I tuned in to watch the German GP...

[mapguy]

and one look at the crowd and I thought it was a re-run of an irl race. Hobbs mentioned that there were a few empty seats. I'd say that the stands were half full at best. Pretty embarrasing if you ask me. Especially when you factor in that there is a lot of German involvement in F1 these days.

:thumbup: for Obi-Juan. Kicked ass and took numbers.

:thumdown: Ralf Schumacher for triggering the accident on the start. And in true Christian Fittipladi form blames someone else.

More later.

[Cam]

OUCH! Ralf has been whacked 10 places for the next race..... Case closed by the FIA! :eek:

[nissan gtp]

Originally posted by mapguy
and one look at the crowd and I thought it was a re-run of an irl race. Hobbs mentioned that there were a few empty seats. I'd say that the stands were half full at best. Pretty embarrasing if you ask me. Especially when you factor in that there is a lot of German involvement in F1 these days.

:thumbup: for Obi-Juan. Kicked ass and took numbers.

:thumdown: Ralf Schumacher for triggering the accident on the start. And in true Christian Fittipladi form blames someone else.

More later.

looked like the stadium was half empty... the seats along the last turn were in the shade and looked full.

heat/sun a factor maybe ? (and cost ??? how much does it run?)

Juan looked mighty good today. and finally, Michael caught a bit of bad luck. :D

[Napoleon]

Originally posted by nissan gtp
looked like the stadium was half empty... the seats along the last turn were in the shade and looked full.

heat/sun a factor maybe ? (and cost ??? how much does it run?)

My step son was there on Friday and he said some of the stands were under construction and not done yet. When he views the tape of the race I will see if he can tell me if ones that looked empty had construction going on. I will see if he priced tickets also.

[cartmanoz]

Superb race by JPM. Absolutely blitzed the field, with car, driver and tyres working perfectly all day. He's really crept into WDC contention now.

I don't blame Ralf for the incident. I think it was just one of those things. Kimi had made a good start and was on the outside of Rubens. Rubens was stuck in the middle. Ralf was drifting slightly to have a decent turn for the first corner. How was he to know that Kimi was on the outside of Rubens? IMO the penalty is harsh and unjustified.

Great to see The Chin have some bad luck for once. I cheered when I saw his tyre puncture. Really blew the championship wide open again.

Good to see Trulli finally put in a good performance, and I think would have held off the Ferrari and McLaren had the tyres not gone completely off. He was really struggling just to keep the car on the road the final 5-10 laps.

Toyota had a lot of reasons to smile, as they are now right behind Honda (sorry, BAR) in the WCC.

[RonnieP]

Well here is the reason (http://www.pitpass.com/news2/news.cfm?newsid=7054) why MS had a puncture :)

Hey first post on OC :)

[oddlycalm]

Good job by Montoya for certain. I disagreed with those that predicted he would be contesting the title within a very few seasons, but I was obviously wrong. Who could have predicted BMW/Williams would get their act together and that Michelin would make such improvements.

There is no question that attenance is off. Paul Stoddard has said that the F1 owners and Bernie had agreed on at least one major change that will be a boost for race attendance, and there may be more changes in the future.

oc

[Hard Driver]

I don't know about construction. Lots of seats just looked empty. But I hear the price is outrageous. I would think that is the culprit. They should cut the price, not come up with some stupid idea like having a 2 seat car race with celebreties in the back seats.

[cartmanoz]

Considering that many of us would like to see the celebrities injured in all sorts of ways...:saywhat:

[devilmaster]

News reports had the temperature sweltering, and perhaps 200 or so were treated for heat exhaustion at the track.

Not saying that was the cause, just offering a bit of info.

Steve

[Napoleon]

Here is what my step son reported. He said that all the stands were open but it was if they had just completed construction since some small stuff was undone and the construction equipment was laying around. So that has to make you wonder about presales. He said you could not get a hotel room in the area and that on friday when he was there many other people were there including many people camping in the parking lot or near by. He said a 3 day ticke in stand B, which is down near the first turn went for 235 Euros. I think B appeared to be fairly well filled (I will have to go back and look at the tape again).

[RTKar]

...must have been the porto's and pic-nic tables

[oddlycalm]

Perhaps Bernie was a bit peevish because the MotoGP race in Germany drew over 125,000 on race day to a lesser facility in Eastern Germany...? Same thing happens here with tracks like Laguna. CART and ALMS run there in front of pathetic crowds, then World Superbike fills the place.

[Ankf00]

Originally posted by oddlycalm
Perhaps Bernie was a bit peevish because the MotoGP race in Germany drew over 125,000 on race day to a lesser facility in Eastern Germany...? Same thing happens here with tracks like Laguna. CART and ALMS run there in front of pathetic crowds, then World Superbike fills the place.

less facility maybe, but much better track, bernie just needs to start going to tracks NOT designed by Tilke, you know... tracks which transcend the layout categorization of "joke"