Fantasy Formula 1 (Fantasygp.com)

[Ian Jones]

You might be right John - I hope so, otherwise how am I ever going to mount a challenge against .... well I suppose you are too far ahead but there's hope for an improvement at least.

Thanks for emailing Adam for me, hope he's burning the midnight oil!

Ian

[Robin Kearney]

John, thats funny, yes of course I did

[Ian Jones]

Google log is available again.

I have a feeling I may have predicted the top three but as Eric Morecambe said "Not necessarily in the right order".

Ian

[John Privett]

Well I hesitated over my prediction for pole. And then picked the wrong one...

Never mind, I'm still happy with my podium and fastest lap predictions. Not so sure about my safety car prediction though.

[John Privett]

Well, lots of "incidents", I predicted the "obvious" results - winner and fastest lap, but missed all the others. Not too good for my team either. Results later when they appear on badger, but I won't be heading upwards!

[Robin Kearney]

I thought there was some good action, if you ignore the car in first place five abreast down the track at one point, that's pretty hairy!

 

 

Edited By Robin Kearney on 06/10/2013 09:09:41

[Tony H]

I think this is going to be a bad result for me after a minor team change.

[John Privett]

The results are now on badger and here they are;

Pos	Team	Manager	Pts
1	F1 Legends	Rob Lewis	1776
2	TeamTyphoon	typhoontone	1763
3	JohnPs plodders	JohnP	1692
4	Roos Racers	rk295	1483
5	Revers Racing	Pete B	1442
6	IPjnet F1	Ian Jones	1358
7	Speedbird Concorde F1	Jacob Cleverley	1334
8	Norfolk Flyers	nss	1268

Give me a few minutes to crunch the numbers and I'll be back to say who did what...

[John Privett]

So there's a change at the top! More of that in a moment...

Best score of the day was 162 from Pete, 2nd best was Rob with 159 - enough to take over first place. 3rd was Robin with 150.

Ian was 4th with 141, moving up a place in the process, Norfolk 5th with 135, and Tony got the bad result he'd predicted - 119 points and 6th.

More poor scores from myself, 7th with 113 and Jacob (maybe trying some risky strategy?) taking 8th place with 88 points.

5 races still to go though. It may be all-but over for the title race in the real world, but all to play for here. Japan next weekend with qualifying at 6am again on Saturday and the race at 7am on Sunday.

[Ian Jones]

Well the result wasn't as predictable as anyone thought and the Lotus boys certainly diluted my tally. Looking at the Fantasy League table it would seem that was the case for many people with the 2nd lowest top score of the season presenting itself.

Japan is going to be very hard to predict with Sauber, Lotus, Mercedes and perhaps even Maclaren all threatening to be able to pull in a good lot of points behind the more obvious podium residents.

All to play for John? Well after spending most of the season as an also ran at the bottom of the points list I'm thinking that perhaps I can have a go at moving up some more, so for me this is getting all the more interesting as we start reach the last handful of races. Fighting talk? You bet .

Ian

Oh, I should say hard luck to those that didn't too well this week.. but I won't .

Edited By Ian Jones on 06/10/2013 17:10:04

[Rob Lewis]

I thought i was heading down the table after that race, getting 3 predictions right definately helped me out though.

The battles on at the top

[Pete B]

A good haul from Lotus and 3 correct predictions gave me a far better result than I expected, although FI and PDR let me down yet again.

That shot of the fire wagon trundling down the straight ahead of the pack was quite surreal, I thought...

Pete

[Erfolg]

In some ways I disappointed that I cocked up my entry. In other ways I now recognise I would have at best been average. Although I backed Vettel, and Red Bull, my selection of Paul Di Resta, would have been a disaster.

I suspect, that Vettel and Red Bull have done it again this year. Yet looking at Mark Webbers season, it is not just the car. I guess the same can almost be said for Fernando, with Massa, although like Louis and Rosberg, team orders can be seen to come into play from time to time

So what will next year bring?

[Concorde Speedbird]

Red Bull also had team orders, but Vettel ignored them! Hamilton is certainly right saying Vettel's dominance is a turn off, it is a boring year frankly from my perspective. And taking some risks in my prediction to get up there spectacularly failed, why did the rain not come!

CS

[Erfolg]

The turn of aspect tends to be dictated by national interest.

I remember the time when we could almost guarantee a UK driver winning, as probably 50% of the grid were UK drivers.

The dominance of single manufacturers and drivers winning is nothing new, dating back to the original Silver Bullets, Vanwall, Cooper, Lotus, Williams and McLaren etc. The same with drivers.

Perhaps the difference today is the shear professionalism of both drivers and manufacturers, making a slight edge, consistently tell.

The days when kit car manufacturers could even play, seem to have long gone. There was a small local (that is NW) car company called Chevron, that built (almost) a F1 car. That could never happen today, without a good few million just to get to the grid.

I think the other disappointment is that all the cars are essentially the same, the detail being the difference. As the rules, pressures, and the common high level of engineering understanding, are designed and push towards the single optimal solution to the constraints. Even then there are protests, with respect to any innovation, be it blown diffusers, electronic biassed braking.

[John Privett]

Another early start tomorrow with qualifying at 6am again, so don't forget your predictions...

First and second practice seem to have gone in a rather predictable direction, so that may, or may not, influence your choices!

[John Privett]

Well that's my first prediction wrong!

And I wonder if that KERS problem could come back to bite Vetell in the race tomorrow. That would be a shame, wouldn' it?

[Tony H]

Its all gone Pete Tong again!

[Pete B]

Hasn''t done me any favours at all but nice to see MW getting a few crumbs at the end of his last season - I wouldn't begrudge him a win if the others just aren't fast enough....

Pete

[John Privett]

I wonder though Pete...

Should Vetell's KERS issue not be fixed and towards the end of the race he's still behind Webber (assuming the order stays much the same as grid order) would RB team orders come into play to get Webber to let Vettel past?

And if they did, would Webber take any notice? ("Sorry, mate. Can't understand you, the radio's a bit crook at the moment..." )

Or would they recognise that team orders would get a very negative response from the viewing public, and make almost no difference to the near ceartainty of the destination of the 2013 title?

 

Edited By John Privett on 12/10/2013 19:51:52

[Pete B]

Indeed, John - any of the above is a likely scenario. I thinks he's too far down the road to worry about an ear-

bending from Christian Horner - if such a thing has ever existed...

He's been a good and faithful servant to Red Bull, so I reckon they owe him.....

I somehow suspect Romain Grosjean might just be looking to spoil the RB party, though......he's looking a bit feisty this week.

Pete

[Erfolg]

I am sure that MW will not respond in any positive way to team orders if asked. I am not sure that the RB team owes him anything, the team has supported him, he has done his best for the team in some respects. It is quite cleat that SV has the edge as a driver, it is also quite clear that MW has not done anything to support SV The reasons are subject to argument and counter argument, dependent on your position.

In many respects, I am not sure if I ran RB, that I would not shed to many tears at MWs departure, in that his support of SV as a back stop has not been exemplary. Certainly not in the same way that Massa has assisted FA.

The big question is, will he blow his championship as Louis Hamiliton did in 2007. Yet consideration of the years events, did indicate that various self interests did also conspire to work against him. Could MW do something similar to SV. Just as Masa was robbed of a world title, by a car moving over to let Louis through, could MW scupper SV chances?

In my opinion, I suspect that MW may think there would be no repercussions in working against the interest of your employer. Any such action could cause Porsche to seriously consider, do we want to support a team, with a member we may not be able to trust, as he continues in sports car racing next year?

I personally expect SV to be world champion this year.

Next year is a different issue, it could almost be a lottery, as the engine builders move towards the optimum package. If it were just a turbo charged engine issue, I would favour Renault. For me Mercedes are the unknown. Certainly lacking the turbo charger knowledge of Porsche. BMW preferred the simple approach of a known engine block, although sound engineering brought sucess. But neither of these companies are involved. Honda, historically won, when others were focussed on the next years engine spec. Yet the KERS aspect could negate all the previous knowledge.

[Ian Jones]

Erfolg, which is your team in the fantasy league?

[John Privett]

Well... at least he didn't lead from start to finish, but the 'usual' result. My points will be rubbish today, not helped by only getting one prediction. Good drive from Grosjean though - a changed man from the days when he was regularly punting others off at the first corner!

[Concorde Speedbird]

It was a pretty good race, some good action.

If you watched the BBC Red Button Forum then you would have heard Gary Anderson saying that Red Bull put Webber on a 3 stop to make sure Vettel would finish ahead. I can see what he is thinking, Webber still had good pace when he came in for his first stop, but after that I was surprised how early he was then brought in for his second stop. Webber was thinking it too in his later interview.

CS