Saturday, 15 January 2011

54 days to go!

Justin: Anyone spotting a pattern emerging in the title of my blogs? If anyone is actually reading of course.....co blogger, where are you?!

On with the news roundup. Mclaren are launching their car in early February, just after the first official test days in Spain, thus they miss some important testing time.

Personally, I can't really see anyone outside Vettel or Alonso being champion in 2011. Missing out in 2010 by such a small margin seems to have ignited Fernando like never before (and he tends to ignite a fair amount!) and Vettel will no doubt still have the fastest car out there.....you don't need a Schuey if you have a Newey...as the old saying goes.

On the subject of Schumi.....me thinks Alonso has started playing mind games quite early by saying he see's Schumi as his biggest direct threat for 2011....erm....ok Fernando we believe you, given you trashed him twice and made him retire last time out in 2006!

Speaking of Alonso and Ferrari, they had their big ski-ing bash with Ducati - pictures here...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/9361981.stm

Alonso, sporting a pirate look, competitive as ever, beat Hayden, Massa and Rossi in 2 Ice Karting races....nice. I'd like to try my hand at that, given I am a pretty good Karter myself..

Red Bull seem to be getting accused of not sticking to spending budgets that were agreed last year. Same old, same old in F1. Anyone who wins seems to get accused of cheating in some way.

Jake Humphrey has a long way to go before he is blogging to our standards, but I have included a link to his blog here - despite DC being part of the commentating team with Brundle, he will still be mincing around the pitlane with JH and EJ - excellent...as Jake himself says, why break up a winning threesome. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/2011/01/ringing_the_changes_for_2011.html

On that note, I am done.

Friday, 7 January 2011

62 days to go!!!!!!

Justin: Thats right. The BBC have a countdown timer showing how long we have to wait until first practice at Bahrain. It's just 62 days.....2 months essentially, give or take a week. Fantastic.

My co-blogger has been unusually quiet lately. Me thinks he needs to dump a fresh one out.

My 2010 season review DVD arrived yesterday and since then I have been looking back over what has to be the best championship ever! Watching the highlights over again reminded me of some of our best blogs of the year too.

A couple of fun points I noted from the DVD, which gave interviews some of us might have missed, or they may not have been shown at all when originally broadcast.

1) After Silverstone quali, where Vettel broke his new front wing and Red Bull plonked Webber's wing onto Vettel's car....Vettel grabbed pole.....in the press conference after quali Mark Webber was visibly furious. They were both asked "whats the deal on favouritism in the team given the wing situation?".....Vettel gestured to Webber to answer it first.....Webber said "The team got the result they wanted"......cue smirking from the little shit Vettel and Webber pouring a drink and slamming it down on the table....blimey.

2) After the team order fiasco in Germany, the driver press conference was possibly the most awkward I have ever seen. Massa first answered the question of team orders at Ferrari, Alonso then kept his head down and said "yep, same as Felipe"......blimey!

Elsewhere, there is plenty to discuss in the BBC F1 rumour column...so much so that I shall be quite lazy this time and just paste the link for our readers http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9344147.stm.

Now, to watch the special features on my F1 DVD.....which I will of course report upon soon!

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

Bog all going on!

Justin: There isn't too much happening in the world of F1, but what little that is happening will be reported here in another one of my news posts.

Petrov has been signed up by Lotus Renault until 2012. I say Lotus Renault, as thats the official name now and god knows what Tony Fernandes will call his Lotus team now the license has been revoked by the Proton Group. The Chapman family has come out in support of Lotus Renault, saying that whilst they liked the way Lotus came back into the sport with Tony Fernandes, they don't like the idea of the name Team Lotus.

Ferrari's new car will be launched at the end of January. Stefano Domenicalli gave an interesting interview recently whereby he stated that he considered his own future with the team after the shambles in Abu Dhabi. There seems to have been some major organisational restructuring going on at Ferrari. He also said that Massa needs a good year in 2011. Sounds ominous.

The James Hunt book, Shunt, is proving to be a fantastic read so far. My co-blogger would love it.

A nod to my co-blogger whose Fiancee apparently found my previous blog about their wedding not (thankfully) interfering with a GP weekend rather amusing. Can't think why. I was deadly serious.