F1 2010: European Grand Prix @ Valencia.

[Ferry_vO]

First ones out of qualifying; no surprises here!:

18: Kobayashi
19: Trulli
20: Kovalainen
21: Di Grassi
22: Glock
23: Chandok
24: Senna

 

[Ferry_vO]

The next seven out are:

11: Buemi
12: Rosberg
13: Sutil
14: Liuzzi
15: Schumacher
16: De la Rosa
17: Alguersuari

Not a good day for both Force India and Mercedes GP, but Williams has both cars in the top ten!

 

[Ferry_vO]

And the first ten on the grid are:

1: Vettel
2: Webber
3: Hamilton
4: Alonso
5: Massa
6: kubica
7: Button
8: Hulkenberg
9: Barrichello
10: Petrov

 

[wombat666]

Interesting body language between Markus Maximus and Little Sebastion.
:d
With a bit of luck I might get to see the race as well.
Impressive run by Petrov again and nice to see Kubica keeping up the front.
Brawn-Mercedes aka Mercedes Benz looking very mediocre ....... now the talk is of Schumacher 'retiring' at the end of the year.
:ernae:

 

[Ferry_vO]

The 'Schumacher retiring' romour comes up every time he performs worse than expected; when you're the seven time champ everything below pole position or a win is disappointing so we'll have those rumours for some time to come.. Heard over the radio that he may have had power steering problems?

full results:http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2010/832/

Funny: Both Williams' cars have the exact same time!

 

[Wing_Z]

...Funny: Both Williams' cars have the exact same time!

Wonder how they sort the placing then?
I thought they looked at Q1 and Q2 but Rubens outqualified his teammate there.

Petrov would be pleased with his top ten spot on the grid for sure.
Team Williams, too.

A quick calculation over the top ten shows they are within 1% of each other, 0.69% actually.
Amazing how five different cars and ten different drivers can be so close.
F1 certainly is a competitive environment...

 

[Ferry_vO]

We see the times with an accuracy of 1/1000 of a second, but the FIA timing registers time up to 1/10000; if times are still the same, the first one to sets the time gets the better grid position.
Somewhere in '97 IIRC three cars had identical pole position times!

 

[Cazzie]

Don't fill us in on results early Ferry, we Yanks won't get to see this one live, FOX TV is delaying broadcast until 12:00 EDT. I hate it when they do that. This will be the last F-1 event to be done so I believe, all others will be carried on SPEED live.

Caz

 

[Cazzie]

The 'Schumacher retiring' romour comes up every time he performs worse than expected; when you're the seven time champ everything below pole position or a win is disappointing so we'll have those rumours for some time to come.. Heard over the radio that he may have had power steering problems?

I will have to say, when coming back from retirement at nearly the same ages (39 vs 41), Lance Armstrong has proved more worthy of walking the walk in his milieu than Shummy. Both will retire "for real" after this year.

Caz

 

[lefty]

It's just finished - I won't spoil it, but it's worth waiting for.

 

[Cazzie]

Whew, what a flip and a lucky guy Mr. Webber is!

That was nasty, nastiest F-1 accident I have seen since Kubica at the Canadian F-1 two years ago.

Kudos to Red Bull in the End.

Caz

 

[demorier]

Yeah....Webber now qualifies for a pilots licence....happened so damn fast.

 

[wombat666]

Yeah....Webber now qualifies for a pilots licence....happened so damn fast.

That would be an endorsement on aerobatic types, he qualified at Le Mans (Twice!!!) in '99.
:ernae:

 

[Wing_Z]

I think Mark Webber has completely lost the plot.
OK the Vettel incident was perhaps just unfortunate.
But avoidable.
Then in Valencia he is so preoccupied with not running into his team mate, he gets eaten up by half a dozen others.
Then he is so preoccupied with fudging the start, he drives over the top of a Lotus!
He needs to spend some quality time with a personal trainer/motivator to clear his head.

Actually I'm just frothing a little because of the stupid little "punishments" we are seeing in F1.
This little rule, that little hidden badly-written subclause, all allow manipulation of results by whoever is allowed to at that moment.
So half the field gets a five-second penalty, allowing Alonso a one place better finish.
Rubbish...
This should be about racing, not bureaucracy.

 

[wombat666]

I think Mark Webber has completely lost the plot.

I doubt it, just remove the six bog slow 'extra' cars from the grid and life will return to as normal as it gets in F1.
Let's not forget 'Louise' driving into two stationary cars at the pit exit in Canada "because he couldn't see the red light" ............

 

[demorier]

Everybody was aware of the situations that might arise on that particular track....not just the Webber crash but several other instances where I think perhaps the blue flags could have been used a bit more often.

 

[Ferry_vO]

According to Webber the accident happened about 80 meters (250 feet) before the usual braking point. Now keep in mind that an F1 car at top speed will slow down faster from aero drag when the gas is released than a regular road car can using the brakes. The speed difference doesn't even need to be that big to launch a car when the wheels touch.
Anyone remember the flying Minardi at monza in IIRC '92 or '93? Happened at only a 5 kmh speed difference.

 

[Ferry_vO]

BTW A very similar crash happened in the second GP2 crash at Valencia, a few hours before the F1 race:

[YOUTUBE]Knz9NDCw9FA[/YOUTUBE]

 

[stuartcox]

That would be an endorsement on aerobatic types, he qualified at Le Mans (Twice!!!) in '99.
:ernae:

"RED BULL GIVES YOU WINGS!"

 

[Wing_Z]

Actually...I wouldn't mind a road car that could drive over the car in front, fly up inverted, land on its head, bounce a couple of times, drive at high speed into a tyre wall...and then let me walk away from the scene of the accident!