MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Since nobody responded to this, I'll give it a go. From what I understand (which is, admittedly, somewhat limited), Red Bull lost their one big design advantage from last year: blown exhaust diffusers. With the design up until last year, exhaust could be channeled into the rear diffusers, creating more downforce. RB were apparently the best of the bunch at exploiting this design. With the new regulations, blown exhaust diffusers are illegal, and downforce in RB cars has decreased significantly and allowed other teams to catch up.

Hope that was a good enough explanation. If anyone has anything to add, please feel free to chime in.

Lets be honest, nascar is better.

Stupid post. The sport was a mess regarding safety (or more accurately a lack of safety) in those days. That accident could have happened any weekend. Watch the documentary The Killer Years on Velocity TV.

Agreed - it was just one of those things. Although I am fascinated that Spartan80 calls out Hawthorne, but not Macklin or Levegh. For years Macklin was blamed for not staying out of the way of the faster vehicles. He was also a bit of a noob compared to many of the other drivers. So why the hate on Hawthorne?

And to go COMPLETELY off topic - has anyone read anything about the upcoming Ron Howard film, Rush? It's the story of the championship battle between Lauda and Hunt. I'm a huge Hunt the Shunt fan, so I hope it's decent. If nothing else it's got Olivia Wilde in it, so it won't be unwatchable.

Yeah, the film has a lot of promise. So far I'm reading really good things about it. If it's realistic, parts of it may be a bit tough to watch. The Killer Years was tough, too. I was familiar with a lot of the stuff the Killer Years covered, but my wife - who thought F1 was crazy unsafe when we watched Senna, was simply horrified.

It was a different time.

You should check the vidos that show the course of events that caused the accident, and you'd have the answer to your questions.

Hawthorne at speed (on left) passes the slower Macklin (on right) where he's supposed to be. Hawthorne belatedly sees his crew's sign to pit and hits his new disc brakes, cutting directly in front of Macklin because pit row is on the right side of the track. Macklin has nowhere to go but left to avoid Hawthorne. LeVegh at speed plows into Macklin and launches off the track and into the crowd, or at least the pieces of his car do.

Hawthorne drives right past the camera, but also can't stop in time for his pit area and is forced to continue and pit the next lap.

Here's the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkaJ7OI7cR4&feature=related Check the diagramming of the driving leading up to the wreck at about 17 minute mark.

Incidently, the Mercedes Board met immediately on hearing of the wreck and decided to pull their team out of the race that they led, even though Mercedes was not at fault. Jaguar meanwhile, after causing the wreck, took advantage and won.

Don't be stupid, I didn't say anything in my post that you didn't say in yours, but I'm the douchebag? Also, you spoke outta your ass about the incident in question. Watch the video about the wreck and learn something, so you don't call folks who actually know what they're speaking of, stupid.

OK, let's all take a deep breath and calm the hell down here. It's a 57 year old accident we're talking about here for pity's sake.

I'm familiar with the accident, have seen the footage previously, and read many books on it, actually. (Austin Healey owner here)

Many have actually blamed Levegh. I was just curious as to your immediate and harsh reaction to Hawthorne, but hey - clearly we've got some strong opinions here, so never mind.

I stopped posting in Wells to get away from this kind of ****.

Let's go back to light hearted mockery of Bernie and Bahrain!

I just can't see Hamilton being teammates with Alonso again. I'm not saying it was on the level of a Senna/Prost thing, but they had some truly epic hatred for one another while together at McLaren. I'm betting he re-signs.

It's been a crazy season.

the only place hamilton really has to go if he were to leave mclaren would be red bull, and i think webber is the perfect compliment to vettel..... I do agree that I think this is massa's last year at ferrari... who replaces him? perez is a good shout... Maldonado possibly