Quote:
Originally posted by Liz
I want to see the Prodrive Ferrari drag racing the KnightHawk MG Lola down the Mulsanne Straight and be able to shout "HOW DID ENGE DO THAT?" without the sure and certain knowledge that Enge's contract specifies that he gets to outdrag 675 cars until he bursts into flames or they do.
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See I dont call that racing. An F3000 champion and professional driver passing a gentlemen racer in a completely different class is not racing. That said Enge on the Corvette at Laguna was nice.
I think F1 is fine. Ive never watched road racing for racing, ive watched it for driving. Generally there is very little actual racing on road courses. CART doesnt have a ton of passing compared to F1, so why all the dumping on Grand Prix racing? What sucks about F1 is the TV coverage,t hey dont show the many battles going on in the midfield unless you've got digital.
Passing happens for two reasons on a road course. Either the guy ahead makes a mistake, or you are drastically faster than him. In the upper levels of road racing the drivers just dont make mistakes and get passed. Sure you can blame that on TC, auto gears, et al but you'd be wrong. There's even less passing in the sepc series of Formula Ford, Formula 3, Formula 3000, etc. So we've elimintaed mistakes. Now speed. If you're .5 seconds a lap quicker, good luck. Over a 90 second lap and 17 corners thats nothing. You'd have to be making that .5 up under braking for ONE corner to have a realistic chance of passing someone. The biggest problem is the tracks are too fast. Thats even the case in the junior formulas. You barely have to brake for so many corners even if you get sorta alongside someone you're going to have a really hard time passing them under braking. Braking 5metres later at the 500metre board you can make it by. Braking 5etres later at the 50metre board and you're going to end up in the fence.
It just seems logical to me that the first place qualifier would pull away from the slower second place qualifier, who is pulling away from the even slower third place qualifier etc. I love watching the Hungarian GP because its amazing to watch the cars and drivers work. There's barely one straight. Even when a guy is pulling out a second a lap I enjoy it because im watching some of the best DRIVING in the world. That said Im not enjoying this year too much because Michael is just running away and he's not even giving his car a good whipping.
If you think F1 is down on hand-to-hand combat you clearly havent been watching. JPM and Kimi have been pulling some seriously sweet moves on each other this season.
If I want good racing ill watch ovals. The cars and tracks are pretty simplistic to drive, and it lends itself to lots of on track action. So really Road courses are about driving, ovals are about racing. I like watching both in various doses.
We know you dont like F1 and thats fine. But you dont have to be so illogical and biased about it.