October 31, 2011
The four stages of a Monster's life. They start as a youthful abomination, cute but destined for terrible things. Then as a teenage affront to God, they wear makeup to change their skin color, wear wacky clothing and an odd hairstyle. As an adult, they become the more traditional fiend. Finally, the aged duckonculus becomes the very apotheosis of the Modern Monster.
Hope all your lil' abominations have a Happy Halloween!
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October 30, 2011
A hot, smoggy day greeted the F1 Circus as they formed up on the Buddh International Circuit's grid. Would polesitter Seb Vettel continue his domination of the year, or would he let his teammate by in an attempt to get him second place in the driver's championship? Or would the Ferraris and McLarens make the question moot? THIS is your F1U! for the inaugural Grand Prix of India!
*EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN: Once the lights went out and the race began, it was exactly like most of the previous races this season. Seb Vettel got a good start, pulled away and never looked back. At the end of Lap 1, his lead was 1.3 seconds and nobody ever got any closer. By the end of Lap 8, it was over 8 seconds.
*BLUNDERING HERD: The first turn saw a shower of carbon fiber, front wings and bodywork like we haven't seen all season. Five cars had various degrees of damage as the back half of the field approached the braking zone, and a sixth, the Lotus of Jarno Trulli went for a spin in Turn 3, provoked by a nudge from behind. We here at F1U! aren't exactly sure just why such carnage occurred today as the first turn is plenty wide, but there it is. It was entertaining, if nothing else.
*THE TRACK: In another era, it's clear that the Buddh International Circuit would be another processional circuit. However, with two DRS zones and KERS, there was some fun racing back in the midpack. Hermann Tilke got lucky with this one. As long as the rules stay the way they are, India will be a race to look forward to. That long long looooooong straightaway looks like it has the ability to kill a powertrain, however. Two cars suffered failures as they ran down the 4000' length of tarmac: one dead gearbox and one blown engine. The curbs also reached up and broke Felipe Massa's suspension again, though this time the left front.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel led his 711th lap of the season today. Not only is that a record, it's also more laps than Jenson Button has led in his entire career... and yes, that includes his 2009 Championship season. More than that, Vettel today earned himself a rare F1 Grand Slam. He won from pole position, led every lap, and set fast lap of the race. In a season of great drives from the young German, this was probably his best.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: McLaren clinched second place in the Constructor's Championship with the combination of Jenson Button's second-place finish and Lewis Hamilton's 7th. In a year that was so dominated by one team, that's quite the accomplishment for the team from Woking.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: Not always do the best moves of a race happen up towards the front of the field, and today was a perfect example of that fact. On Lap 14, the surging Toro Rosso of DJ Squire was hunting down the hometown Force India of Adrian Sutil. When the two cars crossed the DRS detection marker before the long straight, DJ Squire was about a half-second back. Opening the flap on the rear wing let the Toro Rosso pull close, but it didn't really seem like he had the speed to make the pass as they approached the braking zone.
Despite what we thought, DJ Squire pulled his steed to the outside of the Force India and held off on the braking for as long as he could.
Keeping the Toro Rosso under control into the fast sweep, DJ Squire just barely managed to pull ahead of the Force India, forcing Adrian Sutil to back down.
While it was only for 9th place, it was still an impressive move, and without a doubt the best of the day. It just wasn't as... exciting as some have been. This isn't a negative.
*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE: Because "exciting" is exactly what you don't want when you're making a pass at 150mph On Lap 24, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had the Ferrari of Felipe Massa right where he wanted it. That the two of them had made contact five previous times this season probably should have given Hamilton some pause, but heading into Turn 5 he still had some KERS juice remaining while Massa did not. He used it and tried to get underneath the red car...
...and Massa tried to guillotine the McLaren, which had his front tires in front of the Ferrari's rears. Massa went for a slide and a spin, Hamilton went to the pits for a new nose. Massa was later given a drive-through penalty for his rather bovine attempt to keep Hamilton behind him, and his later suspension failure seemed like a case of just desserts. Congratulations, Felipe, this Mooooooo-ooove's all yours.
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...
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October 29, 2011
Back on October 6th, I posted a 3000-word article on The Flight To Nowhere, the disastrous mission of the USS Hornet's Air Group on the first day of the Battle of Midway. After I posted it, I realized that it was actually pretty decent. On a whim, I sent a link to the post to Ronald Russell, author of the book No Right To Win and the webmaster of the Battle of Midway Roundtable.
The BOMRT is an online gathering of historians, authors, interested amateurs, and (most importantly) veterans of the Battle of Midway. It's probably the foremost online resource on the events of Midway, which explains why pretty much anybody who's written a book on the Battle or related topics in recent years is a member; Jon Parshall and Anthony Tully, John Lundstrom, Robert Cressman, Alvin Kernan, Robert Mrazek, Norman Polmar, amongst others.
A few hours after I sent the link to Mr Russell, I got a response with a few notes and a willingness to use the post in the next "issue" of the BOMRT Newsletter. To say this is something of an honor is understating the matter a bit; short of the article actually being published somewhere, that's about as good as it gets for an "interested amateur" like myself.
The new issue of the Newsletter was posted today. You can find the relevant "Now Hear This" page right here.
I'm somewhat chuffed.
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It's always a point of pride to be the first ever to score a pole at a new track, but it's not like that's the only thing up for grabs here. Red Bull could set a single-season record with a pole, and Seb Vettel could continue his chase to tie a record. And, of course, everybody else would like to prevent that from happening. So how did it shake out? Let's take a look at the provisional grid for the 2011 Grand Prix of India:
Well, it was hardly unexpected. As he has all season, Seb Vettel blew away the field to earn his 13th pole position. In doing so, Red Bull won their 16th of the year, a new single-season record. Surprisingly, there was no drama to Q3 at all. Vettel went out, set a lap that was good enough for pole and let everybody else take their shots. When McLaren's Lewis Hamilton came close to bumping him on the first run, Vettel returned to the track. In the middle of his second run, Felipe Massa brought out the yellow flags when his suspension broke going over a curb.
This rather abrupt loss of grip sent him nose-first into a wall in a style reminiscent of his 2009 Hungary wreck. Fortunately there were no springs flying around this time, and the Brazilian got out of the car unscathed. Behind him, however, were all the drivers who had any possibility of beating Vettel's time: Jenson Button, HWMNBN and Mark Webber. While Button was having difficulties some difficulties with his tires, he had a decent looking lap going. All three were badly hurt by the yellow flags, which required them to slow down in the vicinity of Massa's wreck. Lewis Hamilton, who was ahead of Massa on the track, aborted his second run for pole when it became clear that he wasn't even going to match his first flying lap. So instead of a tense shootout, it became a fait accompli. Nico Rosberg's Mercedes never really had a chance, and the two Toro Rossos never even left the garage. The Force India of Adrian Sutil turned an installation lap to the delight of the Indian fans, but returned to the garage to preserve his tires for the race.
At the back of the grid, we have an official changing of the guard. For the first time ever, both HRTs qualified ahead of both Virgins. It's been coming for a while now, but it's now obvious that the Virgin F1 team is now the slowest on the grid. Tim O'Glockenspiel barely turned a timed lap before his gearbox decided to grenade itself. He will be allowed to start dead last.
Finally, there are FIVE separate drivers dealing with grid spot penalties. Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez both lose three spots for their ignoring yellow flags at the end of P1, sending Hamilton to fifth and Perez to 20th on the grid. The Red Menace got a five-spot penalty for causing an accident (with Slappy Schumacher) in Korea, dropping him to 16th. Finally, both HRT drivers received penalties as well: Kittylitter for impeding another driver, which drops him to 23rd; and Daniel Ricciardo gets a five-spotter for having to change a gearbox before Quals. He'll start 22nd.
So, that's the news from the first Indian quals! The race is in the morning, and F1U! will duly follow. See you then!
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Don't have time to post the report right now. I'll do it sometime this afternoon. Sorry about the delay!
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October 28, 2011
Another 90 minutes of running on the new Buddh International Circuit is in the books, and the character of the track is starting to show up, at least to this observer. If I had to describe the place, it's Abu Dhabi with hills. This is not a good thing.
To be sure, the two layouts couldn't be more different. Yes, they both have a very long straightaway, but other than that, the two tracks have little in common. Yet they feel the same to me. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But that's how I'm seeing it right now.
The drivers, on the other hand, love the place. "Awesome," "fantastic," "good fun," "really nice," "challenging," and "interesting" are just some of the words drivers have used to describe the place. Well, good, I'm glad they like it. Hopefully it makes for awesome, fantastic, interesting and really nice racing come Sunday!
Of course, the drivers are still deciding on how best to drive the course. Turn 10 has gone from having to two racing lines to one, though it's a wide line. Nobody seems to have a handle on the correct way to handle the Turn 6/7 pair; the grass on the inside of 7 is getting seriously rough treatment, and a lot of it is ending up on the racing surface, having been dragged there by cars returning to the track. And both ends of the pit lane are a little squirrely, though nowhere near as bad as Korea.
On the plus side, I'm loving Turn 1/2/3. It's like Hermann Tilke finally figured out how to make a series of turns flow together naturally. Of course, they feed right into that 4000' long rollercoaster of a straightaway, which is now the longest in F1, if not the world.
In off-track news, both Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez have been handed matching three grid-spot penalties for the race. At the end of P1, Pastor Maldonado turned his engine into so much scrap metal, bringing out a full-course yellow and a recovery vehicle to carry his car away. Of course, track workers doing their job "over the wall" calls for double-yellow flags to be waved in that section of track. Drivers are to slow way down in that situation for the protection of the workers, and the stewards believe neither Hamilton or Perez did that sufficiently. For Hamilton, this is actually good because he could have been given a reprimand, his third for the season. Three reprimands in a season carries a FIVE grid-spot penalty. If both Perez and Hamilton were given reprimands, Perez would have escaped clean and Hamilton penalized. I think at that point Lewis would have climbed the nearest clock tower and start gunning down anybody wearing the FIA logo.
F1 Update!'s decision to use the designation "soft" and "hard" tires during our race writeups may go against the more traditional "prime" and "option" terms, but at least for this race it's going to prove to be less confusing! Generally, the designated option tire is the softer of the two compounds, but at the Indian Grand Prix, the option tire has been declared to be the harder tire. The prime tire is the soft. So, hurray for us, I suppose.
Finally, everybody please join F1U! in wishing Darth Bernie Ecclestone a happy 81st birthday, born October 28th 1930.
Quals Saturday morning, see you then!
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October 27, 2011
(PRE-SESSION) Hello, namaste and welcome to the second ever F1-related liveblog here at The Pond. Tonight is our first real glimpse of the new Buddh International Circuit in India. As with last year's liveblog of the debut of Korea's track, I'll be using time remaining in the session as a reference... if you see 1:15:07, that means there's one hour, fifteen minutes and seven seconds left in P1, not that it's 1:15am.
My broadband connection seems to be running quick tonight, but if last year's liveblog of Korea is any judge, I have the speed to stream video or update the blog... but not both at any given time. I'll probably be doing two or three entries at a time, just to keep myself from going insane. Any pictures will be screencaps from the SPEED streaming feed, which you can find right here.
Reports are that the track is very dusty. Well, yeah, that figures... it's still a construction site. Some people on-site are saying that not every bathroom has running water, electricity is being provided by generators when it's provided at all, and on and on. That's as may be, but the asphalt is down, the curbing is installed, and we're going to see a new track! I fully expect to see the two Indian drivers, Cowboy Karun Chandhok, who's only driving for Lotus in P1, and Narain Kittylitter, who's taking Vitantonio Liuzzi's seat at HRT for this race, out first... both to play streetsweeper and to say "hey, the first official cars on track were piloted by Indians!" We'll find out soon enough.
1:30:00 - And... the stream isn't working? What the heck?
?:??:?? - Well, crap. I'm going to reboot my computer. I gather the session has been red-flagged anyway, due to stray dogs being on the track. Force India was the first to get on track, surprise surprise, and Chandhok got the first official timed lap.
?:??:?? - I'm not the only one; over at F1 Fanatic's Live coverage, there's a bunch of people having the same problem.
?:??:?? - Peter "Smarmy" Windsor (there's a name we haven't heard in a while!) is apparently working for SPEED again in some capacity. He just tweeted that the live feed isn't working quite yet. Yay us.
?:??:?? - Still nothing, after a half-hour. I'm shutting this down for the night. I'll have full coverage of P2 on Friday. See you then!
40:24 - It's up, and this is the first thing to appear:
Cool shot, that.
37:27 - The track is either very dusty, or there's a metric farkton of smog in the air. It's hideous!
35:45 - HWMNBN comes to a halt at the side of the road, dead engine.
33:30 - Yo dawg, I hear you like F1, so I put some F1 in your F1 so you can watch F1 while you F1!
29:15 - Track is very dusty and slippery. Lots of people going off all over the place.
26:54 - My heavens, that big Turn 10 just goes on and on and on, doesn't it? That's gonna kill more front-left tires than anything, right there.
24:50 - Facilities look complete. Place seems a lot more done than Korea did last year... or even this year, come to think of it.
23:18 - Just to give you an idea of the amount of smog/dust/fog/whatever in the air, take a look at this:
One winces at the thought of that getting pulled into an 18000rpm engine... and it was worse earlier.
17:00 - I like the circuit, but it doesn't seem to have much of an identity yet. Maybe because I'm grumpy about the live stream not starting until half the session was already done? Perhaps. Or maybe it's because this is the first time we've ever seen cars on it. Still, other than that big big turn, the place seems flavorless.
12:00 - A Lotus just spun out... in the pit lane. Practicing a getaway, just looped it. Whoopsie!
10:40 - I'll say this: lots of elevation change. I'm surprised we haven't seen a driver ralphing into his cockpit yet. Up and down, up and down, here's a turn, up and down, rinse, repeat.
8:50 - DJ Squire stuffs his Toro Rosso into a wall.
Dust? What dust?
6:00 - And Pastor Maldonado blows his lump. NTTAWWT.
3:00 - Definitely two racing lines through Turn 10. When was the last time we saw that at a F1 track? Indy? Maybe not even there.
0:00 - Session over. Lewis Hamilton has the fastest time (1:26.836), followed by Vettel, Webber and Button. I'm withholding judgment on the circuit until I actually see people race on it, and maybe after the F1 TV Director stops popping the greenies. Good lord, he was changing camera angles every other second, like he was paid by the cut or something. I'm inclined to like the track, though. Seems promising, but so did Valencia and we know how that one has panned out. Very wide racecourse, I noticed. Some places, you could probably go four abreast and still have plenty of room.
Full coverage of P2 will be later Friday! Thanks for sticking around for this abbreviated liveblog!
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October 25, 2011
I woke up at my usual time, took my usual shower, got dressed in my usual clothes, and drove to work in my normal way... and I remember none of it. I got the Duck U Bookstore ready to go for the day... and felt sluggish, like I hadn't gotten enough sleep. I sat at my desk, stared at the pile of paperwork in front of me, sighed and started in. I began sorting through the stack of invoices, credit memos, statements and junk mail, literally shuffling paper from one pile to another.
Then with no warning, my heart felt like it had fallen down a flight of stairs and began to race. Faster and faster it went until it was too fast for me to count. I got up from my desk, walked outside, walked back into the store, and asked a coworker to call 911.
more...
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It was a struggle. For five years, us F1 fans here in America had no races that we could call our own. Oh, we could wander up to Canada, but it wasn't a US Grand Prix. It was just a race that was nearby. Last year, that changed with the announcement of the Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin, Texas, which begins next year.
It's to be a clockwise track, with a nearly 300' vertical elevation change to add to the excitement. Even better, it's a street circuit running along the New Jersey Palisades. The following elevation map is a screencap from today's announcement, so my apologies for the quality. The checkered flag is the probable start/finish line.
According to the track map, it's to be around 3.20 miles long. The cities and various powers-that-be that are involved have signed a ten-year agreement with Birdie Ecclestone. Let me say repeat that one more time: A TEN YEAR AGREEMENT! Holy crap, we've got at least one US Grand Prix for the next decade at the very least! This could only be better if it was in Chicago!
One thing... you might have noticed the yellow circle at the upper-right corner of the top-view track map. That circle marks the rough location of the West New York Sewerage Treatment Plant. I hereby declare that hairpin turn shall be, from this moment forward, solely known as "Pooh Corner."
So say we all.
Wonderduck's personal reaction: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
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October 24, 2011
Do you remember that feeling you got as a young child when Christmas was just a few days away? When the tree was beautifully trimmed, all aglow with lights and shiny ornaments and perhaps some tinsel? And underneath you can see a big box with your name on it. Remember what that felt like? The anticipation, the excitement, the almost intolerable feeling of anticipation? And then when Christmas came along sometimes you got exactly what you wanted (Red Ryder B-B gun!), sometimes you didn't (dress socks?), but either way the leadup was nearly as good as the day itself. Remember all that?
For fans of Formula 1, there is a similar time. It's when the great Circus heads to a brand new circuit, one that the teams have never turned a tire upon ever. It's a time of great hope and speculation: will this new track become legendary? Will it fade into the mists of time, unloved and unmourned? This is where we find ourselves today, as the Formula 1 teams, big and small alike, will be racing for the first time on the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India! Let's take a look at the track map for this first Grand Prix of India:
At first glance, it's clearly the work of the fevered claws of The Evil One himself, Hermann Tilke. Straightaway, tight turn, hairpin, straightaway, tight turn, twisty bits, back to the start to do it all over again. We've seen it a dozen times before from the Tilkemonster, and pretty much only one of his circuits (Turkey) has proven to be any good, with Korea's coin still flipping in the air.
But a closer look at Buddh International Circuit shows us that it has something that Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and the other generic Tilkeisms lack: elevation change. It goes uphill from Turn 1 to Turn 3, then it goes back downhill to the halfway point of the long straightaway. At that point, it goes back uphill to Turn 4... and then it's a fairly steep plummet down to Turn 5. Turns 3 and 4 are about 50 feet above the level of the main straight, more or less, which on a Tilke track is like the difference between the top and bottom of the Grand Canyon. But he's not done there, oh no. The Turn 10/11 complex, a greater-than-180°, ever-changing-radius loop, not only climbs but is also banked. No idea how substantial the banking is, though I think I'm safe in saying it's no more than 10 degrees, and probably quite a bit less. Still, any banking is unfamiliar territory for F1; not since the Circus raced at Indianapolis have they seen any turn that wasn't billiard-table flat. But even then, the roller coaster isn't finished. There's yet another climb from Turn 13 to Turn 15, then another steep dive to the final turn.
The track's promotional team is already saying that it'll be the "second-fastest circuit in the world," with an expected average speed of nearly 140mph. I can only assume they're referring to "road" circuits, since pretty much every oval in the US is faster than that. If it really is nearly as fast as Monza, that'll be quite a feat. Another feature that the powers-that-be are trumpeting is that the trackplan was run by the F1 teams for their input on what would make for better racing. As a result, it was made wider in some places (Turn 10, for example) to allow multiple racing lines and easier passing.
Pirelli says that they expect tire wear to be nothing out of the ordinary, but they're being quite conservative in compound choice for the race. They're bringing the Hard and Soft compounds, the first time we've seen the hard rubber since the British Grand Prix, and at that rainy race only one driver (Paul di Resta) ever actually put them on. There's expected to be a two-second delta between the two tire types, so don't expect there to be much running on the hards. Still, Pirelli made a good call here; while everybody expects the soft tires to last a reasonable amount of laps, they won't know that until they start running in earnest.
That earnest running will begin late Thursday night, all of which will be brought to us by the good folks at SPEED! Here's the scoop:
Thursday: Practice 1 goes from 1130pm to 1am, streaming live. Be aware that I'll be doing the second-ever liveblog of this session right here at The Pond, so stop in and be entertained!
Friday: 330am to 510am is Practice 2, live on SPEED. In contrast, this is too late/early, even for me.
Saturday: 1230am to 130am is Practice 3, streaming live. I'm undecided if I'm going to liveblog this; a lot will depend on how things go in the other two sessions. Quals is from 330am to 5am, live on SPEED. Again, waaaay too early for me.
Finally, Sunday brings us the first ever Grand Prix of India from 4am to 630am, live on SPEED. No real chance that I'll be able to get up that early I'm afraid. There's a replay from 2pm to 430pm as well.
Sharp-eyed readers might notice that there's something odd going on with the start times of each event: they're all beginning on the half-hour, as opposed to the top of the hour like normal. That's because of a peculiarity of India. India Standard Time is GMT +5:30, for a reason that I can only assume is because of the immense size of the country. Perhaps Ph.Duck would be kind enough to explain the actual reason to us!
So that's it! The Grand Prix of Christmas India schedule, liveblogging, I'm even taking Friday and Monday off so I can concentrate on this brand new track (and sleep, don't forget about sleep)! How's that for your F1 fanservice, huh? We'll see you then!
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October 22, 2011
I, and by association you, are living a charmed life. The final BD of Rio Rainbow Gate! was released on October 19th, yet the bonus OVA that was contained therein has yet to hit the torrents. While this may be a source of relief for you, for me it's just sheer torture. I know it's out there. Watching. Waiting.
Any minute now, it will, when I least expect it, suddenly appear on one of the torrent sites. And then my life will, once again, become one of sheer torment and pain. I will once again be subjected to the horrors that are RRG!, and like a lemming rushing headlong towards the edge of a precipice, I will be unable to do anything about it. I will be forced to embrace the pain to entertain my readers one last time.
And yet, I find myself looking forward to the OVA. I believe I am being irresistibly drawn to my self-inflicted agony, like a moth to a flame. It seems so pretty and inviting and warm... then *poof!* Moth flambe.
It's been over six months since the last episode aired. Six months of knowing that hell will, indeed, be coming to breakfast. It is merely a question of when.
Be afraid.
Be afraid. Like me.
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October 20, 2011
Back in 2008 at Brazil, David Coulthard's Chin mounted a camera to his helmet, somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth, to give viewers at home the first ever taste of what it's like to be in a F1 car at speed in a race. He was promptly wrecked in Turn 2 of the first lap. So much for that.
Until now.
Recently, he strapped on two cameras; one to the top of his helmet, the other right at eye level. The top of helmet-cam is nothing we've not seen before... heck, if you've ever played a racing videogame, you know what it looks like. But the eye-level cam is new. And, if you talk to di Grassi, it's not one that'll catch on, since it actually blocked his vision out of one eye. That's right, he drove the lap using just one eye.
No wonder he lost out at Virgin. But a cool viddy nonetheless!
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October 19, 2011
-Fate/Zero ep02
That is all.
Nah, that's not all. We're three episodes into the prequel of Fate/Stay Night, and it's a huge graphical upgrade. You'd expect that, of course, seeing how FSN is five years old now, but one could even argue that it looks better in some ways than the Unlimited Blade Works film from last year. Though UBW's effects blow everything out of the water.
-Unlimited Blade Works movie
I'd love to tell you something about what's going on in F/Z, but as of Ep03 nothing really IS happening. The Masters have all been introduced, their Servants have taken to the field, and then... Ep03 ended. What I'm saying is, it's moving a tad slowly.
It's slow, but it's sort of like a David Weber-style infodump. Without the past three episodes, we'd have no idea what's going on later.
I hope.
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October 17, 2011
A low, heavy sky and thin sunlight greeted the Thundering Herd as it
formed up on the grid. Reports were that rain was in the near future.
Would it affect the race for the Constructor's Championship? Would the
McLaren Resurgence continue? Would we ever hear from Ferrari again?
And now that he had wrapped up the Driver's Championship, whither
Vettel? THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Korea!
*LIGHTS OUT: It's a very short
dash from the front of the grid to the Turn 1 / Turn 2 pairing at Korea,
something on the order of 150m. This favors the driver that can make a
clean getaway off the line, as that counts just as much as raw
acceleration on a short run. Despite a fairly aggressive move from Seb
Vettel, sitting second on the grid, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton held pride
of place into the first turn and down the endless straight to Turn 3.
It wasn't until Turn 4, at the end of the next straightaway, that Vettel
managed to take the lead from his rival. From there, it became just
another Seb Vettel sort of race: get clear of the field by at least a
second before DRS usage was activated on Lap 3, then run away and hide.
And that's exactly what he did, though the lead in the first part of
the race wasn't more than five seconds or so.
*CUE THE RAIN: The men on the pit walls had a few anxious moments as the windows for the first pit stops began to open, as the sky began to spit rain here and there around the circuit. Do you gamble on intermediate rubber, or stay on slicks and hope that the rain goes away? Everybody rolled the dice to stay on slicks, and the rain, never more than a sprinkling around Turn 4, disappeared as quickly as it came. Didn't stop the F1U! crew from cackling evilly though, as we hoped a good frogswallower would develop.
*SAFETY DANCE CAR: When Renault's Red Menace decided that braking was for wimps on Lap 16, turning the rear of Slappy Schumacher's Mercedes into so much oatmeal in the process (see "Mooooo-oooove of the Race", below), a Safety Car was called out to allow the track workers to remove the debris. After the restart on Lap 21, it looked like we were going to have a race again. Vettel stayed ahead of Hamilton, but the lead was just a touch over a second... and the McLaren began to (agonizingly) slowly reel the Red Bull in. However, Vettel's teammate Mark Webber also began to reel in the two of them.
*HELLO, GOODBYE: On Lap 33,
Webber went all furious koala on Hamilton, hanging onto back of the
McLaren driver all the way around the circuit. The two put on a
tremendous exhibition of wheel-to-wheel racing from Turn 3, ending only
when they came to the technical section around Turn 7. However, this
tete-a-tete let Vettel drive off into the distance, adding three seconds
to his lead in one lap. After the second round of pitstops, the
Driver's Champion's lead had ballooned to 10 seconds and the race was,
for all intents and purposes, over. Hamilton and Webber pitted
together, came out together, and their battle continued on Lap 34 (see
"Move of the Race", below). Vettel was unchallenged for the remaining
20 laps and took his 10th win of the season, followed by Hamilton,
Webber, Button and HWMNBN.
*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Seb Vettel
has already won the 2011 Driver's Championship, but it's clear that he
isn't content to rest on his laurels. All he did was take the lead in
Turn 4 and then keep a fast Lewis Hamilton behind him until the safety
car came out. After the safety car period ended, he ran away and hid to
blow the rest of the field off the track. Pretty much the perfect race
for the two-time champ.
*TEAM OF THE RACE: Red Bull.
Both drivers on the podium with a 1-3 finish, and clinching their second
Constructor's Championship? Yeah, not bad. The only thing that kept
this from being a perfect day for the team was a dumb strategy call to
bring Mark Webber in at the same time as Lewis Hamilton that may have
cost them a 1-2. Still and all, if that's the worst thing that happened
to Red Bull today, they'll probably live with it.
*MOVE OF THE RACE: McLaren's
Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's Mark Webber had themselves an epic duel
today, one that lasted from the Safety Car period to the end of the
race. On Lap 33 the two pitted nose-to-tail and came out the same way
to begin Lap 34. Surprisingly, the Red Bull couldn't get close enough
to pass at the end of the DRS zone, and it looked like that was that for
this lap... until Hamilton locked up his brakes heading into Turn 5,
and the furious koala pounced.
He
took the inside line away from the McLaren into Turn 6, and again, it
all looked over. Surely the furious koala would pull away and set sail
after his teammate.
But no! The McLaren dangled a piece of bamboo in front of the koala and
squeezed him over into the next turn, retaking second place.
A simply exquisite piece of racing from both men, an exchange that earns them a rare shared MotR!
*MOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE:
Slappy Schumacher was cruising towards a solid points-paying finish.
To be sure, he had a hard-charging HWMNBN behind him, and Renault's Red
Menace was looking awfully racy, but as the race neared the half-way
point Slappy had to be feeling pretty good about the way his day was
going. Heading down to Turn 4, The Red Menace and HWMNBN were dueling
hard, with the Ferrari driver apparently not planning on braking until
he reached Pyongyang. The Red Menace held off on braking as long as he
could, then stomped hard on the slow-down pedal. The brakes did their
job well enough to lock up the front tires and the Renault was suddenly
uncontrollable... with Slappy right in his way.
Both cars were taken out of the race, and The Red Menace nearly collected HWMNBN in the process. Nicely done, Red! Here's another Mooooooo-oooove for your collection!
*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
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October 16, 2011
IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon was killed in a massive accident at today's Las Vegas 300. 15 cars were involved, which included two airborne at the same time. Wheldon's car was catapulted into the catch fencing, shearing off the rear wing, airbox and roll bar. Wheldon suffered injuries that was "unsurvivable", and passed away shortly afterward at a Las Vegas hospital.
After the announcement, the drivers that made it through the accident took to the track to run a five-lap tribute to the popular British driver as pit crews and track workers lined the circuit.
Wheldon was 33 and leaves behind a wife and two young children.
We here at F1 Update! extend our condolences to fans, friends and family, and our coverage of the 2011 Grand Prix of Korea will be delayed until Monday in tribute.
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October 15, 2011
-Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi ep12
To be honest, after having watched ep12 of ITnKU (or "A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives"), I have no idea what the show's title means. What I do know is that a) almost everybody in the show can use magic, 2) almost everybody in the show has the hots for the protagonist, and III) the female lead has hair that's longer than she is tall. And of course, the final episode of the season takes place as a bath house.
I gather the show is based on a successful series of light novels. Hopefully they're better than the one episode of the anime I just watched. But hey, ducks!
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The usual three drivers were sitting on the interview stand, but all was not well. One of them was in his normal good humor, but moods of the other two were substantially different. But what caused this reaction? Let's take a look at the provisional grid for the 2011 Grand Prix of Korea:
The streak is over! For the first time this season, someone other than a Red Bull driver will be on pole on Sunday. Of course Seb Vettel was more subdued than his normal smiling self; one would expect that under the circumstances. Jenson Button had his normal smile in place, looking full pleased with the grid slot he held. You'd expect Lewis Hamilton to be nigh on vibrating in place from joy and excitement, but to be honest, he looked more like Felipe Massa had just run over his dog... twice. It was so obvious that the english-language interviewer asked him about it. Hamilton's reply was a flat, nearly monotone "No, I'm happy. I'm really happy." One gets the feeling that Lewis can't wait for the season to be over.
The two Force India drivers elected to conserve their tires in Q3. While it was probably the correct move strategically (it's not like they really stood to gain more than one position, after all), it's still kind of sad. Farther down the grid, HRT's Daniel Ricciardo had a suspected water pump problem and never took to the track in Q1. He'll race only at the grace of the stewards, and it's anybodies guess whether they'll allow it.
I find that I'm less happy about the Red Bull pole run coming to an end than I expected. I've been wanting someone to do it all season, but now that it's over, I'm a little disappointed. It would have been cool to see Red Bull get all the poles in a season, something that's never happened before (the closest: McLaren took 15 of 16 in 1988 and 1989, and Williams did the same in 1992 and 1993).
For all the drama about the streak coming to an end, all in all this wasn't the most exciting Quals session ever. But that's okay too, because as both Hamilton and Vettel said, "It's what happens during the race that counts." I have this feeling that neither of them will win, and that Button will take his second race in a row. Some drivers are saying that the race will require five pit stops per car, which seems impossible. I guess we'll find out on Sunday! Stay tuned, this one might be a doozy.
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October 13, 2011
The last we saw of the Korean Grand Prix was that it was raining. Seems appropriate that our next vision of the Yeongam Circuit is... that it was still raining.
I'm going to have to assume that it did stop raining sometime in the past year. I think I would have heard something about 365 days of constant rain, no matter where it was. Be that as it may, what we got in first practice was lots and lots of rain, though not as much as the deluge that plagued the first ever Korean GP. Though it might have been because there wasn't as much water on the ground, the track seemed to handle it better too.
The same can't be said for the drivers.
While Cowboy's impressive ground loop was the most dramatic incident, seeing cars take to the run-off areas was a common sight, usually preceded by a moment of surprise squirrellyness and piscine twitching. The usual suspects looked good as they turned laps in the 2-minute range on the full wet tires, though even Driver's Champion Vettel had his share of moments.
However, for around 20 minutes it was raining so hard that nobody even thought about turning a wheel in anger on the soaked circuit... so the F1 cameras gave us "Rain Delay Theater," wandering around the grandstands and finding interesting vignettes.
Monsieur Jean-Eric Vergne is the Toro Rosso team's third driver for this race, and needs to learn Lesson #1 for all F1 Drivers: never ever look goofy while in the car.
There were dozens of other shots, mostly of Koreans staying dry or pointedly not staying dry, taking photos of other Koreans taking photos of other Koreans not staying dry, or even occasionally a F1 car in a garage. And then, from out of nowhere, came this:
...I'm not sure what to think of this.
I probably won't have a P2 report, though if something important happens I'll let you know. Unfortunately, The Pond is not a self-sustaining financial entity, so I have to be at work in the morning. There WILL be a Quals report as normal. See you then!
UPDATE: The good news in P2 was that it wasn't as wet. The bad news was that it wasn't dry enough to run slicks. This means that the teams will be heading into "Saturday"'s Quals session with very little data on how the new Pirelli rubber behaves around Yeongam. A dry P3 is gonna be awfully important... fortunately for the teams, the rest of the weekend is supposed to be bright and sunny. The changing conditions caused one accident, between the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Toro Rosso's DJ Squire, and it pointed out the horribleness of Korea's pit lane. DJ Squire was coming out of the pits, which expels cars onto the track on the outside of Turn 1. Rosberg had just finished a hot lap and the wet tarmac robbed him of the traction needed to get whoa'd up in time. The result?
Rosberg's front wing wound up stuck under his front right tire, which must have made for an exciting lap, while DJ Squire's Toro Rosso got away with a couple of scuffmarks. As you remember, the pit-in is horribly placed as well, sited as it is on the inside of the final corner, a high-speed blind turn. SOMEthing bad is gonna happen here in the not-so-distant future, mark my words.
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October 12, 2011
Nearly four years ago, I wrote a little piece about the anime Zipang!. I liked it at the time. Now I've gone back and watched the last few episodes and... well... it's probably just me, but I've noticed a lot of glaring discrepancies.
If you remember, the JMSDF cruiser Mirai is sent back in time to 1942. A lot of things happen, and in the climax to the series, the Mirai becomes involved in a duel with the USS Wasp. In the picture above, the Wasp is just beginning to launch her first attack on the Japanese cruiser. The SBD is flawlessly rendered, except that it's specifically said to be carrying a 1000lb bomb. To be sure, a Dauntless can carry a weapon of that size, and quite often did... except that when it did, it couldn't carry bombs on the wing positions. Looking at the Wasp, you'll note that it has a deck-edge elevator opposite the island. Indeed, she was the first ever carrier with such a thing. Only problem is that it didn't look like that; it was a simple framework arrangement instead.
It certainly doesn't help that I wrote a post about the Wasp last year. There are other problems as well. In the climactic battle, the carrier's first attack is 40 planes, divided between SBDs and Avengers. Her second attack is to be the same size. That's 80 planes right there, and the Wasp couldn't carry that many. We only see one Hellcat in the entire sequence. Sure, there's no need for them in the attack against a lone surface ship, but if she only has one squadron of F6Fs, that still puts her Air Group around 96... many many more aircraft than she could ever carry. And then there's this picture:
Episode 02 takes us to the Battle of Midway, right as the SBDs come raining down on Kido Butai. Above, we see the Soryu. As is traditional, her flight deck is packed with aircraft... though they all appear to be Zeroes. Of course, we now know that the Japanese carriers didn't have their flight deck filled with aircraft at any time after the Midway striking force landed. The producers did get the location of her island correct, though. However, I'm not entirely sure what those SBDs are doing. Oh, yes, they're pulling up from their bombing run, except they're pulling straight up (the next couple of seconds show them flying right into the camera). 1) the pilots would be unconscious from the g-loads, and b) the wings would have come off. Still, it's an exciting shot.
I'm nitpicking, but I've got to, it's my job. Let's not even talk about the way the characters go off-model constantly... Zipang! is an interesting watch, but I'm no longer convinced it's good. The CG ships and planes are pure WWII pr0n, though.
Even if the Kaga looks a little squat and cartoony.
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October 10, 2011
After Seb Vettel clinched the Driver's Championship at Japan, one might be inclined to think there's nothing else to race for. In NASCAR or the IRL, you'd be right. However, this is Formula 1, which has always been a Constructor's marque. Certainly it's nice to have the World Champion driving for you, but the Constructor's Championship is where the money is. The financial difference between finishing first and finishing second is in the tens of millions of dollars. So you betcha there's still something to drive for, and this weekend the F1 Circus heads to Yeongam, South Korea for the second Korean Grand Prix. Let's take a look at the track map:
As you may remember, last year's inaugural race was mostly an aquatic affair, and when it finally stopped raining the track never dried and the sun went away. It's hard to judge just exactly how this circuit runs, since we never saw any dry-weather racing the whole weekend. In practice and Quals, the track surface proved to be both slippery and abrasive at the same time... and that was on the more durable Bridgestone tires. With Pirelli bringing the soft and super-soft tires to the circuit, lord only knows how long the rubber will last.
Of course, "lord only knows" also describes how the track'll ride this year. In a move born out of desperation, the race organizers surfaced the track in a fast-curing asphalt that had a high oil percentage. This guaranteed that the course would be ready for race weekend, but also guaranteed that the surface would be permanently greasy. However, that was last year. The track has had a year to weather in, and while I doubt it'll be great, it'll probably be better.
One of the problems last year was that the heavy rain that fell had no way to drain. The long straightaway is lined with concrete walls, and those walls contained the water like a swimming pool. Everywhere else the problem was that the track is built on reclaimed swampland that's just a few feet above sea-level. It was like pouring water on a sponge; it can absorb to some level, but after that it just can't take any more. Fortunately, it looks like we're to have a dry race this year... maybe. Who knows?
That reclaimed land also began settling almost as soon as the asphalt was put down, leading to a rather bumpy surface in some very uncomfortable places... mostly braking zones and the apices of turns, it seemed. I doubt they could fix that, short of resurfacing the track... and they surely didn't do that.
So what this race preview comes down to is that we have no freakin' idea what the track will be like for this weekend's contest. Let's not even think about what sort of effect DRS will have! In any case, we'll find out thanks to the good folks at SPEED! As usual, they'll be bringing us coverage of every session of the weekend! Here's the lineup:
Thursday: Practice 1: 8p - 930p (streaming)
Friday: Practice 2: 12midnight - 140a (live), Practice 3: 9p - 10p (straming)
Saturday: Quals: 12midnight - 130a (live)
Sunday: 2011 Grand Prix of Korea: 1230a - 3a (live), 1030a - 1p (replay)
Along with the Legendary Announce Team, the F1 Update! crew will be all over the weekend as well! Hope you'll join us, exclusively at The Pond*!
*no other place wants us.
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