F1 2008 World Championship

[smirnoff-ice]

-Ferrari will prove to be the team to beat this year (yawn)
-ferrari will have again too many technical related car failures and therefore losing the constructors championship to mclaren.

-The challenges will be McLaren and Ferrari for the title, and Williams and BMW for 3rd.
-i agree.

-We will see Williams, BMW, Honda, Renault and Red Bull improve dramatically throughout the season.
-since williams has no money they will more likely falling back. honda on the other side can only improve given their weak pace during wintertests. i agree with bmw, renault and rbr.

-Renault will finish 5th in the constructors, at best
4th or 5th. not better not worse.

-Fuckface (er, I mean Fernando) will come 4th in the drivers, at best.
he will end being the better renault driver and beating at least 2 times hamilton despite having a car 2 seconds a lap slower.

-Kimi will win his second title.
-kimi will retire before the end of the year. massa will win the title.

-Piquet will push his teammate, and pouty pants Alonso will be right back where he was at McLaren, with a teammate who actually can drive, stealing some of his "glory."
-no comment. cheap alonso bashing is not my strong point.

-This spy drama nonsense will refuse to die until people start talking about the 2009 season, so, August maybe?
-the spy drama will never end.

-lewis hamilton will again crack under the pressure fighting for the title and won't finish the last 2 races which will be ennough for felipe massa to win his first title in his home gp interlagos/brazil.

 

[razzcazz]

Even though I'm more of a sports car racing guy I think I can take a stab at a few reliable F1 predictions.

-Ferrari and McLaren battle it out again this season but this time Lewis Hamilton takes the title. Kimi is just too hard on equipment and this time Lewis stands up to the pressure.

-BMW Sauber emerges as a championship caliber team by season end by winning several races and running consistantly up front. To win a championship they will need someone other than Quick Nick or Robert Kubica.

-And then there's the rest. Renault, Red Bull and Williams fighting it out to win the B division. Toyota, great in testing, awful on race day. Honda is simply a mess, however, by seasons end Ross Brawn has righted the ship and they begin to make progress.

-There will be scandal, deception, mystery and intrigue all the things we watch F1 for.

 

[smirnoff-ice]

i quote myself:

-ferrari will have again too many technical related car failures and therefore losing the constructors championship to mclaren.

looks like i was spot on. (like with the rest of my predictions as well ^^)

 

[anthony87]

8 cars finished? WTF?

In fact, only 7 cars did! Räikkönen had his technical failure 5(?) laps to go. Luckily he got that one point, it can be important at the end of the season.

I'm a huge fan of F1, and that's mainly because of the fellow Finn drivers. You can guess how thrilled I was during the Brazilian GP of 2007, I screamed like a maniac when Kimi and Massa crossed the finish line 1st and 2nd. It's amazing to see both Finns in the two most competitive teams.

But unfortunately, this race was a nightmare. Why didn't Ferrari take Kimi to the pits during the 2nd(?) safety car episode? Why did Kimi do such a stupid overtaking attempt over Heikki? Why did Glock destroy his car just before Heikki's second pit stop?! Why did Heikki press that stupid button after overtaking Alonso which you are supposed to push only while entering the pits?

Ferrari indeed has a lot of technical problems to solve, many people thought Kimi would be the king of the track but I knew it couldn't be simple as that. At least both Finns are fast, but that won't matter if you make mistakes and/or can't even finish. One more race like this and the gap to Lewis is already well over 10 points and it's 2007 all again. Oh well, the season is long and anything can happen as the last season proved us.

 

[smirnoff-ice]

For the record, Kimi crashed, he didn't break down.

first his car broke down saturday during qualifying, then in the race he was off track, had a spin and after that torture from a driver who never pays attention to his car the f2008 finally had ennough and the engine broke down again some laps before the end.
massa did considerably better after badluck in first corner and was on the best way to collect some important points when his engine gave up.

as you can see here:

i have also no idea how you come to the conclusion that kimi was the fastest on track? maybe you've seen a different race or thought that kimi was still driving the mclaren. fact is, the ferrari drivers were pushing 100% all the race and never could reach the laptimes of cruising hamilton. he could have gone 0.5 or even 1s a lap faster for sure.


if a team has 3 engine problems on a weekend and sufferend from the same during the complete winter-testing-season then the only logical conclusion has to be that they have reliability problems - like it or not.

 

[smirnoff-ice]

Max Mosely, anybody?

for me it's really his private business and if THATS the reason for him to lose his job it could very well set a dangerous precedent.

 

[re-run]

Another pole for Massa/Ferrari in Turkey. Anyone think losing Alonso's experience has hurt Hamilton's results, both pole and victories?

 

[TriBi]

Heikki Kovalainen second and Lewis Hamilton third on the grid - good to see Heikki come back so convincingly after his accident.

Could be a more interesting race than most - with at least some possibility of overtaking outside of the pits...