Bahrain Fastest Laps

[Scott]

I had a local Swiss Ferrari fan (under 30) tell me in our hotel tonight that the Brawn car is actually Italian built because Ross Brawn worked at Ferrari for 8 years and learned all his tricks there.  How's that for a psycho Ferrari fan?  The poor guy can't see through the red mist...ok, he was drunk, but still. 

 

[johnbull]

Aren't Ferrari going to report the matter to the FIA then, as they did with Mc Laren ?

[Dare]

I had a local Swiss Ferrari fan (under 30) tell me in our hotel tonight that the Brawn car is actually Italian built because Ross Brawn worked at Ferrari for 8 years and learned all his tricks there.  How's that for a psycho Ferrari fan?  The poor guy can't see through the red mist...ok, he was drunk, but still. 

 

I guess that fan thinks Renault is a Italian team too as they came from
Benetton which is also Italian

[Scott]

That's a no brained...of course it's Italian.  Flavio's the boss and he comes from Italy so therefore it's a Ferrari

[lkjohnson1950]

Toyota is successful in NASCAR because all they supply are engines, most definitely not '55 Chevy V8s, some technical expertise, and of course bags of money. The engine may be a pushrod design, but it is very modern otherwise and produces more power than the others, who are scrambling to catch up. Toyota was also successful in IMSA GTP racing, largely because they turned the project over to Dan Gurney and the crew at All-American racing. If you never saw the Toyota Eagle MK III you missed out on an awe inspiring race car. They set records at almost every track they ran on, absolute records, faster than Indy cars, the old Can-Am cars, everything. Truly amazing.

Lonny

[cosworth151]

I don't know how much time you've spent around NASCAR shops, but my family and I have been involved with stock car racing since the 1950's. The current crop of engines are EXTREMELY standardized. Some engine parts, such as carbs, are issued by NASCAR and sealed.

As far as the others "scrambling to catch up," only one Toy driver, Kyle Busch, has won a Cup race all season. There are only 3 Toys in the top 15.

I saw the Eagle Mk III race. The main thing I remember about it was the shortly after its arrival, the fan base for IMSA GTP collapsed and the series only survived by becoming the ALMS.

[lkjohnson1950]

Considering that Toyota has only 1 truly 1st rate team. Gibbs racing, three in the top 15 ain't bad. IMSA collapsed because Porsche, Nissan and Jaguar couldn't or wouldn't produce cars to compete with the Eagles. No competition, no racing. And it was reborn, still as IMSA with Ferrari 333SP, Riley, and other open sports cars competing as WSC entries. I have no love for Toyota, but like Honda in the past they seem very good at engines and leaving the rest to others.

Lonny