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Post by Eff One on Sept 18, 2019 21:24:09 GMT
I joined in 2003, I think. I've never been a very prolific poster, but the forum in its various forms has been around for more than a third of my life.
I've met ALF and Piers a few times, and recall nearly breaking Stuntman at Thruxton kart circuit about ten years ago.
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Post by Eff One on Sept 2, 2019 21:37:55 GMT
After what they witnessed on Saturday, anyone who got back in a racing car on Sunday deserves... I don't know what. A medal doesn't really cut it. Ocon, Leclerc, Gasly and Hubert started out in karting together, and Gasly especially looked devastated.
I didn't know Anthoine Hubert, was only peripherally aware of him before Saturday, but I have friends who did. A lot of people in motorsport are suffering right now.
The sight of thousands of spectators on their feet applauding on lap 19 was one of the most moving things I have ever seen. I don't mind admitting that I joined them from my living room.
A horrible weekend, but the show went on and produced a fine race. And the right winner.
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Post by Eff One on Aug 22, 2019 11:33:57 GMT
Think MX5 with a roof rather then diet Mustang. Exactly. The 370Z is fast, but it's a heavy, thirsty, brutish thing. The GT86/BRZ is 350kg lighter and was designed for people who prioritise feel and flow along the road over absolute performance - ie, me. I've never driven one but I'd be surprised if I didn't like it. That said, I would prefer a bit more grunt.
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Post by Eff One on Aug 20, 2019 22:12:03 GMT
A Cayman of some flavour has been top of the list for years, but it's out of budget and I need rear seats.
In the real world:
1. Fiesta ST, although I'm disappointed at the demise of the old Spirit blue. But like my old one, it would probably be virtually everything I want in a car.
2. I've always loved the idea of a GT86 or BRZ, though I'd have to be sure that the engine wouldn't grow annoying with time. They're expensive these days, too.
3. Civic Type R. If the reviews are to be believed, it offers a remarkable mix of practicality, usability and supercar-baiting pace, and a lot of precision engineering for the money. In the right colour I could even live with the looks.
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Post by Eff One on Aug 9, 2019 18:43:24 GMT
Interesting. One of my mates had a 63 plate 1.0 Focus with, I think, 125BHP and I was very impressed with it. He always reckoned to be getting 50+ mpg from it too while not exactly hanging about. Sounds like the ride and handling are similar with this one as well. Exactly what we've got. Eerily quiet unless you're wringing it out and deceptively quick. Typical Ford blend of supple surefootedness. My only real beefs are that the seats are too wide and flat, and the steering, though accurate, is too light. There is some feel, at least. Overall a very good car indeed, but the Fiesta is more fun.
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Post by Eff One on Jul 27, 2019 12:58:42 GMT
Resurrecting this - have suddenly developed an unhealthy fascination with these after rereading the original Evo review.
Has anyone actually driven one?
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Post by Eff One on Jun 13, 2019 12:04:48 GMT
It's that time again. And following a lot of drama in free practice and qualy on Wednesday, I'm feeling a little more hopeful about the chances of some sort of challenge to the Toyotas. But the best of the racing is likely to be in the lower classes. Lots of F1 refugees as usual (though sadly no Jenson Button this year); I'll be interested to see how Vandoorne gets on. And LMP2 has a lot of ex-Audi and Porsche LMP1 drivers alongside the usual mix of experienced hands and rich kids having a go.
I'll be set up for the night armed with a laptop, the Eurosport Player app on the Fire stick, and coffee on tap. I find that no other race sucks you in quite like this one. And there's nothing quite like watching an LMP1 car onboard in the dead of night.
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Post by Eff One on Jun 11, 2019 13:43:25 GMT
The Raikkonen/Verstappen incident didn't look quite the same to me, Verstappen rejoined with Raikkonen beside him, and put him off. Vettel took longer to regain control of the car than first appeared to me, getting a kick of oversteer which sent him across the track - by which time Hamilton was all over him. He certainly shut the door, but Hamilton would have known what was going to happen as soon as Vettel went across the grass - yet still barreled into a gap which was only going to narrow. He's obviously not to blame for Vettel's error, but he did help trigger the penalty - which was very, very marginal in my view. What they should have done was let the race play out and investigate afterwards with more time and cooler heads.
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Post by Eff One on Jun 7, 2019 10:15:51 GMT
That looks very nice and I'd go so far as to look beyond my default choice of a Fiesta if I was looking for a new small car. I'm particularly impressed by its light weight compared to the Fiesta, and the interior looks neat and functional. If you must stick bloody great touchscreens in cars, then they must at least be properly integrated, as this is, and not perched on the dash like an afterthought, as in the Fiesta.
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Post by Eff One on Jun 3, 2019 13:48:37 GMT
The overnight ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick is a civilised affair. You can get on 2 hours before departure, and linger over breakfast if you wish. And if you hire a car from one of the local agencies (Star or Bolts) one of their representatives meets you off the boat. No queuing, no bullshit, no hard sell. Bliss. Even so, my sunny mood took a dip when the nice lady from Bolts revealed that we'd been saddled with an MG for the week. "It's bright yellow," she said. "You can't miss it." She wasn't wrong. I remembered that MG had been reincarnated under Chinese ownership, but knew nothing about the cars. Expectations, it's fair to say, were low. But the MG3 looked tidy and foursquare and very, very yellow on a grey Shetland morning. It swallowed three adults, a toddler and a week's worth of luggage without fuss. And although some parts of the interior were pretty low rent - the dials in particular - the major touch points were pleasantly tactile. The seats felt comfortable and well bolstered, the driving position was near-ideal, the centre screen was nicely integrated and reasonably intuitive... but still, I expected to be disappointed as soon as we got moving. The engine is very old school - normally aspirated 1.5, 105bhp. With only 700 miles on the clock and four up, progress was stately and accompanied by a fair bit of thrum and thrash. But the five-speed 'box snicked cleanly between ratios, the pedals sensibly positioned and easy to modulate... and the steering, I was bemused to discover, didn't just have perfect weighting. There was actual feel. The astonishment deepened once we reached the open road. I felt sure I must be imagining things but to me the damping felt almost Ford-esque in its sophistication - firm yet supple, with impeccable body control. And when I had to use the brakes in anger (to avoid a sheep) they performed above expectation too, with excellent stopping power and pedal feel. Later in the week, with a lighter load, I had a chance to work it a little harder on some stunning roads. And it continued to impress: precise and surefooted, turning in keenly and gripping hard, its mass held well in check, refusing to be deflected by mid-corner ruts or bumps. In other words, really bloody good. It isn't perfect, of course. There's too much road noise (though wind is well insulated), economy is so-so (we averaged 42mpg) and the engine is short of grunt. But it's comfortable and practical, and if you show it a decent set of corners it'll do a fine impression of a warm hatch. I was sad to say goodbye to it and to Shetland - incredible place.
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Post by Eff One on May 15, 2019 13:49:15 GMT
We've had Lib Dems, Greens and Change UK. Haven't seen anything from the Tories, which is unusual. Winchester was one of the councils they lost control of (to the Lib Dems) a couple of weeks ago.
Nothing from Labour (ever) or Brexit.
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Post by Eff One on May 13, 2019 8:12:28 GMT
I was just looking at list prices - £32,985 for the GTi Performance and £36,150 for the R. It doesn't look as if you can get either as a manual any more
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Post by Eff One on May 9, 2019 14:19:36 GMT
I must admit, having not paid much attention recently, that I was shocked at the price of the competition. In my head, Golfs GTI and R were £5k less than their actual respective costs (£33k and £36k).
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Post by Eff One on May 9, 2019 12:27:51 GMT
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Post by Eff One on May 6, 2019 11:15:44 GMT
I enjoyed it. And considering the varied conditions they'd had to cope with through the weekend - wet practice and qualifying, and a drying track for the race - there was surprisingly little carnage. I was particularly impressed at a couple of points when there were four or five of them running inches apart on the run down to the hairpin; I was waiting for carbon fibre to start flying but it never did. After Jamie Chadwick dominated practice and qualy, it was good to see her pushed hard in the race.
I agree that the coverage was mediocre. I'm not sure if there was a delay to the race start, but it felt very rushed at the end - no driver interviews, nothing. And the cameras did miss a lot of the midfield action.
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Post by Eff One on May 3, 2019 13:02:26 GMT
Nice colour. If they squashed it a foot lower and turned it into an estate it would be quite attractive.
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Post by Eff One on May 1, 2019 11:15:08 GMT
I was a bit ambivalent to begin with, fearing it would do more harm than good. But there's no denying the exposure it'll bring, or the quality of the drivers. It's been well promoted and sensibly positioned on the DTM support bill, too.
I've actually raced against Sarah Moore. She was doing a lot of rental karting a few years ago after her car budget dried up, and did the British 24 Hours a couple of times. Some properly quick people turn up in that race and she was consistently among the fastest.
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Post by Eff One on May 1, 2019 9:00:03 GMT
Never forgotten. Always a slightly melancholy couple of days for me. The tragedies at Imola '94 were the first huge shocks of my life.
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Post by Eff One on Apr 26, 2019 12:48:10 GMT
Track broken and recovery truck hits bridge. Keystone cops territory here.... And Russell's chassis is a write-off, meaning he won't take part in FP2. And his teammate is the only driver who has never driven the circuit before. It just goes from bad to worse for Williams.
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Apr 18, 2019 8:51:22 GMT
Post by Eff One on Apr 18, 2019 8:51:22 GMT
Just lost 20 minutes watching these again. Timo Bernhard (Nurburgring) and Neel Jani (Spa) are seasoned LMP1 pros with 3 Le Mans wins between them, but even they must have been pretty wide-eyed stepping out of this thing. Bernhard's commitment and belief in the car, especially into the fast corners, is mindblowing.
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Post by Eff One on Apr 16, 2019 8:51:47 GMT
Dull race, but there were some unheralded star turns in the midfield. Perez did a mighty job to qualify 12th and finish 8th in a Racing Point that was a marginal Q2 car. Kimi looks to be enjoying himself in the Alfa. And Danny Ric's starting to get on top of the Renault.
I imagine Toro Rosso will be pissed off. They should have had 2 cars in Q3 and a haul of points. Albon did very well to recover to 10th after a forgivable rookie mistake, but should have been dicing with the Renaults. Likewise Kvyat, whose Q2 mistake put him further back than he should have been, which led to the Mclaren pinball incident. I do think the penalty was harsh though. He made a small error which had unfortunate consequences. Looked like a racing incident to me.
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Post by Eff One on Apr 4, 2019 10:45:57 GMT
Doesn't look too horrific by SUV standards. Still no real-world reason to pick one over a Focus though.
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Post by Eff One on Apr 2, 2019 9:56:32 GMT
Two aspects of Leclerc's performance really stood out for me: he didn't panic after fluffing his first ever F1 start from pole, and he was remarkably philosophical moments after having his debut win cruelly taken from him. Incredible mental strength for someone so young and inexperienced.
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Post by Eff One on Mar 27, 2019 11:06:44 GMT
Bit depressing, but I'm surprised it's taken this long to be honest. I wonder what the performance brands will do marketing-wise.
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Post by Eff One on Mar 22, 2019 13:43:07 GMT
I'd love to see 18m or 19m people adding their names to that poll. +1
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Post by Eff One on Mar 22, 2019 10:38:11 GMT
Pushing 2.8 million now, despite the repeated website crashes. Quite a few MPs on Twitter saying they've been swamped with emails imploring them to vote for A50 to be revoked. It is the slenderest of hopes, but feels to me like the only one. Watching the top bods of the TUC and the CBI together on Channel 4 News was pretty chilling. They were pretty unequivocal: if we exit without a deal, we are utterly fucked.
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Post by Eff One on Mar 19, 2019 15:48:08 GMT
My two surprises were the Red Bull and McLaren results. Their respective drivers ended up a long way apart on the grid. With McLaren I thought it would be Sainz as the new Alonso and Norris as the new Vandoorne when it came to qualifying but it was the other way round! Norris did very well to make Q3 on his debut, but Sainz was a victim of circumstance - on course to comfortably make Q2 when he encountered Kubica's hobbled Williams. Even so, he was running ahead of Kvyat when he retired and would likely have scored points. I was a bit disappointed with Gasly. He did little wrong in qualifying - within a tenth and a half of Verstappen on his first Q1 run - but Red Bull were slow to realise how rapidly the circuit was improving, and left it too late for a second run. Nevertheless, he should have made the top ten in a Red Bull but looked uncharacteristically tentative in battle. I like 2019 Bottas a lot. Long live the beard.
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Post by Eff One on Mar 1, 2019 10:07:44 GMT
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Post by Eff One on Feb 27, 2019 12:55:50 GMT
What with the loss of free terrestial TV coverage, I'm surprised that more have not lost interest in F1 TBH And Sky really shot themselves in the foot last week by announcing that they'd make the F1 channel available to everyone for £10 a month, which turned out to be bollocks since you still have to take the basic Sky package for £25 or whatever it is.
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Post by Eff One on Feb 21, 2019 13:47:56 GMT
I'm in too. Practice looks as though it might be an interesting season unless Mercedes have lots of time up their sleeve. They do as far as single lap pace is concerned (and as I wrote that, Bottas banged in an ominously quick lap on the hardest tyre). But all three top teams have shown very similar long run pace so far which is encouraging. Alfa Romeo look good. Racing Point look to be in a spot of bother. And I really hope that Williams can bounce back from their catastrophic start.
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