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Showing posts with label F1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label F1. Show all posts
3/18/2007
The excitement and the drama...
Were somehow lost on me during the F1 race in Australia during the night.
With the exception of probably 10 to 15 seconds when the winner may have turned out to be different to the person who got his car into turn one before anyone else did, it was just as I thought it would be. Worse than how I'd feel if I was forced to watch a group sex scene starring Anne Widdicombe, Theresa Jowell, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, but not by much.
It might as well have been contested over one lap instead of having it drag out over fifty eight of the buggers.
Maybe it's me but I don't see how F1 can even qualify as a race. A race to my mind is something like this... One set of tyres, one tank of gas, one car and one driver battling against the rest of the pack. Another part of racing to me is overtaking. Proper overtaking, you no doubt know what I mean, two cars hurtling into a corner with both drivers attempting to outbrake the other guy.
What do you get in F1? Overtaking when one guy goes into the pits to get new tyres or fuel. I'm exaggerating slightly there, to be fair the backmarkers do get overtaken but where's the challenge in passing someone who has been told to get out your way.
I remember the good old days of F1; Days when colorful characters like James Hunt and Jackie Stewart physically fought their cars to get it to point in the right direction; Days when a car would tie itself in knots on the exit of a corner and the driver would have to use their skill to keep it on the racing line; Days when it was a race and not a life sized version of scalextric.
As far as I'm concerned F1 is a shadow of its former self. Gone are the days of high drama and excitement to be replaced by a bunch of primadonnas playing in their go carts. It's the fans I feel sorry for. Do yourself a favour folks and watch any Moto GP race of the last twenty years and see what racing should be about.
With the exception of probably 10 to 15 seconds when the winner may have turned out to be different to the person who got his car into turn one before anyone else did, it was just as I thought it would be. Worse than how I'd feel if I was forced to watch a group sex scene starring Anne Widdicombe, Theresa Jowell, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, but not by much.
It might as well have been contested over one lap instead of having it drag out over fifty eight of the buggers.
Maybe it's me but I don't see how F1 can even qualify as a race. A race to my mind is something like this... One set of tyres, one tank of gas, one car and one driver battling against the rest of the pack. Another part of racing to me is overtaking. Proper overtaking, you no doubt know what I mean, two cars hurtling into a corner with both drivers attempting to outbrake the other guy.
What do you get in F1? Overtaking when one guy goes into the pits to get new tyres or fuel. I'm exaggerating slightly there, to be fair the backmarkers do get overtaken but where's the challenge in passing someone who has been told to get out your way.
I remember the good old days of F1; Days when colorful characters like James Hunt and Jackie Stewart physically fought their cars to get it to point in the right direction; Days when a car would tie itself in knots on the exit of a corner and the driver would have to use their skill to keep it on the racing line; Days when it was a race and not a life sized version of scalextric.
As far as I'm concerned F1 is a shadow of its former self. Gone are the days of high drama and excitement to be replaced by a bunch of primadonnas playing in their go carts. It's the fans I feel sorry for. Do yourself a favour folks and watch any Moto GP race of the last twenty years and see what racing should be about.
It's all in the name of...
Comparative science.
The F1 season kicks off during the night in Australia and in the name of science I'll be staying up to watch it. I say science because, as regular readers of this blog know, I'm a big fan of Moto Gp (which is the premier class of motorcycle racing and the two-wheeled version of F1 but with more excitement, closer racing and a hell of a lot more overtaking.) and would like to be able to compare the two on a level keel.
Due to a lack of TV coverage of Moto GP during the late eighties/early nineties there are people in the world... Strange lonely people who wear Kappa shell suits over Manchester United tops and think Carl Fogarty was the best motorcyclist ever to sling a leg over a bike... Who think that World Superbikes is the premier class of racing when it comes to Motorcycle racing. They're wrong. Very wrong.
The difference between a World Superbike and a GP bike is light years apart. For example I could walk into a motorcycle dealership tomorrow and buy a fully tooled road legal version of a World Superbike and get change from £50,000. I couldn't walk into a showroom and buy a GP bike even if I was in Japan, at the Honda Racing Corporation headquarters and snaffle up an RCV 212v even if my name was Valentino "Faster than light" Doohan. Which it's not.
Essentially the difference between a GP bike and a World Superbike is this... A World Superbike will let you know you're pushing its limits by sending you a polite letter informing you if you don't stop wringing its neck there are going to be recriminations; A GP bike will send a get well soon card.
So in order to be able to rip the piss out of F1 with the same informed authority as I rip the piss out of World Superbikes I'll be staying up late to watch the F1 procession, whoops, I mean race...
The F1 season kicks off during the night in Australia and in the name of science I'll be staying up to watch it. I say science because, as regular readers of this blog know, I'm a big fan of Moto Gp (which is the premier class of motorcycle racing and the two-wheeled version of F1 but with more excitement, closer racing and a hell of a lot more overtaking.) and would like to be able to compare the two on a level keel.
Due to a lack of TV coverage of Moto GP during the late eighties/early nineties there are people in the world... Strange lonely people who wear Kappa shell suits over Manchester United tops and think Carl Fogarty was the best motorcyclist ever to sling a leg over a bike... Who think that World Superbikes is the premier class of racing when it comes to Motorcycle racing. They're wrong. Very wrong.
The difference between a World Superbike and a GP bike is light years apart. For example I could walk into a motorcycle dealership tomorrow and buy a fully tooled road legal version of a World Superbike and get change from £50,000. I couldn't walk into a showroom and buy a GP bike even if I was in Japan, at the Honda Racing Corporation headquarters and snaffle up an RCV 212v even if my name was Valentino "Faster than light" Doohan. Which it's not.
Essentially the difference between a GP bike and a World Superbike is this... A World Superbike will let you know you're pushing its limits by sending you a polite letter informing you if you don't stop wringing its neck there are going to be recriminations; A GP bike will send a get well soon card.
So in order to be able to rip the piss out of F1 with the same informed authority as I rip the piss out of World Superbikes I'll be staying up late to watch the F1 procession, whoops, I mean race...
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