It seems fitting that today I get to write today's daily post. Sidepodcast has for the past two weeks been barrelling us along just like it used to, we're again riding the F1 roller-coaster despite our best efforts to keep things under control. It's all good though, there's roughly ten days to go before we get to take almost 100 days off. Bring it on F1, give us a week to remember.
Credit: Andrew Ferraro/LAT Photographic
Adding colour to the grey skies in Brazil
I do feel that I'm going to struggle to live up to daily posts that have come before. We've had a week of exceptional writing by some of my favourite people, reading them each day has been a real treat. Still let's get to some links.
Team Tony For Life
There are times when we really do feel privileged to do what we do and today was one of those days. Last Thursday Joe Saward patiently explained to us how Renault would likely be stepping away from its F1 team to concentrate on maximising its investments in engine technology, while Lotus Group would be likely stepping to fill the void.
Events played out almost exactly as discussed and Autosport picked up the story today, while Joe has further information on the future of Tony Fernandes' (presumably nameless) F1 team.
All credit to Joe for nailing the story before everyone else, even if the outcome wasn't the news we wanted to hear. Tony has won us over during the course of the year. Lotus Racing are a genuinely fantastic team and they deserve better. Renault fans most also be wondering what the heck is going to happen at Enstone too. No wonder Bob Bell left when he did. Yesterday was a pretty bad day for F1 all round.
Updated: Tony tweeted his thoughts during the small hours of the morning.
Much said about our name. To many people reading to much into it. We are lotus racing this season. Next season we are still lotus. Makes sense for racing team and group to be reunited. How and weather it will and in what form will form discussions over next few months.
tonyfernandes
Elsewhere in F1
In other F1 news, there were a couple of practice sessions yesterday (which annoyingly I missed entirely). Alonso's motor went boom! while the Red Bull's were untouchable. The weather at the circuit is looking a touch damp, I do hope qualifying isn't as wet as it was last year, but still damp enough to spice up the action. I don't ask for much, just wall-to-wall excitement with a dash of drama, okay?
Paddock talk has Mark Webber walking away from the Team Caffeine next year, but I'm not buying it. He has a contract for one of the best seats in the house next year (and he knows what to do with it) and he's at the top of his game. Why stop now when there's so much fun to be had making Princess Petal look average?
We Produce Podcasts Too
Have you listened to our conversation with Manipe F1 yet? If not please go listen now, I very much enjoyed talking with paddock regular Naoise about life, the F1 universe and everything. He's a man who knows stuff, hopefully we can do it again soon.
I can tell we've been thrown back into the F1 deep end once again, but it's not the lack of sleep that's given it away. Neither is the fact that I've had an untouched todo list sat on my desk for a fortnight. Nope, it was slightly shocking £300 bandwidth overage charge that landed in my inbox yesterday that said "we made too many podcasts in October". I may not have mentioned this to Christine yet, whoops. Must try harder to make sure we're on top of things this month. Thank you to everyone for sticking around to listen.
We're planning another break after the race in Abu Dhabi, but 2011 will hopefully be a much happier year. More on that soon, but enjoy your Saturday, qualifying and anything else you may be doing.
I shall see you in the comments.