A.Wayne

Yes i love Spa some of the best racing Heeevar !!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1WuW...eature=related

ltc

Surely you jest.
Clearly, this is just an example of the army of Sato fans lurking on RL.

Bob Rouleau

Vettel for me. Maybe this time I will be right

Amazing how many Sato fans there are here. Lewis must have called in the fan club.

KurtC

Button = hat trick on Sunday!

ltc

OK, I can see where some people might look at the numbers and be a bit curious.
But, Schumacher always had the '3 Amigos' here in this forum....so there really isn't a big jump from say 3 to 12738, is there?

Hmmn, in retrospect, that number might have been a very slight exaggeration, especially since he isn't racing this season

A.Wayne

Yeah Stiff Neck ! ............... Hey.... The Amigos and mascot ....


.............Petey .................... Ray,Ray..................ITC (sato) and...Hmmm... Stool Bear

the flyin' scotsman

Practice 2...........top 19 cars covered by just over 1 sec.

The 20th is somewhat further behind.

multi21

Bridgestone previews 'home race' in Belgium
F1 Grand Prix, GP Belgium, Circuit De Spa-Francorchamps
Bridgestone will bring the medium and soft tyres for the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28-30 which takes place on the longest circuit of the year, the 7 km Spa Francorchamps circuit. Located in the forests of the Ardennes region, the challenge of the Spa circuit is legendary. It features 19 corners and offers a real high speed challenge over its undulating course. This is the first time that the medium and soft tyres have been used in a consecutive allocation for a race.

Hiroshi Yasukawa – Director of Bridgestone Motorsport, said: "Belgium is the home of Bridgestone Europe so in many ways the Belgian Grand Prix is like a home race for us. Bridgestone Europe employs more than 13000 people throughout Europe, spread between eight tyre plants, one technical centre/proving ground and different national sales organisations. In Belgium itself the Bridgestone Group employs 1100 persons as well as hosts the headquarters of Bridgestone Europe and subsidiary, Bandag Europe. Spa is a fantastic circuit to visit as it has so much history and we are looking forward to an exciting race there."

Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development

What are the challenges of Spa?
"Spa is a classic race circuit. It is fast and also has some interesting technical challenges over the course of a lap, and a lap here is longer than anywhere else we visit during the course of a season. There are very long high speed sections, with fast corners. Despite being a fast circuit, the downforce levels used on the cars is quite high, meaning heavy loads are transferred through the tyres. There is significant gradient change over a lap too. Eau Rouge is a very fast corner and the compression at the bottom of the corner means a lot of force through the tyres. Here sufficient tyre pressure is critical."

What are the primary tyre performance considerations?
"In tyre terms this is a severe circuit. High loads are put through the tyres during a lap. It can be quite cold here, so getting initial heat into the tyres could be a challenge, especially with the higher temperature working range medium compound. We must not, of course, forget the weather. We have seen wet races many times at Spa. Because it is a long course you can have one part dry, one part wet. Tyre choice during the course of the race could well be the deciding factor."

Larry Herman

And that would be????????

multi21

Trulli tops 1st practice in the rain with Wayne's Flava Flav driver Button aka Golden Boy 2nd.

Hamilton tops 2nd practice.

Luca Badoer is freshening up his resume.

Fisichella is salavating over the possibility of driving a Ferrari in 2 week at Monza.

Larry Herman

Badoer - BAD DOER?

What I can't understand is what kind of test driver could he be? He's 2 seconds behind Kimi, and unless he is remarkably consistent and has amazing feedback on the car, what does he test? Reliability laps?

Even with our slow-poke Porsches, 2 seconds is an eternity and what is acceptable at +2 seconds may not work at all when the car is driven to it's limit. How can you figure this out if you can't get it there? Maybe he's a Fiorino expert? I don't get it.

Ritter v4.0

I hate to pile on Luca (wonder if he reads RL) but he could be someone's son-in-law. Someone important.

multi21

From what I understand, Badoer and Schumacher worked very well together during the Ferrari Dynasty to bring the car along from a loser to a winner.

You certainly can't argue with the results Ferrari has posted in the past 10 years and he was a part of that until the testing ban this year. I suspect he has incredible feel for the car and what it is doing, but at 38 years old, he's beyond his expiration date in terms of racing.

Based on what we have seen this year, I believe the FIA will consider bringing back some form of in season testing, maybe not to the extent of the past, but it's apparent it is necessary to have SOME testing. Luca will probably be a part of the Ferrari team again if that is the case.

Bob Rouleau

Is it possible that the reason Luca is driving the second Ferrari is because they are using the races to test? His role is test driver and apparently he is very good at it. With the severe limitations on testing, I wonder if Ferrari has decided to use the races as their testing ground and for that reason put Luca in the car? It sort of makes sense to me.

Best,

multi21

Yea, good call. Badoer did say that he considered Valencia weekend a test session. I guess if he stays in the car the rest of the year that's exactly what they must be doing.