Motorsport Stuff thread

[APR193 0]

BSB is head and shoulders above every other form of motorsport when it comes to accessibility. While its not that relaxed on race weekends, the access you have to riders, teams, pit lane etc etc is fantastic.

[buttonfan 5]

Great weekend coming with lots of races. F1, MotoGP, BTCC, Formula E, Indycar, WTCC and WSBK!

[Platy 6]

This is what the track looks for the Indycar race this weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgKIlsRZA-U

[RevolvingPrawn 1]

Pretty sure my schedule for tonight will be to watch the Formula E coverage, then wait 30 mins and watch Indycar :) Likely to fall asleep before it finishes but they upload their races to YouTube yea? Will watch it one way or another.

[MBKF1 91]

I was too tired to stay up for the Formula E so I watched the highlights this morning :p Good race though, such a shame for Bird with his mistake, and also a very silly move from Buemi, but that's certainly spiced up the championship now.

Also caught the first two BTCC races, both superb as usual, and now time for Formula 1! Great weekend.

[tbtstt 2,439]

Rather delayed (due to DiRT Rally arriving!), but a few photos from the second round of the British Rallycross Championship a couple of weekends ago:











Few more shots here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22961613@N06/albums/72157664569361974

If anyone is interested!

[MBKF1 91]

Off to Silverstone tomorrow to watch the WEC practice sessions! Forecast is to rain all day tomorrow and it'll be windy without a doubt, because it's Silverstone, but I'm sure it'll be worth it to see some proper car racing.

Also there's open access to the Wing building for fans, so if it comes to it I just could spend my time in there to save getting wet and freezing to death.

[buttonfan 5]

Have fun Matt! Hopefully the race is going to be as exciting as the 2015 one, and Toyota will be in the mix as well.

[VetteIfan 0]

MBKF1 said:

Off to Silverstone tomorrow to watch the WEC practice sessions! Forecast is to rain all day tomorrow and it'll be windy without a doubt, because it's Silverstone, but I'm sure it'll be worth it to see some proper car racing.

Also there's open access to the Wing building for fans, so if it comes to it I just could spend my time in there to save getting wet and freezing to death.

You do know that no racing takes place in practice right? :p

Should be fun though. Hope you get a clearer day than is forecast. And try not to stare at the Audi too long, that thing is ugly as hell this season. 

[MBKF1 91]

VetteIfan said:

You do know that no racing takes place in practice right? :p

Yeah yeah I know, you know what I mean though! But anyway, another super day at Silverstone. I'll try to keep my post as short as possible but so much happened I want to talk about!

First of all the weather, and amazingly it didn't rain at all while we were there which was a relief! It wasn't even that windy either which was a real surprise, so it was a very pleasant day.

Started off by watching the ELMS 1st practice in the end of the International Pits Straight grandstand, so we could see them coming through Stowe, Vale and Club. It was a good place to sit, as we saw a lot of spinners going into the gravel at Vale, and could see them trying to ease the power on through Club in the wet conditions.

There was then about an hour break before the WEC 1st practice started, so we grabbed a hot chocolate and walked over to the Wing to see what was going on there. It took us about 30 minutes to effectively cross the track as we had to go all the way over the old circuit, across the Wellington Straight bridge, around the inside of the circuit past Maggots and Becketts / Aintree and then to the Paddock.

We briefly looked at the Fan Zone area but there wasn't loads to do so we went for a walk through the WEC paddock and went into the Wing, right in time for the start of the session.

We watched the entire session from the long balcony of the Wing, which overlooked the pit lane and main straight. The hour and a half flew by, and it was cool as there were always cars going through the pits, so managed to get some nice photos of the cars. I deliberately made sure I got a spot directly overlooking the Porsche garage for the end of the session so I had a great view of the two cars going practice driver changes and pit stops. Awesome. Also managed to spot a few drivers who were walking between the garage and the pit wall, including Buemi, Heidfeld and Webber. 

It's amazing how quiet the LMP1 hybrids are, especially the Audi. In the braking zone for T1 you can hardly hear them. The loudest car I thought was the new Ford GT. It looks mega, sounds mega. The Toyota was interesting to listen to as well, as coming out of the pits you can just hear the electric motor powering it and then a couple of seconds later the petrol engine kicks in. The hybrids are like rockets out of the corners, they are gone so quickly, it's amazing.

You can also visibly tell the Porsche just looks fast. They were able to carry so much speed into T1, just mega to watch. Another thing which I've never seen before until yesterday, is electronic pit boards. Some of the teams have these boards with screens which can automatically slide in and out of the pit wall, so the teams can basically display any information they like on them. Really neat.

Something else I noticed, not only in the WEC but also the ELMS and Porsche championships, is how good the liveries are. Formula 1 looks so dreary in comparison, there are some real masterpieces out there. The Porsche LMP1, Corvettes, Fords, the Ferrari to name a few.

After the WEC finished we grabbed some lunch and walked to the National Pits Straight paddock where ELMS and Porsche Carrera Cup were based. We were right in the thick of it with the Porsches, and they were all based on one of the service roads by the paddock! We then watched the ELMS 2nd practice from Copse corner for about 30 minutes, where the Ferrari's in particular were breathtaking. They are relatively quiet when approaching you, but when they get through the corner and back on the power, it's a wall of sound that just hits you. Really spectacular.

Finally we watched from Woodcote (overlooking the Wellington Straight, Brooklands, Luffield, Woodcote and the pit straight to Copse) for a bit and then headed back!

A super day for just £10, I really urge you to go to the WEC if you haven't already, it's awesome.

[Platy 6]

Just finished watching the Indycar race at Barber from this weekend. My God what an amazing race. I would seriously recommend watching it if you can find it uploaded somewhere, or wait until Thursday when Indycar will put the full race on their YouTube.

I won't give any spoilers away, but it was the best race I've seen in a while.

[tbtstt 2,439]

Few photos from the opening British GT round at Brands last weekend:






Few more here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22961613@N06/albums/72157667561380086

If any of you are interested! 

[MBKF1 91]

Top pictures as always, and speaking of which, here are some from when I went to Silverstone a couple of weeks ago!

[tbtstt 2,439]

Awesome shots @MBKF1, that was a very cool position to be watching from!

[MBKF1 91]

tbtstt said:

Awesome shots @MBKF1, that was a very cool position to be watching from!

Cheers! It was fantastic, I took about 95% of my photos from there, just amazing, and I was pretty lucky in some situations as the cars came in for stops directly below me.

Another reason I took so many from there is because I have absolutely rubbish zoom on my camera. I should just save up and buy a new lens but I can't justify it right now, I don't use my camera enough.

[f1since08 60]

Those pictures are amazing @MBKF! I mostly recorded videos when I went to the British GP as my camera has a slow shutter speed. I got some great shots at Croft last year though!

[VetteIfan 0]

MBKF1 said:

Arghh, it burns.

Awesome photos though. The LMP2 cars look gorgeous this year. Consider me jealous. 

[MBKF1 91]

Thank you! Yeah the LMP2 cars are great this year, and also the liveries in the GT section are fantastic. The Ford is my favourite, partly because the livery 'makes sense' if you know what I mean. It follows the natural curves of the car, and that red hoop area over the No. 66 is beautiful, as the blue and white carries on beneath it and emerges on the other side. Simple but very well thought out,

If you get the chance to see them next year, then definitely go. For £10 it is just the most fantastic day out.

[Platy 6]

For anyone after a bit of motorsport action, here's the full Indycar race from last weekend. Hosted on the official Indycar YouTube page, they upload full races every Thursday after a race.

I'd recommend this race, one of my favourite motorsport races in a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8QXTI8pHIY&ab_channel=indycar

[Mexicola 10]

I second that, terrific little race that was.

[Jiggy 5]

Yep. Great battles.

Randomly adding characters again

[VetteIfan 0]

So, the 6 hours of Spa was something. Real race of attrition, once again a private LMP1 team ended up on the podium. LMP2 was also brilliant, after six hours of racing the 4 leading cars in class were separated by less than 6 seconds at the flag. The lead was also decided with just 5 minutes to go with a fabulous move involving the two cars going either side of a backmarker in to the Fagnes chicane. 

Judging by the first two races it's going to be a pretty wild Le Mans. 

[tbtstt 2,439]

Some pictures from the second round of the Blancpain GT Sprint Cup at Brands Hatch last weekend:







Few more here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22961613@N06/albums/72157668224575636

If any of you are interested! 

[APR193 0]

tbtstt said:

Some pictures from the second round of the Blancpain GT Sprint Cup at Brands Hatch last weekend:







Few more here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22961613@N06/albums/72157668224575636

If any of you are interested! 

Went to Brands on the saturday as was busy on the Sunday. Absolutely in love with that Vulcan. First time I've seen a GTE spec car as well in the form of two 458's in the GT Sport Club races, had no idea they were that loud. Genuinely sound like old F1 cars.

[tbtstt 2,439]

APR193 said:

Went to Brands on the saturday as was busy on the Sunday. Absolutely in love with that Vulcan. First time I've seen a GTE spec car as well in the form of two 458's in the GT Sport Club races, had no idea they were that loud. Genuinely sound like old F1 cars.

The Vulcan looked incredible didn't it? It made everything else in that Hypercar Club look tame in comparison!