It’s 1:22am on Friday March 27th and it’s 8 minutes from the start of first practice for the 2009 Australian Grand Prix. New rules, new cars, new stories – I can’t fucking wait!!
Sometimes virals are indeed rather fucking class.
News is slowly but surely leaking about the fate of Honda F1. If rumours are to be believed, former Ferrari Technical Director, Ross Brawn, has led the buy-out with help from Bernie Ecclestone (in lieu of a portion of next season’s prize money) – a buy out that is thought to have finished Nick Fry’s relationship with the team.
Regardless of what many think of Formula 1, it must surely be welcomed that in a time constant company closures and redundancies, this buy-out may save at least 500 of the 700 jobs with the team and with measures in place to bring the cost of participation in the World Championship down, this may even secure the long term future of the team – it is also this economic strategy that has made the 2010 entry for the new USF1 team possible.
However, the car has still been run and as a result Brawn Racing (or whatever they end up being called) face an uphill battle for the rest of the season – which is why holding onto veteran Brazilian driver, Rubens Barrichello, makes perfect sense.
With Bruno Senna waiting in the wings, Barrichello must surely know that this will be his final season in the top flight and many would not be surprised to see him make a move to either the IRL (Indy Racing League) or DTM (German Touring Car Championship) for 2010.
Although the signing of Ayrton Senna’s nephew may have brought with it sponsors, immediate income and publicity; Brawn Racing desperately need experience and with mid-season testing banned, the only time the car can be run for development is at Grand Prix weekend’s. It would appear that the team will really need Barrichello’s in depth knowledge of the machinery to progress through the year and with Button already signed for the next three years, Honda have an apparent strong front for the moment. No doubt that Senna will make to Formula 1 eventually – just not yet it would seem.
…is going to be The Chain by Fleetwood Mac. Bringing back memories? Well, this version of the opening is from the start of the 1990 season – check it out.
Strange rumours are seeping out of Honda F1 with regards to the teams future. Bosses at the Japanese corporation’s headquarters announced in December that they were pulled out of competition with immediate effect and since then there has been a rush to find buyers.The most intriguing thing about a possible buyout is the it might be lead by Nick Fry – the man who in many people’s eyes was responsible for Honda’s downfall in the first place. Whether he can steer the team in the right direction without Honda’s influence remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure – this could be make or break for Honda (or whatever they decide to call themselves in Melbourne).
Should all this talk about a takeover be true, the team will then face an uphill battle to be completely ready for the Grand Prix in Australia in the last weekend in March. There are not many test sessions left and they’re going to be readying the cars and systems for the first race around the second week of March. As a result, they have next to no shakedown time and with testing banned during the season, they have next to no time to ready their machine.
It has just been revealed that Renault F1 driver Fernando Alonso had a minor plane accident yesterday when his light aircraft clipped a building just before take-off (how..?) from Nairobi. Apparently there were no injuries, but just somewhat understandably nervous occupants following the incident.They cite financial reasons poor car sales as the main reasons behind this decision, but it also raises questions as to their commitment to the Indy Racing League. This decision also leaves a lot of employees very suddenly at a loose end – as well as driver Jenson Button, who signed a two year deal only a couple of months back.
Poor sod…
Admittedly he did get lucky when his team-mate, Nelson Piquet Jr., brought out the safety car with a crash on lap 15, but Alonso has been fast in the Renault all weekend. Once again Hamilton’s race was somewhat anonymous, but unlike title rival Felipe Massa, the Englishman picked up six points – Hamilton now leads the Drivers Championship by 7 points, while McLaren lead Ferrari in the Constructor’s by five.
An awful day for Ferrari and Massa, who would’ve picked up a number of points there not been another pit-stop failure. This is beginning to get serious though, as that is (off the top of my head) four incidents this season where the fuel line has come off the car and injured a mechanic – surely the FIA must be copping onto the fact that sooner or later, a mechanic will get killed during a stop. All in all, it was a very good race and a thoroughly deserved victory by Fernando Alonso in a car that should never be anywhere near the front.
Nothing I could possibly write could cover what Paul Newman has done throughout his life. But in short;- Classic Movie Star
- Racing Driver
- Race Team Owner
- Culinary Entrepreneur
- Clever bastard
Paul Newman (1925 – 2008)
Today saw Sebastian Vettel become the youngest ever Formula 1 Grand Prix winner.
The 21-year-old Beck look-a-like-ish took the victory at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza a few minutes ago with a controlled drive from the very beginning.
Great race. Stunning drive. Perfect, absolutely perfect. 10 out of 10.
Yesterday afternoon, Formula 1 managed to do the impossible and kill itself in public again.
Three hours after one of the most exciting races of the season and the race stewards decided to hand Lewis Hamilton a 25-second penalty that demoted him to third place and awarded the race to Felipe Massa – Hamilton’s direct title rival.
There have been whispers for sometime now that FIA have been favouring Ferrari over McLaren, but to be honest I have never paid too much attention to that because all the penalties that McLaren received this year have been justified. However following Massa’s lenient punishment thanks to his teams pit-stop error at the European Grand Prix (kept the victory with a $15,000 fine – peanuts to Ferrari) and now Hamilton’s severe punishment in Belgium, it’s getting more and more difficult to ignore the conspiracy theories.
Had this ruling come following a shit race, I’m not sure the reaction from the fan base would have been so aggressive, but seeing as how the Belgian Grand Prix had been one of the best of the season so far, the stewards have managed to turn an already suspicious public into a very loud and angry mob.
Compare and contrast this to the Indy Racing League which concluded its 2008 season in Chicago yesterday, which not only only had excellent wheel-to-wheel racing all year long, but had little in the way of the backroom bullshit that has plagued Formula 1 for some time.
In the end Scott Dixon claimed the 2008 IRL title over Helio Castroneves in the final race of the season, Castroneves won it by a mere 0.005 seconds. The race also saw some incredibly tough driving for the lead and at one stage Dan Wheldon, Ryan Briscoe and Castroneves were going side-by-side for nearly 15 laps at 200 miles per hour – unbelievable stuff!!And at the end of it all, everyone smiled, congratulated each other and took part in what was one big celebration…
…and his here’s the one big perk for me – the driver’s come across as nice people!! It doesn’t matter that they may be wankers in real life, it only matters that they seem nice. While I admire the current batch of Formula 1 drivers for their skill, I don’t think I would ever want to meet any of them because for the most part, they present themselves as arseholes!!
I must admit that my knowledge of the 1983 season is a little vague.
Sandwiched in between the controversial 1982 and 1984 seasons, it is something of an anonymous year in the sport, despite the fact that the championship went down to the final race at Kyalami in South Africa.
For 53 laps on the old Osterreichring in Austria (before it was neutered for modern Formula 1 races and renamed the A-1 Ring) Patrick Tambay started the race from pole position in his Ferrari ahead of team-mate Rene Arnoux. Nigel Mansell qualified third, Nelson Piquet started fourth with Prost down in fifth place.
Whereas the Brabham, the Renault and the two Ferrari’s got away well, Mansell in the Lotus disappeared off into the distance. During the opening stages Prost got past Nelson Piquet and the group of four clung together for the first half of the race.
Ligier driver Jean-Pierre Jarier was on the receiving end of a vast amount of criticism after this race for blocking and justifiably so – this was all the more apparent when the leaders were lapping him early in the Grand Prix and Jarier maintained desperately unusual racing lines and occasion weaved across the track.
It was on lap 30 that the Austrian Grand Prix began to unravel as the race leader Patrick Tambay retired and handed the lead to Piquet who was closely followed by both Arnoux and Prost.
Throughout the following laps Arnoux pushed Piquet to the limit and it was when the Ferrari finally passed the Brabham driver that Prost got through as well. This allowed Prost into the fray for a race victory and the Renault driver passed Arnoux six laps from the end. In the end, it seemed all too easy as Arnoux hardly put up a fight and over the final few laps struggled to keep up with the Renault and as a result, Prost extended his lead to win by seven seconds.
More worryingly for the Brabham, Piquet dropped nearly half a minute in the last fifteen laps and finished just ahead of the American driver Eddie Cheever. Mansell came fifth and Niki Lauda finished sixth – 2 laps behind the race winner.
Suddenly both Arnoux and Prost had elbowed their way into the championship fight with Piquet as three drivers in three different cars fought it out for the final four races of the season.
Race Quality: 2.5 out of 5
Source Quality: C (video slightly blurry with age, but still watchable and the audio is very clear)
The Hungarian Grand Prix marked an interesting point in the 1991 Formula 1 season.
At this stage Ayrton Senna was just driving to the championship, while Williams were there (but still not quite there) and Alain Prost was still struggling in his Ferrari.
Wins in the previous two Grand Prix had brought Mansell back into the championship race, but it must be noted that Senna had lost them by running out of fuel. Added to this was tension between Senna and Prost, which was eventually resolved to a degree by FISA via some rather unorthodox methods. Unfortunately this was the only interesting thing about the Hungarian Grand Prix as the race itself is very fucking boring.
Senna claimed his 57th pole position during Saturday Qualifying by one second ahead of Ricardo Patrese and Nigel Mansell – this set the pattern for most of the Grand Prix. At one point during the race, Murray Walker asks co-commentator James Hunt how frustrating it must be for the drivers to drive around with next to no chance of passing and in one fowl swoop Walker conveys the feeling of the viewing public without realising it. The top three of Senna, Patrese and Mansell are close together for most of the Grand Prix, but there are no moves at all.
It took nearly 50 laps for this race to get going at which point it really took off. Senna led from the start with Ricardo Patrese in second and Mansell in third, while Prost held fourth was keeping vigil with the leaders until his Ferrari blew up on lap 28. That Mansell’s team-mate was sitting in second for so long despite being nowhere in the championship raised some eyebrows and it wasn’t until lap 46 that Patrese decided to let Mansell through, at which point Mansell began to charge Senna.
Realistically there was just nowhere to go and Mansell ended up trailing Senna by a couple of seconds for the remaining 29 laps, while Patrese seemed to get bored. There are times that I feel sorry for drivers in Patrese’s position – unable to pass Senna for the lead, but required to let his team mate through for the championship. Senna’s mastery was apparent here though as the extremely hot weather in Budapest destroyed the tyres of a majority of the competitors, yet the Brazilian tempered the tyrewear. In the end, Mansell had to cool it as his tyres were wrecked.
The Hungaroring rarely produces epic racing of any sort and this was another example of this. Senna won by 4.5 seconds from Mansell – he simply didn’t need to go any faster – and Patrese picked up an easy third with Gerhard Berger in the second McLaren finishing in fourth place. An invisible Jean Alesi was fifth in the Ferrari and Ivan Capelli was sixth for the Leyton House team. The win in Hungary gave Senna a 12 point lead in the World Championship as Formula 1 headed for Belgium and Spa-Francorchamps.
In addition, this is the last Grand Prix that didn’t have the name Schumacher until the 2008 Australian Grand Prix.
This evening I watched possible the most disjointed broken up motor race that I have witnessed in quite a long time – it’s not often that I shout at the TV, but tonight at the IRL Grand Prix of Richmond, there was some seriously amateurish driving on display.
In the spirit (if not the words) of Ryan Briscoe – what the fuck was that about!?! Congratulations to Tony Kanaan for a great drive to win – it’s about bloody time…
There is finality about death that means for the most part you only need to write about it once – essentially a life has ended and with that, details unfold and slot together to present a story about person’s unique visions, feelings and experiences. The finality…… apart from a few exceptions and skeletons, there is rarely ever a second part.On the weekend of the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sakhir last month, SpeedTV presented this tribute to the late Scotsman on their broadcast – shamefully one of very few broadcasters to do so. It contains insights from the man himself, Jackie Stewart, Patrick Head and Dario Franchitti amongst others.
Come lap 30 I was face down in couch groaning, but still paying attention to what was going down and I must say it was quite enjoyable. Following on from that, I cooked the perfect Sunday hangover cure – there’s nowt like a perfectly cooked roast to settle the belly and calm the ails topped off by a river of tea – fantastic!! Oh and before I forget – yes, it is true that Georgina Moffat is incredibly sexy, but I really hope she doesn’t get a Doctor Who spin-off. She’s a good actress, but “chirpy” up for it characters are boring fuckers.
On Tuesday May 6th, Aguri Suzuki finally had enough – he finally gave up the ghost of a Formula 1 team. After two-and-a-half being propped up by Honda, Super Aguri have decided to opt out of the formula. Following a main sponsor defaulting late in 2007, this year was always going to be a struggle and when they announced that they couldn’t test during winter, there was a feeling that their demise could be soon. During the early part of this year, the team were in talks with Magma Group for a possible buy out, but when Magma suddenly pulled out in April the writing was on the wall. There was talk of a rushed deal being put in place by a German corporation, but in their heart of hearts, Honda knew they would end up bailing them out too.
While many talk about how sad it is that a team with plenty of heart has disappeared, little has been said of its two main drivers. Takuma Sato will probably get a test-role and possibly a race seat with Honda next year, but Anthony Davidson will most like find himself out in the cold.
The Super Aguri team leave Formula 1 owing Honda a reported $50 million following low price engines, free technical help and the occasional (cash orientated) helping hand over a 34 month period. And then were just ten teams left…
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