Bad Home GP Luck & Random Thoughts

+I find it curious how some of the "Big Boys" in F1 often have bad luck at home GP's when they qualify good. Today for instance, was not Vettel's day amazingly, which is fine with me since he already has such a massive lead and all, though I *almost* felt bad for him. I would have rather had Fern or Webber win as opposed to The Brown Possum, but it was nice to see Hamilton's genuine appreciation for his race win.

+At the British GP I truly felt bad for Button. What a horrible and terribly uncharacteristic problem that befell him! Then again, I kinda felt bad for JB today too, but that is mainly because I have had a newfound respect for him since he won his championship a few years back after riding him so hard for years as being a waster. I imagine if he wasn't Lewis' team mate I wouldn't be wanting The Brown Possum to fail as much as I do at times. I think my beef with Hamilton is that he's a bit too cheeky and some times comes off as entitled on track for my liking as we already know that he is a brilliant driver and I think he's a stand up guy off track, so as a whole I appreciate LH but rarely find myself rooting for him during races.

+While I am a fan of Vettel, I hope the SpeedTV guys are right and that maybe Red Bull's performance drops off a bit like what happened to Button in his championship year. I've already accepted that Vettel & Red Bull are probably going to win the championship again this year, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing some more wins by Ferrari and McLaren and my unlikely dream win of the year would be to have Schumacher bring home Mercedes first win in a wet race in Brazil after starting 12'th or something. It would also be nice to see Massa win again as even though Ferrari say he's racing for them next year, I suspect it'll probably be his last with the Scuderia.

There better be a triumphant return...

I was very pleased to read that my new main man, Kamui Kobayashi, found a decent ride and has signed for the recently revived Sauber sans BMW team. I look forward to his fun style of racing and possibly pissing off smooth kings of driving like World Champ J. Button.

Other than that I am as "over the moon" as little old Bernie Ecclestone is with all the stories I continue to read about Michael Schumacher's supposed return to F1 with Mercedes GP. When you are reading stories with Luca di Montezemolo talking about how in his eyes it is Schumacher's "twin" that will be racing for the Silver Arrows next season you can only assume gears are turning and Schumi really is on the verge of coming back.

I just love it!

If Schumacher does in fact return to the grid I wonder if Jenson Button will be kicking himself in the ass for not staying with Brawn... if it was a challenge he was really after.

While very few will debate that Lewis Hamilton is a great driver who will win more championships in the future, even fewer will debate that Michael Schumacher is a force of racing nature.

If Button wanted a same-machine challenge going head to head with Schumacher would have been the wisest choice on his part considering he apparently wants to be chewed up and spat out by his team mate. While I am rather confident Lewis will not have much of a problem doing this to JB, Schumacher would humiliate Button in a way that Max Mosley has to pay to receive.

I understand the main reason Schumacher is being poached is because Mercedes GP want to start their re-introduction to F1 with a beastly German super-team, on top of having the means and will to procure such a talent. If this were still Brawn GP there would be far less of a chance they'd be knocking on Schumi's door, even after letting their champion go to McLaren and their old reliable saunter on over to the Williams pasture to graze. Maybe they would? Maybe Schumacher would still have come back had the team been Brawn and not Mercedes? I don't know.

All I do know is I am excited to see Schumacher either live up to his fans expectations of a come back or fail miserably. I also know if after achieving world champion status if the next step in Button's personal career path was to try to go head to head in the same car with someone he deemed to be a worthy adversary that Michael Schumacher is the man to try to prove something against.

How nice...

I find it pleasant to read that Ferrari will supposedly not cock-block Michael Schumacher if he decides to return to kicking ass and taking names in F1 for Mercedes GP. That is honorable.

Edge of seat announcement... or not?

So it looks quite likely that tomorrow the Lotus name in F1 will be revived with two guys I like quite a bit but always let me down. Of course I am talking about the speed demon of qualifying and slow poke of the race as well as being owner of the thickest neck in F1, Mr. Jarno Trulli. Purportedly the other man is a fellow with whom I share a birthday and is the proud owner of the biggest head (physically, not metaphorically) in Formula 1, Finland's sole Fin left in the sport (as of the time of this writing) Mr. Heikki Kovalainen.

I am excited, as I am a vintage Lotus F1 lover. I can now proudly wear my old brass Lotus belt buckle not just as a fan of their fine ugly little road cars but also as a Formula 1 team enthusiast. While I don't expect much out of the team I do hope they aren't the slowest of the lot next year. I would like to bequeath that honor to Virgin F1 because Richard Branson is a cheap-ass-rich-man-hippie. I actually like Branson just fine but hope he gets what he pays for as he got lucky last year sponsoring the underdog as he so often likes to state.

Now what I really would appreciate the most of all things F1 related would be a statement released by Mercedes GP or the Michael Schumacher camp that was notarized by a notary public declaring either he has in fact been released from contract by Ferrari, declared fit by a doctor to race, and has indeed signed a new 1 year contract to race Mercedes super all German Nazi rocket sleighs OR can not get out of his Ferrari contract, is still not fit to race, and no longer cares to think about racing F1 cars any longer.

Just give me one or the other. I don't want to wait any more. I've already been teased by a Schumi return once this year and gotten over it. Stop dangling this frotting carrot in front of my face already!

We've got interest now!

According to Bloomberg, Daimler and Aabar are paying around $184.2m for 75.1% of Brawn GP making the saviors of Honda's F1 team an immense chunk of coin. You do the math. How amazing it was that a sub-par team called Honda decided to quit F1 after spending a great amount of time and money developing what would end up being the strongest car for pretty much the first half of the season.

Instead of putting all those people who worked so hard for the team out on their asses they sold the team to Ross Brawn and company for a British pound sterling and THEN financed that season for them with the understanding that "You get one free year and then it is up to you to make this work and if you don't then it is your conscience that has to deal with making all these people jobless"

This ultimately led to the newly named/birthed Brawn GP who went on to sew up the constructors championship AND the drivers race as well in only their first year, something that had never happened before and to top it all off it was the team's only year... and on somebody else's dime!!!

If that wasn't a good enough of a story now they've gone and flipped the frotting team for $184.2 million dollars because Mercedes wanted to have more say in how an F1 team was run as well as not having much interest in financing a team that will soon be producing supercars that will challenge their own works?

I do recall an earlier entry at the end of March where I proclaimed "Ross Brawn may be Jesus Christ" and I'm beginning to think I was right. Making crappy bloated teams into dual, lean championship winners and then selling the team for a tidy pile of money... a lot like turning water in to wine if you think about it, but with a capitalistic lean.

Brawny Mercedes

Norb Haug is apparently hinting at some sort of "surprise" in the form of driver line up and thus people are talking about Michael Schumacher coming back to drive for the silver arrows as he has purportedly given up F1 counseling duties with Ferrari and is supposedly just working with the development of road cars. However, I always thought the reason Ferrari was giving Schumacher these contracts over the past three years was to keep him legally bound to the team till he was too old to go driving any more and thus not any kind of competition threat to them any more, which is when he would really be allowed to fully retire.

Don't get me wrong, that would be awesome if Schumacher ditched Ferrari and hooked up with his old mate Ross Brawn and drove a Nazi rocket sleigh around F1 tracks. That would be gold. Especially if he won!

In the end it would be far more than a simple surprise if M. Schumacher came back to F1 driving a Mercedes. I have a feeling Haug's surprise is Kimi Raikkonen. Now that WOULD be a surprise. Getting rid of a cheap Button for an expensive Kimi.

Whatever. I wish them all the best in their new teams... and surprise me with a Schumacher of the non Ralf variety.