most talented?????

ok. first up, the most talented driver ever to set footin a f1 car is giles villeneuve... that man was a god to me as a kid and still is now. i was only 8 when he died but still........



then its senna, no explanation needed.....



then id have to say lewis hamilton down to his sheer skill in a car. his ability to drive the wheels off it. his ability to keep it on the circuit at a point where an accident looks likely. and its his first season at 22 years old... immense talent! i havent been this excited about a driver in a very long long time!



i suppose michael schumacher is in here. i never liked the way he went racing but you cant argue the fact that he has so many victories and championships. but i think his talent is helped by te fact he had EVERYTHING laid out on aplate in front of him. he was exciting around the d 90s in a benneton and in the awful ferraris but im sorry, i am not a fan of his "my team, number one status" style of driving....... and he cheated more times than any other driver before, including senna.... theres ruthlessness and theres unfairness......

lastly.... tough one. hakkinen??? prost??? de angelis??? mansell??

id probably have to say stefan bellof. he only got a short shot at f1, one season, before he was killd in a sportscar accident at spa in 85 but he was awesomely quick and so frightingly brave. he would have won the 1984 monaco gp if it hant been red flagged. (thats the one that senna almost won in a toleman). if he lived im sure that he would have been the equal if not better than senna and prost.......





as you can see, im a purist, a race fan not a statistician!

check this-
french gp
1979
dijon
villeneuve vs arnoux (for 2nd place)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl2tIFxSEGA

monaco 1984
music by modest mouse for some reason!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCt2brsEweo

nice to see you back on the board more often Pauly.

never really saw Gille Villeneuve so I can't choose him.

Anyway, here's mine:

1. Senna. Most exciting driver I've ever seen.

2. Schumacher. With better opposition to test him, he may have been the best.

3.Hamilton. Still too early, but looks like the real deal.

4. Mansell. Not necessarily the most talented, but definitely one of the most committed racers ever, as well as the most unlucky.

5. Montoya. More talent than you could shake a stick at. Unfortunately that's all he had.

id agree with montoya t for some reason f1 never clicked with him. in the cart series he was sublime as was alex zanardi. total genius in a champ car but failed to shine in f1. shame jpm got the hump and walked away from the sport but then again he is winning in nascar now so maybe he just missed america!

mansell. ballsy out! some racer. a real racer.. silverstone 1987 piquet and mansell final laps, wheel to wheel. you cant buy that shit!

canada 1990, waving to crowd on slow down lap, he stalls car. piquet drives past and wins whilst pissing himself laughing in the cockpit!

what do you make of the alonso leaving rumours?

where would he go?

who would replace him to partner Hamilton?

ha! yeah its funny. this whole spat between ferdy and lewis has gotten out of control. it should have never been made public but it has so i reckon alonso is firing a shot accross ron dennis' desk. hamilton seemingly flew off the handle after qualifying in hungary AT RON DENNIS! HIS BOSS!!!!!

they are both trying to out talk each other at the moment but they have to be careful because ron wont take that at mclaren! ron wi up having to make a decision about keeping both or sacking/relagating one of em. he wont sack alonso, alonso wont leave. lewis needs to keep schtum for a bit, he is still the new guy and he could easily get pushed down to test driveror at least be threatened with that if he doesnt obey the order to assist alonso in getting his 3rd wc....

sidepoint.... alonso always said that he will quit the sport if he wins 3 championships, he is happy at that and he never wished to remain in f1 fr a long time. i reckon he will quit f1 if he wins the championship his year and rest on his laurels in comfort, he is a very very private man after all. and maybe thats how ron sees it, demote lewis to a supporting role, no championship this year, alonso goes, no hassle or arguements for 2008 because they only really have pedro de la rosa in reserve and he is good but he aint a gp winner. lewis on for title in 08. end of story......

to answer yr questions....

the rumours- threatening but not gonna amount to much in te long run

where would he go- home!!!!

lewis partner- de la rosa...

although there is rumours that a certain scott dixon is looking hard at a drive next year, quality driver. sebastain bourdais has not signed for torro rossa yet and he is on the cards and he is top notch. who knows, all i can say for sure is that the final 7 rounds are gonna be fascinating big time! alonso is rattled to the point of cracking and lewis knows that. its amazing to think that a f1 rookie can do this in his first year to a double world champion team mate....in a mclaren! both incredible drivers with immense skill and intellegence but will we see em colliding at some point, oh yes we will, thats almost a guarantee!

prost vs senna again??????????


ps- sorry bout the rant but i love this sport!

A Hamilton demotion doesn't seem likely - although I'm sure Ron Dennis is having serious words with Lewis' camp - including his dad (who is really starting to grate on me and, by all accounts, a number of those in the paddock).

I'm amazed so far by Hamilton's talent. I'm starting to worry though, about the way he's conducting himself off of the track. I've already heard rumours that other drivers are disappointed at the way he brought charges against his own team following the pitlane incident at Hungary. The idea that Hamilton's charges against Alonso might've cost his own team constructors points is going to have pissed off Ron Dennis no end, I'm sure.

This post isn't an attack on Hamilton. Far from it. I'd love to see him win the World Championship this year. I just hope for his own sake that he calms down a bit and realises that while he may be the most exciting prospect for F1 in years, at the moment at least that's all he is: a prospect.

Either way, it's making for an amazing season, which seems to be getting more fascinating by the day!

seemingly all the row and arguements were a bit iover hyped by the media. they, dennis and te drivers are back talking and an in team rift has been denied by all parties!!!!!! corporate faces back on.......

at 2pm on the sunday for 2 hours the bullshit stops. thats is the only time f1 becomes a sport.

Whatever the team are saying, I think it's clear that Hamilton and Alonso are becoming enemies and that McLaren doesn't know quite how to handle it.

I generally love the back-room intrigue in F1. This season's been great so far because it has a mixture of on-track surprises, excellent driving, and off-track politics.

yeah and mclaren not handling it suprises me big time. they thought they had problems with kimi and juan!

ha... you got things reversed my friend.


i had big hopes for alonso, but then he started making those dirty moves last season... i didnt take them to seriously back then (maybe because i was so excited about he dethroning ferrari and schumacher), but now i'm starting to build a new image of him.

it's sad when someone as talented as alonso becomes a pampered child.

what will he be? the next schumacher?

I think both are showing certain Schumacher traits. Neither of them are 'team players'. It remains to be seen if McLaren, given its tradition of letting its drivers race each other, will be able to deal with either of them in the future - especially if Hamilton is crowned champion at the end of the season.

mickey shoey wasnt the start of this trend that i find abhorent. he was just the bridging gap between one generation and the next. senna did the dirty tricks too but with extreme intelligenge and dignity. so much so that he generally got away with it! schumacher was as subtle as a clenched steamroller in a china shop (parking te car in monaco last year in qualifying???)

the reason behind this selfishness, nay dangerous tactics is tat the circuits and cars are far far to safe and sterile and drivers now do not feel afraid to of at 180 mph! they go off fast and they have acres and acres of sand, grass, tarmac to ravel accross until they hit anything. they know thay the car will withstnd a nuclear explosion. it lends its way to dangerous and silly driving styles and this now is de rigeur in the sport and it scares me big time!

robert kubica was the warning shot for this year. he survived th iggest survivable accident f1 has ever seen in a race. we now apporach some of te safest circuits around and te fastests (istanbul) and some of th most dangerous (spa and monza). i want close exciting racing between the 2 maccas and the ferraris. i want the championship won on therace track, not in the courts or on the emergencey ward. its been a while since we have seen a fatality in f1, it will happen but driving standards shouldnt dictate when tha will be!

turkey then....

ferrari to be close....

kimi to win with lewis an alonso 2nd or 3rd or in the fence......

heidfeld to prehaps grab first win if it goes belly up for em all!

great circuit even for anew one!

This one looks wide open to me. Can see reasonable opportunities for overtaking.

hey look, it's a reverse circuit.

its anti clockwise alright, thats rare. hard on the necks.......

lewis kicked ass in final practice but yeah, its close!

Missed qualifying but know Massa's got pole and Lewis is second. At least Lewis is ahead of Kimi and Alonso.

I predict lots of cars driving round and round a circuit and absolutely nothing of interest happening.





We just need a golf thread now, and I can give up on this board once and for all.

Can see Lewis settling for second this weekend, so long as Kimi and Alonso finish behind him; he definitely can't afford to go off trying to pass Massa.

why enter a thread which you have obviously no intrest in at all??? it says it in the title...

massa off in the distance......................... lewis second..... maybe pookie is right!

Ideal scenario would be Kimi or, more interesting still, Alonso overtaking Lewis at the start, forcing a proper dog fight. Lewis hasn't really been tested in that kind of scenario yet (the Brit GP was too dominated by the weather to really count) so it'd be interesting to see how he deals with it.

But failing that, Ican't see today's race being a classic. Massa's too far behind to really win the championship. Alonso and Kimi are gonna be paranoid about getting into a scrap in case either of them drop points. So yeah, may well be something of a procession this weekend.

if the gp2 race is anythingto go by, its aint gonna be that great. shame cuz its a fabulous track. that 3 apex flat ot corner (6,7,8) is awesome......

Hamilton coming 5th is bad for him but good for the neutral (and Kimi, Massa and Alonso of course). Not a great race either way apart from the kimi-massa showdown that sort of almost happened. Paulybee was def. right when saying they'd be nicking points off each other.

Disliking Alonso more by the day.

Being America, what are motorsports like in other countries? Here, any motorsports we have are just redneck. Nascar, drag racing, tractor pulls, whatever. They are all associated with country music, rodeos, and all the like.

Motorsport in Europe has its share of redneck fans (speedway, especially) but F1 has a bit more of a classy image. It's the Cannes Film Festival of sport. Bo Derek was wondering around at today's GP in Turkey. That wouldn't happen at a Speedway meet. You should try and catch the rest of the season, you might be pleasently surprised. It's a wonderful sport that can become enormously addictive - as much for the backroom politics as for what happens on the track (which today was a bit uneventful apart from Hamilton's puncture).

And if US motorsport is associated with country music, then F1 is maybe more like a gorgeous Serge Gainsbough-Bridget Bardot duet - only far louder.

hey, the u.s. have great series. the irl is good if a bit guilty of destroying the indy 500 and single seater in the states. champ car (cart) is a great series if it has been a bit diluted. the infiniti pro series, formula atlantic, the bikes are good too, ama etc. but yeah, the u.s. loves its nascar and drag racing big time, they dont like silly looking cars with foreigners driving them.....

america needs an f1 driver of some calibre. scott speed was not good. bu maybe danica patrick may break through. the states really dont know ehat they are missing and in saying that the american grand prix attracts more spectators than any other grand prix ever!

as for the turkish gp. what a dull race. totally devoid of anything . lewis was lucky to finish 5th. roll on the big hitter tracks, monza and spa!

Hamilton's lead now down to three points. Alonso is far steadier now and Lewis seems really rattled by the whole McLaren case. Flippin hell, I'd rather see prima-donna Alonso win the championship on the track though than for the season to be settled in a fucking courtroom.

spa! bring it on! monza was a good race, a bit of a let down but spa, a monster of a track!

great track, great history, great corners, great chance of rain and usually a great race...

shame its been tarnished by the spygate affair, sorry spygate bollocks...

latest news...
McLaren have been stripped of their points in the 2007 Formula One constructors championship following the "spygate" scandal.
The team has also been fined $100m (£49.2m) and will have to subject its 2008 cars to examination before racing.
But the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) will not dock the points from their drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.
"The WMSC has stripped Vodafone McLaren Mercedes of all constructors points in the 2007 FIA Formula One world championship and the team can score no points for the remainder of the season," the FIA said.
"Furthermore the team will pay a fine equal to $100 million, less the FOM income lost as a result of the points deduction," it added.
The decision means Ferrari, currently second overall behind McClaren and 57 points clear of BMW Sauber with four races remaining, look certain to be crowned champions.
Asked if justice had been done, the president of the FIA Max Mosley said: "Yes".
Earlier, Championship leader Hamilton, 22, attended the hearing at the headquarters of the International Automobile Federation (FIA).
He said outside: "We work together as a team. I am relaxed and confident about today."
McLaren's Spanish test driver Pedro de La Rosa was also among the McLaren delegation but double world champion team-mate and compatriot Alonso was at Spa-Francorchamps preparing for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix.
McLaren, who led Ferrari by 23 points in the constructors' standings after last weekend's Italian Grand Prix one-two at Monza, are accused of having used leaked data and information from the Italian team.
Chief designer Mike Coughlan was suspended in July after a 780-page dossier of Ferrari information, covering every aspect of the team's 2007 car, was found at his home in England.
McLaren maintain that Coughlan, who had approached Honda about job opportunities jointly with Nigel Stepney - the former Ferrari employee at the heart of the controversy - was acting without their knowledge and none of the information had found its way on to their cars.
McLaren were found guilty at a hearing in July of possession of unauthorised Ferrari material but escaped sanction after the FIA's World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) ruled they had not benefited from it.
Hamilton, the rookie sensation of the season, leads Alonso by three points in the championship with four races remaining.
© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved

so in other words, it really means fuck all! this will set a precident for future teams especially when designers move from one team to another.ferrari will get its just desserts !

now back to racing!

why is this thread still FUCKING ALIVE????????????

its depressing that ferrari, the least honest team in f1, benefits from something that i'm sure had no actual impact on the mclaren cars.

Mc Laren will have quite some problems getting sponsors from now on, methinks.

I don't think it'll affect them too much regarding sponsorship. They're still, alongside Ferrari, the most prestigious brand names in the sport.

This season's a bit of a right-off now though. Hamilton and Alonso probably should've just been disqualified for the season, just to put an end to the whole thing. As it stands, if either of them wins the championship their victory will ultimately be tainted by doubt. I feel sorry for Hamilton and Ron Dennis, neither of whom seem to have had anything to do with the whole thing.

The most sickening thing is how smug the Ferrari team are acting now, as though they're the most squeaky clean outfit in the paddock.

A very sad climax to an otherwise classic season.

Nobody give a shit that Mcrae has died? Oh well it must be just me then.

Yeah, that was awful news this morning. I follow F1 on a very casual basis but i used to love the Rallying when it was Mcrae and Richard Burns at the top of the World Championship, now theyre both dead prematurely, very sad.

ok, mclaren vs ferarri vs the courts. its done and dusted. thank fuck, what boring shit that clouds the racing...... suffice to say i think the verdict was appalling and max mosley and others should be ousted. its very like the 1981 season when the drivers actually striked to force a change in the heirarchy of the fia (then split into fisa and foca). the whole spygate affair has really cast a shadow over the whole sport and has serious implications on the future as well. i mean a designer moving from one team to another now could be held liable if he uses some of his knowledge? a men in black mind blanking gun is being designed at the moment in a secret room somwhere in paris!!! its bollocks, pure bollocks. how can they justify taking the constructors points away and not the drivers? (dont get me wrong, i dont want to see any points but its like they said mclaren are half guilty!) as for the 50 million quid...... 35 million is paid from theprize money this year, 15 million is a mere pain in the arse for mclaren. its the integrity and honesty and fairness that is tarnished and that hurts ron more than anything else. as for alonso........ he should be sacked before he quits! i would bet a lot of money we will see him at ferrari next year with kimi, if it happens, i will laugh........

as a long standing motorsport fan as a result of te heaing and the court case, i dont care who drives for ferrari, i wont ever again cheer for them or rejoice in a job well done, is sickening what they did and how it came about. dont tell me this hasnt happened before, it happens all the time but is dealt with properly not dragged into the open. its reducing the sport of f1 to the level of what the tour de france is at now................. i feel for the drivers, what bullshit they have to listen to, not for alonso though as he instigated a lot of it and made dennis out to be a liar. the interviews on the itv build up were very very revealing.... anyhooo....

the bullshit stops when the lights go out......

what a start to a race. alonso and lewis side by side at eau rouge, fucking aazing racing. and what excellent driving. could have easily been a mother of all crashes there. the rest of the race was a huge disappointment tho, quite processional. the result means that the drivers championship is closing up. ferrari will romp at japan and china making it even closer...... what a great on track season it is................................

and well done dario franchitti for finally winning the il title on the last corner of the last lap ofthe last race. scotland needs a sporting hero right now....

Just finished watching Japan. Incredible performances by Hamilton and Kimi in clearly impossible conditions. Ferrari's cheating over tyres at the start of the race just proved how hypocritcal their accusations against Maclaren were. Glad that max points were gained against Alonso too. Agree with Paulybee that Alonso should've been sacked after the hearing. It's obvious, and entirelly just, that Ron Dennis is behind a Hamilton win.

Any thoughts on who might replace Alonso? Would love to see Button, personally.