Whose ready for F1?
 

You heard me! The Formula 1 World Championship begins with Australian Grand Prix, Sunday, March 16th at 3:30 local time. For me in Seattle, it begins Saturday at 9:30.

Who out there can't wait for the season to begin? I'm stoked because even the Seattle PI covered the race:

You gotta love those Australians!

Wow! someone from the US who's looking forwards to F1 :wink_thumbup::wink_thumbup:

In case you can't get enough F1, here are the best F1 News websites

ITV F1

Autosport.com

The one below is brilliant as it links all F1 news websites into one website!

F1 news.com

In the UK F1 is fairly big... especially with Lewis Hamilton on the scene.

Lets hope for a great season..... by the way... 4:00am for us! :shakehead:

Dave

Well, if Bernie has his way you'll be getting Australia at around 2pm next year.

Autosport and gpupdate.net i like. I'll check out the other ones you've suggested as well.

I'm really excited for this season. It's going to be a good one, especially with the Singapore night race :eek_animated:

Everyone on our race team are huge F1 fans, by the way. We're closing the shop on Saturday night to go over to one of the guys's house and watch the race!

Some of the drivers think that being cooler etc... it will make it too easy!!! The physical effort needed in the day with the heat and humidity is the real challange!

I personally am not keen on night time races... but I am open to persuasion .

ITV to stream F1 live on the web
 

Thought you might be interested in the following post....

ITV to stream F1 live on the web

This might get you some extra footage on Fridays etc..

Dave

Who saw Qualifying? That was amazing! I watched the live timing on F1's website since i don't have cable at my place. Kubica starting on the front row, vettel coming in 5th i think. Man, this is going to be a great season. No longer Ferrari/Mclaren or Ferrari/Renault as in 06.

I'm excited to see Singapore because it's in downtown in the heart of the city. From what i hear it'll be tighter than Monaco, which is by far my favorite race. The lighting system at Singapore will apparently replicate day conditions on the track. I'm excited to see what it'll be like. Definetely going to be a very different atmosphere. First night race in F1 history Dave, how can you not be excited about that?

I've read a lot about F1 drivers, especially how their brains work. It's amazing. These guys are just as much machines as their cars are. The mental power they have is beyond phenomenal. Some of these drivers can sit in their hotel room with a stop watch, close their eyes and envision themselves going around on the track then take that time and go out the next day in the car and get within a tenth of a second of how they imagined it :eek_animated: There's a reason why it's said that race driving is at least 75% mental.

Dealing with the heat, probably not the top list of their worries. Finishing and keeping the car in one piece and if all of that happens, finishing at the top is all they think about. I know they don't have any sort of cooling, but instead are insulated with their fire-retardant driving suits. I'm not sure how Singapore stacks up to Bahrain, the hottest race they have, where track temps are 130 degrees +. Humidity, Singapore definitely has it beat.

From my experience driving a race car, your mind is so focused, your heart beating so hard, adrenaline pumping, you're not thinking about how hot/cold it is. You don't notice anything around you except for what's immediately in front of you and it takes all your mind to process every corner coming at you and how best to get through it. Then do that 100x over. For these guys though, its second nature. I'm sure that's different with these guys that do this day in and day out and i'm sure they have their own personal ways of dealing with heat, humidity, etc.

Unfortunately that stream isn't available to those of us outside the UK Dave. Thanks for trying though:wink_thumbup:


22 hours until the GP of Australia!!!!!!!

I'm not a die hard F1 fan but i follow enough of it to understand what is going on. IMHO.....Ferrari will again win the manufacturers championship, Raikkonen is as good as there is out there. McLaren might be close if they come up with a fast car for Hamilton. If Alonso can live up to his boasts, Renault might make things interesting too but...i think Alonso is going to have his hands full with his own team-mate (Nelson Piquet Jr) who is a very quick driver. And i hear Toyota has to get faster this year or their program will go bye-bye. I think what is a more interesting match up though is with the #2 drivers (Massa, Piquet, Kovalainen, Vettel, Kubica and even Nakajima with Toyota). A couple of them could upset their #1's.
As for the tracks, I've seen Spa in Belgium and it was awesome. I know the F1 boys dont drive it anymore but i've driven on part of the Nurburgring in Germany and it was scary. Singapore promises to be a great venue and Monza is always a classic.

Same here. I watch the races, but I'm not a die hard fan. I was a lot more interested back in the day when Jacques Villeneuve was driving for MacLaren. I stopped watching the races for a while when it was just the Michael Shumacher show every week. At least there has been a return of some competition in the races.

I'm a big race fan in general, just like my dad. I've been to the Indy 500 five times (the first time when I was just 13). Last year I took my son to the Toronto Cart race, which we both enjoyed. Unfortunatley with the Cart/IRL merger it looks like it's not going to happen this year. I guess our racing event of this season will be a night out at Sauble speedway to see some good ol' boys ripping up the 1/4 mile oval.

I think it will be very close this year and i honestly feel it is completely up for grabs by BMW, Mclaren, Ferrari, and maybe even Toyota. Renault's car is a disaster this year and Alonso feels it's going to be a challange just to get into Q3, let alone finish 1st. This was confirmed with his quali performance last night. It is early in the season so who knows. He did say they are looking toward 2009 at this point.

Hamilton will definetely be very fast. It will be interesting to see how the young duo of Hamilton and Kovalinen do. Very young drivers and it sounded like last year Alonso was responsible for the majority of setting up the two cars that made them both quick.

I'm excited to see what piquet will do. He didn't do so well in quali, but he has plenty of time to become a star. I was surprised by the performance of Vettel and Torro Rosso, as well as the Red Bull. It's a shame that Webber went off and couldn't finish. That guy has bad luck every year at his home race. Kubica was brilliant as well, which is why i think BMW has a really good shot this year.

Mikey, i'm very jelous you went to Spa! Eau Rouge is an absolute brilliant combination. I saw it for the first time last year on TV when F1 returned after many years of it not being on the calender and was absolutely amazed. That uphill launch into the left-right-left and blind summit is brilliant! I'm also jelous you drove at the Nurbergring Nordschleife. That's awesome! It would be awesome to have F1 go back, but i can see why they don't.

As you can see, i'm a HUGE F1 fan and i hope for the return of Michael Schumacher! Whether you like him or not, he's arguably the greatest driver in F1 history. If you analyze his driving style and how it all comes naturally to him, its absolutely amazing. The guy is an absolute machine.

No question that Schuey was very likely the best ever but....i'm happy to see him gone just cuz it got tiresome seeing him win most of the time. This year it will be very competitive though and any one of 5 or 6 drivers can win at any given race.

Well that was an absolute insane race! I don't want to spoil it for anyone that Tivo'd it, but i can say there was a lot of yelling at the TV. 20 intoxicated guys and girls all watching resulted in A LOT of shouting. haha.

Let me tell you, after that race, this is going to be one HELL of a season. :yes_grin:

Thanks Ryan, we "like" you too :eek_animated:

F1
 

My wife Andrea is from Brasil. She watches it faithfully. She watches it on her channel "Globo" on Satellite out of Brasil, they show it commercial free start to finish.