# Watching USGP practice, potential Q1 spoilers



## WILLIA///M (Apr 15, 2002)

Webber 1:10.081 P3 :yikes:


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## PhilH (Jun 7, 2002)

Man, the track must really be drying or something. Webber is now 3rd fastest. :yikes:


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## PhilH (Jun 7, 2002)

I like how you can even see the warmup and cooldown laps on that website.


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## WILLIA///M (Apr 15, 2002)

PhilH said:


> Man, the track must really be drying or something. Webber is now 3rd fastest. :yikes:


He picked up a lot in the last sector somehow. Trulli was scary fast through the first two sectors, up a half a second.


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## WILLIA///M (Apr 15, 2002)

Rain has started again. All times from now on will be compromised. Panis is on the track and he's 8 seconds off the pace.


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## PhilH (Jun 7, 2002)

Watching live F1 qualifying times is a cool way to spend an hour at work.


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## The HACK (Dec 19, 2001)

PhilH said:


> Man, the track must really be drying or something. Webber is now 3rd fastest. :yikes:


No, it was actually raining as DC was qualifying. What happened was the first few runners laid down rubber on a freshly scrubbed track (rain) and later runners have better traction thus produces better time.

Judging from these times, if weather holds tomorrow we will see a very competitive Q2.


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## PhilH (Jun 7, 2002)

That piece on the 1973 German Grand Prix at the old Nurburgring was more enjoyable than the actual qualifying for the 2003 US GP. After seeing the "green hell" on so many in car videos on the internet, it was amazing to see a whole field of F1 cars actually racing on it. 

Even back then, there didn't seem to be much passing in F1 (although the camera work pretty much sucked...).


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## Pinecone (Apr 3, 2002)

PhilH said:


> Even back then, there didn't seem to be much passing in F1 (although the camera work pretty much sucked...).


Actually I have seen more passing in EACH race these past two years, than in entire seasons of F1 in the past.

In the old days (especially before pit stops) it was pretty much, race to the first turn, then hope the cars doesn't break. Cars pretty much finished in the order which they exited the first turn, except for retirements.

Even last year, other than the top couple of places, had some GREAT racing.

Some people don't like the grooves and other rules, but they have put passing back into the equation.


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## PhilH (Jun 7, 2002)

It's a little surprising how the announcers on Speed are wrong about which sectors are fast and which are slow. By checking out http://www.formula1.com/race/livetiming/32.html you can see that they're dead wrong about some of it. You'd think that they at least have the same information that I have sitting at home. Maybe they're too busy talking to pay much attention to the sector times.

For example, Webber did _not_ pick up all his time in the last sector in yesterday's qualifying, he was just a couple tenths off the fastest time in each sector. Just now in practice, they said that DaMatta was slow in the last sector, and he wasn't, he was slow in the first sector.


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## SteveT (Dec 22, 2001)

Have you guys noticed that this is the first time that Williams has set up the FW25 to have a top speed advantage, even over the F2003-GA? They can set it up for downforce and sacrifice speed on the straight and perhaps be fastest. Passing will take place going into turn one and speed will get them there. Typically Williams haven't done this. Mario Thiessen has also said they've something special in the P83 as well.


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## PhilH (Jun 7, 2002)

Yeah, in the second practice session this morning Montoya has the fastest third sector time, at 19.6 seconds.

Strangely, Mark Webber has the fastest second sector time, and it's by over a tenth of a second. They must really have some handling cranked onto that Jag right now.


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## Jetfire (Jun 20, 2002)

How do practice times correlate to qualifying times at GP events? Can we assume that the order shown during final practice laps will more or less dictate qualifying order?


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## SteveT (Dec 22, 2001)

Jetfire said:


> How do practice times correlate to qualifying times at GP events? Can we assume that the order shown during final practice laps will more or less dictate qualifying order?


You can't assume too much of anything, because we don't know how much fuel any of them have on board. This last practice and now the warmup begin to show the qualifying/race setup, but even then you never know.


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