rec.autos.simulators

    We have -

No tyre manufacturer competition (insane and probably corrupt - wonder how
much Bridgestone paid Ernie?). And now they're starting to frig the teams
around by deliberately turning up with less than best compounds because some
stupid little child thinks that that is exciting and more interesting.

Frozen engine development (insane - the name on the engine means nothing -
why do manufacturers even remain in F1????) and talk of some "World Engine"
(by cane arse Mosley) for not only formula 1 but different iterations for
rally and anything else the FIA deem it appropriate for (equally
insane/corrupt)

Slower cars every year instead of faster ones - cars to fit 100 year old
tracks instead of new tracks for modern cars that should have 2000+
horsepower, full downforce, etc

Regulations that apparently take the experts that created them days for even
themselves to interpret. It took 40 lawyers, officials and team personnel 8
hours to argue their rubbish and a decision was not given until 24 hours
after that. What kind of idiotic rules must they be? And this issue was
raised well over a month before Australia - why was nothing done before
then? What a joke. Not sure if the Japs are throwing money around this -
they are the common denominator with the double diffuser cars - Honda,
Toyota and Williams/Toyota. When most of the teams apparently get the rules
wrong then the rules must be idiotic.

This "Lie Gate" thing is a load of absolute bullshit as well - wtf are the
stewards doing asking a driver stupid ***ing questions like that anyway.
What difference does it make as to why Hamilton slowed and Trulli passed.
Total and complete bullshit and just another reason to believe that F1 is
indeed a circus that's over run by clowns.

    Bernie's kneejerk over reaction to Hamilton winning the championship
with merely 1 less win than Massa. He wanted to throw the car reliability
and driver consistency factors away completely - I think old Bernie's well
past his use by date. And as for cane arse
Max........................................................

On the plus side: the form book has been thrown away, more mechanical grip
and slicks are a good thing, as is the maximum budget.

It's a difficult subject. On the surface F1 is turning into more and more of a
circus. But so far this year I've really enjoyed the racing (I'm even, despite
reservations last year, enjoying the qualifying now). Whether that's a result of
the rule changes, I'm not sure. The weather may be a bigger factor in producing
some exciting action.

It may also be down to the fact the new BBC coverage in the UK is pretty good.
Apart from one of the commentators I'm enjoying the overall package a lot more,
adding to the sense of 'event' over the weekend.

And of course it's always interesting to see the usual candidates on the front row
pushed back down the grid. It's good for their sense of perspective. :-)

I suppose I'm also enjoying the fact that Jenson Button's doing so well. I try to
like Hamilton, but I just can't get past those preened sideburns... and his father,
who creeps me out. I suppose part of it is the underdog factor, after Button's
struggled for so many years. But I just like the guy's character, and it's a nice
to see him doing well.

So a combination of a Brit doing well, and newly improved coverage in the UK (with
no ads!) is allowing me to ignore some of the messy rule changes. And I'm sure I
could get pretty annoyed if I spent too long contemplating the whole KERS mess.

Andrew McP

--
Pete Ives
Remove All_stRESS before sending me an email

The advantage of being pretty poor at the start is it's easy to get better. ;-)

To be fair it's hard for a new double act to work smoothly from the word go. But
Legard (and Jordan, who sadly won't be replaced by Gascoyne permanently!) are weak
links in an otherwise impressive formula.

Andrew McP

    This $20M cap idea - can anyone explain why any of the present
manufacturers would continue. Why pay $500M to have no more performance that
Joe Blow over there forking out only $20M. Am I missing something?

To show they can inovate rather then just***money away.

Cheers!

Remco

    The FIA are not proposing a cap for everyone - it is an option.

    See here -
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

    "This 'two-tier' solution where teams volunteer their financial
information in exchange for being able to run to more liberal technical
regulations may resolve that problem. But it does not completely convince me
that budget capping will work. For example, what if a company announces it
wishes to compete in F1 in 2011, having already spent 200m on research and
development in 2010?"

    So back to my point - why even allow anyone to continue the way they are
now. Why would you spend multiple millions when you only need to spend 30 or
so? The entire proposal is idiotic.

    And as mentioned in the above, what about the years of research and
facilities set up by the manufacturers over the years - let's just***it
all away?

    The cap idea is ridiculous. The idea of having capped teams running in
the same series as uncapped teams (hamstrung by rules) is even more idiotic!

    It is my present understanding that the $20M cap is not compulsory - it
is an option.

No ads? We are jealous now. In Australia we get ads plus additional
comments from Aussy people who have no idea what they're talking
about. The last race in China they had Darryl Beattie (an ex-motorcyle
star) making comments 'cause they couldn't get the usual V8 supercar
guy.

Mike.

Oh, so you don't get NASCAR people. Well that's an improvement. North of
the land of the great burger, we get two choices: SPEED - a 24/7 NASCAR
and NHRA channel and TSN - the Canadian hockey channel. The latter gets
the BBC feed, but cuts the first 1/2 hour and the interviews. The Podium
you *might* get to see if you're lucky. SPEED on the other hand has
decided that anything but the sole practice carried is not available up
here, because they have competition. Rebroadcasts later in the week are
fine. But then you have to put up with Bob Varsha. One of the
aforementioned acronym crowd.

To be fair to SPEED, they *are* carrying ALMS - missed the last race, but
carrying one this weekend and carrying GT2 - at 2:00 a.m. Sunday moring.

Fingers crossed the BBC will be able to afford to keep the contract, though I
expect Bernie extracted several dozen pounds of flesh from them for the pleasure.

Andrew McP