After the streets of Valencia hosted their second Grand Prix, there was no time for respite before the gaggle moved up to a good old fashioned track with a great pedigree.
Spa-Francorchamps in the Ardennes Forest is a hilly and challenging course, with a deep ingrained sense of history. Many drivers past and present spent the weekend eulogising it as their favourite circuit, and the undulating Eau Rouge section taken at maximum speed was exciting enough to give the viewer an adrenalin rush, just from the on-board camera.
Former winner David Coulthard was wearing a very dapper jacket in the paddock whilst Jake indulged him, allowing him once again to reflect on past glories. The coverage was no more than four minutes old when Eddie Jordan was given his grumpy head to dismiss McLaren’s investment in computer strategy as a complete waste of time. “If you want to save money, get rid of them.”
Luca Badoer’s antics last week had led to a general feeling of pity from the rest of the Formula One world. In qualifying, he was ridiculed by the commentary team for taking his foot off the accelerator on his way up the Eau Rouge. He then secured what is becoming a customary twentieth spot on the grid before spinning off the track on his in-lap and smacking his rear end into the barriers.
The rumour is that Giancarlo Fisichella will be rescued from Force India and parachuted into the Ferrari team before the next race. If that’s true, then it’s a pretty strong indicator that Kimi Raikkonen is on his way out of the team at the end of this season, with Fisichella partnering the recovered Felipe Massa.
Fisichella was questioned before practice, but under lukewarm questioning from Jake and Eddie, he refused to confirm anything, although he was easily coaxed into saying that driving for Ferrari was a childhood dream.
As if to throw down the challenge to the Italian team, Fisichella finished top of the pile during qualifying. Force India have not threatened the front row all season but Fisi was inspired, and Ferrari will have taken note as they watched Badoer’s car being lifted from the track.
Like Valencia, the grid line-up was peculiar. Bearing very little resemblance to the World Championship standings, the first shock was the premature departure of both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. They qualified twelfth and fourteenth respectively. Spurning their opportunity to maximise, the Red Bull drivers also struggled, with Vettel and Webber qualifying eighth and ninth.
Behind Fisichella, the top slots were taken by other lesser lights of the paddock. Trulli’s Toyota was third, whilst BMW had a successful session with Heidfeld and Kubica finishing third and fifth. The only championship contender near the front was Rubens Barrichello who qualified fourth and would have slept well on Saturday night, confident that he would further eat into his team mate’s lead.
Since I rekindled my interest in F1 this year, I've remained puzzled about the various tyre choices available to the teams. It's evidently crucial to the relative performance of the cars, but my knowledge was poor.
As if directly addressing my confusion, David Coulthard voiced a charming little VT package underscored with some whimsical guitar music and punctuated by a sequence of computer generated tyres bouncing down the Spa track.
The relative merits were explained of the four different types of slicks, the intermediates and the wets. I now have a better knowledge, but am still mystified as to why it really needs to be so complex.
When we moved on to the grid walk, Martin Brundle seemed somehow subdued. Last week in Valencia, he had ostentatiously elbowed a female Australian journalist aside in his quest for an interview with Timo Glock. I suspect he had received a slapped wrist because he was much more restrained, although Trulli, Heidfeld and Barrichello all gave him some time. This despite the fact he was wearing a black leather jacket which I suspect he won during his time in sports cars in the early nineties.
As the race started, the first lap was a complete disaster for Brawn. Barrichello's anti-stall kicked in at the start line, with Raikkonen screaming past him. By the time they exited turn one, Barrichello was last, and Raikkonen was second, chasing Fisichella hard.
At turn four, with the traffic still very tight, Sebastian Grosjean bumped the back of Jenson Button, both spun off the track, and subsequently took out Lewis Hamilton and Jaime Alguersuari. With the World Champion and the Championship leader out of the race, the safety car came out and everyone took a breath.
As soon as the safety car pulled off, Raikkonen snatched the lead from Fisichella - his probable team mate in the next race – as Barrichello started a charge through the field, overtaking Raikkonen’s current team mate, the hapless Luca Badoer.
The pattern of the race at the front end remained fairly static with Raikkonen just ahead of Fisichella. The Force India gave the appearance of being faster than the Ferrari, but Raikkonen’s KERS meant that Fisi just couldn’t get past him. Eventually, the Finn won his first race since he last gave a damn, and Fisichella came in a couple of seconds behind him.
The smart money is on them being team mates by the time they line up for the next qualifying session at Monza in a fortnight.
Vettel managed to drag himself up to third place, but couldn’t overtake Rubens Barrichello for second place in the championship table. The Brazilian rescued seventh place and two valuable points from his disastrous start.
Showing posts with label David Coulthard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Coulthard. Show all posts
Monday, 31 August 2009
Sunday, 23 August 2009
European Grand Prix
One tiny muscle. The muscle that connects the skull to the top vertebra. Michael Schumacher damaged this muscle in February whilst testing a motorcycle. Although a relatively small component of his bionic body, this pull was enough to prevent him participating in Valencia.
In the press conference in which he announced his inability to take part, he was genuinely and visibly upset. “I am in one of my toughest moments I have faced in my career. For a moment, I felt like I was back alive. And now I have to cancel all this.” Heartbreaking really.
What’s more heartbreaking is that the poor sod had to go back to his day job, and spent the race showing Eric Clapton around the Ferrari garage.
Instead of Schumacher, Ferrari replaced the injured Felipe Massa with another old stager, Luca Badoer. He is a Ferrari test driver but actually retired from racing in 1999! He was obviously second choice, and he didn’t sound too optimistic about his prospects, making apologetic noises, and promising to do his best.
In the first qualifying session, Badoer finished twentieth, slower even than the Force India cars. There was some initial sympathy from Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle but no such kid gloves from David Coulthard, who described his performance as, “simply not good enough.”
After failing miserably, and finishing a second and a half behind Alguersuari in nineteenth, he seemed pretty resigned to his status as makeweight. He said that he was just aiming to finish the race.
On the track, the temperature was extremely high, with Eddie Jordan grumbling about it being hotter than Bahrain, but Jenson Button was dancing around in his ice vest. The Brawn problem had been all about grip, and we have been told for several races that hot temperatures are essential for the Brawn tyres to do a good job.
Sebastian Vettel had sustained an engine failure in Saturday morning practice, meaning that the Red Bull team were frantically replacing it as qualifying started. The rules say that a driver can only use eight engines throughout the season, and Vettel is now onto his sixth. I’m not entirely sure what happens if the eight engines are all used – I would imagine the young German has cut out the floor of the cockpit and run along in the manner of Fred Flintstone.
The qualification ended up as a triumph for McLaren, with Lewis Hamilton following up his win in Budapest with a pole position, and Heike Kovalainen joining him on the front row.
At the start of the race, the McLarens got away well and held the first two positions. Jenson Button had a disastrous first lap, dropping to eighth, whilst the best performer was Luca Badoer, who made up six places during lap one.
In the commentary box, there was a little revising of opinion on Badoer’s abilities, but he managed to spin off the track on lap three so Brundle could go back to canning him. In fairness to Badoer, he did manage to finish the Grand Prix, but not before he had a stop-start penalty for crossing the white line exiting the pits, overshot another corner, and being lapped.
At the front, Lewis Hamilton took off from the front of the grid, and Kovalainen managed to keep Barrichello at bay. At the first round of pit stops, Barrichello leapfrogged into second place, and attacked Hamilton hard. Getting to within four seconds before the second round of stops, the McLaren team virtually handed the race to Barrichello by fumbling the stop. As Hamilton came to a halt, the mechanics didn’t have the tyres ready. Scrambling them out of the garage and out of their covers, the mechanics slowly replaced the tyres as Hamilton sat watching the race disappear.
After his corresponding stop, Barrichello came out four seconds ahead of Hamilton, and didn’t look back. Having threatened all season to win a race, he finally claimed his first Grand Prix victory since China 2004.
Ross Brawn had repeatedly said that conditions would suit the Brawn cars, and that made it even more of a shame that Jenson Button did so badly. Having made a poor start, he spent most of the 57 laps staring at the back of Mark Webber’s car, unable to get past, and only got ahead after the second round of pit stops. By that time, he was way off the pace, and could only finish seventh.
Kimi Raikkonen, whose mid-season rallying adventure ended with his car rolling into a Finnish ditch, came in third, conspicuously ahead of his aged team mate Badoer.
Sebastian Vettel was seriously let down this weekend by his equipment. Having lost an engine in practice, he dropped out of contention when his first pit stop had to be repeated due to a faulty fuel nozzle. Racing outside the top ten as a result, his race finished in a puff of blue smoke as yet another engine failed.
With Webber finishing ninth, it was a puzzling day for all the top title contenders. Barrichello’s win, coupled with the abject failure of his team mate and their rivals, puts him right back into contention.
In the press conference in which he announced his inability to take part, he was genuinely and visibly upset. “I am in one of my toughest moments I have faced in my career. For a moment, I felt like I was back alive. And now I have to cancel all this.” Heartbreaking really.
What’s more heartbreaking is that the poor sod had to go back to his day job, and spent the race showing Eric Clapton around the Ferrari garage.
Instead of Schumacher, Ferrari replaced the injured Felipe Massa with another old stager, Luca Badoer. He is a Ferrari test driver but actually retired from racing in 1999! He was obviously second choice, and he didn’t sound too optimistic about his prospects, making apologetic noises, and promising to do his best.
In the first qualifying session, Badoer finished twentieth, slower even than the Force India cars. There was some initial sympathy from Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle but no such kid gloves from David Coulthard, who described his performance as, “simply not good enough.”
After failing miserably, and finishing a second and a half behind Alguersuari in nineteenth, he seemed pretty resigned to his status as makeweight. He said that he was just aiming to finish the race.
On the track, the temperature was extremely high, with Eddie Jordan grumbling about it being hotter than Bahrain, but Jenson Button was dancing around in his ice vest. The Brawn problem had been all about grip, and we have been told for several races that hot temperatures are essential for the Brawn tyres to do a good job.
Sebastian Vettel had sustained an engine failure in Saturday morning practice, meaning that the Red Bull team were frantically replacing it as qualifying started. The rules say that a driver can only use eight engines throughout the season, and Vettel is now onto his sixth. I’m not entirely sure what happens if the eight engines are all used – I would imagine the young German has cut out the floor of the cockpit and run along in the manner of Fred Flintstone.
The qualification ended up as a triumph for McLaren, with Lewis Hamilton following up his win in Budapest with a pole position, and Heike Kovalainen joining him on the front row.
At the start of the race, the McLarens got away well and held the first two positions. Jenson Button had a disastrous first lap, dropping to eighth, whilst the best performer was Luca Badoer, who made up six places during lap one.
In the commentary box, there was a little revising of opinion on Badoer’s abilities, but he managed to spin off the track on lap three so Brundle could go back to canning him. In fairness to Badoer, he did manage to finish the Grand Prix, but not before he had a stop-start penalty for crossing the white line exiting the pits, overshot another corner, and being lapped.
At the front, Lewis Hamilton took off from the front of the grid, and Kovalainen managed to keep Barrichello at bay. At the first round of pit stops, Barrichello leapfrogged into second place, and attacked Hamilton hard. Getting to within four seconds before the second round of stops, the McLaren team virtually handed the race to Barrichello by fumbling the stop. As Hamilton came to a halt, the mechanics didn’t have the tyres ready. Scrambling them out of the garage and out of their covers, the mechanics slowly replaced the tyres as Hamilton sat watching the race disappear.
After his corresponding stop, Barrichello came out four seconds ahead of Hamilton, and didn’t look back. Having threatened all season to win a race, he finally claimed his first Grand Prix victory since China 2004.
Ross Brawn had repeatedly said that conditions would suit the Brawn cars, and that made it even more of a shame that Jenson Button did so badly. Having made a poor start, he spent most of the 57 laps staring at the back of Mark Webber’s car, unable to get past, and only got ahead after the second round of pit stops. By that time, he was way off the pace, and could only finish seventh.
Kimi Raikkonen, whose mid-season rallying adventure ended with his car rolling into a Finnish ditch, came in third, conspicuously ahead of his aged team mate Badoer.
Sebastian Vettel was seriously let down this weekend by his equipment. Having lost an engine in practice, he dropped out of contention when his first pit stop had to be repeated due to a faulty fuel nozzle. Racing outside the top ten as a result, his race finished in a puff of blue smoke as yet another engine failed.
With Webber finishing ninth, it was a puzzling day for all the top title contenders. Barrichello’s win, coupled with the abject failure of his team mate and their rivals, puts him right back into contention.
Sunday, 12 July 2009
German Grand Prix
Before today’s race, Mark Webber was the star of the show. Despite being a top driver for several years, he has never quite managed to win a race yet. Nor, until yesterday, had he managed a pole position. A personable chap, and the head of the unofficial drivers’ union, he appears to be popular with the other grid regulars. Despite the presence of the two Brits near the front of the grid, there was an almost tangible desire to see him win the race.
As much as Silverstone last time, the Nurburgring is drenched in Grand Prix history, and the BBC used its substantial archive to showcase a retrospective of the track, incorporating the Fangio footage alongside some clips of Nazi parades at the track, all underscored with some Wagner. When it comes to avoiding clichés, we should probably be happy that they didn’t have David Coulthard in lederhosen.
We had the mandatory reference to the “original Nurburgring” which, I must admit, does sound amazing. It was originally a fourteen mile circuit around the mountains of the Eifel Forest which would be a horrendous challenge for the driver, but probably a bigger challenge for the broadcasters.
If you consider how many cameras are studded around the average Grand Prix circuit, it would probably take every lens in Germany to adequately cover fourteen miles. That’s why we keep seeing the same clip of Fangio going round the same corner – they only had one camera back in the fifties.
This is the ancestral home of German Formula One, it now fights Hockenheim for supremacy and has just started an arrangement whereby they will alternate the venue for the German Grand Prix.
Before the race, we had a tetchy interview with Michael Schumacher, with Jake gracelessly bringing up an old incident where Schumacher and David Coulthard had collided on the track and almost come to blows in the pits. We also had Martin Brundle, whose grid walk was most notable for his threat, thankfully unfulfilled, of showing us the drivers’ trackside toilets.
Finally, there was a young German boy band fellow knocking out the German National Anthem like it was a love song – it was like when they get Mariah Carey to do The Star Spangled Banner. Embarrassing and demeaning to everyone involve, but also a little creepy to hear “Deutschland, Deutschland. Uber alles,” rendered with such affectation.
As usual, the start of the race was where the action was. With a hairpin turn at the end of the start straight, it was always likely to produce a bottleneck. Lewis Hamilton made use of his KERS system to pull from fifth on the grid to be first going into the corner. Unfortunately for him, he hit the corner way too fast, overshot, recovered poorly, and emerged from the situation in last place, and with a puncture. After such pre-race optimism, his race was over before the end of the first lap.
Alongside Jenson Button at the entrance to turn one, Webber defended his pole position from the threat of the advancing Rubens Barrichello with a lunge to the right which, in the view of the stewards, was dangerous. Not only that, but it was also unsuccessful so Barrichello had already led Webber for the first few laps of the race, when Webber was given a drive-through penalty.
Unfortunately for Barrichello, this advantage was outweighed by getting stuck behind Felipe Massa after his pit stop. The Red Bull team got the tactics right and Webber worked his way beck to first place, eventually taking his first Grand Prix victory, with Vettel second.
The two drivers who failed to finish this race could, for very different reasons, be coming to the end of their F1 careers.
Despite a good result for one Ferrari driver, with Felipe Massa finishing third – only their second podium of the season – Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish. What’s more, he has continued to display his complete disregard for his employers by announcing he will compete at the Rally of Finland at the end of July.
After the Hungarian Grand Prix on the 26th July, there is a four week break until the exciting street circuit in Valencia hosts the European Grand Prix, so it's to be expected that the drivers will take a small mid-season break. However, I'm not sure Ferrari will be overjoyed to hear Raikkonen is spending his free time screeching around the icy forests of Finland.
It's really quite extraordinary that there is no contractual clause preventing him from doing it. I seem to recall Michael Schumacher had it written into his Ferrari contract that he would be allowed to play football during the winter break. Surely Kimi doesn't have a "rallying clause" in his contract?
The other non-finisher was Torro Rosso’s Sebastian Bourdais. He had qualified slowest, a full second down even on the hapless Timo Glock. Even before qualifying, there was dark talk of him being elbowed aside should he fail to impress this weekend. If that talk is true then we might have seen the Frenchman in his last Grand Prix.
Before the race, the BBC very deliberately interviewed Torro Rosso’s test driver Jaime Alguersuari. By the time we decamp to Budapest, he might be on the grid.
As much as Silverstone last time, the Nurburgring is drenched in Grand Prix history, and the BBC used its substantial archive to showcase a retrospective of the track, incorporating the Fangio footage alongside some clips of Nazi parades at the track, all underscored with some Wagner. When it comes to avoiding clichés, we should probably be happy that they didn’t have David Coulthard in lederhosen.
We had the mandatory reference to the “original Nurburgring” which, I must admit, does sound amazing. It was originally a fourteen mile circuit around the mountains of the Eifel Forest which would be a horrendous challenge for the driver, but probably a bigger challenge for the broadcasters.
If you consider how many cameras are studded around the average Grand Prix circuit, it would probably take every lens in Germany to adequately cover fourteen miles. That’s why we keep seeing the same clip of Fangio going round the same corner – they only had one camera back in the fifties.
This is the ancestral home of German Formula One, it now fights Hockenheim for supremacy and has just started an arrangement whereby they will alternate the venue for the German Grand Prix.
Before the race, we had a tetchy interview with Michael Schumacher, with Jake gracelessly bringing up an old incident where Schumacher and David Coulthard had collided on the track and almost come to blows in the pits. We also had Martin Brundle, whose grid walk was most notable for his threat, thankfully unfulfilled, of showing us the drivers’ trackside toilets.
Finally, there was a young German boy band fellow knocking out the German National Anthem like it was a love song – it was like when they get Mariah Carey to do The Star Spangled Banner. Embarrassing and demeaning to everyone involve, but also a little creepy to hear “Deutschland, Deutschland. Uber alles,” rendered with such affectation.
As usual, the start of the race was where the action was. With a hairpin turn at the end of the start straight, it was always likely to produce a bottleneck. Lewis Hamilton made use of his KERS system to pull from fifth on the grid to be first going into the corner. Unfortunately for him, he hit the corner way too fast, overshot, recovered poorly, and emerged from the situation in last place, and with a puncture. After such pre-race optimism, his race was over before the end of the first lap.
Alongside Jenson Button at the entrance to turn one, Webber defended his pole position from the threat of the advancing Rubens Barrichello with a lunge to the right which, in the view of the stewards, was dangerous. Not only that, but it was also unsuccessful so Barrichello had already led Webber for the first few laps of the race, when Webber was given a drive-through penalty.
Unfortunately for Barrichello, this advantage was outweighed by getting stuck behind Felipe Massa after his pit stop. The Red Bull team got the tactics right and Webber worked his way beck to first place, eventually taking his first Grand Prix victory, with Vettel second.
The two drivers who failed to finish this race could, for very different reasons, be coming to the end of their F1 careers.
Despite a good result for one Ferrari driver, with Felipe Massa finishing third – only their second podium of the season – Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish. What’s more, he has continued to display his complete disregard for his employers by announcing he will compete at the Rally of Finland at the end of July.
After the Hungarian Grand Prix on the 26th July, there is a four week break until the exciting street circuit in Valencia hosts the European Grand Prix, so it's to be expected that the drivers will take a small mid-season break. However, I'm not sure Ferrari will be overjoyed to hear Raikkonen is spending his free time screeching around the icy forests of Finland.
It's really quite extraordinary that there is no contractual clause preventing him from doing it. I seem to recall Michael Schumacher had it written into his Ferrari contract that he would be allowed to play football during the winter break. Surely Kimi doesn't have a "rallying clause" in his contract?
The other non-finisher was Torro Rosso’s Sebastian Bourdais. He had qualified slowest, a full second down even on the hapless Timo Glock. Even before qualifying, there was dark talk of him being elbowed aside should he fail to impress this weekend. If that talk is true then we might have seen the Frenchman in his last Grand Prix.
Before the race, the BBC very deliberately interviewed Torro Rosso’s test driver Jaime Alguersuari. By the time we decamp to Budapest, he might be on the grid.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Turkish Grand Prix
The fuss made about Turn Eight was extraordinary. The facts are that it is a seven second hurl around a constant turn which puts the driver’s neck under pressure of 5g and is physically the toughest corner in the year. Obviously, that’s hard work, but from the BBC coverage, you would be forgiven for thinking that the track was designed by Darth Vader. Following yesterday’s gym-based neck exercises with Lewis Hamilton, today the evil corner was invoked in just about every pre-race interview. The angle of drivers’ helmets as they went round was analysed at some length.
Out in the pit lane, Jake was a little skittish as this is an anticlockwise course meaning that, like an American tourist on Oxford Street, he was almost killed on several occasions.
He quickly handed over to Brundle for his pit walk. Seeking to add a little housewife’s favourite glamour, he took Coulthard with him this week and, sure enough, the big man seemed to open a few doors with no-one refusing to speak to them this week. Even Naomi Campbell was persuaded to give her half-baked, monosyllabic, ignorant opinion.
Jenson Button gave the appearance of being incredibly relaxed. It is extraordinary really that any of the drivers are willing to chat with media and VIPs so soon before the race, but Button was (literally) chilling in his ice vest and laughing and joking – the relaxed air of a winner.
I would have expected the BBC to have had Eddie Jordan interviewing the Turkish Prime Minister and asking him pointed questions about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Sadly though, Eddie sycophantic interview of the week didn’t happen today.
At the start, Rubens Barrichello got moving about as fast as my grandmother and lost about ten places, whilst Sebastian Vettel went wide on the exit of turn ten during the first lap to give Jenson Button the lead. Button subsequently started to set record laps and it seemed that another procession was on the cards.
After the first pit stops, however, Vettel came back at him, lapping three quarters of a second faster, catching him, and then crawling over the back end of Button’s Brawn but he couldn’t get past and, when he pitted for a second time, he left the race wide open for Button.
The real drama of the race came with Jenson’s team mate, Barrichello. Having had such a terrible start, he dropped to thirteenth then went kamikaze, bumping Sutil and falling to seventeenth, then bumping Piquet and having to go into the pits for a new front wing. I would have been quite happy to watch Barrichello all day rampaging his way around the back markers. Eventually, as he tussled for fourteenth place, the fact that he had lost seventh gear became too much to bear, and he discreetly withdrew.
Also there was a great tussle down the field between Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet. Nelsinho, as Jake insists on calling him is having a very bad season. Apart from his burdensome name, he has crashed more times than he’s finished, he’s continuously performed badly in qualifying and he has scored no points. Compared to team mate Fernando Alonso’s eleven points, he is coming under increasing pressure to perform.
To make matters worse, he works for Flavio Briatore – the Renault team boss is not afraid to criticise his drivers in public, and not averse to sacking them half way through a season. Having been overtaken by Hamilton, he ultimately finished sixteenth of eighteen finishers. It’s hard to see where the first point will come from.
The next race is in two weeks at Silverstone. Button will be hoping to add to the six Grands Prix he has under his belt this year by winning his home race. Expect there to be much speculation over the Donington future of the race, and, I am hoping, the return to form of Eddie Jordan.
Out in the pit lane, Jake was a little skittish as this is an anticlockwise course meaning that, like an American tourist on Oxford Street, he was almost killed on several occasions.
He quickly handed over to Brundle for his pit walk. Seeking to add a little housewife’s favourite glamour, he took Coulthard with him this week and, sure enough, the big man seemed to open a few doors with no-one refusing to speak to them this week. Even Naomi Campbell was persuaded to give her half-baked, monosyllabic, ignorant opinion.
Jenson Button gave the appearance of being incredibly relaxed. It is extraordinary really that any of the drivers are willing to chat with media and VIPs so soon before the race, but Button was (literally) chilling in his ice vest and laughing and joking – the relaxed air of a winner.
I would have expected the BBC to have had Eddie Jordan interviewing the Turkish Prime Minister and asking him pointed questions about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Sadly though, Eddie sycophantic interview of the week didn’t happen today.
At the start, Rubens Barrichello got moving about as fast as my grandmother and lost about ten places, whilst Sebastian Vettel went wide on the exit of turn ten during the first lap to give Jenson Button the lead. Button subsequently started to set record laps and it seemed that another procession was on the cards.
After the first pit stops, however, Vettel came back at him, lapping three quarters of a second faster, catching him, and then crawling over the back end of Button’s Brawn but he couldn’t get past and, when he pitted for a second time, he left the race wide open for Button.
The real drama of the race came with Jenson’s team mate, Barrichello. Having had such a terrible start, he dropped to thirteenth then went kamikaze, bumping Sutil and falling to seventeenth, then bumping Piquet and having to go into the pits for a new front wing. I would have been quite happy to watch Barrichello all day rampaging his way around the back markers. Eventually, as he tussled for fourteenth place, the fact that he had lost seventh gear became too much to bear, and he discreetly withdrew.
Also there was a great tussle down the field between Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet. Nelsinho, as Jake insists on calling him is having a very bad season. Apart from his burdensome name, he has crashed more times than he’s finished, he’s continuously performed badly in qualifying and he has scored no points. Compared to team mate Fernando Alonso’s eleven points, he is coming under increasing pressure to perform.
To make matters worse, he works for Flavio Briatore – the Renault team boss is not afraid to criticise his drivers in public, and not averse to sacking them half way through a season. Having been overtaken by Hamilton, he ultimately finished sixteenth of eighteen finishers. It’s hard to see where the first point will come from.
The next race is in two weeks at Silverstone. Button will be hoping to add to the six Grands Prix he has under his belt this year by winning his home race. Expect there to be much speculation over the Donington future of the race, and, I am hoping, the return to form of Eddie Jordan.
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Spanish GP Qualifying
It’s a fortnight since the Bahrain Grand Prix, and in that period, McLaren have been up before the authorities again – I’m getting bored of this now so I won’t go on about it. Especially as the biggest off-track news was the proposed changes to next year’s championship.
In a beautiful piece of Formula One backroom politics, FIA president Max Mosley took the ball-gag out of his mouth and announced a £40m budget cap from 2010*. A sensible idea designed to allow teams to budget in these straitened times, encourage new teams onto the grid, and level the playing field. This being the FIA, however, they managed to take a good idea and turn it into a complicated mess.
The £40m budget will cover all expenditure except one or two exceptional costs:
1. Marketing and Hospitality – okay, that’s fair enough. No sense punishing a team for putting on a good spread.
2. Fines imposed by the FIA – erm, okay. But I would have thought any disciplinary wrongdoing should be included as a punishment.
3. Drivers’ Salaries – what? Surely the driver is an integral part of the team’s performance. That should be number one on the budget process surely.
4. “Any expenditure that has no influence on performance in the championship.” – Oh you’re just taking the piss now.
I haven’t got to the best bit yet – the budget cap will be entirely optional. This makes it beautiful in its redundancy. It’s like taking the government’s ID Cards, saying that you don’t need a picture on it, and that your date of birth is optional, and it doesn’t really matter if you carry someone else’s instead.
* There was no ball-gag, and any suggestion that there was a ball-gag would be a filthy lie.
Before qualifying, the BBC boys continued their habit of conducting interviews in front of the team garages, despite the fact that the engines are being revved in readiness, making it the loudest place in Spain. Ross Brawn and Williams’ Patrick Head were both interviewed about the proposed budget cap, and both seemed to dismiss the idea as unlikely to happen, but this didn’t stop Eddie Jordan working himself into a lather.
I think perhaps I am being unfair on Jordan, but he just seems so angry. Mind you, the Dalai Lama would look pissed off standing next to David Coulthard, soaking up the sun with his air of benign contentedness.
There was also a short film on the British Grand Prix featuring an interview with Simon Gillett, who runs the Donington circuit that will host the British GP from 2010. The back-story here is that Bernie Ecclestone fell out with Silverstone over their inability to expensively upgrade the circuit and, amid threats to remove the British GP from the calendar, Donington stepped in and secured the contract.
The problem is that Donington is not much more than a building site, they are being sued for £2.5m in unpaid rent, and the bank has withdrawn their credit. This chap Gillett was trying to sound reassuring about securing funding and having the place ready in time, but he came across as something of snake oil salesman, and I reckon Silverstone might yet have to step in.
Jake summarised the piece by saying, “I’m sure British fans wouldn’t want to lose the British Grand Prix.” Well, that’s probably a safe assumption for the tens of thousands of fans who pay their £250 to attend each year, but for the rest of us, it wouldn’t make that much difference – Barcelona or even Singapore is just as close as Donington for me because I’m watching them all in my front room. The British GP only gets more media coverage than, say, the Spanish, because all the papers’ top sports editors fancy a day out.
In the actual qualifying, Jenson Button pulled out the final lap of the day to secure pole position alongside Sebastian Vettel – they say Barcelona is not a great course for overtaking, so this might shape up to be yet another victory, but that’s for tomorrow.
Further back, Ferrari’s much vaunted upgrades seemed remote as Kimi Raikonnen managed to go out of the first qualifying session, and will start sixteenth on the grid. Although Felipe Massa made it to the second row of the grid, it seems that all is still not right at Ferrari.
Commentary of the day:
Martin Brundle, commenting on Kovalainen clunking onto the kerb, said he had, “an armful of opposite lock through seven and a tankslapper through eight.” I have no idea what any of that means.
Every Sunday, The Steam Engine hisses out a Newsletter. To subscribe, click here.
In a beautiful piece of Formula One backroom politics, FIA president Max Mosley took the ball-gag out of his mouth and announced a £40m budget cap from 2010*. A sensible idea designed to allow teams to budget in these straitened times, encourage new teams onto the grid, and level the playing field. This being the FIA, however, they managed to take a good idea and turn it into a complicated mess.
The £40m budget will cover all expenditure except one or two exceptional costs:
1. Marketing and Hospitality – okay, that’s fair enough. No sense punishing a team for putting on a good spread.
2. Fines imposed by the FIA – erm, okay. But I would have thought any disciplinary wrongdoing should be included as a punishment.
3. Drivers’ Salaries – what? Surely the driver is an integral part of the team’s performance. That should be number one on the budget process surely.
4. “Any expenditure that has no influence on performance in the championship.” – Oh you’re just taking the piss now.
I haven’t got to the best bit yet – the budget cap will be entirely optional. This makes it beautiful in its redundancy. It’s like taking the government’s ID Cards, saying that you don’t need a picture on it, and that your date of birth is optional, and it doesn’t really matter if you carry someone else’s instead.
* There was no ball-gag, and any suggestion that there was a ball-gag would be a filthy lie.
Before qualifying, the BBC boys continued their habit of conducting interviews in front of the team garages, despite the fact that the engines are being revved in readiness, making it the loudest place in Spain. Ross Brawn and Williams’ Patrick Head were both interviewed about the proposed budget cap, and both seemed to dismiss the idea as unlikely to happen, but this didn’t stop Eddie Jordan working himself into a lather.
I think perhaps I am being unfair on Jordan, but he just seems so angry. Mind you, the Dalai Lama would look pissed off standing next to David Coulthard, soaking up the sun with his air of benign contentedness.
There was also a short film on the British Grand Prix featuring an interview with Simon Gillett, who runs the Donington circuit that will host the British GP from 2010. The back-story here is that Bernie Ecclestone fell out with Silverstone over their inability to expensively upgrade the circuit and, amid threats to remove the British GP from the calendar, Donington stepped in and secured the contract.
The problem is that Donington is not much more than a building site, they are being sued for £2.5m in unpaid rent, and the bank has withdrawn their credit. This chap Gillett was trying to sound reassuring about securing funding and having the place ready in time, but he came across as something of snake oil salesman, and I reckon Silverstone might yet have to step in.
Jake summarised the piece by saying, “I’m sure British fans wouldn’t want to lose the British Grand Prix.” Well, that’s probably a safe assumption for the tens of thousands of fans who pay their £250 to attend each year, but for the rest of us, it wouldn’t make that much difference – Barcelona or even Singapore is just as close as Donington for me because I’m watching them all in my front room. The British GP only gets more media coverage than, say, the Spanish, because all the papers’ top sports editors fancy a day out.
In the actual qualifying, Jenson Button pulled out the final lap of the day to secure pole position alongside Sebastian Vettel – they say Barcelona is not a great course for overtaking, so this might shape up to be yet another victory, but that’s for tomorrow.
Further back, Ferrari’s much vaunted upgrades seemed remote as Kimi Raikonnen managed to go out of the first qualifying session, and will start sixteenth on the grid. Although Felipe Massa made it to the second row of the grid, it seems that all is still not right at Ferrari.
Commentary of the day:
Martin Brundle, commenting on Kovalainen clunking onto the kerb, said he had, “an armful of opposite lock through seven and a tankslapper through eight.” I have no idea what any of that means.
Every Sunday, The Steam Engine hisses out a Newsletter. To subscribe, click here.
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Bahrain GP Qualifying
As the last two races have been all about the rain, the Formula One authorities have hedged their bets on the rain and decamped to Bahrain, where there’s less chance of a thunderstorm than of Bernie Ecclestone playing in the NBA.
I’m joking of course – F1 is not in Bahrain because of the weather. It is there because of the money, as we were reminded with much footage of Bernie Ecclestone and the Crown Prince of Bahrain wandering around their tarmac playground, making jovial noises, and comparing the size of their relative entourages.
In the paddock, Eddie Jordan was back on the BBC team. There was a weak joke about his bus pass not reaching as far as Shanghai, and then they all carried on as if he’d never been away. As a license-fee payer, I am not satisfied with this explanation – where was he when the circus was in China? Has he done something to irritate the Chinese authorities? Has he spoken out about human rights in Tibet?
This week’s sycophantic Jordan interview was with the aforementioned Crown Prince… “This is the sixth time we’ve had a race here. Has it been as successful as you’d hoped?” It’s virtually pointless to even have this interview – they might as well just read out a press release. I would like to have asked him how welcome any gay Formula One fans would be this weekend, as homosexuality is still outlawed in this relatively progressive middle eastern country.
The BBC cameras followed our threesome of pundits as they strutted through the Red Bull garage and down the pit lane. It was like watching a hi-tech version of The West Wing as Jake, DC and Eddie waxed lyrical about Sebastian Vettel’s good start to the season..
The way the qualifying works, with the five slowest drivers dropping out after each of the first two sessions, means that there seems to always be one big name who judges it wrongly and gets knocked out early. This week it was Mark Webber, second in China, who left it till the last minute and got blocked on his qualifying lap, and will start at the back of the grid.
Ferrari got both their drivers into the last qualifying session and onto the grid in the top ten for the first time this season. After three races, they haven’t yet scored any points – they are one of the great names of F1’s rich history and, for the moment at least, they suck.
I’m joking of course – F1 is not in Bahrain because of the weather. It is there because of the money, as we were reminded with much footage of Bernie Ecclestone and the Crown Prince of Bahrain wandering around their tarmac playground, making jovial noises, and comparing the size of their relative entourages.
In the paddock, Eddie Jordan was back on the BBC team. There was a weak joke about his bus pass not reaching as far as Shanghai, and then they all carried on as if he’d never been away. As a license-fee payer, I am not satisfied with this explanation – where was he when the circus was in China? Has he done something to irritate the Chinese authorities? Has he spoken out about human rights in Tibet?
This week’s sycophantic Jordan interview was with the aforementioned Crown Prince… “This is the sixth time we’ve had a race here. Has it been as successful as you’d hoped?” It’s virtually pointless to even have this interview – they might as well just read out a press release. I would like to have asked him how welcome any gay Formula One fans would be this weekend, as homosexuality is still outlawed in this relatively progressive middle eastern country.
The BBC cameras followed our threesome of pundits as they strutted through the Red Bull garage and down the pit lane. It was like watching a hi-tech version of The West Wing as Jake, DC and Eddie waxed lyrical about Sebastian Vettel’s good start to the season..
The way the qualifying works, with the five slowest drivers dropping out after each of the first two sessions, means that there seems to always be one big name who judges it wrongly and gets knocked out early. This week it was Mark Webber, second in China, who left it till the last minute and got blocked on his qualifying lap, and will start at the back of the grid.
Ferrari got both their drivers into the last qualifying session and onto the grid in the top ten for the first time this season. After three races, they haven’t yet scored any points – they are one of the great names of F1’s rich history and, for the moment at least, they suck.
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Chinese Grand Prix
In the fortnight since the last Grand Prix, the teams have moved North to China, but the soap opera has been all over the place.
Lewis Hamilton’s woes have continued as the fallout from his disqualification have claimed the jobs of the top two people in the McLaren team. He is genuinely unpopular among his peers and I think I have an inkling why. If you watch him, you will see that, apart from when he is actually driving, his Dad never leaves his side, and apparently hasn’t done so since he was born. He has been with McLaren since he was a foetus. He is the motor racing equivalent of a home-schooled, twelve-year-old Oxbridge graduate. The bottom line is that he is fucking weird.
Meanwhile, the FIA court of Appeal cleared the Brawn diffuser, meaning that the first two races’ results will stand. If you are not following this, then don’t worry – Formula One increasingly resembles an episode of Lost.
The best part of the court case was seeing Ross Brawn leaving the hearing. In a suit and tie, I realised who he has been reminding me of all year. He is a slightly slimmer version of Uncle Monty from Withnail and I. Now I’m not going to be able to take him seriously ever again.
Before the race, a bloke called Mike Gaskell joined Jake and DC in the paddock – he was introduced as a technical boffin then proceeded to tell a toe-curling anecdote about Coulthard’s underpants. He is some former technical director, blah blah blah, years of experience, blah… Whatever, where the hell has Eddie Jordan gone? He was simply not mentioned, airbrushed from history like a modern-day Trotsky. I am expecting to see his body turn up on the news in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur with an ice pick in his head.
Since Malaysia, several cars have dropped the KERS, claiming that the weight of the battery makes it unworkable. Nice to see Formula One making that extra effort for the environment. Like everyone else, they are perfectly happy to be green, as long as it doesn’t cost too much or affect performance.
Speaking of Formula One’s vapid ethics, it’s also instructive to compare the hand-wringing that preceded the Olympics regarding the Chinese regime’s questionable human rights record, with the apparent lack of concern shown by the unstoppably rolling money-making machine of F1. I can’t imagine Bernie Ecclestone having many scruples – it wouldn’t surprise me if they engineered a publicity stunt, putting a Ferrari in Tiananmen Square with a white-shirted Chinese student holding his hand up in front of it.
The race itself started, as the last race finished, in the rain and behind the safety car. They all crocodiled along for eight laps before the race director got as bored as the rest of us and, despite the fact the conditions hadn’t changed at all, let them go for it. Overall, the race was a lot more exciting for being on a wet track – lousy visibility and poor grip make for a lot more fun. Perhaps they should spray the road throughout every race, creating artificial rain. Sounds like something the Abu Dhabi boys could waste some money on.
Sebastian Vettel, who won from pole position, seems like a thoroughly lovely young man. Being German and a bit fast, he is inevitably being compared to Michael Schumacher. Unlike the great champion, however, Vettel appears – for the time being at least – to possess human emotions. His delight at crossing the line, which was evident over the team radio, was rather endearing.
Before the race, a pre-recorded interview with Coulthard emphasised just how youthful Vettel looks. Is it a sign of getting old when you think Formula One drivers are getting younger these days?
Button finished third and remains top of the championship, but the real mystery remains, where is Eddie Jordan?
Lewis Hamilton’s woes have continued as the fallout from his disqualification have claimed the jobs of the top two people in the McLaren team. He is genuinely unpopular among his peers and I think I have an inkling why. If you watch him, you will see that, apart from when he is actually driving, his Dad never leaves his side, and apparently hasn’t done so since he was born. He has been with McLaren since he was a foetus. He is the motor racing equivalent of a home-schooled, twelve-year-old Oxbridge graduate. The bottom line is that he is fucking weird.
Meanwhile, the FIA court of Appeal cleared the Brawn diffuser, meaning that the first two races’ results will stand. If you are not following this, then don’t worry – Formula One increasingly resembles an episode of Lost.
The best part of the court case was seeing Ross Brawn leaving the hearing. In a suit and tie, I realised who he has been reminding me of all year. He is a slightly slimmer version of Uncle Monty from Withnail and I. Now I’m not going to be able to take him seriously ever again.
Before the race, a bloke called Mike Gaskell joined Jake and DC in the paddock – he was introduced as a technical boffin then proceeded to tell a toe-curling anecdote about Coulthard’s underpants. He is some former technical director, blah blah blah, years of experience, blah… Whatever, where the hell has Eddie Jordan gone? He was simply not mentioned, airbrushed from history like a modern-day Trotsky. I am expecting to see his body turn up on the news in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur with an ice pick in his head.
Since Malaysia, several cars have dropped the KERS, claiming that the weight of the battery makes it unworkable. Nice to see Formula One making that extra effort for the environment. Like everyone else, they are perfectly happy to be green, as long as it doesn’t cost too much or affect performance.
Speaking of Formula One’s vapid ethics, it’s also instructive to compare the hand-wringing that preceded the Olympics regarding the Chinese regime’s questionable human rights record, with the apparent lack of concern shown by the unstoppably rolling money-making machine of F1. I can’t imagine Bernie Ecclestone having many scruples – it wouldn’t surprise me if they engineered a publicity stunt, putting a Ferrari in Tiananmen Square with a white-shirted Chinese student holding his hand up in front of it.
The race itself started, as the last race finished, in the rain and behind the safety car. They all crocodiled along for eight laps before the race director got as bored as the rest of us and, despite the fact the conditions hadn’t changed at all, let them go for it. Overall, the race was a lot more exciting for being on a wet track – lousy visibility and poor grip make for a lot more fun. Perhaps they should spray the road throughout every race, creating artificial rain. Sounds like something the Abu Dhabi boys could waste some money on.
Sebastian Vettel, who won from pole position, seems like a thoroughly lovely young man. Being German and a bit fast, he is inevitably being compared to Michael Schumacher. Unlike the great champion, however, Vettel appears – for the time being at least – to possess human emotions. His delight at crossing the line, which was evident over the team radio, was rather endearing.
Before the race, a pre-recorded interview with Coulthard emphasised just how youthful Vettel looks. Is it a sign of getting old when you think Formula One drivers are getting younger these days?
Button finished third and remains top of the championship, but the real mystery remains, where is Eddie Jordan?
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Malaysian Qualifying
It’s a measure of how the Formula One bug has caught me this year that I found myself watching the qualifying from Malaysia this morning. Even fifteen years ago (the last period that I found myself following the World’s Greatest Traffic Jam™), I never managed to watch the qualifying. Partly because this was before the era of the red button, and the BBC were far too busy on Saturday afternoons showing rugby or athletics or cricket or darts or snooker, or one of the many other sports they no longer carry. But also partly because I thought that watching the qualifying was like going to St James on a rainy Friday night to watch the reserves – it takes you lurching over the line that separates a fan from a fanatic.
Since the end of the Australian Grand Prix, the storm has been swirling around Lewis Hamilton (“Liar Lewis” according to The Sun). To cut a long story short, there were some overtaking shenanigans while the safety car was out during the last lap of the Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton’s crime, however, was lying to the stewards about what had been said and done. As a result, he was retrospectively disqualified.
What makes me laugh is that Formula One has to be the most heavily recorded sport in the world – there are cameras dotted around the car like freckles and, the real belter, all communications between team and driver are recorded and broadcast live. So when Hamilton said, “I was NOT told to let Trulli overtake me,” he would have got away with it but for the fact the chief steward went home and watched the video.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, of course. He must have cried himself all the way home to his Swiss mansion. But for the engine noise, you could have heard the other drivers sniggering into their helmets.
The BBC covered this whole shambles with a montage sequence, underscored with mournful strings. It gave the impression Hamilton had been killed by a brain haemorrhage, not got caught telling a silly lie. Honestly, this is the Formula One equivalent of a nine year old boy standing by a broken window saying, “Wasn’t me…”
The BBC, presumably having read my blog last week, also took the opportunity to explain KERS in a bit more depth. From the in-depth analysis of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (so now I know what it stands for), I gleaned that it uses special mystical trickery to capture the energy wasted in braking, it stores it in a magic box, and then this can be released, literally at the push of a button.
F1 is laughingly trying to market this as a green initiative. Their (valid) argument is that the energy previously wasted as heat is recycled and put back into the car. What they don’t say is that the energy is generated in the first place by their V8 four-stroke engines. Even Branson has used this environmental hypocrisy it to justify his triumphal entry into the sport.
As to its effectiveness, the BBC’s pundits are unconvinced: Coulthard reckons that it is a disadvantage for heavier drivers, Jordan says it is “antiquated technology”.
The qualifying session itself has changed a great deal since my day. They now have a series of shorter sessions after which they eliminate the last five drivers until they’re left with the fastest, who run off for pole position.
The FIA have further complicated matters by stating that at the end of this convoluted process, they have moved Sebastian Vettel back ten places for causing an accident in the last race; and they have moved Rubens Barrichello back five places for having a new gearbox.
It’s so much more accessible these days.
Since the end of the Australian Grand Prix, the storm has been swirling around Lewis Hamilton (“Liar Lewis” according to The Sun). To cut a long story short, there were some overtaking shenanigans while the safety car was out during the last lap of the Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton’s crime, however, was lying to the stewards about what had been said and done. As a result, he was retrospectively disqualified.
What makes me laugh is that Formula One has to be the most heavily recorded sport in the world – there are cameras dotted around the car like freckles and, the real belter, all communications between team and driver are recorded and broadcast live. So when Hamilton said, “I was NOT told to let Trulli overtake me,” he would have got away with it but for the fact the chief steward went home and watched the video.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, of course. He must have cried himself all the way home to his Swiss mansion. But for the engine noise, you could have heard the other drivers sniggering into their helmets.
The BBC covered this whole shambles with a montage sequence, underscored with mournful strings. It gave the impression Hamilton had been killed by a brain haemorrhage, not got caught telling a silly lie. Honestly, this is the Formula One equivalent of a nine year old boy standing by a broken window saying, “Wasn’t me…”
The BBC, presumably having read my blog last week, also took the opportunity to explain KERS in a bit more depth. From the in-depth analysis of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (so now I know what it stands for), I gleaned that it uses special mystical trickery to capture the energy wasted in braking, it stores it in a magic box, and then this can be released, literally at the push of a button.
F1 is laughingly trying to market this as a green initiative. Their (valid) argument is that the energy previously wasted as heat is recycled and put back into the car. What they don’t say is that the energy is generated in the first place by their V8 four-stroke engines. Even Branson has used this environmental hypocrisy it to justify his triumphal entry into the sport.
As to its effectiveness, the BBC’s pundits are unconvinced: Coulthard reckons that it is a disadvantage for heavier drivers, Jordan says it is “antiquated technology”.
The qualifying session itself has changed a great deal since my day. They now have a series of shorter sessions after which they eliminate the last five drivers until they’re left with the fastest, who run off for pole position.
The FIA have further complicated matters by stating that at the end of this convoluted process, they have moved Sebastian Vettel back ten places for causing an accident in the last race; and they have moved Rubens Barrichello back five places for having a new gearbox.
It’s so much more accessible these days.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Australian Grand Prix
The first Grand Prix of the new season took place this morning. Moved to the early evening in Melbourne to allow the mother country to get up and watch over breakfast, you’d be forgiven for forgetting there was an actual race happening, so self-satisfied was the BBC coverage.
Having wrestled back the rights to “the world’s biggest car chase” from ITV, the BBC set about rubbing it in, with constant reminders that their coverage would be “uninterrupted,” and pre-race graphics that were so blatant, I expected Gandalf and Frodo to be on the back row of the grid.
The coverage is fronted by Jake Humphrey, a former kids’ TV presenter who has done the rounds of the BBC backwaters sport coverage. Graveyard shifts at the Olympics, and substitute appearances for Manish on Football Focus have paid off and the big lad – he appears to be nine feet tall – has now got his big break.
As his paddock side-kicks, the BBC has gone high-profile, it’s stars selected for their name-recognition and access to former colleagues, rather than any kind of broadcasting experience or talent. David Coulthard, who appears to insist on being called DC, is bringing his massive jaw line to bear on the pit lane, along with former team boss Eddie Jordan who can be described, at best, as a gobshite.
Incidentally, Jake started off called him David, deliberately not playing the game. But someone must have had a word during the race because he Was DCing with the rest of them after the race. I wonder if Coulthard had his people ring the head of BBC Sport during a pit stop, it might be in his contract that everyone has to refer to him on air exclusively as DC. I believe John Terry has a similar clause in his Chelsea contract.
Going for quality in the actual commentary box, the BBC got it right with Jonathan Legard, transferred in after years of experience at Five Live, and Martin Brundle, forgiven for defecting to ITV and brought back into the fold.
Even with all their experience, though, Legard and Brundle failed – in the same way as everyone else involved – to satisfactorily explain the new regulation changes. This is what makes F1 so bizarre, they introduce new rules so arcane and impenetrable, that even the teams themselves don’t figure them out till June, and so the first few races end up being decided either in the research and development areas of the garages, or in the courtroom.
Having watched an hour of build up and a two hour race, I will now summarise what I have learned about the regulations for the 2009 season:
1. The cars have a new diffuser on the back, which is designed to reduce the total load by 50%.
2. This looks a bit like a George Foreman grill.
3. Some teams have got one particular design of diffuser, others have a different design. More like a Breville Sandwich Maker.
4. The former claim the latter’s design is illegal and are appealing to the proper authorities.
5. The appeal will be heard in two weeks so the results of the first two races may change. I would like a cheese and bacon toastie.
6. The front wing now has to be the same width as the car itself. This, we are told, makes the cars look ugly. They look the same as they did last year.
7. Launch control is now banned. This appears to mean that, at the start, the car has to be started by the driver and not by a computer. You might be amazed that this has to be in the rules. It’s like saying, “a driver must not gain an unfair advantage by invoking the powers of dark magick and cursing the tyres of his rivals.”
8. Some of the cars are using the KERS system. This is some sort of button the driver can press in order to gain extra horse power for six seconds per lap.
9. I don’t know how it works or even what KERS stands for.
10. Neither, apparently, does Martin Brundle.
11. Some of the cars have not bothered with KERS, so it can’t be that great.
12. Tyres with green stripes are “super-soft.” They are crap.
So there you go. All pretty simple, isn’t it.
Incidentally, the race emphasised the importance of having a good car. Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello came first and second in the Brawn GP cars – Ross Brawn is recognised as the pre-eminent genius of F1, and so it’s no surprise that he should be the one to figure out the new rules before anyone else.
I got the impression that Brawn could have taken a Shetland Pony, strapped its little hooves to the wheel, and made him BBC Sport Personality of the Year before Christmas comes around.
Lewis Hamilton is suddenly driving a Ford Focus and is exposed as being rubbish. Of course, he is no worse a driver than he was in winning the World Championship last year, but he qualified very poorly and, despite racing brilliantly, only managed fourth place. Maybe the car will get better as McLaren figure out the rules, but it does make you realise that the championship is decided in the lab and the pit lane, as much as out on the track.
Having wrestled back the rights to “the world’s biggest car chase” from ITV, the BBC set about rubbing it in, with constant reminders that their coverage would be “uninterrupted,” and pre-race graphics that were so blatant, I expected Gandalf and Frodo to be on the back row of the grid.
The coverage is fronted by Jake Humphrey, a former kids’ TV presenter who has done the rounds of the BBC backwaters sport coverage. Graveyard shifts at the Olympics, and substitute appearances for Manish on Football Focus have paid off and the big lad – he appears to be nine feet tall – has now got his big break.
As his paddock side-kicks, the BBC has gone high-profile, it’s stars selected for their name-recognition and access to former colleagues, rather than any kind of broadcasting experience or talent. David Coulthard, who appears to insist on being called DC, is bringing his massive jaw line to bear on the pit lane, along with former team boss Eddie Jordan who can be described, at best, as a gobshite.
Incidentally, Jake started off called him David, deliberately not playing the game. But someone must have had a word during the race because he Was DCing with the rest of them after the race. I wonder if Coulthard had his people ring the head of BBC Sport during a pit stop, it might be in his contract that everyone has to refer to him on air exclusively as DC. I believe John Terry has a similar clause in his Chelsea contract.
Going for quality in the actual commentary box, the BBC got it right with Jonathan Legard, transferred in after years of experience at Five Live, and Martin Brundle, forgiven for defecting to ITV and brought back into the fold.
Even with all their experience, though, Legard and Brundle failed – in the same way as everyone else involved – to satisfactorily explain the new regulation changes. This is what makes F1 so bizarre, they introduce new rules so arcane and impenetrable, that even the teams themselves don’t figure them out till June, and so the first few races end up being decided either in the research and development areas of the garages, or in the courtroom.
Having watched an hour of build up and a two hour race, I will now summarise what I have learned about the regulations for the 2009 season:
1. The cars have a new diffuser on the back, which is designed to reduce the total load by 50%.
2. This looks a bit like a George Foreman grill.
3. Some teams have got one particular design of diffuser, others have a different design. More like a Breville Sandwich Maker.
4. The former claim the latter’s design is illegal and are appealing to the proper authorities.
5. The appeal will be heard in two weeks so the results of the first two races may change. I would like a cheese and bacon toastie.
6. The front wing now has to be the same width as the car itself. This, we are told, makes the cars look ugly. They look the same as they did last year.
7. Launch control is now banned. This appears to mean that, at the start, the car has to be started by the driver and not by a computer. You might be amazed that this has to be in the rules. It’s like saying, “a driver must not gain an unfair advantage by invoking the powers of dark magick and cursing the tyres of his rivals.”
8. Some of the cars are using the KERS system. This is some sort of button the driver can press in order to gain extra horse power for six seconds per lap.
9. I don’t know how it works or even what KERS stands for.
10. Neither, apparently, does Martin Brundle.
11. Some of the cars have not bothered with KERS, so it can’t be that great.
12. Tyres with green stripes are “super-soft.” They are crap.
So there you go. All pretty simple, isn’t it.
Incidentally, the race emphasised the importance of having a good car. Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello came first and second in the Brawn GP cars – Ross Brawn is recognised as the pre-eminent genius of F1, and so it’s no surprise that he should be the one to figure out the new rules before anyone else.
I got the impression that Brawn could have taken a Shetland Pony, strapped its little hooves to the wheel, and made him BBC Sport Personality of the Year before Christmas comes around.
Lewis Hamilton is suddenly driving a Ford Focus and is exposed as being rubbish. Of course, he is no worse a driver than he was in winning the World Championship last year, but he qualified very poorly and, despite racing brilliantly, only managed fourth place. Maybe the car will get better as McLaren figure out the rules, but it does make you realise that the championship is decided in the lab and the pit lane, as much as out on the track.
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