wsrgo wrote:Has anyone given it a thought as to why half of this season's qualifying sessions have been wet/damp, whereas only one-eighth of the races this season have been wet?
Has Bernie gone through with his idea of artificial rain?
Something more on the above topic..as we speak, the Nurburgring Friday forecast has just turned "Rainy". That means another washed-out practice session, possibly. This hits those teams hard, who have brought new updates to a weekend, as was the case with Lotus in Silverstone.
As Lotus are not able to properly utilise their updates (due to inclement weather on Friday), they're going further behind the top teams every weekend. Not something Kimi Raikkonen will like. So is Bernie introducing artificial rain to help in Kimi's decision to jump ship to Red Bull?
And (another evil twist
), if Vettel vetoes that move, will that mean Raikkonen will go out of the sport altogether? So Bernie is introducing artificial rain to make sure that the Iceman leaves? We know he's no fan of the Iceman, having said in the past that he hasn't done much to promote the sport...
So, is it possible?
I knew it!
I've been sitting on some information for quite some time now, this seems like a good time to spill the beans.
Even if it is risky.
Following the death of Ayrton Senna, some people pointed towards Bernie Ecclestone as secretly having murdered the Brazilian.
F1 fans started to miss Senna and called the sport boring.
Bernie and FOM was looking at ways to get a leg up over other motorsport classes following this, in terms of popularity.
The Americans had come close to destroying F1 by growing larger and larger fanbases for their domestic series Nascar and Indycar.
Bernie had developed a taste for preparation. F1 survived pretty well between 1995-2001. But when Michael Schumacher started his 2002 and 2004 romps, winning practically everything, Bernie looked to the skies for an advantage.
The FOCA (Formula One Constructors' Association, which Bernie is President & CEO of)
began experimenting with cloud seeding before the 2003 season.
By impregnating the clouds with the particles needed to create a severe thunderstorm, FOCA could effectively thwart the movement of certain cars at some GPs if they would so wish.
And even literally rain out some sessions. But the cloud-seeding project went terribly awry.
It's not that the experiments with cloud seeding didn't work. It worked
too well.
They started out "slow", using the technique (still not perfected) during the Marlboro Grand Prix of Brazil in 2003 at Interlagos.
http://youtu.be/IwVV1Mr-_ucTo avoid people and media to become suspicous, FOCA waited until the Grand Prix of Europe in 2007 at the Nurburgring, to use their software technique next.
http://youtu.be/69JUz9BDrXQBut it didn't work. Afterwards, the NDET investigated rumors that FOCA had seeded the clouds over England during test runs.
The National Domestic Extremism Team (NDET) is a police unit set up within the association of Chief Police Officers (England and Wales) to provide a dedicated response to tackling domestic extremism. This team co-ordinates operations and investigations nationally, working closely in England and Wales with the Crown Prosecution Service which has set up a complementary network of prosecutors with specialist expertise in domestic extremism.
The Unit was led by an officer of the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, his name was Jerry Thakwell.
But since November 21st, 2007, he has gone missing and is presumed dead. His family was clueless to the event and stated that "Daddy just didn't come home one day."
NDET turned up first-person accounts of some of the pilots who were involved in FOCA's top-secret mission called "Operation Cumulus".
During this particular August 2002 operation (at the height of Schumacher's boring supremacy), FOCA pilots flew above the cloud line, dropping payloads of dry ice, salt and silver iodide.
After just 30 minutes, rain began to fall from the infected clouds at the small village they tested it on.
At first, the FOCA pilots -- dubbed "jolly good rainmakers" by Ecclestone -- reputedly celebrated their success. But within the week a deluge began. By the end of the month the small village and a nearby community (to be remained unnamed) near the site of the cloud-seeding experiment, experienced 250 times the normal amount of rainfall.
On September 19th, an estimated 90 million tons of water coursed through the village in just one day. Entire trees were uprooted, forming dams and allowing the tide of the river flowing through to grow even stronger in force. Boulders were carried by the current, destroying buildings and carrying residents into the sea.
In all, 35 Britons lost their lives that day as a result of the torrential rain.
FOCA had all the villagers friends and relatives murdered as well, in order to avoid anyone missing someone.
They completely erased the event from happening.
Should the need arise, FOCA would maintain that it had not experimented with cloud seeding, instead speculating that this was the work of terrorists.
Bernie didn't utilise this technique for some time.
But now when Kimi is more boring than ever (according to Bernie), and isn't "doing much to promote the sport", Bernie has started his rain campaign once more.
To liven things up once again.
And the result is seen right before our very eyes. Roll on Germany...
