Zazur

Ah summer, we get a real summer in my part of the world Just to cheer you all up our warm weather is very late arriving this year (still putting on the heated seats every morning), we are still waiting for it-it rained AGAIN this morning here Shorts and flip flops for me WHEN IT EVENTUALLY ARRIVES

The blame game Schumacher’s penalty was excessive but it’s not the stewards who are at fault. Poorly-written rules are to blame. The use of green flags made it unclear whether overtaking was allowed at the corner where Schumacher passed Alonso. It’s not hard to see how Mercedes could have thought the race was restarting. And tight rules on penalties gave the stewards no option to give Schumacher a suitably mild penalty – such as docking him one position in the finishing order – for an infraction that was borne not out of malice but a misunderstanding. A lot of comments have been made here criticising Damon Hill for the decision. Hill, a rival of Schumacher’s for many years, was serving as the drivers’ representative to the stewards. It should be remembered that the decision to penalise Schumacher will not have been taken by Hill on his own. The other three stewards were Jose Abed, Paul Gutjahr and Christian Calmes. Hill’s role this weekend was public knowledge and no-one he might conceivably have had prejudicial opinions for or against raised an objection. In an interview with the BBC before the race Hill freely acknowledged his former rivalry with Schumacher and said he would not allow it to sway his judgement. Hill is too obvious and too easy a scapegoat. The rules are at fault, and not for the first time. Like the Hamilton-Trulli incident at Melbourne last year, and Hamilton being stripped of his win at Spa in 2008, clearer rules could have prevented all these controversies.

Looks like the green waving flag and green flashing light does not mean what everyone thought it meant The green flag "The solid green flag is usually displayed by the starter to indicate the start of a session. During a session, it is displayed at the end of a caution period or a temporary delay to indicate that the session is restarting. If the session is not under caution or delayed, it is said to be under green-flag conditions, though the flag is not actually displayed. A green flag at the entrance to the pits may indicate that the pits are open." Why Schumacher got a penalty Here’s the stewards’ explanation for Schumacher’s penalty: The overtaking manoeuvre was in breach of Article 40.13 of the 2010 F1 Sporting Regulations, the Stewards decided to impose a drive through penalty but, as it occurred during the last five laps, 20 seconds will be added to the elapsed race time of car Nr 3. And here’s the relevant part of the rules: 40.13: If the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed it will enter the pit lane at the end of the last lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking. The same rule was in effect last year (article 40.14 in the 2009 F1 Sporting Regulations). What has changed since then is the creation of a safety car line – the point after which drivers may overtake when the race is re-started. Mercedes believed the race was being restarted at the safety car line. How Mercedes got it wrong Here’s Ross Brawn’s explanation for why Schumacher continued racing: With regard to the penalty given to Michael, we believed that the track had gone green and the race was not finishing under a safety car when article 40.13 clearly would have applied. The reason for the safety car had been removed, the FIA had announced ‘Safety Car in this lap’ early on lap 78 and the track had been declared clear by race control. This was further endorsed when the marshals showed green flags and lights after safety car line one. On previous occasions when it has been necessary to complete a race under a safety car, full course yellows are maintained, as in Melbourne 2009. On the last lap, we therefore advised our drivers that they should race to the line and Michael made his move on Fernando for sixth place. We have appealed the decision of the stewards. Ross Brawn Brawn’s reasoning is persuasive but if his interpretation of the rules were correct we would have the strange situation where drivers were allowed to race from the safety car line to the finishing line. That scenario seems to be what article 40.13 was written to prevent. It’s hardly surprising other teams were of the opinion that it would not be allowed. McLaren quite clearly told Lewis Hamilton: Lewis this is the last lap of the race we’ll be finishing behind the safety car. No overtaking. McLaren team radio Hamilton saw Schumacher passing Alonso in his mirrors and registered his surprise: I thought you said we couldn’t pass after safety car? Michael passed Fernando. Lewis Hamilton If cars are not supposed to be racing at this point one might reasonably ask why green flags were being waved. The regulations say: As the safety car is approaching the pit entry the yellow flags and SC boards will be withdrawn and replaced by waved green flags with green lights at the Line. These will be displayed until the last car crosses the Line. However the green flags visible when Schumacher passed Alonso were before the finishing line. This makes Mercedes’ confusion rather more understandable. The penalty The rules are clear when it comes to what sort of penalty the stewards can give: 16.3: The stewards may impose any one of three penalties on any driver involved in an Incident: a) A drive-through penalty. The driver must enter the pit lane and re-join the race without stopping; A ten second time penalty. The driver must enter the pit lane, stop at his pit for at least ten seconds and then re-join the race. c) A drop of any number of grid positions at the driver’s next Event. However, should either of the penalties under a) and above be imposed during the last five laps, or after the end of a race, Article 16.4b) below will not apply and 20 seconds will be added to the elapsed race time of the driver concerned in the case of a) above and 30 seconds in the case of . Having found Schumacher at fault, they couldn’t let him go unpunished. But, as with Lewis Hamilton at Spa in 2008, the time penalty is too harsh as it drops him behind people he wouldn’t have been behind if he hadn’t made the move. Simply putting Schumacher back behind Alonso would have been a fair penalty, but the rules did not allow the stewards to do this.

Looking

Too many deals with sponsors are done at this race so it would be very unlikely to disapear from the calender and the won the drivers want to win. Did you guys notice all the empty seats (most of them were the blue ones visable in the crowd), one stand was over half empty the worst attendance figures for Monaco in the last 15 years and even the port was not packed only a couple of boats tied down in the centre of the port and even some hotels had rooms available. Sign of the times. Need rain at every race for some exiting racing

Hi SteveW, Thanks for that I will get it looked at

Hi SteveW, I have turbo groove with yellow pads and I had the same problem after 800 miles 4 different companies have checked my discs and all say they are well within the tolerences specified 6,000 miles latter I am considering changing them but will not be considering EBC again NOT IMPRESSED

snooks. Did the car come with the Z logo on the wheel centers or did you put them on?

Looking nurrish

Hi bronzee, yes the people left still with jobs after the fallout were asked to hang on in there, some of us did but quite a few bailed, henze the reason I know am the captain of the Sunseeker and the 60 metre. I have worked for this guy for 7 years now. We do need guys like my owner to survive as they usually have a knack of coming back somehow and end up employing lots of people again. All his stuff in New Zealand has been sold or is up for sale along with other parts of the world. Fingers crossed

Hi Newbie, The specific automatic oil recomendered by Nissan is AT-Matic J Fluid available from Nissan, part number is KE908-99932. Most dealers do not carry it but will order it for you. From memory it takes about 1-2 litres. There is a dipstick hidden inside the gearbox tube and is attached to the nut assemberly when you remove it

do you work for gordon brown, he's good at loosing lots of money as well? He was/is an Aussie businessman I think Attak Z is correct

Thanks Rob , will send you a pm soon

Thanks

Hi guy’s an update as asked for. It’s been a nightmare The Sunseeker is still in Turkey, it was due to be loaded on the ship to come back from Turkey to Monaco on 4th of April but when I went over to collect the boat we did a sea trail and we had lots of problems with the starboard and port engines with gaskets failing and oil dropping out of the engine and into the bilge, and various other problems which I won’t bore you with. To date we have spent nearly £200,000 on sorting this theft problem out which has been tricky bearing in mind the other problem that happened to my owner in January but with some jiggering with the insurance company we have managed to keep the repair process going. The starboard engine has now been completely stripped and is being rebuilt at this time and I hope the boat will be finished some time in May and then once back in Monaco can be sold. Stolen boat link for those interested viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29633 Owner problem link for those interested viewtopic.php?f=13&t=31804 In January the Captain of the 60 metre quit due to the uncertain situation so I was asked by the owner if I would run both boats, the 60 metre running on minimum crew ( crew reduced from 18 to 6) with no spare money for repairs. So here I am running both boats with next to no budget, lots of headaches, the owner has not gone completely under yet, we are still being paid and taking each month at a time. The 70 million dollar house in Aus has gone along with a lot of other houses in various countries, private jet sold, and nearly all his private staff with only the essential staff he can afford still employed for now. Never a dull day for me since January He ended up with debts approaching 3 BILLION DOLLARS, but he is not dead and buried yet and is hanging on in there.

Sorry if this is a re-post. Has anyone posted any pics of the Tommy K Likwid art Zed Badges for wheel centres on a wheel or can someone point me in the right direction My name was done on the list in 2009 but I think only 2 of us ended up on that list. Thanks for the help guys

I take it you have one of these? What do you personally think of it, does browser support flash? its the crème ala crème these days, the 4g is a disappointment in my eyes... looks slick and feels slick. I went from a Android G1 phone (developer with root access) to a new HTC Desire with 1ghz CPU! Its blindingly fast and supports flash! the later version that will come out some time during this year will support flash 10!! (not sure the battery will like it but the phone will support it!) Find it's nice to have a phone that's not restricted and pointed a certain way, both the mac yokes and the htc devices do pretty much the same thing, if you want to root your device and go down the custom root you'd be better off with an android. You can have more then two different email accounts on this version I'm using (3) but that's something that could be increased, don't see a reason why. Eh what else... it's using the standard usb input these days so any gadgets you get don't need to be white and ladled Maaaac. fyi --- it also does CALLS Looked at a video of a guy that installed Android onto an Iphone and the LAST thing he tried was calling... some things have changed! I thought I'd miss a flipout keyboard on the never HTC but I don't the T9 function is absolutely brilliant and when you flip it down sideways you get a full qwerty keyboard. If I have to say something on the downside its the battery... but something has to give... I put on all the syncs possible so its checks your gmail, calendar sync and contact syncs with gmail every now and then and also the sync for the twitter, facebook and news and not to forget the stock market... while I was surfing the web on the wifi it does consume 'petrol' <<< I've just turned all that off and its cool to see it makes a huge difference. You can see on the phone whats consuming the most power... oh forgot it got the new google navigation which gives you a full featured gps with speech and all. If you're still not sure why don't you find two friends that has either and compare the two. A (I'm not an Iphone hater, really like the design... but for me it stops there) Had enough of my crappy Blackberry Storm, considering the HTC Desire. Have my dunce hat on now is it easy to set up to receive emails like the battery, what's involved please?

Thanks Jay, will take a look

Paying 1.43 to 1.49 euro/litre for 98 here at the moment

Does anyone know or have asked if Likwid art will do some for alloy wheels? Sorry if this has been asked discussed before, I haven't been on the site since January as have been a liitle busy as some of you may remember

A few here in Monaco (no surprise) look very good in the flesh Think the Ferrari California is a good looking car too

Welcome Smudge

Welcome

No the Zed's mine not a company car