hrd-hr30

Berry's 34 looks like a duck-billed platypus... maybe the promoters can get some of these top end race cars to make the trip over next year?

FZ201 have got their good points and bad points like any tyre. Good: - plenty of lateral grip and traction. I'd rate them on par with RE55S. - price Bad: - they're heavy for a semi slick. - they are very twitchy on the limit and IMO are not easy to handle if you get it sideways. They do not like to come back in line and would rather stay sideways for as long as they possibly can. I have not driven on them in the wet. I've used pressures from 32-36 hot (starting 24-28 cold) so far and have not felt any noticeable difference in that range. Just trying to get the most even wear from them. Mine are wearing very well and almost still look almost new after 5 track days. A little bit of wear on the outside of the front left - all our tracks are clockwise. They're not getting any slower either.

awesome! Reminds me of watching the Tour de France through the Pyrenees and Alps stages and thinking how much better it would be if the riders had to start at 30sec intervals and had cars instead of bikes...

Pirelli confirmed the tyres are unchanged. Its the track & conditions that made the difference to tyre performance in Germany.

MG Car CLub let you through scrutineering with bonnet vents? What class were you in? They threw the book at me for that last year. As I drove into the pits in the morning, a scrutineer followed me to my pit and accosted me about the vents before I even got out of the car!

"this is sport and it must remain sport. We don’t manipulate things like Ferrari do.” + "Mark Webber will re-sign with us. "This will happen for sure" = kiss of death ?

fat lady has not sung yet. Mateschitz is the one who said they don't have team orders... He's apolitical animal saying what the punters want to hear to calm everything down.

lol 1

sounds pretty similar so far... Its obvious the team's priorities are WDC and WCC. There was nothing to gain for the team in the pass. Constructers points would be the same. The extra 3 points for Mark obviously pales into insignificance behind the haul of 33 constructer's points they felt were at risk. Makes sense to me.

lol this time last year Mark publicly supported Ferrari's use of illegal team orders for Massa to let Alonso past...

now that's a hillclimb! looks like a great course.

The points chase situation is this - Mark is 80 points behind There are 10 races to go. So Mark needs 8 points more per race. Points for each race are: 25 18 15 12 10 8 6 4 2 1 So basically, Webber need to win every remaining GP and have Vettel finish 3rd in at least 4 of those races! If Webber finishes 2nd, Vettel needs to finish 5th! but as you say Webber has yet to beat Vettel at all, and Vettel has yet to finish worse than 2nd, whereas Webber is a solid 3rd to 4th place finisher this year. And we're basically half way through the season... you're asking alot. So you're right, Webber basically needs Vettel to have a few retirements, while Mark has none. I just don't see Vettel being any more likely to have DNF's than Webber.

of course it matter if team orders are legal. they're hardly going to admit to using team orders when they're illegal. you don't see them going on about it this year now that orders are all above board. and despite the team owner's protestations, they clearly did use team orders last year, as has pretty much every other team in history. at that stage of the race with no chance of cathing the 1st place guy or being caught by the 4th place guy, and seperated by 5 seconds (or whatever it was) with 5 laps to go, they should have just settled in to conserve their engines and boxes. I don't see anything wrong with the engineers telling them that. probably happens all the time without anyone hearing about it. Its only newsworthy because Mark ignored them and made an issue of it.

I haven't seen them say that since last year, when team orders were illegal. I can't see how it would not affect contract negotiations (in any workplace) when you clearly have a team member not interested in following legal team orders. Not neccesarily saying they won't re-sign Mark, but I bet there will be a clause in there about accepting that RBR has a right to make team orders and Mark has an obligation to comply... in any event, it may come down to what Mark wants to do. Teams and drivers rarely tell you what they're actually planning before they sign anyway. he doesn't seem real happy at RBR. Last time he wasn't happy at Williams, he seriously considered retirement.

horner only said they didn't have team orders when team orders were illegal. what else was he going to say? of course it will impact their negotiations. Do they want their team orders ignored? No. So they put it in the contract for next year. Then he's an official No.2. Or one step closer to it anyway.

I think you're right on both counts.

I normally get between 6-8 psi more pressure from cold to hot too, depending on what corner the tyre is on. LF cops the most work (and therefore pressure increase) at Lakeside. I set my pressures a bit differently to some though. I find my car is always faster in the first few laps of a session - probably due to heat soak as the session goes on. My top speeds continually seem to drop off each lap, even if the corner speed onto the straight doesn't. So I am happy to let my tyres go ~2-3 psi higher by the end of a 5 lap session than I ideally want them, to try and have them at their optimum pressure at the same time the car is at its best - lap 2 or 3. That's my theory anyway.

they don't have to "fool" anybody. the farcical team orders ban was ditched last year. what do you think RBR will do in their contract negotiations in light of Mark disobeying their team orders? you can bet they won't be allowing that to happen again. and all for finishing exactly where they wanted him to anyway. pointless. that's if they re-sign him at all. I reckon he's on real shakey ground. has not been a team player at all this year with his comments in post race interviews and now this.

I prefer to see racing right to the line too, but don't think it was smart to break team orders while he's just started negotiating with them for next season, for a low percentage chance of getting 2nd place. He was all despondant after the race too, so it seems he didn't even get any personal satisfaction from his act of defiance. In all likelihood, RBR will ensure that this doesn't happen again next year if they re-sign him. Might have been worth it if it was over a GP victory, but to stuff up your contract negotiations over a 2nd place which he couldn't get anyway... not very clever.

real smart move for a bloke in contract negotiations... hello new clause for next year...

not a bad bit of road. shame it wassn't a bit longer, but looks like good fun anyway.

yeah, I saw that later too. I guess "The chassis and factory metalwork is not permitted to be modified in any way" doesn't actually mean the bodywork can't be modified??? Its about as clear as mud. But overfenders would be fairly useless without the sheet metal behind them being modified. The way that's worded it doesn't even permit even lipping of gaurds... I'm sure that wasn't what they intended. looks like only half cages in street class. A luxury only 2 door cars are allowed to have??? Half roll-cages are permitted in two-door cars that have been registered as a two seater those rules need some ironing out.

probly right. hasn't had an alignment for ages actually. Yep, the wing certainly worked, and it was only 3 or 4 km/h slower down the main straight even into a headwind, so doesn't seem to be too much drag. It was pretty twitchy without the wing. In the car i was planning to put the wing back on at a reduced angle for the next session... All the way up the hill I thought I had it. Still not really sure why it snapped back the other way like it did. I have a bonnet, gaurd and intercooler lined up and will have a bash at pulling the rad support out this weekend. It doesn't appear to have done anything to chassis, inner gaurd or suspension. I might try some more agressive front aero for next time (not that I really know what I'm doing) and then adjust the wing to see if I can get a decent balance. Maybe leaning slightly towards understeer...

I don't know if practice the day before the event allows quite the same opportunity to change your setup to suit a track no-one else gets to run on as practicing a couple of months before everyone else. It feels a bit like allowing a competitor to course check a blind rally to me.

are the drivers and cars who took part in the course setup and testing eligible to compete?