NEW RON HOWARD MOVIE "RUSH" GO SEE IT....IT IS FANTASTIC!!!


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