It's Race of Champions day, and with that, plus the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards being given out, and a show today, we're going to be rushed off our feet - just how we like it. There was some discontent in the comments yesterday over Wembley's rather strict policy on cameras, but I hope this doesn't take away from what should be a great experience for those attending in person. We're going to stick around and live comment it from the safety of home, so stay tuned if you want to join us.
Elsewhere in Formula 1:
- Vijay Mallya has decided that he is sticking with the 2009 lineup that he had already announced, Fisi and Sutil. Why the comment that he had to check with McLaren first then? Is he surrendering to the bosses already?
- Do you think Hamilton can get his hands on yet another trophy by picking up the SPOTY award today? The odds seem to be swaying between him and one of the Olympic team - the cyclist or the swimmer. He'll be annoyed to miss out two years in a row, won't he?
- Rumour has it that South Africa wouldn't mind getting back on the F1 calendar sometime soon. The track at Kyalami would undergo the Tilke treatment though, so do we actually care about this one way or the other?
As I said above there's going to be lots going on today, so don't feel bound by any of the subjects I've mentioned above. Feel free to discuss any topics that come to mind, especially if there's breaking news we need to know about. See you in the comments.
Boo, your 1 minute late.
The problem is, we all know who is gonna win what
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/sports_personality_of_the_year/7775752.stm
Nah, 3rd - Adlington, 2nd - Hamilton, 1st - Hoy
Go Lewis!
Win that SPOTY!
For a bit of fun, with a not-so-serious attempt to get 'me' to change his name to 'Mr C', please see the following Wiki entry.
http://sidepodcast.wetpaint.com/page/Happy+Days+-+The+Fonz+and+Mr+C/
Ah yeas Happy Days, the only character I know is Fonz, and thats because one of my friends said I looked like him (tbf, he had only just came back from Australia)
you may have posted this on the wrong thread. isn't the dohickey fun :)
have moved it now.
I'm suspicious now that a certain few teams may have noticed that as well...
totally. and they probably bought the race car engineering magazine that included visual representations of the secrets too.
i'm confused with thread i'm posting this on now, so i'll just post it twice:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2007/11/25/secrets-of-the-f2007/
this info has been public for a long time.
:D, oh the FIA have just walked into a door
Hi, your posting on the Dec 14th one.
seeing as we're on a happy days trip:
and because the only thing christine is going to know about richie cunningham is that he directed apollo 13 (it always comes back to sidepodspace doesn't it?), here's something more modern:
well, ya can't say i don't try.
wow, this is a tad... erm, old? :P
But then again, films and shows produced back then tend to be better than what we have now.
i have never heard of happy days... it's a comedy (i think) that has escaped me... it looks... different....
it really is :)
i'm getting a tad excited about tomorrow again.... i know i should go to sleep but it's like when we went to goodwood, i'm just really looking forward to it and know i wont sleep. (i literally had 3 hours sleep before goodwood as i was so excited). i feel like a little child before christmas :D
it was made in the '70's about the '50's (sort of).
i guess it's kind of like "friends" but 20 years earlier.
You are a little too young to remember it.
:D i can imagine jenson has that effect on you.
i had no idea it went on for so long though.
hehe :D he will probably only be a dot to me tomorrow :D but i'll still be happy to see him hehe.
i think we will be there about 6 or 7 hours... so it's going to be a long and cold event :P
ah right...
Apollo 13 is a great story and for a change Hollywood didn't strip it to the bones and re-build it in a barely recogniseable version. All the weightless scenes were filmed in the vomit comet and since you only get 30 seconds weightlessness on each parabola it took a lot of takes to get it right. And a lot of cleaning up in between.
I am sure there will be repeats running somewhere.
i normally watch most old comedy on dave... well i say normally. i haven't watched tv for weeks now.
i did not know that. i probably could have done without knowing that in fact :)
Consider it redacted
I meant to mention that you have another new poster on the xtrac thread a couple of days ago
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/12/05/cosworth-xtrac-and-ricardo/
ok after having looked up lots of different pictures of wembly stadium and what it's like, i have decided to force myself to go to sleep. night all!!
:)
i will try and trump your fact with this one though...
the phrase "jumping the shark" - to suggest that someone's "lost the plot" - came from a shot of the fonz actually jumping over a shark:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
i don't remember the episode, but it sounds suitably ridiculous.
c ya.
i saw that and cleaned up the language. didn't really know what to make of it though.
do you think it's legit? can there be that kind of animosity between two companies that basically make cogs for a living?
Good night Lou. Have fun tomorrow.
I have a ridiculous memory for trivia and I actually do remember that.
a man wearing speedo's and a leather jacket? i guess that would stick in your mind.
I have come across this a lot in industry. I used to work for a company which started a plant of with 20 people and very quickly built it up to 300. The guy who ran one of the departments and the only other guy in it at the start would always slaughter each other to anyone who would listen. They were by far the best two guys in that department which ended up with 20 odd people in it but they would both say the other was useless even though the two of them were head and shoulders over anyone else.
I guess it's like local rivals in football.
If you have two companies that make transmissions they will always be competing for business so there will be a degree of rivalry. Of course it goes without saying that people will move from one to the other and change their opinion 180 degrees.
It goes without saying some people can get very attached to their cogs.
so how comes the fia decided that they'd make a great partnership then?
looking at the respective sites, both companies appear to do basically the same thing, and xtrac may be ahead slightly in terms of kers development.
in terms of cost savings, wouldn't it make sense to pitch one against the other and see who comes out cheapest?
don't know what you mean?
I assume the management of the two companies made a joint approach perhaps to avoid getting into a bidding war. Better to have 50% of a contract that is properly profitable than 100% of one where if you make the slightest mistake you make a loss.
that's true. although according to the ft, the whole thing may come to nothing anyhow:
http://tinyurl.com/6kqeyc
"The Formula One future of Cosworth, the Norhamptonshire-based engine maker, hangs in the balance after an agreement between the sport’s ruling body and its teams rolled back on plans to impose low-cost engines designed and built by Cosworth as standard from 2010."
not sure how fota have managed to squeeze coswoth out, but that was the only good bit of news in max's proposals :(
You have triggered something in my memory now I have to find the answer to a question. There was an episode of Happy Days which was based on something the Fonz couldn't eat. All through the episode he said he couldn't eat it but in the end of course he did. I just can't remember what it was he couldn't eat. I keep thinking liver but whether that is right or whether it is just because that is something a lot of people don't like I can't remember.
liver rings a bell actually. although i don't remember him eating it at the end of any show?
It was liver
http://www.tvacres.com/char_fonzarelli_arthur.htm
how the heck did you find that?
I searched for happy days fonz liver and that was the first return
Just to show how my trivia memory works. I remember a conversation I had with someone the day after the episode was shown and his final comment was "The Fonz can never be seen to fail or the show is ruined". You would not believe the level of trivia I have in my brain.
sidepodquiz?
it's all in the search terms. must sleep because it's roc at midday.
good vibes from frank:
"We carry a certain amount of debt, but against the value of our assets, including buildings and land, it’s a modest proportion, a lot less than 50%. Very few companies don’t have an overdraft. We are in very good health."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article5337853.ece
I didn't realise it started so early. I better have some sleep as well.
That's all good and well, but in this sport, it's not just about survival, it's about winning too.
That said, Max's seeming shift back to the independents can only help Frank's cause.
What time does it start? Will we live comment here, or on another thread?
Funny, I'm more or less assuming there will be a live commenting for this. :)
And please do not "bring up" that knowledge again... :P
Morning all,
I've been away for three days (travelling back from NZ) and it looks like I have missed a lot... yet again!
Meh. One will get sacked and replaced by a McLaren driver before the end of the season.
No way will Hamilton win it - he's too unpopular and not perceived as very sportsmanlike in the 'British' sense. Also, because most people seem to think that working towards an Olympic goal takes longer and has more sacrifices (and often for a lot less money), the public vote will definitely swing towards an olympian.
Aside from the money (which Hamilton deserves every single penny), an F1 driver faces the same challenges and sacrifices as an Olympian. So for me the nominees are a lot closer than what most people would say they are...
Hmm Kyalami was ruined 20 years ago when they built a housing estate over the old front straight and pit area - it ruined what used to be a classic circuit. As far as I know it would have to be subject to a massive butchering from Mr. Tilke as it must be very old and out of date.
I don't think any International series visit there anymore - the MotoGP goes to a track called 'Phakisa' instead and the A1GP had a street race in Durban (which wasn't too bad actually!)
Finally, from yesterday:
Bloody hell! I almost choked when I read some of these rules! There are some good ones here but I hate the idea of a standard engine - these proposals as a whole go too far and will turn F1 into a spec-racer series like IndyCar or A1GP.
This is a typical knee-jerk reaction from the powers that run F1 that has been timed perfectly with the demise of Honda to push through the rules they have been wanting for ages. I hope by 2010 that some have been rescinded as I would hate all of this cost cutting to ruin the spectacle.
Quite frankly, none of the teams couldn't afford to stay in F1 (even Honda) and we have a good mix as it is with most wanting to keep things as they are - so why change things this drastically? I agree that some parts could be standardised that are unseen but standard engines, gearboxes, no refuelling and no new engine until 2013? I would prefer to see rules like in the old Le Mans where you are allocated a set fuel efficiency and you can power the car however you want - then we will see proper hybrids and solutions applicable to road cars and not this KERS rubbish!
Morning all
Listening to Fighting Talk yesterday, they say that if it was based on personality, you'd find that a lot of people don't like Hamilton as he is arrogant and is to polished, compared to Andy Murray, where you either love him or hate him.
Oooh Fighting Talk! My lovely wife has been opening iTunes so that it has been downloading the BBC Podcasts while I was away (as they are only available for a week) and now I have three episodes to catch up on!
Hang on though... they actually talked about F1 on Fighting Talk? That must be a record as they never mention it - some of the questions are begging for an F1 answer and they never seem to give one.
For example, they asked "Which Sport has become more about the money than the spectacle?" - an easy answer for F1. But no, we got football, WWF wrestling and Tiddlywinks!!!
Once, they did have a guy talk for two minutes about David Coulthard and the host said "Wow - somebody came on the show and talked about F1 and they know what they are talking about!" GAAH!!!
What time does ROC start? Cos someone thought it would be real fun to play football this afternoon
Just taken a look at the draw for the first round, and there are a couple of heats that will be unmissable:
* Gareth MacHale v David Coulthard * Adam Carroll v Mattias Ekstrom * Tom Kristensen v Michael Schumacher * Jason Plato v Andy Priaulx * Tanner Foust v Jenson Button * Troy Bayliss v Sebastian Vettel * Jaime Alguersuari v Carl Edwards * Yvan Muller v Sebastien Loeb
I thought the standard engine was optional? Which is why I like it so much. It helps the independents while the manufacturers can still do their thing.
I second R.G's question.
The webcast will go live on autosport.com from 13:50 GMT (14:50 CET) on Sunday.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72446
Nations cup is at 2:30 and the race of champions is just after.
Looking at that sched, it should be just in time for Hoy v. Hamilton. Just a bit disappointing that Hamilton isn't participating in the RoC proper.
Oooh, we could see Vettel vs Button in the second round. :)
LOL, in case anyone's forgotten among the fun and games, there's an episode of Top Gear tonight too :P
Mr.C was right.
"Full LIVE coverage of the event will also be available on Pitpass"
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=36737
Wow. If one thinks of it, it's a whole day of fun and games for you Brits. Lucky you! I'll just stick to watching RoC. SPOTY is too late for me. :)
and sidepodcast:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/12/14/live-race-of-champions/
:D
Just read the preview. Looks like a good one. :)
Spoilt for choice... :P
I'll say! :P
Yeah, yeah, have your fun
Just bare in mind me, who will be playing in 0 degrees up at Morpeth, in horribly wet, muddy, conditions.
Indeed. RoC, SPotY and TG. That's a load of abbreviations TBH IIRC. WTF FTW!
Don't forget SPC!
And LCL...T! :P
If I dare speak about F1 for a minute, Flavio says he'll be leaving F1 after 2010.
Maybe he could try and convince Bernie to do the same?
hehe. they may have football plans?
I'm guessing so, actually. Besides, Flavio has already said that F1 is not a first love of his. Which is probably the opposite of Bernie's viewpoint.
Did we ever hear anything more about Vijay joining in with the QPR deal?
No statement like that is complete without a ROFLMAO (LOL!)
OMG, IAWTC!
I guess not... :P
I think it is money for both of them. Racing is a means to make money and be famous.
By the way, I've just submitted my 2008 season review and transcript on drop.io. If Christine and/or me could incorporate its 20 minutes and 49 seconds into the megamix at a convenient moment, it would be cool :)