hrd-hr30

I vote for a character limit to the "interests" field jeezus!

lol Brundle said if Schumacher had the same points system during his career as Alonso had during his, he'd have scored over 3600 points. That's handing out points like candy! And that's why making a special helmet to celebrate this massive achievement is a complete wank.

and he couldn't show up Schuey last season... Bit of a shame we didn't get to see him in this year's pretty decent car.

So only penalise teams for safety breaches if someone get's hurt? that's kinda my point. An F1 driver knows all this, but he goes and gets a special helmet and makes a big deal out of getting more points than everyone before him. Imagine the furore if Vettel did something like that!

the possibility of a loose wheelnut bouncing along a live racetrack is dangerous - think Massa and the spring... then there's the wheel which could have come off - there's been an example of a loose wheel hitting someone earlier this year...

congratulations for being around at a time when they hand points out like lollies.

I'm not sure if towing stuff is legal in Japan? So domestic models may not have manufacturer tow ratings. If they are rated at all, it's fair to say they unlikely to be any better than the local Falcon/Commodores which are rated to 80km/h max over 1600kg with load levelling kits and stuff.

It's not the same thing at all. Yes Suzuki got in the way, but the Z was over 15sec A LAP slower than Boz in the GTR. It shouldn't have been there. John also shouldn't have been put in the slower group! NFI what the organisers where thinking there. The event sells out in a matter of minutes - they can afford to be selective. It'is not an event for complete noobs. People pay good money to get in to see the fastest cars around...

won't be rated to tow more than a box trailer.

that old Z that held him up in the last couple of turns - it was his 3rd ever track day. From the times he's posted before, I'm not certain he wasn't on a hot lap there!

hehe is it an interesting comparison or totally meaningless? I'm confused...

comfirms my opinion - JEV's the better racer. Dan's the better qualifier.

lol OK, so he was faster than all the O2L IPRA cars in that race. happy? And holds the U2L lap record at a couple of tracks in different states. The three you found that went faster in another race, two of them were under the old O2L lap record that day. It is one of the fastest U2L cars in the country. R32 - smaller and lighter mainly. And I've never seen an R33 up here go any good at a track day. I don't see any reason why they couldn't, it's just that they don't seem to deliver. Maybe there's better examples of R33s down south?

can't link Natsoft results since their "upgrade", but here you go:

fixed that for you. He was also faster than ALL the O2L IPRA cars including Skilly's V8 Commodore, so that wasn't much of an insult. And guess what - since his record setting time, he runs consistent 59s witht he occassional high 58, much like my $8K climate controlled road car did on the cheapest semis I could find. The other difference is his has little scope for getting any quicker. Mine could easily loose a couple hundred kilos and whack on the same tyres they use would easily drop a couple of seconds. Still on pump fuel and a puny little turbo... It is that easy. There's several street/track cars cobbled together with off the shelf ricer/china/taiwin shit doing those kind of times. There's heaps of simiarly modified S13sa nd R32s advertised out there al the time for under $10K. Put the IPRA control tyre on and they're a 58 or 57sec car in the right hands, no worries at all. My IPRA spec & logbooked turbo 1200 was as fast as any raced in IPRA up here. I bought and sold it for mid teens. A mate's similar specced and pace IPRA 1200 is on the market for high 20s. Why? because IPRA racecar. It doesn't have any big ticket items to warrant the higher price, just that's what IPRA racecars running those kind of times get advertised for. That's IPRA tax for you. Anyway - he seems to want a RWD import turbo kind of track car not a 15hr rotary engine or fwd U2L IPRA race car. There are better budget options IMO.

bloody IPRA/racecar tax! I sold my full street trim 180SX for $8K. It ran consistent mid 59s at Lakeside (and a best of 58.9) on cheap Federal and Toyo semis with climate control, 4 speaker stereo, carpet etc etc and would happily drive to work all week as well. I bought it with a claimed 200rwkw at 16psi but I ran it at 13psi to stop knock over 5 laps in our hot >30degree summer days, and doubt it had the claimed power anyway. Nothing flash used anywhere - secondhand mismatched teins that were on the car when I bought it - bottom of the range Tein Basic on the front, non-adjustable height or damping, and Tein Driftmasters on the back FFS. Stock viscous LSD shimmed up (cost $50), new brake fluid & cheapo Lucas road brake pads, a wheel alignment and subframe collars was all the prep I ever did. Seriously nothing flash about it at all. But that's as fast as the current leading bunch of mega dollar IPRA cars ever went before they switched to the new kickass A050s this year and dropped 2 or 3 seconds, which are undoubtedly a faster tyre than I was using. Moral of the story is, you can get a S-chassis or R32 etc to go as fast as those guys for alot less money. I'd rate those as better options than the R33 personally. If it were me, I'd go with a Supra or manual Soarer or even Aristo converted to manual. But I'm not normal. Yes they're heavy, but handle great with thier proper wishbone suspension, fit humungous tyres, and have heaps of power easily and reliably accessible.

regardless of whether Mark could have run a 2 stop race, he would have to pass Grojean on the track with tyres the same age (actually, at least a lap older) to get in front of the Lotus on the same 2 stop strategy Lotus ran. Not a realistic expectation given what happened last weekend.

what??? The undercut wasn't working at Suzuka, so on a 2 stop strategy Mark would have had to pass Romain on the track on tyres of the same age. You saw how much he struggled to do that with both big tyre age and compound advantages. So how did Mark have the Lotus covered? Well we do know his tyres didn't last as well in the first stint. And we know he hasn't been as good as making his tyres last for the past two seasons as the Lotus is. But that's a moot point. Let's forget all that and assume he could keep up - the problem is he'd have to pass Romain on the track without a tyre advantage to get ahead of him. As you said yourself ... Yes, lots of trouble passing Romain in the first stint. No indication at all that he was capable of passing the Lotus on tyres of the same age before the first stop. So the call is perfectly reasonable to try an alternate strategy to get him past the Lotus. And with hindsight that's totally vindicated - his struggle to pass Romain in the last stint with the massive tyre advantage he had, makes it fairly obvious he wouldn't have been able to pass the Lotus on track running the same strategy with the same age/compound tyres. You do think Red Bull favoured Seb over Mark with the pit strategies, and that the messages about who he's racing made it clear that Red Bull planned Seb to beat Mark though. You just don't want to call it a Red Bull conspiracy, even though it's exactly what you're saying.

It's not a circular argument. Last post you were complaining about his early first stop, now you're complaining it was an early second stop... Mark and Seb would have been fighting for the lead IF Mark was able to pass Romain as quickly and efficiently as Seb did. Which, again, is not the team's fault. The only other option for Mark after the neccessary first stop was to try and run the same two-stop strategy as Romain. The undercut wasn't effective in the first stop, so can't see why it would have been the second time. And Mark is not as gentle on his tyres as the Lotus is, so he probably would have started to drop away from the Lotus like he did in the first stint. Even if he could keep up, with the undercut not working at Suzuka, Mark would have had to pass him on the track without a fresher tyre advantage, which would have been no chance! And that's ignoring the time (and tyre performance) both Red Bulls would have lost as Vettel challenged Webber at some point. Red Bull did not screw him over. They increased his chances of passing the Lotus, and did the best thing for both their drivers.

Ah, good old RBR conspiracy theories... It's never Mark's fault he loses, just ask him! In his usual undermining, politicing way, Mark played this angle up in his interviews to fuel the fire and keep the controversy going. That's been his way for the past 3 or 4 years since Vettel got the better of him... Every analysis of the race shows the criticism of the strategy has no merit, and disagrees with your assessment of his tyres and relative pace: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2013/10/analysis-did-red-bull-favour-vettel-over-webber-in-japanese-gp-strategy-calls/ http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/10/13/2013-japanese-grand-prix-tyre-strategies-and-pit-stops-2/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24511974 The Race Chart also shows Webber losing time to both Grosjean and Vettel towards the end of his first stint. The 2.1sec I got from some article must have been cumulative - my mistake. This chart shows Webber consistently loosing 0.4 or 0.5s a lap for 3 laps and as JA said in his article, he lost 0.6 in the first two sectors of his in-lap. But it certainly shows he had fallen off the pace of Grosjean, and look at how Vettel closed the gap to Grosjean as soon as Webber got out of his way. Simple fact is Vettel was just hanging back managing his tyres, while Mark burnt his up early in the first stint. Can't blame the team - they told him to hang back 2sec to save his tyres, just like they did to Vettel. Difference is what the drivers did in the car.

like I said, no-one can articulate any actual reason other than Malaysia. And before Malaysia 2013, everyone hated team orders and loved it when drivers rebelled against them. Just not when it's Vettel. The proof of the blinkers is blaming Vettel for pulling overly agressive moves on Webber, again without naming a single example. Remember Malaysia that you were just whinging about? Webber damn near put him in the wall. That's over the line demarking the track - that is against the rules these days, you must leave a car width. Webber is very lucky he didn't get penalised for that. Edit: The sphincter of the universe 2010? Racing incident. Don't think Vettel was totally to blame - the car in front has the running and always pushes the other car over on the track. That's racing. You'll see it happen in every single GP without any problem whatsoever - except this single example in the sphincter of the universe 2010... It all came about from another example of over-agressive defending against your team mate from Webber. The position was already well and truly lost. At any rate, that's not the cause of the booing that didn't start till 4 years later is it?

yeah that's what all his haters say. "He's a dick", "he's a tool", or "he's arogant", but in my experience none of them can articualte any actual reasons for it, other than Malaysia. It's just a general feeling that he must be a dick based on all the nonsense about RBR favouritism over so many years that's formed this impression in their minds... Hamilton stopped winning. Reckon that's got anything to do with it? He also left the team with the fastest car last year and went to a team trying to fight their way up. As said before everyone loves an underdog battler.

lol yeah you can thank Webber's politicing and undermining of RBR and Vettel over the past 3 or 4 years for that. No-one likes a spoilt brat who gets everything handed to him on a platter with all the favouritism in Red Bull. Everyone sided with the self proclaimed underdog/battler stickin' it to da man. 3 years of that boiled over into hate of the finger while they all waited impatiently for something to hang all their hate on, and then god sent them Malaysia 2013. Suddenly it turns out that all the fans support team orders and hates the bloke who dared to ignore them, despite all appearances to the contrary over the preceding decade or more...

yeah, but Webber chose to run that wing knowing the track and where the DRS zone was. No-one to blame but himself. And it was more like 7 laps stuck behind Grosjean the way I remember it! Only got past eventually because of lapped traffic hurting the Lotus in that chicane.

I've got them on 9.5s on the rear, and wouldn't call them stretched. 265s would be better for a 10" wheel, but these are cheap and basicaly full life left in them....