2012 Formula One Santander British Grand Prix
- Thread starter JBanton
- 602 comments
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- 3,915
- California
- gdwest1
Hilarious
They built a bike a while back as well. Specialized was building the Venge, and McLaren looked at the weave on the CF and told them "OH no, you've done that alllll wrong. Let us fix it for you."
It's an $18,000 bike, but under what was the HTC-Columbia Race team, it won MANY races. In fields of 140+, not just 24.
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- Pune
- gorsad
- gorsadamad
Mclaren seem to do a lot more projects than other teams, I'm seriously starting to think that they have a separate team of aerodynamicists just for this job.
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- gdwest1
- 804
- GTP_ZippyCat
Pretty hefty insult you just dished out to Ayrton there with that comparison.
Justified, in my view, given the famous Suzuka incident and Brundle's comment in the Top Gear tribute that Senna's basic approach was to put you and him in a position to have an accident and let you be the one to decide whether to have it.
I was always a Prost guy, by the way.
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- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
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- Bye_Ya
Suzuka was, in my opinion, crossing the line on the grounds that Ayrton had been previously cheated, and he selfishly chose to get revenge. Clearly it was a dangerous move, but you can't compare him to Maldonado because of that one incident.
When Brundle says Senna 'put people into a position', it was because Ayrton had the skill to do so. Maldonado puts people off the track when he is not at the advantage, and there is a difference. You might as well bring Schumacher into the argument if you want to talk about drivers bullying those who challenged them on the track. Once again however, Schumacher is the one in an advantageous position, because he, like Senna, is leaps and bounds beyond Maldonado when it comes to racecraft, and is in a more dominant car to begin with. We're not talking about questionable defending with Maldonado, it's something else.
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- GTP_ZippyCat
I'm not defending Maldonado's move at Silverstone -- I thought he deliberately went wide to muscle Perez and I don't buy his "lost the back end" excuse. Nor am I arguing that Maldonado's talent in any way measures up to Senna's. But I do agree with the view that Senna's conduct, and to a degree Schumacher's, contributed to a lessening of racecraft norms. Guys like Alonso and Webber circa 2011 and 2012 show how you lead in the other direction.
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- bramturismo
The cooperation actually brings little to none improvements to the actual bikes.
The sticker "McLaren" is just a way of promoting and to have people saying "These guys make F1 cars. I bet this bike is the best and therefore I must have it."
If the S-WORKS bike would indeed be better than any other bike, I'm pretty sure every team would have liked sponsorship with Specialized. So far I haven't heard a single mention of the S-WORKS yet other than it looking really good in CF and with the McLaren sticker.
Also, I view upon all this overextended usage of carbon fibre on road bikes as a hazardous waste these days. Crashes are becoming way too common because of the bikes which are way too light with the carbon rims and a carbon frame on top of that. Road bikes in the peloton need to be heavier. Probably also why a minimum weight for TT bikes is required. (This weight is actually higher than the normal road bikes they use)
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- Porto
- Burnout_PT
No argument from me on that, but...
Prost turning into Senna at Casio, Senna crashing into Prost the next year or Schumacher crashing into Hill were championship winning battles. Heat of the moment, all or nothing (stupid) decisions by drivers already, or by those results to be, World Champions. And even so, those were still wrong and bad moves.
What the heck was Pastor going for with all his recent "incidents", some of them on practice sessions? There is absolutely no reason, no "acceptable" explanation and nothing to be gained by the way he drives.
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It's not the CF per se that's to blame for bike fragility... Merely the insane push by builders to be as light as possible. If instead of a weight minimum, they instituted safety and strength tests for the bikes, it wouldn't be a problem.
Though I can imagine the budget for crash testing would be a pain for most teams.
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Senna versus Maldo? No contest. When Senna hit you, it was always with a strategic purpose. Like Schumacher and that... Oops, I spun in qualifying in the middle of the track... How silly of me...
Though I can imagine the budget for crash testing would be a pain for most teams.
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Senna versus Maldo? No contest. When Senna hit you, it was always with a strategic purpose. Like Schumacher and that... Oops, I spun in qualifying in the middle of the track... How silly of me...
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- 3,915
- California
- gdwest1
Specialized sponsored several teams last year...
Saxo Bank
HTC-Columbia
Astana
Quick Step
Belgian Lotto
And HTC had LOTS of wins last year. Lots.
Why do you think CF actually causes the crashes?
See you in the bicycle thread.
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- pj-gm
- PJwasHere876
You could argue that his driving is completely unacceptable and deserves a race ban, if his collisions were intentional, and so far, only one was, and that was due to him being agitated into it. Monaco wasn't intentional, he had literally no reason to even do such a thing in practice. Anyone with the ability to see can see that Pastor lost the rear of the car, and it put him right into Perez. No intention of knocking him off the road whatsoever.
If it were anyone else, such as Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, people would call it as it is, loss of control leading to a collision, and may say "Even the best lose control sometimes." Badgift can't get into a single race incident without people pointing fingers at him, and calling him out for being entirely at fault, and eventually campaigning for his removal from the sport.
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- Burnout_PT
At this point we're still arguing if Pastor "lost the rear" against Perez, either in Monaco or Silverstone, and still alleging "he didn't do it on purpose" as an excuse?
Intentionally or not he is a danger. No one thinks Pastor puts his troll face on in the morning and comes to the track with the deliberate "intention" of getting into "incidents" into other people. And it's not "accidental" as it's not for mechanical or unforseen factors that he does.
Fact is, he does get into avoidable incidents, and much more frequently than any other driver.
He needs to cool it, but doesn't see it that way. If current penalties are not serving the purpose, then stronger measures are needed, like a one race ban.
If people don't see it like he needs to cool his style a bit, that's fine, nothing bad can happen.
But if he doesn't see that, and if he doesn't do so, he remains a danger to anyone around him on a track and bad things will happen.
Intentionally or not he is a danger. No one thinks Pastor puts his troll face on in the morning and comes to the track with the deliberate "intention" of getting into "incidents" into other people. And it's not "accidental" as it's not for mechanical or unforseen factors that he does.
Fact is, he does get into avoidable incidents, and much more frequently than any other driver.
He needs to cool it, but doesn't see it that way. If current penalties are not serving the purpose, then stronger measures are needed, like a one race ban.
If people don't see it like he needs to cool his style a bit, that's fine, nothing bad can happen.
But if he doesn't see that, and if he doesn't do so, he remains a danger to anyone around him on a track and bad things will happen.
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- 42
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- ProtoApocalpse
Wow how is people comparing Maldonado to Senna? I dont even want to get on this. Prost vs Senna was a battle of their own. They were drivers, warriors back there. Changing subject now. Maldo needs to regroug himself and just drive carefully. He is a really good driver and he has a good car.
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- bramturismo
Bikes are actually tested and I'm pretty sure there are lots of quotas to be met, although this is rarely brought up. Professional bikes are made as light, strong and stiff as possible. Now they've come up to a point where bikes are getting dangerously light and stiff. Riders are simply crashing too easily. Of course the riders are first to blame, but there is a general agreement within the peloton that bikes are getting too light.
As we all know carbon fibre is a very light material. But the biggest reason carbon fibre is so dangerous are the massively deep rims most riders use. The reason they use these deep rims is because they are very aerodynamic. But the problem is that any crosswinds can easily upset these rims and can catch riders by surprise. This is also the reason why you see a lot of riders ride with thin rims, no matter whether it's a flat or climbing stage.
Carbon fibre rims used to be very new, when the bike frames were still made of aluminium or steel. But now manufacturers are making bikes completely out of carbon fibre. Bikes that are heavy are more easily to control because there is much less danger for the bike to become upset with crosswinds and therefore there is less risk a rider is being caught by surprise.
Then there is also the issue of safety with carbon fibre. Steel or aluminium frames bend during heavy crashes. Carbon fibre doesn't break, it shatters. There are stories of bikers that bought CF bikes with small errors within the CF weave which caused the frontal fork to suddenly shatter when they were caught out by a sudden pothole.
Trust me on this, I have been considering a Specialized S-WORKS as well, but I've moved from wanting a CF bike to probably a steel frame or aluminium. Heavier bikes are harder to bring up to speed, yes, but once up to speed these bikes are also easier to maintain at a speed.
Anyway, I'll stop the off-topicness here. My apologies.
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Blaze_409
F1, but they were talking about cycling, not motorcycles...
RTSolvalou
(Banned)
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I feel that a Lotus victory is more likely to come from Grosjean than Raikkonen from what I've seen so far, also Grosjean's races seem to be more volatile in terms of positions and lap times, whereas Raikkonen makes slow and steady progress, it should sort of equal out (as we just saw really), but I think Grosjean has the edge, they've just had a string of unfortunations so far this year, if it's not performance issues, or team mistakes, then it's Grosjean's aggressive starts, there's always something.
I hope he can get a clean Saturday in Germany and then I'll cross my fingers that he's never near Maldonado on Sunday.
I'll say that I've become a bit of a Grosjean fan, he's binned the car a few times and almost a fourth, but clearly he will be world champion at least twice in his career.
I hope he can get a clean Saturday in Germany and then I'll cross my fingers that he's never near Maldonado on Sunday.
I'll say that I've become a bit of a Grosjean fan, he's binned the car a few times and almost a fourth, but clearly he will be world champion at least twice in his career.
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- astrosdude91
Oh yeah, he'll have at least one title I think.
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- Blaze_409
Grosjean is good. If it werent for bad luck he wouldnt have any luck...
I dont know whats with Kimi Raikkonen. This is the guy that would absoultely dominate qualifying sessionsa and just run away from the field(until the Newey factor broke the car) in his Mclaren days.
He says he still doesnt like the steering. 9 Rounds into the season and that still has not been sorted out back at the factory let alone on track..That worries me. If I were a sports psychologist I would say he's clearly bothered by something else. Perhaps Grosjean's pace.
I dont know whats with Kimi Raikkonen. This is the guy that would absoultely dominate qualifying sessionsa and just run away from the field(until the Newey factor broke the car) in his Mclaren days.
He says he still doesnt like the steering. 9 Rounds into the season and that still has not been sorted out back at the factory let alone on track..That worries me. If I were a sports psychologist I would say he's clearly bothered by something else. Perhaps Grosjean's pace.
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- Burnout_PT
Lotus chances have been better, when others were struggling a bit more or still a bit out of pace, but now there is at least one Ferrari, one Mac and both RBR clearly in the fight for top spots.
Doesn't mean Romain and Kimmi can't win now, just that the competion is tighter now in my opinion. Both drivers are very good in all aspects, it'll just take a good weekend without problems and errors, and a consistent drive will give one of them a victory soon. Hopefully... But this 5 place penalty won't help, that's for sure.
Doesn't mean Romain and Kimmi can't win now, just that the competion is tighter now in my opinion. Both drivers are very good in all aspects, it'll just take a good weekend without problems and errors, and a consistent drive will give one of them a victory soon. Hopefully... But this 5 place penalty won't help, that's for sure.
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Blaze_409
Pardon me if I'm incorrect, but I thought Raikkonen only had his steering gripes in Monaco?
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- gdwest1
He had them at his first "Test" in the old car, the promotional video.
I think it's been going on for a while, and he needs to just suck it up. IF they could have fixed it they would have...
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hawkeye122
Well I think he's still considerably fast nevertheless, even with his steering problems. Just look at him in Catalunya and Bahrain, he could've easily won if not for some minor strategic errors.
Have to admit though Grosjean is nearly as fast, if not slightly faster than Raikkonen (especially in qualifying). He could've easily gotten a lot more points if not for his recent bad luck
http://en.espnf1.com/lotusf1/motorsport/story/84096.html
Interesting news here on new updates for Lotus, hope this would give them some extra edge for their long overdue win(s)
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- Blaze_409
Kimi is still saying the steering isn't precise. Whatever that means...The Steering is mechanically linked with hydraulic assist. Perhaps there is some latency in the power steering. I think that is what is bothering. When he yanks the wheel left or right the steering doesnt just bolt left or right but instead does it slower than he would like.
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- gdwest1
I doubt he'd like the alternative- dialing out some of the hydraulic assist.
Also, he went from driving a McLaren and a Ferrari to driving a Lotus-Renault thing. The level of performance is probably different.
Granted it's changed since then I'm sure, but Renault seemed to have decent enough steering for Alonso to win all those years...
