17 - Japan

[HF]

Well, DC has a new design:




Super Aguri a new design:




...and much more will come

[TdK]

Well, the new coulthard design is to honour Colin McRae.

[AD]

Yeah, Coulthard's design is apparently a Colin McRace tribute, I read he's planning to have it signed by the other drivers and auction it off...

Good to see that Super Aguri seem to have acquired a few new sponsors, so we probably don't have to worry about the team's future that much.

[HF]

Yeah, Coulthard's design is apparently a Colin McRace tribute, I read he's planning to have it signed by the other drivers and auction it off...

Nice thing of him!

Good to see that Super Aguri seem to have acquired a few new sponsors, so we probably don't have to worry about the team's future that much.

I do hope so too. But I think this are special sponsors only for the race in Japan....

[AD]

However, the team's competitiveness and major interest in Japan has helped them secure a number of sponsors from this weekend that will help bolster their finances until the end of the season.

[...]

"It will guarantee our budget for the rest of the year and will help us break even, so we can pay all our suppliers. And most importantly, it means we can start 2008 with a completely clean sheet of paper."

Two quotes taken from this article: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/62736

It seems to be rather a short-term thing, but it's good even if might just be temporary. Better have a few sponsors for your home Grand Prix than one sponsor where, from what snippets were in the press, things weren't going exactly the way the team would probably have appreciated it.

I like the monochrome kind of design of McRace's/Coulthard's helmet BTW.

[AD]

Just correcting myself a bit...

Yeah, Coulthard's design is apparently a Colin McRace tribute, I read he's planning to have it signed by the other drivers and auction it off...

David Coulthard on his website:

I will ask the other drivers to sign the helmet and I will give it to the McRae family as a mark of our respect and sincere condolences.

I don't know where I read the other thing. I probably just "misremembered"...

[HF]

STR in Q3?!?! Well done Vettel! Perfect job in rain you did!

McLaren will win

[DJS]

I see you guys have taken notice of all obvious changes, but you haven't seen the most "earth shocking" livery change.

[Greyhead]

Well, after what seemed like would be a really dull GP under the safety car, we actually had ourselves a pretty spectacular race! It's hard to see Hamilton not winning the title now... Champions seem to get younger every year!

Slight error from Vettel - shame really as he'd driven a great race up to then, as had Webber. What's Webber got to do to get a break? Surely the unluckiest driver since Chris Amon.

Still, at least because of that Kovaleinen got a well-deserved podium - He drove a pretty flawless race with a less-than-ideal setup.

I would have thought Massa would have got a penalty for his last-lap shenanigans with Kubica - it was fine up till the last corner but then he basically did to Kubica what Kubica did to Hamilton, the only difference being that Kubica got out of the way. Still, pretty exciting stuff.

[HF]

Slight error from Vettel - shame really as he'd driven a great race up to then, as had Webber. What's Webber got to do to get a break? Surely the unluckiest driver since Chris Amon.

It was a really pity and I can understand why Vettel was so annoyed after race. It was a nice race of him till this incident.

But it was a nice race in every section I think, I enjoyed it this morning.

JUST READ IT: Liuzzi got a 25 sec penalty and Sutil gets the point for P8, fantastico Spyker! Sutil did a great job in this rainy race. Spyker showed us one time again that they are really good pookers (remember the thing with Winkelhock in Europe?!? ).

[AD]

Interesting race... I've just finished watching what I recorded this morning...

(Lucky enough I recorded this morning, because there was a power outage at noon here for about two hours... )

[DJS]

Well Dan, you certainly have a different view on the Massa/Kubica battle.
I'd say they both fought at the limit (and beyond) and that the outcome is what it is.
It's better to let the driver say something about it, don't you think....

Quote from Kubica: He pushed me out, I tried to overtake him on the last corner but he went wide and there was more grip off the track and he won the position. We made a bit of action and in the end we laughed.

[Greyhead]

Well its good to know that some drivers are capable of laughing incidents off, and that they aren't 100% serious all the time! Too many feuds at the moment for my liking. What did everyone think of Hamilton's tactics at the first restart after the safety car? I think he went over the top slightly with his constant stop-starting, surprised nobody got caught out by it.

[DJS]

I didn't mind Hamilton doing that, he's not the first driver who does such things....
I remember a particular F1 race at Monza where someone went off after having such a brake test. I only forgot which year, who was leading and who went off.
(Must be Schumacher in the lead and DC spinning off...)

I thought Fernando did accidently overtake Hamilton at some point, but I'm not sure.

[Greyhead]

It was 2000, and Jenson Button went off (and out of the race) in the Williams, which he later admitted was down mainly to inexperience of the safety car procedure (it was during his first season in F1). Yeah Schumacher did used to do it, but he tended to only do it once or twice each restart, hamilton seemed to do it about ten times! I know he was just just trying to catch his pursuers (i.e. Alonso) out but I just thought he overstepped the mark slightly.