F1 - GP (General Purpose)

Chode ^ | 8/5/2009 | Chode

[Chode]

This will be a general purpose thread for F1 news and pings that really don't require a thread of their own.

[Lockbox]

What the hell did Michael do to piss off F1 and the team principals. I was thinking ok F1 wanted to maintain their “higher” standing with less controversial figures.

BUT then F1 allow “banned for life” Flavio Briatore back into F1.

Flavio Briatore (Italian: [ˈflaːvjo bri.aˈtoːre]; born 12 April 1950) is an Italian businessman, who currently serves as Renault's executive advisor for Formula One. As the longtime team principal of Team Enstone (Benetton Formula / Renault F1 Team), Briatore led the team to three World Constructors' Championships and four World Drivers' Championships. However, he was dogged by allegations of cheating, including the 1994 "Launch Control" controversy and the 2007 "Spygate" affair, although in both cases his teams escaped penalties. He was forced out of Renault and received a lifetime ban from F1 after the 2008 "Crashgate" scandal, although a French court subsequently overturned the ban. Fifteen years later, he returned to Renault as "team boss in all but name."

SO WHAT DID MICHAEL DO!

[FreedomPoster]

Yeah, you’re getting into cars there that you almost shouldn’t be selling to someone who hasn’t been to a performance driving school, or is similarly experienced. And that certainly applies to the ZR-1.

[mabarker1]

They didn't buy the Vettes, the leased them.

I was just passing on the info on the ?History channel?.

[mabarker1]

Not trying to take anything away from Mario by any means.

Kinda similar to Tony Stewart who has NUTSCAR Championships under 3 different names that jimmy 7 time whineyboy can NEVER GET !!!

Smoke is a four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, winning two as a driver (2002, 2005), one as owner/driver (2011), and one as an owner (2014).1 Winston Cup, 1 Sprint Cup and 1 Nextel Cup in addition to the titles in Indy, Midget, Sprint, and USAC Silver Crown:

He is also the first driver in the Cup Series to win the championship by a tiebreaker.

On May 22, 2019, Stewart was voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and on January 31, 2020, was inducted alongside the 11th Hall of Fame class.

On November 21, 2021, he married NHRA Top Fuel Drag Racer Leah Pruett. He will replace Pruett in Top Fuel for the 2024 season as Pruett steps aside to start a family with Stewart.

So all he’s got left to do is win a NHRA Championship (and F1 LOL, never happen unless Leah puts him on a diet so he can fit in the car.) Maybe Smoke Whisper the 1st child of Tony and Leah, Dominic can do the F1 gig ?

[Paal Gulli]

Nothing Mikey could ever do, even if he was trying to be offensive, could ever be as offensive as the paparazzi shot of Flavio in a speedo.

I’m not going to post that photo here, and you’re welcome.

[Chode]

lol and they’re BIG

[mabarker1]

Remember when I was trying to remember what had happened with hammiebuttboi and Ferrari years ago ? Ran across this on Wikipedia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Formula_One_espionage_controversy

FIA investigation:

2007 McLaren MP4-22
On 4 July 2007, McLaren announced it had conducted an investigation and concluded that “no Ferrari intellectual property has been passed to any other members of the team or incorporated into [our] cars.” The team also invited the FIA to inspect its cars to confirm these facts; “In order to address some of the speculation McLaren has invited the FIA to conduct a full review of its cars to satisfy itself that the team has not benefited from any intellectual property of another competitor.”[19] Since the revelation of Coughlan’s involvement in the affair, McLaren provided a full set of drawings and development documents to the FIA, detailing all updates made to the team’s chassis since the incident occurred at the end of April.[20]
On 12 July 2007, the FIA announced that it had summoned McLaren to an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council to answer charges that they had breached Article 151C of the International Sporting Code.[21] At the hearing on 26 July 2007, FIA found that Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes was in possession of confidential Ferrari information and is therefore in breach of the Code, but with no evidence that they had used the information no punishment was levied. However, the FIA reserved the right to reconvene on the matter if any such evidence subsequently came to light.[22]
Ferrari labelled the decision “incomprehensible”; Autosport judged the team to be “furious”.[23] McLaren said “[a] unanimous decision has been taken by the FIA which in McLaren’s opinion is very balanced and fair.”[24] The matter was referred to the FIA International Court of Appeal, with the hearing scheduled for 13 September 2007.[25]
On 1 August 2007, Ron Dennis, in an open letter to the president of the Italian motorsport authority Luigi Macaluso, accused Ferrari of giving a false and dishonest version of events and further that the car used to win the 2007 Australian Grand Prix was illegal.[26] McLaren learned of the “illegal” floor device from Nigel Stepney, with the team describing this contact as whistle-blowing. However the team insists that following this incident, Jonathan Neale instructed Coughlan to cease contact with Stepney. McLaren accuse Ferrari of trying to blur this “whistle-blowing” of which McLaren was aware, with Coughlan’s possession of the 780 page Ferrari dossier of which it insists it was not aware.[27]

Both Hamilton (left) and Alonso (center) were involved in a championship battle against Räikkönen (right).
The 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix was a controversial weekend for McLaren; Lewis Hamilton had disobeyed a team instruction, disadvantaging Fernando Alonso, and so Alonso held Hamilton up in the pit lane during qualifying, denying Hamilton a chance to record a final lap time.[28] In the following discord within the team, TV pictures showed Ron Dennis angrily throwing his headphones down as Alonso pulled out of the pits, and after the session was over he was then shown having a serious conversation with Alonso’s trainer. On the morning of the race (August 5), Alonso met Ron Dennis in his motorhome and allegedly threatened to send his email exchanges with McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa and Coughlan to the FIA. According to Max Mosley, Ron Dennis informed him of the conversation and told Mosley that the threat was an empty one, “There’s no information, there’s nothing to come out; I can assure you that if there was something, Max, I would have told you.” Mosley subsequently retracted the implication that Dennis had lied.[29]
On 5 September 2007, the FIA announced that it had received new evidence regarding the case, and would re-open the investigation on September 13. This replaced the planned appeal hearing.[30] It later transpired that the new evidence was the driver’s emails that were sent to Bernie Ecclestone, F1’s commercial rights holder who then informed the FIA.[31] The FIA requested the three McLaren drivers (Alonso, Hamilton, and de la Rosa) to provide relevant evidence and help the FIA in further investigation. In return, the FIA offered assurance that any information made available would not result in any proceeding against the driver personally under the International Sporting Code or the Formula One Regulations. However, the drivers were notified that if it later came to light that they had withheld any potentially relevant information, serious consequences could follow.[32]
On 11 September, McLaren approached the FIA with questions about the Renault F1 team, and possibly other (then unknown) teams as well. At the time, it was unknown if the meeting related directly to the espionage scandal, but a key McLaren argument made was that if McLaren was guilty, other teams were as well.[33]
On 13 September, the FIA hearing imposed a penalty for illicitly collecting and holding information from Ferrari to confer a dishonest and fraudulent sporting advantage upon McLaren. The penalty consisted of exclusion from and withdrawal of all points awarded to McLaren in all rounds of the 2007 Constructors’ Championship, a record fine of $100 million (less the TV and travel income lost as a result of the points deduction), and the obligation for the team to submit its 2008 chassis for scrutiny. However, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton’s points were not affected, and the two were free to contest the Drivers’ Championship, because McLaren’s drivers were offered immunity in exchange for cooperation. The team was not banned and all drivers points earned only counted towards the driver’s championship points. Whenever a McLaren driver won any of the remaining races (the only example being Hamilton at the Japanese Grand Prix), no McLaren representative other than a driver was allowed onto the podium.[34]
On 14 September, Ron Dennis announced that he was the one who alerted the FIA that further evidence existed.
On 15 September, Max Mosley contested Ron Dennis’ claim that he alerted the FIA to the existence of further evidence, claiming that Dennis actually alerted him that Alonso had decided to send the emails in himself, and that Mosley had been erroneously assured by Dennis that the emails contained nothing incriminating.
On 21 October, during the investigation, at the final race in Brazil, both McLaren drivers lost the championship to Kimi Räikkönen.
On 6 December, Renault were found guilty of breaching article 151(c) of the International Sporting Code by another FIA WMSC hearing, but escaped penalty.[35]
On 13 December, McLaren issued a press release detailing a letter sent by Martin Whitmarsh, COO of the team, to the FIA.[36] In the letter, Whitmarsh stated that the team accepted that “a number of McLaren employees” had access to Ferrari technical information, and apologised that it took the intervention of the FIA for this to come to light. The team also offered to “enter into discussion... as to a moratorium of an appropriate length in respect of the use” of the systems.[37] On the same day, the FIA issued a press release stating that the FIA president would ask the members of the World Council “for their consent to cancel the hearing scheduled for 14 February 2008 and, in the interests of the sport, to consider this matter closed

[mabarker1]

I’m eating so thanks for not posting a pic of that.

Thank You, God !!!

[Paal Gulli]

This (allegedly) is a photo of the front row qualifiers at the 1969 Indianapolis 500.

But it isn't.

In fact, the man standing in the car in the middle isn't even entered in the race.

The man in the middle is Mario's twin brother, Aldo. Mario had burned his face in a crash a few days before this photo was taken. Whispers of the Andretti curse already were in circulation, and Mario didn't want to add fuel to that fire (pardon the pun) by being photographed with burns on his face.

So rather than enshrine an image of himself bearing a reminder of one of his many crashes, he had identical twin brother Aldo stand in. And hardly anybody noticed the difference.

Later that same year, brother Aldo ended his racing career with an end-over-end sprint car oopsie that broke 14 bones in his face, leaving him not so identical to brother Mario.

Aldo died from Covid in 2020.

If you want a better look, there's a larger image here.

[mabarker1]

I remember that.

[clintonh8r]

I was lucky to see Mario drive four times with two wins….the 1971 Questor Grand Prix (won in Ferrari 312), 1978 Belgian Grand Prix (won in Lotus 79), a24 Hours of Daytona (can’t remember the year but he drove with Michael in the first Porsche 956 to race in the US), 1994 Indy 500. Then I was invited to his farewell retirement dinner!

[NFHale]

Those are the “race cars” of my boyhood Hot Wheels and Jonny Lightning days…

I dreamed about racing in those little Road Missiles…

[Big Red Badger]

Aldo of course is/was John Andretti Father
of which I crewed at Hall/VDS racing out of Midland Texas. Also came to Johns’ Big races and was Always unbelievable Kind in every Way! It was said Aldo was a Better Racer than Mario.
.
Fun Times...

[Big Red Badger]

Way before my time But I may have layed hands on That STP Car !
.
But Who are the Drivers on Aldos Side?
.
Looks like A.J.-—

[Big Red Badger]

Either Unser or Lone Star J.R.

[doorgunner69]

AJ would have broken the car into 14 pieces to get even.

[Paal Gulli]

...Mary-oh Andretti woulda sure been proud
Of the way I was movin’ when I passed that crowd
Comin’ out the door and headin’ toward me in a trot

An’ I guess I shoulda gone ahead an’ run
But somehow I couldn’t resist the fun
Of chasin’ them jes’ once around the parkin’ lot....

[mabarker1]

Pole: A.J. Foyt Car#6

P2: Mario Andretti Car#2 (Driver in Pic is Aldo Andretti due to Mario having burns on face from a wreck 2 days earlier.)

P3: Bobby Unser Car#1

[mabarker1]

My Brother was going to take Me with Him to the 1969 Race but in a pre-trip safety inspection of His Pontiac GTO 389/Tri-power We found a major crack in one of the lower A-Frames and there wasn't enough $$$ to fix that and go to the Race.☹️

Not His car but it looked like this one.

[Big Red Badger]

I was Absolutely In Heaven at that Track !
The History,the Cars,the Characters that were Always around. No Car to work on..?
Go to the Museum or the English Pub hang out down Geogretown.
.
The Month of May was Eletric !