The All-Purpose Motorsports Thread

Formula One was supposed to launch their own television network but it has been delayed. Apparently there won't be live television coverage of practice at Australia. ESPN/ABC have the US rights to the races. Fox didn't find the broadcasts profitable. Formula One has live timing and scoring available online for about $25 for the season.
 
FP 1 and 2 are available on espn3 and FP 3 is on espnnews Friday night at 830PDT

Qual and race are on espn2 this time but throughout the year, qual and races are on espn and abc occasionally as well.
 
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Seems they are sandbagging badly. Hamilton set the fastest first sector, tied in the second then backed off on the straightaway run to the finish a couple of times before setting a fast time. Nobody seems to want to get on the track and run.
 
Seems that the new engine rules are causing teams to limit practice time. They have to get by with fewer parts than last season and everyone other than Mercedes had penalties for that.

The tires are supposedly designed to try to force teams into a 2 stop race. The softest tires that most teams qualify on are softer so they won't last as long on the full fuel loads so they can't get by with changing to the hardest tires and make it to the end of the race.
 
Maybe one of the slower teams has a chance at a title if they take it easy on their engines and start races on the hardest tires.

Will any top teams be willing to give up the chance at a pole by running a harder compound in the second round of qualifying? Why not use 4 of the five compounds at each race to allow a wider tire strategy?

What if a team decides to give up one or two races by starting in the back to get more engines so they can run harder?
 
Bottas crashes big in Q3, stopping the session before anyone got a run in.
 
Hamilton with a great final lap to take the pole over Raikonnen by .6 second.
 
World Challenge has an all day stream of races at COTA on their site.
several different classes. pretty good stuff.
 
I don't like the coverage of the Formula One race on ESPN. They are using the commentators from the main feed but cut the sound for commercials in a side by side format. You see something but don't get any explanation. One car stopped on the pit road and we didn't hear any explanation by the time they got back to the feed.

Vettel got the benefit of a virtual safety car after staying out longer on the first set of tires. The two Haas cars both had failures after coming out of pit bringing out the virtual safety car then the actual safety car after Vettel got the benefit of the virtual safety car. He had a 10 second lead when he pitted and was able to get out ahead of Hamilton who had to run slower on the track than Vettel did in the pit lane. The Haas cars have Ferrari engines so there could be some conspiracy theories that the Haas stoppages were planned to get Vettel into the lead.
 
I don't like the coverage of the Formula One race on ESPN. They are using the commentators from the main feed but cut the sound for commercials in a side by side format. You see something but don't get any explanation. One car stopped on the pit road and we didn't hear any explanation by the time they got back to the feed.

Vettel got the benefit of a virtual safety car after staying out longer on the first set of tires. The two Haas cars both had failures after coming out of pit bringing out the virtual safety car then the actual safety car after Vettel got the benefit of the virtual safety car. He had a 10 second lead when he pitted and was able to get out ahead of Hamilton who had to run slower on the track than Vettel did in the pit lane. The Haas cars have Ferrari engines so there could be some conspiracy theories that the Haas stoppages were planned to get Vettel into the lead.


Yeah the coverage wasn't good. Was there an F1 extra? I didn't see anything on ESPN. I doubt Haas did it for that.

The virtual safety car pit thing is bullshit. It's giving anyone that hasn't/needs to pit an absolutely massive advantage. Lewis essentially had a 13 second lead over Vettel (once he took his pit stop) and the vsc turns that into a 1 second lead for Vettel. Hell Vettel was questionable to even come back out in 3rd under a normal stop.

They need to change that. It shouldn't be hard to look at the track and vsc speed to make a pit wait period (as if it were a penalty) so that no advantage is gained. It's one thing to get lucky with the timing in regards to a pit and a real safety car but to give drivers a huge advantage while other drivers are defenseless on slow cruise control is ridiculous.
 
Yeah the coverage wasn't good. Was there an F1 extra? I didn't see anything on ESPN. I doubt Haas did it for that.

The virtual safety car pit thing is bullshit. It's giving anyone that hasn't/needs to pit an absolutely massive advantage. Lewis essentially had a 13 second lead over Vettel (once he took his pit stop) and the vsc turns that into a 1 second lead for Vettel. Hell Vettel was questionable to even come back out in 3rd under a normal stop.

They need to change that. It shouldn't be hard to look at the track and vsc speed to make a pit wait period (as if it were a penalty) so that no advantage is gained. It's one thing to get lucky with the timing in regards to a pit and a real safety car but to give drivers a huge advantage while other drivers are defenseless on slow cruise control is ridiculous.

They are supposed to have a Formula One channel that you pay $100/season for. I would hope that's commercial free. Now will they sell that to people in countries that they have a television contract in? Who knows. For some reason, it wasn't ready to go for the first race.

I thing the safety car pit advantage could be eliminated if they had pit speed start as soon as they leave the track under a caution in that segment or a virtual safety car. Allowing them to run full speed on the exit into the pit is where the speed advantage comes in.
 
NASCAR had to postpone both the Truck and Cup races to Monday following snow at the Martinsville track Saturday.

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Does anyone believe that the experienced Haas team could have unintentionally screwed up two pit stops in succession that ended up benefiting Vettel? I suspect this was planned by Ferrari. They kept Vettel out possibly hoping for a caution but when it didn't come they had Haas create one.
 
Does anyone believe that the experienced Haas team could have unintentionally screwed up two pit stops in succession that ended up benefiting Vettel? I suspect this was planned by Ferrari. They kept Vettel out possibly hoping for a caution but when it didn't come they had Haas create one.

Do you honestly believe that?
So the best way to do that was to get another team involved by having two different mechanics do exactly the same mistake?
Why not just have Kimi's car stop.
I mean imagine how many people had to be involved while they had to hope Mercedes makes a mistake calculating hamiltons time during the VSC.

They obviously have to change something with the virtual safety car. Because that was BS. Just have the normal safety car come out. At least that way it gets a bit more exited.
And those new cars are ugly with the halo.
 
Do you honestly believe that?
So the best way to do that was to get another team involved by having two different mechanics do exactly the same mistake?
Why not just have Kimi's car stop.
I mean imagine how many people had to be involved while they had to hope Mercedes makes a mistake calculating hamiltons time during the VSC.

They obviously have to change something with the virtual safety car. Because that was BS. Just have the normal safety car come out. At least that way it gets a bit more exited.
And those new cars are ugly with the halo.

Ferrari wants the manufacturers trophy and the points from both cars count for that so they needed both to finish in the points. Last year they could count on a Honda blowing up. I could understand one bad stop, but two is pretty unbelievable. When you have one mistake that costs you a car out of the race, taking the extra time to get the second one right would be imperative. Something that never happens, happening twice to the same team within minutes is difficult to believe. The fact that it benefited the company that supplies Haas with their powerplants is just too convenient.

Hamilton was exactly on the times he was required to be at. He couldn't go any faster. There are timing loops and he had to be at or under a certain number as the FIA checks them to make sure cars are maintaining the proper speed. He would have been subject to a penalty if he exceeded the speed.
 
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Does anyone believe that the experienced Haas team could have unintentionally screwed up two pit stops in succession that ended up benefiting Vettel? I suspect this was planned by Ferrari. They kept Vettel out possibly hoping for a caution but when it didn't come they had Haas create one.

Seriously, man? That's ridiculous.
 
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