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[texasmr2]

So anyway it was a fairly entertaining race with the expected outcome and for myself Kobi was the most entertaining and ballsy performance of the day.

[f1ea]

So anyway it was a fairly entertaining race with the expected outcome and for myself Kobi was the most entertaining and ballsy performance of the day.

Yeah... Funny, about 20 laps in i was thinking the race was going to be boring... But the schumacher chase and Kobi's ballsy moves were really great.
VERY good showing from Nick heidfeld... I think he's definitely being noticed. Good guy, deserves a seat.
Too bad the start was so messy, all those cars would have made the race much better...

[texasmr2]

I also think highly of Nick and think he deserves a fulltime ride.

[darwin dali]

as long as mark keeps going trucking, i am happy. mclaren falling behind or not, its about mark this season!

earlier in the thread vaptin said it wasn't a ferrari track ? where does that come from ? i would think it would play into there hands just as much as redbull if not a little more thanks to the 2 decent length straights.

but good on lotus, good on koby and well done to the clean up crews after the demolition derby at the start of the race.

It was Ferrari's least suiting track of the remainder races according to most experts such as FA himself. SV said that Suzuka suits RB very well with the fast corners and no long straights to speak of.

[texasmr2]

[darwin dali]

I just don't want to pain anyone with a wide brush.

That's the difference between you and me

[Flux]

i still wouldn't say that it was going to be a poor Ferrari track, they have been excellent at both types of tracks over the last 5 tracks. im not questioning the "experts" it just doesn't make sense that it is all about damage limitation this weekend

[vaptin]

i still wouldn't say that it was going to be a poor Ferrari track, they have been excellent at both types of tracks over the last 5 tracks. im not questioning the "experts" it just doesn't make sense that it is all about damage limitation this weekend

How doesn't it make sense? They were just not able to get close enough to the redbulls do do anything, so their best realistic aim would be to go for 3rd and 4th and see if the redbulls crash into each other again.

In terms of what they were aiming to achieve, all they were doing was trying to limit the amount of points Redbull gained, rather than the usual idea of trying to gain more points than them, henceforth damage limitation.

[f1ea]

i still wouldn't say that it was going to be a poor Ferrari track, they have been excellent at both types of tracks over the last 5 tracks. im not questioning the "experts" it just doesn't make sense that it is all about damage limitation this weekend

But the p ast 5 tracks had been nothing like Suzuka. Turkey is more in the same ballpark, and hence why Ferrari were not so upbeat.
They have improved their car, that's for sure... but not enough to hope beating RB. In fact, pace for pace, Mclaren were not really slower than Ferrari.

[Hexagram]

I also think highly of Nick and think he deserves a fulltime ride.

In only his 2nd race back he fairly kicked bottom.

[myownalias]

This is taken from my blog website; I can't be bothered writing everything again here, so here's a copy and paste...

Sebastian Vettel led the Japanese Grand Prix from start to chequered flag to claim only his second win from pole position despite claiming pole a total of eight times. Can’t really complain about his driving this time, he didn’t make contact with anyone, although Red Bull were the class of the field with Mark Webber following close behind Vettel; streaking ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari. Jenson Button took a gamble of starting the race on the harder tyre hoping that the softer tyre would degrade quickly, but that wasn’t the case and his strategy fell apart very quickly; although would have ended up in fifth, two places ahead of where he started. But actually finished the race in fourth after team mate Lewis Hamilton was suffering from gearbox issues. Hamilton lost third gear in the closing stages, meaning he has poor acceleration out of slower corners as he could only use 4th – 7th gears. Michael Schumacher came home in sixth place after his team mate, Nico Rosberg suddenly lost a rear wheel, dropping the German out of the race. Now I come to my favourite driver at the momemt; Kamui Kobayashi who made a whole series of audacious overtaking moves to climb from 14th where he started to sixth by staying out much longer that others around him, then had to pit for a mandatory tyre change dropping him back to 11th with handful of laps remaining. Yet the Japanese still managed to move back upto seventh place with some brave overtaking moves; banging wheels with Jaime Alguersuari out of the hairpin; although that was the Spaniards fault; Kobayashi was well ahead at this point. I love his banzai driving style; I love to watch him race and being the Japanese GP; we saw plenty of the Japanese drivers, even HRT got much more airtime with Sakon Yamamoto in their car.

It was an eventful Japanese GP; qualifying and race on the same day as the qualifying day was washed out by torrential rain, sailboats were more appropriate on Saturday. Lucas di Grassi didn’t even start the race as his Virgin speared off the track on the parade lap in the 130R corner. Nico Hulkenberg, Vitaly Petrov, Felipe Massa and Vitantonio Liuzzi didn’t make it past turn two getting caught up in various collisions. Renault’s Robert Kubica who made a stunning start to split the Red Bulls found himself out of the race on lap two when he found only three wheels on his wagon as he entered the hairpin. Adrian Sutil went out of the race with an engine failure; dropping oil all over the 190mph 130R corner, not where you want oil! Lotus Racing had very good reason to celebrate as their 12th place finish with Heikki Kovalainen has almost certain secured them 10th place in the constructors championship and a huge bunch of cash from Formula One Management at the end of the season. This result means that McLaren drivers Button and Hamilton are all but out of the world championship hunt, unless something drastic happened at the next race in Korea. With three races remaining, the title fight is between Webber, Vettel and Alonso from what I can see!

[darwin dali]

With three races remaining, the title fight is between Webber, Vettel and Alonso from what I can see!

Your eyes aren't deceiving you

[bud]

so if we used the old points system and say Lewis and Jenson were 12 or 14 points behind the leader would we be writing them off? I mean you all can, wont bother me just dont feel so embarrassed if they win the next 3 and take the title. McLaren is not off the pace they are poised to fight. Count on it.

[myownalias]

With three races remaining, the title fight is between Webber, Vettel and Alonso from what I can see!

Your eyes aren't deceiving you

Nope, nothing wrong with my eyesight!

so if we used the old points system and say Lewis and Jenson were 12 or 14 points behind the leader would we be writing them off? I mean you all can, wont bother me just dont feel so embarrassed if they win the next 3 and take the title. McLaren is not off the pace they are poised to fight. Count on it.

I have no doubt that McLaren are capable of winning the next three races; that's isn't the issue; Ferrari and Red Bull are unlikely to have failures to finish races which makes it hard for Lewis and Jenson to make up the required points to take the title, even with the old points system it would be tough going!

[What's Burning?]

so if we used the old points system and say Lewis and Jenson were 12 or 14 points behind the leader would we be writing them off? I mean you all can, wont bother me just dont feel so embarrassed if they win the next 3 and take the title. McLaren is not off the pace they are poised to fight. Count on it.

They are out manufactured by Red Bull this year, and are lucky to be ahead of Ferrari because of the better driver pairing. It's not McLaren's to win, it's Red Bull's to loose, and at this point, only reliability and the inexperience of a championship race can hurt them. Not Ferrari, not McLaren... it's Red Bull's to lose.