Can you believe this s**t!?!

[BengalszoneBilly]

BARCELONA, Spain -- To pass or not to pass, that is the question. And to penalize or not to penalize, that is the question, too.

A Formula One grand prix isn't like the Bristol NASCAR races. You won't see a lot of pushing and shoving and passing in an F1 race compared to the Bristol classic. But passing is a rare enough occasion in F1 that the more controversial moves are easier to highlight.

True, Michael Schumacher won each of the four races so far this year, but there's actually been quite a bit of action, some of it involving the man himself, with misses, near misses and collisions as F1 drivers battled for position.

And all this has led to the same old difficult question: What is acceptable and what is not when it comes to both the driver making the passing move and the one defending his position?

Juan Pablo Montoya is still upset about the way Schumacher punted him off the track while they were dueling on the opening lap of the recent San Marino Grand Prix.

Schumacher and Montoya have raced each other hard plenty of times.

"He said 'Sorry, I didn't see you.' I don't think that is an apology," Montoya said as he chatted with reporters on the day before practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

"I said to him 'I don't mind you closing the door, but I do mind when you actually hit somebody to get them off the circuit.'

"I don't mind if he pushes me into the grass like that (Montoya uses his two hands to show two cars going off in an arcing move.) If it is like that you know you are not going to fit and you back off. But when it is like that (Montoya shows one hand hitting the other) you can't do anything."

The general rule is that the driver in front can make one blocking move. Montoya said that Schumacher had already blocked him twice before they tangled.

"You are meant to do one move," Montoya said, "and after the first chicane he went all the way to the left and all the way to the right. I went left, he went left, I went right, he went right. That is two moves."

Ironically, as Montoya had to back off after the incident with Michael Schumacher and was thus slow leaving the corner, Montoya's own teammate Ralf Schumacher tried to take advantage of the situation and pass Montoya on the left. But Montoya moved over and forced Ralf onto the grass.

"He (Montoya) tried to defend his position," Ralf said. "I came from behind, so it was a perfect move (on Montoya's part). I couldn't care less. I would have done the same."

Ralf said that Montoya was being hypocritical about the two moves, complaining about Michael and then dishing out similar treatment to Ralf.

"I'm just surprised that he complained that much about Michael because he (Montoya) was on the outside, a wheel length behind, so I don't know what he expected," Ralf said. "If you do one you shouldn't complain about the other, but that is sometimes his style to complain about other people, to be very harsh to others."

Later in that same race, Ralf made a slight mistake and Fernando Alonso dived for the inside of the corner only to have Ralf chop down on him.

So just how far can a driver go to defend his position?

"What I don't quite understand, what needs a bit more clarification from the FIA," Ralf Schumacher said, "is that if somebody dives in and is clearly behind you, now the FIA is saying that you have to give him space."

Ralf Schumacher said that this rule would lead to drivers charging in recklessly because they know that they will be given the space to overtake.

"You have the situation where you just dive in and try whatever you need to get your front wheel next to his rear wheel, and then he has to give you space, and you pass him eventually," Schumacher said. "If somebody is clearly next to you, that is one story, but just dive in ... just to come somehow to come a bit next to me, and then I have to give him room?"

One option would be to give the drivers free reign when it comes to overtaking by not having any rules to delineate what is acceptable and what is not. Montoya's reaction to that possibility?

"No!" Montoya said. "If it is out of hand like this, with rules, without rules it would be outrageous!"

But do the rules prevent drivers being aggressive because they are afraid of getting a penalty?

"Yes and no," Ralf Schumacher said. "The problem is that we have sensible drivers and we don't. (FIA official) Charlie (Whiting) just tries to find a line in between, which is difficult and simply impossible. I don't have a solution."

Michael Schumacher has made some pretty audacious defensive moves over the years. Where does he see the line being drawn between acceptable and non-acceptable driving?

"In life we can't have a rule for exactly every circumstance," he said. "There will ultimately be a circumstance that will not be covered 100 percent by a rule. It is always an interpretation of a rule. Over the years we have had that issue, and we simply have not found a verbal or written rule that can cover every movement in every circumstance. We are always happy to hear suggestions."

So far this season Jenson Button, who has avoided any controversy out on the track, thinks there are lines that drivers shouldn't cross.

“ The problem is that we have sensible drivers and we don't. (The FIA) just tries to find a line in between, which is difficult and simply impossible. I don't have a solution. ”

— Ralf Schumacher

"If you are at high speed, you just have to use common sense," he said. "You can't drive somebody onto the grass, even if you are holding your line. I don't think that you can push somebody off on the grass, which I saw in a DTM (German touring car race) race last week. But I think in a slow speed corner you can exit and take your line as long as it is safe."

As a co-president along with Michael Schumacher of the Grand Prix Drivers Association, Mark Webber is responsible for helping to create a code of ethics for the drivers. But determing what is fair is not an easy task.

"That's a tough one," he said. "We have to race hard and fair. If you overtake now you need a lot of courage, and you need to be able to do it properly, not put the other driver at risk, and have a clean move."

Webber says it's very tricky to not overdo it, and thus slide by the driver on the inside as you try to overtake him and then lock up your brakes and fail to make the pass. Or if you are too conservative, not getting all the way alongside the driver and risk having him chop down on you. Avoid those two mistakes and you might be able to pull off the pass.

The bottom line, Montoya says, is that the drivers need a clearer set of parameters."It just needs to be more clear what you are allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do," Montoya said.

Dan Knutson covers Formula One for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.

[kevnz]

Forumla 1 is for pansies. I hate it, I hate it more than I hate the Browns and the Ravens rolled into one. Put some fenders on those boys and what happens happens...You look at an F1 race and maybe 3 people at most have a shot at winning, look at NASCAR or even IRL and over half the field have a legit shot at winning...I HATE F1

[Sox]

I have friends that love F1.I absolutely hate it.

Watching a race and never seeing a single pass by the lead pack?Please.

[Barbarian]

Someone help me out with this:

WHY IS CAR RACING A SPORT??????????????????????????

[BengalszoneBilly]

Someone help me out with this:

WHY IS CAR RACING A SPORT??????????????????????????

       

If you gotta ask, you just wouldn't understand. It AIN'T for everybody. Most women I know just HATE it!

Honestly my answer is it's a pastime that you could be killed doing. Same as sky diving, downhill skiing, baseball (taking a 97 mph fastball in the head), football (getting your neck broken, or getting knifed by Ray Lewis), or horse racing (falling off your mount and being trampled to death). I had a hard time finding a reason for basketball though. Oh well.

[halp]

come on BILLIE....rev up those engines and return to the days when men were men and you were the BOOBIEMEISTER

[BengalszoneBilly]

come on BILLIE....rev up those engines and return to the days when men were men and you were the BOOBIEMEISTER

Damn halp...you are a horn dog! How 'bout you send me you e-mail address, and I'll send you a copy of the "Booby-miestress!" Then you too can be a boobymiester! I don't mind sharing her!

[BengalszoneBilly]

More reason to hate Formula 1:

F1 badly needs new formula

From The Times

May 11, 2004

FERRARI's Michael Schumacher gave a leap of joy after winning the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on Sunday, but his serial celebrations are pushing Formula One to the edge of a precipice and the danger of a long drop into oblivion unless someone can be found to beat him soon.

The 75th victory of an astonishing career and his fifth win in a row this season, equalling Nigel Mansell's record of 1992, was achieved at a canter while his rivals followed in a humbled procession.

Such domination will press the accelerator on plans for the biggest changes to the sport in 40 years.

Formula One's powerbroker, Bernie Ecclestone, watched with dismay in Barcelona as the sport he created on the foundations of the biggest global television audience outside of the Olympic Games and the soccer World Cup threatened to become a big turn-off.

As Schumacher demolished his opposition, thousands of viewers doubtlessly were turning to mowing lawns and putting up shelves and giving up on a sport in which the excitement lasts a few minutes and then the boredom stretches until Schumacher's victory leap.

Max Mosley, president of the governing body, the FIA, which has ordered huge changes by 2008, believes that the sport cannot wait any longer for an overhaul.

He watched the race at home in Monaco in mounting disappointment that no challenge could be found for a driver who has smashed almost every Formula One record.

Worse still, Schumacher did it without having to pass another car. Nor did any other driver manage a credible overtaking manoeuvre in 66 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya.

"The race threatened to be boring and it was," Mosley said.

"We have to do something about the cars because people cannot overtake and that is the essence of Formula One.

"There is undoubtedly a danger that the television audience that makes Formula One function is in danger of slipping away before we get the chance to do something about the situation.

"At the moment we can only impose change from 2008, but that might be far too late and the damage will be done by then.

"We have to act as soon as we can and make changes from 2005 and increase the pace of change into 2006 before people turn off Formula One and forget that it is the pinnacle of motor racing.

"The teams must react and co-operate with us or the whole thing will be in jeopardy."

The fact that Schumacher wins race after race is less of a problem than that his victories are so complete.

The staple ingredients of glitz and glamour were here in abundance, with Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones making an appearance on the grid in front of a record crowd of 108,000.

But the drivers amounted to little more than a glum cast of spearholders at the back of the stage while Schumacher hogged the limelight. The success of Schumacher and Ferrari is hardly their fault, more a condemnation of the sport's structural financial problems and the failings of their rivals.

Sunday's win gave Schumacher an 18-point lead in the drivers' world championship and his nearest challenger is team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, who completed yet another one-two for the Scuderia.

Ferrari have 82 points in the constructors' championship, 40 more than Renault and 50 more than Williams, who have not won a race since August.

Even though his Ferrari had a cracked exhaust on Sunday, Schumacher has not broken down in almost three years.

His domination is so great that one bookmaker already has paid out to punters who predicted that the German would take his seventh championship this year and few would bet against another win in a fortnight in Monaco, where the German has won five times before.

Schumacher, perhaps disingenuously, refused to look forward to a record sixth consecutive win next Sunday.

"It would be ideal to win such a prestigious race," Schumacher said. "But motor racing is unpredictable."

Not at the moment, it isn't.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And if that wasn't enough...how's this crap:

Last Updated: Monday, 10 May, 2004, 15:30 GMT 16:30 UK

E-mail this to a friend Printable version

Schumacher set to copy Arsenal

By Jonathan Legard

BBC motor racing correspondent

Bernie Ecclestone thinks it would be "fantastic" if Michael Schumacher won all 18 races of Formula One's longest season.

"If he only managed 16 or 17, it would be an unfinished job," said F1's impresario.

It is unclear whether Ecclestone was being mischievous in raising the prospect of another Schumacher record, but Germany seems to be in agreement.

TV ratings in Schumacher's homeland have risen this season by more than half a million.

Schumacher's domination has not gone down so well outside Germany

And if Jenson Button or David Coulthard were ripping up the record books, wouldn't a British audience be doing the same?

Who protested in 1992 when Nigel Mansell was wrapping up his world championship in record time?

But make no mistake, much of the world is complaining about Schumacher's supremacy at a time when F1 is hyper-sensitive over its long term future.

It is hardly Ferrari's fault that they keep winning. More culpable are their former rivals, Williams and McLaren.

How could Williams have run out of brakes at a circuit that they know so well? And how much lower can the 1998 champions sink - lapped by Schumacher and beaten by both Sauber drivers?

BAR talk optimistically about catching Ferrari, and understandably so after Button's performance in Imola, and Sato's promise in Barcelona.

Their rise to the front of the grid is one of the season's few highlights.

If Button or Renault's Jarno Trulli were to get ahead in qualifying, then Schumacher's bid for a sixth straight win could flounder.

But while the failure of the opposition cannot be dumped at Ferrari's door, the champions need to shoulder part of the blame for F1's current insecurity.

The idea Max Mosley's revolution will automatically create more competitive racing is laughable

It was their unsporting conduct in 2002, manipulating race results in Austria and the United States, that provoked so many of the sport's quick fixes.

Muzzling Rubens Barrichello that day in Austria undermined their credibility, and heaped unnecessary outside pressure on the sport to make changes.

Never mind that Barrichello is not in Schumacher's class, team-mates should be allowed to race each other.

That said, Schumacher has conclusively crushed Barrichello's confidence this year, yet he remains the German's closest challenger.

Max Mosley's blueprint needs careful consideration, not kneejerk acceptance under the shadow of next month's World Motorsport Council meeting.

Just because Ferrari are again making mugs of their rivals does not mean another overhaul of the rules.

Sensible solutions to save money should be applauded, but the idea that Mosley's revolution will automatically create more competitive racing is laughable.

If the driver is to become the main force in the cockpit, not electronics, that will favour the best driver. And what's his name?

Arsenal's pursuit of excellence in the Premiership against 19 rivals has defied the odds.

On current form, F1's leading man has all the qualities - including good fortune - to achieve a similar feat.