Quite a drive by Raikkonen to keep the championship alive.

Michael only needs one more point to win at Suzuka, and Montoya is out.

BAR put in a respectable showing but the day ended in retirement for both cars.

had to watch the Live Timing via 56K

 

****I'm posting results in this post, so don't read it if you don't want to see 'em****

Pretty good race with the weather and all...oh yeah, and a Sauber on the podium Very surprising race results...to me at least. I thought JPM would've placed at least 4th.

I thought that early move by JPM was particularly dirty...punting off poor Rubens. At least he got a drive-through penalty for that.

Did anyone else notice how much faster DC was going in the pits on his first stop (I think) compared to everyone else? I saw it but there were no comments made about it so I thought it was just me for a little while. But yeah...he got his drive-through penalty for that as well.

I just had this bad feeling that one of the championship contenders' engines was going to blow up on the front straight when everything was all settled down near the end of the race.

MS seemed to have dropped off in performance early in the race (I think lap 10) when he got passed by several people on the front straight. They never said what the reason for that was, but he got passed by a Renault there, which was really strange. I think the Sauber was almost past him as well.

There were so many fans there as well...wish I could've gone. The Columbians were going absolutely crazy the whole weekend. They gave the USGP so much air time, I was pretty surprised with them showing the practice sessions and everything. I guess they're trying to create a bigger following for F1 in the US. I hope the NASCAR fans were pissed off by having so much F1 on Speed channel this weekend...I guess I consider it payback for every time I turn on Speed channel only to find oval racing.

I'm a big fan of MS and Raikkonen, favoring MS more, so obviously I'm pretty happy the way things turned out. It would've been more interesting if the points were closer, but I want to see MS win his sixth world championship.


****End of Results****

 

Michael's performance dropped of after a few laps due to the dry weather "Brickstones" performance in the wet compared to the Michelin’s and Ferrari’s higher reliance on down force, aero dynamic grip versus natural grip.

 

Am I the only one that saw Michael make a pass going into turn one under a yellow flag?

 

I saw the pass under yellow (being a die hard Toyota guy, it was hard to miss), I guess Ferrari gets to use a different rule book (as usual). I'd also like to see the Ferrari "slicks" after the extrended dry running on intermediate tires. Hmm, lap times in the dry the same as the wet, no grooves...

Scott

 

If you review a tape you will notice Michael was ahaed of Panis before they reached the yellow flag.

 

Is it just me, or were there a ridiculous number of empty seats n the grandstands?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DB1-R81 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you review a tape you will notice Michael was ahaed of Panis before they reached the yellow flag.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I concur and the announcers never saw it. MS was already past Panis by the flag station. Maybe by a car length plus but he was ahead. That pass was set-up and committed to before the start line.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by celica73 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">...I guess Ferrari gets to use a different rule book (as usual). I'd also like to see the Ferrari "slicks" after the extrended dry running on intermediate tires. Hmm, lap times in the dry the same as the wet, no grooves...

Scott</TD></TR></TABLE>

Those tires may never again see the light of day, buried beneath a big pile of Fiat's money. The FIA has proven time and again that they can be bought, if the price is right.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DB1-R81 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you review a tape you will notice Michael was ahaed of Panis before they reached the yellow flag.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I saw it the same way also. The pass was executed before reaching the yellow. I was watching the race on Japanese TV, and the second commenator (who is an F3000 driver) also said the same thing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by wakaru &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Those tires may never again see the light of day, buried beneath a big pile of Fiat's money. The FIA has proven time and again that they can be bought, if the price is right.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The rule was not changed (yet) such that they need to meet FIA guidelines after they come off the car. He was nearly 2 seconds faster at the start of the race than he was turning in the dry while still on those intermediate tires.

 

I loved the race, it was nice to see the low budget teams on the top positions, even if it was only for a while, at the begining of the race i wanted panis to stay there just because i enjoy when a low budget team (altough not sure if toyota is one of those) surprise us.

I feel sorry for Barrichello, he doesn't have much luck, and IMHO he is a very good driver.

Raikkonen did a very good job, altough he doesn't has much experience on rain he did his best and he did good.

It's ok that MS won, he is a very good driver, but it's like you guys say, he is in the best team, a team that invest something around $270M (or that was the last figure i saw) and we don't even know how much they spend buying people. I know ferrari is one of the best, but if you invest 3X more money than the rest of the teams you WILL be the best. I whish Formula 1 would have a spending limit, that would bring the race a lot closer.

 

Great race!

Was it just me or was there an unreasonable amount of ad's in the 2nd 1/2 of the race on speed? Like 6min racing, 3min ad :0
After a while I started watching the clock, that is an actual time...grr.
I really couldn't care less whether or not it's live, i think the race should STOP during advertisments...and pickup right where it left off when the show comes back on...for another 6 minutes.

Great race though, just speed really ticks me off sometimes.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GZERO &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I know ferrari is one of the best, but if you invest 3X more money than the rest of the teams you WILL be the best. I whish Formula 1 would have a spending limit, that would bring the race a lot closer.</TD></TR></TABLE>

That would go against the whole spirit of F1...the best drivers in the world driving the best cars with the best technology in them. It can take more money to develop the better technology. I think they said during the race that Ferrari has 800 people on their team! Those people have to get paid, so there's a good chunk of the budget. Oh yeah, paying Michael Schumacher as well...

 

MS once again showed why he's 5 time world champion and is so close to going down at the top of record books by starting 7th and rising out on top (by quite a margin) in one of those not-by-the-book races. In such races, no matter how big the budget will ever guarantee a good result. In these cases, it's the drivers who make it or break it. I also don't think that there ever was a car that got more sideways (or even sideways, period!) on the banking around INDY as MS did when it started getting damp. Or should I say plenty of drivers did get sideways in the past, but MS was first who actually did not hit something really hard a few seconds later!

JPM also showed at least imo once again that he is the outright fastest driver out there, period. IMO the definition of pushing a car to its absolute limits, or the definition of pure outright speed, is without a doubt JPM. No body out there is quicker than this guy on cold tires, or in tricky conditions such as light rain. Once he can reach the consistency and overall driving caliber of MS (which means a lot more than just bursts of pure outright speed), he will become world champion more than once. JPM is also a guy who when on a mission, nothing will stand in his way just like RB found out. I don't think JPM would have been foolish not to back down if all he had was his front spoiler along side RB, but since he had his front wheels there I don't think that backing down was even an option going though his head. It was not a clean move, but RB should have known who was beside him and should have given him at least 6 inches of space instead of going all the way to the inside curb. But then again, I'm sure RB DID know where JPM was and that's exactly WHY he didn't give even an inch. I'm pretty sure his job for this race was made crystal clear to him by Ferrari management.

As usual it was a great race. I really like the fact that the traditional "boring" (for some) F1 races of past years have lately become the exception instead of the norm. for F1.

 

Great race! I feel sorry for BAR, I wish Renault had done a little better. To Justin Wilson for his first point, but too bad for Webber. What the hell was DC doing running the whole race on slicks when it was pouring.... losing like 20 seconds a lap! Anyway, things are looking good for MS but I'd like to see Williams put up a fight in Japan. Great race though...

PS- I don't have cable but got an invite to a friends place so this was the first race I DIDN'T watch on the formula1.com scoreboard.

 

sorry to all you Schumi haters, the pass was clean....

 

man, im so disappointed in reading that button had a chance for a podium and went out on a bad engine. damn HONDA!

 

hey thats who i work for! (for now)

 

Yeah, they've really got NOS running in those cars Thats what the button does...why they dun blowed up.

 

I'll have 630+ pics up later this week

Brian
-who cannot describe the weekend and all that he did and saw, and how close...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Civic44 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Is it just me, or were there a ridiculous number of empty seats n the grandstands?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes and the US GP is in question after 2004. Tony George's contract ends after the 2004 race.

You can read more about it at http://f1.racing-live.com/en/

 

I loved the little interview with Bernie Ecclestone (sp?) - "The USGP's future at Indianapolis is permanent...for now."

They could've shown that at a better time though...I wanted to see the racing going on at that time!

 

I wouldn't mind the USGP @ some other track... How about Lime Rock, or Watkins Glen, or Laguna Seca?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by stealthx32 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wouldn't mind the USGP @ some other track... How about Lime Rock, or Watkins Glen, or Laguna Seca? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Lime Rock: too small, community can't handle the traffic and media circus.

Watkins Glen: not enough run off room for FIA standards, poor hotels

Laguna Seca: possible

Also what about Road America, Road Atlanta, Barber, Mid Ohio, etc. Laguna Seca is the most likely because of location though...


Matt