Why not celebrate it with some giveaway? However, you need to put "few" answers right here in order to get giveaway link
Ends Friday, 23rd November at 18:45 GMT, contrib. value - 40$; good luck!

EDIT: Some hints, since it's harder than I expected:

  • Latin alphabet is more than enough
  • There are at least two acceptable answers in every question
  • Sometimes shorter name (even one word) is better
  • Every track was hosting Formula 1 Grand Prix at least once
  • Name of venue <> Name of the track
  • Q5: Name of the track most of you are typing is correct, but this turn is not from Grand Prix layout - go north.
  • Q7: There was only one F1 GP on this track and there was no such turn then!
  • Q11: Whoa!
  • Q13: I won here, in my homeland only once. With one year old car! James Bond would be proud of me.

Also, thanks for feedback. I'm not omnipotent, even if I love and breath motorsport. It's actually solvable so I'll restrain myself from further hints... for the moment.


Also this is now official F1 appreciation thread.

12 years ago*

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F1 ?
Formula 1 ? yeah, it used to be exciting... before teams start enforcing pilots to let others take over, dead sport now

12 years ago
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To paraphrase Martin Brundle, team orders have always been a part of Formula 1 the only difference is it's now legal to do so.

12 years ago
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oh well... I'd just like to point out that I am not a LOLcat trolling this thread and want to explain further :)

Poor guy: Barrichello reveals how Ferrari forced him to lose 2002 Austrian GP

Proof: Ferrari team orders - Austria 2001

After those few seconds I never watched a single F1 race again, never ever !
Lame: Formula1, Austria 2002- finish

As I said, to me F1 is dead, I prefer watching other motorsports where honour still matters.

12 years ago
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F1 isn't an individual sport. Teams spent dozens of millions $ to improve thier cars by few tenths of the second, therefore cars speed vary much more than in other top series (you'll never see that much difference in other single-seater series; stock cars - maybe in WTCC, but it's because there's only one manufacturer ATM - Chevy). There's no place for "honour", because teams are employers and drivers are one of their employees. In Indycar there's no individual car development and drivers (their personal sponsors to be strict) are the main source of financing the team, so everything spins around them (look what happened to Newman/Haas despite Servia finishing 4th in 2011).
I don't want to change your mind, but it's just unfair comparison. In WTCC (2011 season) and every senior series: Porsche Supercup - TO in favour Rene Rast, WEC - in favour #1 Audi squad, WRC - sending other driver first on SS to clean the track for title contender, who got some "adventures" earlier. So Team Orders aren't only the F1 thingy.

12 years ago
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Vettel will win this season again. The only thing that could stop him is an unexpected crash with Massa. ;)

12 years ago
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mmm ... crash with Massa, sound good

12 years ago
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Or treacherous alternator will remind about itself.

12 years ago
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or a crash with Hamilton :) sounds more plausible

12 years ago
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Sorry to say so, but you failed at making the puzzle. I got 7 answers now only 3 were the current official name and guessing how to write the answer is no fun at all.

12 years ago
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I think that Hamilton would have won the title weeks ago if he was driving for Red Bull, same for Alonso. Possibly Raikkonen too. Still have my doubts as to how good Vettel actually is.

12 years ago
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Hamilton's drive this year really impressed me. I could say that earlier, but regarding single venues (Indianapolis 2007, Silverstone 2008, Singapore 2009) but he never had stable form. This season his overall performance is a little blurred thanks to team decisions (Spa), strategy failures (Silverstone), errors (can't count all of them, there was too many, mostly at pitstops).
Vettel wasn't shining till the end of September. Most of fans could say, that he's a Pole Position kid - when he starts first, he furnish team with win, but if something's gone wrong, then even having the fastest car (Nurburgring 2011) he made a mistake. This year event in Abu Dhabi shows, that despite loosing his cool (bitching on Ricciardo and forcing his sister team driver to let him) he made an outstanding performance finishing on podium after pitlane starts. Some may say that he got there thanks to race setups (no parc ferme rules for car starting from pitlane) and two safety cars in proper moments, but car doesn't drive by itself. Maybe he's not the best driver in the field at the moment, but winning two (and maybe even three) times World Champion title in a row speaks for itself, and can we pick more impartial measure of talent than level of his (and Red Bull Racing) success?

12 years ago
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I only got 15 questions right. Questions 7-9, 13 and 14 have me totally stumped.

12 years ago
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Eaglebert already posted that few answers doesn't match those he found. Every question has minimum two acceptable answers and already got one solver. I'll post some hints if noone new solves it.

12 years ago
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Q5, Q7, Q8, Q13 left, but I have plenty of time, I don't want rush.

Thank you for the puzzle. I don't follow Formula 1 since some years, but I was following every races. Good old days when Ferrari (I'm Italian) and McLaren were almost always undisputed, Schumacher and Häkkinen was duelling...

12 years ago
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Schumacher said once that Hakkinen was his toughest rival in his career. Today it's probably Pirelli tyres or even his lack of motivation.

12 years ago
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Only Q7 left... Anyway, thanks for the puzzle! ;)
EDIT: DONE

12 years ago
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7 & 13 missing for me, thanks for the puzzle still ;)

12 years ago
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7 is probably just me being not good enough with Google, but 8 can have a lot of answers (or I can't put the name of the correct one right). Got all the others, they were reasonable.

Edit: got 8, I believe the question should be changed.

12 years ago
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Updated with hints.

12 years ago
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Still got problem with Q7...

Going to main part of topic - As a Ferrari and Alonso fan always wanted to see a Spanish black horse rider on 1st place. But unfortunatly we have Adrian Newey.... so Alsonso will need a big luck to win. (and yes I don`t like Sebastian "CryingBecauseHePassMe" Vettel)

12 years ago
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With the hint it can be bruteforced in a reasonable time. Still missing Q13 though.

12 years ago
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When I try all combinations.... Also looking for all Formula 1 circuts maps (today and past) and doesnt find this corner... But the worst is that I heard that corner name in past.... and I cant remember when.

12 years ago
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I couldn't find it either, but there are only a few tracks which had only one GP.

12 years ago
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Fernando doesn't have much worse car than he claims. He lost points in Spa and Suzuka because of bad luck, but Sebastian also lost certain 25 points in Valencia thanks to malfunctioning new-spec alternator (which will be used also this weekend, because RBR ran out of old specification ones in Abuy Dhabi, so everything can happen). As i said in response to Kleister's post - both drivers deserve equally for the title. Both cry too much, but also both did a fantastic job this season.

12 years ago
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I agree, this F1 season it's being quite exciting. Even more for me as I'm spanish and a supporter of Alonso from the deep of my heart. I pray for something to happen in the last race because otherwise I don't see how can he beat Vettel in a fair match if his car is soooo crappy.

I really hope that Ferrari will work harder next season in order to get a competitive car. Alonso has done amazingly good with a car that was as much as 1,5 seconds slower than Mclaren of Redbull ones, and he has had a really bad luck with the last two accidents that haven't even been his fault. That's what pisses me off the most, that it hasn't been an engine problem, or a driving mistake, it has been too crashes in which he had the bad luck to be involved.

12 years ago
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Ferrari was slower by 1.5 seconds in the first 4 races this year. They've got huge package of improvements on Catalunya, which gave them fight on the equal rules with Maldonado. That crappy car dominated German GP, gave pole position twice. This season is beautiful thanks to minimal differences between cars on the top and in midfield. There's no room for mistake and bad preparations for the race ends tragically (11th place on the grid for Fernando in Valencia, 18th place for Button in Silverstone).
Yes, Red Bulls seemed to pull away for last races, but still they can be defeated, which was shown by Kimi and Lewis in the last two races. But Ferrari is very close - they're 2nd in Constructors not only thanks to Felipe Massa (who is by the way the benchmark for Fernando in the last few races), but also performance of their car. Depreciating Sebastian's talent and grumbling over developement process is common behaviour for Spaniard (same thing as in Renault in 2006). Statements like "I'm racing with Adrian Newey" or underestimating work at Maranello isn't nothing but unfair. Both drivers deserves title this year, but it can be only one. I'm expecting a great spectacle at Interlagos.

12 years ago
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You can see what's the actual perfomance of the Ferrari if you see Massa's races. Fernando is driving brilliantly this year, better than I have ever seen him, and it's thanks to him that Ferrari is 2nd at the constructor's championship, not thanks to the car itself. It has brought out the best of the car in every situation (except for the last race), and has had almost no mistakes during the entire season.

I'm not denying Vettel is a good driver, or even one of the top drivers in the championship, but if he hadn't had such a superior car he wouldn't have been in the position he is right now. Also, the difference between Redbull and Ferrari is still huge, mostly in the qualifyings. For example, in the last Grand Prix it was about 1 second. Somehow it doesn't perform that well in the actual race, which is quite suspicious ¬¬ :D.

In my opinion (and in any experienced driver and former F1 drivers) if it was about driving, Alonso should win this championship mostly because he's standing at the 2nd position after 2 unfortunate accidents and with a car that is at the same level as the Lotus Renault in terms of overall performance. But as F1 is not only about the pilot but also about the car, Vettel also deserves to win it (otherwise he wouldn't be first).

Just one last thing. I don't like Adrian Newey not because he has made a car that can beat the crap out of anybody, but because he likes to play just at the edge of the rules and do little tricks to avoid them by finding the voids in the regulations. It's legal, I know, but it's tricky and it's completely against the spirit of the F1.

PS: Sorry for the long comment and sorry for my crappy english sometimes.

12 years ago
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Felipe is faster than Fernando in the last two races (compare fastest laps, both stints on harder and softer compounds) because he FINALLY woke up from this two and a half year sleep in Ferrari, but yes, overall in the season he's no match for Fernando. Although popular belief that Alonso is driving for 110% of his car performance is exaggeration - his qualification form weren't as perfect as races, so the margin between Ferraris and Red Bulls were a little riddle every Saturday this year (old 2010 problem with getting enough heat to the tyres for one quick lap - also seen in recent GP USA at hard compound stint.

You got the point that if it's about driving, it's mostly Fernando who lets the rest of the pack see only his diffuser, but he couldn't do it without proper tools. First half of 2009 showed his helplessness and 2012 shows his superiority. I'm glad that we agree in this point.

About bending the rules - I call it innovation and love this side of F1. Double diffuser, blown diffuser, off-throttle blown diffuser, F-duct, Active suspension, Pullrod suspension on front wheels - this things attracts me to F1. Newey is designing magnificent cars for about twenty years - today he's working for RBR, maybe someday he'll design a car for Fernando, so who knows what happens.

12 years ago
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I would be a little hypocrite if I would like Newey if gets in Ferrari, wouldn't I? :D

Anyway, it looks like we think mostly the same about most of the things but it's just that I'm a fan of Fernando (as a driver and a person himself) and too stubborn to just admit some of the things :D. Anyway, this is being a great season for F1 fans, and I'm enjoying most of the races even if Fernando don't perform well. I liked more the first part of the season with even Maldonado winning a race. This last races are more like last year, but still fun. Looking forward to Interlagos.

12 years ago
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Yup, so for the sake of the show, let the Renault-manufactured alternator share the fate with this poor nut.

12 years ago
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Q7: Ten tracks have hosted the only one F1 GP. I checked them all. No result :<

nvm, solved

12 years ago
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9 solvers, 4 entries, gogogo!

12 years ago
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New hint for problematic Q13.

12 years ago
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Still don't get 7, 8 and 13. :(
Anyway great puzzle!

12 years ago
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8, 9, 14...

12 years ago
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Closed 12 years ago by sepang.