We have reached Friday once again, and according to my super duper calendar, Massa is getting behind the wheel of the F2008 with GP2 tyres on, so look out for some pictures of him getting some Barcelona track time. Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're talking about:
- James Allen has written about the Schumacher number business, which is pretty much old news by now, but I thought it was worth linking to. Lukeh's first comment on that item sums up the whole thing!
- Whilst Williams team principal Sam Michael has been half complimenting his new driver lineup, Rubens himself is fired up for the year ahead. He's been visiting the factory, learning everyone's name, and says he is still massively hungry for success. This is good news for the team, now they just have to provide a decent car.
- Pedro de la Rosa has been speaking out about any criticism's against him. Whilst he won't come out and say he's going to be brilliant this year (he's modest like that), he has said that he expects to surprise people and he's hoping that testing will get him up to speed. He's glad there's plenty of it.
That should do it for now, let us know what you've got planned for the weekend. Gavin's going skiing! I'll see you in the comments.
It is the public holiday Australia Day on Tuesday the 26th of January, and because I have Sunday and Monday off, I have a long weekend!
Why on earth they made it Tuesday is beyond me. Is anyone going to work on Monday?!
I am currently not sure what I am doing on the weekend but I just hope I do it well.... Anyway, it is still Thursday in the "Land of Soggy Tundra....".
We could however, all gang up on Christine to ask that we watch the movie Grand Prix at some point before the 2010 season starts to fix our collective Grand Prix withdrawl..... It is after all, a movie most approved by Lou.... !
Good plan. It is quite long. At least the DVD version I have is quite long..
My DVD version is 176 minutes, or 4 minutes short of 3 hours. I wonder if that includes the intermission and the other silly musical breaks.....
How on earth do you manage to copy and paste my text into a shaded grey box, Pat? The best I can do is cut and paste, and it looks awful.....
Mine has the intermission and a long intro! May have to do some fast-forwarding..
Go here: http://sidepodcast.com/realtime/
Then when you reply, just click the bit of text you want to quote.
Interesting evening. I was planning on an early night. Now someone's playing Cupid.
are you involved in it?
Unfortunately yes.
I watched that late lat year. Love the old Monaco and (somewhere in France) footage. Oh! and Monza banking!!!
as part of the couple-that-should-be or as cupid?
The couple that should be.
I guess from your answers that you don't agree very much with it...
I'm too tired to know what to think.
Right, sleep time, before I go insane. Also have to present my coursework tomorrow afternoon, so best I did go to sleep.
We could however, all gang up on Christine to ask that we watch the movie Grand Prix at some point before the 2010 season starts to fix our collective Grand Prix withdrawl..... It is after all, a movie most approved by Lou.... !
I watched that late lat year. Love the old Monaco and (somewhere in France) footage. Oh! and Monza banking!!!
Old Monaco? How can you tell, With the exception of the removal of the Marshall's box and the addition of La Rasacce, I do not think the track has changed a bit since it had the 1950's state of the art safety feature know as hay bales...
The hotel hadn't been built yet so there was a different tunnel, chicane was different (surprisingly fast), La Rascasse as you say.. and the place isn't as built up as now.
Bedtime, good night
the chicane after the tunnel was different (more a change from one side to the other of the street at full speed than chicane), and the piscine complex is also different.
night pat
Any news about a Sidepodcast League in Fantasy Racers, Mr. C ?
well, we created one, and it looks like you're signed up to it.
i think the plan is that we'll compete again, but it'll continue this year as a blog thing, rather than a podcast thing. i haven't confirmed that with christine though.
if anyone would like to join, the league name is "sidepodcast" and you don't appear to need to enter a password this year.
http://www.fantasyracers.com/
Cool.
I just wanted a typical F1 Team name, principal sponour, team owner's name, engine, and tyres and before someone else came up with the idea. It did occur to me that perhaps you might have forgotten about it.....
us? never!
well... okay a remind never hurts. it's me age i tell ya.
hopefully the annoying "+" sign appearing in comment names has gone away again now.
(not that i'm the best person to test these things of course)
22/01/2010 at 03:17:30#25 - me said: I just wanted a typical F1 Team name, principal sponour, team owner's name, engine, and tyres and before someone else came up with the idea. It did occur to me that perhaps you might have forgotten about it.....
us? never!
well... okay a remind never hurts. it's me age i tell ya.
Well, I heard that the EMF of having a camera strapped to a person chest can cause memory loss, but why would a person have a camera taped on his/her chest?
now that is a question :)
i must sleep, see ya tomorrow.
Actually it has. Problems decoding the space key into its proper value between codexs? Think it is 40 hex in ASCII, not to sure what codexs Mac uses....
Nite, me.
Grand Prix? ...Did Jordan+F1 surmise to petition Christine early on to a 'John Frankenhiemer Oscar winning 1966 romantic authenticF1 racing movie Grand Prix' night?
Pour some sugar on me Sistahh!!
Basically, there was no dedicated pitlane yet, so the back straight was still right beside the main straight. When they converted the back straight into the dedicated pitlane, they had to move the back straight onto the reclaimed land, and it had to go around the Swimming Pool that was there before it.
And you're right, the Grand Hairpin was in that awkward stage - no more train station, but no hotel yet...
Oh, and Grand Prix is EPIC. It's a must-watch for any F1 fan.
Their French footage was in Clermont-Ferrand - which is odd, as the French GP wasn't there that year.
But I'll be here all day - we are going as a day trip tomorrow ;)
1am sleep + 4am fire alarm.
Though is not amused
Not amusing at all, Jon. Who caused the alarm?
For those who like the Get a Mac ads, here they all are: http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/get-a-mac-the-complete-campaign.html
Good morning everyone.
Just saw the Nyck de Vries article. I'm shocked that he'll be managed by Anthony Hamilton. :O He's an actual driver manager now?? :O
Hello, Christine.
I am working through my lunch today so I can leave early, but it does make the day seem to stretch ahead rather ominously.
Could he treat the little boys managed by him as like his son before?
Morning all
He has been Paul di Resta's manager for a year or so as well. Clearly he is building up a nice little business for himself.
He has a decent record, he's not ordered anyone to crash into a wall, Nyck could do worse...
Is SPC doing fantasy racers this year, by the way?
Must be topic of the day. The same question was asked at 3am
hmmm... search engine fail?
We definitely won't be talking about it on the podcast. As Mr C has said before, I think, it would take more than five minutes to explain it, and our shows are long enough as they are!
If there's demand, we can have a blog thread for each race to share selections and progress.
Seems fair enough
Can I take over the blogging part of that, if you're really not that bothered about it? I could incorporate it into my FR roundup post?
Sounds good to me. I was thinking more of the reminder threads I used to post, so that people have somewhere to put what they have chosen, and then can return to it after the event.
Most likely we won't decide until about five minutes before we have to :)
Hehe no probs there - have a think about it though because I could definitely see it being incorporated into my FR stuff with very little extra effort ;)
Morning all, I don't know what to do with myself today which is odd.
What are your options?
I have nothing on my cards! The only thing I have to be doing is the dissertation but I have every day next week all set out to get through my dissertation regarding research, meetings, doing the work etc so I'd rather leave that til next week. Apart from that I'm free as a bird, I can't remember the last time I had nothing to do!
Sounds excellent. What would you like to do? You have to start at the beginning and narrow down your options.
Go outside/Stay inside?
Do something creative/just watch TV and stuff?
Make a flowchart or something. That'll kill some time :)
Watch it, Mrs C will have you doing a guest blog before you know it...
Oh goodness, that's too much thinking for a Friday :P
If you're REALLY bored, you Gant chart all of that
Shhh, I was building up to that.
I don't know what I could write about. :(
Use your photoshop skills and show how team liveries could be improved
Okay, ideas, ideas, ideas.
Rubens has been in the news recently. Apparently he's quite demanding. I know you'd have words to say about Rubens.
Or, write about how you're feeling for the upcoming year. Whether this off season has been better or worse than the last one. If you're looking forward to the launches, or want the racing to get here already.
You could write about what a mess testing is and how very confusing it all appears to be.
Or expand on the stoopid Schumachers number thing and do a bit of research about numbers and patterns and who wins what in which cars.
Or maybe some stuff about Mr C's new best friend Boullier and how team principals appear to be getting younger and younger just like the drivers. Soon there will be a chance for us!
There's just a few anyway. Mr C is much better at the motivation thing than I am.
That's awesome! I am tempted... I wouldn't mind doing steven's idea but if there's one thing I struggle with on photoshop it's anything involving cars. Which is just horribly unfortunate considering my love for them, boo.
*puts thinking cap on*
Bilge are suggesting that Vitaly Petrov is hoping to land a race seat backed by sponsorship of €800,000... per race!
That's hard to resist if you're Renault never mind USF1 or Campos
Not sure if there is a clash between Gazprom and Total though
Sounds like you might need the practice then :)
Is that RG again?
That's approx. £12m for the entire season. Blimey.
I think there is bound to be. If he has that kind of money I am surprised he has not been snapped up already. He could probably get a 50% share of Campos for that never mind a race seat
I assume Bukd
Clearly Dr Evil is looking to get into F1
Bild
I don't know really, they might not be stepping on each others toes, and oil and gas companies work together all the time. They're working together in the Russian arctic as it happens. So maybe, maybe not...
yep
Ah. I see the name Petrov, I assume it's come from RG's tweet :)
Morning..
Morning! How's it going?
Am just looking at methods with photoshop and cars and somehow I've decided I like a reverse livery Brawn that I just quickly made...
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/brawnrevese-jpg
My eyes!!
Virgin is supposed to be all black
I dunno why I like it. It kinda looks like a Banana on wheels.
OMG!
Imagine a driver being hauled up in front of the stewards claiming he had not seen that in his mirrors.
Why do you have to do anything?
Did you do Thursday Thoughts? could do it delayed..
He could claim he was momentarily blinded by it instead
Good thanks, have caught up on most of my work and cleared old rubbish from my desk. yourself?
Morning all.
Are you typing in a darkened room?
I'd heard he doesn't have anything like that much money. Still, may be wrong.
Currently being pestered by wet cats.
:-)
Someone said the other day Petrov doesn't have the money everyone thinks... was it Stuart?
ah speak of the man himself.. :-)
wet as an otters pocket?
must. resist. obvious. pun.
Very nearly - and with dirty paws, too! They both scarpered when the postman rang the doorbell.
i have noticed a potential issue, and that's a certain blogger has also signed up. which isn't the end of the world, except we're doing everything we can to avoid comparisons with him, and this would put us right back in the firing line (number of teams, number of points etc).
maybe we also need a random team name too?
check your damn facts racing, or something.
i meant a random league name. doh.
That's a good random name
Ha!
apparently i'm only allowed to create x1 league, so you may have to do it, but we'll hatch a plan later.
i like the idea of it not being spc related and just a generic league.
Perhaps Gavin should do it? He is keen :)
The League of Extraordinary Duplication of Site Features?
Unnamed Energy Drink League?
Sure... I don't mind. I get the idea that the "other blogger's" league was started more by fans of the site rather than the blogger himself...
You can only join 2 leagues and you can't leave leagues so if you're thinking of making a new league, you might want to bear that in mind
Perhaps you can request a name change of the existing league?
say what?
You can't leave leagues? That's stupid.
I'm stuffed then as I joined SPC and VivaF! :(
Concorde agreement and all that ;-)
Ah, I only joined SPC so I can partake in another one...
what if we closed the spc league?
DAAAAAAAAAAAANNY!!
Well the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is like a film an a cartoon and it was the only league I could think of... And then I just made a reference to the Other Blog that we don't mention instead of Gentlemen.
I think you're right. If you don't want comparisons then close the SPC league and call the new one 'Panda Something'?
The first rule of Fantasy Racers is you can't ever leave Fantasy Racers
I guess it is to stop leagues recruiting players to improve their score. AUTOSPORT could have offered Kathi a bribe to switch leagues so they could win. I don't see why you should not be allowed to seitch leagues before the season starts
as yes. the duplication of site features has been noted.
magpie strikes again (..and again) :)
It's all so complicated!!
I think we did that last year, so that's probably a better option
Or everyone else could change leagues to one that Kathi wasn't winning :-)
Only just looking at this year's Fantasy Racers. Unlimited changes but £40m budget, or stuck with the same mob with £45m to spend?
Surely, surely, everyone will go with the former rather than the latter option?
The latter is the lazy option, I can see the attraction for some
Problem I see is, that I have to make my selection before I actually know how much each driver is?
You would have been screwed last year had you picked a sacked or injured driver!
Wait till Melbourne Friday. That's your best bet!
how long can a team name be?
i like the idea of the league of extraordinary duplication of site features beating the other blog. but then that might defeat the purpose!
Or you spent the bulk of your budget on McLaren and Ferrari drivers
And that is what I'll do. Or Bahrain Friday at least.
Are they swiping code again?
You can do it after testing and Bahrain free practice
The way the driver values are spread out you could pick 3 drivers from the 2 best teams (lets say Ferrari and McLaren look dominant) and a decent fourth driver - with 40 million you can't really do that
I hadn't noticed. Will investigate when I get home.
I'd softened my opinion recently too.
Doesn't that make it sound like those in the league do that kind of thing?
Bahrain Saturday morning apparently after FP3, before Quali
a) there is no "they", it's just a person, a laptop and much self delusion
b) only ideas, not code (although i haven't checked now you mention it)
ahhh.
ALEX!
I agree
sidepodcast league now closed.
Panda-something-or-other league FTW?
Panda Racing League
Secret Panda Confederation (see what I did with the initials there ;-) )
Dammit!
Was drinking my coffee, got that horrible feeling I had to cough, tried to suppress it and blew coffee all over my keyboard! :(
All cleaned up now though!
It's January and I'm sat in the office with all the windows open as the heating has been cranked up to Scorchio for some unknown reason.
That's my office.
Every.Single.Day :(
I am having the exact opposite problem. Ever since it stopped snowing, people seem to have decided that it must be warm.
It's like someone spilled a truck of highlighter ink on the car!
Rules say that this is an exception and that you can swap out the sacked/injured driver in this case.
Right, out of curiosity, I went to find a thermometer and, with all the windows open, it is 33 deg C!
Once you've decided on the name, BTW, lemme know. ;)
Oh, no AUTOSPORT league this year, it seems?
But I'm guessing there will be a lot of bargain deals in the midfield which you can pick up on if you go for unlimited changes.
Right now, we're at a very cold 18 deg C. I'm wearing a jacket, but I'm shivering!
The top 4 teams have all drivers at 12 or 12.5 million, everyone else is 7 to 8 million at the moment, not the same sort of spread as last year
True, but then you have drivers like Kubica and Rubens available at a cheaper price, so I think it's worth the trade-off. I would agree that it can work either way, though.
Ah, reading the fine print now - a maximum of only 6 drivers
The Kathi Rule. But given the price range, it'll probably be difficult to get more than 6 drivers.
:)
I reckon Danny has been tearing his hair out trying to figure out how to stop Kathi ;)
The Kathi Rule makes it difficult for Kathi to do her stock broker-like strategy of play, buying and selling drivers in real-time, because the driver lineup is frozen on Saturday and Sunday.
Oooh. McLaren set to unveil their brum brum on the Interweb next week.
that was how it used to be though.
online streaming! yippee.
*fingers crossed for dodgy film trailer video*
Not sure what you mean?
two years ago you couldn't change drivers on a whim. or a least if you did, it made no odds to their price.
I assume Vodafone servers will be hosting the streaming? Let's hope they can keep up.
Just a thought, though. In 2007, they launched in Valencia to herald the arrival of Alonso. Three years on, and they're now Team GBR personified, and the UK launch says as much.
kimmy noooooooo!
Or it says: we want to save some money.
true. but i guess danny wants to keep the price increase/decrease aspect without people taking advantage of speculation on the value.
Probably both. But if it were 2007 now rather than 2010, they'd probably have done a glitzy launch in the UK anyway,
wassup?
she lost in less than an hour! I was counting on her to be at the final. Them rafa scared me a bit too.
Oh, Clijsters! Yeah, I was shocked! Petrova had no trouble with her at all.
now that pedro has left mclaren, and we have @thefifthdriver, who's the fourth?
I was thinking this the other day. Shall I ask him?
please do :)
I thought you were talking about Raikkonen
that 14 year old kid, no?
Nyck de Vries!
they already have oliver rowland in the young driver program. if you follow that logic, he should be @thesixthdriver
http://twitter.com/dank_ross/status/8067700499
heeh!
Alan Donnelly is not being allowed anywhere near the stewards office...
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81026
...and he's always done such a good job too.
It's me ;)
I have complied.
Still, he'll/they'll never respond. And that irritates the me to a degree it probably shouldn't do.
They also have some kind of contract with Giedo can der Garde
could be worse, @clairevwilliams is yet to respond to a single person.
Oh, well in that case I should have factored in their chauffeur drivers as well?
I've had quite a few replies from @thefifthdriver (although this fact may only irritate you more)
That irritates me about a lot of these twitter accounts. They only ever respond to have a go at someone!
Ok well, there are a few well known people who are either too dim to actually know how to reply, feel it's too beneath them to reply to us plebs, or just can't be bothered.
hello?
ah yes.. sorry/
hi.
i forgot what i wanted now...
that was it.
:)
Exactly. I heard one (a tech journalist) say that they reply to when people send them emails, but then gets annoyed when they reply again as 'it's like they want to have a conversation or something and [they] cannot be bothered with that'.
Does that sound snooty or did this person just say it wrong?
What does he want?
i don't know!
http://twitpic.com/z5f8y
Rubens karting with his kids, from the looks of it.
Hang on a minute... he's using his Brawn-coloured helmet?
Perhaps he's waiting for the Williams to launch before he debuts his new helmet?
three cheers!
I've just been to lunch. Have I missed anything?
#ducksforcover
:)
I guess, but he was already using his traditional helmet colours (albeit with a grey top rather than blue) in the 2nd half of 2009.
oh they got rid of Purnell too..
we got together and decided that what we want is everything, and when we want it is now. we also concluded you're the right man for the job.
so, erm, not much.
Sounds very much like a lot of work meetings I don't attend.
Did I see that you wanted the SPC league renamed? Or deleted?
I feel I should also point out the realtime doohickey doesn't work for me in IE8 - my employers browser of choice. :(
noted. hopefully being addressed this weekend. maybe even this evening, will keep you posted.
We still use IE6!
whichever is easier. i'm not sure we found a definitive alternate name though?
don't even think about it...
I'm using FF 2.0.0.20 right now...
Much easier to rename.
although i did notice the funky calendar popup works in ie6. the rest of the site however. not so much.
It's a good day all round then
cool. i may have closed the league, but i'm guessing i can open it again?
we'll email you later if that's ok? sorry to be high maintenance pain-in-the-bums. much plugging will commence next week to make up for it!
So do we! :O
it could be worse, you could be using opera.
SPC represented 10% of the Fantasy Racers entries last year - it's my JOB to keep you happy.
Same link to open as it was to close.
Awww. :D
fantastic. we'll aim to beat that this year.
What's so bad about Opera?
it doesn't appear to be able to count to 300.
the spc sidebar is messed up on opera windows. fine on opera mac and fine on every other browser including ie6.
Fair enough. Haven't used it for 5 years!
IE6 does so hate blockquotes, or maybe it is vice versa, either way IE6 is dumb
Blockquotes work fine for me on IE6. Am on Ye Olde Comments, though.
Latest Rencken article is up and he's reviewing the current state of the teams:
http://www.autosport.com/features/article.php/id/2600
(paywall)
OK Right now, I'm Hyperventilating - Check the upper right hand corner of this document: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2010/01/22/SportF1Car2.pdf
WOW! :D
Hehe, nice!
Someone fetch that man a brown paper bag!
Hyperventilating with a capital H.
Would that be your data?
I would have thought it would be more like HYPERVENTILATING! :p
YES :D
Check the source :P
Heavens to Mergatroid! That's friggin' awesome! Five Pints of Awesome, even! :D
So where is this on the website itself, Gavin?
It's in today's newspaper apparently...
Could somebody do me a HUGE favour and buy me a copy? I'll pay to get it sent over...
Fantastic, well done!
Will have a look for one on the way home
I can feel another Page 22 phenomenon happening.
brilliant, and that's a quality presentation too.
!!!!!!! Congratulations!
That is very exciting. Did they let you know they would be using it?
Yeah he requested it last night - I thought I had missed the deadline as I replied too late, but as it turns out I made it!
That's a thought. I know these things are up on the internet, but a courtesy call/mail woudn't go amiss...
Faith in the Grauniad restored...
I did send a thank you reply via email (as he emailed me to tell me it had made the deadline). Is that sufficient?
Oh... He left a comment on my blog asking me to email him and set up a Twitter account to try and reach me, if that's what you are asking.
He left me a lovely compliment in his email:
It is a genuinely fascinating blog by the way - I'm no technical buff when it comes to cars, but unlike a few others I was looking at yesterday you have a way of putting things so that I can understand them.
:D
Gav... I have been to the shop and bought 2 Guardians. DM me your address and I'll post you one today.
Thanks man. Let me know the cost and I'll reimburse you :D
you need to take a pic of yourself in the shower with the second one.
wait... that doesn't read right.
Eh?
I think the interesting thing is that a national newspaper that people would expect to print accurate information used your data without knowing whether you were a genius or a muppet. They have no idea how accurate your data and calculations are but have printed them as fact. Is it any wonder GMM are wrong so often if other newspapers act in the same manner and then get mangled through online translation.
I thought Maurice Hamilton wrote for the Grauniad. You would think he would have access to good figures.
Fortunately for them you actually know what you are doing.
:) :)
he did for page22. oh dear.
Really?
I like ya Mr. C, but that might be taking it too far ;)
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-398
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-400
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-399
Thanks Alex... DM'd you via SPC Wiki :D
this requires a blog post methinks.
The Guardian is larger than A4... Who knew!
They must be crazy
Yet another IE panic patch
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/7052032/Microsoft-releases-emergency-Internet-Explorer-patch.html
My company has decided to pay for your postage Gavin. I offered to pay but they said they would like to give you a gift!
Here's page22 in the shower... They were very tasteful photos: http://drop.io/meandpage22/asset/photo-3
Afternoon everyone, I never realised how tiring teaching can be :)
Thank god!
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81026
For those interested in the page numbering Gavin is on page 10
Has anyone told Mr C that F1 Racing is a bit more waterproof the the Grauniad?
i really wish i never said anything :cry:
Aww thanks dude ;)
You know what's interesting? I unfollowed the Autosport feed and a few others, yet I feel like I have missed nothing because I am getting all the good links here!
I see what you are saying but I think you might be a little harsh there. If you read my article it does make sense and you wouldn't take it on face value. I realise that you are not singling me out or anything here.
Anyway, I am off now. Might pop in later before I go skiing ;)
Ahoy! Spam in the Episode 78 thread!
Have decided I am a bit of a fan of Nico Rosberg having found this quote...
„Ich war ein großer Fan von Mika Häkkinen.
Ich habe mich jedes Mal gefreut, wenn er Michael geschlagen hat, denn Mika ist ein guter Freund unserer Familie“
AUTO BILD MOTORSPORT
Translated it says
"I was a big fan of Mika Häkkinen. I was glad every time he beat Michael, because Mika is a good friend of our family"
ta.
I'm not sure how that'll help him defeat Michael, unless Mika gives him expert advice. ;)
It's easy for someone to say they like seeing Michael get defeated, quite another to have the goods to do it yourself. :)
it's unusual for michael's teammate to be saying though.
I hope he carries on with statements like that
well, rubens did say something along the lines of him wanting to beat michael when they first became teammates. johnny herbert too, i think. others have been more... accommodating, like Jos the Boss, Irvine and Massa.
I'd rather see him beat Michael than talk about it.
I read it that he is not a Schumacher fan. Good no am I so get on and kick his a__e this season.
Just thought I'd come and say hello and congratulations to Gavin! We're all very proud of ya!
On a differnet note. KARTING tonight :D woop
Mobile commenting from work but wanted to say WOW amazing to Gavin. Always knew your work was fantastic & now the Grauniad readers can see it too. :lol:
Now off to drink lots & eat lovely Indian food.
Have fun. When you come back you HAVE to tell us if your page views jumped :-)
Hello all :D
We're both feeling slightly the worse for wear today.....
hi :-)
Last hour of the working week for me, and it's draaggginggg
It's 8.30pm here and I'm still to hungover to stand up :P
standing is overrated
ooh dear :-)
Gosh, McLaren are really trying with their membership program this year. A few days after getting an email saying they have places available for members to attend testing with them, I just get this one:
"We are very pleased to confirm that we have spaces for our members to be part of this year's Vodafone McLaren Mercedes car launch day, which will take place on Friday 29 January 2010 in Newbury, UK!"
I totally live in the wrong part of the world.
you really do.. you could have met Jenson and everything! dad asked how much membership was and upon learning the price had a huge rant about formula 1 costing so much money. :)
the value of the pack you get is about equal to the price of the membership, which suits me. I like me some merchandise haha.
ahh now that's a good way of looking at it :)
apparently not so many people like not getting a choice of merchandise though so they might be changing the membership to just be a e-shop voucher. This is :( as the international shipping from their shop is ridiculous.
aww.. general -shop voucher seems to make more sense though.
i have trouble making decisions. Vouchers are not good for me :D
:)
= rez = said: Grand Prix? ...Did Jordan+F1 surmise to petition Christine early on to a 'John Frankenhiemer Oscar winning 1966 romantic authenticF1 racing movie Grand Prix' night?
Yes, back on May 4th, 2009 I suggested that Christine watch John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix on the Introductionary Post of Film Watch on her smarterthanyouraverage website.
Her lack of an emotional response combined with her poor rating for Blade Runner has made me wonder if she is the missing sixth repliant from the Director's Cut and previous versions of Blade Runner, although.
Can Mr. C. run a Voight-Kampff test on Christine, just to be sure?
Pour some sugar on me Sistahh!!
Well, that's illogical enough for your humanity to pass unquestioned....= rez =.
Official Brawn GP has changed to OfficialMGP on twitter, and just posted a link to the website
http://motorsport.mercedes-benz.com/comingsoon/index_en.html
Goodbye, dear Brawn :(
nico annoys me.. more than i remember.
He went for his number, I wonder if Schumacher will demand he has the number one hair in the team
Evening everyone. Presentation sort of went well, if you might wonder.
Evening, least it went well. Got through it all ok or had a hiccup here and there?
Well done
Well, as it turned out, I speak too fast, so 2 sides of A4 on dialogue wasn't enough, but I got through it alright.
Hehe I've done that, I just can't talk slow I want the presentation over with!
Everyone speaks too fast when they start doing presentations. You have to do a few before you learn how slowly you have to speak.
I didn't really speak that fast, it was just I was beginning to repeat myself without realising and so sort of lost it a bit. Should have gone for the comedy element...
The Brawn website is no more!
that looks ooooh so much better.
lovely video player too.
Hello again. My Autosport mag turned up today. Interesting that Karun Chandok says Schumacher's GP2 test has raised the profile of that series outside Europe, particularly India... Maybe he'll get more sponsorship now.
It redirects to Nico
am sad. :(
And our first look at Rosberg in Merc colours?
in video form. there were pics around the announcement.
Ah. Short memory.
Nick Heidfeld is apparently to be the Mercedes test driver and it is to be announced formally on Monday according to Auto Bild motorsport. The contract has supposedly been signed.
But... but... but... what about Ant? :(
Bild is not a great source but I can see that happening. If he can't get a decent drive elsewhere then he may as well go to a team where one driver is unproven and the other has a dodgy neck. Could turn out to be a great move for him.
DTM with Audi is the rumour
I think I will build a wall and name it after Sutil.
Adrian's wall
Being nominated test driver has become the equivalent to being given a white elephant, no?
Well at least he'll be driving, and that suits him to still do 5 Live as well. Still needs to be in F1 though :(
Wrong thread
team brackley is well and truly over isn't it :( I still hearts team shov and bono :)
Blogging question: In Wordpress, what is the difference between a post tag and a post category?
When I imported all my posts into WP, it decided to change all my Blogger tags into WP categories, rather than WP tags..
ive heard about this rumour, i may need to start following DTM :P
I told you Brawn was a bad man
I miss 2009 :(
They race at Brands Hatch..
Phew.
Evnin all
There are no claendar clashes between DTM and F1 by design. Another rumour suggests DC will drive for Mercedes. Both can still commentate in F1 though
Something of a step down, definitely. I can't see why he'd take that over the Renault unless he doesn't want to be alongside Kubica again, or he thinks MS will flounder
Seems like it - Nick does have a similar driving style to Jenson - not that I think it is significant. I am not sure I really understand this move. It was fairly clear that Renault are looking for money despite what they are say and Petrov can now offer 13 million pounds and he is probably a decent driver.
Money - the team needs lots of it is my guess.
but...but.... i still like him.... he saved my team.... before destroying it...
i may need an iheartant blog :P
I have not actually forgiven him the way he treated Jenson - it was clear they initially did not want to pay him what as a World Champion you would expect.
#sameperson
If Nick Heidfeld ends up as the Macca test driver perhaps they have doubts about Jense (or Lewis) staying the course after the next round of handbags at dawn... or is that at pit stops.....
The Renault has been rubbish for two years and there is no reason with all the upheaval that this year's will be any better. Before they only had to deal with McLaren and Ferrari but now there are four top teams. It may be a long time before they are competitive again.
and pushing out your driver!
Has the room stopped spinning yet?
All he did was wait long enough to pocket a load of cash before he destroyed it
i really dont think he was pushed... I think it was Jenson's choice. they wouldn't have signed nico if they were going to push Jenson out.
I don't know. The epic wait for food has once again begun!
I like to think they could build a championship winning car - and honestly with Nick and Robert they would have had solid drivers. Not sure, unless they get Takuma or Christian they will do much - Robert is good but they probably need two inputs to develop the car.
just for consistency, a jamie breakout: http://sidepodcast.com/2010/01/22/toro-rosso-confirm-alguersuari-for-2010/
Did they sign Nico?... I thought they did a swapsy as Frank and Patrick couldn't bear a team with two pretty Germans....
#325 - Steven Roy said: I think I will build a wall and name it after Sutil.
Adrian's wall
Oooh a wall, and I just happen to have a battering ram named PKiho.....
you did. we should've listened.
it's a debate christine and i have regularly. still no consensus.
He was pushed in the fact he felt unvalued by the team and Ross. That is so clear. Yes it was Jenson would made the decision to cut the umbilical cord.
Well we'll perhaps get to see if Jense was under or over valued in a few months...
It took them ten years to build a championship winning car after Schumacher's two titles. I think their is more chance of Williams building a winning car than Renault
No swaps. Two separate deals
hmm. I'm used to clicking it and all my posts with that name appear. I click this and it tells me about other people's blogs with it in. not so useful.
Oh ye, I agree Williams will be fifth best - good driver line-up and Rubens is a good developer (not that it seemed to have helped Honda). It is a clean-sheet design though!
It's not Rubens' fault they had designed a rrrrrrrrubbish car!
i don't understand that move at all. is nick hoping schumi won't see the season out too?
ooh, hadn't thought about that.
oh dear :(
I was not blaming Rubens at all - actually it was that it was so Rubbish even with Rubens it was going nowhere.
Might be taking like a sabbatical but remain in the sport, not had the best of years at BMW and just wants to regain confidence and the such?
I suppose there's not much you can do to develop a car that is going nowhere. Both Jenson and himself tried to get the best out of it but those were 2 sour years :(
Honda's problem was it's wind tunnel calibration was miles out. Nothing a driver can do about that.
that is what it seems to suggest, unfortunately I think that is such a long shot, unless there really are still some concerns. I noted they waited until after his GP2 test before deciding. It is very strange.
That and the only open seat he could be interested in is Renault and I think they want someone with money.
I just do not get how several wind tunnel calibrations can be out. I know the Brawn ironically had quite a bit of the Super Aguri design in it.
autosport says it's challenging the beeb: http://www.haymarket.com/newsarticle.aspx?news=816
I don't think anyone can be absolutely sure about his necks until he has done a few races. A long flight followed by three days of hard driving and another long flight at the other end is going to do things to his neck that can't be simulated. Then of course there is the question of what happens if he has a crash.
The Brawn was the result of two or three different options run in 5 or 6 wind tunnels. The double diffuser came from Super Aguri
of course the double diffuser was only part of the success of the Brawn.
vimeo has also gone all html5. better player than youtube, still doesn't support embed codes:
http://www.vimeo.com/8642592
(click "switch to HTML5 player")
are you giving me a glimmer of hope - I better get on with my voodoo doll manufacture. I was just wondering if they have had any regrets about Nico.
I think there must be a market for voodoo dolls
ones with a pin in the neck!
Webber's on Question of Sport on BBC1!
really? I disagree...
not available on iplayer :-(
Darn those licences.
cant believe he got kubica, kovalainen and not kobyashi :)
not even on the live BBC1 stream?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/watchlive/
sport rights. expensive business.
Same!
Ahhh, I see what you mean now
Easily missed out.
Ah I couldn't find it. Unfortunately it shows "Sorry, we can't show this programme for legal reasons, but you can watch it on your TV."
Already had clips of Hamilton winning at Silverstone in 08 and Kimi winning at Spa in 09.
What about that tvcatchup place?
Mark got the question of who was finishing 2nd to Kimi in that race, thank god :P
ooh it works.
Good point. It wants me to sign up and I can't be bothered now I've missed 10 mins. Will do so later. Thanks.
Timoooooooo!
Aww, Mark Webber's in my good books.
RG - Mark got a question about Timo, and got it right :P
Oh you were watching. Carry on :P
Shouldn't that be Ruuuuuuuuubens? :P
*facepalm*
Everytime I watch TV...
But it was about Timo! :)
Are you calling Timo, Rubens?
No, that was just something I was expecting you to say :P
So Phil Tufnell thinks Jenson Button is 50, interesting.
He's aged well.
Phil thinks jenson was born in the 1960s in London! Ehehehe
If anyone's up at 1am youtube are streaming the Hope For Haiti 2 hour concert thing tonight.
i forgot the link...ooops.
www.youtube.com/hopeforhaitinow.
Aww, I wanted to watch that as well. :(
I've entered my five teams into the Fantasy Racers game this year and will join them all into Sidepodcast when the league is re-opened.
LCM Dragons will once again be my flagship team, where I will be defending my title against my self-devised automated and semi-automated methods of team selection. It has taken the "unlimited changes" option.
LCM Barato and Caro will once again represent the cheapest and dearest drivers on the market at any given time respectively. They will both use the "unlimited changes" option and can thus be classed as semi-automated.
LCM Fire Lizards currently contains all the drivers I support, though if Fisi returns to the grid I may have a selection issue, for despite the fact that it's using the "restricted changes" option*, there isn't enough change left over to select any of the current drivers. If Fisi ends up in such a bad team that he gets valued at only 5.5m, I'd get away with it, but I'm not banking on it.
I considered doing LCM Aléman again, but quickly worked out that the sum value of Germans on the grid was too high. So 2010 marks the debut for LCM Alfa, where all the driver surnames end in "a". This team also uses the "restricted changes" option.
* - Restricted changes allows free movement until the lock-down point for the first weekend and also allows sacked/injured/non-competing drivers to be replaced.
Only just looking at this year's Fantasy Racers. Unlimited changes but £40m budget, or stuck with the same mob with £45m to spend?
Surely, surely, everyone will go with the former rather than the latter option? {Comment #119}
The latter works well if you're putting drivers you support or drivers connected by a specific, non-comparitive theme. Otherwise, the former option is better.
I've put in 3 teams in the "unlimited changes" ruleset and 2 teams in the "restricted changes" ruleset. Having preferential status carry over from last year has proved useful (if you've had preferential status before through donation, I suggest you check if it's still there because if so, you will still have multiple teams).
I need to think of a new team name. Quite frankly last year's name backfired.
You would have been screwed last year had you picked a sacked or injured driver! {Comment #122}
If you'd picked a sacked or injured driver, you'd have been able to change it after the sacking/injury and use both the driver value and your spare change to get a new driver(s). However, it could only be done after said sacking/injury, which depending on the situation may not fully compensate for the exemption from a tactical viewpoint.
SPC represented 10% of the Fantasy Racers entries last year - it's my JOB to keep you happy.
{Comment #214}
Wowee - I didn't realise the proportion was so high. Thanks for being so accommodating and making Fantasy Sports such a nice place to pretend we can see the future :)
OK Right now, I'm Hyperventilating - Check the upper right hand corner of this document: http://image.g...01/22/SportF1Car2.pdf
Would that be your data?
YES :D {Comment #231}
Excellent!
'Back to Back Rock' is in. A tribute to Fighting Talk, (which David Croft happens to be on tomorrow)
I think I need a Fantasy Racers team that has drivers based on their position in the Castrol Rankings, just to prove that they don't work.
Castrol Failings?
On a differnet note. KARTING tonight :D woop {Comment #282}
Have fun, Jon!
Ooh interesting, where you racing tonight?
:D
Brilliant :-)
I thought either that or Castrol No-Thankings.
Or how about Castrol Absolutely Rank-ings
So Phil Tufnell thinks Jenson Button is 50, interesting. {Comment #405}
And there we all were wondering how a 41-year-old is supposed to compete well in F1...
You're doing well to keep it clean. I expect my suggestion would go straight to moderation.
:D
I'm guessing you have the same mind as me. Say if I say Nick Heidfeld's German, would we be on the right lines?
Or, just change Rankings to Ranklings, since that's what those drivers would be.
uhm......
Scott did you ever get your xbox 360 sorted by the way?
I STILL have to print off the label.
...
...
...yyyyup.
Boo :(
Running slightly behind, yesterday's Big Pic is ace: http://www.f1minute.com/2010/01/22/a-fresh-coat/
:o!!
Hello new wallpaper
:)
Although I have annoyingly contended myself with a possible alternative wallpaper. Bah!
The alternative is this extremely fun moment I just had on Forza 3 at the Nordeschleife: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukehmuse/4295700833/
Of course, if it were real life, I would now be looking for the nearest toilet.
Oooooh.
I need some help if possible. I need to know if there's anywhere in Norwich that has video editing facilities that I'd be able to use. I need to get the footage from the karting off my video camera but the cable which I got for it doesn't seem to recognise it. Any help, big or small, would be appreciated. :)
what make is your video recorder? maybe it's worth seeing if they have a forum and seeing if anyone knows how to download the video off of the camera onto your pc?
and by video recorder... i mean video camera..
It's a JVC and it records using DV tapes. The cable needed is a 4 pin firewire cable. My laptop doesn't have a firewire socket so I had to get a 4 pin to USB cable, but it won't recognise the camera. Grrr.
riiight, well most of that went over my head... i'm no good at the video stuff... sorry.
Oops, sorry :P
Ah, I think I've found a page where you can download drivers for camcorders, including mine. Wonder if this'll work.
I have that with the uni dv cameras, theres a usb slot but the computer wont recognise it. i have to use uni computers to download it
Evening all
Evening
hello
Official US F1 Team Thank you all for your patience. The team is working very hard these days and we will have some exciting news to share! (think early next week...)
Ooooooooooooooooooh.
I was just about to post that as well :P
It has to be drivers. Surely.
Or at least a car announcement!
Maybe they have employed another anderson.
Yup, I reckon so.
Time for me to head off. Night all!
night!
Woah, I just saw something really freaky. I just watched the bit on the video where Jackie filmed me put my helmet on and I paused it at one point and I swear looking at my eyes and nose through the helmet, I looked a bit like Senna did.
That's not being big headed or anything, just something I observed. Weird.
22/01/2010 at 22:18:37#438 - Lukeh said: Although I have annoyingly contended myself with a possible alternative wallpaper. Bah!
The alternative is this extremely fun moment I just had on Forza 3 at the Nordeschleife: http://www.fli...lukehmuse/4295700833/
Of course, if it were real life, I would now be looking for the nearest toilet.
Lukeh, In the days before wings on the car, you were supposed to have all four wheels off the ground just after the three crests on the rolling hills of the Nordeschleife's super long backstraight.... It meant that you where going fast enough.
Wow, Franck gets his name mentioned in The Sun!!
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/motorsport/2820089/Caught-up-in-kart-carnage.html
They're going a bit over the top with the carnage thing, of course.
If you are a Formula One team you race in Formula One.
They make a good point.
#nothere
Gotta be at least one driver. Hopefully both and hopefully a sponsor or two..
22/01/2010 at 22:54:28#450 - Lukeh said: Official US F1 Team Thank you all for your patience. The team is working very hard these days and we will have some exciting news to share! (think early next week...)
Ooooooooooooooooooh.
Maybe it is to confirm that the virtual USF1 on Tailenders' www.crash.net site is far ahead of the real USF1 in that the virtual USF1 at least has some toasters it can ship out to fans of the races..... I could use some toast while I am watching the Grand Prix, you know....
Hahaha! I didn't read that far :)
Interesting article to find in The Sun.. surely mentions of FRenault, GT2, etc, will go over most readers heads? It goes over a lot of racing fans heads..
eeeeekkk! i swear i get more spiders in my room than anyone i know... O.O horrible things!
I just bought a domain name. Or two.
OOOH!
interesting
It says it could take 48hrs to become active though
Ah yes. They usually are quicker than that.