2019 Motorsports thread.

great drive by Newgarden to win Indy Car first race in St. Pete.

a very strong field with some outstanding rookie drivers as well as veterans.
AND no really bonehead moves causing pileups, which was nice.
 
Strong start to the IndyCar season. I really thought Rosenqvist was going to win it.
 
Outkast said:
Strong start to the IndyCar season. I really thought Rosenqvist was going to win it.
Click to expand...

He was very strong. Reminded me of the start Robert Wickens had to the year last year.

Saw on Twitter a while back that Wickens is starting to regain some of the feeling in his legs and can pedal an exercise bike on his own right now.
 
I hope this p1 and p2 isnt an indication of how ESPNs coverage is gonna be this year. Dejavu to Melbourne last year.......
 
Looks like an awesome year of F1.5 ahead of us. Super tight midfield. Big test comes tomorrow.

Also, have been going back and watching some of my own racing. Itching to be back on track. This was probably my favourite race of the year:



(I'm the slower of the two red BMW's).
 
Who's sandbagging in F1? Some teams seemed to be having problems staying on track so it might not help them to get more power in qualifying. It seems Mercedes might have been sandbagging in the testing in Spain where they were much slower because they were quite fast in both practice sessions.

One thing I learned watching qualifying is that the FIA lowered the temperature that can be used to heat the rear tires. This could mean cars will take longer to get back to racing speeds after changing tires.
 
Merc pace is to be expected, not a whole lot can be read from winter testing. The key thing will be the gap between Merc and Ferrari / Red Bull come qualifying time. Merc appear to be running a fairly straightforward program and not playing any games. While it's reasonable to expect you might not want to show your full hand during FP1, there's still no reason to be properly sandbagging now that the season proper has began. 8 tenths from Merc to the others is an ominous sign. Hamilton gained almost a full second from FP1 to FP2, while Vettel and Verstappen only found .2 and .3. Of course, qualifying will be the big tell, but unless Ferrari and Red Bull are supremely confident with something we haven't seen yet, I just don't see it. There's nothing to gain by holding back by this degree when the race weekend is already in progress.

And yes, great point regarding the tyre warmers. 20*C difference from front to rear this year (used to be 100*C all round, now 80*C on the rear / 212*F reduced to 176*F). Feedback given was that this change now means that rear tyres have a starting pressure approx 3psi higher than last year. That's a massive change.
 
NASCAR Cup qualifying in California was very strange today. Everyone wanted to draft so they wait until the last moment to go onto the track in session 2 and three. They have to leave pit road in time to get around the track to the start/finish line before time runs out for their lap times to count. They all made it in round two but just barely. In round three, they wanted to wait a little longer to try to keep the back part of the field from making it before the clock ran out. Nobody wanted to lead so they didn't speed up enough and the front cars didn't make it in time so none of the field registered a time in the final qualifying session so they had to use their second session times. If one of the slower cars had set a time in the third session, they would have gotten the poll.
 
watching Sebring on MotorTrend TV for now.
a few big offs.
mostly civilized racing.
big name former F1 drivers in the field.
Buemi, Fisichella, Alonso, Nakajima, Maldonado, etc.
nice to see them get a chance to race in the WEC
 
Hamilton on the pole again in Australia. He and Bottas were trading fast times but Hamilton just seems to be able to push that little bit harder and still control the car.
 
Cool quali session. RIP Charlie. Sad news. Good to see mclaren make it to q3. Fernando shaking his head?
 
ralphc1 said:
NASCAR Cup qualifying in California was very strange today. Everyone wanted to draft so they wait until the last moment to go onto the track in session 2 and three. They have to leave pit road in time to get around the track to the start/finish line before time runs out for their lap times to count. They all made it in round two but just barely. In round three, they wanted to wait a little longer to try to keep the back part of the field from making it before the clock ran out. Nobody wanted to lead so they didn't speed up enough and the front cars didn't make it in time so none of the field registered a time in the final qualifying session so they had to use their second session times. If one of the slower cars had set a time in the third session, they would have gotten the poll.
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Because they've gone full retard with the format. Just do single car. It's not supposed to be exciting. That's what Sunday is for.
 
PRIDEWASBETTER said:
Because they've gone full retard with the format. Just do single car. It's not supposed to be exciting. That's what Sunday is for.
Click to expand...

Single car takes too long. At many tracks, the second or third lap is the fastest lap. At a track like California it would take 4 minutes per car to get 2 laps per car so almost 2.5 hours for qualifying. Then it's a matter of determining the order as the track conditions can change drastically in over 2 hours. That is one of the reasons they changed to the current format. It gives everyone the chance to qualify under the same track conditions.

NASCAR is saying they will be doing something about it. I could see them making anyone who doesn't make a timed lap in a session they qualified for start at the rear of the field.
 
Graves said:
watching Sebring on MotorTrend TV for now.
a few big offs.
mostly civilized racing.
big name former F1 drivers in the field.
Buemi, Fisichella, Alonso, Nakajima, Maldonado, etc.
nice to see them get a chance to race in the WEC
Click to expand...

Watching on Nbcsn. Their coverage once the sun goes down could use some work.
 
yea, it ain't Le Mans for sure.
they light that course up like daytime during night hours.
 
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