At last, this podcast/blog had a scoop.

In the wake of differentiating engine maps being banned this weekend for the European Grand Prix we have manage to obtain one of the exclusive technical drawings from Ferrari detail how the mapping on Massa’s car works.

Let’s see if he can live without this for this weekend.

Mercedes have released a set of stats to show how crazy overtaking has gotten this year.

They have counted all the overtaking moves in the first few races “using a combination of video, timing data and GPS technology” (read: ceefax) and have worked out that this year truly has been batshit crazy.

With the Pirelli tyres, DRS and KERS all competing to be the most talked about thing of 2011 the overtaking moves for each race so far are as follows:

Australia – 30

Malaysia – 70

China – 90

Turkey – 112

Being used to the processional nature of GP’s in the last few years this certainly seems alot – and in Turkey it certainly was.

But how will Spain fare? Normally the dullest of all races (excluding Monaco, but at least they dress up for it) will this years gimmicks make the Circuit de Catalunya the first Spanish GP where I haven’t accidentally made food halfway through thanks to sheer boredom?

Well, judging on previous Spanish races the stats are:

2008 – 11

2009 – 3

2010 – 10

“However, the total from 2008 includes passes made because of damage or mistakes, while the 2010 number includes passes by faster cars on a car from the bottom three teams. The number of ‘normal’ overtaking manoeuvres was: 2008, two; 2009, three; 2010, two.”

Two?

Yes we moan about dull races, but two fucking overtaking moves in a race? How did we stand for it? It’s not surprising that overtaking stats haven’t been all over tv coverage of recent years.

So by all accounts Spain should be the big test of the new rules, if it’s not dull here, it won’t be dull anywhere (except Monaco, see above)

Pirelli has announced that this years Spanish Grand Prix will be the first to use their “Incredibly Hard” compound.

After four races the teams are slowly getting used to the high degradation on the Pirelli rubber, but the “Incredibly Hard” compound has thrown a curveball because early reports say its made of a mixture of rubber, concrete and crushed up bits of Metallica singer James Hetfield making it one of the heavier tyres in existence.

Add this to the softer rubber in the option compound means keeping a balance over a whole race weekend is going to be trickier than ever.

It’s also rumoured that at Monaco Pirelli will be using Monster Truck tyres.

Adrian Sutil, famed for being good in the wet until chucking it away, has transferred his skills from the racetrack to the nightclub.

After the Chinese Grand Prix it’s reported that Sutil had a few drops too many and took the most aggressive line with Eric Lux, second in command to Gerard Lopez at Renault.

What the spat was about we don’t know, but maybe Sutil is just really passionate about the Group Lotus/Team Lotus spat as he allegedly glassed him.

Lux was seen with scars on his neck at the Turkish paddock which would explain the turtlenecks in such hot weather that everyone had been talking about (and poor Nick Heidfeld had copied).

Lewis Hamilton was apparently there to witness the spat, but alas, he didn’t tweet it.

Sutil in club spat > via grandprix.com

Suddenly I feel like a local radio DJ, we’ve had an entry to our “reimagining” of the Hugo Boss “make a driver look like a dick” compeititon.

Doug Rattray (@dougrattray on twitter) has sent in Chav-Button…

Keep ‘em coming

An ever popular feature of the podcast is me reading out Lewis Hamiltons Gangsta tweets in the voice that they imply and not the Stevenage based voice he has.

From now on EVERY tweet the Lewster does will be SoundClouded (I’ve even set up my phone to text me when he tweets) and they’ll be available on the sidebar of this very blog.

First one here

Twitter follower @windym has suggested another McLaren Overall redesign:

For the British GP they should wear overalls similar to those novelty aprons with a busty woman in lingerie on the front.

And, frankly any other things on my todo list today have been brushed aside so that I can dedicate time to draw tits on Jenson Button

So here you go…

I’m 31.

Also, is the word overalls? It’s probably a racesuit, but overalls feels more real.

Any ideas for other ones, twitter us @a_f1podcast, leave in the comments, or draw your own, let’s make it our own competition…

Like idiots we totally failed to capitalise on the Hugo Boss “Design Overalls That Make McLaren Drivers Look Like Dicks” competition.

But deadlines and closing dates have never stopped us before.

Here is our design for what they should wear in Monaco…

Nice

Now we’re into the European season the teams are heading to races with new updates and parts, and anotherf1podcast are no different.

We’ve been rocking the Team Lotus livery as our website and twitter colours but Terry doesn’t feel as if he’s doing something unless he’s needlessly changing something that doesn’t need changing.

So we are going to leave it up to you, dear podcast listeners and twitter readers, which classic F1 livery should we use next?

Leave it as it is?

Benetton (please, God no)

Ligier

Ferrari, either Ferrari red or the Marlboro shade

JPS Team Lotus (or evil Renault)

Classic Marlboro red McLaren

Ugly Renault

Classic Renault

Not so Classic Renault

West McLaren

Williams glory days

Or any other you’d prefer? Leave ideas/pictures in the comments

Pirelli have constantly stated that their remit for tyres this year was to try and emulate what happened to the bridgestone tyres in last years Canadian Grand Prix.

So far this year it seems they have done their job well, with four races that haven’t descended into the farce of all the cars finishing their final stop (mostly in the same order as the grid), turning their engines down and coasting to the chequered flag whilst catching up on some admin or a good book.

By the time the F1 circus gets back to Canada we will be used to this kind of crazy racing. The rumbly track made of staples means that Pirelli should go for a stupid hard compound.

But that would be boring. Pirelli have learnt from their calendars that cute cats and Justin Bieber aren’t nearly a match for bronzed tits so they’ll be going for their super-soft and ridiculously-soft compounds which analysts say will make for another 80 pit stop race. Per team. The people at Montreal might not want their race to be like the others, that means that the Canadian grand prix wouldn’t be Canada-y enough.

To keep up the wacky races, for the second half of the season they will stop making tyres out of rubber and use bath sealant, concrete and ice to stop the teams getting too knowledgeable.

This new F1 is confusing, complicated, mental and hard. But without Canada Vettel would be in the lead of the championship after four really dull races.