Grand Prix Rejects

The Mountain Man

Question: how many drivers have been arrested before, either before, during or after their careers? Lehto has been sentenced for manslaughter, and Bertrand Gachot did time for assaulting a taxi driver with tear gas. They're the only two I can think of. But I know Tomas Enge lost the 2002 F3000 titl...

The Mountain Man

ROTY Driver Jarno Trulli. He should have retired last year. Very sad seeing him trudging at the back of the pack and being regularly overshadowed by his teammate on (presumably) equal equipment. ROTY Team Williams. Everything that's been said. Unless they can pull a solid 2012 season I see no future...

The Mountain Man

Mark Webber. I could be more generous but his teammate literally minced the opposition over the weekend while he went nowhere and fast. Vitantonio Liuzzi. Caused an old fashioned pile up at race start. It won't win him any friends. But the winner would be... Sauber. Not just for this race. They had ...

The Mountain Man

Better to bump an old thread then create a new one. I keep seeing Fernando Alonso advertising Fiat 500's. This is fine by itself but presumably the advert was originally filmed in Italian. For the English version of this advert, is some what fishy. (WARNING CINGEWORTHY) m I saw the Italian version ...

The Mountain Man

Unluckily I haven't got any papaya in the house at the moment but I do have some viciously sharp slices of dried mango...

The Mountain Man

The reasons "reality" shows are taking over everything are really very, very simple. They are the cheapest programs you can put on air. You can save money everywhere, from the buffoons prancing in front of the cameras to production values. Are people really salivating to see reality shows?...

The Mountain Man

3rd

2nd

1st

The Mountain Man

F1 is changing, but then its been changing constantly since 1950, and people have been complaining about almost every change for 61 years, and yet we're all still here. It will be fine. I agree, but believe me F1 fans are nothing compared to motorcycle racing fans. If it were for them we would stil...

The Mountain Man

I think I was one of those disappointed by how poorly FIA handled KERS in F1. It had potential from day one but it was heavily restricted to "level the play field" since the Mercedes/Zytek system was felt to be having an "unfair advantage" over the competition. It was one of thos...

The Mountain Man

Sticking to the spirit of this thread I will only nominate to guys I've recently heard mentioned and only later remembered about having an F1 career . This doesn't mean they were bad or anything... just people I forgot drove in F1 in the first place. Paolo Barilla Allan McNish Henri Pescarolo Jean-L...

The Mountain Man

3rd place-D'Ambrosio's comical spin in the pit lane. Has he been tutored by Coulthard? 2nd place-HRT's front winglets snapping on a regular basis. Are they made of the same ultra cheap carbon fiber as most tacky motorcycle accessories? 1st place-how the track stewards handled Nick Heidfeld's Renault...

The Mountain Man

A few quick considerations. First thing is, of course, the absolutely awful timing of this announcement. With the NotW scandal so fresh in the public mind it was obvious a deal involving a hugely popular sport like F1 and News Media was going to generate a ton of controversy. I take it was either pl...

The Mountain Man

...and for once, only once, the whole of Internet agreed on something. I personally find it unbelievable they announced this broadcast agreement in the middle of such a huge scandal involving the Murdoch media conglomerate. It means they are pretty sure the average schmuck will just pay up front and...

The Mountain Man

Grooved tyres. Absolutely ridiculous on an F1, even more so when everybody can buy slicks for a trackday. "Experimental" fuel mixtures. As a chemist I am glad we got rid of these things: they were really dangerous, especially when they were handed by untrained pit crew with no protective g...

The Mountain Man

A selection of Wankel-engined Norton NRS588's sporting the iconic JPS black-gold livery.

The Mountain Man

1993 European GP (Donington Park).
I rest my case.

The Mountain Man

James Hunt. Fairly easy.

The Mountain Man

Speaking of racing in the Soviet Bloc has anyone ever heard of Heinz Melkus? This man was nothing short of one of the unsung heroes of motorsports. He was a tuner active in the DDR in the '60s and '70s. He started out by building Formula Junior cars for the national championship: the first cars were...

The Mountain Man

Oh yes, the Moskvitch G5. This was to be the "Soviet F1". The engine deserves a bit of mention: called GD-1 it was a V8 built out of four cylinder blocks taken from the Vostok S360 racing motorcycle (actually a Jawa) and reworked to use two common camshafts per bank. Since the Soviet indus...

The Mountain Man

You got it all wrong.
Bernie was actually referring to the fact he's making more money now than during the Schumacher era.

The Mountain Man

Another thing that hurts badly tracks such as Spa is the fact they are heavily underutilized. Our local track (a smallish affair at 2,5 km) is in use pretty much non-stop from late March to early November. Apart from competitions they have private testing by car and tyre manufacturers, historical ra...

The Mountain Man

Finding some contacts for P.U.R.E. is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I've tried looking up in a couple of Swiss phone and business guides but there's no contact leading to them: perhaps if someone could tell me which canton they are incorporated in I can do a more detailed search. The only...

The Mountain Man

Thanks Mario and Ibsey. Britain did acquire a number of German designs as a form of "war reparations" in 1945-1946. The famous BSA Bantam motorcycle, which stayed in production for two decades and was a big profit turner, was in fact a German DKW design. As Bert Hopwood said in his memorie...

The Mountain Man

Spy stories... there's a couple from motorcycle racing. In 2004 some highly experimental tyres were stolen from a locked and guarded Michelin truck in a paddock during a BSB (British Superbike) race. At the time Michelin was using BSB to test advanced solutions which, if effective, would then be tra...

The Mountain Man

Great thread, great thread, thanks everybody for making it so interesting.
I seem to remember in 1976 Mauro Forghieri fitted some huge fairings to the front wheels of the Ferrari 312T2. This was ostensibly made to "improve brakes cooling ducts". FIA officials didn't buy into it.

The Mountain Man

1)Whoever had the bright idea of putting up those concrete barriers Nick Heidefeld almost crashed into after his front wing exploded. Major kudos to Nick for avoiding them with a superhuman effort. They're not concrete. They're just regular crash barriers designed to stop a car from going down the ...

The Mountain Man

I nominate the fans, absolutely. Standing for hours under a downpour while nothing happens speaks volumes.

The Mountain Man

Nominations: 3)Kamui Kobayashi. I love him like the next bloke but he did far too many mistakes and when the rain ceased he seemed like Superman struck by a kryptonite bullet. Sixth, maybe fifth place was well within reach. 2)Lewis Hamilton. Enough said. 1)Whoever had the bright idea of putting up t...

The Mountain Man

Due to Japan Incorporated stormy relationship with racing in any shape or form I don't know if they would be really interested in competing at Le Mans, especially when present rules are so biased towards Audi's and Peugeot's big diesel engines. Sure, Honda designed and built a bike to beat Ducati at...

The Mountain Man

Weird helmet graphics, even for the times.

The Mountain Man

If someone at Lotus-Renault had a sense of humor they should have painted their cars solid yellow just for the occasion. For the youngest readers it was the color scheme Lotus adopted in 1987 when they were sponsored by Camel. PS: are JPS cigarettes even available in Canada? If not what's the point?

The Mountain Man

Speaking of racing, but on two wheels I can think of a supremely rejectful exploit: Honda's attempt to compete with an oval piston four stroke bike (NR500) in the late '70s-early '80s. Man was it a complete waste of time and money! At the time two stroke GP machines from Suzuki and Yamaha were all b...

The Mountain Man

Obscure suggestion alert - what about the Borgward engines some privateers used in the back of Coopers and Lotuses in the late 50s/early 60s? Anyone knows something else about them? I seem to recall Borgward engines were pretty good in F2 at the end of the '50s. They had a neat four cylinder 1500cc...

The Mountain Man

Obscure suggestion alert - what about the Borgward engines some privateers used in the back of Coopers and Lotuses in the late 50s/early 60s? Anyone knows something else about them? I seem to recall Borgward engines were pretty good in F2 at the end of the '50s. They had a neat four cylinder 1500cc...

The Mountain Man

If there's one thing I miss are the drivers. Today I have the suspect drivers spend as much time preparing what to say and do in front of cameras and microphones as they spend training. Given the fact even a single misinterpreted phrase is enough to land you into troubles with FOTA, FIA, the sponsor...

The Mountain Man

Those good old barriers... I think they killed more people than they actually saved. There are more advanced designs available but those things are viciously sharp at the hedges. I am part of motorcyclists' rights group (ready to take flak) and I can vouch all the horror stories are true. Recently a...

The Mountain Man

Hi everybody. New here and first post! I'd like to post a few news about the cancellation of the Rome GP. Plainly put the city had no money to run the show. The city council is currently so strapped for the cash they had to institute a new "tourist tax" (a few quids over each hotel room re...

Grand Prix Rejects

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