A1GP Blue Flags(RESULTS IN HERE WARNING, DONT LOOK HERE)
Discussion
Yeah, agree with that. I guess that's the drawback to having all the cars so evenly matched.
Good to see the boy Piquet doind so well. saw him at Croft last year and he looks a talent. Quite surprised none of the F1 teams have not gone for him.
The female presenter on SKY made a nice change from Jim Rosenthal too.
Good to see the boy Piquet doind so well. saw him at Croft last year and he looks a talent. Quite surprised none of the F1 teams have not gone for him.
The female presenter on SKY made a nice change from Jim Rosenthal too.
Gutted for Robbie - he's a great bloke and looking forward to chatting with him at Palmer again.
Great racing overall - so nice to see big wide slicks with no TC.
Amazing crash and footage from inside the car - stunning pictures.
Think Sky will be a little slicker as they learn more, but a very very good start.
F1 needs to look, listen and learn from this.
Great racing overall - so nice to see big wide slicks with no TC.
Amazing crash and footage from inside the car - stunning pictures.
Think Sky will be a little slicker as they learn more, but a very very good start.
F1 needs to look, listen and learn from this.
Overall, IMHO, it was pretty dire. The studio eye candy, although professing to be a "real motorsports fan", was asking some pretty dumb questions of Andy Priaux.
"Do you think he'll be happy with 11th?" Pleeeaaase!
The girly pit lane reporter was not much better, with too many "how are you feeling" type of questions, and even Kieth Heuwen managed to ask Robbie Kerr the same question after his engine expired while leading the race. It's not exactly in depth reporting, is it?
As for the racing, perhaps it's too early to judge. I thought that the first sprint race was processional, and the second was heading that way until the accidents brought out the safety car. This livened things up, but in an artificial way.
The problem, as I see it, is that equivalency formulae are fine for beginners who are learning their racecraft, and can learn a lot from their own and others mistakes. Put some experienced GP2 or F3 drivers in the A1GP cars, and I supect that it would be too close to call. Whoever has pole is most likely to win, all things being equal (which is what they're supposed to be!).
On the plus side, some unexpectedly promising drives from Pakistan and Mexico.
I agree wholeheartedly about the lack of blue flags. Interestingly, where were the team(s) from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UAE, Bahrain, etc? Considering who is behind the series, they were conspicuous by their absence.
I wish the series well, but as a rival for F1? Not a chance. SKY SPORTS need to sharpen up their act considerably, from a presentational point of view at least. Eye candy is all very well, but the young ladies in question need to show a little more knowledge than they exhibited today.
"Do you think he'll be happy with 11th?" Pleeeaaase!
The girly pit lane reporter was not much better, with too many "how are you feeling" type of questions, and even Kieth Heuwen managed to ask Robbie Kerr the same question after his engine expired while leading the race. It's not exactly in depth reporting, is it?
As for the racing, perhaps it's too early to judge. I thought that the first sprint race was processional, and the second was heading that way until the accidents brought out the safety car. This livened things up, but in an artificial way.
The problem, as I see it, is that equivalency formulae are fine for beginners who are learning their racecraft, and can learn a lot from their own and others mistakes. Put some experienced GP2 or F3 drivers in the A1GP cars, and I supect that it would be too close to call. Whoever has pole is most likely to win, all things being equal (which is what they're supposed to be!).
On the plus side, some unexpectedly promising drives from Pakistan and Mexico.
I agree wholeheartedly about the lack of blue flags. Interestingly, where were the team(s) from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UAE, Bahrain, etc? Considering who is behind the series, they were conspicuous by their absence.
I wish the series well, but as a rival for F1? Not a chance. SKY SPORTS need to sharpen up their act considerably, from a presentational point of view at least. Eye candy is all very well, but the young ladies in question need to show a little more knowledge than they exhibited today.
Looks like either they have serious reliability problems or it was carnage out there???
A1 Team Driver Time
1 Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 55.01.910
2 Australia Will Power 55.13.240
3 Mexico Salvador Duran 55.25.035
4 New Zealand Matt Halliday 55.25.615
5 Malaysia Alex Yoong 55.26.262
6 South Africa Stephen Simpson 55.26.762
7 Netherlands Jos Verstappen 55.27.540
8 Japan Ryo Fukuda 55.28.129
9 Canada Sean McIntosh 55.29.089
10 Germany Timo Scheider 37 laps
11 Austria Mathias Lauda 37 laps
12 China Tengyi Jiang 37 laps
13 Pakistan Adam Khan 35 laps
14 Czech Republic Jan Charouz 24 laps
15 Russia Alexey Vasiliev 18 laps
16 Great Britain Robbie Kerr 17 laps
17 USA Scott Speed 14 laps
18 Lebanon Khalil Beschir 13 laps
19 Italy Enrico Toccacelo 13 laps
20 Portugal Alvaro Parente 1 lap
21 Switzerland Neel Jani 1 lap
22 Ireland Michael Devaney 0 laps
23 Indonesia Ananada Mikola 0 laps
24 France Alexandre Premat DNS
25 India Karun Chandhok DNS
4 out in the first lap, 2 more on 13, another 4 out by lap 25.
Must have been exciting to watch???!
J
A1 Team Driver Time
1 Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 55.01.910
2 Australia Will Power 55.13.240
3 Mexico Salvador Duran 55.25.035
4 New Zealand Matt Halliday 55.25.615
5 Malaysia Alex Yoong 55.26.262
6 South Africa Stephen Simpson 55.26.762
7 Netherlands Jos Verstappen 55.27.540
8 Japan Ryo Fukuda 55.28.129
9 Canada Sean McIntosh 55.29.089
10 Germany Timo Scheider 37 laps
11 Austria Mathias Lauda 37 laps
12 China Tengyi Jiang 37 laps
13 Pakistan Adam Khan 35 laps
14 Czech Republic Jan Charouz 24 laps
15 Russia Alexey Vasiliev 18 laps
16 Great Britain Robbie Kerr 17 laps
17 USA Scott Speed 14 laps
18 Lebanon Khalil Beschir 13 laps
19 Italy Enrico Toccacelo 13 laps
20 Portugal Alvaro Parente 1 lap
21 Switzerland Neel Jani 1 lap
22 Ireland Michael Devaney 0 laps
23 Indonesia Ananada Mikola 0 laps
24 France Alexandre Premat DNS
25 India Karun Chandhok DNS
4 out in the first lap, 2 more on 13, another 4 out by lap 25.
Must have been exciting to watch???!
J
It wasnt THAT loud- did you stay to hear the Old F1 cars afterwards. Now they were loud!
From where I was, it looked as if the Aussie punted off Robbie Kerr into retirement. Only now have I found out he retired with mechanicla failure. My appologies to the Aussie bloke (although dont think this makes up for loosing at Rugby and the Ashes)
Overall, I felt it had a lot of room for improvement. But, as someeone else has said, a very good start. Now, about trying to leave the car park...
From where I was, it looked as if the Aussie punted off Robbie Kerr into retirement. Only now have I found out he retired with mechanicla failure. My appologies to the Aussie bloke (although dont think this makes up for loosing at Rugby and the Ashes)
Overall, I felt it had a lot of room for improvement. But, as someeone else has said, a very good start. Now, about trying to leave the car park...
drifting said:
Must have been exciting to watch???!
J
It was and very loud, my ears are still ringing and at least it wasn't like F1 with everyone following each other.
For the first race it was good and I will be back to watch it next year.
Drifting
The racing was indeed good (especially the latter non A1 GP races) but the traffic carnage caused by the total lack of management in the "parking" (a huge field) left a bad taste in the mouth. From reaching the car to joining the road took 1h 45mins.
robbieduncan said:
The racing was indeed good (especially the latter non A1 GP races) but the traffic carnage caused by the total lack of management in the "parking" (a huge field) left a bad taste in the mouth. From reaching the car to joining the road took 1h 45mins.
Still better than leaving the centre car parks at a certain 'home of British motorsport' - but suprised Mr Palmer didn't do better with that...
Drifting
[/quote] The racing was indeed good (especially the latter non A1 GP races) but the traffic carnage caused by the total lack of management in the "parking" (a huge field) left a bad taste in the mouth. From reaching the car to joining the road took 1h 45mins.[/quote]
From what I saw cycling around there today the roads were not much better, gridlocked everywhere I'm surprised some even got in. I s it being televised anywhere ?
The F1 cars are fekin loud I remember being at the 1976 Grand Prix at Brands with a friend and we were taking the mick out of these people with headphones, then spent the day watching the race with our fingers in our ears
I believe it was/will be televised on Sky. No terrestrial coverage. The roads really weren't all that bad as long as you listen to the traffic reports and avoided the M25. We got from east London (North of the river) to Brands Hatch, parked, bought our tickets and got through the gates in under an hour.
The parking exit trouble was basically caused by the allowing 30ish queues to form all trying to get out the one exit in a kind of spoke formation!
The parking exit trouble was basically caused by the allowing 30ish queues to form all trying to get out the one exit in a kind of spoke formation!
Fantastic day out.
No problems Parking or leavin after (ended up parking in the Thistle Hotel Car park with the race teams
Watched the whole race from the commentary box, and then from the bar at the Thistle.
Fireworks .. what was all that about ?
Good to see the old F1 Cars.
did anyone manage to get a program ? they were all sold out by 11am!
No problems Parking or leavin after (ended up parking in the Thistle Hotel Car park with the race teams
Watched the whole race from the commentary box, and then from the bar at the Thistle.
Fireworks .. what was all that about ?
Good to see the old F1 Cars.
did anyone manage to get a program ? they were all sold out by 11am!
jvaughan said:
did anyone manage to get a program ? they were all sold out by 11am!
Yes, but at 0645. Girl selling it was an absolute babe so I'm not surprised she'd sold out all her stock.
Car parking was bad. Stuck in a queue with engine off for half an hour then worked my way over to the other side of the field where there was a properly managed queue and was out in less than 10 minutes.
A1 racing definitely needs a bit of tweaking, blue flags for a start.
Shame to see the Honda powered Elise spin out on the GP250 invitation due to a severed brake line. Team Scandall had been doing well against much bigger competition up until then.
As for the classic F1 cars <gurgle>.
>> Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 26th September 11:27
jvaughan said:
Fireworks .. what was all that about ?
fireworks!?!? we thought it was india and pakistan kicking off in the pits!
the sound of the A1 cars as they came off the throttle was nice, but still nothing beat the flat 12 of the 312 through the woods being chased by a DFV! it was a top day, i thoroughly enjoyed it and a big motorsport event wouldnt be the same without chaos in the car park afterwards
did anyone else get a kitkat on the way out? that confused me, were they taking the piss?! "have a break" and all that!?!? Big respect to the guys in the audi estate who got back to the car, put up a gazebo and then got the barbeque underway! you can tell JP is trying to do something at Brands though, to be honest he has a good product to start with as was evident by the fact that the banking on the exit of clearways was busy by 10am. every spectator there helped contribute to a great atmosphere, thanks guys!
pablo said:
did anyone else get a kitkat on the way out? that confused me, were they taking the piss?! "have a break" and all that!?!? Big respect to the guys in the audi estate who got back to the car, put up a gazebo and then got the barbeque underway!
I got a Kit Kat as well - actually I rather appretiated it - I showed they knew they had problems with the car parking and wern't taking my friends and mine attendance for granted.
The audi with the Gazebo was BBQing at 9:00am when we arrived - and was still at it when we left at 18:30 - not certain they actually got to watch any racing
Yeah,
We got 3 Kitkats(1 each),rather good idea I thought.
Steve
>> Edited by sb-1 on Monday 26th September 18:53
gfun said:The vast majority of motorsport has absolutely nothing to do with car development. It is a sport / hobby to a great number of people and doesn't pretend to be anything else.
OK for the racing but what about the other side of racing to push car development?
I enjoyed it. Amazed that they pulled the guy out of the gravel at Padock with no injuries - I've been in that pit before and nearly lost the car it is that deep!
As an added bonus - managed to survive the Ginetta race at the end of the day - Brands Hatch GP, 35 cars, rain and dry tyres - interesting to say the least
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