2015 Motörsports Thread - #24ever

[Gecko]

Rosberg wins in Spain. It made a nice to change to not see him get immediately overtaken by Hamilton and then follow him for the rest of the race.

How much would you need to get paid to take a job as a front jack man?
Wanted: someone to stand in front of a car going 50mph and hopes it stops. Must have quick reactions and balls of steel.



The guy in the first part of the gif jumped out the way and it was the just the jack that got hit. The second guy was also fine, he was laughing about it later while holding an ice pack.

This is probably the most dangerous part of the pit stops now, since they got rid of refuelling and started fining for wheels not being attached properly after the cameraman got hit by one a couple of years back.

[Gecko]

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/32761397
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/32751118

Looks like there's going to be a whole bunch of F1 rule changes in the near future, The biggest being: Refuelling will be back in 2017.

Other stuff they've agreed or are looking at:
The cars will rev higher and be louder (15,000rpm up from 11,000rpm)
Dropping the number of gears from 8 to 6
Aerodynamic changes and weight reduction should let cars go 5-6 seconds a lap faster
For 2016, bosses have approved a plan to allow teams free choice of the four available tyre compounds for each race.
Getting rid of driver aids for the starts. (pre-calibration stuff)

[Burst]

I'm surprised at how quiet this thread has been lately, especially with all the high frolics (there's an understatement) from Indy. While I suspect that the key factor is an aerodynamic flaw on the low-drag Chevy aerokits along the lines of the Mercedes CLR from Le Mans in '99, that hasn't stopped the fans online from pretty much exploding. Exploding so hard it even broke Trackforum earlier.

That being said, looking at EVERYONE involved in this cluster, both the curmudgeonly will-be-pissed-no-matter-what-happens fans and the seemingly imbecilic management, I hate to say this, but Indycar is getting dangerously, dangerously close to "We need to destroy the village in order to save it" territory. There is just too much entrenched bad blood and bad politics and just everything across both the top series and IMS management, and the fans just are the icing on the cake.

Though at least there's a handful of sane fans among the maelstrom. To paraphrase one from earlier that pretty much sums up everything wrong with Indy fans nowadays:

"You were mad when it was a fully spec series, but then you were mad when they announced the aerokits. You were mad when they were delayed, but then they came out and you were mad they didn't look exactly like you wanted. You were mad when the Chevys started flying, you were mad when they didn't do anything about it, but then you were mad when they did do something about it. You were mad that they stopped qualifying to fix it, but you would've been mad if they had continued and there had been more crashes..."

Ad nauseum. The sanctioning body is so ludicrously damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't that again, that it's no wonder that negative feedback loop keeps on going.

[Deleted]

I'd love for this thread to be more lively but there's usually not much IndyCar discussion to be had and I'm not a big fan of NASCAR or F-1 at the moment.

Not that fans should ever be blamed for ineptitude or poor management decisions, but IndyCar fans are the goddamn worst. Nothing is ever good enough and there is too much split bullshit left over from the 1990s. I think the series itself is on the right track, more or less - I would love to get back to the days of building your own car, buying your own engine and working on it, etc., but the money is just not there to do it. At least they are trying. But no matter what is done, there will be some contingent of fans that shit all over it.

I do think that the management made the correct decision today. Say what you want about lack of testing/practice/an oval event before Indianapolis, the fact is they were presented a terrible situation and did the best they could do with limited time available. Three cars upside down is three too many, and hard to explain away as flukes. And despite only happening to Chevys, not knowing exactly what caused the flips and if in fact it was a Chevy-related issue made it impossible to just limit those entries. It sucks but I do think it was best approach given the limited amount of time they had to make a decision.

And I know it seems a bit hypocritical of me to say that about IndyCar fans, since I am one, but seriously already. Maybe I was lucky since I grew up post-split and just didn't give a shit about the politics, and truthfully didn't even know much of what was going on until many years after the fact. I just knew that come Memorial Day weekend I was going to see 33 cars fly around what was to my eight year old mind the most mind-bogglingly large place I could imagine. And this Memorial Day weekend I'll do the same.


With that said, here's the starting field for the 99th Indianapolis 500:

Row 1:  #9 Scott Dixon / #1 Will Power / #22 Simon Pagenaud
Row 2:  #10 Tony Kanaan / #3 Helio Castroneves / #25 Justin Wilson
Row 3:  #11 Sebastien Bourdais / #27 Marco Andretti / #21 Josef Newgarden
Row 4:  #6 JR Hildebrand / #26 Carlos Muñoz / #20 Ed Carpenter
Row 5:  #32 Oriol Servia / #83 Charlie Kimball / #2 Juan Pablo Montoya
Row 6:  #28 Ryan Hunter-Reay / #15 Graham Rahal / #18 Carlos Huertas
Row 7:  #29 Simona de Silvestro / #7 James Jakes / #19 Tristan Vautier
Row 8:  #48 Alex Tagliani / #8 Sage Karam / #5 James Hinchcliffe
Row 9:  #43 Conor Daly / #24 Townsend Bell / #14 Takuma Sato
Row 10:  #63 Pippa Mann / #98 Gabby Chaves / #17 Sebastian Saavedra
Row 11:  #41 Jack Hawksworth / #4 Stefano Coletti / #88 Bryan Clauson


Some notes:

Justin Wilson is pretty good. He beat out the rest of Andretti Autosport and was the fastest Honda despite running a part time schedule in 2015.

Tristan Vautier qualified the #19 for James Davison, who had a prior racing commitment and could not be at IMS.  Davison should start 33rd with the driver switch.

Three drivers have "Specials" which is cool to see as a throwback to the days when every car entered was a special.  Alex Tagliani is driving the Alfe Heat Treating Special, Conor Daly is driving the Fueled by Bacon Special, and Townsend Bell is driving The Robert Graham Special.


There are five Indianapolis 500 winners in the field: Juan Pablo Montoya (2000), Helio Castroneves (2001, 2002, 2009), Scott Dixon (2008), Tony Kanaan (2013), and Ryan Hunter-Reay (2014).

There are six IndyCar champions in the field: Juan Pablo Montoya (1999 CART), Scott Dixon (2003 IndyCar, 2008, 2013), Tony Kanaan (2004 IndyCar), Sebastien Bourdais (2004-2007 Champ Car), Ryan Hunter-Reay (2012), and Will Power (2014).

19 of the 33 starters have won at least one race in American open-wheel competition (IRL/CART/Champ Car/IndyCar).

There are two rookies in the field: Gabby Chaves and Stefano Coletti.

Aside from the rookies, drivers setting or equaling their best 500 starting position (ties in parentheses): Dixon (1st - 2008), Power (2nd - 2010), Pagenaud, Wilson, Bourdais, Kimball (14th - 2012), Huertas, de Silvestro, Karam, and Daly.

[Deleted]

With the big racing day coming this Sunday, lets have a look at the standings for each.

Top 10 in Formula 1 after 5 races:

1. Lewis Hamilton, 111 points
2. Nico Rosberg, 91 points
3. Sebastian Vettel, 80 points
4. Kimi Raikkonen, 52 points
5. Valtteri Bottas, 42 points
6. Felipe Massa, 39 points
7. Daniel Ricciardo, 25 points
8. Romain Grosjean, 16 points
9. Felipe Nasr, 14 points
10. Carlos Sainz, 8 points

Top 10 in Indycar after 5 races:

1. Juan Pablo Montoya, 171 points
2. Will Power, 166 points
3. Helio Castroneves, 153 points
4. Scott Dixon, 144 points
5. Graham Rahal, 144 points
6. Tony Kanaan, 136 points
7. Josef Newgarden, 129 points
8. James Hinchcliffe, 129 points
9. Sabastien Bourdais, 123 points
10. Simon Pagenaud, 101 points

Chase grid in NASCAR after 11 races [(#) = overall standing]:

Winners:
Jimmie Johnson, 3 victories + 389 points (3)
Kevin Harvick, 2 victories + 437 points (1)
Joey Logano, 1 victory + 375 points (4)
Dale Earnhardt Jr, 1 victory + 360 points (5)
Brad Keselowski, 1 victory + 343 points (6)
Matt Kenseth, 1 victory + 331 points (7)
Kurt Busch, 1 victory + 292 points (14)
Denny Hamlin, 1 victory + 284 points (15)
Winners must be in the top 20 in points in order to qualify for the Chase.

Non-Winners:
Martin Truex Jr., 391 points (2)
Jamie McMurray, 328 points (8)
Jeff Gordon, 317 points (9)
Kasey Khane, 313 points (10)
Aric Almirola, 312 points (11)
Paul Menard, 306 points (12)
Ryan Newman, 305 points (13)
Clint Bowyer, 272 points (16)

[Deleted]

Hinchcliffe might miss the 500 after a hard crash in practice today. Not many details yet about his injury or injuries but he did require surgery. Just going by how the crash looked I'm assuming he's missing the race. Katherine Legge is apparently the front runner to fill in if he can't make it.

[Burst]

Honestly, compared to all the other crashes this month of May, Hinch's looked the most traditionally painful. That was a solid as hell side impact with the wall. For as much as people have been griping about the flipping, unless they're flipping into the fence, I'd say they're usually better off.

I'm surprised there hasn't been as much of an uproar (at least that I've seen) now that a driver has actually been hurt, but I wonder how much of that is because it was both a Honda and more of a typical Indy crash.

[Deleted]

Hinch's was the type of crash that a couple decades ago would be fatal or close to it. RACER says that the impact was 125Gs.

[Deleted]

www.racer.com/indycar/item/116939-indy-500-hinchcliffe-saved-from-serious-injuries

[Deleted]

May 19, 2015 13:52:13 GMT -5 @thickmcrunfast said:

www.racer.com/indycar/item/116939-indy-500-hinchcliffe-saved-from-serious-injuries

Wow. The article says he basically would've bled out in his car had it not been for the safety crew.

[Deleted]

Ryan Briscoe will be replacing Hinchcliffe. The last row for the 500 is now Clauson, Briscoe, and Davison.

[Deleted]

And now Vautier is back in the 500, except he's replacing Huertas.

[Deleted]

Final Practice for the Indianapolis 500:

1 - Will Power, 229.020 mph
2 - Scott Dixon, 228.585 mph
3 - Tony Kanaan, 228.490 mph
4 - Simon Pagenaud, 228.458 mph
5 - Takuma Sato, 228.242 mph
6 - Charlie Kimball, 227.811 mph
7 - Sage Karam, 227.478 mph
8 - JR Hildebrand, 227.199 mph
9 - Gabby Chaves, 226.802 mph
10 - Helio Castroneves, 226.674 mph



Takuma Sato is the fastest Honda. 8 of the top 10 were Chevrolet, 7 of the top 10 are Penske/Ganassi.





If anyone is reading this and has NBC Sports Network, the Indy Lights Freedom 100 is about to begin. It's been awesome the past few years, worth watching if you have the time.

[G✇JI☈A]

They are calling it the miracle on tarmac.

Champagne is being popped in the garage. Because both McLarens have made it to Q2 in Monaco!


They said it could not be done! *sniff

[G✇JI☈A]

Ok the Monaco F1 GP results ... Lazy edition:

[VRM: LET'S GO BLUESHIRTS!!]

Safety car and bad pit stop is gonna cost Hamilton

[Gecko]

Rosberg wins 3 in a row at Monaco.

Pretty standard Monaco race up until the safety car towards the end.

Nasty Verstappen crash that he walked away from.

Toto and Lauda both saying they lost Lewis the race because of a mistake.

[VRM: LET'S GO BLUESHIRTS!!]

DRIVERS, START YOUR ENGINES!!!!!

Unless you're Tagliani, who's failed to fire

[VRM: LET'S GO BLUESHIRTS!!]

GREEN FLAG!!!!

THE 99TH INDIANAPOLIS 500 IS UNDERWAY!!!!

Edit: And we're under caution

[VRM: LET'S GO BLUESHIRTS!!]

WHITE FLAG!!!!