Silverstone! Qually time

This weekend, England will show off it's greatest asset to the world, the mighty Silverstone Circuit, and the vast majority of the F1 teams who are based at it. The UK is the unquestioned world leader in race car technology, even the Americans and japanese farm most of the performance tuning to us. So instead of weeping at Beckham's missed free kick on saturday, or lamenting wayne rooney's brainsprain.....sit back and watch predominately British built machinery negotiagting some of the most famous courners in the world. Copse, a 90 degree right this year apparently flat out at 180ish mph, the complex of maggots, beckets and chapel. Stowe....a corner for real men with real mental issues, you want overtaking, get a seat here. This list goes on, every kink in the tarmac there is a chalenge.

Even if you watch qually before the england match tomorrow you wont regret it, but I promise an interesting race on sunday...there are some tracks where the atmosphere is tinged with history, and even our modern day playstation pilots step up to be true heroes of racing, silverstone, in the absence of Spa this year, is the greateast example of such a circuit.

People broke into it to use it as a circuit after the war when racing was still banned due to rationing, it hosted the first ever round of the F1 World championship in 1950, and if that tight fucker tony blair doesn;t put money into it, we could lose our GP :(

For all my denials of "briddishness", this weekend, I'm a union flag boxered, corgi molesting, stella drinker :D

PS...your lad Button might very well do well for himself, but he seems cursed these days so don;t old your breath.

PPS ...Polish order might like to know that their man was 3rd quickest this morning in the test car, the sooner he gets a race drive the better.

supposedly there are also some tennis and golf tournaments on. :D

Errrrm Iwona, Arek and the rest of the Polish Order......

1 Kubica BMW M 1:21.082 141.833 mph 2 Fisichella Renault M 1:22.294 1.212 3 Wurz WilliamsF1 B 1:22.300 1.218 4 Davidson Honda M 1:22.310 1.228 5 Trulli Toyota B 1:22.437 1.355 6 Massa Ferrari B 1:22.476 1.394 7 Alonso Renault M 1:22.603 1.521 8 M Schumacher Ferrari B 1:22.825 1.743 9 Webber WilliamsF1 B 1:23.099 2.017 10 Barrichello Honda M 1:23.104 2.022 11 R Schumacher Toyota B 1:23.114 2.032 12 Doornbos Red Bull M 1:23.140 2.058 13 Monteiro Midland B 1:23.194 2.112 14 Montoya McLaren M 1:23.199 2.117 15 Albers Midland B 1:23.499 2.417 16 Mondini Midland B 1:23.529 2.447 17 Button Honda M 1:23.707 2.625 18 Villeneuve BMW M 1:23.750 2.668 19 Rosberg WilliamsF1 B 1:23.816 2.734 20 Heidfeld BMW M 1:23.895 2.813 21 Raikkonen McLaren M 1:23.915 2.833 22 Liuzzi Toro Rosso M 1:24.012 2.930 23 Klien Red Bull M 1:24.158 3.076 24 Speed Toro Rosso M 1:24.167 3.085 25 Coulthard Red Bull M 1:24.392 3.310 26 Jani Toro Rosso M 1:24.666 3.584 27 Sato Super Aguri B 1:25.870 4.788 28 Montagny Super Aguri B 1:26.248 5.166 29 Yamamoto Super Aguri B 1:27.908 6.826

That would be a polish geezer, 1.7 secs faster than baron von cobblers, 2.1 faster than Montoya, and a full 3 seconds faster than the best driver in America.

Forza Poland.

PS, his car is hardly the class of the field either.

Even if you hate F1....I can think of no better way to pass the time before the england game, than watching cars go flat out round silverstone. Show is on in 15 mins and the qually hour starts at 1300. If cars driving round in a queue bores you, this won't, this will be as fast as these things can go, round a beautiful track. Give it a go. And even the race tomorrow wont be dull, cos as discussed, it makes drivers mental this place.

(end evangelism for today)

Might have a look at it after the Aussies beat England in the Rugby.:D

(Not that I like Rugby mind - I think it's crap!! Just want to give Mr B some shite).

It was crap again. Little or no overtaking, little or no action, little or no chance of a challenge to Alonso, beyond the first corner. It's a shite sport, has been for over 15 years.

Hank Wiseass© wrote: It was crap again. Little or no overtaking, little or no action, little or no chance of a challenge to Alonso, beyond the first corner. It's a shite sport, has been for over 15 years.

Yeah well as log as they're less gay than chavballists that suits me. And no, it wasn't a great race.

Then again, when was the last time you seen a 12:7 finish in the world cup?

EDIT: All sports are becoming "too good" too closely contested double figure scores were common in footie once, as was wild overtaking in racing ( although I would dipute that). But as the level of play as inceased this has become unheard of.

With F1 there is a specific issue that needs dealt with too, that of "dirty air". If you watch a GP car in the wet, you will see a sort of confluence between the spray from the underbody and that from the rear tyres...if a car behind puts it's front wing there, it loses air pressure and looses grip. So while slipstreaming on straights is still possible, following a car onto a straight has become hard. All the teams yap and cray about it, but the bare fact is, it's a deliberate design feature and no one is going to be the first one to make their car easier to follow. If the cars had more mechanical grip from the big ass sticky slick tyres of olde, the aero-upset would be far less important. In 2008, wings will be drastically reduced, underbody profiles controlled and all aerodynamic downforce reduced markedly. I hope this helps in terms of racing.

What i would like to see the end of more than anything is driver aids. Things like traction control were designed to stop granny killing anyone on the way to tesco...not for the best drivers on Earth to use as a way to have an easy time. The argument that motorsport drives road car technology forward is a valid one....but F1 bears no relation to road driving, the correct venue for such developements is sure the world rally championship where the cars are based on road cars and drive on road mostly.

Anyway, I refuse to ever see something that can go from 0-100mph and back to 0 again in under 6 seconds as boring :D

I used to love F1, watched it religiously for years, during the days of Hunt/Walker in the commentary box. Used to love Ferrari until Schumacher joined them, I got more pleasure from the occasional race win they had with with the likes of Johanson and Alberetto than all the championships under the current regime.

Hank Wiseass© wrote: I used to love F1, watched it religiously for years, during the days of Hunt/Walker in the commentary box. Used to love Ferrari until Schumacher joined them, I got more pleasure from the occasional race win they had with with the likes of Johanson and Alberetto than all the championships under the current regime.

Sorry dude, I edited my response to be a bit less terse. I have watched since those days....my childhood comfort toy was a hunt hesketh cosworth :D

Yeah it sucks a bit these days.

I was genuinely surprised today tho, Silverstone does usually bring a bit of the oldschool back.

Oh well, there's always canada in 2 weeks. NEVER seen a dull canadian GP....there was one 4 or 5 years ago that looked like it was shit, but it pissed rain for no reason to correct it.

there's overtaking in the bikes & the commentators are better.

very rare you get a dull race there & they don't go on as long either

Been getting more into bikes these last coupla years.

Prefer the BBC coverage so I hear Charlie Cox.....they need him to replace that fannypad James Allen on the F1.