Wednesday 1st August 2007

Nelson Piquet Needs Driving Lessons

Brazilian courts rule that F1 legend needs to call BSM

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Time to crack out those 'L' plates, Nelson

Poor Nelson. The three times Formula One world champion suffered the indignity of going back to driving school yesterday, after losing his civilian driver's license.

The Brazilian racing driver was banned from driving in July after repeated speeding and parking offences in ‘high-performance’ cars. Courts in Brasilia stripped Piquet of his license and ordered him to attend lessons on the basics of safe motoring.

Piquet must now attend at least 30 hours of lessons over the next eight days and then pass an exam in order to regain his license.

When asked to comment, he said: “I think we have to pay for our mistakes. It’s not just speeding. I got tickets for parking as well.”

A humble outlook, but it does beg the question: Is a world champion racing driver safer at 120mph than a 70-year-old doing 45mph down the M11?

[2volvos]

Wonder if he reacted to the news like this...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SXbGDcMeo8

[greybeard]

I'm 73, driven a couple of million miles in 56 years, and I'll bet my relexes are still within a few percent of his. On an appropriate stretch of road, I still do 90 mph on my way to work. Let's not knock the old folks.

[R500MAN]

A world champion racing driver probably is safer than an old codger on the road, it’s the twenty/thirty something retard shites that think their world champion racing drivers, like the one who through speeding(Official verdict)
killed my cousin, that are the problem. Whether they believe it or not, the overwhelming majority of people who think their good enough to speed are deluding themselves.

[waynepixel]

2volvos said:

Wonder if he reacted to the news like this...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SXbGDcMeo8

Hahahah to funny, what happens if he fails the test?

[dukest]

R500MAN said:

A world champion racing driver probably is safer than an old codger on the road, it’s the twenty/thirty something retard shites that think their world champion racing drivers, like the one who through speeding (Official verdict) killed my cousin, that are the problem. Whether they believe it or not, the overwhelming majority of people who think their good enough to speed are deluding themselves.

While the death of your cousin is of course tragic, surely you are not saying that the only safe drivers are those between the ages of what, lets say 40 and 60? Did you regard yourself as a "retard shite" of a driver before you (quite obviously) hit middle age? Might I hazard a guess that there could be just one or two people of that age on this forum who occasionally nudge over the speed limit in their TVRs?

[BT52]

I was a member of his fan club back in the early to mid-eighties and the woman who ran it told me that he was a bit of a menace on the road.

But she reckoned his parking was the worst. He would just park all over the place anywhere at any angle. Probably waiting for a pitcrew to emerge and wheel his car into a garage...

He had one of the first M635CSis. Always wanted one of those.

[Droptheclutch]

dukest said:

R500MAN said:

A world champion racing driver probably is safer than an old codger on the road, it’s the twenty/thirty something retard shites that think their world champion racing drivers, like the one who through speeding (Official verdict) killed my cousin, that are the problem. Whether they believe it or not, the overwhelming majority of people who think their good enough to speed are deluding themselves.

While the death of your cousin is of course tragic, surely you are not saying that the only safe drivers are those between the ages of what, lets say 40 and 60? Did you regard yourself as a "retard shite" of a driver before you (quite obviously) hit middle age? Might I hazard a guess that there could be just one or two people of that age on this forum who occasionally nudge over the speed limit in their TVRs?

Stick, wrong end of, I think you have...(Official Yoda verdict)

[havoc]

but it does beg the question: Is a world champion racing driver safer at 120mph than a 70-year-old doing 45mph down the M11?
[/quote]
Depends which one has the better roadcraft.

Sorry Adam or whoever, I know that was probably just a throwaway line, but it's also pretty irrelevant.

I pride myself on my car control (probably still only 1/10th of what NP has), yet I realise it's a small part of road-driving - I almost never go beyond say 5/10 of my car-control limits during 'safe' road driving. So car control, beyond the basics, is largely irrelevant.

[Alfanatic]

havoc said:

but it does beg the question: Is a world champion racing driver safer at 120mph than a 70-year-old doing 45mph down the M11?
Depends which one has the better roadcraft.

Sorry Adam or whoever, I know that was probably just a throwaway line, but it's also pretty irrelevant.

I pride myself on my car control (probably still only 1/10th of what NP has), yet I realise it's a small part of road-driving - I almost never go beyond say 5/10 of my car-control limits during 'safe' road driving. So car control, beyond the basics, is largely irrelevant.

True, car control is a minor part of road safety, though I'd argue that if you find yourself in the middle of a huge incident with a very small window of escape, it could be the difference between life and death. But I think that F1 drivers have an advantage on the road that goes beyond car control. I expect that their awareness is much higher than the average driver. Things probably happen very quickly in an F1 race, and while the driver is concentrating on keeping their car on the absolute limit without crashing, and hitting their braking point within a few metres while travelling at anything up to about 200mph, they are also considering what the car in front of them is doing and what the car behind them is doing, allowing them to gain a place / defend their position, again without crashing. To add to this difficulty, the driver is wearing a helmet, has restricted head movement and lousy mirrors. He's also bouncing around like mad on rock hard suspension. Then the guy in front spins and he has to select his escape route, drive around it, figure out what the driver behind did and make sure he doesn't lose track position. They do apparently learn to think far ahead of the game and process all info very quickly so that they still have brain capacity to cope with unexpected events. They also look far up the road, which is important in good observation. All this means that on the road, I'd say that an F1 driver is far more likely to spot or anticipate a potential hazard early, to plan their response to the hazard and to execute their plan, they're less likely to be taken by surprise, and less likely to panic when they are surprised. They probably also feel like they have all the time in the world in a situation which would have the brains of most normal drivers working at 100% capacity, and I'd expect they have capacity spare to plan and observe while applying maximum braking effort or applying a turn or two of opposite lock to control a recently experienced blowout or something, while for someone like me, such events might occupy 100% of my concentration, leaving no room for me to deal with additional events which may happen at that time.

Edited by Alfanatic on Friday 3rd August 11:44, because I screwed the quote up.

Edited by Alfanatic on Friday 3rd August 11:45

[The Dodger]

BT52 said:

I was a member of his fan club back in the early to mid-eighties and the woman who ran it told me that he was a bit of a menace on the road.

But she reckoned his parking was the worst. He would just park all over the place anywhere at any angle. Probably waiting for a pitcrew to emerge and wheel his car into a garage...

He had one of the first M635CSis. Always wanted one of those.

I was a member of Nigel Mansell's fan club at the time and NP was always getting in his way! I believe NP won a WC crown without winning a GP one year?

I always wanted a M635 CSL (Batmobile) - the CSi is easier to get.