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.