The US Grand Prix

f1.redbaron · Post 17 Jun 2007, 18:42

Any predictions?

Last year, there was a carnage in turn 1, and seeing how Alonso is going to try to get past Hamilton right at the beginning of the race, it is possible that we might see another huge mess. Of course, that is unless Tony George decides to build Alonso his own "strada privata".

I hope to see Hamilton increase the gap in the championship standings between him and Alonso.

monkeyboy1976 · Post 17 Jun 2007, 18:58

That first corner does seem to tempting Alonso into more grass track racing. I think we just have to wait and see. So far, Hamilton has been unflapable. Will it happen here?
Hopefully the Ferraris will be more on the pace.
One thing is for sure, this race will be better than 2005.
59 deg track temp. That could affect the softer option runners.
I'll be keeping an eye on Vettel on the live timing.

Oh sorry, you wanted a prediction.
I may push my neck out and say Alonso will come back at Hamilton and the Ferraris will be closer. Hamilton may have a bad one.
Here goes:
1 Alonso
2 Massa
3 Hamilton

Not very patriotic but there you go. Don't want Hamilton turning into a Schumacher

leomax · Post 17 Jun 2007, 20:46

bit different at the end though

Toro rosso was invincible to overtake at turn 1

monkeyboy1976 · Post 17 Jun 2007, 20:56

well. there you have it. Lewis coping with the pressure again and Alonso frustration growing.
Lewis is slowly grinding Alonso down. He'll pop at some point.
Is Alonso refusing to change overalls prior to the press conference? You'll notice that Lewis has the bigger shinier ones wherease Alonso doesn't today.

Lewis is back in the UK next week. Expect more Lewis mania,
See what happens at Goodwood.

France next. Another win? Or will the return home and the sinking in of his new found fame get to Lewis?

manchild · Post 17 Jun 2007, 21:10

A historic-symbolic question: -Is LH the first black driver ever to win in Indy? I mean since the 1913 or whenever Indy was first raced?

I see this win as potentially influential relative to still present racism problem in US as well as a potential booster for popularity of F1 in US.

Torso, team orders in Ferrari? Kimi wasn't allowed to overtake Massa?

Great drive from Heikki and Vettel - apart from LH both of them ended up in points on their debut in Indy (unlike their much more experienced teammates).

Principessa · Post 17 Jun 2007, 22:32

Superb race from Heikki Kovalainen

Great race from Vettel as well, congratulations with your first point!!

vyselegend · Post 17 Jun 2007, 22:56

Principessa wrote:Superb race from Heikki Kovalainen

Indeed. Good to see Renault is the third force now along with BMW. Definitively an improvement, 3 GPs ago they were fighting with the Toyotas...

Speaking of Toyota, what happened to the top 3 driver on the grid?

TV gave no explainations.

Both Mac Laren & Ferrari had the potential to provide great inner fights, but in the end the drivers stayed reasonables. Too bad.

Torso · Post 17 Jun 2007, 22:57

Ferrari is no longer a contender for the championship. The early momentum was driven by their better data-resourches on Bridgestone tyres...that advantage does not excist anymore. Kimi is a disapointment both in pace and racecraft. Inside the team he and Massa can`t provide the sort of dynamics that Schumacher represented in difficult periods. I fear the distance between McLaren and Ferrari will only increase from now on. And probably Ferrari will soon have to focus on securing their postion vs BMW.

Congrats to Ron Dennis with the 2007 titles.

Good on Hamilton for beating the hurdle of McLaren running preferential tactics/team orders in Alonsos favour earlier on. Now McLaren can`t afford to do that anymore...so Hamilton won his no1 spot fair and square! It`s really going to be interesting to see if Alonso has anything to answer for the remainder of the season...the points gap is quite large now.

wazojugs · Post 17 Jun 2007, 23:22

monkeyboy1976 wrote:Is Alonso refusing to change overalls prior to the press conference? You'll notice that Lewis has the bigger shinier ones wherease Alonso doesn't today.

in the press conferance all 3 of the the podium drivers wear an overall which is cleaner and also has the sponsorship labels square to the camera so that they all get full exposure. if they wear the normal race overall some of the sponsor badges dont get full seen.

I think alonso wearing his race overalls was a bit of defiance to the team, not any thing special for lewis.

Tom · Post 17 Jun 2007, 23:25

The championship isn't over yet, but another good race, lots of overtaking.

I don't know why Ralf still has a superlicence, since declaring himself the 3rd best driver in the sport he seems to have gone rapidly down hill, and considering where he started its quite astonishing he managed to get any lower.

RH1300S · Post 18 Jun 2007, 00:44

manchild wrote:A historic-symbolic question: -Is LH the first black driver ever to win in Indy? I mean since the 1913 or whenever Indy was first raced?

Interesting you should mentions this - a few years back when Lewis was looking like getting into an F1 car, there was a lot of press about 1st black driver, big for F1 etc.

Now..........NOTHING

He is measured purely on his talent and thatnk goodness for that!

BTW - I thought Fisi looked better than I've seen him for ages (& ages

)

Get rid of Ralfy - pleeeeeeeeeze

Another great drive form Lewis, at one point I really thought Alonoso looked like he had the pace to nick it.........

F1 Observer · Post 18 Jun 2007, 01:00

Alonso's exuberant swerve at the pitwall, one lap after trying to take the lead away from Hamilton at the end of the start/finish straight...

What was that all about?!

And what do you make of this story? :

http://www.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/ ... 1005.shtml

I don't buy it. I've been around enough time not to buy it

EDITTED TO ADD : I saw the US GP in full, adds and everything, and quite frankly I didn't see Alonso pulling off Hamilton's slipstream all that often. And if his intention was indeed to cool down his car, a gentle swerve to the right at every passage through the start/finish straight would have done the trick.Not that it's all that important, but such an aggressive swerve that nearly collected his team's pitboard in my opinion wasn't necessary...Unless he was trying to make a point...Which of course he wasn't

F1 Observer · Post 18 Jun 2007, 01:58

After reading other F1 related forums here on the internet, people speculate that Alonso showed his fist in that outrageous swerve, in protest against Hamilton's defensive line.
According to the rules, the driver in front can change his trajectory only once in order to defend and maintain his current position, and Alonso felt the young brit failed to comply with this rule, blocking his attempt more than once going down to turn 1.

Unfortunately I can't find any videos of that

manchild · Post 18 Jun 2007, 02:10

Cooling my *ss. That was the pure protest.

I think LH played it smoothly. Nothing illegal in his defense.

I couldn't find it either (the clip) but as I was searching I found super slow motion of Kubica's crash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVq8yeg22xY

You can see parts of the car ripping off and flying before he got airborne and the reason I think was some bump in the grass between the tarmac and the fence. Sorry for straying into off topic.

Militia Est Vita · Post 18 Jun 2007, 05:13

Super interesting race, I think we will see more wins from Alonso in the future and it's probably to early to say but this might be an Hamilton-Alonso fight all way to Brazil. I don't think Ferrari will have an super 30 point come back at this point, or maybe we will, who knows.

What I didn't like about Indy was to see SO many empty seats, after Michellin gave away last year ticktes I think we saw today the TRUE harm on 2005's Indy gate. I rwas seriously planning to go to Indy next year but after seeing so many empty seats an Ecclestone's declatarions, do you think maybe we have seen the last Indy GP ?