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Motor Racing Nirvana


BigJag

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Agreed, Kimi is a character isn't he. Quietly he has had a decent comeback year.

 

I hope the Championship goes to the last race, if McLaren had got their backsides in gear Lewis could be in the thick of it now. Make no mistake, Lewis like Alonso has been fucking good this year. It has been mostly down to the car.

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I love Kimi and his radio talkback just added to that for me yesterday. It was brilliant. What was even more brilliant was the drivers trying to out-pottymouth each other on the podium. Kimi did a "shit" while Vettel did a "fucked up" and a "bloody". I was half expecting Coulthard to go back to Alonso for his final words where he proceeded to slip in a C-bomb just to compete with the big boys.

Edited by Monkee
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Well done Kimi!!! Absolutely great race from start to finish and is up there with the race at Valencia with my favorite this year.

 

How good is Fernando Alonso? The car is probably the 3rd/4th fastest on the grid but he is always there or there abouts fighting for podium places. But unfortunately it just all seems to be falling into place for Vettel.

 

Quick comment on Lewis. I've never been a fan of him and always found him annoying but he's been driving really well this season and he seems to have lightened up and seems less "manufactured" since his move to Mercedes.

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Two weekends away meant two weeks of watching a race the following day, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to avoid the results of a race for over 24 hours.

 

It amazes me how two of the dullest tracks in Valencia and Abu Dhabi have produced two of the best races of the season. I never thought I'd be saying those words...but it really was a good race. Obviously, that was helped by Vettel's charge through the field from the back, but there was enough excitement anyway to make it a really good race. Vettel seems to be getting all of the luck in races and he was ridiculously lucky with the safety cars in that race to be able to change his wing (admittedly after completely destroying it). Everything points towards the Circuit of the Americas being a track that should suit Red Bull and I can honestly see him tying up the championship there. If he doesn't, then it could be a situation where he just needs one or two points in Brazil to seal the title.

 

Kimi's drive was brilliant. As he was so keen to remind the team during the race, he knows how to win a race and did just that. An impressive drive and it gives Lotus something to celebrate and build on for 2013.

 

Even as someone who isn't his biggest fan, Hamilton has been super unlucky this year to retire from two races while on for two almost-certain victories. He seems to be accepting things a bit more these days which is good to see. I'm doubtful that Mercedes can deliver a good enough car for him next year, but it really will be fascinating to see what he can do with a dog of a car. I recall him dragging the 2009 car to some half decent results in the early part of that season before they got their act together, surely that's pretty much all he can hope for in 2013.

Edited by LariatTom
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I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to avoid the results of a race for over 24 hours.

 

One big annoyance this year with the BBC generally is that they don't protect the results of the race when they're showing highlights on delay. It's so easy to turn on the radio, website or tv and get the results spoilt before they've even broadcast. It wouldn't be that hard to have a network ban on results until their packages have aired, or at the very least do the old "Look away now if you don't want to know the result".

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Makes me feel better than non-Lewis fans are giving him credit, makes me feel like I am not just being kind because I have always been a big fan.

 

The way he went round and shook everyone's hand after retiring on Saturday shows he is maturing. Its been a trying 4 years since he became Champion, I just hope 2014 brings him fortune (yes, even I am writing of 2013)

 

I am just preying that Vettels's engine goes in America so we have a fun last race. Unlikely I know, but I can hope, either that or Pastor or Romian make him spin of.

 

Here is a good breakdown of how unlucky Lewis has been this year. - http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/11/anal...lewis-hamilton/

 

Its almost as bad as Senna in 1989

Edited by jimufctna24
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I don't like him and I probably never will, but I respect him. I can respect him for starting to grow up a bit and shake everyone's hand after retiring on Sunday, I can definitely respect him for moving to Mercedes in what looks to be a big step back in performance at the moment. I wish he'd ditch the dodgy US accent though. ;)

 

I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to avoid the results of a race for over 24 hours.

 

One big annoyance this year with the BBC generally is that they don't protect the results of the race when they're showing highlights on delay. It's so easy to turn on the radio, website or tv and get the results spoilt before they've even broadcast. It wouldn't be that hard to have a network ban on results until their packages have aired, or at the very least do the old "Look away now if you don't want to know the result".

 

That's utterly ridiculous. I know at the start of the season, a few people were getting grief for posting about the race on Twitter with the BBC audience complaining that it was spoiling the race for them. That quickly stopped though once they realised it was just easier to stay off Twitter for a few hours. The BBC actually spoiling the result of the race is ridiculous though.

 

I mean, I'd imagine they still give the old "Turn the sound down and look away if you don't want to know the football scores" before Match of the Day on a Saturday night, so why not do the same for F1?

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They tend to put it on the headlines of the news on every fucking hour, so if you happen to have the radio on, you hear "And Sebastian Vettel has.." before you can reach the off button.

 

 

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Kimi is just brilliant.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20267305

 

Kimi Raikkonen has given his entire Lotus team T-shirts emblazoned with his now-famous radio message during his Abu Dhabi Grand Prix victory.

 

The 33-year-old Finn took his first win since his return to the sport this year and his team's first since the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix.

 

On Friday 500 T-shirts carrying the slogan: "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" arrived at the factory.

 

 

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Watched a mini documentary on Motors TV last night. The subject was Iracing.com. Which is apparently the most accurate online racing sim.

They interviewed Travis Prastana. Who uses the sim to practice for his NASCAR nationwide series races. The most interesting part was a feature on a guy called Gunther Hutu. Who is the best in the world at Iracing. Has never driven a race car and doesn't have a driving license. He's Finnish like Kimi. The Top Gear reporter mentioned that he had a very similar character to Kimi too.

They flew Gunther from Finland to a race track in America. This was the first time this guy had ever been on a plane or left Finland. After a drivers introduction, the sort of thing you get when you go on a track day, he was driving an F3 style car. He'd obviously practiced the track on the sim. However within 4 laps he was lapping within three seconds of much more experienced drivers. He had to stop though. The change in climate from Finland to California seemed to have made him ill. The physical exertions of driving a real car must have played a part too.

Nissan and Sony have done something similar in the past with the GT challenge. Drivers from this challenge have gone on to have real life racing careers. They were put through lots of real life training though.

Gunther Hutu however seems to have had all his training on a video game!

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The racing sims on the market these days are absolutely fantastic. iRacing has been using the same gaming engine for the last few years I believe which is making it a bit old but obviously with enough consistent updates, it remains hugely popular. Another one that is growing in popularity all of the time is SimRaceway, which has only been around for a couple of years but has some top line racing drivers like Dario Franchitti and Allan McNish helping to develop the system as well as racing. That one's free to sign up for and the method for buying cars is beyond reasonable where you pay 1/100,000th of the real life price. They got a partnership with Mclaren earlier this year so a whole host of Mclaren cars from across the years are available as well as some LMP1 cars. Their reconstruction of the new COTA track is absolutely amazing too.

 

It shows how brilliant they are when you get things like the Nissan Driver Academy where they can take top drivers on Gran Turismo and then be able to put them into sports car racing. Luca Ordonez has been able to make a career out of racing now with drives in the top championships around the world which seems crazy, and in fact he's had his licence reconsidered by the ACO to upgrade him from a Silver to Gold driver (which now means he's classed as a top level professional driver rather than a gentleman driver)..

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Being a bit of a sim head, mainly to give me the buzz of racing after I stopped, I tried out iracing with a 3 month for the price of 1 offer. As a sim it was incredibly good and the standard of drivers, compared to your usual online racer was light years ahead. Its very well structured and organised too.

 

However it was simply too expensive to keep playing it, especially if you wanted to compete in the league series. Not only is there a monthly subscription but you have to buy the cars and tracks separately which over time could seriously rack up.

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