The F1 season 2006

And at last an exciting GP that held the interest all the way through! Took a bit of rain to make passing manoeuvers possible.

 

My heartfelt congratulations to you and your team, Ian. It took a long time coming, but you deserve that win.

 

Yes, well done Ian. What was particularly good was that it was on merit.

It was interesting to see the conflicting performances in conditions when a driver could make a difference for a change - particularly between JB and Kimi. Ferrari and Schumi truly screwed up IMO.

 

Hi Markus and Stereo Mic,

Thanks. It has indeed been a long time coming. We have been close before and should have won on one of those occasions but didn't.

This time we had a fast car, with very good strategy and a driver at the top of his game.

BAR was on a different strategy after chooosing to start on wets which made it more difficult for him to get cloe to BUT.

Nonetheless, great relief. The result proably saved a few jobs right at the top. Especially as the top Honda boss was at the race!

If it had been dry the BS shod Ferrari would have been very quick. But in the wet the Michelin's were the tyre to be on.

Interesting that MAS really struggled. MSC was brought back into the race by the safety car but then made a stupid error that cost him a good number of points.

Ian


Ian

 

Good result for Jenson and the Honda team at the weekend, and also very good for keeping the world championship wide open. Gap now down to ten points, bring on the next race! It's been one of the more even contests for a few years so far. And still people say F1 is boring...

 

Couldn't agree more, I was wondering when the first wet race would be, and I thought MSC would be scampering off into the distance seeing as he's the 'rain master' and all that.

Good result for BUT and Honda, ya long tme coming and nice to see the British Driver on the top step for a change.

MSC still having trouble keeping his nose clean, overtaking under Reds, cutting chicains, trying to run into other cars (again) he always seem to do this when he's on his back foot, sign of a sore looser IMHO.

Shame Alonso broke a drive shaft, notice how quickly the commentators where to blame the pit crew for not putting the wheel on, when it was actually a mechanical failure.

 

Did anyone watch and enjoy the Turkish Grand Prix?

Lots of overtaking and lots of attempts to overtake as well.

Ian

 

Me, sir, and yes, it was good. I wonder whether Schumacher's having to wait for tyre change/petrol may have cost him the championship. Now 12 points difference instead of a possible 8, with only 4 races to go.

 

With the news that Micky Shoes is going to hang up his helmet at the end of the season, it was interesting to see him portrayed by the BBC as not being a true great because of his lack of sportsmanship. The occasional Schumacher failure in the sportsmanship department is undeniable, but I wonder whether his problem is being alive. I seem to recall that St. Ayrton was every bit as ruthless. I suspect that both took in the US motor racing concept that nice guys finish last.

 

If anything I thought Senna was even more ruthless. I remember a quote from Martin Brundle a while ago. Something like, "I'm (Senna) coming through and overtake you, if you want to avoid an accident, you move out of the way".

I can't understand why one's a hero and other a villain, when they were both really extremely competitive.

 

Neither are heroes of mine. Both good drivers. Both with attitude problems. My heroes are more people like Lauda, Villeneuve (Gilles), Clark. Or Hislop. Now there was a truly tragic loss to motorsport.

 

hear hear, hifikrazy

 

I must admit Niki Lauda was my first "hero" as he was from my time. The drivers I admired most were Giles Villeneuve and Ronnie Peterson. I never saw Clark or other greats race.

The main point about Senna and Shumi is that they got the job done and tried to win everything at any cost.

 

My hero was Clark, who was active in my student days. I still remember him pulverising a top sportscar field in the Nurburgring 1000 Km in a little Lotus with what was essentially a Ford Anglia engine. He may have won "only" 25 GPs, but that was 25 out of a total of 77. Only Fangio did better than that.

 

For me Senna transcended the sport of motorracing in a way MS never could.

It was a tragedy that his death prevented us from seeing him win 7 or 8 WDC's at MS's expense.

I think both were ruthless, but I never felt Senna would blatently cheat and then try to pretend otherwise.

My first hero was also Niki Lauda - he wasn't in the same class from a driving POV though. A great organiser however, something he shared with MS.

 

So what was Senna doing in 1990 in Japan when he took Prost out at the first corner to win the championship if not cheating?

 

Yes Bob,but.

he told everyone beforehand what he was going to do and didn't pretend otherwise.

Two reasons. Suzuka 1989 and the change of the pole slot. He was totally unfair but he was honest about it. I respect him more for that.

 

IIRC, he did in the famous ramming incident in Japan against Prost. He maintained that it was an accident, but some time later, when his ire was aroused against the authorities (he always maintained that his disqualification in Japan the previous year (after another incident with Prost) was unjust), he shouted angrily words to the effect of "Well, I got them back the following year when I took out Prost!" He was later to say that he was misquoted, but nobody had any doubts as to what the truth was.

Senna and Schumacher had the other American mentality - winning isn't everything - it's the only thing.

Personally, I've never understood the cult built up around Senna. A good, even a great, driver, yes, but a demigod no. Nigel Mansell once said wryly that, when Senna won, it was "Brilliant Brazilian wins again", but when Mansell won, it was "Mansell had a good car". Very odd.

 

Talking of Senna's temper, does anyone remember him chinning Eddie Irvine for overtaking Senna to unlap himself?

 

"he told everyone beforehand what he was going to do and didn't pretend otherwise." Stereo Mic

He was very clear about that.

"Two reasons. Suzuka 1989 and the change of the pole slot. He was totally unfair but he was honest about it. I respect him more for that." Stereo Mic

He had spent a lot of time trying to get the FIA to allow pole to have an advantage over second place which it didn't that year at Suzuka. It was stupid to put the pole position on the dirty side fo the track. He knew that he was very likely to get pole and wanted to be sure that he wasn't disadvantaged by getting ploe.

Ian