The inclement conditions seems to be clearing up for our boys out there testing. That's good because I was starting to get worried about poor Trulli having to don his wet weather gear. Nevertheless, testing continues for just one more day, so we have that and more to discuss:
- Despite the fact that Buemi keeps topping the timesheets in his '08 car, Pedalo has said he's surprised by the pace of the new machinery. The exact quote goes: "I'm surprised how little difference the slick tyres and the aero package have made." That bodes well for the new season, doesn't it?
- Defending Champ Hamilton also returned to the cockpit yesterday and said he was happy with how quickly he slipped back into the old routine. He thinks it'll be a busy winter because after just one day, his to-do list seems enormous. I know that feeling!
- Also, I know it's not strictly F1, but there is Montoya news. He's reuniting with an old sponsor or something. I was fascinated by the bit that said his team are only running three cars this season. Only?
There's plenty more up for discussion and as ever, don't feel constrained by what I've mentioned above. I'll be in the comments most of the day, so I hope to see you there.
that'll be nascar then!
good to see the man's got funding. he may not be the best out there, but sponsors are still drawn to him.
f1 could do with someone like that right now.
Most of the top line NASCAR teams run four cars. I forgot with who but Chip Gannassi racing (Montoya's team) merged with another team and dropped a car to save on resources.
What Montoya really shows is that people are always drawn to personalities. It's something that NASCAR is so good at, marketing the personalities of their drivers. People over here (in the US) are drawn exclusively with drivers and not with teams. Look at what happened with Dale Jr. switched teams. All the fans and sponsors flocked to him and his new team.
What drives me nuts with F1 compared to NASCAR: NASCAR is just so good at marketing to its' audience and knowing what draws them. When is the last time we saw something like this from F1?
never. and all the surveys in the world won't help either. nor will buying football teams to "study" them.
But is the US audience so far removed from the rest of the world that what works there doesn't translate well?
Having said that, we do need some more 'personality' in F1 ( and not MS style fake happiness on the podium )
I think there are some things that do translate universally. I remember reading a survey a few years back discussing the global demographics of F1 fans (LINK: http://www.fia.com/mediacentre/Press_Releases/FIA_Sport/2006/September/260906-03.html) There are more similarities among fans around the world than people think.
Were not talking about complicated or specialized things. It's simple stuff. Its' recognizing what your fans want and giving it to them. Looking at the result of the survey, F1 is far then satisfying the basic things fans want.
NASCAR is also very good at the way it presents itself - they have used very sophisticated in-race graphics and telemetry which F1 only recently copied. Also, when they want to break from the race coverage to show a technical feature/old highlight/interview they show multiple screens so you don't miss anything and it's in HD.
But the best part for me is 'Crank it up'. After a restart, the commentators shut up for a couple of laps, the engine sound is cranked up and they switch to some 'action' camera angles such as a wall cam. It's excellent!
As I said before, F1 has ended up copying most of these things (which is good) but it does need to be more about the personalities. We need more James Hunt's and less Kimi Raikkonen's!
http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?id=44993&PO=44993
Looks like the drivers are fully endorsing the 2009 rule changes then :-(
http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3261_4822093,00.html
Some great Ronspeak there... :-D
Mind you, Kimi Raikkonen is just a less vocal version of James Hunt. Hunt is even Kimi's idol. :)
Whoops, bad example!
What I mean is, we need more exciting personalities in the paddock.
James Hunt was a drinking, smoking, outspoken partyer and womaniser who was either brilliant behind the wheel or mysteriously absent in form.
Kimi Raikkonen is the same, except he does a great job of hiding it. If he could find a way to bring out his personality, I am sure we would love him more!
I think he is great just the way he is.
Choose someone else to change :)
Some footage from testing yesterday: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wZN9Zdc8VDo
I'm still not liking those puney rear-wings...
He is, just very cold and unemotional 'in the paddock'.
Take him away from the F1 circus and he's lively and bubbly!
Re: Renault's new livery...
My Spanish colleague has suggested that maybe they were trying to imitate the Spanish flag with the new colour scheme. If so, he reckons it could have done with a bit more red...
What do you think?
Which is one of the things I like about him. But then I am a bit odd :)
pictures from yesterday's test.
I don't think they were to be honest. The inclusion of red is only present as it's part of Total's branding. The rest is pretty similar to what has gone before (bar the omission of the dark-blue).
Not sure a French team would do that, would they?
A French team built around a high-maintenance Spaniard though?
It is an admirable quality. It has only come into question because of his dip in form. If you win races, you are excused for any 'quirks' you may have. I could list a few drivers that come to mind, but it's too early in the morning to wake up that 'sleeping dog' ;-)
We all know that, but surely they wouldn't want to advertise it.
True. On a side note, Renault never seem to have had 'subtle' colour schemes, have they? I mean, quite a few of them look nice, but there are quite a few horrible and garish ones too...
Sidepodgame news
I got a nice surprise this morning when I logged on to BATRacer. Apparently, I won the most recent public BTCC race, which resulted in me becoming a Pro-level Racer. I am really happy - it's taken me since early 2007 to get out of the Academy and it's nice to have a wider range of public games I can play :)
Well done! ;-) I clearly have a long way to go with BATracer...
The criteria are 6 podiums, 2 wins, 1 pole and 1 fastest lap. The trick is to learn how to do BTCC racing - not only are there more cars in that series than in F1 2008, but the opposition (at least in the Academy) tends to be less committed.
Good to know, thanks ;-)
I guess a Sidepodcast game would have some pretty committed people in it... ;-)
Which is good for sponsorship. As much as we think their colour schemes are garish, they do stand out, which is what counts. Compare that to the dull-o-grey of the McLaren.
I guess a Sidepodcast game would have some pretty committed people in it… {Gavin Brown - 2 comments ago}
It will. Also, it's a private game, so I'm not sure whether it counts towards becoming a Pro-level racer even if you won every single round from pole with fastest laps every time.
Seeing as I haven't finished or qualified in the top 10 yet, I'm not too concerned about that :-D
just logged onto testing:
http://www.f1today.nl/live-update/2009/01/22/autdromo-internacional-do-algarve/
circuit status = red flag
weather = much rain
:(
They had a dry half a day, what more do you want?
more testing :)
Maybe someone should build an indoor track.
up to 100 jobs to go at renault:
"It has been suggested that the aero department will take the brunt of the cuts due to FIA cost cutting measures with regards to wind tunnel usage."
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/090122115744.shtml
good lord, imagine the noise!
i do hope so.
Or like Wimbledon, with a closeable roof.
Giant hair dryers on the back of trucks like the yanks?
very eco :)
lots of ex-renault employees with brooms? :-(
Top Gear uses four Stigs, the BBC reveals
Allright guys - I want the names of who you think are the Stigs :-)
No!!
The Stig is not a person. It's a thing. They tell you that every week.
So what sort of 'thing' do you think 'it' is then? :-D
Remember on the Now Show, they said it reminded them of the Thunderbirds theme tune...
It's a race suit and a helmet.
easy:
- stig
- stig's american cousin
- stig's african cousin
- rig stig
:D
What's 'rig stig'?
lorry driving stig.
me
my mate Pete
some guy Pete knows called 'Ben'
your mama
Oh :-)
When you say 'rig', I think of Oil Rigs :-D
wait. I think one of them is Mr C. Hence the secrecy surrounding his identity!
That was my first thought when I saw the stripes at the top of the shark fin. It looks like a Spanish flag.
The people who think his problems in 2008 were due to the driver don't understand what they are seeing. The problem was the team were totally unable to give him a car he could drive. You have to wonder why a team would pay him all that mney and not produce a modified chassis that he could get some decent results with.
A lot of their fan base is in Spain and presumably their sponsors are targettig the Spanish market. So if they can subliminally convince Spaniards that they are a Spanish team it could work in their favour.
Well done. Will this help with your RLB status?
You could also argue that if he was good enough, wouldn't he be able to drive around the problems and get the results anyway? The greatest drivers surely have to be adaptable. For example, look at a driver like Senna - in 1993 he had an awful car and he obliterated his team mate and won races.
Based on my non-existent knowledge of Dutch it looks like the helicopter is grounded by the weather so no-one is allowed out.
Unfortunately they still need to be able to use the emergency helicopter. And they can't build an indoor helicopter flight path.
that would make sense. like fuji '07 :)
it could land on the roof?
Keith raises some good points about what we need to know is happening during races this season.
Particularly the use of KERS (that's if any teams actually use it). Am I right in thinking that A1GP coverage highlights when a driver presses his 'go-go-go-faster button'? What's the betting that the FIA/FOM don't bother to show us?
actually, scrub that. the helicopter is necessary to ferry drivers to hospital right? so build a hospital under the roof.
bernie confirms your translation:
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/1/8874.html
also looks like we're through:
"The rain currently shows little sign of easing off and could prompt teams to call an early halt to their programmes, which are due to conclude this afternoon."
"An extension of the test is unlikely as World Superbikes are scheduled to use the Portimao circuit on Friday."
He does. Nice one Keith :-)
A1GP do show 'Push-to-Pass' on the screen - the amount of uses remaining and when it is being used. Amusingly, in one race the Canadian driver wasn't using his P2P and when they asked the team later, they told the TV coverage that it was because he kept hitting the radio button by mistake :_D
I don't think we'll see it in F1 because of all the secrecy in the different systems being developed. If we don't get radio coverage from all the teams, why will they release KERS data?
I think a crashed hurdler fell against the helicopter door because of the bad weather and now everyone is in danger and the session is stopped. ;)
I am sorry but that is plain wrong. Kimi has since he started karting set up his vehicles so the front end sticks and he controls the rear with the brake on the entry to corners and accelerator through and out of corners. The 2008 Ferrari had a front end that would not stick. So it could not give him the basic platform he needed to do his part of the job. Massa on the other hand like Alonso and Kubica doesn't care if there is front end grip as he needs the rear to stick as he controls the front end with his inputs. Unless a driver is given a car that has the basic handling charateristics he can deal with he cannot do his part. had the car been rubbish but tail happy Raikkonen would hav beaten Massa comfortably. As it was the available performance of the car was very good. It was without doubt the best car on the grid but it required a particular driving style to access that performance until the tyres were up to temperature. Unfortunately for Kimi it was very gentel on its tyres so took forever to get its tyre temeratures into a range he could use.
There have been some drivers over the years who had the ability to adjust their driving styles to drive anything. Much as i hate to say ot Schumacher was probably more adaptable than Senna because Senna's almost unique pulsing throttle action in corners required a particular car set up.
I happened to catch some A1GP highlights last night and they kept refering to which drivers were using power boost and how many uses they had left. They also had graphics to cover this.
I don't think anyone would build a hospital next to a race track. It is not a conducive environment for recovery. Besides Bernie would want to bill the staff and patients for watching.
grandprix.com take a shot at debunking the recent FT story about bernie refusing teams more money. then goes on to debunk the fred goodwin rumours:
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21128.html
have to admit i'm slightly confused by most of the story as it jumps across something like 6 topics, however they sound spot on with the last paragraph:
"Goodwin's credentials have been hammered somewhat of late because of the problems that hit RBS but it is being suggested that he could be a candidate for the FIA Presidency. This seems unlikely as he would need to be adopted by an FIA member club and would then need to win the support of clubs that have been loyal to Mosley and his allies for more than 15 years."
haven't heard much about goodwin going for max's job. any idea why people think he'd be any good?
:D
He has no chance of being FIA President because he is a good mate of a certain Scottish former racing driver who irritates Max.
So why couldn't he adapt his style to suit it? Not every car is going to be 100% right all the time.
But he mastered the car perfectly in 2007 - was the 2008 car so different? I cannot see this as the sole reason Kimi went off form in 2008 - the team would have been mental to develop the car away from his style and not listen to his input in testing/development.
Kimi's problems are in his head and we are letting him get away with it by saying it is the fault of the car. If that was the only reason, them Kimi is undeserving of being a world champion.
True, but for the money Kimi gets paid he should have either been tougher on the team to make it better or learn to adapt.
Sorry, I messed up the end there :-(
kimi always managed to come on song ten laps before the end of a race. once all the rubber had been laid down and he could find the grip he needed... or once he'd woken up.
the issue i think was as much to do with how the car worked it's tyres and kimi didn't do enough to manually generate any heat. maybe we just had too many cold races last year?
ahhh. so far as i can tell, he'd make a good president because... he likes motorsport?
Wouldn't running lower pressures or a bit less anti-roll bar fix that?
I'm not convinced it's 100% car. Steven is right that the car didn't suit him, but Kimi should have helped get rid of these 'faults' in testing, and driven around the rest. That's the difference between a good driver and a great driver.
He has 20 odd years experience of balancing the back of the car against his inputs and none of balancing the front. In old fashioned racing parlance his backside is well tuned to control the rear of the car. There is a difference between a car not being 100% right and being 100% wrong. There are certain fundamentals each driver needs from a car and last year Ferrari made kimi look bad by not being able to give him a car he could drive.
Look at what happened when the Michelin tyres disappeared. Alonso and Kubica had big problems because they were used to entering corners with the front end sliding knowing it would grip by a certain point. The Bridgestones behaved cvery differently and both drivers looked like they were in trouble until their teams managed to tweak their cars to give them some confidence.
Had Alonso been in Kimi's ca last year he would have been champion. Had Lewis been in it he would have struggled. Had kimi been in a McLaren he would have performed similarly to Lewis. A driver needs a certain level of confidence to deliver and he gets that from knowing that a car will do certain things in relation to control inputs. When it doesn't do that he has no basis to build on. If the car responds part of the way to what the driver wants he can tune the car and his driving style to get the best from it but if it is totally alien in its behaviour he is left looking like and aeroplane pilot in a helicopter. They are both flying machines but have few other similarities.
The team may not have deliberately designed the car to handle in the way it did. Going by the mid-season apology from Domenicali its extreme handling and their inability to tune it to Kimi's style was a surprise to the team. Ferrari in the Schumacher years built cars with a little inherent understeer. THe 2008 simply had way more understeer coupled with the fact that it took forever to heat up its tyres. It wa quite clear that Raikkonen could overcome its basic handling when the tyres were hot as is demonstrated by all those fastest laps but often by the the race was lost.
Domenicali said it was the car and it is quite clear that by the time the tyres got up to temperature he was comfortably faster than Massa but by then it was too late.
The team was simply unable to do anything to overcome tha basic characteristice of the chassis and nowadays cars are too complex and/or too expensive to build a B chassis mid-season it would seem.
Which explains why he drove so well in 2007 - no TC and lots of throttle-steering required ;-)
The difference between Kimi and Alonso is that Alonso adapted to the Bridgestones and could have been World Champion in 2007.
Agreed. So, my question now is, why was Kimi mega in 2007 and not 2008? How much difference between the cars was there really? Surely 2008 would have been a '2007 Evo', considering the success of the 2007?
He likes the sport and has a good business brain. Like a lot of people in tehe financial world he though he could control risk but was proved wrong. He is unlikely to make that mistake again.
How come it took until mid season (near the end of it's development life) to realise this? It should have been picked up early on, shouldn't it? Or was Kimi not involved in development at all?
Had there been a minor handling imbalance maybe but that particular car was evil. i watched an on-board la with Massa on one of the Friday morning sessions which happened to be the race after i went public saying that i thought Kimi would retire at the end of the season because his head wasn't in it any more. After that lap I totally changed my opinion. Massa missed 6 apexes and some of them by 4 or 5 feet. The car refused to turn in and when it was eventually forced to change direction it understeered like a pig on a polished floor. Although this was an extreme example of its behaviour and some of it could be tuned out over the session it highlighted how awful the handling was and showed the basic charateristics of the car.
I changed my mind on the reasons for Kimi's poor performance and on his imminent retirement afer about 4 corners of that lap.
:-D
Please somebody, put that in the dictionary!!!
The difference was that the team was able to tune the car to his liking. I think one of the greatest achievements in recent years is that McLaren were able to design a car that both Alonso and Hamilton could drive. Few teams would be able to accommodate two such extreme driving styles in the one car. had Hamilton been making his debut as Alonso's team mate in a Ferrari in 2008 he would have looked like Piquet.
I am sure the team were aware of it early on and felt that they could overcome it. I would not be remotely surprised if the reason Schumacher tested the car was to find a solution to the problem.
Yep, sounds feasible. I also think Kimi may not have done as much testing as he should have. That's the only explanation I can think of that would have led to such a disaster.
Done
The troube is that by the time they start testing the new car the chassis already cannot be changed. The problem is that the parameters used to design the chassis were wrong. I hope Ferrari understand where they went wrong because the new regulations should suit Kimi assuming they can give him a car he can cope with.
OK... so why change the chassis so much between 2007 and 2008? Is it to do with the flexible floor being banned in 2007, perhaps?
I guess we will never knpw the answer to that. It could have been the new people trying to show that their ideas were right. It could have been that their design software had a flaw in it. Or it could have been something like the floor mass damper being outlawed meant that they could take out the bits that were necessary only for that and didn't understand the implications.
Based on my non-existent Dutch it looks like eveyone has packed up and gone home. No moretesting this week.
India 'will host 2011 Grand Prix'
I hope the track will be ready for 2010 when Donington can't be delivered on time... :-(
:(
BMW are testing in Valencia tomorrow
Afternoon all,
50 years ago today...
Britain's First World Champion, Mike Hawthorn died. :-(
Indeed. His final journey began not far from where I'm sitting; the Tourist Trophy garage is still there, although it's now a carpet showroom.
there was some news about it the other day, but i'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned around the web more?
Some have suggested that this has already happened due to the look of the new car.
Probably because the wretched GMM hasn't picked it up!
I'm working on something for Autosport.com which may go up on Sunday – there's a memorial service and a parade of vintage cars around town.
The front end of that car looks like somebody's granny's applecatcher knickers blew in to the windtunnel by mistake...
please fire us a link when it's up. we promise not to tell you-know-who :)
BAT is done - TORO ROSSO WINS!
voldermort? :P
talking about gmm, they finally picked up on the bourdais story:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2009/01/21/keep-or-not-keep-his-toro-rosso-in-2009/
i make that a 24+ hour delay. gmm's take here:
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/090122162902.shtml
it wouldn't take much effort to completely undermine gmm's business model would it? all it would take is to follow enough rss feeds and employ the services of google translate.
reckon we can put them out of business before the end of the year?
That's about all he does anyway... As to the delay – maybe he had a day off!
it's just one person? at the prices he charges must be making a killing!
i'd be tempted to do it just to annoy them. not very creative though is it?
I see my crashing love affair with Trig continues.
Evnin all.
:(
I was leading for the first few laps... Stupid machanical problems costing me points. I always have machanical problems, even though my machanical sympathy is 50... battacer hates me :P
Safety car got me again. Nice comfortable second turned into 4th. Woodwiss pits and on the next lap the word pitted under the safety car and he made up a stack of positions. Well done Scott.
Fifty years ago today Britain lost its first World Champion - Grandprix.com
Remind me not to take part in the F1 Racing/ING Direct F1 Fans Survey next year.
Would be nice to have the full results wouldn't it? Well if you do, be prepared to fork out for them. Prices start from £1,500 up to £5,000 for what appears to be just a USB memory stick with some spreadsheets on it.
Bit of a joke really.
Wow... I am a Data Analyst - but I should have applied for a job at ING instead :-)
thank you. duly bookmarked.
holy......
you have a link?
Evening all. Am continuing in the vein of strange places to live comment from. This time the back of cab in London's glittering west end.
We're gonna need to start a list.
:)
I've just passed Chancery Lane.
Am now opposite Bung Hole pub.
I forgot to quote this
:) was for the list
heading anywhere nice?
No mention online. It's just an ad in this week's Autosport. The options are as follows:
Option A: £1500
Survey results, plus regional presentations on China, India, North America, Russia and UK
Option B: £4000
Survey results, regional presentations and 118 supporting data tables.
Option C: £5000
Survey results, regional presentations, 118 data tables and survey extra spontaneous F1 brand awareness study.
Options D: £2500
Survey extra: Spontaneous F1 brand awareness study consists of 75 data tables
Prices are applicable only to F1 teams, sponsors, circuits and broadcasters.
What a load of ol' bobbins.
testing update from rf1pp on the renault blog:
"We've called it a day here in Portugal - Ferni didn't complete one lap! It has been a total washout, which is a shame as at this stage of the season we need to maximise all the time available. Seems like most of Europe has been damp this week so I guess all the teams are in the same position..."
it might be more expensive, but they shoulda tried bahrain.
Clearly what we need is the ability to geotag the comments ;)
Cab fare currently £11!!!
hmmm.
sponsored by ING?
I am. Off to a private members club!!! Not as a member but as a guest! Completely off the radar from normal life for me before anyone gets the wrong idea!
you gonna live comment from a private members club??
i thought you stopped buying it?
for a spreadsheet?? blimey!
Well the cab fare is more than the price of a certain F1 team! But I guess most things are these days.
How can they ask us to fill the thing in then not tell us the result. That should be in big bold letters up front. Absolutely pathetic F1 Racing and ING. What a great way to annoy your customers. Really, really bright. NOT
I'll try. But I'm not sure on the etiquete.
just plain rude.
How many Lewis Hamiltons are there? I thought he was meant to be in portugal today and he turned up on the Scottish news doing donuts in the car park of a johnny Walker bottling plant.
Meh, I did. Once. I just find it a heck of a lot easier to adsorb information from text in a book/magazine than I do reading it online. I'm weird like that.
We should do a Sidepodcast survey and flog it to the masses. I'll take 10% of all sales seeing as it was my idea.
Deal?
Cool.
he wasn't testing today was he?
Heikki was. And sat in the garage doing pretty much nothing all day didn't he?
I am walking past the Ivy
no cars went out today :(
anyone else find this strangely compelling?
And I'm inside now. Good night all!
Mweh, I make ideas and end up getting nowt.
gah!
make an idea that earns us squillions and we'll give you 10% ;)
*Makes mental calculations.
Deal
You will live comment ANYTHING, won't you?
I think everyone will to be fair. Before long there will be commenting on paint drying.
glossy or matte?
It'll depend on the situation I suppose.
Must have been my new lucky red helmet :P
Have made a wiki page to keep track of Alex.
http://sidepodcast.wetpaint.com/page/Giggles+Live+Commenting+Tour
:D
I am sure you will get a couple of per cent from the film script. Is that about finished yet?
Put on the backburner as my exams, getting back to it by the weekend
Apparantly, the mod queue wants me to get back to my script straight away
I saw in the news that Obama was sworn in again today because the guy feeding him his lines at the big event screwed up and got the words wrong. I heard Obama stumble and thought the occasion was getting to him but it looks like he realised something was wrong and was querying it. If that had been Bush he could have sworn an oath of allegiance to the pretzel appreciation society and not noticed.
I have completed my practise runs - slowly - and sent you the set up info Scott.
if anyone has any free time, we're trialling some new anti-spam solutions over at f1 minute.
earlier today i cut off jolly by using an over-aggressive solution, have scaled it back somewhat now.
questions are:
- can you navigate the site ok?
- can you leave a comment ok?
- can you listen to podcasts ok?
if all goes well we'll implement the same here too.
additionally looking into solving the moderation queue problems here, but more on that next week.
Aye, a bit slow, but might be my computer
2/2 so far. Even if the comment makes no sense at all ;)
You mean on the iPod or on the website? On web seems fine.
interesting. f1m is twice as fast as spc on my browser.
both ideally, but web site is handy. cheers.
Quick test, seemed the same, f1 minute slightly quicker.
cheers buddy.
No worries sir.
I was gonna post a link saying 'Bourdais to secure second Toro Rosso seat' then I saw the GSS Source at the bottom.
Oh gawd, I mixed RSS with GMM.
:D
A deadly cocktail, if ever I heard one.
We made the Wetpaint 500!!
Okay, ranked 497. But still.
What does that actually mean?
We like to edit stuff things
Bad hour for me, technically, there should have been a line through 'stuff'
Bourdais has it! (apparently) :P
http://formula-1.updatesport.com/news/article/1232637600/formula_one/F1headlines/Bourdais-to-secure-second-Toro-Rosso-seat/view.html
http://www.wetpaintcentral.com/page/Wetpaint+500?t=anon
Since when did we qualify for a NASCAR race? ;)
Yeah, but as I said earlier, I found it on F1-Live with it sourced by GMM/GSS thingy
that article doesn't contain any more information than christine gave you yesterday?
exactly. and as stuart pointed out earlier in this very thread. gmm is one man and his feedreader.
genius :D
What exactly is GMM and why is it so evil?
I would post a link but I can't find them on google.
evil is probably a strong word. but in short, the company aggregate f1 news stories (often from unreliable sources) and resell them to news sites.
problem is, many stories are badly translated and often it seems deliberately miss key information in order to make them sound more exciting than they are.
take the alonso in plane crash incident, where gmm accidentally missed the word taxiing from the news release, kinda changed the story somewhat from the factual but dull - alonso's plane brushes a fence!
if you trace back many of f1's controversies - the kind that get fans riled up - you'll find a gmm misquote at the root of it all.
they need to make money, but aren't journalists. basically it's like sourcing your f1 stories from the daily mail / the sun. sensationalist and most often rubbish. take every one with a pinch of salt and see check facts always.
Thanks. I shall ignore GMM stories from now on then ;-)
What, don't you believe everything you read in the newspapers? ;-)
always look for those three characters whenever you read a story :)
i believe that hamilton likes pizza?
Some good humour at the Algarve
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/algarve-jpg
Quite. Good night all :-D
Night Gavin
see ya!
hahahahah!
Do you reckon the next message would have been "No lifeboat available due to actual lack of water!"?
Yes, yes and yes
exellent. thanx.
Good night Gavin.
having said that... i see no comment?
Donohue takes Daytona 24hrs pole by just 0.001sec!
Maybe there are as many Hamiltons as there are Stigs? Bit sloppy though, having 2 turn up at the same time...
So how did you quote a comment that doesn't exist?
Oooh, close. I take it thats on tomorrow at when our time?
I wonder how anyone can get insurance to run Donohue
just type?
http://www.daytona24hr.com/
The race is Saturday/Sunday
Right, cheers mate
In automotive terms, you mean 'two-pack' or 'enamel'
iPhone 2.3 software?
I shall attempt to comment from my conference next week in the Grand Ballroom at the Ivy in Sydney. Etiquette shmetiquette!
am already looking forward to it ;)
Has everyone gone to bed?
All F1 drivers should be clean shaven. There, I said it. Discuss.
nope. working on doohickey fixes.
noooooo. have you seen slick nick's new website?
http://www.nickheidfeld.com/
the man is cool.
Try hard!
(yes I am jealous!)
hehe. i object to the chequered flag shirt mind you.
Hey everyone, i've just got back from seeing Rhod Gilbert :D omg the man is hilarious! :D i hope you have all had a good evening too :)
:o Jenson looks good with a beard though... ;)
was it the number of smileys that got me moderated? must remember to stop using so many... :)
am hoping to have that sorted by next week.
give it a refresh, i've dug you out.
cheers :)
glad you had a good time :)
thanks, i can't actually remember the last time i laughed so much that both my sides and face hurt. he is almost too funny :) it also helped take my mind of the amount of work i have, plus the really bad cold i seem to have picked up this week.
that is value for money!
best £13 i ever spent :)
hope you feel better soon Lou
I met Rod Quantock and his wife yesterday at work. He is an Australian comedian partially responsible for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and has been making me laugh since I was a kid.
thanks :) i don't have much of a voice atm, however i'm looking at it positively :) i've only had one day off this week because of it, and i've held out much longer than my friends, who all got this bug/cold thing in early December :D
did he live up to your expectations?
I am glad he was good live. I know he is good on TV but it doesn't always translate to being good live.
Didn't really say much to them. I went all shy for some reason. For years he did some cheesy ads for the Sleep Doctor (bedding store) and I think he gets recognised more for that than his comedy.
:) he really was excellent, he did some of the same sketches that he did at live at the apollo (the duvet one springs to mind) but somehow he was even funnier. Although i'm not sure how he could have disappointed us given the title of his tour is, Rhod Gilbert and the award winning mince pie XD a member of the audience even bought him a packet of mince pies. lol anyway, i'm shattered, and sleep is probably an advisable solution to this problem. Night all x
night lou.
When Champ Car was still around they brought in the 'push to pass' for the last 3 or so seasons I can't remember what method they used to get the boost but I think the drivers a limit of 60 seconds and we were shown during the race how much boost a driver had left.
Just imagine if Bernie had been running the show back then and forced his idiotic medal idea Mike Hawthorn wouldn't have one his drivers title, now that would have been a crime. Medals we don't want no stinking medals.
Trust me, as a painter, watching paint dry is not all that exciting. Been there done that.
Then again, Stirling Moss would've become champ. The fact he never became champ is a bit of a crime too, isn't it?
NOTE: I'm not a fan of the medals system, either. Just playing devil's advocate.
It is.
don't fancy live commenting it?
Trust me, as a painter, watching paint dry is not all that exciting. Been there done that.
don’t fancy live commenting it? {me quoting Aitch - previous comment}
Commenter 1: And as we come to the crucial phase of the drying, leading up to the second coffee break, the red quarter of the wall is in the lead.
Commenter 2: What drying strategy is it on?
Commenter 3: I'll go and look up the tin of paint if I can. Does anyone remember what models of paint the sole supplier took to this drying?
Commenter 1: The medium-quick drying stuff and the one-coat stuff.
Commenter 3: Thanks!
Commenter 2: Ooh, look, the green quarter of the wall has dribbled onto the carpet.
Commenter 4: Oh no!
Commeneter 5: Oops!
Commenter 6: Does anyone else think the green part of the wall won't be contracted for next race?
Commenter 2:
LOL
Commenter 1: Is it me or has the grey quarter of the wall caught up?
Commenter 3: I don't know. My live timing screen's frozen. I blame Bernie.
Commenter 4: I blame Steven Roy.
Steven Roy: Typical!
Commenter 1: That's surprising - Radio Thingy's House has got hold of the manager for Grey Paint on the line.
Commenter 2: What is he saying? I can't get RTH from here because of some geographic restriction :(
Commenter 1: And the grey quarter lines up to become dryer than the red quarter and... ...oh wait a minute, what's that?
Commenter 2: Hairdryer on wall
Commenter 4: WHAT?!?
Commenter 5: Someone is putting a giant hairdryer thingy to the purple quarter of the wall.
Commenter 1: Isn't that against the regulations?
Commenter 2: Yes.
Commenter 4: You can say that again!
Commenter 2: Yes.
Commenter 5: That'll be a 10-minute penalty if the stewards are paying attention.
Commentator 1: Meanwhile, grey quarter is now dryer than red quarter.
Commentator 2: The camera missed it because it was showing a replay.
Commentator 4: Well, there was a fairly large distraction...
Commentator 2: But it was a super-slo-mo replay of a green quarter paint droplet from earlier in the drying...
Commentator 5: That's what you get when you have the wrong sort of camera people on the job. Bring back the old days!
Commentator 1: And the chequered flag is waved, even though all four quarters have been on a one-coffee-break strategy.
Commentator 2: What do you mean, the purple quarter won?
Commentator 4: That's rubbish!
Commentator 1: Message on screen: There will be no investigation of the incident concerning quarter 4 of the wall. The stewards are satisfied that it was a drying incident.
Commentator 2: No way!
Commentator 5: Get some proper stewards!
Commentator 4: You can't let purple quarter win! Hairdryers are banned under Article 196 of the Drying Regulations.
Commentator 3: Just had to reboot my computer because Live Timing locked up the whole computer. Did I miss anything?
Judging on how fast they where going, I was planning on live commenting how was the grass was growing under the tyres of the Hondas.... :P