Panderbox

[WeirdKerr]

i was born in a year when Emmerson Fittipaldi won the WDC......in a red and white car......

[Debaser]

You could be 36 or 21 as you could technically be WDC by winning Indycars.

[WeirdKerr]

well ok.... im 36

[thehemogoblin]

well ok.... im 36

Everybody ostracize the old man now...

[Nessafox]

hooray for me, i'm birthdaying!

[Phoenix]

hooray for me, i'm birthdaying!

Happy birthaday then. Someone give him a fresh Belle-Vue.

[tommykl]

Unless, of course, he prefers Jupiler.

I'm 14, btw.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Considering the reputation of young(ish) men on the internet, it's doubly surprising how civil and restrained the dialog is here.

While I'm definitely one of the very oldest, it's nice to know I'm not the oldest.


Stay thirsty my friends. Oh, and enjoy the potential for a Williams victory while it lasts (which I hope is through the checkered flag tomorrow).

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Just wanted to pander in as I have just finished re-listening to the world famous Melbourne 2009 podcast featuring HWNSNBM's seminal interview (which alone would constitute sufficient reason for the existence of this website) and wanted to revisit this touchy-feely thread and reiterate it's message.

[Priceless]

Considering the reputation of young(ish) men on the internet, it's doubly surprising how civil and restrained the dialog is here.

I agree. It's been a long time since I've last participated in an internet forum, but this is what makes this place so pleasant to me. Reading that made me want to "pander in", too.

I'm going to give my age in the form of who was champion at the time I was born (not because i'm massively old and want to be all cryptic and that, but just because, I dunno, it seems more fun. Is that dreary? Probably).

Aaaaanyway, Jody Sheckter

Nelson Piquet was the reigning champion when I was born. Speaking of Nelson Piquet, I was born around the time of one of the features of the site.

[Peter]

I have had far better F1 discussion and fun chat here than on any other forum to date. Love you guys, no homo.

[DemocalypseNow]

What I like about this place is the lack of flamers/trolls - actually there's only one on the entire forum, however I can't name said Finn, whom resides in Vuosaari, Helsinki, who is also a Kimi Raikkonen & Sebastian Vettel supporter, due to the super-injunction he took out against me. Bastard.

But, above all else, its nice to see some people who actually realise F1 doesn't just comprise of Ferrari, McLaren and now Red Bull. To quote 2DTV, it's good to see some people appreciate "all the crappy ones at the back that never win anything".

[dr-baker]

What I like about this place is the lack of flamers/trolls - actually there's only one on the entire forum, however I can't name said Finn, whom resides in Vuosaari, Helsinki, who is also a Kimi Raikkonen & Sebastian Vettel supporter, due to the super-injunction he took out against me. Bastard.

Oh, you mean the guy who has pointed opinions and isn't afraid to use them...?

[FullMetalJack]

What I like about this place is the lack of flamers/trolls - actually there's only one on the entire forum, however I can't name said Finn, whom resides in Vuosaari, Helsinki, who is also a Kimi Raikkonen & Sebastian Vettel supporter, due to the super-injunction he took out against me. Bastard.

Oh, you mean the guy who has pointed opinions and isn't afraid to use them...?

This. At least on this forum, you're allowed an opinion

[DemocalypseNow]

What I like about this place is the lack of flamers/trolls - actually there's only one on the entire forum, however I can't name said Finn, whom resides in Vuosaari, Helsinki, who is also a Kimi Raikkonen & Sebastian Vettel supporter, due to the super-injunction he took out against me. Bastard.

Oh, you mean the guy who has pointed opinions and isn't afraid to use them...?

The super injunction means I can neither confirm nor deny that. But yes, it is.

[Phoenix]

Guys, let's not mess with the man (or in this case, the Finnish), OK?

BTW, what the hell is a super-injunction?

[ADx_Wales]

Phoenix, be grateful that you dont know what the british press or indeed the british public have to put up with .

This is not the british motorsport press, this is something much worse.

[mario]

Guys, let's not mess with the man (or in this case, the Finnish), OK?

BTW, what the hell is a super-injunction?

Not being a legal expert, I cannot give you the full details, but I can give you a little run down.
In the UK, an injunction is a court order that can be obtained by an individual, or company, to prevent somebody from carrying out a particular action - in this case, preventing a media outlet from publishing a particular story (what is sometimes called a "gagging order"), or publishing specific details about an event. The reasons for that may be varied - providing anonymity for minors, preventing details which may prejudice a jury from being published and so forth - but the existence of a gagging order could be reported by other media outlets (although the actual reason for the gaggin order could not be published).

Now, in recent years, the English legal system has seen the rise of what has been termed a super injunction, and is rooted in the debate about what reforms should be made to UK privacy laws (which are currently in shambles). Not only does a super injunction prevent all media outlets from publishing the story within England, but the very existence of the "gagging order" itself, along with the parties involved, cannot be disclosed by the media.
As you can imagine, that has caused a huge amount of controversy within the UK - whilst the current debate turns around a number of celebrities who have used super injunctions to prevent the media publishing various high profile affairs, there have been some more malicious variants. One of these is the Trafigura affair, where the company Trafigura applied a super injunction to prevent the details of an internal report into the dumping of highly toxic waste in the Ivory Coast. That was made famous when Cater Ruck (the legal firm who obtained the super injunction) complained when an MP used his right of Parliamentary privilege to bring up the super injunction in the House of Commons - and attempted to force Hansard (the body responsible for recording day to day events in the UK Parliament) to strike all references to Trafigura from their records.
They lost that case in the end - not least because what they were trying to do was to effectively censure the House of Commons, and breach several centuries of legal precedence by effectively trying to revoke the rights of Parliamentary privilege. Nevertheless, it is a sad example of why the UK is currently rated as having the worst libel and privacy laws in the world - and why there is a bitter battle between where investigative journalism ends and personal privacy begins.

[Phoenix]

Oh, well, I now get the whole meaning of it. Thanks, mario - you're a wealth of knowledge about everything, not just F1

[shinji]

mario... seriously?

I just associate the term with Giggseh.

[ADx_Wales]

Giggseh and Imogen Heap or something.

[DonTirri]

Meh. I am not a troll.
I just have pointed (even controversial?) opinions and I'm not exactly the most... politically correct in putting them out.

But regardless, I agree that the lack of trolls (and idiots in general) makes this place a lovely one.

And the main reason I keep sticking The Finger in everyones face is because I find the total 180 everyone did last year about Seb completely ridiculous.
Atleast I stick to the guys I like (and especially guys I dislike) and not turn around randomly.

But yeah. Love being here.... please don't kick me out?

[DemocalypseNow]

And the main reason I keep sticking The Finger in everyones face is because I find the total 180 everyone did last year about Seb completely ridiculous.
Atleast I stick to the guys I like (and especially guys I dislike) and not turn around randomly.

It's hardly "random". His ethics changed. His attitude changed. He went from young quick rookie who was a breath of fresh air to becoming a corporate puppet for Helmut Marko & Red Bull Racing. We changed attitude because he did. Blaming Mark for Turkey 2010 was a joke. It was the pivotal moment that confirmed a long lasting suspicion about a change of the tides...

And then we replaced him with Kobayashi
Yes, people are already starting to dislike how much praise he gets on this forum, but, well, as you say, haters gonna hate...

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Don Tirri, I hope you stick around. But is it really so odd that Seb has fallen out of favor here? First of all, he started winning everything, and that is a major turn-off for people who tend to like the underdog/reject type drivers. Second, he beat Webber, one of the best-liked drivers by people all over the spectrum. It's an emotional reaction for sure, but you can't discount it.


Kostas, I think you're attributing Helmut Marko's feelings/actions to Seb. Marko is a slime ball, Seb is just a hot-headed youth. No, he didn't cover himself in glory last year during "number two-gate", but all of the blame for Webber's shoddy treatment last season lies with Mateschitz, Marko, and Horner.


As for "the finger" and its general off-puttingness (I know that's not a word), I just think it's an awkward gesture by an awkward young man trying to express his joy and excitement. No doubt it is being encouraged by some marketing types as well. I think he'll either grow out of it, or grow into it.

I like him, but I don't adore him.

[DanielPT]

Don Tirri, I hope you stick around. But is it really so odd that Seb has fallen out of favor here? First of all, he started winning everything, and that is a major turn-off for people who tend to like the underdog/reject type drivers. Second, he beat Webber, one of the best-liked drivers by people all over the spectrum. It's an emotional reaction for sure, but you can't discount it.

Start winning is really a turn-off for most people on this forum. But what if Kobayashi starts winning? I am not prepared to give up liking him!

[mario]

Don Tirri, I hope you stick around. But is it really so odd that Seb has fallen out of favor here? First of all, he started winning everything, and that is a major turn-off for people who tend to like the underdog/reject type drivers. Second, he beat Webber, one of the best-liked drivers by people all over the spectrum. It's an emotional reaction for sure, but you can't discount it.

Start winning is really a turn-off for most people on this forum. But what if Kobayashi starts winning? I am not prepared to give up liking him!

It's not so much the winning, but the way in which the drivers have reacted to it. After all, we've seen quite a few drivers these days go for the "PR friendly" messages over the radio; an anodyne mixture of swagger layered with pleasing the sponsors.
However, were Kobayashi to win, I doubt that we'd get that - because he ultimately takes pleasure simply in being able to race, let alone what he achieves. I've no doubt that it would be emotional, but I expect that he'd be far more modest about it than most of the other drivers, and more heartfelt. So, if he were to win, I expect that we'd still be able to praise him for his attitude to racing; just simply have extra reason to cheer.

[tommykl]

Don Tirri, I hope you stick around. But is it really so odd that Seb has fallen out of favor here? First of all, he started winning everything, and that is a major turn-off for people who tend to like the underdog/reject type drivers. Second, he beat Webber, one of the best-liked drivers by people all over the spectrum. It's an emotional reaction for sure, but you can't discount it.

Start winning is really a turn-off for most people on this forum. But what if Kobayashi starts winning? I am not prepared to give up liking him!

It's not so much the winning, but the way in which the drivers have reacted to it. After all, we've seen quite a few drivers these days go for the "PR friendly" messages over the radio; an anodyne mixture of swagger layered with pleasing the sponsors.
However, were Kobayashi to win, I doubt that we'd get that - because he ultimately takes pleasure simply in being able to race, let alone what he achieves. I've no doubt that it would be emotional, but I expect that he'd be far more modest about it than most of the other drivers, and more heartfelt. So, if he were to win, I expect that we'd still be able to praise him for his attitude to racing; just simply have extra reason to cheer.

Exactly.

I have a feeling that, were Kobayashi to ever win a race, his celebration would be more a Webberesque cry than than a Vettelesque finger/inane speech/finger-inane speech. Seriously (and I'll use a phrase used by Brundle here) the guy sounds like Cantona behind the wheel.

[ADx_Wales]

Theres a difference between Cantona's "Poetry" and Vettel's post-race brain farts.

Cantona was and still is a fruitloop, Vettel is just boring.

[DonTirri]

Start winning is really a turn-off for most people on this forum.

Thats the kind of attitude I actually consider bullshit. It's seriously not that different from liking someone when he is winning and stopping to like him when he isn't.
I rooted for Vettel when he was the whizkid of 08. I rooted for Vettel when he was the underdog the entirety of 09 and now that he is on the top of his game dominating, I'm still rooting for him, loving the fact that he found success.

But really. Even if I do support Vettel, I am still very much a underdog-supporter. Kamui-san is my second favorite driver of the current grid and I support Heikki and team Lotus vehemently.

What I love about this forum though is the fact that I can express my opinions, however pointed and /or controversial they are without a mod harping on my backside. (I think I've had a mod reprimand me once or twice and both posts were made heat-in-the-moment and I realized they went overboard afterward.)

[eytl]

See, even in discussing why we like/dislike Vettel we're actually backing that up with logically-reasoned arguments. That proves the entire point of this thread, does it not?

For the record, in my opinion the reason the tide turned (including mine, admittedly) against Vettel was not necessarily because he started winning, although that probably had something to do with it. It was the fact that he was the figurehead of a perceived injustice - the bias towards him by Red Bull and against Webber (and in this regard I declare my patriotic interest). Even if Vettel wasn't the perpetrator of the injustice, he was the winner out of it. (Although you will note my views after Abu Dhabi last year when I said Red Bull were completely vindicated by not backing Webber in the last few races of the year.)

For me, another factor is seeing how well a driver handles adversity and mistakes. I still think Hamilton acts like a twit sometimes (like a week ago) but he learnt in 2009 how hard it be to struggle and make mistakes and he toned his apparent arrogance down a bit, and I've appreciated that and said so. One of Vettel's turn-offs last year was seeing how he reacted to his errors, eg in Turkey, Britain, Belgium ... and put it this way, it wasn't to look in the mirror. All drivers at this level probably have quite a bit of confidence, even arrogance. No one's an angel. But beneath a lot of Vettel's cheerfulness, last year revealed that there was a devilishly-determined, unjustifiedly-over-confident and proud young man. In F1 Rejects land, that's a no-no.

But anyway, let's all keep enjoying the civil and informed discussions!

[Phoenix]

Start winning is really a turn-off for most people on this forum.

Thats the kind of attitude I actually consider bullshit. It's seriously not that different from liking someone when he is winning and stopping to like him when he isn't.

Give this man a beer!

Seriously, I can't conceive supporting someone yet not wanting that person to achieve success. It's just downright stupid. If Kobayashi wins races, even championships, as long as he keeps his attitude, I'll support him.

Heck, I'm a proud F1 Rejects chap, but I still support Alonso, even though is considered a devilish and despicable character by many here and outside. And we all support Webber even though he nearly won the championship last year, right?

[Myrvold]

Deletraz is doing Le Mans for "Luxury Racing". Ferrari!

*I might be a bit slow to notice, but looking forward to it!*

[Salamander]

Start winning is really a turn-off for most people on this forum.

Thats the kind of attitude I actually consider bullshit. It's seriously not that different from liking someone when he is winning and stopping to like him when he isn't.

Give this man a beer!

Seriously, I can't conceive supporting someone yet not wanting that person to achieve success. It's just downright stupid. If Kobayashi wins races, even championships, as long as he keeps his attitude, I'll support him.

I think Daniel was getting at the people who had more of an ambivalent opinion of Vettel, rather than those who consider him their favourite driver. Personally, I used to like him a bit, but not nearly as much as, say, DonTirri. Although it wasn't so much the fact that he was winning, but his reactions to quite a few questionable incidents (Turkey 2010 sticks out the most in this regard for me) that turned me off. I think it's similar for most other people who have gone from thinking Vettel is okay to disliking him, since most (that I've seen) seemed to stop liking him before he figured out how to win on a regular basis.

[DanielPT]

I think Daniel was getting at the people who had more of an ambivalent opinion of Vettel, rather than those who consider him their favourite driver.

This.

I actually don't mind Vettel winning or dominating as long as there is action behind and people catching up on pace (Which didn't happened in Schumi years. Also I didn't liked Schumi because he played dirty often, which Vettel doesn't seem to do). It is a different war and one I also like seeing. Contrary to many I am prepared for the fact that not all championships will go to the wire. In the nineties (and early naughties) there are quite a few that didn't went to the wire.

About those who didn't like Vettel antics after some incidents and circumstances remember that there are not many champions who are nice. In most cases misjudgements come from that competitiveness that are inherent to champions. When a champion is widely liked in 90% of the cases it is a PR job. Look at Tiger Woods. People tend to like Kobayashi also because he is sincerely modest and because he is a decent bloke. No PR would want to do this because one ends up looking a bit weak at the eyes of the competition and they could take advantage of that.

However, were Kobayashi to win, I doubt that we'd get that - because he ultimately takes pleasure simply in being able to race, let alone what he achieves.

For cheer domination and multiple championships one must be a ruthless competitor and in this quote we can find one reason for him to not going to do that. Unless, of course, he ends up in the best car and his team-mate is a bit useless (which if Kobayashi goes to Red Bull and ends up partnering Buemi somehow might happen)...

Anyway, if one likes underdogs and one of them starts winning and becomes an alpha-dog (he now has a chance to be it and show his true colours) it is going to wind up some of the fans that liked him because he was a newcomer, a fresh approach to the sport, just merely want him to become a good success story or for other reason that is only a temporary condition. And I respect this. In a forum which people support underdogs this is most expected really. I never intended to offend anyone and wanted only to state something that I think it is a fact.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Daniel, you didn't offend anyone, I guarantee it. Your description is virtually exactly what I was getting at.

I also agree with you regarding Vettel's antics. Especially when he did the gesturing in Turkey last year. I'd even give him a pass on it because it was the heat of the moment. I mean, just last night my kids knocked over a small side table and I yelled at them. It was stupid for me to yell, it doesn't teach them anything, and nothing was broken, but it's the heat of the moment. And the heat of that moment was several thousand degrees below what Vettel and Webber were experiencing in Turkey in 2010.