Club Arnage

Weee, what fun!
So the Bahrain GP is a go for next week?
Nothing like like promoting a counrty that tortures & kills its own people.
Remember the days when F1 boycotted South Africa because it supported apartheid?
Doesn't matter now, Bernie says what the hell, you write a big enough check, we'll show up!
Can officially say f**k you & rot in hell to F1, will never watch one of your piece of sh*t races again..Fax

Not just Bernie I'm affraid but his buddies at the FIA. Saw Bernie on TV trying to justify their dubious decision last night. Pretty poor really.

That said, if there are any genuine fans out there, when faced with dark times, a day of motor racing will lift their spirits. I'd be well pissed off if something i was looking forward to got cancelled at the eleventh hour because the leaders of my county were a bunch of tw*ts.

Probably the best solution was to not have it on the calendar to start with.

Si

China's got a pretty poor record as well, but I guess they have greater economic clout so we are not worried.

What do any of us know what the situation in Bahrain is, we only get too see snippets on telly and its not front page news. That may change next week.

Re the South African GP, it was many years before the F1 movers and shakers woke up to the fact and it was cancelled. Plenty of sports car races took place their as well during the apartheid era.

Do not under estimate the Bahrain government wealth funds who either directly or in directly control or fund through ownership of team sponsors. This must go right to the top of their Government Royal Family wanting to show the world that all is well in Bahrain.......yeh right.

So the Circus continues.

Good race yesterday though!

Nodric you make a good point, the race yesterday was in the land of some of the biggest violators of human rights in history.  Would be nice if the FIA & FIM woke up to the fact that most of their races are being held in countries were 99% of the population can't afford to go see a race, or are too terrified to give their opinion of the princes/shieks/dictators/murdering c**ts, writing the checks to promote them.  About time the  Bernie & FIA gets their collective heads out of the asses, and start thnking with a conscience, intead of their wallets.
I forgot... Its all about promoting races in emerging markets...
Fax

Using the logic of not going to a country with a chequered past of killing and maming people, the F1 world would severely limited.

There'd be no British GP - We were one of the main protagonists in the worlds biggest conflicts.
There'd be no USA GP - Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, WWII, Vietnam, and so on....
There'd be no Chinese GP
No Japanese GP
Nowhere in the Middle East would get a race.
You'd struggle to justify Australia - afterall, it's colonised by convicts
Italian GP - Romans weren't nice!

In fact, you'd pretty much be limited to places who surrendered at the merest hint of occupation or conflict.  And I really don't want to see how much of a mess F1 would be in if it was run by the French!

As seems to be the consensus's, no of us are perfect, depends on how far you want to go back.
What I would say is that the Chinese GP at the weekend was one of the best races I have seen for many years, I think it would even surprise and impress Fax if he took time out to watch it

I get the idea that none of us are perfect, and one can make the argument that at some point during their history, every government has been party to some sort of human rights violations. But in my humble opinion, which I fully understand admit counts for diddly squat, there's no way F1 should be going to Bahrain.  I was raised to understand the difference between right and wrong, and going there is not right.  Its about having integrity, or selling yourself out to however will cough up your sanctioning fee.
And yes SR, I did watch China, very happy for Nico, if for no other reason than I was a big fan of his old man, and a very entertaining last ten laps, or so, to boot.
Fax

We all dislike Bernie

And whats a jew doing in Bahrain anyway

Interesting rant by John Hindhaugh on this subject on Mid Week Motorsport last Wednesday.

Some discussion was given to the fact that England are in Sri Lanka playing cricket, all broadcast by the Beeb.

This is, of course, the same Sri Lankan Govt that holds responsibility for the deaths of over 44,000 Tamil separatists.

No one appears to be criticising either England, or the BBC, for travelling to Sri Lanka, thereby legitimising the Govt & its recent actions.

Just saying...

 

Hang on a minute, when Monsieur Balestre was in charge and Bernie was just a "rebel" FOCA boy, didn't we have some lovely machinery that actually looked different and not all like the same car with a different paint job?

Oh and big rear tyres, cars breaking down and .. dare I mention it ... overtaking on the track without the need for gimmicks to make it happen? He might have been a bit of power-crazed monkey but at least he didn't bend over and take it in the name of money.

Gimme the 70s and the 80 anyday!!!  ;)

http://sniffpetrol.com/category/news/

pretty much spot on1

The problem is, that F1 design and understanding has moved on so significantly, that without these "gimmicks", to which I assume you are referring to DRS and KERS, there would literally be no overtaking at all.

The cars which raced in the 70's and 80's, and were overtaking all over the place, were not doing so because they were glorious designs - they were doing so because they were primitive designs, and there was a fundamental lack of understanding of downforce and aerodynamics at the time.  These days, designers not only know how to make their cars aerodynamically efficient, but they know how to cause all sorts of issues to the cars chasing - thus effectively defending the car from the rear. 

DRS and KERS take away that aerodynamic advantage - and to my eyes, over the last couple of years, have improved the quality of entertainment in Formula 1 tenfold. 

A Balestre was a self important, egotistical idiot, who believed that F1 should be ruled by dictatorship, and that those who drove in races were simply puppets in HIS show. 

Sauber now saying thier team run into problems last night.

Bernie is playing with peoples lives now. This farce should stop regardless of the rights and wrongs of the protests.

Much as I would love it to be cancelled the people involved will not do so as they will loss to much if they do, they must be praying that nothing else goes wrong but i fear there is much more trouble to come

I know all that really, I'd just woken up with my rose-jointed spectacles on.

And can I just say that I've never read such a serious post from you Brad!

Sadly, I believe that the muppets who run the puppets are all egotistical, it seems to be part of the job.

Believe it or not, whilst I do enjoy the party element of the Le-Mans/F1/motorsports scene....I actually really enjoy and even have some degree of understanding about the actual cars and the racing......  Obviously many of you never see that because normally I'm too drunk.....but it is there :)

One could argue Brad, that the reason overtaking is so difficult is because F1 has for all intents & purposes become a spec formula.  The tech regs are so suffocating that coming up with something really clever and innovative is almost impossible.  I had the good forune to have dinner a few years ago, with the technical director of a top team, and he bascially said as much.  Things have gotten worse since then, this was before rev-limited engines.  There are few areas of the car that the engineers can play with, its amazing how much of the design is FIA mandated, or as the commentators like to say "no-go".
Agree with Rick, stuff like KERS and DRS is gimmicky, reminds me of Indycar and that dumbass "push to pass"
F1 should be the pinnacle of the sport, not dumbed down to make it more entertaining.
Fax

I partially agree about DRS and KERS being a bit gimmicky, on one hand....however, these technologies are finding their way in the real world as well - Porsche are out there developing road going KERS type systems - and many automotive manufacturers are thinking about how to reduce drag at high speed. 

The thing is, there are hundreds of critics of the way F1 is run, but can any of them come up with an alternative? 
Letting teams do what they want, would likely lead to cars achieving speeds of 300mph + within a couple of years - the tracks struggle to keep driver and spectator safe at 200mph.  Aerodynamically, the designers know how to make it impossible for following cars to make it past - so you can't release those rules as we'd go back to the days of processional F1.  Not having a spec set of rules, means that cars hit the front and never look back - Ala Williams in 92, McLaren in 89, etc - that's not progressive for the sport, and the only skill a driver then needs in that formula, is the nouse to negotiate a contract with the best team.

So whilst DRS and KERS do seem a little gimmicky, they are signficantly better than the alternative.

 That's the problem you have hundreds of people spending millions of pounds to gain fractions of a second. Unless you change rules every year the cars will always look similar.
And with road cars getting movable aero and kers f1 needed to bring something in. At least mosley went as he wanted spec everything.