Nothing is still happening

I'm itching for F1 to get going again. I'm glad the FIA has officially declared Spygate drama closed, since that shit was depressing on a variety of levels. However, now that that garbage has been put to bed nothing at all has been happening and I'm getting to the point where soon enough I'll be popping in old VHS tapes from seasons past just to get my fix. Speaking of which, If anybody out there has any old broadcasts from 2002 and before, hit me up.

Turdsy in a semi familiar toilet...

There are reports that Giancarlo Fisichella has signed with Force India. Nothing is confirmed, but that's what a few web sites are claiming. I don't see why it couldn't be true. If it is, he's essentially back at his old home of Jordan where he won his first race. Who knows how many Jordan guys are still there considering the team has changed hands like 3 times since he was last there, but in theory, he's back in a familiar back marker team.

As Grand Prix Dot Com pointed out, it's a real pisser that Tonio Liuzzi didn't get the drive (if these reports are in fact true) considering he is much younger and has more to offer. I'm with Bernard Ecclestone in the thought that Turdsy Fisi should just pack it in like old Ralf Schumacher. I've already detailed my reasoning for this in past entries, so there is no reason to say it all again other than Fisichella is a general disappointment... and old.

Trading Places

So McLaren signed the giant headed wonder Heikki Kovalainen to partner Lew Hamilton next year. I am glad about this since I feel that Kovalainen is a solid race driver and it would have been criminal if he did not have a seat in F1 next year. We all know Hamilton is going to do better and the fight between teammates on the track isn't going to be as close as was the case with Alonso and Hamilton this year, but I have a feeling Heikki will hold his own and not be made to look like a total fool by Lewis.

Conversley, I still have my reservations about the Alonso/Piquet line up at Renault for 2008, but we will see.

In the end I find it amusing that Alonso went from McLaren back to Renault, and that Heikki whom filled Alonso's vacant Renault seat this year is now filling Alonso's vacant McLaren seat next year.

Maybe we should call Kovalainen "Shitty Alonso"?

Michael Schumacher, you fucking rule!

Plenty of times you'll catch a story about an F1 driver getting a speeding ticket, or his license revoked for a long time in a certain country. Sure, makes sense. Not too surprising. However, Schumi is a man with style and awesomeness. I was just getting ready to go to bed when I saw on the front page of Yahoo! US a picture of Schumacher. At first I was worried, since you almost NEVER see any F1 related news on the main USA Yahoo! web page, so I was thinking my main man had died or something horrid. Then I read the story and just cracked the hell up.

You gotta love that due to the fact that he was running late he commandeered the cab to get to the family to the airport on time. That's pretty much the coolest thing I think Schumacher could ever do, other than come back to F1!

I tip my hat to the old boy.

I just read another article that says Renault is paying Fernie $51.3 million a year. If this is true The Fern is being paid by Renault $51.3 million dollars, I'll shit a puppy!

My favorite quote of the Alonso article is Fernie saying "I chose Renault in the end considering their commitment to the sport and because of their strong track record." considering he said he was leaving Renault for McLaren because he wasn't sure of Renault's commitment to F1.

God, I love it!

Alonso once again latched to Renault's teat

Even though we all saw it coming months ago, it is official that Fernie Alonso is back with Renault. Since it seemed inevitable, I can't say I'm surprised, though since it took so long to announce I sort of am. Like, I knew it was going to happen because it makes the most sense. But then came Renault's spy troubles which obviously held up Alonso's re-involvement with the team. Then Renault somehow get cleared of no wrong doing and FINALLY Fernie is back in the loving arms of The French manufacture. Point is, is that anything could have happened because nothing was happening and even though you were pretty sure you knew what was going to go down, it wasn't, so for all we knew, Alonso could end up striking a deal to race on the moon with an alien vehicle manufacture??????

Hopefully Heikki Kovalainen picks up Fern's old seat at McLaren. It'll be sad if he doesn't, cos I like that huge headed Finn and as I've said it before, I do not trust Junior Piquet. Heikki would have been a good team mate to Fern. While I hope I am wrong, I think Nelshino may be a little hot headed next year and will not be a good team mate for Alonso. The only reason I want Alonso to have a bitch team mate is because I'm sick of Alonso whining about not being treated with the respect a 2 time beater of Michael Schumacher deserves. Oh well. So it goes.

Renault not guilty?!

So I just read that Renault are not guilty of the same breach of rules that cost McLaren their constructors championship and $100 million dollars! How is that possible? It even looked like Renault were a bit more guilty than McLaren due to the fact that it seems more people saw the McLaren documents at Renault than McLaren people did of the Ferrari drawings at McLaren. So I must say that I'm quite baffled.

Were Renault cleared of any massive fines because they were purportedly more forthright with the FIA when they supposedly first found out they had McLaren information? Or was it because if Renault were heavily penalized that they may just choose to leave the sport and Fernie Alonso would have no place to race and this would be seen as a massive victory for McLaren who want to win something this year?

I honestly don't know, however I look forward to the FIA's explanation whenever it comes out and hopefully maybe they will revoke McLaren's fine or something, considering Renault was not punished at all, not even posthumously stripped of their 2007 constructor's points, which was what I figured was going to happen.

We will see. Yes. We will see.

Nothing to say...

So Ross Brawn has joined Honda. Fernie is still not signed. Schumacher, Michael is still fit.

There is nothing to say, and I am busy, hence no speak. Sorry. This is the draw back of post season. Trust me, once there is something to say, I'll say it, even if I have to wait till March.

Actually, that's a lie. I've got plenty of Paint ideas, just am lacking the time, but it will happen, and you will laugh... maybe.

In the mean time, I'm still teaching kids to drive well, still listing records on ebay... and still waiting for something to write about.

In other news: I ran my car our of petrol tonight and before it was stopped I tried to be like James Bond and tried to start to push it before the car was stopped. I ended up rolling under the car and almost got run over by my own motor. However, I found out Toyota's are easy to push and they pick up speed quickly. I mention this for the benefit of Toyota F1's team next year.

I've sold my stocks in Band-Aid

Yesterday it was announced that Ross Brawn is set to become the new team principal of Honda's F1 operation. Curiously enough Ferrari announced the same day that Jean Todt AKA "The Nervous Ferret" would no longer be in his current position of F1 activities.

While both stories surprised me, it was mainly due to the fact that they came out on the same day. Many knew Todt's time was running out at Ferrari and that Ross Brawn would come back to F1 and be running a team, but I imagined many folks (myself included) thought Brawn would be taking Todt's position. Not that Todt would be replaced by some Italian guy and Brawn would be taking over Honda.

I still wonder why Brawn didn't take over Ferrari. He claims it was due to the fact that he became reacquainted with his family and that Ferrari wouldn't have been much of a challenge because they are still in good working order, but that seems like a cop-out answer to me in all honesty. OK, so he didn't wanna go live in Italy again. Living in the UK does sound much nicer. However, I think Ferrari are about to enter another dark age, such as the one Todt, Schumi, and Brawn helped drag Ferrari out of... so taking over Ferrari and not having the team slide into oblivion would have been a challenge. Maybe a challenge Brawn wasn't interested in tackling. By taking over Honda, who have in the past had semi-decent cars at times, he can't do any worse than Nick Fry or the rest of the team have done so the results are only going to get better over the next two years and Brawn will never have to worry about looking bad. He has already said that his engineering prowess will really have no effect on the 2008 car, as it has already gone into production. So his ass is covered this year any how.

I could be wrong and it could be the truth. However, if he was looking for a challenge then I guess that Honda was the team to go with. They sucked ass this year, they have money, a decent driver in that of Button, Brawn knows Barrichello, and I'm sure the money was right... not to mention a challenge was presented.

The only good news about Jean Todt's departure is that his poor fingers he nibbles on all the time will finally have a chance to heal and his fingers will no longer be shrouded in Band-Aid's

For the time being, I am going nowhere near the Renault-McLaren info case. I'm just letting this one unfold.



Lastly, Schumi tested today for the first time in over a year and topped the time sheets. I called this one, but I wanna see a test where he and Hamilton are together.

NASCAR can choke on a dick!

"NASCAR is not like Formula One racing, where three teams absolutely rule the sport, but the fear is that NASCAR is ambling down the same road.

When asked how close the sport is to a crossroads – and more precisely, how close it is to becoming like Formula One, the kind of boring, follow-the-leader racing guys like Juan Pablo Montoya came to NASCAR to get away from – Evernham opened his eyes wide and spit out, "We've passed the street signs. The crossroad is coming."

I just read the above garbage in an article on Yahoo! in a really long and boring bit about franchising NASCAR teams. Statements like this just piss me off. One of the things they were saying is how half of the THIRTY-FOUR RACES that NASCAR has had this year were won by one team. How can they liken their predicament to F1? NASCAR has like 43 car field per race from about 20 full time teams and there are 8 part time.

Sure, the best funded teams win, that's just the way it is... in ANY SPORT, especially if the sport involves a machine as well. However, one of the reasons F1 is ruled by a handful of teams are due to the fact that there are only 11 teams in F1, and again, money rules. So in F1 the team with the most money can develop the best car and contract the best drivers where as in NASCAR the vehicles are fucking pigs, using technology from the 1960's in general, so in reality, the best funded teams aren't pissing a boat load of cash towards R&D and are throwing that money mainly to drivers that have skill within their sport, since as much as I think NASCAR is boring as shit to watch, I do understand that from a driver's stand point it is a rather exciting from of racing where emphasis is placed more on skill than car development. So the team(s) that have won the majority of the races this year are doing so because they have the best drivers, not particularly due to the fact that they have the best car. The rich boys always have the best package.

I suppose my point is is that you can put Rubens Barrichello in a Ferrari and he will win some races and challenge for a championship from time to time, while when you stick a Rubens in a Honda, you finish your season with 0 points sometimes. An even better example is Sebastian Vettel who was terribly impressive in his debut race, because he is a good driver in a good car. You then stick the good driver in a not so good car and you can still see the good driver doing impressive things, but the results are different in the end.

Formula One has it's flaws, and is almost as much about the cars (if not more) than it is about the pilots of the cars, but this is just how it is and I'm not complaining. I like the technology. A lot. F1 is all about the perfect package, class, and sophisticated driving techniques. NASCAR is about... I dunno... drinking beer, having a hairy back, and waiting for "The Big One", while on the sporting end it's all about driving rough or dirty in cars that are like tanks, but with no technology on board.

So stop trying to liken these two entities when writing articles about franchising... because it just pisses me off and makes me think less of the NASCAR scribes.

Death Rides, Devil Horns, and guys on their way out... or already gone!

This next piece of Microsoft Paint will probably land me in hell, and I call it

"Barrichello's '94 Imola (near) Death Ride and The Devil Horns"


Yup. He's giving the old Devil Horns during his hellacious crash at Imola back in 1994, which is pretty hardcore.

I find it odd that old Rubinho is getting so much coverage in my blog as of late, considering I don't particularly think too much of him one way or another, other than I like him more than most of the old guys still kicking around F1 that won't leave. With that said, I think I shall take a moment to speak about drivers who I wish would already leave F1 or have raced their last race.

So, speaking of such it seems as though Turdsy Fisichella has been given his walking papers being that Mini Piquet will probably race with The Fern at Renault, and purportedly Heikki will move on over to Alonso's vacated seat at McLaren. At least this is what I have read, and I do hope it is the case, because I'm only against the promising Finn being moved to another team if it is a lesser team than his current one. Moving to McLaren wouldn't be a horrid deal and I could live with this.

So it looks like Fisi is out of F1. Good riddence. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy as a person but I think he's a truly unspectacular racer and a slight whiner. I remember back in 2003 or maybe 2004 when there was talk of Schumi retiring that Fisi went to the press literally begging Ferrari to sign him. It was at that point that I realized this guy wasn't good for much other than delivering Jordan Grand Prix their last race win. Why not show on the track yer worth the Scuderia's time. After being brought to Renault to replace Trulli/Villeneuve in 2005 he was outclassed by Alonso, and again in 2006. Fernie left for 2007 and Fisi had the team to himself and did nothing with it. Sure, the car was kind of a turd this year, but it wasn't the previous two years when he did next to nothing with the machine.

Nick Heidfeld and his unspectacular beard look to be safe because for some reason people still think he has some chance of doing something with himself. Sure he scored 61 points to The Kube's 39, but that is not a fantastic representation, considering Kubica had 3 retirements and 1 missed race due to injury, whereas Heidfeld only had two retirements. Either way, I do concede that Nick was quicker than The Kube this year. No denying that, just Heidfeld has been kicking around in F1 for 7 seasons, making a total of 132 starts, while The Kube has raced just 1.3 seasons, making only 22 starts... so Heidfeld better be quicker. I just think Heidfeld is a solid-to-mediocre driver at best.

Moving along, I wonder what is going to become of Jarno Trulli and his massive neck? Jarno is another one of those guys that is probably on his way out. While he has a valid contract for 2008, due to the uncertain future of Alonso, Toyota have seemed to be entertaining the idea of buying him out of his contract which could leave him marooned. The way I see it is that Toyota should let Jarno stick around for another year. They have never given him a great car, so therefore have nothing lost by keeping him around the paddock for yet another year. Besides, what else is he going to do with that tree trunk of a neck?

Ralph Schumacher on the other hand, I can understand why they did not retain his services. However, if all Ralphie was asking for was to keep any prize money won/earned and for Toyota to take care of travel expenses, then Toyota should have kept him around for another year, being as with Jarno, Toyota have never really ponied up a fantastic car and we know Ralph is capable of winning races... but I imagine his proposal to them was to halve his salary, which would still be $10 or $11 million a year, which is not exactly a bargain, even if you are the world's most prosperous car maker. I suppose next year will be the first Schumacherless year since 1991.

David Coulthard deserves another year or three with Red Balls considering he purportedly helped engineer Adrian Newey's entrance to the team and as of yet, Ade hasn't yet spat out one of his classic designs. While DC will never win a championship, he's still a solid racer and in the twilight of his career, yet still producing strong results with what he has been given. I mean, he out performed The Webb, whom is another driver I'm not too sure about, yet I shant talk shit upon since he always ends up in the wrong car at the wrong time, though if he doesn't do something soon, I will start hating on him.

Wurz retired, which was a smart move. I have already addressed this subject though in previous enteries.

Then there's the guy who keeps popping up in all my blog entries like he was my favorite friggin driver or something... Mr. Rubens Barrichello. I like Rubens, I will admit this. The guy has had an interesting career, and was Michael Schumacher's ultimate bitch. Sure, if he had not been at Ferrari he probably would have never won a race and have been out of F1 a long time ago, but here he is. He is currently the most experienced driver on the grid, the only current driver to have raced with Senna, and in 2008 will have raced in more GP's than any other driver ever. This year was Barrichello's worst season ever, considering he scored not one point, and scored 2 points back in his rookie season in 1993. This was namely due to Honda producing possibly the shittiest car on the grid. Due to this abortion of a car, Rubens was rewarded with one last contract. It's damn near impossible he will have a worse year than this one, and can leave the sport at the end of 2008 as the guy who raced longer than all others.

Young Rubens questions Senna

Here is a fun youtube find that I wasn't expecting to come across, considering I was looking for some good Nigel Mansell clips that didn't have shitty music backing the action. It's a REALLY long interview with Senna back in 1986 or 1987 (I'm guessing, considering they are talking of Senna's new Japanese team mate, Satoru Nakajima, the first full time Japanese F1 driver, who coincidentally has a son named Kazuki Nakajima whom was announced today as Nico Rosberg's team mate for 2008) Anyhow, with in the first minute we see a young Rubens Barrichello with a head full of thick hair, who was then Brazil's karting champion, asking Senna a question. It's the cutest fucking thing!



I watched a good portion of the clip, but have decided to revisit the whole series on youtube when I have the time, since it looks like the entire interview is about an hour long. If I had a way of just putting up the young Rubens part, which is what amused me most, I would, but I can not. So watch the whole thing or stop after Senna is done speaking with mini Barrichello.

Michael Schumacher should be sneaky

So I've read that Schumi is going to do some testing with Ferrari in order to help them gain some knowledge about driving the cars with out electronic aids, considering all the other drivers in the field, barring DC & Barrichello, have probably never driven a Formula One car with out such aids. That's pretty cool. Sure, he's not racing, but at least he's driving the cars around. I look forward to seeing the time sheets and reading the reports, since I'm curious to see how he feels mentally and more importantly, physically, after being out of F1 cars for over a year. I hope he tops the time sheets. That would be fantastic.

What would be even greater is if like some time next year Kimi got drunk the night before a race and was hella hung over the next day and Schumacher subbed for him, but nobody knew it was Michael. Like, he'd wear Kimi's helmet and everybody would think it was Kimi and it wouldn't be. That would happy me so bad. F1 needs silly guest appearances from old stalwarts like in the WWE. Sure, F1 is serious and millions of dollars and championships are on the line, but it would still rule totally hard!

This last bit has nothing to do with any thing current:

...I just don't like Nigel Mansell with out a mustache!

Where does The Fern go?

So it is now fact that Alonso will not be racing at McLaren next year, but where will he go? What will the implications of his release be? Will he be allowed to go back to Renault or one of the mid-pack teams like Toyota or Red Bull that could afford his services on a monetary basis? I don't know. It would be interesting to see him back at Renault, though I'd be disappointed if Turdsy Fisichella is Fernie's team mate. I like Fisi, but he's had his time in F1 and done a whole lot of naught with it. Meanwhile, Heikki is still young and getting better, yet he wouldn't pose any threat to Alonso. Not that Fisi will of course, I'm just sick of him not being very competitive and still managing to hang around F1. Then again, Turdsy could be given the sack and Piquet could get the other Renault seat and from what I'm reading it is Kovalainen that would be shuffled elsewhere, which would greatly piss me off. Farm out Piquet, that 's what I say! I don't trust Nelson Junior. He's got a chip on his shoulder and after sitting out last season as a tester, I bet he feel's he has really got something to prove and would end up giving Alonso a tough time in the way Hamilton did at McLaren, even though it would probably be less vicious, Fern would probably still be perturbed. Not that I'm against team mates fighting each other, but we know Alonso likes to piss and moan about it and to be quite honest, I'm fucking sick of hearing this type of bellyaching!

There is always the possibility that Alonso could go to Williams, as they do have a vacant seat. While I seriously doubt they'll be challenging for any type of championship next year, Williams are a good team.

So in the end, I'm curious. Where Alonso goes and who get's screwed as a result of his goings.

I also like how Alonso decided in the end (whether he was forced to say this or not) that he was in fact treated fairly at the team so far as equal equipment being provided. I mean, statistically it looks as if this was the truth, considering Hamilton and Alonso ended with equal points and all.

While I, as well as all of the rest of the F1 watching world, have seen Alonso's departure looming for quite some time, I have to wonder if he is going to go down like Emerson Fittipaldi? It's kinda weird when you look at it. Emo was the youngest champ until Alonso came along. Fittipaldi won a championship in a Lotus and McLaren, then moved to his brother's team and nothing ever happened again with him. While Fernie didn't win a championship in a McLaren, there he is, and leaving after a short time there. Where's he gonna go? Will he ever win another championship? I say yes, but wouldn't it be funny if he didn't?

BMW-Sauber would be a nice place for Alonso to land. Like Fisi, I'm tired of Nick Heidfeld, even though he's bringing the beard back to F1, there's no fun in that on the race track!

If anything, it will be an interesting road to where Alonso ends up next and I look forward to it all.

Lastly, if McLaren win the driver's title on an appeal, I will probably stop watching Formula 1, though I strongly doubt this will happen considering Max Mosley doesn't think much of Ron Dennis, his team, or that little fuzzy top driving for him.

Follow Kimi!

I bet the only person who wasn't surprised by todays race was the guy who scripted it... so I suppose that would be God. Even the most jaded F1 pundits had to be left in awe. I'm sure the most amazed person of all was Kimi himself. Before the race he was saying how it was damn near impossible to bag the championship, but still worth trying for. Obviously this paid off.



Kimi owes Lewis Hamilton a big thank you! For if Hamilton had kept his head instead of trying to prove that he's better than Alonso, Little Black Boy Wonder would probably be champion, as he didn't need to win the race. He could have finished fifth or something and still walked away with the crown. Instead he had something to prove to himself, for I don't think anybody else felt he had anything to prove considering he's had such a great season and proved he is a super star racing driver. The announcers were calling his move on Alonso a rookie mistake, but I beg to differ. It was just stupid. If there ever was a rookie mistake, it was when he beached himself in China. What he did today was beyond that. It was plain foolish!

While I didn't want Hamilton to win, I felt bad that he had that mechanical problem. I wanted him to lose due to his own insolence, such as he demonstrated into the first corner not because Kimi's old McLaren luck found Lewis.

Conversely, nor was I rooting for Alonso. The guy has two championships, will probably bag a few more, and was kind of an asshole this season. He deserved to lose. Kimi deserved to win, if only because he had such piss poor reliability during his stay at McLaren. It would have been cruel if either McLaren won the driver's championship this year, though I feel they should have gotten the constructor's championship. However, I'm so done with the Spy-gate shit.

From here I hope the press hounds Kimi. We know the guy likes to party. He used to get drunk a lot. Sometimes he would fall down. Occasionally he would whip out his dick. You *KNOW* he's gonna be rocking out with his cock out and while I don't really care to see his Finnish dingle-dangle, I want to be reading some good stories of Kimi celebrating. Hell, if Schumacher can trash some rooms after winning a sixth championship, then Kimi with his first championship can burn something down or do something equally awesome!

Next, it's a good thing that the season is over and Ron Dennis' rule of no alcohol unless it's from a bottle of Mumm on the podium can be lifted, since I'm sure everybody at McLaren need a good shit-facing after the season they have had. Lewis will be nursing a forty of King Cobra for sure, since he threw away a championship. Alonso has just had a tough season in general and will probably be slurping down some sangría and I'm sure Ron Dennis will be buy a boat load of New Castle for himself and the rest of the team to drown in. Everybody at McLaren need a drink right about now!

Lastly, Felipe Massa, poor guy. The Ferrari number two that knows his place all too well. Sure, he had no hopes of championship glory today, but he wanted to win his home race and sure could have. But no, he wasn't allowed. Obviously, with in good reason was he not allowed to win the race, yet still. How sad. You could tell the poor fellow was near tears in the interview room and in a rare show of emotion, we saw Kimi pat his team mate on the back when the small Brazilian was on the verge of breaking down. He will probably end up like Rubens. But I hope not.

I shall reflect more on the season later, but now I must go to work and teach teenagers how to drive.

Enjoy your drinks everybody!

You must love Microsoft Paint!

I've been really busy as of late, nor has there been anything in F1 news that I care to poke fun at or philosophize about. So I will just post this:



Seriously, doesn't that guy look like a fuckin' zombie in that picture?! If anybody can tell me who he is and what his function at Ferrari is, I would appreciate it because I have always been curious as to whom that poor man was who happened to get a picture taken of him while it appeared that he was a zombie and hungry for human brain.

I wonder what he normally looks like?

So long, you tall bastard!*

So Alex Wurz is retiring from racing immediately, not even bothering to finish the last race of the season. How unprofessional! I'm assuming this was Sir Frank's gift to Alex, letting him say he's done quit and thru with racing, preferring to spend the rest of the season at home with his new child who was born on the 30'th of September while Alex was out racing in Japan. Yeah right. If that were the case he would have retired the week of the Japanese GP. Everybody knew he wasn't going to be back next year considering Alex hasn't had the best season, or best career for that matter. So for the last race of 2007 Williams will be testing a potential seat filler for 2008. I think he is sticking around as a tester, which is a job he enjoys and is lauded to be very good at. The old boy is just done with active racing. I for one will miss him. Alex has a great personality and retention of his soul. Both of these things are missing from most F1 drivers, the slow and the fast. It would have been nice to see Alex race another season. I strongly doubt Williams are going to make the much needed massive step forward to return them back to title contention next year, so having Wurz racing wouldn't have hindered any thing from that stand point. I mean this year he has scored 13 points to Nico Rosberg's 15 and Nico is one hot piece of property... not to mention a very fine looking young man. That's only a two point difference between a guy touted as being a future world champion and an old gray toothed racer. Sure, Rosberg has been more consistent scoring points in 6 races, while Wurz only bagged points in 3 races, but Alex's hauls have been much greater. I think that says a bit of something... though consistency is very important in F1. Still, it would have been nice to see Alex in a race seat for one more year. I think next year he would have done much better since Williams are slowly improving and Alex would have regained his racing chops. Oh well. What's done is done and I wish everybody involved the best of luck.



The same deal went down with Ralf. We all know Ralfie wasn't even offered a contract for next year. He didn't quit. So Toyota was nice too I suppose. But Ralf has just been a huge let down period, little Schuey or not. The thing I will miss about Ralf is his grasp of the English language. Of all the guys that are English as a second language students, Ralf has owned the paddock for quite some time as the most polished speaker... and I greatly respect that, since I'm American and we all know that American's greatly dislike people that don't speak the language well if they are surrounded by it. Actually, we just hate Mexicans. But that's another batch of biscuits.

I really wish Wurz had retired in Japan just so I could have titled this entry "Wurz says: Konichiwa, Bitches!"


* Wurz is 6'1"

You can't hold the Vettel down!

After having his ten position grid penalty lifted for hitting Mark The Web in the arse at the Japanese GP the FIA decided to give almost the same penalty back to young Seb for slowing up Heikki Kovalainen during qualifying. This time though they were kind enough to only shit-can him five places. I think the FIA stewards just wanted to see if they could make Sebastian cry again. Those cruel bastards! Yet Vettel overcame and stormed from 17'th to 4'th in that piece of shit known as the STR. They have always said rain is the great equalizer and time and again it proves to be the case. Just like in Japan Vettel was right up there with the big boys, luckily this time he was rewarded for his heroic stomping of the field. After the race the young man had no words, just howls of happiness, though in all honesty it sounded like he'd got his foot caught in a bear trap.

Lewis Hamilton's tires wore away and he ended up beaching himself in a gravel trap down the pit lane entry. I couldn't believe my eyes. While I'm not a massive Hamilton supporter, I was just amazed this had happened to him. The guy has Michael Schumacher type luck, and is one hell of a driver as well... so to see him slide off the pit entrance and beach himself was just astonishing. Once I'd seen his race was over, I couldn't help but laugh out loud for a good few minutes. Not that I wished bad luck to fall upon him, but seeing Alonso drive past his crippled team mate just made me lose it. I can only imagine Fernando's thoughts when he came across that sight. The Fern was talking about how only a miracle could keep his title hopes alive, and one happened. Just amazing.

While I don't care who wins the championship this year, I'm glad it is finally going down to the last race. While it would be cool to see Lewis win and become the first rookie champion, it'd also be funny to see Fernie win because everybody at McLaren hates him, lastly, I personally would like to see Kimi win it. I honestly feel bad for The Kimster. While at McLaren his cars always broke. Now the ever reliable Ferrari is giving him shit, granted, not as much as when he was racing the silver arrows, but still, it's breaking on him. Some say that this is Kimi's fault as he whomps the shit out of his cars like a drunk hillbilly does to his step children... but still, these cars are meant to be driven hard and Ferrari should be giving him something he can really beat on. We've seen the amazing things Kimi has done by driving his cars hard. Raikkonen has produced more awesome passes and mechanical failures in recent years than any other driver. The guy is an exciting driver and I'd like to see him win it after waiting all these years. We all know Hamilton is gonna be a many times over world champion... so I hope Kimi catches it this year. Just like I hoped Schumi would win it last year... and because I'm wishing all of this Hamilton will win, but I already knew that.

Timo's Glock

My question as to whom Toyota will replace Ralf Schumacher with seems to have been answered. While watching live coverage of the Chinese Friday practice around 3am, Peter Windsor said that Timo Glock would be Jarno Truli's new buddy. I hope this is the driver that Toyota have been looking for. In his first GP with Jordan in 2004 he got a point, albeit due to the fact that the Williams and Toyota's were disqualified, getting a Jordan to P11 is still pretty good. Timo won Rookie of the Year award in Champ Car in 2005 and this year won the GP2 Championship, furthering the fact that if you win the GP2 title you'll get snapped up by an F1 team. I'm assuming he isn't a pay driver any more considering Toyota is the most flush-with-cash team on the grid.

In other Chinese news Lewis Hamilton was cleared of any wrong doing in Japan. This is nice. What I'm most pleased about though is that Seb Vettel's 10 place grid penalty got wiped. All he had to do was bust out some more crocodile tears and the stewards couldn't help but revoke his grid penalty! In reality, that's not the case. It was a silly penalty to give out considering the horrid conditions out there and while it was a real big shame that he fucked up his and The Web's race, I truly think it was a racing incident in the extreme wet maybe or maybe not partially caused by Lew's mildly erratic driving behind the safety car. HOWEVER, as Lewis was the leader, it was up to him how he chose to control the pace of his car and the duty of the cars behind him to adjust accordingly. Not Hamilton's fault if they couldn't adjust quick enough.

Lew's Looming Championship

By the looks of things Lewis Hamilton will probably tie up all the loose ends in China and secure his unprecedented first black, rookie, youngest championship. While I'm neither for it nor against it, for some tiny reason I can't help but feel bad for Alonso. Emo Fittipaldi held the record as the youngest guy to win a world championship for 33 years. Alonso took that record, but only got to hold it for 2 years. I guess that's what you get for being a dick and helping get your employers chucked out of the constructors championship, along with a $100 million dollar fine. Obviously what goes around comes around, but I still feel a little sorry for Alonso.

He had that image of a nice boy that could race fast and beat a Michael Schumacher. Then he moves to McLaren for "a new challenge" and a boat load more money, expecting to own the place and it just didn't work out. Now he looks like a huge asshole, and isn't even going to win himself a championship. I'm not even sure why I feel any sympathy, I just do. Not much, but a smidge.

The thing to be learned from all of this is to see how Lewis Hamilton evolves over the years. Right now he is the nice, gregarious, gap toothed rookie that everybody loves. Will he too become a snake in a few years time, if he isn't already? I wonder. If for some strange reason Lewis suffers a career ending crash maybe he should go in to politics, since I must say I'm quite impressed with how he wrangled McLaren this year and was able to mind fuck a two time world champion (and this is all AFTER being impressed with his quality drives)

Another person I feel sorry for is Ralf Schumacher. His brother is Michael. That's pretty much all one has to say about that. Ralfie is out of Toyota at the end of the year, and I'll be suprised if he pops up with another team, so next year may be the first Schumacherless year since 1991. The guy has 6 wins in his 10 year career, which is not too bad at all. But then you think about his older brother with his 91 wins in 15 years and your opinion of Ralf drops considerably. It is arguable to say that with out big brother Ralf would have never gotten a drive, but he did, and overall, did not do too horribly. I mean, Ralf is number 33 on the lists of most wins. Obviously Michael is at the top of that list. So the guy should be cut some slack, cos he's not a bad racer, he just is a bad racer compared to the greatest of the modern era, which so happens to be his brother.

I'm curious to see who Toyota picks up to fill Ralf's seat and how well the newbie does, considering Toyota has been in F1 since 2002 and have done a whole lot of nothing. I'm hoping they get their shit together, as I'd like to see the world's largest auto maker be a little more competitive... but at this point I don't see that happening, though I hope I'm wrong.

I'd Cry Too!

That there Japanese Grand Prix was a wacky one! I'd never seen a F1 race started behind the Safety Car before and I imagine quite a few other people had not either, considering it has only happened four times in F1 history.

Overall it was quite an impressive race. All of the drivers, over and under paid earned their dollars considering the conditions were atrocious! I was really thrilled to see Sebastian Vettel leading the race at one point knowing that he'd be standing on the podium. Then he took out The Web of Mark. Oh man. My heart sank!

After the accident happened they showed a guy in the garage who was clearly distressed. For a moment I thought it was a mechanic or something but then I noticed the HANS Device and realized it was poor little 20 year old Vettel quietly weeping in his garage. But I'm not here to make fun of him, considering I would have been weeping as well had I lost myself and a sister team mate podium positions.

While the main reason Sebastian was probably keeping his helmet on was to muffle his cries of distress, he was probably also weary that Franz Tost was going to physically accost him much as he did to Scott Speed when Speed pulled a boner in wet conditions, and here was the man who replaced Speed causing a much greater problem in the wet. I'd be afraid of Tost too!

Poor Sebastian. To make matters worse, he gets a penalty from the FIA for the next race. Vettel's team mate Liuzzi was docked his point for overtaking under yellow. That sucks too, though it is cool a Spyker got the point. Still, jeez. Bad weekend for any team owned by Red Balls. I'm suprised the FIA didn't find a way to shitcan Coulthard's fine fourth place!

Oh what could have been! If Seb hadn't attacked Webber from the rear there could have been two Red Bulls on the podium. DC would still have had his 4'th place and Liuzzi would have had that eighth. I bet that would have been the first time all four Red Bull cars scored in the points!

But hey... it happens.
What, shit?
Yeah.

Nick Heidfeld's Beard

Nick Heidfeld brought something to Formula One this year that had been sorely missed for a good long time: a beard.



For quite awhile Eddie Jordan was the face-furriest man in F1 with his goatee. Eventually Paul Stoddart and his beard entered the picture. Then there was Bobby Rahal and Dr. Mario Theissen with their mustaches, but those haven't been fashionable in years, though I must say Mario's is a very pleasant mustache in a Ned Flanders sort of way. However, these were team principals and engine guys... not actual drivers. Sure, every now and then a driver would show up unshaven, but nobody has had a dedicated beard for a long time.

Last year DC started sporting a light salt and pepper goatee, which was a step in the right direction, yet he kept it too neat. Still, it is progress. This year Nick Heidfeld brought an actual beard to the track and has kept it all year.

Even though it isn't a great beard like those of the 1970's, it is still a beard none the less. Patchy and thin as it is, I respect it. However, it looks as though Jenson Button has been sticking with some facial hair, maybe even considering taking the fight to Quick Nick. While Button's beard is more in the vein of a goatee with a chin strap, it can still be considered a beard. I feel that if he sticks with it over the winter and lets it grow in a bit further that by the start of the 2008 season he could replace Heidfeld as the ultimate beard in Formula One. The only thing to consider are the wild cards who currently are not sporting facial hair and are always clean shaven. For all we know a Jarno Truli or Rubens Barrichello or even the young Nico Rosberg could show up with a mane of beard and wow us all shaming Nick and Jenson so badly that they shave theirs!

Is Jackie Stewart a halfwit?

No, to most people Jackie Stewart is an amazing Formula One stalwart and is not a halfwit, unless you are Max Mosley, then yes, JYS is in fact a halfwit who "goes round dressed up as a 1930s music hall man." Max also goes on to claim that "It's annoying that some of the sponsors listen to him because he's won a few championships. But nobody else in Formula One does - not the teams, not the drivers. He's a figure of fun among drivers."

I'm sorry Max, but you just don't fuck with JYS. While he is very old, much like you, he is also a ninja who dresses according to Standard Scottish Ninja Code and if Jackie has taken true offense to your statements then he will probably kill you in your sleep. If you are lucky, he might just kill your dog and pour sugar in your gas tank.

If Jackie doesn't do any of this then I will make good on my threat from 2005 to you of biting you on the cheek, which was the threat I made if you refused to help the Michelin shod teams at the USGP. If I recall correctly, you did in fact refuse to help those teams, and all the people that tuned in to watch a Formula One race. Well, I never followed thru with that threat due to the fact that I have been very poor the past few years. But so help me God, I still want to bite your cheek because I'm still mad about that shitty USGP I had to watch and now I'm furious over your knocking Jackie Stewart!

Max, when I'm done with you yer gonna look like this:

That is if Sir Jackie doesn't fuck your shit up first!

Where do you get off making most of these statements? Ok, he does look silly, but he's allowed to because he is so fucking cool. You Max, are not, and have never been. You have to wear very nice tailored suits all the time because you just aren't awesome enough to pull off what Sir Jack can.

Maybe some sponsors listen to Jackie because he has been around forever and has a brilliant nose for business, not to mention driving. While I'm sure you are a very rich man, as you were born into money, Jackie is a self made man, nor might I add, is he a failed race car driver.

Jackie: Self made millionaire and three time F1 world champion.
Max: Son of a fascist politician, born into money, and failed race car driver.

While I'm sure EVERYBODY in the paddock gets a good laugh when Jackie walks by wearing his Standard Scottish Ninja garb, I find it hard to believe that the drivers don't take him very seriously. The old man knows his shit. He is a sage. However, maybe I am misreading the comment and by "figure of fun among the drivers" you just mean that they like to party down with him. I know I sure would like to. Maybe Jackie and Kimi go to tittie bars together and get smashed and wave their dicks around together while making fun of the fact that Fernando Alonso looks a lot like Borat*. Maybe they drunkenly talk about how hot Nico Rosberg is and how they both secretly would like to make love to him?

Either way, don't go throwing stones Mr. Mosley. I doubt very strongly that there is very much love for you around the paddock and the only reason people even pretend to take you seriously is that if they piss you off you start lobbing around $100 million dollar fines.

You bully! You dick!

*See, Fernie Alonso really does have an incredible likeness to Borat:

"What, shit?"
"Yeah"

Generals and Majors

I'm very curious as to where Fern Alonso is going to race next year. While I've already spoken of this in a past entry, I can't help but wonder. While I truly do not expect him to be at McLaren next year the question is posed "Where else is there to go?" and that's a very good question indeed.

Obviously Renault is the answer that makes the most sense. With them two sets of championships were bagged in a two year succession. Then The Fern left and Renault has a shit season. While it can't all be down to the drivers lack of pace, you have to wonder, considering Alonso claims to have brought some time to McLaren after their rather weak season last year. However, I think Renault made a not so great car this year and have a rookie and a not so great driver. McLaren made a really good car and have the two best drivers. Though there's always that element of wonder. While I expect to see Alonso back at Renault, nothing will surprise me.

What I'm most curious about is what happens to the driver market as a whole once Alonso lands at wherever it is he is to land for next year. While most teams have their lineup confirmed for next year anything can change. I've read of buying and selling of contracts recently and it could happen for sure.

There are stories of Massa talking to Toyota about Ralf Schumacher's soon to be vacated seat, which could only mean that Ferrari want Alonso. What bothers me about this is that Ferrari claimed in the past they had no interest in Alonso (while looking for a Michael Schumacher successor) and purportedly Alonso confirmed this by saying Ferrari never rang him. Now after all this spy shit Ferrari are sniffing around him?! I joking said awhile back that Ferrari and McLaren could swap Kimi for The Fern, but that was in jest for it seems the majority of Alonso's problem with his current team is the clear lack of number one status. So having Kimi and Fern in a team together could get fucking ugly. We know Massa can be a good lackey, he proved this when he was Scumi's toady. But I don't see Kimi accepting this. We know Alonso won't either. So it would be pretty lame if Massa gets booted and a whole new world of shit stirs up at Ferrari.

Watch, Alonso joins Ferrari and next year around July Fernie goes to the FIA with information that Ferrari is spying on other teams and also knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.

Treating F1 teams solely as investments

In all honesty I am getting sick of the former Jordan team being sold every year. I mean Eddie ran his team from 1991 till 2004, when he sold it to the Midland Group in early 2005 for $60 million dollars. They ran the team for one year as Jordan and then renamed the team Midland F1 Racing in 2006. In September of 2006 Midland sold the team to Spyker for $106 million dollars and in September 2007, Spyker has sold out to Vijay Mallya and Michiel Mol for $145 million.

I understand that the value continually increases as there is no more room on the grid for new teams... but still. Can't someone just buy the team and be content with the fact that they will probably be perennial back markers? It's like these people who buy the teams expect the cars to be competitive after a season or two and then when they aren't winning world championships decide to take up so and so's offer to buy the team for a considerable sum more than they paid for it... or they treat the team purely as a shrewed business investment and on top of it all have the luxury of also being able to say "Yeah, I owned an F1 team for about 9 months once. It was pretty cool I guess"

Really, I would just like some stability and for the name of the former Jordan team to stay the same thing for more than 11 months. Maybe the FIA should mandate that the team permanently be called "The The Team Formerly Known As Jordan Grandrix" Sure it's long, but everybody would end up calling it Jordan and all would be well.

Confused yet? I still am!

From my original understanding it was that Ron Dennis was the one whom alerted the FIA to the fact that some new evidence exist... but now I'm reading that he only sort of did?

On 14/9/07, a day after the FIA doled out McLaren's fine grandprix.com reported: "the identity of the man who tipped off the FIA that there was additional evidence against McLaren: it was none other than Ron Dennis." they said he did this in order to "deprive Alonso of this rather unsavoury negotiating tool and negate the possibility of anyone else using it against McLaren and because it was the right thing to do Dennis reported the information to the FIA in the hope that his display of good faith would underline the fact that the team has been honest throughout the investigation."

However, from another article on grandprix.com posted 19/9/07 it is said "Referring to a conversation on the Sunday morning at the Hungarian GP, Dennis said that Alonso was "extremely upset with what had taken place the previous day (Saturday), but nowhere nearly as upset as I was. He said things that he subsequently and fully retracted. Within the passage of material, he made a specific reference to e-mails from a McLaren engineer. When he made this statement, I said, “Stop”. I went out, brought Mr Whitmarsh him in, and Fernando said everything again, in front of his manager. When he had finished, I turned to Martin Whitmarsh, asking what we should do with this particular part of the conversation. Martin said we should find Max. After Martin and Fernando left, that is exactly what he did. I recounted the entire conversation to Max. I was upset and angry, but mainly upset. Max calmed me down. He said that I should do nothing. I started to calm down. Then, prior to the race, Fernando’s manager came and said that he had lost his temper and completely retracted everything he said. When I phoned Max, Max was understanding and said things to me that are irrelevant here, though I would be more than comfortable sharing them. He was completely understanding and said that, on the basis of what I told him, if he felt there was any real validity in what Fernando had said, he would contact me prior to taking any action."

In recent stories it is said that in fact Fern Alonso went to Ecclestone on SATURDAY of the Hungarian GP weekend, which was a day before the Fern/Ron eruption. Now there are reports coming out claiming Bernie was in fact the guy who tipped off the FIA first, and not Ron Dennis. Considering that it was said Ron Dennis went to the FIA the day of the Hungarian GP, which would have been on a Sunday when Alonso said what he said in their argument. Yet on Yahoo UK's F1 page there was an article from 15/9/07 saying "Alonso and Hamilton were not on talking terms for the rest of the weekend and paddock sources said the angry Spaniard had talks with Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone on the Saturday after qualifying."

On 19/9/07 on Yahoo UK's F1 page I read this: "But Dennis suggested in Paris that "Bernie said that he may have seen something" and that he "would pass it to Max Mosley. I do not know what that is," the McLaren boss added. "I do know that Bernie said it was in Spanish, but I do not know how this material came to the knowledge of the FIA," he added, also in the presence of Ecclestone, who is F1's Chief Executive.

So if I am to believe the information I've gleaned from various websites, it seems as though Ron Dennis was in fact in the dark on Saturday, which is when I believe Alonso may have shown Ecclestone his evidence which he again raised to Ron the next day. So at the very least, Dennis was probably not the first person to contact the FIA concerning the fact that Fernie Alonso and Pedro "I'm Just a Test Driver" de la Rosa had swapped communications clearly showing that not just one rogue McLaren employee was privy to the knowledge of there being Ferrari information in the team camp.

So yeah. I'm just flat out confused at this point. In conclusion I'm guessing a pissed Alonso went to Ecclestone on Saturday of the Hungarian GP and mentioned the emails. On Sunday, Fernie was still pissed and now he was fighting with his boss and decided to whip out the info again. Who knows when Ecclestone told Mosley/FIA what he'd heard Saturday. All we do seem to know is that upon hearing Alonso's threat, Dennis called Mosley. Maybe Mosley already knew what Ron knew. I don't know. It's all very sketchy. Maybe if I had the time to fully read the FIA transcripts that were released today I would be less confused, but I bet that I may just be left feeling even more confuzzled. When I have the time I'll have to pour over that stuff.

The Wee Scot Bastard

This bit about Jackie Stewart was originally posted in my Live Journal 4/7/05, though as with the Lauda piece it has been overhauled and added on to.

The next driver I am going to speak of is John Young Stewart, though he is known to most of the world as Jackie Stewart, THE* Flying Scot (World Champion 1969, 1971, & 1973)

Telling Emo Fittipaldi that he looks like a Goddamn dirty ape! Circa 1973

This guy is TINY and he is really really Scottish!

Not only is he very small and Scottish, he also knows he's so fucking cool that he can wear funny pants in public and not catch shit about it. He is so cool in fact that after he was knighted he saw fit to start carrying a scepter around with him and once he started carrying his scepter a group of mysterious kilted Scots started following him around everywhere he went and so did a tiny dog for some reason. Not many people achieve this level of coolness in their lives. Then again, many don't end up winning three world drivers championships either. But Jackie Stewart. He's not like other people, not even like other Scots.

Jackie could drive like a motherfucker and shoot skeet like nobody's business. He suffers from severe dyslexia and revolutionized safety in F1. The man has such a nose for business that he was made an honorary Jew in 1989, and in 2001 was Knighted for his contributions to British motor sport.

Jackie Stewart was born in the one of the world's most ridiculously named towns, Dumbartonshire, Scotland way the hell back in 1939. His father, a local garage owner was originally furious with his wife when he first saw his new son Jackie, as he thought his wife had been fucking the Irish milkman, cos his newborn looked exactly like a fucking Leprechaun, and everybody knows leprechaun's aren't Scottish.

Initially Jackie thought, along with his schoolmaster's that he was stupid. Young Jackie was miserable at academics and was often found crying himself to sleep at night due to his inability to read "Little Bo Peep".

Being terrible at grammar and math really infuriated the small lad, for he knew he was no dummy... but there was no way to prove the situation otherwise. If he tried telling anybody he was really quite smart, they'd call him a liar upon seeing the marks he received at school! Poor Jackie just didn't know what to do!

In the early 1950's he found a way to vent some of his frustration with school. He started shooting skeet. No... he didn't discover the wonders of masturbation (well, maybe he did, but not at the same time. Then again, who the hell am I to know? Perhaps that first shot of the gun caused the pistol in his pants to fire off as well?)

So let me clarify this: He took out his academic aggression via guns, ya know, shooting at things. With live ammunition. Namely clay pigeons. Though it was rumored he was the one responsible for taking out the lovable town wino, Doddington, in the summer of 1954. However, there was never sufficient evidence to back this theory up so he never got in any trouble. While his main focus was skeet-pigeon shooting, I'm quite sure he was also well versed at the other form of skeet shooting too. I mean what young man isn't?

He would also work in his fathers garage, learning that he possessed some mechanical ability as well. His older brother had bought a sports car and started racing. Eventually he took Jackie out to an event he was in and let him tool around in the vehicle for a bit... and even though he didn't have his gun with him, he started to shooting skeet.

That's what started it all.


Through out the late 50's Stewart's life revolved around entering clay pigeon tournaments and when he could, racing under an assumed name (so his mum wouldn't find out) He was the most decorated shooter in the land (literally) and was poised to go to the 1960 Olympics representing Scotland's skills with firearms.

Then tragedy struck... actually, he just totally fucking botched his Olympic audition. Shit. Everybody has a bad weekend from time to time. His just came at the worst possible moment. Feeling pretty defeated, he put his gun away and as though he had a death wish, started racing full time, always driving like he stole it!!

I won't bore y'all with his rapid rise through the nursery formula, let's just say that he was known as "Dominatrix Jack" and he was feared through out Europe being he had no fear. Instead of donning a Nomex Fireproof suit, his racing suit was made entirely of leather. When he won a race, instead of flying his national colors (which was done by hiding a flag in the cockpit of the car during the race, in case you won) he would wave around a leather whip brandishing 4.5 inch nails.

In only a space of 5 years he went from zero to hero!! His failure in shooting only drove his racing more and it only took him five years to graduate to F1 when he started driving for the BRM F1 team. While he only won two grand prix's in his three years with the team he was on the podium often enough to establish himself as a rising... clay pigeon.

In 1968 Ken Tyrell, his old boss from the Formula 3 series decided to start entering cars in F1 races and hired Jackie as they'd achieved quite favorable results in F3 together. The partnership of these two was like that of Colin Chapman (owner of Lotus F1) & Jimmy Clark (Lotus driver). While racing for Tyrell in the six seasons that he did in F1, of the 99 GP's Stewart contested in over his career, 25 of his 27 wins came while driving Tyrell machinery. Good driver, good car.

"On the opening lap of the '66 Belgian GP his BRM aquaplaned off the Masta Straight, bounced off a house and landed in the outside basement of a woodcutter's cottage. He was trapped in the car, his ribs and shoulder broken, with the petrol pumps merrily decanting five-star onto his crotch. Understandably, it held his attention. This was why the wee Scot wanted to make safety a bigger issue in F1, due to his own experience of how unsafe it was."

Stewart kicked a lot of ass and then quit at the height of his driving prowess. Something many couldn't do. But he didn't want to die. See, your chances of dying in Jackie's day as an F1 driver were much greater than they are today considering that if you were a F1 driver between 1965 and 1970 (racing for 5 years) your chances of death were 2 out of 3. He'd had that big shunt in Belgium in 1966 that got him thinking about safety, then a few years later whilst lying upside down, trapped in his car in a ditch at the Nurburgring in Germany in 1969, with gasoline leaking all the fuck over the place... just waiting to be ignited by some indignant German natives cigarette butt he decided that there still wasn't enough being done on the safety side of things in F1. While quietly awaiting death he figured if he were to live through this ordeal that he was going to lead the crusade to change this. And he did.

Jackie Stewart is the man responsible for introducing, get this, seat belts (not the five point seat belts used today, just seat belts over the waist) and full faced helmets to Formula One, along with a traveling medical unit that would follow the GP's around Europe. He pushed for larger run off areas at dangerous corners. Up until that point you wore open faced helmets and didn't wear a seat belt. If you crashed you were usually at the mercy of the spectators (if your crash didn't take out 10 or 15 of them, which happened often enough) or other drivers to get you freed.

The changes he brought about were really tremendous and badly needed... though not everybody was happy about it, because some people are simply stupid assholes. "There was criticism from the media, and even some drivers. It was said I was trying to remove the romance of the sport. The media said I had no guts, but not many of these critics had ever crashed at 150 miles per hour. Fortunately, I was still achieving lots of success, winning races in hideously dangerous conditions, which gave me greater leverage. For instance, I had won four times at the original Nurburgring - the most dangerous circuit in the world - and yet I was always afraid of that place. In 1968 I won there by over 4 minutes, in thick fog and rain, where you could hardly see the road. That race should never had been held, but having won it, I was given more credibility for my cause of demanding safety improvements. I wouldn't have done what I did had I wanted to win a popularity contest!"

So go you Wee Scot Bastard!



(I think this was an ad for Astroglide)

While still racing he was one of the first modern sport figures to endorse products for silly sums of money. By the time he retired in 1973 he was a very rich man. He continued to work very closely with Ford over the years (the engine supplier that took him to his championships) and was often in their board room giving his educated opinion. He also started calling races in America on ABC and the people loved him. Then again, it's hard not to like the man. His passion and dedication for the sport is just pleasant.

In 1997 Jackie, along with his son started Stewart Grand Prix and were racing cars in the highest level of motorsport as an independent team (using Ford power of course)

In the late 1990's he was subjected to much media scrutiny due to his outlandish behaviour and questionable style of dress.

See, as a proud Scottish man he was constantly wearing kilts. Not your normal run of the mill kilts either, but micro-mini-kilts. Grown men were offended, yet filled with envy at the same time. Young children frightened whenever he had a seat or bent over, for he never wore underwear which is standard procedure in Scotland. This led to his giganticus balls and bigus-dickis constantly being in plain view for all. He didn't even have to bend over for you to get a full eye of pure unadulterated BALL. They were as big and red as W.C. Fields' booze blown nose.

Eventually he gave in and started sporting casual Scottish slacks and carrying around a sceptor.

A SCEPTER!


Jackie with his scepter, tiny dog, and group of mysterious kilted Scots that follow him everywhere. Look at how Scottish he is!

The incident which gave him the most trouble though came in 1999 when he threw a half eaten piece of Scottish delicacy onto the racing line of the start/finish straight at the Canadian GP. He was disgusted by the manner of which a Jordan driver was defending his position (in the most unracedriverly of ways) and would not yield to Stewart's then driver, Rubens Barichello. In a fit of rage he chucked his half eaten haggis onto the track which was then inhaled by Mika Hakkinen's air thirsty Mclaren on the final laps of the race obstructing the cooling of the engine and causing Mika to lose the race with an engine failure.

At this point there was a call for him to leave the F1 business, which he turned around into a huge money making venture, as he was planning on leaving anyway.

In 2000 Stewart sold his team for roughly $100 million to Ford and the team was rebadged as Jaguar. Even though their budget was much higher than when the team was known as "Stewart Grand Prix", they never won a race again after Jackie ceased being the team principal (Jaguar may have been more successful had they not fired Niki Lauda as the team principal in 2002, but American politics really fucked that team up)

Late in 2004 Jaguar sold to Red Bull for only $55 million. We all know who got the biggest chuckle out of this huge loss.

Having been involved in F1 for over 40 years is amazing. You still see him today at many a GP, and he is often more than happy to share some of his old man wisdom.




Stewart at the Nurburgring 1968

*** The THE defines that JYS is the definite article. THE Flying Scot. Much like the THE in Ohio State University. While there are a number of Ohio state universities (Ohio University, Kent State University, The University of Toledo, and so on), there is only one institution named "Ohio State University" just like there have been other Scots in F1 sometimes referred to as "The Flying Scot" yet there is only one Jackie Stewart and he is in fact THE one and only Flying Fucking Scot!!

** The large asterisk is TM and (R) Milhouse World Order Industries LLC

Speculum

Between Fernie Alonso's part in the spy saga and his general unhappiness with Lewis Hamilton not being a slouch the world is pretty ready to accept that Alonso will probably not be driving a McLaren even though a valid contract is in place for 2008. Originally people just didn't see Ron Dennis letting valuable real estate move over to a competitor when he had the legal right to the Spaniard's services. However, with what has transpired with the big assed FIA fine and loss of the constructor's championship it seems like Alonso couldn't stay at McLaren even if he wanted to now.

Personally, I wouldn't be suprised if he races with them next year, sits out his contract, retires, or goes to another team. None of them would shock me in the least because all have their own merits.

Fern could stay with McLaren and race. They'll have a good car. They had a good car this year, there will be a good car next year. Alonso is a great driver and is capable of producing favorable results. But still, everybody at McLaren probably hate him and he doesn't seem too happy there... but money talks.

Fred could simply choose to sit out his the rest of his contract and come back and join Ferrari or Renault or BMW in a year or two's time. Everybody likes a vacation.

Then again, Alonso could just simply retire. The guy is only 26, yet already a two time Formula One champion, the only guy to beat Schumacher, Michael this millennia, rich as balls, and left with not much else to prove. I think all he has left to prove is that he's capable of being a bigger asshole than Alain Prost.

Lastly, Ron Dennis may just tell him at the end of the year "I'm sorry we ever met, please just go" and The Fern will smugly walk back into the open, loving arms of Renault, as Turdsey Fisichella is on his way out. If Alonso doesn't end up in that other seat Junior Piquet will.

Then again, maybe Ferrari will offer him a ride as a gesture of thanks for winning them the Constructor's championship this year. I think it would be quite hilarious if Ferrari and McLaren just traded drivers... Kimi for Fernie! That would be gold. Though I doubt McLaren would take Kimi back considering he has that hideous tribal tattoo thing on his arm now... and that might make the sponsors unhappy. Even more frumped than a fucking huge fine and being in possession of large swaths of other team's information.

Ha Ha!


But in the end, if anybody gets shit canned from Ferrari, it will be Massa. I hope Alonso doesn't end up at there, nudging out that poor little Brazilian. Massa reminds me of The Little Engine Who Could for some reason.

Laymen

After the $100 million dollar fine was handed to McLaren I made a post on my Live Journal with a copy of the news piece and a blurb about how I can't even conceptualize $100 million dollars. My buddy Milhouse asked me to explain what happened in Layman's Terms so I did, finally concluding with:

The best (or worst) part is that apparently Ron Dennis, the head cheese at McLaren, alerted the FIA to the new evidence that ultimatley got his team the $100 million dollar fine.

As it goes, he and Fernando Alonso were having a very heated discussion and Alonso purportedly said he and McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa had exchanged information that came from the 780 pages of Ferrari notes that that Coughlin guy had.

Anyhow, The Fern was like "I'ma go tell the FIA on you if you don't all suckle on my Spanish fly and let me be the number one driver in the team" and Ron Dennis was like "Eat a dick, spic!" and called the FIA. Ron Dennis says The Fern was trying to blackmail him, which may or may not be true. However, it all sure backfired and done blowed up in Ron's face when all was said and done considering the team got that fine and were stripped of their constructors points, yet the driver he hates got immunity for bringing this information to light, even if it was originally shed in an attempt of personal gain.

That's kind of a kick to the groin.

Niki Lauda

This piece on Lauda is from 04/06/05



Nikolaus Andreas Lauda. That's the guy my old man named me after. He won the Driver's World Championship in 75, 77, and 84. I'm guessing he would have also won in 1976, but on the second lap of the race at the Nurburgring in 1976, he gained his place in the annals of racing history not only as a guy who drove his car well, but also as that guy "who should have died, but didn't, and only got his face burnt off".

This occured when his Ferrari suffered a mechanical failure, crashing into the embankment of the track causing his nice car to burst into flames, spinning into the middle of the track facing on coming traffic. Adding insult to injury Niki was then hit head on by another car.

After the second impact the car decided to burn even heavier... and Lauda just chilled in this mess all unconscious. Eventually he was pulled out by four courageous drivers who probably had no chance of winning the race any how, so why not save a guy on fire? Eventually two track marshals showed up. They would have arrived sooner had they not been off in the woods smoking a spliff. It was assumed that Lauda would be dead by morning cos his shit was all fucked up. While suffering some mean burns on his face, neck, and arms, and having some broken ribs, he was given his last rites at hospital. He wasn't expected to die because of the burns, but rather his lungs were completely scorched from inhaling the toxic fumes of the burning gasoline. His car was loaded up on fuel to the max; much like a jumbo jet headed for the twin towers because the Nurburgring was a majestic 16 mile long road circuit flowing through the German forrest (these days the longest track is the wonderful Spa circuit, clocking in at 4.34 miles) It was the last time the race was held at the original Nurburgring, because people were so appalled over the amount of time it took for help to come to him. Jackie Stewart had been saying for years that the track was insane and unsafe, but apparently his claims fell on deaf ears.


(Lauda quietly burning in his car)

Amazingly Lauda did not die. The doctors said there was no logical reason as to why he survived. Though they later admitted that they were also pretty good and drunk on Absinthe when his poor charred ass was hauled in, and that they didn't give him very good care cos they thought he was a goner any how, so they just got him geeked on morphine. It was said that he survived only by sheer force of will. Niki returned to the cockpit a mere six weeks after his accident. As previously stated, I think he would have won the 1976 championship but in the last race of the sesaon at Mt. Fuji, Japan there was a monsoon and the driving conditions were pure insanity. Having just escaped death 6 weeks prior, along with having trouble blinking due to his eyelids mostly being burned off, he pulled in to the pits after the third lap of the race and said "Screw you guys, I'm going home!". With this action he effectively handed his championship to his pal James Hunt. However, you've got to give the guy credit saying he missed three races on the account of almost dying yet only lost the championship by 1 point. Quite a valiant effort on the bucktoothed Austrian's part, you must admit.

(Lauda post accident after the wounds had healed)

Niki started his career using loans he was able to secure on account of his family's affluence in Austria. His father was a very successful man, owning a paper mill or some such shit. He wasn't very lucky in his racing pursuits at first and many people wrote him off as a rich playboy even though his family were providing him with no funds. The poor fellar was actually sort of disowned for a period because his family was so against his need for speed.

Eventually he entered March F1's Buy-a-ride program in 1971 and could do nothing with the car because it didn't work. It was purely a badly engineered piece of machinery and all he ended up with was a crummy T-shirt. He made mention of this fact to his team principals; that the car was a pig and had absolutley no potential of producing results. They scoffed at him (years later it was found that the 1971 March F1 car really was in fact a pile of afterbirth) He was happily written off in most circles in F1 as a no talent waster. In 1973 he weaseled his way into a BRM yet again as a pay driver. At this point he was nearly bankrupt considering he was almost a million pounds in debt. Luckily, this time he had a semi-decent drive and was able to prove he had some worth. BRM paid his old debts for him in exchange for 2 years of service.

Enzo Ferrari took notice this Lauda's showings and was hungry for a driver that could produce results as Ferari had not had a champion since 1964. So Ferrari paid Lauda a heaping sum of money, most of which Lauda gave right back to BRM so he could get out of his contract and started driving the Ferrari.

There was one problem though. While Ferrari was Ferrari, the fine Italian manufacturer wasn't quite at the top of their game in the mid 1970's and the car they gave Niki was yet again a piece of shit. Lauda (who at this point was getting tired of being given mechanically retarded cars) went straight to good old Enzo and stated this very fact, which was an incredibly ballsy thing to do. One just did not talk to Il Commendatore (meaning "The Knight" which Enzo was known as... though Lauda generally refered to him as "The Old Man") like that. While it initially infuriated Enzo, he eventually came to respect that one of his drivers said "This car is a piece of shit, but I intend to make it a winner"

And Lauda did make that car a winner in 1975

Then his face burnt off in 1976

In 1977 he regained his crown with two races left in the season, then promptly quit Ferrari as a form of revenge (Enzo was thinking of replacing him, because Ferrari thought Lauda had lost his balls after his accident in August of 76) and joined Brabham Alfa Romeo, then quit the sport all together mid season in 1979 because he got "tired of driving in circles"

With his time freed up from F1 obligations he started his own airline, Lauda Air, as a result of his infatuation with death, flying, and some poor service he recieved while traveling his country's national air carrier.

In 1982 his airline was experiencing some financial difficulty so he went back to racing to get his company some easy money considering he had the skills to pay the bills. McLaren was the team that provided the car and one must say it was a shrewed move on Ron Dennis' part to bring back a guy that had been out of the game for a number of years, considering since Lauda left Formula One the Turbo Age had gone in to full swing.

In 1984 he once again won the drivers crown for the final time, and quit for good in 1985. But he never really left racing. Only as a driver.

The man had a mind like a computer when it came to piloting a motor car and a dark humor about him. Once when a journalist mentioned to him that he was not credited as starting the Nurburgring Grand Prix in August, 1976, being it had to be restarted due to his heavy crash, he casually quipped "Well what the fuck happened to my ear then?"

When he joined Mclaren F1 in 1982 he was purportedly paid $5 million dollars. At this point in time that was the largest amount of money ever paid to a racer. While negotiating the deal with the Mclaren accountants he told them "I'm only charging you guys $1 for my services as a driver. The rest is for my personality"


(Lauda at Nurburgring in 1975, a place where cars always caught mad air in the dark days of aerodynamics)

Once his racing career was over he held a position as a consultant at Ferrari and later headed the Jaguar team for a season after Bobby Rahal (who was born right down the street from me in good old Medina, OH) has his hand at the team.

Sadly American boardroom politics pushed him out of that role and now Mr. Lauda provides F1 commentary which is often quoted. I always get a laugh when I see a headline proclaiming "_____ is a shitty driver" as he's usually spot on the button.

This is sort of new...

Living in America I haven't many friends who share my passion for Formula One, however I have an Austrian friend who knows a good deal about F1 and while we usually talked about music, since he is a musician, we would often end up talking about F1 as well.

Sometimes on my Live Journal I would make posts about the race I just saw or something happening in the news. Every now and then I would write ridiculous biographies on some of my favorite drivers. While all of the information was true, I ad-libbed quite a bit of filler information. My Austrian friend told me I should make an F1 blog and I told him if anybody else ever told me that then I would.

That was two years ago. Yesterday my dear friend Milhouse mentioned the same thing. I am a man true to my word, like Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump is... so here is my Formula One Racing blog.

I'll start with some of those absurd biographies I wrote a few years ago.