h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here's the thread for the Bahrain GP which comes hard on the heels of the Malaysian GP!

This could be a great race, and the championship is wide open!

Quote of the weekend:

In the Bahrain Thursday press conference, Felipe, Lewis, Jarno, Robert and Heikki were asked about racing without traction control next year.

They all trawled out the usual "it'll be the same for us all, and won't make a huge difference" etc, except Heikki, who said:

"I think it's absolutely the way to go. Let's just stick in a third pedal, a clutch pedal under your feet and put in the old H-box; that's the way to go in F1!"

Class comment

Paff

Oh, and I notice that with Schuey still in his undefined role at Ferrari, Michael is on the phone before and after each race, but it's Felipe who's getting the phone calls, not Kimi. Can't same I'm surprised.

Paff

Oh, and one more thing... I'm starting a drivers' championship for the highest use of the words "for sure" in official F1 press conferences. The results so far are:

Bahrain - Thursday

Pts Driver
12 Massa
4 Hamilton
1 Trulli
1 Kubica


If I feel sufficiently nerdy, I'll go and dig out the transcripts of Melbourne and Sepang and get a running total.

Paff

Is the Dusty Bin result possible? 3-2-1 that is.

Dusty Bin

Much as we'd all like to see it, I think it's unlikely Hamilton will win this weekend. Although never fear, even a podium at Bahrain will be a record as no rookie has ever finished the first 3 races in the top 3.

Paff

Felipe Massa will start the Bahrain Grand Prix in pole position after edging a head to head battle with English rookie Lewis Hamilton:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/6555479.stm

I think I'm gonna have to put DC as my driver of the day after his amazing performance before he was forced to retire.

Oh and just out of curiosity I wonder what the proportion is of races Sato has started to races he has finished.

Sato stats:
Starts 72
Finishes 41 (57% finish rate)
Non finishes 31

I guess the question you really want answered is how many of those 31 non-finishes were as a result of him over-cooking it...

Collisions/spin-offs 9
Withdrawn/disqualified/not started 6
Car problem 16

So Sato has crashed or spun out of 22% of all his races so far. I guess he has a reputation because back in his first F1 season with Jordan in 2002, he crashed out of 4 races: 3 in a row in Spain Austria and Monaco, then a few races later in France.


Sato is almost as bad as that other spinning Jap Katayama who back in the early-mid-90's was either a "mobile chicane" as James Hunt I think called him on occasions or would finish in a gravel trap.

Katayama stats:
Starts 97
Collisions/spin-offs 28 (29%)



Paff