A little something to tie us over until friday practice...

1978 Long Beach Grand Prix

All metal barriers and 0 tyre walls, racing in the 70's/80's was so manly..

First live race weekend on the BBC looking forward to it FU Sky

yes it was a great time. I was actually working at the LBGP during that period as part of the track maintenance/building.

What a stupid thing to say.

Did you even watch the clip? There is tyre staples in every possible spot.

Did you see Maldonado in Melbourne this year?
Do you not realize that Monaco is obviously still on the calendar? ...

calm down Francis.

Sick vid Schu. Love those old onboard shots. The sound when he opens the throttle is just wow
Btw is friday practice still on that Speed TV stream?

In case Bahrain should be cancelled and you guys need some methadone I highly recommend reading "Analysing Formula 1" by Roger Smith.
The books promises "innovative insights into winners and winnings in Grand Prix racing since 1950" and as I find it delivers pretty well.
It got tons of statistics and graphs, stuff which 2+2 people would like I guess
A fact that I found interesting, to name just one: Out of the 774 F1 races from 1950 to 2007 which produced 17,499 individual starts only 88 different drivers have emerged as GP winners.
Since I'm too lazy to write a detailed review I just link you to this here F1 Fanatic Review

yes sir it is!

Lotus protest against Mercedes DRS rejected

Lotus has had its formal protest against the controversial Mercedes DRS system rejected by the FIA.

After a number of teams had been awaiting clarity on the innovative system which has seen Mercedes extremely competitive in qualifying when DRS usage is not limited, Lotus lodged an official protest on Thursday. A note from the clerk of the course read:

"A protest has been lodged by Lotus F1 team concerning the Technical Delegate's scrutineering report (Document 5) of today's date regarding cars 7&8 relating to their conformity with Article 3.15 of the FIA F1 Technical Regulations.

"Accordingly a hearing of the parties concerned (namely Lotus F1 Team and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team) is convened for 17.15 today Thursday April 12th 2012."

Lewis Hamilton will have a 5 place grid penalty for having to change his gearbox.

At best he'll start 6th, but given his qualifying prowess he probably will start 6th.

I expect RBR to have improved over the break.

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlin...2/4/13203.html

And a betting preview to the race

http://t.co/hjCEfoVk

Haven't had F1 for so long I'm buzzing just to see practice

Free live P1 at 7pm pst tonight

http://stream.speedtv.com/formula-one

Well, since P1 is at 4am german time I will miss that. But P2 for breakfast seems decent.

Speaking of old clips... What a great battle!

Hoping Mercedes have sorted out there tire degradation for this race because they have the pace in qualifying

Merc's fast qualy is mostly down to their DRS. Once that is banned or copied by all teams, they won't be as quick. Lotus seems to be third best team currently, but the long break will have allowed a lot of development. Looking forward to this race weekend.

P1 on now...

and no one is banning the blown wing.

Not this week. Charlie W says it's OK too. So, unless Lotus appeals and wins, all top teams will have it for European races.

WTF is Big Mac hanging off the back of there diffuser???

Well none of us really knows but so far it looks more like the problem is in their tyres, and thats what the team and both drivers have been saying (and would explain why they keep complaining about tyres during the race). Their DRS thingy isn't that overpowered.

try and look up the thread a few posts...

Easy there Schumi. You stated "no one is banning the blown wing." That's a very broad statement. I was just agreeing that you are correct as it applies to this race while adding the qualifier that the issue may not be dead if Lotus appeals and this is further argued later. To your point, I agree that it seems doubtful (but not impossible) that it gets banned this season based on everything we've seen and heard so far. I do think this is Merc's main performance edge as their race pace seems lacking even when on fresh tyres.

In case anyone here hadn't heard, Bahrain is going to happen next week. I hope everything goes well there and we only see peaceful protests.

Dry weather forecast for qualifying. Slight chance of rain for race, but expected to be dry.

Red Bull running two completely different exhaust configurations. Vettel going back to an older exhaust set-up from pre-season testing (by his choice) while Webber will be using the latest iteration. I imagine the "old" exhaust will be new again for both drivers in an upcoming race.

surprised no comments yet - what a quali result!

Just woke up and read the news. Great result. With Hamilton's penalty it puts all the big guns down the grid. Really looking forward to the race!

Spoiler for those that havent seen

I'm really happy for Rosberg to finally make it. Not to be results oriented, but you could see it coming after a strong performance in Australia where he was quick in Q3 but messed up his lap. Similar thing in Malaysia if I remember correctly. But nevertheless, fantastic pole lap.
Good job by Mercedes overall, but the real test will be tomorrow. Quali never was their problem this year due to the double DRS.
I would love to see Kimi win, or even better, Kobayashi, who made the biggest accomplishment of the day imo, being up there within 0.150 sec with Hamilton and Schumacher.
Ideal preconditions for an exciting race