Silverstone GP, Season 5: The New Red
The average Ferrari tifosi takes a look at the podium and sees little to complain about. There was a car on the podium, and the car was red and white. There was a white and red car back in 6th too. 3rd and 6th. Nothing wrong at all.
Until they find the Ferrari crew slugging down some hard liquor in 8th and horror or horrors, 15th.
Simply put, Ferrari hasn't quite been on pace the last few races: Super Aguri and even Honda are far too eager to claim their points and the color red back.
Or perhaps Ferrari should consider a different paint scheme, like one that's blue and yellow. It's certainly worked well for say...Ferrari's championship rival Renault who bagged another 1-3 finish at Silverstone.
As the red lights went out, the start of the race was actually pretty clean - passing action only. Beyens stole second away from an Aguri, to little surprise, and his teammate Domingues gained three from 9th to 6th.
The first action was to be seen on lap 3 when the Ferrari team was involved in yet more heart-fluttering when championship contender Davidson collided with Syme of Red Bull, who was put out of the race. The Ferrari ended up OK but certainly at this point the team was sweating.
On lap 11 Ferrari continued it's rampage with Allman banging into Hutchinson, slowing the Renault. Once again, the Ferrari continued on OK.
And then 2 laps later LeSabre did what Midland's been doing all year, and that would be making the highlight reel. By wrecking. And so the safety car came out.
Pit stops ensued. In what is sure to be a criticized moment both Aguri cars came in back-to-back, although the reason is unclear. Any person with fingers can count that there are 2 Aguris, and 1 Aguri pit box. And so Weiland was queued and shuffled back.
The safety car came in and Charkaoui's Honda promptly messed up for no reason, hampering his lap times. Beyens led Horton and Chang to the flag.
Davidson had made his way up to 2nd when once again he gave the Ferrari crew reason to bite their nails, with an offroad adventure that appeared to damage the Ferrari, which continued on it's way anyway.
And then on lap 26 Horton's front wing became dislodged and the formerly 2nd-place Honda lost valuable time trying to knock it back in. At 200 MPH.
On lap 32, Toyota noticed that Mason happened to be in a points position - strictly against team regulations. And so the team called him in, citing 'steering' issues.
Things got more interesting when one lap later Kawasie and Butler, two struggling drivers, promptly walked by Davidson like he was standing still. Color commentary by the Ferrari man himself ensued.
Lap 37 saw the Aguri crew continue to be miserable, cranking out a 26-second pit stop, which could quite possibly be a season record.
3 laps later on lap 40 Charkaoui left 5th and 6th gear somewhere out on the track and the Honda team had to call him in to fix the equipment.
Toyota's Graham had gotten back into an unacceptable points position on lap 49 and the team promptly remotely fried his clutch, dropping him to 12th position. Two laps later someone activated the RC control system to finish the job and promptly veered him into a wall.
On the same lap Beyens did a nice 360 spin but he was in the middle of nowhere in 3rd place with no one to touch him.
Domingues in the Renault had done pretty much nothing at all the whole race but overtook people in the pits, and someone ended up in front, and once again took the checkers and tacked 10 points on to his championship total.
Horton for Honda had been similarly invisible and was fighting in the front all day. He took home a 2nd podium in an impressive finish for Honda.
Beyens in the Renault that could do no wrong took 3rd place in the usual strong finish.
Dubois overtook Chang in the last lap and the pair finished nose-to-tail 4th, 5th, and 40 seconds back.
Weiland finished 6th, surprisingly far back for the Super Aguri team this year. Still, she added her share of color commentary to the race, and pit crew renovations are sure to occur soon at the race team.
Whitcomb finished 7th in a points finish for BMW Sauber.
Davidson managed to salvage a point in his home race but was entirely dissapointed and angry at losing 9 points to Domingues and at a extremely dissapointing finish for Ferrari.
This season is certainly shaping up to be a Renault runaway, but the same thing was said in the beginning of the season for Ferrari...will another team rise up to the challenge next?
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Good races:
Domingues/Renault: 10 points when it counted.
Horton: Showing that Honda doesn't suck that much.
Chang: Consistent points better than nothing.
Bad Races:
Davidson: 1 point when it counted.
Kawasie/Midland: Showing that Midland sucks much.
Mason/Toyota: Consistent nothing better than points.
Ugly races:
Allman: 22% setup? Get off the crack.
Weiland: Ugly blowup at pit crew.
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EDIT: Anyone up for a sequel to Total Mayhem? It seems like maybe variety is the spice of making cars wreck, so I'm changing the series to Champ Car (longer races
) and introducing different settings for each race, simliar to Passo's Wacky Test Series. Tell me what you think, and maybe I'll start it up if there's enough interest. Here's a preview:
3 groups - I'll number off 1,2,3 (each team will have one of each member if possible)
Uniform setup - to be decided
(Penske/Ford/Firestone?)
TEAM CO-OP ALWAYS OFF
ALWAYS PUSH
SELECT A RIVAL. Anyone!
Race 1 - Surfers' Paradise
1- All driving style to 0
2- All driving style to 50
3- All driving style to 100
Race 2 - Phoenix Intl. Oval
1- Durable Tires, maximum stops
2- Normal tires, medium stops
3- Soft tires, minimum stops
For All - Tire Usage 100
Race 3 - Long Beach Street
For All - Agression and Race Start to 100
1- All other driving styles 100
2- All other driving styles 75
3- All other driving style 50
Race 4 - Nazareth Oval
For All - 2 quali laps, one 0/0 and one 100/100
1- 50 aggression
2- 100 aggression
3- 0 aggression
Race 5 - Milwaukee Mile
For All - Rain tires MUST be used for quali. You may practice/warmup on dry. Use durables for race with tire usage set to 0.
Race 6 - Belle Isle Park
For All - No practice, setups must be guessed for quali. Warmup OK.
1 - Mech Sympathy 100, others 0
2 - Tire Use 100, others 0
3 - Agression 100, others 0
Race 7 - Portland International Raceway
1- All car settings to 0
2- Car settings alternate 0 and 100 (you may start with either)
3- All car settings to 100
Race 8 - Road America
1- All consecutive stops at beginning of race, pit speed 100
2- All consecutive stops at end of race, pit speed 100
3- Maximum stops at quarter-race intervals, pit speed 0
Race 9 - Exhibition Place Toronto
1- All qualifying runs as close to 50/50 as possible
2- All quali runs as close to 100/100 as possible
3- All quali runs as close to 0/0 as possible
Race 10 - Burke Lakefront Airport
For All - EVERY single value in your entire profile must be set to the same value (if you decide on 15, all car setup must be 15, all driving style 15, all quali 15, etc)
Race 11 - Michigan Intl. Oval
For All - You may only use fast and rain tires (assuming it's dry) for the race. Minumum pit stops, all at beginning of race. Tire usage 100. Have fun!
Race 12 - Mid-Ohio
For All - a reprieve. You may do anything you wish.
Race 13 - New Hampshire Intl.
For All - Settings are locked from the Mid-Ohio race. That is, no changes may be made to driving style, car setup, pit stops (please remember your #s, I know they default), tire choice, etc.
Race 14 - Pacific Place Vancouver
1- Speed 100, other attributes at 0
2- Speed 50, other attributes 50
3- Speed 0, other attributes at 100
.
