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Mephistopheles To be fair the angle of the corner where the incident is a bit tricky and his line of view is partly obstructed by the Ferrari in front. He piles on the brakes and nearly loses the rear, so he has to go in between the medical car and the barrier. He would have crashed into the whole lot if he hadn't.
 
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Ivan Capelli was retired for 14 races (ITA 1990-GER 1991) in a row, never getting classified finish like de Cesaris did during his streak. de Cesaris however was not classified for 18 straight races he drove. In that case he missed several races though after he was sacked by Ligier. Similarly as on consecutive finishes Räikkönen has been listed with his streak beginning in Australian GP 2012.
 
Please don't mind if i place some mistakes, had some glasses of wine.

Was watching The Right To Win and ad a given point they say the heartbeat of a f1 driver reaches 180bpm and peaks to 220-230bpm. And I remember on a Thierry Boutson vid. I saw the heartbeat going up and holding his breath.


So, how does it go in this day and age? Certainly the element of fear is gone.
 
Why have Ferrari, ever since the mid-eighties, adopted the tradition of sticking what looks like a (usually red) strip of gaffer tape on the top-section of one of their two drivers' helmet visors?

1985monma.jpg


Nigel-Mansell-1989-Hungary-GP.jpg


They're bit less visible these days as there are also tiny sponsor stickers on them, but I always found that slightly puzzling.

I know back then there was a drive towards making individual drivers more instantly identifiable to telly audiences from their team-mates as race-numbers were already getting smaller but that can't have been the reason, since they look even less noticeable on TV?...
 
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Rossi has left GP2 and has joined Marussia as their reserve driver. Before this he was able to compete in GP2 and be a test driver for Caterham at the same time. What I want to know is there anything in the rules preventing a driver competing in both F1 and GP2 at the same time?
 
It used to be common for drivers to do more then one series I don't think there is any actual rule against it but there is probably something written in their contracts say they can't..
 
Regarding F1 and GP2 I think there is a rule that driver can't race in both of them same weekend. At least that kind of thing happened for Zsolt Baumgartner in 2003. Firman was injured in Saturday FP and Baumgartner replaced him, pulling out of F3000 race (qualifying had been done already) as a result.
 
We were there that day, the race was started even though it was obvious to all that there would be very heavy rain very soon. Sure enough, it came, drivers were all over the place (Raikkonen tried to turn into the pits but his car went straight on) and the race was red flagged. Winkelhock had pitted at the end of the warm up lap to change onto wet tyres, meaning that he had to start from the pit lane; being on wet tyres was an enormous advantage, such that when the race was red flagged he was in the lead. So he led from pole position at the restart, it was one of the quickest loss of places be a pole sitter ever.

This was the one and only F1 race that Winkelhock raced in, although he had taken part in a couple of Friday Free Practice sessions in 2006.
 
Incubus Alonos has a blue strip and Raikkonen a red one this season. Massa used to have a yellow sun strip across his helmet so I'm not sure they are always red.
 
Just been going over some old Youtube clips of the 84 season and it was mentioned that Michele Alboreto had been punched in the mouth by an Italian Journalist before the Italian GP. Anyone know anything about this and why that was?
 
Just had a look at the October 84 issue of MotorSport and Jenks made no mention of the Alboreto confrontation in his write-up of the Italian GP. Details must be out there somewhere though.
 
cider_and_toast I'm pretty sure the incident is mentioned in the Autocourse edition of that year within the Italian GP race report. I left my copy at me mum's house a couple of decades ago but as it happens she's coming over for a visit next month, so I'll ask her to bring me my old motor racing books, so if you're willing to wait for a month I might be able to help you with your query. :)
 
Hamilton leads the Hungarian GP after a pit start. How many drivers have led the race after starting from the pits?

I can think of another case right away - Marcus Winkelhock in Germany 2007

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Nigel Mansell and Alessandro Nannini were first and second during the 1989 Canadian GP after starting from the pit-lane... a bit too soon.
They'd decided to head for the pits at the end of the warm-up lap to try and gamble on slicks on a damp track. They thought the race had already started because incompetent race officials meant flags were nowhere to be seen at th end of the pit-lane, which is normally a sign that the race is under way. So Mansell and Nannini sped off the pit-lane before the race had started and promptly got black-flagged.
 
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