As you can see from the pictures the new aero rules have been interpreted in different ways. Expecting a few wet races it appears some teams have been inspired by the buggy covers of their youth. What you can’t see from this angle is the drivers head hole with integral, matching peaked cap. No one looked more at home than Vettel who said
I am so excited my feet have hardly touched the ground, no literally if it rains I get to arrive in a buggy with a rain cover on then mummy carefully lifts me into the car, zips up my hood and I am as snug as a bug in a rug, sometimes after I’ve had my milky bot bot I’m so comfy I drift off, which is why Uncle Bernie and Auntie Max have let us fit the Sato-tard safety boxes, hopefully if I am hit by another car the boxes will take most of the impact and my snoozy pippy night nights won’t be interrupted.
After resolutely outflanking and fucking FOTA the FIA have come in for some backlash, not only have messrs schumacher, alonso and hamilton have said they’re not so keen on the idea but today the FIA have come out with some legalspeak and worked out that maybe the FIA can’t do it after all.
The amendment to the sporting regulations proposed by the World Motorsport Council was not performed in accordance with the procedure provided for by Appendix 5 of the Sporting Regulations and, as per the provisions of the article 199 of the FIA International Sporting Code, it is too late for FIA to impose a change for the 2009 season that has not obtained the unanimous agreement of all the competitors properly entered into the 2009 Formula 1 Championship.
Since the change to the scoring system unanimously agreed by the Teams and proposed to FIA did not receive approval of the WMSC, no change can occur in 2009, and the Teams wish to reaffirm their willingness to collaborate with the FIA in order to jointly define a new point system for the 2010 season within a comprehensive set of measures aimed at further stimulating the attractiveness of the F1 Sport.
also in the big meeting today are the radical new f1 budget rules that seem to come straight out of final fantasy.
The teams start the season by going to a shop to buy all their bits using credits earnt from previous battles/sponsors.
They can choose to have a budget cap of $42 million or go for broke and spend whatever the fuck they like.
If they go for the budget cap then they can use spelss and magic and movable wings and no rev limits, but the no-budgets are severely restricted and have to play the game in demo mode.
This might all trickle down to be a good thing, but I fear its getting a little complicated, and each race is going to come on 7 discs.
Everything had gone a bit quiet in the bernie medal stakes, but obviously he was doing a lot of politicking and meddling (ha) in the background as they are in and official.
Formula One winners will now get a medal, this is mainly to reduce further costs for the big teams as they will now to spend a lot less getting big trophy cabinets made.
If two drivers are tied for wins by the end of the season then the system is rendered utterly pointless as the old 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 system will decide it.
It’s not yet known whether the lower teams will bother finishing the races now.
More news to come from the big FIA meeting thingy today – we are not there, but I am on the internet reading stuff from people that are there.
Before you read any further, turn your speakers to quarter volume. Breath in deeply through your nose and slowly out through your mouth . Repeat three times. Press play
Welcome to the inside of my head, since the very first knockings of trouble at Honda this is all I could hear every time they were mentioned in the news.
Not that I miss Honda, in fact I felt a compelling urge whilst driving about to hinder any Honda car I saw on the road (made a whole lot easier as most of there road cars are irritatingly shit). I view them as the ex-girlfriend of a best mate who I despised and now that she has dumped him I’m free to tell him and the whole world what a bitch I thought she was.
As this rage subsided, helped along by Button with his ever optimistic eyes and beard punctuated with an honest smile, the music in my head got a louder (turn to one third volume) . I imagined Brawn stroking his beard looking at the car while plotting his next move like a chess mastermind and it grew louder still (half volume) . Thankfully as the music was now deafening and starting to annoy I remembered him in those ridiculous green trousers borrowed from Homebase (turn it back to one third). Then Nick started talking to the press and I sensed a wobble of uncertainty in his voice and I had to be in a library to hear the music (quarter volume).
Then at the last moment it was all alright those plucky lads were back in the game, and here’s where I think my new found love for Brawn GP flourished they released the car with the most dodgy colour scheme on the grid.
Initially as it’s my job, I mocked it. Now with hindsight I realize that the paint job looks like it was done by my Dad and that’s no bad thing. That whole, well meaning “You want a F1 car son? Well times is tight, we can’t really afford one but I’ll make you one”. He then disappears to the garage for nights on end and with each night you grow ever more excited until he reveals the fruits of his labour and as a kid you focus on what your F1 mates are going to think, you can already see them smirking behind their hands while pointing at your car.
You turn up, they smirk. Your dad, who for some inexplicable reason now has a hearing aid, a black woolly hat, an American accent and a much gruffer voice growls into your ear “We’ll show ‘em on the track Rock!”
To your delight you do, the smirks have been replaced by shock and embarrassment, all apart from Alonso Creed who is striding towards you, with a face you thought he only reserved for Ron Dennis. At the last moment he cracks, smiling broadly he goes for the cool upside downy handshake which is awkward as you went for the missionary position. He whispers in your ear “Your un-fucking-reachable, see you on the podium” , the press don’t report it that way but you know the truth.
I know, I know, a few quick times in the largely unreliable pre season testing and a theme tune and it appears I’ve gone all misty eyed and lost grip of reality.
I was asked last year which team I supported and to be honest I didn’t have one, I tend to support drivers rather than teams. In the off season this started to really bother me. I started to ponder it but the same sort of problems always came up, one good driver one bell end, the team management seem aloof and elitist or they were just simply shit.
But I will ponder no more, because Jenson took a pay cut while the other drivers bitched about super licenses, because for a long time it looked like Rubens was not going to get the chance to retire properly, because I think Ross looks like he’s facebook friends with God, because it looks like they really were focusing on this years car, because they’re the only team where it seems right to use their forenames, because I can picture my Dad working in their garage and getting one of his best shirts dirty despite my Mum insisting he got changed but most importantly because I see them as the plucky, down to earth underdogs, my team is ……..Ferrari, of course not it’s Brawn GP.
For better, for worse, in sickness and in health, in joys and in sorrows. Until death or bankruptcy do us part.*
*I am hoping as this post is far too long and the music stopped a while ago no one is still reading and my Jerry Maguire moment has gone unnoticed.
With the Barcelona test all wrapped up we thought we’d give you lucky people our insight into how each team is shaping up for 2009.
not taking the lap-times as gospel we use complicated algorithms, gut feeling and reading what everybody else is saying to inform our opinions.
McLaren – fucked
The VMM press machine is doing its normal thing saying their not in trouble and that everything is going to plan – but not troubling the top of the timesheets once? They’re either frantically remodelling aero parts or outrageously and arrogantly cocky about how fast the car can really go without ever actually trying that out.
Ferrari – prancing about
Doing well, the KERS (pronounced KERS) being a bit glitchy and heavy, but on the whole the car is looking good and acting good – and a freshly woken Kimi looks like he’s benefited from his year off.
BMW-Sauber – cautiously optmistic
Abandoning development on the 2008 car to concentrate on this years seems to be paying off. Incredibly close to Ferraris pace, if they couple this speed with their normal reliability then they are going to be on fire.
Renault – meh
Not wowing anybody, Alonso might make a couple of shock wins in the first half of the season, but they don’t seem to be punching above midfield weight.
Red Bull – Bullish
The car is quick, but Vettel is quicker even than that. He often finishes the lap three tenths ahead of the car. Expect Webber to show the cars true pace (4th-8th ish) but to be totally outshone by the youngster who has a Schumi like ability to outdrive his own cars
Toyota – Crying Wolf
They look good in testing, but they have looked good in testing, and often qualifying every year. They might well have finally made a car that isn’t shit, but they have also cried wolf too many times to make us believe that.
Williams – stoic
Not impressing anyone really, a couple of good times here and there – but unless they’ve got something to come out of the bag we fear another year in the doldrums
Torro Rosso – Lost their vitals
Vettel made them look shiny, now they dull.
Force India – About face
Every season needs them, even the mercedes kit doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference.
Brawn GP – Brawn again
What the fucking fuck is happening here? I am so used to mocking the Honda team at this time of year I don’t know how to compute this information. They seem to have built a fast car. Unless they are doing some very impressive showboating then expect a few people at honda to by hiding under their desks come melbourne.
After last years pitiful attempt at fantasy F1, we have enlisted the help of Fantasy F1 supremo David Keay. We asked him to give up his secrets and with little or no persuasion he did.
So by hook, crook or photocopied car designs we intend to win.
Join the fun and more importantly our league atwww.fantasyleaguef1.comthe league you are looking for is imaginatively called www.anotherf1podcast.com and the code to enter is 338. It costs a tenner but that is a price well worth paying for the satisfaction of beating Terry.
So without further ado here is David’s guide to winning at fantasy F1.
As Loyd Grossman often said on Through the Keyhole “David it’s over to you”.
Well this year it’s going to be a lot harder for fantasy f1 players everywhere. ITV have lost the rights and we’re denied the easiest way to pick a team, namely, expect the exact opposite of everything James Allen ever predicts.
A pretty safe bet actually. James’ forbidden love affair with Kimi regardless of result, and his grudgingly slow acceptance that Massa might actually be able to drive that thing with the wheels, kept the casual fantasy punters at bay while us serious competitors racked up the big points on the little man.
Clearly if I gave away all my secrets I’d be making a opponents for my own back, but I can be sprinkle a few ideas around…
Don’t be so emotional. Don’t pick your favourites, they’re bound to lose anyway, and you’ll just be twice as upset. Pure objectivity is best, but if you must let your feelings intrude, pick the ones you hate to do well and those you love to suck. Oh the points I scored in Fantasy-F1.net just by picking DC first to retire… So every time a Williams driver rammed him off last year, I could at least wipe my tears with the 5 points it had scored me. It’ll change the way you view formula 1 forever. Not necessarily for the better but you’re here to win right?
Learn to count. No really I mean it. Games all have loop-holes. With the ITV game it was overtaking. You scored 3 for every place you made up from your starting position. If you pick Lewis and he’s on pole and he wins, he’s only going to score 10, but if you had Heidfeld starting 16th and finishing 6th, he scored 30, plus 4 points for 6th.
Most F1 games reward racers not speed merchants, in other words, points at the end of the season, not the quick lap specialists. The media have blown qualifying out of all proportion over the years, sure you can score a point or two for picking it, but really who cares? F1 is about Sunday, and so should your team be.
Never believe 99% of the personality back-story bullshit they talk. It’s nearly always a journalist with a deadline or dead-air to fill, just making it the hell up. If a Martian landed and listened to the F1 media he’d think that Senna had won every race in his life and Prost, Mansell and Piquet had never even got close. Who cares if Ayrton ‘lived and breathed’ F1 or was on pole? Pole doesn’t count, it’s just an easy Saturday headline for a TV company scrambling for viewers. Senna’s win percentage 25.47, Prost’s 25.63. Points per race: 3.81 v 3.99. Pick the man, not the myth. (Interestingly Prost also set many more fastest laps, just not on Saturdays.)
For a recent example, how often in 2007 did we hear that Kimi was ‘still struggling with Bridgestone tyres’ 3 months after he’d won his very first race on them. He wasn’t struggling on tyres, he’s just not as consistently quick over a race distance as Massa and never has been. He made fewer mistakes than Felipe, and the weight of the team (paying him 4x the salary) went behind him. But Kimi’s overall Sunday record over the years against his team mates is not in the class of Alonso or Schumacher’s. Without the awful single lap qualifying era – and DC’s inability to find 6th gear with everyone shouting at him… he’d be about as highly regarded as… well… Trulli or Webber probably.
You have to be objective, but to WIN, you have to take a chance here and there. If you play it absolutely straight, you’ll maybe get into the top 100, to be Top 3 you have to feel that Alonso is going to win Singapore out the blue, or that that guy Vettel is going to be the star of the season, 5 weeks before anyone else realises it. I KNEW Alonso would win Singapore, he’s the best learner of new tracks by a mile, BMW had stopped their development, Renault were the coming force and Mclaren and Ferrari were just watching each other. That was the turning point of the season, that was when everything changed. If ITV’s shit software hadn’t blocked my constructors changes, I’d have switched teams then and won the ITV league by over 50 points. Ah well, can’t win ‘em all.
Really to me, that’s what’s exciting, and why I love the technology race. I’ve watched F1 for 25 years and can barely remember a single race before last year, can’t even remember most of last years… when I need to know I go and look it up. I’m always thinking forward, not what happened but what’s going to happen next? My interest in the next race usually starts about 15-20 laps before this one has ended. I made an exception last year, and waited till Lewis had crossed the last line… then switched off before I had to listen to another word from ITV’s team of fools, and began to consider 2009…
Now that Brawn GP is all official and the dust on the car coloured in with highlighter pen has settled it’s time for blogs and other uninformed opinions to speculate and comment all over the internet.
I feel a little sorry for Ross Brawn as his name (by this I mean his actual name, not his reputation) is a little shit.
Brawn GP doesn’t do it for me. And unless they get sponsorship by Braun and make Button use hair straighteners on his beard then I don’t think it’s going to carve a path through the f1 naming history.
What’s in a name? Well, if the team is successful, not much obviously. But just on word alone, Brawn isn’t the best person to name the team after (though Fry would have been worse). Here at anotherf1podcast we look at the people who named teams after themselves in F1 history and who had good names and bad.
Here is a by no means exhaustive list of Teams named after someone.
Firstly, the current and obvious ones
Enzo ferrari called the team after his name cos his name is fucking ferrari – this is a good word – but most italian words would make a good team name see…
McLaren, despite the fact that the team didn’t have a great deal of success until Bruce McLaren had passed on and Ron Dennis took over it is a good word that aside from pushchairs you don’t see anywhere else
Williams – dull name, but suits team. This is the best that Ross can hope for.
And the Sauber bit of BMW-Sauber is a real person. Again, a foreign sounding name always works (though not sure how true this is in their own country – maybe in Switzerland Brawn sounds like a fast zippy name)
The foreign naming convention also works for Fittipaldi, Ligier and Minardi
Brabham is a good sounding name, Jordan isn’t, but the irish charm make one overlook that.
Tyrrell is a fucking great name, I think Ken Tyrrell must have made it up.
Prost not a good name, despite it being attached to bloody Alain Prost. The same goes for Stewart Racing.
But on the other hand, Super Aguri is a ridiculously good name, just a shame about suzuki’s past form and current money probs.
So, to sum up this entirely pointless post, Ross Brawn should have changed his name by deed poll to something foreign sounding before he bought the team.
Now that Brawn GP is all official and the dust on the car coloured in with highlighter pen has settled it’s time for blogs and other uninformed opinions to speculate and comment all over the internet.