F1 2013

Don't dismiss female racing drivers simply because they are good-looking

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 15:36:00 +0000

The title alone gives me a fabulous opportunity to plaster this post with photographs of female racing drivers in leathers and bikinis; an opportunity I will spurn due to the seriousness of the topic.

I am a big fan of Formula 1,

I am male, and

I am hetrosexual,

So sorry to all those gorgeous male F1 drivers out there (you know who you are [I don't]), but I simply don't find you particularly attractive, in that way.

Let's face it, F1 is a male dominated sport, which over the years has sought to allow a very select few females join the club, albeit for a relatively short period of time. Thankfully there have been moves in recent years to embrace a female presence with Monisha Kaltenborn taking over from the Great Peter Sauber and Claire Williams ramping up her presence alongside the Legend that is her father.

On the drivers side we have yet to see any impact on the Sunday Grid, but attempts have been made by Williams, Caterham and currently Renault to enhance female representation within the team.

I was very critical of Williams choice of Susie Wolff as team development driver back in 2012. My criticism was twofold: firstly (and most obviously) she was the wife of Toto Wolff, who at the time was a major shareholder in Williams and sat on the Board of the company; secondly, I was pretty sure at the time that there was never any intention of actually letting her race nor of allowing her the significant Friday practice time to perfect her craft. When we did see her in the car on a Friday, like at Hockenheim in 2014, it was notable that she was not far off the pace. In that session she finished only 0.22s off Felipe Massa.

Whether she would have been any good on race day is now academic, given she announced her retirement last November. It is unfortunate that in her four years at Williams we only saw her on track on 4 race weekends and even more unfortunate that her expectation that she would be Williams 2015 "Third Driver" was destroyed by the announcement in march that year that Sutil would be given that position.

Ultimately her time as an F1 driver will be remembered for her Hockenheim performance, and for her solid Friday performance in Barcelona 2015. Let's face it, all drivers look the same once they sit in the car.

So now we have Carmen Jorda getting into a fracas with Marco Sorenson over his claim that he left his position as Renault Reserve Driver because he felt he couldn't compete with his female co-driver - not on speed, but rather on gender and the fact that she is good-looking.

He claims she was 12 seconds off his pace on the simulator, she claims she was only 1 second off Romain Grosjean's best simulator time which, if true, would have made Sorenson 11 seconds faster that Grosjean. Then Sorenson came out to Danish publication "Ekstra Bladet" and said:

This is not that she is 1, 2, 3 or 12 seconds off; those in motorsport know what this is about. If you ask them they will say she should not be there because of her results. They know what it is about. I will not comment on it further"

Well we do know what it's about. Marco would appear to be a bit hacked off at the fact that he's competing with a female driver. What's more, it also appears he's hacked off that he doesn't have the backing that Kevin Magnusson has. moaning that he doesn't have the kroner to get into a drive seat.

I'll say this, Magnusson has impressed me in his time at McLaren and it is really very unfortunate that, with Fernando Alonso coming in last year, he lost out to Jenson Button for the drive. He deserved more and so did Button.

Look, I admit that I knocked Susie Wolff when she came into the paddock, for the two reasons I outlined above. The fact is that she hadn't the results behind her to justify her selection. Her performance in the car showed that she could do the job and thus my fears were allayed; the team had seen her potential - even if they never did anything with it on-track.

If that's the case then we need to give Jorda the benefit of the doubt. She's had a year in the simulator now let's see her on-track in the car and judge her against her team-mates. If she's there on her potential it'll be pretty obvious. Anything under 1 second from her team-mate will do for the first couple of Friday free practices, but as she becomes more familiar with the physical machine and the tracks we'd want to see those times dropping to less than 0.5s pretty quickly.

You don't have to be pretty to drive an F1 car, just pretty quick!

It's quite disappointing really...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 11:08:00 +0000

Believe me when I say that I remain an avid fan of F1 no matter how much I complain about it. I say this, of course, to preface some further remarks which will cast further aspersions on the sport and those involved in its day-to-day operation.

It seems to be okay for the likes of Bernie et al to voice their concerns about the direction in which the sport is moving but I've noticed that few, if any, of the reputable journalists deign to provide their own opinion on these matters. What I read tends to parrot the comments of Bernie, Alonso, Kimi, etc. without ever straying into the realms of how they themselves might institute changes to improve the formula.

I understand that their fates and their futures are tied up in the sport and it is not therefore in their interests to be seen to be partisan towards one rule change or another. It is also true that there is not much point in them being seen to criticise elements such as degrading tyres, fuel management, or DRS, as these things have now taken root in the sport and as such must only be reported upon.

Journalists would say that it is their job to report the news as it happens, to be impartial and that criticism of the sport is outside their purview, only relevant to the likes of columnists rather than serious journos, and technically, I guess they would be right, however wouldn't it be interesting were some of the journalists to mention, in their race reports, what percentage of overtaking was carried out under DRS or how many laps in the race were run by each team on "fuel-saving" mode?

Last weekend's race was a little more exciting than anything we've seen to date because there were quite a few non-DRS overtakes carried out, primarily on the final corner into the DRS zone. So, whilst the overtakes were carried out without DRS they were completed with the DRS flap wide open and I wondered if that would be counted as a DRS assisted overtake?

I do note Joe Saward's position on giving time to the "new" formula and perhaps in another situation I would agree with that practice but it is my belief that if F1 is to retain its crown as the peak of motorsport it must be the situation that the drivers and cars are racing 100% of the time. I believe that it is anathema to have a race situation where they must lift and coast in order to save fuel, except where in-race refuelling is allowed and the team are working to a particular strategy.

Racing at 100% tests the driver, tests the engines and tests the team and it is ridiculous to find a team in the situation where they are given a 25 place penalty on a grid of 20 cars because of engine changes. I'm all for creating a robust engine that serves 3 race weekends at a time, but the sanctions imposed by a 4 engine rule are way out of proportion and serve only to penalise teams unfairly. Do they not realise that such penalties could drive smaller teams into liquidation because it would impact upon their TV coverage and thus their advertising potential?

Of course those are other matters which you know I can gripe on about but this one is all about those professions that rely on the sport for their income. It is vital that they start opining more if we are ever to see real improvement. For the fans and for the good of the sport I formally request F1 journalists to publicly give their two cents to the ongoing discussion on the future of the sport.

VINDICATION!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 May 2015 12:07:00 +0000

I've been whittering on and on about the state of F1 for years now; the state of the tyres, the DRS, the reliance on artificial racing, gimmicks and gadgets and, for the last two years about how the sport has gone from hero to zero in terms of speed, physicality and pure racing.

At the same time I've talked about falling attendances at races, the introduction of ridiculous newly constructed tracks which do nothing for racing, the huge costs to the circuits and Fans of hosting and going to an F1 race and the fact that F1 is moving away from its European heartland in order to rake in extra cash.

Well it's time for it to stop!

Over the past three weeks we've been hearing Bernie bemoan the fact the sport is no longer attractive to fans, we've seen the teams and the heads of sport start talking about fundamental changes and now we have drivers and ex-drivers admitting that the sport has lost its way over the past 6 years and needs to get back to its prime function - racing and the love of racing.

It has seemed like a cry in the wilderness for the last few years, like nobody has been listening to the fans and have simply pressed ahead with their own agenda regardless but now we have Alonso and Coulthard both admitting that they pretty much hate where F1 is you can read their comments here and here.

Gods above I hope they get it right this time around!

"You're going to have to come up with another plan!"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 May 2015 14:50:00 +0000

Where would F1 be without the DRS system?

There is no question but that the vast majority of overtaking now relies on the Drag Reduction System zone to make a move stick. It is my belief that the very fact that the system is in use has reduced the competitive nature of the drivers themselves.

This may well be happening unbeknownst to them. How much easier is it when you're driving a better car to simply drive into the 1 second window and await the DRS deployment zone before dispatching the car in front. There's no real impetus to overtake anywhere else on the track - unless you are recovering from a bad grid position or a spin.

Have you noticed how much overtaking a driver in one of the front-running cars can do when he's racing through the field to get into the points? They overtake everywhere and get away with it because they catch the guy in front by surprise. Nobody overtakes around the outside of the 130R! Nobody dares to overtake going into Eau Rouge! Who would overtake you in the twiddly section of Hockenheim? Nobody, that's who!

But...

...if he started at the back of the grid and he's trying to chase down the top 6 cars you notice that the driver's racing abilities somehow come back to him; he chases, he feints, he brakes late, accelerates early, takes different lines through the corners, and...He Passes! And then he goes haring down the road looking for the next victim and does it all over again!

The more I think of it DRS is limiting F1 drivers because it is serving as a replacement to overtaking rather than as a aide to overtaking. It limits their natural racing instincts by providing a substitute which removes their natural desire to muscle their way past the guy in front.

I thought this was illustrated perfectly, once again, in Barcelona (a circuit on which it has always been difficult to overtake) when Lewis, having come out of the pits behind Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari was told on the radio that he'd have to pass him on the track:

Lewis Hamilton's race engineer: "We're going to have to this [overtake Vettel] on track, mate." Hamilton: "I can assure you that's pretty much impossible to do, so you're going to have to come up with another plan."

It turned out that they did come up with another way to get out ahead of Sebastian, but Lewis had simply stated the truth, there was no way he would be able to overtake the Ferrari ahead of him on the track!

It was a confession that copperfastenes my belief that the sport has lost its way and is now over-reliant on gimmicks to maintain its appeal. It is the equivalent of putting sticky tape over a crack - it doesn't fix the crack, it just means you can't see it anymore. Well, unless F1 exposes the cracks and tries to fix them the whole house is going to come down on their heads.

Its time to focus the sport on speed, agility and ingenuity. Its time to tear up the rulebook and give the designers and engineers carte blanche to produce cars that can live up to the title "The Pinnacle of Motorsport".

By way of an addendum, I note that the drivers are launching a fan based discussion on social media over the Monaco Weekend on how F1 could be improved. I look forward with interest to seeing how that will be presented and how much traction it will have with the FIA, the team owners, and the sport's governing body.

Sparks Fly

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:50:00 +0000

I don't care whether one team dominates F1 for a long period of time. I've watched Williams, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull dominate the sport without it ever affecting my enjoyment so Mercedes is welcome to control the sport for the next five years as far as I'm concerned, as long as there is a competitive grid behind them.

I say this because it is not the fact of Mercedes dominating that upsets me, it is that the powers that be have messed with the formula so much, in order to open it up to a wider audience, that what is left is no longer primarily about racing it is about "the spectacle"!

And this is exhibited nowhere better than the fact that sparks flying from beneath the cars at Bahrain seemed to attract more comment than the actual race itself. The replacement of the old block undertray with a titanium one was nothing more than a cynical exercise to create a "spectacle" reminiscent of the late 1980's/90's. It would appear to have achieved its stated intent.

It did not however improve the racing. Watching the highlights programme last night left me in no doubt that there were very few highlights to watch. I haven't watched the Bahrain GP for four years now because of the political situation in that country but I did watch the highlights last night simply because I wanted to see if the circuit provided a halfway decent race. It would seem not.

But it did bring home to me exactly why the current formula isn't working for me. In the old days the team strategies were simple to understand. Apart from the obvious need to pass the person in front of you the strategies fell under one heading; fuel.

You set your car up to run light or heavy and you made your pit stops accordingly. You either worked out that a three stop strategy, running on lighter fuel, would get you to the end faster than your opponents or you might gamble that a one stop would get you to the end in a better position than where you started.

It was simple and at the same time fascinating! You could see someone like de Cesaris in a Tyrell starting in 12th and trundling his way around to 5th/6th by doing only one stop. The car would be out of position for most of the race whilst all those around it flew past time and again, on their three stop strategies, but after the third pitstop, when everyone was on equal fuel levels he'd be sitting pretty with a 10 second gap to the car behind and 12 laps remaining.

As a viewer I could grasp the different strategies and appreciate how they were implemented and I could also appreciate when one of the top teams changed their strategy mid-race.

Pit stops made sense when the cars were being refueled. The difference in pitstop times between a three stop and a two stop were fundamental to the strategy because the amount of time the car was sitting in the pits was significant. On some tracks the strategy would be clear because it was obvious that two stops would be 10 seconds faster overall, but on others it was muddled and teams would shift between two and three with the outright speed of the car being the only essential difference.

My point is that I could understand the strategies because I could see them being played out, because I could participate. The current situation is such that we are not participants in the team strategies because we are not participants. We are told that Hamilton is fuel-saving and we hear Rosberg being told to manage his tyres, but we are not actively engaged in the team strategies, we are passive, viewing it without really understanding why.

The problem, for me, would appear to be that I cannot engage with the idea of fuel saving in the middle of a motor race. Fuel saving is anathema to racing, as is tyre management. Motor racing shoujld be about getting out there and driving the car as fast as it is capable of going until it falls apart around you. Push the machine over the line if you have to, but don't save fuel or tyres in the middle of a race.

The refueling era gave us the "splash and dash" of cars running to the fumes and then, right at the end, ducking into the pits for a three second splash of fuel to get around the last 5 laps. Fresh tyres on and 15 litres to burn the cars would then swoop out of the pits and hunt down everyone who had overtaken them. On old rubber they were easy meat. Their tyres weren't going to fall off a cliff, they were more than adequate to get them to the end of the race, but new rubber combined with a light fuel load was a deadly combination that lead to some spectacular racing: spectacular overtaking and defensive driving.

As Murray used to say - "it's one thing catching them, its another entirely to get by".

If I want to watch car, tyre and engine management I can film myself driving to work!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:49:00 +0000

So far this season I have to admit that once again I am not enamoured by the way F1 is going. To me the races seem very static and immensely boring and, unfortunately it was the same again in China.

You can always forgive Melbourne, because that's where the cars, drivers and engines get their first taste of racing and the cracks tend to show up - as they did again this year.

But when the only excitement - other than DRS enabled overtaking - is Jenson battling his way through the corners with numerous better cars, in a phenomenally bad McLaren Honda, for 14th position then you know that there is something seriously wrong.

One thing that certainly felt, and sounded, wrong was Nico's call to the pits around Lap 20 regarding a slowing Lewis Hamilton up ahead. The real story for me was not the complaint that Lewis was slowing but rather that Rosberg started complaining that if he couldn't stay 2.5 seconds behind he would get into the dirty air and wreck his tyres!

Nico, leave the management of the car to the team and just go racing!
Photo courtesy of Mercedes AMG Petronas

Instead of complaining about his slowing team-mate why didn't Rosberg take the opportunity to attack and try to overtake? Isn't that what racing is all about? Have I lost something in translation?

And this is exactly what is wrong with F1. Nico is meant to be a racing driver, not his team-mate's shadow and not a manager. He's supposed to be trying to win the race ON THE TRACK, not on tyre strategy, not by the dreaded "undercut" but actually on the track.

The excitement of a Grand Prix is watching wheel-to-wheel battles on the track, sparks flying from the undercarriage of the cars as two racing drivers speed downhill into the corner each wondering who will be the last of the late brakers.

If I want to watch car, tyre and engine management I'll film myself driving to work and look at it later!

Formula 1 is meant to be the pinnacle of motorsport, not just the pinnacle of engineering. It is meant to be a sport. The drivers must compete against each other on the track as well as in the expensive shacks out in the paddock. It is their responsibility to provid us with an on-track spectacle, the sight of the worlds best drivers battling for position, fighting to achieve everything that can be achieved.

The best of these guys are paid very handsomely by the teams to wring the most out of the cars and we should be seeing that happen every racing weekend. Instead we are being shortchanged.

We are being treated to the sight of drivers in "fuel-saving mode", drivers "harnessing Energy Recovery", and drivers "managing tyres". We have drivers unable to drive flat out because they have to manage their engines due to the fact they have been limited to 4 engines per season.

What has any of this got to do with racing? Nothing

Do we remember the furore a couple of years ago that the engine manufacturers were going to quit F1 unless it was made more relevant to their road car business? Well this is the result. F1 is now becoming nothing more than a test bed for road cars, rather than a motor-racing series. They got relevance and we lost racing.

I hate to go all Jeremy Clarkson on it but motor-racing is supposed to be fun isn't it? It's not supposed to be about boring, everyday concerns like fuel saving, tyre conservation, or engine management.

I want drivers to drive to the limit. I want the cars to be set free from the artificially imposed shackles of a maximum fuel allowance. I want the teams to design cars that will set an unfettered fastest lap and I want drivers to be encouraged to beat that lap-time. I want Formula 1 to organise its race schedule to reduce its carbon footprint in a realistic way rather than impose pathetic power units on the cars as a public but ultimately pointless sop to the green brigade.

Let's face it, 18-24 cars doing 56 laps flat out around a circuit is having minimal impact on the environment when compared with 12 teams, numerous TV stations, etc, carting their staff and equipment from Billy to Jack by air without considering how they could do it better.

Take of the shackles, release the drivers and the cars and bring me some adrenalin-pumping, petrol-burning, ear-splitting, high-octane car racing.

How would I do it? Simple -

Keep the 1.6 turbo - get rid of the batteries!
Forget tyre compounds - one dry tyre, one intermediate and one wet. The slick should be capable of lasting the entire race.
Bring back refueling and the option of not having to refuel. Choice is the essence of strategy.
Get rid of KERS and keep DRS.
Measure the wake of an F1 car at top speed and enable DRS once the following car is within that wake. Let the driver decide whether to open it or not.
Penalties must be taken on Raceday they do not carry over to the next race. Penalties that are not taken on the track are punished financially. The team pays for penalties relating to the car, the driver pays for driver error, and finally
Ban racing on most Tilke tracks - they are too wide, too boring, and do not seem to encourage good racing.

We can only hope that Europe saves F1 again this season, though with F1 failing to save Europe's best, historic racing tracks the days of F1 might well be numbered.

Magny Cours, Hockenheim, Nurburgring, Monza...Is this the end of F1 Europe?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 12:07:00 +0000

It is with despair that I read that Germany will not be hosting a GP this year. The Nurburgring, one of the most iconic of all GP tracks was unable to sort itself out of the financial mire and Hockenheim, which stepped in to try and recover the deal could not sell enough tickets to make the event profitable, even with some financial support from Mercedes, the current holder of both the Constructor's and Driver's titles.

I've harped on about this before, many, many times and, though I haven't blogged for nearly a year I had to come on and make my call for action.

France is gone, with no hope of a return...
Spa Francochamps, another of the iconic tracks, is struggling every year to make the GP happen...
Nurburgring is gone and is unlikely ever to be in a financial position to host a GP...
Hockenheim cannot afford to host a race every year...
And now I'm hearing that Monza will not be on the calendar once its contract is up in 2016.

And where is F1 going to replace these lost races?

Azerbaijan!
Russia!
Singapore!
Malaysia!
China!
New Jersey!
Abu Dhabi!
Bahrain!

There are two factors at play here. One is Bernie stealing every last dollar for his investor's and the second is the fact that the European Governments are not allowed to fund the racetracks in their own countries to hold the event while those countries not part of the EU have no such restrictions.

There are a long list of dodgy states willing to fund F1 as a flagship, international event.

But even if we forget the suspect politics of the new boys (which is what Bernie likes to do) like Bahrain, Azerbaijan, China, and Abu Dhabi, and the opportunism of other states like Russia (who, lets face it need all the goodwill they can get and the moment), Singapore and Malaysia, do we not have a need to respect and protect the history of the sport and the historic racetracks located within the sport's heartland?

Mercedes in Germany
Ferrari in Italy
Renault in France
Honda in Japan

And these are just the current engine suppliers.

The teams are all located in Europe, in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Britain.

What Historic tracks are left on the 2015 calendar?

The Circuit de Catalunya, Spa-Francochamps, Silverstone, Monaco, Suzuka, Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, Hungaroring, and Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

That's eight tracks out of 19 races! And only 5 of them in Europe!

F1's main fanbase is European and this is why we have night-time racing in Singapore and Evening races in Abu Dhabi, so I find it incredible that the sport I love panders to its European fans by making GP's outside of Europe pander to Europe's TV times while at the same time cutting the number European GP's! It is a crazy concept - Short-term profiteering at the expense of the history of the sport and threatening it's fanbase through neglect.

This total lack of care for the traditional F1 fan is nowhere more apparent than the move from free-to-air to subscription TV. Not only are we losing our historic (and exciting) tracks but we are also being cut out of the loop when it comes to watching the sport we love on television.

Subscription TV doesn't need the millions of free-to-air fans to sell advertising. It doesn't care, in the same way as Bernie and his owners have forgotten us with the move to "new markets". They all expect us to be here when the shit hits the fan and F1 begins to struggle.

We are seeing the start of it over the past 3 years with smaller teams unable to raise the finance to be competitive. This is not simply a result of the rising cost of F1 it is also because traditional advertising has abandoned the sport due to the fact that business sees that the numbers of viewers will decrease dramatically once Europeans can only access the sport via subscription television.

There are no longer title sponsors willing to pay upwards of €10 million to splash their name across a car. Even McLaren, a stalwart, can't find a title sponsor this year. That makes a serious statement about the state of the sport. A statement that the Sport itself seems to be failing to hear, or perhaps they simply cannot understand it.

So, to survive, the likes of Sauber take on two drivers who pay €40 million to drive in F1, Manor (Marussia) come back on a wing and a prayer, Caterham are gone, Lotus are struggling, no-one knows how Force India are managing to fund themselves given the state of VJ's finances, Williams posted a loss last year, and aid their funding through non-F1 pursuits, McLaren are focusing on their non-F1 work, Red Bull are funded by their owner as a vanity project (a bloody good vanity project mind you), Toro Rosso the same...

Who actually makes money out of F1? And how do they make it?

They make money because we, the fans, take all the shit and keep coming back for more.

We let them cut our races, we let them take our GP's to the Middle-east and to Asia; to places where most of us cannot afford to go to watch our favourite sport;
We let them shift away from free-to-air towards subscription television;
We let them build boring, sanitised circuits where nobody is penalised for making a mistake;
We let them mess with the format of qualifying away from the one hour 12 lap system that, these days, actually seems more competitive;
We let them get rid of in-race refuelling;
We let them mess around with our tyres to try to introduce "strategic" overtaking; AND
We let them stick fiddly bits on the car and in the engine to "aid" overtaking- to improve the spectacle!

We let them do all this because they want to make the sport more attractive to non-F1 fans - In other words they want to attract people who are not already F1 fans - new people who can afford to fly to Singapore for a race, who don't care that it is being held in Azerbaijan, where they will never go: they want to attract people who will pay for the subscription but who will only watch 3 races a season!

That way they won't have to care about the rest of us until, suddenly...one day...the stalwart teams; Ferrari, Williams, Sauber and McLaren, all realise that their success in the sport was built on the fans who followed them from European track to track; the fans who didn't travel to a European race for four years so they could make a pilgrimage to Japan or Brazil to watch the season climax; The fans who never missed a race on television and bought the team gear because they loved the team.

When they wake up to the new reality it is with sadness that I predict that three-quarters of their traditional European fanbase will have abandoned them simply because our sport is doing us a disservice by retreating from us to some lofty height where the people who made you what you are are no longer deemed "necessary".

Come back, F1, before it's too late...

So-So Sochi!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 13:03:00 +0000

When the most fun you can have at a race is to take the mick out of Bernie's constant mantra that our sport is non-political you know the weekend has been a total loss.

The only joy to be taken out of Sunday was Mercedes winning its first ever F1 Constructor's Championship in 120 years and even that was overshadowed by the fact that you hardly saw the Mercedes on screen at all during the race.

The Mercedes Team celebrate their first ever F1 World Constructor's Championship in the pits at Sochi
Copyright with thanks: Mercedes AMG Petronas

It was the first time, since the turkeys in Turkey and the vapidity in Valencia that I've used the words asinine, antiseptic and monotonous in relation to an F1 race. Sochi has all the hallmarks of a track destined for the Gulag Scrapheap. God help us if it survives until 2020!

In a sport which depends so much on on-car advertising I guess it just doesn't pay to be so far ahead of the rest, do dominant, that you're not even worth watching. Red Bull/Toro Rosso, Ferrari, and Williams got the lion's share of TV coverage for which I'm sure Martini, ORIS, Shell, ~~Marlboro~~, CEPSA, and Infiniti are all thankful.

Valtteri had a great race but it was Felipe Massa who provided the TV coverage, coming from the rear of the field after an engine problem messed up his qualifying. He got regular coverage, particularly when he was hunting down Danny Kyvat (surprise, surprise!) who had a great qualifying but an incredibly bad raceday.

Felipe Massa, Sochi 2014
Courtesy of copyright holders: Glenn Dunbar/Williams F1

As I watched the race all I could think about was that Mercedes would have to start backing Nico Rosberg up into Valtteri Bottas' Williams in order to get some airtime. It's a sad state of affairs when first through to fifth don't even get a look-in.

Once again I find myself asking if Hermann Tilke can consistently design a worthwhile racetrack. He has had success with the likes of Malaysia, but these are overshadowed by the boring circuits in China, Turkey, Valencia and now Sochi. He is also the designer of the Azerbaijan circuit, due to be foisted on the sport in 2016 under the auspices of being named the European Grand Prix. Isn't that in Asia?

To allow such dominance at any given track by one engine manufacturer - sorry, power unit manufacturer - brings the focus squarely back onto the design and by extension the designer.

Sure, the drivers like the circuit because it drives well, because it's loops and whorls encourage them to experiment with racing lines and gives them the confidence to seek the limits of the circuit. I'm not saying the track isn't a joy to drive...but can it produce a good race?

I would venture to speculate that the GP2, GP3 and Porsche Supercup races were far more exciting given that they all utilise the same chassis, engine and tyres. The racing must have, by definition, been far closer than we saw on Sunday. Perhaps this is how F1 will go in the future, when the point of Formula 1 has been made redundant by the designs of Tilke and his ilk.

God help us if the US GP goes the same way. Another potentially bright and shiny US F1 future scuppered by the inability of a Tilke design to cater for the reality that F1 goes through long periods of dominance by one team and/or one driver.

I had real hopes for Austin. It has provided us with some good racing over the last two years and perhaps the design is such that it will provide another good race, but after yesterday I'm pretty sure that, unless Bernie imposes a speed limit on the Mercedes or sabotages the cars, all the rest of the field will be seeing in three weeks time is their dust.

Riding drag, is, I believe, the cowboy terminology for eating the dust of the cattle drive. If that's the kind of spectacle we're presented with in Texas then the questions will once again be asked as to the future of F1 in the United States. We know that the US fans of the sport are hardcore but it is not them that F1 needs to impress to gain popularity. It is the US motorsport community. It has to appeal to the NASCAR crowd, the Indycar crowd and the wibblywobblies that go to their local tracks on the weekend who are used to seeing close racing, lots of lead changes, and a hefty amount of on-track controversy.

The political and background games played out by the Piranha Club in the back rooms of the paddock are too subtle to provide entertainment to all but the most knowledgeable fans, the formula itself encourages dominance by the best and catch-up by the rest, and thus, to each and every team on the grid, the very idea of close racing is anathema.

In the off-season each team goes to great lengths (budget dependent) to design a car that will be far, far better than the opposition and if they achieve it, they work bloody hard to increase their dominance over the course of the season. These teams do not want to be riding drag, they don't want to be outriders, they want to be riding point; ideally a long, long way ahead of the herd.

Andrea de Cesaris

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 15:57:00 +0000

Being a fan of Jordan GP since their inception I began to take a serious F1 interest in Andrea as he lined up alongside Gachot for the team’s maiden season. Of all the races I saw him in obviously the one that stands out is the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.

de Cesaris in Belgium, 1991

Jordan had been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the lead up to the race as Gachot was missing the race as he had ended up in gaol in England for spraying a London taxi driver with tear gas in a road rage incident.

Then Andrea had to quietly go about his business while the press and paddock swarmed around Gachot’s replacement, a young rookie called Michael Schumacher, who, in his first qualifying placed his 7up Jordan 191 in seventh on the grid, 4 places above his team-mate.

For Schumi the rest was history, as was the race when he burnt out the clutch in the opening corners but de Cesaris really showed off his driving style and ability and, as I sat and watched, all I could think was that this race would be the first of many Jordan victories - and in their maiden season!

After the first set of pitstops Andrea was in fifth behind the luminaries of the sport - Mansell, Alesi, Senna & Piquet.

Then Mansell stopped on the track and Senna suddenly found himself unable to select a gear and began to slow. Alesi was leading with Senna back in the fray in second with a damaged gearbox. Andrea was in a tight scrap with Piquet and Patrese for third.

Then Alesi’s engine gave out on lap 30 and it was Senna from Piquet from Andrea, who quickly took advantage of Piquet by outbraking him into Les Combes.

Patrese got past Piquet and set off after Andrea but all the time Andrea was closing in on Senna’s troubled McLaren and, if his engine hadn’t been overheating there is no doubt in my mind that he would have got past to take the chequered flag.

Unfortunately it was not to be; on lap 41 the engine blew and his race was finished. It was, unfortunately, the only time I saw him mount a serious challenge for the top spot on the podium though he did score important points for both Jordan and Ken’s Tyrell team in the four years he remained in F1 helping Jordan to 5th in the constructor’s in ‘91, Tyrell to 8th in ‘92 and Jordan (in his two races for them) to 5th again in ‘94.

So saddened to read that he died in a motorcycle accident on Rome’s Ring Road. Thank you for the memories Andrea.

Let Them Race: Malaysia, Williams & Team Orders

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 11:54:00 +0000

I have to preface this post by saying that I'm a huge Williams fan. Ever since I first started watching F1 the racing heritage, the competitive spirit, the all-consuming love of the sport and the hard but fair attitude of Frank and the Williams Team has attracted my attention and support & whilst for a few years, being Irish, my allegiance shifted wholly to the Jordan Team, my affection for the team was always such that I rejoiced in watching Mansell, Prost, Hill, Button, et al driving the Williams cars and always appreciated the engineering talent of the team.

I was devastated both for myself and for the team on that fateful day at Imola in 1994 and was angered over the Italian persistence in seeking to apportion blame to the team for what was an horrific and massively upsetting racing accident.

Over the last few years I would think that my desire to see the Williams Team back at the front where they truly belong matches that of the team itself and the frustrations of the last two years where the performances have failed to match up to the team's potential have, this season, vanished in the renewed optimism derived from the signing of Felipe Massa, the retention of Valtteri Bottas, the magnificent boost of pre-season testing and the storming drive of Bottas at Melbourne after his puncture.

Massa leads Bottas in the closing stages of the Malaysian GP in contravention of Team Orders
Photo Copyright: Glenn Dunbar/Williams F1

And so to Malaysia where, in the terrible and equalising conditions presented during qualifying, the driver's couldn't get themselves out of Q2 and ended up 13th and 15th on the grid, with Bottas losing a further 3 places for, what appeared to be a relatively innocuous level of impeding Daniel Ricciardo through Turns 14 & 15.

Nonetheless, come the start of the race the two drivers stormed up the field with Massa up to 8th by lap 4 and Bottas two places behind in 10th.

And the cars in front of them throughout the race? Two Mercedes, two Red Bulls, one Ferrari, one Force India and one McLaren. Hulkenburg in the Force India qualified in 7th and simply held position, with a two pitstop strategy in order to gain 5th at the end, both Magnusson and Ricciardo having troubles which promoted Nico up to fifth.

I'm not detracting from the hard work Hulkenburg had to undertake to keep everyone behind him, or from the pace of the car which allowed him build a considerable lead over Button behind. I'm simply positing the fact that, should the Williams have qualified in a similar position they too would have been able to race for the top 5 points scoring places.

Then in the closing stages of the race, with Massa holding 7th and Bottas behind in 8th, the call came repeatedly from the pitlane to Massa that Bottas was "faster" and to allow him overtake in order to chase down Button (around 1 second up the road).

This was a devastating imposition of team orders that, in my opinion (humble or otherwise), Felipe was completely right to ignore. He had been chasing Jenson most of the race and, after the final set of pitstops, had caught right up to the McLaren but was unable to pass.

Both cars carry Mercedes engines, both cars are being driven by massively experienced veteran drivers and it seemed that the Williams simply could not carry enough speed into and through the DRS zones to enable Massa to carry out an overtaking opportunity that would stick.

What, with 6 laps to go, made the pitlane think that Bottas could do better? First he would have to overtake Massa safely, then close the 1.5 second gap that had grown up between 6th and 7th place, and only then, if Jenson Button had not taken advantage of the orchestration going on behind him, would he have an opportunity to consider overtaking the McLaren.

All-in-all it was a highly unlikely scenario and one which I do not believe Frank would have approved of at such an early stage of the season.

The post-race defence, that Bottas would have given the place back if he was not successful, was not clarified in the pit-to-car communication and would be very hard to control assuming that Bottas might have a chance to overtake all the way around the final lap.

A pecking order within a team cannot be considered at such an early stage of the season. Last year at this very race, should we forget, was the "multi 21" saga which cast such a shadow over Sebastian Vettel's season that he had to contend with booing at a number of races, up to and including Australia two weeks ago. On the other side, Nico Rosberg, at the same race, was told to hold station behind Hamilton even though he was much faster. Nico made it clear that he would expect the favour to be returned.

I accept that Williams are in a difficult position at the moment, seeking to maximise points in the early stages of the season where their car is likely better than the cars carrying Renault & Ferrari engines.

The urge to control races and their driver's racing is therefore very strong, but they must desist from micro-managing the point's haul.

Let the driver's race and trust them to show good and proper sense when it comes to overtaking each other.

Insist they hold station in the final 8 laps simply to ensure a points haul, and

Do not instill a pecking order until such time as one driver has a clear advantage over his team-mate.

Simple rules that every driver will understand and appreciate.

Felipe Massa has been given enough team orders in his lifetime. He is definitely a top class driver and I've been arguing since March 2011 that he needed to get out of Ferrari in order to rediscover the scintillating form he showed in 2008 when he was robbed of the Driver's Championship by a combination of Crashgate and Timo Glock.

He is now in a team that needs him to extract the best from himself and one which at the moment seems to be in a strong position to have a good season. The last thing either he or the team needs is to feel that they do not have each other's full support.

I don't know who made the decision to call Felipe but I do not see how that call was in the best interests of the team: it certainly wasn't in the best interests of Felipe Massa.

Melbourne was a good race...when there was racing!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:11:00 +0000

But is it really F1?

Yes there is the matter of the engine sound (or distinct lack thereof) but there are other far more fundamental questions that need to be asked about the direction our sport is taking.

I mean our drivers appear to be car managers rather than racing drivers under the new rules. They manage tyres; they manage fuel; they manage KERS and DRS; so, when do they actually manage to race each other?

Answer: when they've managed to manage everything to a point in the "race" where they can be sure that their tyres won't give out and their fuel won't run out.

I'm just not convinced that this is what F1 should be aspiring to.

Even worse than all of the foregoing is the absurdity of limiting fuel usage to a maximum of 100kg/hr. This is what saw Daniel Ricciardo being disqualified from a well deserved second place in the first race of the season. Our sport is limiting fuel AND fuel consumption!

Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified from second place for exceeding maximum permitted fuel consumption rates.
Pure Madness!
Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images, published courtesy of Infiniti-Red Bull Racing

What is the purpose of this insanity? To appear greener?

As I was considering F1 last week a friend put this idiocy in its proper context:

We have 22 cars racing on up to 20 tracks per year. The teams rack up a massive number of air miles and road miles over the course of the season which completely environmentally outstrip any miniscule damage being done by the cars themselves on-track.

He's absolutely right, if you're going to do something about the environmental impact of F1 then the F1 circus should address this issue rather than emasculating the cars themselves to a point where they are little better than GP2 material.

I don't mind the engine size, I celebrate the return of turbo and applaud the installation of electric batteries; all of these changes are commendable, to a point. but we had 1.5L turbos in the 1980's and, as the above friend pointed out, they sounded brilliant! They gave F1 a distinctive and loud engine sound.

Can anyone explain to me how all these changes are good for the sport? They may reduce it's envionmental impact by a teensy, weensey marginal amount but that has nothing to do with it being good for the sport.

There will be those that argue that F1 was becoming irrelevant to the engine manufacturers and that may have been true but those same manufacturers would still learn shedloads from a 1.6L V6 Turbo F1 engine with two electric batteries attached that is neither limited on fuel or fuel consumption which would translate down to their hybrid cars being constructed on the factory floor.

I don't want to come over all Jeremy Clarkson on this issue but Crikey! These changes are about as logical as giving the inmates control over the asylum. Let's put the racing back into Formula 1 racing for crying out loud!

Melbourne & Engine Noise

Watching Melbourne I was amazed to hear the tyres squealing under braking; it's a sound that I have very rarely heard before because it was generally, completely masked by the engine's roar.

I was astonished to hear it at Melbourne and, to tell the truth, I am not in the least surprised that the race organizers are looking for some kind of compensation for the spectacle of near silent cars travelling at reduced speeds around a track while fuel saving madly for half the race.

The City of Melbourne may have a love/hate, contentious relationship with F1 but it may be that this level of change may be a step too far and could tilt the question of Melbourne's future in favour of the naysayers.

Formula E

It is madness to continue down this road when the FIA are already bringing Formula E to the track this year. Why am I actually looking forward to this series? Because it will do exactly what it says on the tin. All the cars will be electrically powered. This will give a huge boost to electric vehicle technology which is currently limited by distance vs need to recharge. If the Formula E cars can be recharged in 90 seconds in the pits in 2015, which is what the FIA were predicting last year, then essentially the main obstacle to the sale of Electric vehicles will have been overcome and surely the Formula E car technology will push improved engine design and output, should this series gain enough popularity.

Pre-Melbourne Musing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 12:19:00 +0000

I know it's been a long time between posts but with all of the rule changes and the pre-season testing fiasco's out of the way I have one or two thoughts about the season to come that I thought I'd commit to paper (well e-paper!).

The first obviously concerns Red Bull who have suffered three disastrous tests in Jerez and Bahrain. The Renault engine would appear to be the least competitive on the grid over the pre-season but there's no question but there are other problems affecting the car in terms of its packaging.

We all know that Adrian Newey is fastidious when it comes to packaging all the various elements of an F1 car under the skin and this space-saving has, in the past, created problems which the team have had to overcome. Invariably they have done so and have come out the other side stronger than ever. Why should we expect it to be any different this time around?

Red Bull: not a pre-season to write home about!
(Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

It is likely to be a difficult start to the season for them but I would be confident that, by the time they get to Europe, Newey will have expelled the gremlins from the machine.

Based on pre-season times, which tend not to be indicative of true pace, the Renault engine will not be the fastest on the grid but I would expect Red Bull to be leading the French Marque's charge by mid-season.

The other possibility is, of course, that Red Bull suffer the way McLaren did last year.

Seeing another top team suffer an Annus Horribilis as they struggle to keep pace with the front-runners is not a prospect that I look forward to. I would prefer to see the teams at the back catch up to the front four rather than watch one of the front four fall back into the pack: the latter is a temporary spectacle that does nothing for the sport whilst the former represents a marked improvement that can result in spectacular and unpredictable races.

The pre-season engine has definitely been the Mercedes with both the Marque team, Williams and Force India indicating that it will be the engine to beat in the coming season. But what of McLaren?

Mercedes Engines have been looking good in pre-season
(and of course Bahrain will be under lights)
Photo copyright of Mercedes

I'm not sure that they are getting the same level of co-operation from their engine supplier as they did over the course of the last few years. I've seen the reports where Mercedes have been saying that their commitment to the team is as strong as ever and that it will remain so until such time as it is in their interests to distance themselves from a team which is taking on Honda engines next year but I have to wonder, on the strength of pre-season if Mercedes attention has now refocused onto Williams. After all Toto Wolff has a history with Frank and his wife is third driver for the team and will be given FP1 time this year.

Perhaps McLaren will have to endure another depressing year struggling to keep up with Williams and Force India before finding their feet in 2015 with the new Honda Works engine. That of course is predicated on the expectation that Honda will come out of the box at a sprint. All other engine suppliers will have had this coming year in the cars to learn and improve, Honda will be starting from scratch.

With such a strange preseason the joke has been going around that most of the cars won't see the chequered flag in Melbourne but underneath the pithy tweets and news reports there is an underlying seriousness which wonders if the event that we are all looking forward to, the 2014 season opener, will be less spectacle and more fiasco!

Marshal killed at Canadian GP

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:18:00 +0000

I would just like to express my condolences to the family of the 38 yr old Marshal who died at the Canadian GP.

As all of you know, without these dedicated Marshals who do this dangerous work for the love of the sport, there would be no Formula 1.

These days such accidents are few and far between and I think the last time a Marshal was killed at a GP was 2001 in Australia when the wheel of Villeneuve's BAR passed through a gap in the safety fencing.

I trust that, regardless of the accidental nature of yesterday's fatality, all of the circuits will review their vehicle recovery procedures to ensure the health and safety of everyone on the scene.

May he rest in peace.

Vettel Booed on Podium

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:04:00 +0000

This is the second time this season that Sebastian Vettel has been booed on the podium.

The first race of the season saw the Australian crowd react badly to him though it was not as audible as at yesterdays podium ceremony.

I'm not in favour of this kind of behaviour, regardless of each individual's right to express his/her opinion. In the same way that I don't agree with drivers cursing during live, post-race interviews I think that the winner of a GP deserves to be given due respect for the fact that he has raced and won that day.

I'm not a huge fan of Vettel and certainly I'd prefer Mark Webber beat him more consistently but the fact is that he blitzed all competition yesterday and for that deserves to be rewarded by the crowd showing a bit of respect.

Fans of F1, by their nature, tend to be well informed about their sport and it is not uncommon for each fan to support more than one team and more than one driver.

I, for instance, give a lot of my support to Williams, Button, Webber, Ferrari, Sauber, Massa, Raikkonen, and Rosberg but I also have a lot of time for Bianchi, Hamilton, Bottas, Mercedes and McLaren. Then there are Team Principals and Tech Directors who are of interest culminating with (of course) Adrian Newey.

So while I may not be a great fan of Red Bull Racing I have an interest in them from my support of Webber and my awe of Adrian Newey.

Sebastian may not be the most loveable of characters but a lot of that is based on his success and success does not deserve to be booed.

For me there were only two occasions in all the time I've watched F1 where booing was acceptable, the first was the 2002 Austrian GP podium which was shambolic and the second was also in 2002 at Indianapolis. Funnily enough it was Michael Schumacher who was deserving on both occasions - and I was a big supporter of MSC from his very first appearance with Jordan in the 191.

Dr. Gary Hartstein on his time in F1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:37:00 +0000

All video's today.

I haven't seen this one but will be watching it later to see if he has said anything about the way in which he was pushed out. He expressed his anger quite forcefully on twitter after being replaced and did say he'd be giving his side of the story at a later date.

MSC drives the Nordschleife Run in F1 Mercedes

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:32:00 +0000

The video of Schumi enjoying the Nordschleife

Honda McLaren Video

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:34:00 +0000

Here's the video of Honda and McLaren announcing their reunification in 2015

Honda Return!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:25:00 +0000

At 8.32am GMT McLaren issued a press release confirming the rumours which have been circulating in the press and on the web since the new engine regulations for 2014 were first mooted back in 2011.

From the start of the 2015 season McLaren will partner with Honda as the works team for their 1.6 litre V6 turbo engine.

This is great news for the McLaren team, who enjoyed their most successful period in Formula 1 when partnered with the Japanese manufacturer winning 4 Constructor's and 4 Drivers Championships: the highlight of that partnership was the 1988 season when McLaren Honda won 15 of that season's 16 Grand Prix.

Takanobu Ito, President and CEO of Honda Motor Co. Ltd. provided an insight into the thinking behind Honda's return to the sport after leaving at the end of the 2008 season

The new F1 regulations with their significant environmental focus will inspire even greater development of our own advanced technologies and this is central to our participation in F1. We have the greatest respect for the FIA’s decision to introduce these new regulations that are both highly challenging but also attractive to manufacturers that pursue environmental technologies and to Formula One Group, which has developed F1 into a high value, top car racing category supported by enthusiastic fans.

Martin Whitmarsh is understandably delighted:

The names of McLaren and Honda are synonymous with success in Formula 1, and, for everyone who works for both companies, the weight of our past achievements together lies heavily on our shoulders. But it’s a mark of the ambition and resolve we both share that we want once again to take McLaren-Honda to the very pinnacle of Formula 1 success. Together we have a great legacy – and we’re utterly committed to maintaining it.

Honda has built a reputation as a worldwide engineering giant, but its roots, its specialism and its passion lie in the advancement of the internal combustion engine. Throughout its history, Honda has pioneered engine technology in road cars, motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. Indeed, its experience as a manufacturer of turbocharged engines is unequalled by any other car manufacturer currently competing in Formula 1.

Jenson Button, of course has 3 years experience racing with Honda who took over BAR in 2006, and won his first GP with them in that year. It may be that his familiarity with Honda F1 personnel will be valuable, should he remain at McLaren in 2015.

How do you Solve a Problem like Marussia?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:23:00 +0000

Journalists, commentators and fans have, in recent years, regularly discussed how to make the lower Motorsport categories of GP2, F3, etc. more relevant to F1 and also how best to break new F1 drivers into the top echelon of motorsport on merit.

Having never reached a consensus on how this might be achieved I was listening to the news today that Wigan had been relegated after losing to Arsenal last night and it suddenly struck me that F1 could operate in a similar manner, with a little help from the Concorde agreement and the FIA.

Let us assume that, at the end of this season, Marussia and Caterham are at the bottom of the F1 table why not relegate the bottom team and promote the top GP2 team. This team would be provided, through the Concorde agreement, with a customer midfield F1 car for its first year - the midfield teams providing same on a rotation basis - and would have to give the GP2 and F3 champions a race seat.

A basic cost associated with going racing for the first year would be paid (a la Marussia at £38 million p.a), while 60% of any team revenue from sponsorship or other income would have to be saved to enable the design and build of a new constructor F1 car by its third year in the sport.

Should the new team survive its first year the Concorde Agreement provides half the racing costs for the second year with 40% of the previous season's sponsorship and another 40% of the second year's sponsorship paying for the rest and then are given £10 million the third year at which time the team becomes liable for all its costs and must operate as a full constructor. If the team does not survive the 60% saved revenue from each of the first two years is recycled by F1 to pay for the next promoted team.

F1 is then a meritocracy rather than simply monetary and the teams at the bottom are given an incentive to move up the grid and become de facto constructors.

Now I know the plan has flaws and it's probably easy to pick them out, but I do think there is the germ of a workable solution here. This would provide for 11 teams on the grid, with the option for a 12th team to enter the sport should they have the money to do so.

Were a 12th team to seek a grid slot they would be given a 3 year grace period before becoming subject to the relegation rule.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this idea, especially those which point out the flaws.

Lotus confirm Allison departure by announcing Nick Chester promotion

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:35:00 +0000

Lotus Press release:

Wednesday 8th May 2013

Nick Chester appointed Lotus F1 Team Technical Director

Lotus F1 Team is pleased to announce the promotion of Nick Chester to the position of Technical Director. Nick will replace the departing James Allison, who will leave Enstone after working with the team most recently since 2005 and previously from 1991-1992 and 1994-1999.

Nick has worked at Enstone since 2000, most recently as Engineering Director, and previously as Head of Performance Systems, Head of Vehicle Performance Group and Race Engineer. Prior to coming to Enstone, Nick worked for Arrows Grand Prix for five years.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal:
“We are pleased to announce Nick Chester as our next Technical Director. Nick is well known to everyone at Enstone having been with the team for over twelve years. He is already directly involved with this and next year’s cars, ensuring a smooth transition which has been underway for some time. It’s an illustration of the strength and breadth of talent at Enstone that we can draw on personnel of the calibre of Nick and it’s something of an Enstone tradition for new Technical Directors to be promoted from within. He assumes his new position at a tremendously exciting time for the sport. The 2014 technical regulation changes present many challenges, while our current position of second place in both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ World Championships mean we cannot lose sight of this year’s development battle. Nick really has his work cut out, but we know he is more than capable of handling the tasks ahead. As a team and individually, we would all like to thank James Allison for his efforts during his three stints at Enstone and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.”

Nick Chester, Technical Director, Lotus F1 Team:
“I have worked at Enstone for over twelve years and am delighted to take on the role of Technical Director. I am grateful to the management at Enstone for the faith they have in promoting me to this position. I am very aware of our need to keep pushing development of this year’s E21 whilst developing next year’s car to a set of very different regulations. There are some exciting times ahead for Enstone and I’m honoured to be part of it.”

Teams to test resolve on in-season testing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:48:00 +0000

Teams are to take a vote today on in-season testing, ESPN are reporting.

This vote has sneaked up on me as I've been a little out of the loop recently due to the fact that I'm struggling to keep my company afloat in these tough economic times and lately all of my efforts have been focussed on the "real" world rather than my passion; the upshot being that I haven't had time to check out all of the exciting things happening in the F1 world.

When you chuck in the fact that I don't watch Bahrain you can appreciate that it was easy to lose touch with the Blog.

Anyhoo, the hullabaloo about testing in-season has been Ferrari's pet peeve since it was banned in 2009 as a cost-cutting measure.

Prior to the ban being imposed the teams had a third pit team whose only function during the season was to go testing. Each in-season test cost over $300,000 per team in terms of salaries, cars,parts, transport and accommodation. But of course Ferrari have their own test track at Fiorano, making the whole thing much easier and far cheaper for the Italian team.

Jonathan Neale from McLaren seems to think that there are four teams in favour of testing but falls short of naming them.

I think I can do that for him:

Ferrari at Fiorano (obviously)
Force India (Silverstone)
Mercedes (Brackley - just down the A43 from Silverstone)
Red Bull (Milton Keynes - Just down the A5 from Silverstone)

I'm assuming that it is unlikely that Caterham or Marussia would support a return to in-season testing simply due to their budget issues, but the likes of Lotus and Williams are not too far away from Silverstone either so the costs associated with testing there might be achievable for those two teams.

Certainly, Williams would have a history of testing at Silverstone and would probably like to have in-season testing to focus their efforts on improving the car this season.

McLaren however are not in favour of a return to in-season testing, citing the economic climate, cost saving and equal opportunities as their reasons.

We know however that they test their cars in-season on their secret test track under the MTC as first revealed in Episode 1 of TOONED (with that kind of facility in place, out of the eyes of the prying media and FIA they can carry out their secret test programmes while pretending to be on the side of the little teams).

China Musings - Free Practice and Free Association

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:10:00 +0000

Even before the tyres spun for the first time at the Chinese GP expectations were high amongst the fans and Journalists that we were going to have an epic weekend, and none of that related to the racing. We had Webber coming back into the limelight having kept schtum since making his disappointment clear to everyone in Malaysia.

We had ongoing discussions about the Red Bull way vs the Mercedes way,
We have Vettel's ever changing statements culminating in his statement that he'd do it again (regardless of team orders),
Christian Horner continuing to say that he's in charge (Don't be silly, I am still in charge)
Red Bull saying there'll be no more team orders
McLaren coming back after three weeks of hard graft
Ross Brawn seemingly getting closer to the exit
Bianchi being modest about his ever more apparent abilties
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/106597

You know, it feels like a lot has happened in three weeks and yet nothing has. Three weeks of analysing and picking apart a should he/shouldn't he team orders story.

Sir Rosberg the Good, Seb Vettel the Bold, Sir Hamilton the Humble, Sir Webber the Grump!

Now Rosberg was good and Webber had every right to be grumpy, Vettel was bold and should have been sent to the naughty step, but nobody believes Hamilton is humble; I don't think even Lewis would describe himself using that term, perhaps tha Shiznet (the link is not what you might expect Lewis!).

Felipe is the man in the chair beating his team-mate in the WDC and hoping to outqualify Fernando for the third time in three races tomorrow
© Scuderia Ferrari

And then Felipe Massa Comes along and ruins it by taking the Ferrari fastest on Day 1 of Free Practice, beating Kimi and Fernando into second and third. So now all of the Journo's have to pay attention to both of the Ferrari guys as well as both Mercedes and Red Bull drivers.

That's at least 6 interviews to look for, if Massa have finished behind Alonso they'd only need to do 5, and if Rosberg finish abaft of Lewis they wouldn't have to talk to him, which makes 4 interviews, Fernando's would be over in two minutes, and they could eat with Webbo, Vettel will stubbornly stick to his script, unless his team tell him otherwise so that just leaves an hour to sit down and listen to Lewis being humble...and sincere, and have to watch Roscoe drooling on his masters racing boots:

"Lewis, does your racing boot not slip off the pedals from all the drool your dog deposits on them?"

Then nip down to McLaren for tea and sorrows and finally to Force India for a bit of sympathy

Will Bernie Ecclestone Destroy the US Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:44:00 +0000

Just in case you didn't know yet, a group called Bluewaters Communications Group LLC, are attempting to sue Bernie Ecclestone over the Gribkowsky Bribe affair, say that they had a preferential bid on the table to take legal control of F1 from the banking group which took over in 2004.

That banking group contained the likes of Lehman, J.P.Morgan and Bayern LB Banks, all of whom wanted out of F1 in a big way apparently from the minute they got their hands on it.

They claim that Lehman Brothers and J.P Morgan approached their representative and asked if they would buy the Banks shares in the sport; those shares represented a controlling interest in F1.

Bluewater raised the capital they needed to make the bid and began negotiations with Gribkowsky, who represented Bayern LB, the only non-US bank involved and the largest shareholder in the Bank Group.

The basic claim is that Bayern LB paid Bernie a $65 million finder's fee, which he then paid $44 million of to Gribkowsky, who steered the sale of the Bayern shares to CVC Capital Partners Ltd.

Bluestone are miffed because they claim their bid offered sale price + 10% over any other offer on the table and reckon that the only reason CVC got the sale was because they promised to keep Bernie on as Chief Bottlewasher.

Bluestone had a stated offer of around $1 Billion on the table.

All this is quite interesting and also pretty boring for F1 fans, really because it's not part of the sport, just a corporate wrangling for control.

The thing that interests me about it comes from the fight over whether the case can be heard in the US courts.

One of the mainstays of the Bluewater case is that the fact that the bribe bank transfers were undertaken in US currency enable the US courts to hear the case, even though the transfers took place between banks in Switzerland and Austria, outside of the US.

This is very interesting, and you'll pardon me for now referring to Lee Child's, Jack Reacher novels to illustrate my point.

In the first Reacher novel "The Killing Floor" the plot revolves around a US Dollar counterfeiting ring and a lot of discussion takes place, obviously enough, about the US currency. The point is made that, in the US banks, there is only about $350 Dollars per head of population, with the vast majority of the currency circulating outside the country and being used for business transfers, etc. This keeps the currency at a primary position in the currency markets with a lot of investors buying and selling Dollars, increasing confidence in the Currency and in the Country.

In other words, it's good for the US economy to encourage the use of Dollars in foreign transactions.

Should the New York Courts decide that US Currency transactions taking place abroad come under the jurisdiction of US Courts...well, the question I'm wondering is whether international business would continue to use the Dollar in non-US dealings?

Bernie Ecclestone: Could a $44 million law suit bring down the US Economy?

The (F)lighter side of F1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:53:00 +0000

On the lighter side of F1 Richard Branson is finally honouring the bet he made with Tony Fernandes over which team would finish highest in the WCC in 2010. Branson was heading Virgin F1 (now Marussia) in 2010 whilst Fernandes headed Lotus (now Caterham).

Photo taken from Air Asia's Facebook Page

Both rivals being the owners of their own airline as well as F1 team at the time made a bet that the losing team owner would serve as an Air Steward on the rival airline.

Lotus won the bet in Abu Dhabi in 2010 by finishing 10th whilst Virgin finished behind the HRT F1 team in 12th place.

Branson now looks set to honour the bet on Sunday 12th May, with all proceeds from the flight going to charity. Tony Fernandes famously presented Richard Branson with his Stewardess outfit after the race in Abu Dhabi.

Bahrain GP reprise

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:55:00 +0000

This is my annual blog about Bahrain and how I feel we shouldn't be racing there in the current climate. This year I'm not going to get exorcised about it, my blog has, over the last two years made many statements with regard to my position on this race which I set out hereunder if you're interested. This year I won't be doing a separate championship minus Bahrain as, frankly, it's a pain in the arse to maintain but, as with the last two years, I won't be watching the race weekend.

I've been following Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch over the last two years and they are still not satisfied with the situation in the country. We can expect the newspapers and websites to provide a glut of information coming up to race weekend but it would appear that little, if anything, has changed since last year.

I remain disappointed with the FIA that they continue to sanction the race, with Bernie, and with the Teams for their position on this matter, but I'm not going to go into overdrive on this issue. Last year I saw F1 Reporters trying to adapt their skills to investigative reporting whilst real journalists were being kicked out of the country by the authorities controlled by the ruling house. Let me just say that in the vast majority of instances they were found wanting. Limited to the area between their hotels and the circuit, for their own safety, they were wide open to be abused by the PR machine sanctioned and operated by those in power.

All I can say is that I hope this year the F1 journalists stick to what they know best.

Once again I'll be spending that weekend wishing things were different, hoping that both parties can reach a satisfactory accommodation, and lamenting my favourite sport's decision to continue to race in a country which uses F1 as a political public relations tool. I'm turning off - I hope you do too.

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2011/06/bernie-says-no-bahrain-gp.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2012/02/bernie-plus-ca-change.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2012/04/bernies-easter-hand-washing-exercise.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2012/04/bbc-reports-teams-expect-bahrain.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2012/04/us-statement-on-bahrain.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2012/04/fia-teams-and-bernie-cop-out-on-bahrain.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2011/06/open-letter-to-jean-todt-and-fia.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2011/06/update-on-bahrain.html

http://f1-2012season.blogspot.ie/2012/04/i-can-already-see-martin-brundle-giving.html