re: 2022 Formula 1 Season Thread

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Well well well, look who came crawling back...

-- William Storey

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Well, that's frickin' rich.

I always think of Storey as an ineffective low-rent thuggish version of Lord Alexander Hesketh.

If HAAS had balls, they would put a few American Flags on for the final day.

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Not just the car is getting the treatment

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I assume their next step will be to put some duct tape over the logos on their gear?

Prince Malik. Literally the Nigerian Prince of F1 meme. Poor Tom Walkinshaw.

Can't forget Jean-Pierre Van Rossem and Moneytron






Or Andrea Sassetti and Andrea Moda



David Thieme and Lotus



Manssor Ijaz and Lotus



Calisto Tanzi and Brabham





Sulaiman Al-Kehaimi




The sad part is I could go on for several more pages about F1's shady money men. These are just the fraudsters that got "caught" and not counting the fact F1 and FIA have a history of shady characters where the money did exist or didn't dry up and they actually became and stayed huge forces in F1. Speed and danger have a specific lure to shady and ill-gotten money.

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Seb has come out and said he will boycott Russian GP if it takes place…

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I’m sure AM could find someone to finish 11th if Seb isn’t there.

If I'm Andretti, I've already made a call to Gene

My thoughts exactly. Hopefully Andretti has a sponsor lined up already.

Turkey is probably the replacement.

Russia might not happen, but not because of Vettel.

I haven’t followed F1 since Nico retired. After watching Max win last year I am intrigued to watch again. Plus, there is a race 20 mins from me here in Miami so

Ukyo Katayama!

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Sulaiman Al-Kehaimi

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OK, a little F1 history here. In 1994 Ukyo Katayama, in his 3rd season in F1, had a good year in an unreliable car:

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(Wiki) 1994 was to see a considerable turnaround for Tyrrell and Katayama. He impressed with the new 022, with three points-scoring finishes, a number of good qualifying performances, and generally being faster than his more experienced and acclaimed team-mate Mark Blundell. He was consistently a top-6 runner, but the car proved to be unreliable, leading him to 12 retirements, including the German GP, in which he was running 3rd before his throttle stuck open. However, in the four races that he did finish, he scored two 5th places, one 6th, and one 7th, good enough for 5 World Championship points.

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Also: https://racingacid.wordpress.com/2016/04/10/f1s-most-underrated-driver-ukyo-katayama/

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Along with valiant point scoring drives at Interlagos, Imola & Silverstone, Katayama set a fastest lap a mammoth 1.6 seconds quicker than his highly-regarded team-mate Mark Blundell in the race at Barcelona. Blundell’s eventual podium finish was a cruel blow for Katayama, as his Yamaha engine failed after just sixteen laps in a race where Michael Schumacher’s Benetton became stuck in fifth gear for two-thirds of Spanish Grand Prix.... The Tyrrell stalwart would redeem himself further at that year’s German Grand Prix, qualifying a career-best fifth, 0.756 seconds ahead of Blundell. Thanks to an electrical failure for Jean Alesi and a collision with Damon Hill, damaging the latter’s suspension, Katayama was able to charge after Gerhard Berger and Schumacher in third place, only for his throttle cable to snap after just six laps... Further hard-charging drives at Monza, Estoril & Jerez proved enough for Katayama to be awarded “Most improved driver of 1994” title by Autosport magazine’s Nigel Roebuck...

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Now my memory is a little dodgy here, but I seem to remember that some people were grumbling about Katayama being fast because he had a weight advantage because he was tiny and weighed nothing. And then in 1995 the minimum weight rule changed to include the driver, allowing heavier drivers to compete without any handicap for being heavier. I can't find any evidence to back me up, but I've always felt that this rule change was a reaction to Katayama's speed in 1994.

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The new weight regulations, starting in 1995, which mandated the inclusion of the driver’s weight into the new 600kg total car weight limit, would additionally impede Katayama as the advantage of being one of the lightest drivers on the grid was abruptly removed.

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https://www.f1technical.net/features/21637

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before 1995 the weight of the driver was not included in the minimum weight of the vehicle, the minimum weight increasing from 505kg in 1994 to 595kg in 1995 to include the driver. Even then the drivers were only weighed once per season, and there are stories of drivers struggling to the annual weigh-in with lead lined helmets to save a few kilograms on their cars. A practice now prevented by the numerous measurements taken after every session of a Grand Prix weekend, and by random in-session scrutineering throughout the qualifying practice sessions.

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This rule change has always pissed me off, because in a world where a larger size is an advantage in numerous sports (obviously football and basketball come to mind), there are no handicaps to allow smaller people to compete on a more equal basis. The most obvious comparison to car racing is horse racing, where jockeys are all small andl light because no one thought to require ballast to allow heavier people to become jockeys. So why should bigger people get a handicap in F1? There's no good answer, it's just about money and power and the euro-centric nature of F1. They couldn't risk letting tiny Asian people have a competitive advantage.