How depressing...

So I get all excited thinking Schumacher is going to come back and drive around, thus making me happy, even if he wasn't winning all the time. Then that doesn't happen. That really pissed me off. I would have liked to see the lap times he did testing the old Ferrari as I give it a 50/50 chance that it really was his neck bugging him on long hauls or that he'd lost a bit more speed than he thought. Who knows. I was quite surprised at how poorly Luca Badoer showed.

While I was really bummed Schumi didn't rise from the retired and that Badoer was shitty, I must say I thought it very cute Ferrari signed Turdsy Fisichella. Now, I've never been a huge fan of Fisi, and have actually been wishing he would just leave F1 now for a few years, I do have a soft spot for the guy. I remember in 2003 or 2004 when when he was out of a drive with either Jordan or Sauber that I read a story on Yahoo about Turdsy wanting to drive a Ferrari. It was absolutely pathetic and schmaltzy. But now he is a driver for Ferrari and can go away at the end of the season. So I guess it is a win-win.

Now we've got the whole Renault thing. We'll discuss that soon.

It is a great shame... but still great!

Michael gets the call on his scarlet "Schumifone" and after quickly ducking into the nearest public toilet he emerges and is ready to save the day and make millions of super sad little Ferrari fans happy once again. Schumacher himself will now prove that either the F60 is in fact a pig, or that he really is as good as some say!



While it truly is a great shame that something like this had to happen in order to get Michael Fucking Schumacher back into the cockpit, it is still great! When I got home from work and read that Schumacher was returning to help out some old friends I let out a yell that would be likable to one a hillbilly might make if Dale Earnhardt himself rose from the dead.

That picture of Felipe makes me so damn sad though. Poor old Massa. When I saw the footage I had to leave the room cos a tear came to my eye. Kinda like back in 2004 when Ralfie Schumacher ate shit so badly into that wall at Indianapolis. That was the first time I was ever scared watching an F1 race. When I saw this actual picture, I was even more upset than when I saw him catch that spring to the head. If that thing had been caught any lower our little Felipe would no doubt be dead and that would be even worse than is the case now.

When Lauda made the mention that Schumacher was the only real choice for Ferrari, I entertained it for like 2 seconds and decided that it would never happen and that Lauda was just saying his normal off the wall shit (albeit always with a grain of truth) just to ruffle some feathers. Then I started secretly yearning for it to become a reality. Then yet again I realized it just wouldn't happen... so when I saw the story on GrandPrix.com I almost tossed my cookies with excitement.

While nobody wanted to see Massa hurt, I bet the guy just gained a million new fans because I know I am not the only one who has missed Schumi the past 2.5 years.

I'm so glad Michael has a month to train and am truly excited to see him back racing, if only for a little while.

Kick some ass Schumacher.

Get Well Massa

annnnnnnnnd...I don't even care about BMW pulling out of the sport any more.

Vettelstone

There were some good dices today during the race. It was nice to see Ferrari not totally sucking. The Red Balls seem to be working nicely with their new additions. Old Seb Vet made it look easy out there.

I truly hope that Donington Park fails in a way. I like Silverstone. A lot. Even if Silverstone does have to take a break eventually I'd still rather see the British GP at Brands Hatch as opposed to Donighton... but whatever.

I'm sad it will be another three weeks before the next outing of F1'ing.

Interesting and/or scary

This is all getting really weird. I have no clue what is going on. I hope in the end Max Mosley pisses off and agrees to retire like he is supposed to. I hope Bernard Ecclestone stops being a greedy wrinkly old pixie and gives the teams some more money and stops setting up new races in places for the sake of money and not motorsport. I'm tired of those two old knobs! While I respect both greatly for what they have done for Formula Juan Racing over the past few decades they both need to go away now and enjoy their money elsewhere.

This is about not taking shit offa no one. This is a revolution. I hope it all works out and all ends on paper as it has all started on paper. Hopefully everything will right itself... but I'm kind of nervous. Max Mosley is starting to remind me of a rabid crazy old dog which is quite unsettling. It is like he's nothing left to lose so he's just going to keep being more and more of a twat.

Maybe this is a conspiracy to destroy F1 legally as we know it. Maybe Max, Bernie, and the teams are all in on it... or else this really is just an absurd power struggle. One or the other though.

Either way, it looks like war?

I listen to BBC World News at night when I go to sleep. Something about those proper British voices talking about depressing world events just lulls me to sleep. Even though F1 is FAR more popular overseas than in the US, I still always get excited when they talk about F1 on Sunday nights after a race. Usually they just tell you the top 3 results and play a little interview blurb of the winner... so last night I was quite surprised to hear that the 8 FOTA teams have decided to break away from F1. Especially since they mentioned the breakaway about 4 times an hour for two hours and sometimes would give detailed versions of what happened which I appreciated since I wanted nothing more than to get up and hop on the internet, which obviously was not an option at 3am.

Usually I'm on top of my F1 news but I moved 2 weeks ago and have yet to get cable/internet/phone set up in my apartment so I only get to read up on F1 news every few days when I swing by my folks house.

So I was truly surprised and nervous when the BBC told me what was going on.

FOTA Feets in Mouth

While I understand why some teams/manufactures do not want a puny tiny silly budget capped two-tiered series I also found it hard to believe that they all weren't going to sign up for the 2010 season. While it is hard to imagine a F1 with out Ferrari is is also hard to imagine Ferrari competing in any other series but F1 as its main outlet of competition... so I was not too worried about Ferrari leaving. I don't think anybody really was. I'm not saying it couldn't and won't happen but some thing very foul would have to be a-foot, or happen to cause such a thing to occur.

Another thing I found interesting from lightly reading comments left on news stories regarding Williams breaking ranks and signing up for the 2010 season before the other FOTA teams did were all the people giving Williams a hard time about what they did. All the big manufactures don't need to be in F1. They are in the series to sell cars by competing well. Other teams are there to sell energy drinks as well as for the spirit of competition. Williams is there to do nothing but race and attempt to win. McLaren is practically owned by Mercedes and Ron Dennis is looking to start making more super cars. Ferrari will always sell cars no matter what. Toyota, Renault, & BMW are just there to attempt to move more road car units. Dietrich Mateschitz and his two teams exist because the dude has more money than he knows what to do with and loves racing, plus it probably helps move a few more cans of Red Bull for him. Same deal with Vijay Mallya of Force India. Has a lot of money, likes racing, brands cars with his products.

WilliamsF1: They go racing. That is it. So why give them shit for signing up for F1 in 2010? They've got nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

I hope the FIA and the FOTA can find a common ground concerning budgets. It would be nice to see some new and competitive teams come into the fold, but everybody has to be competing against the same set of rules. That much is a fact.

Bahrain...

I hate this race.

No change of scenery.

Interesting F1 searches...

With no real drive to do anything productive this morning I decided to waste time and poke around one of pages that keeps stats on this blog and see how some people were finding this page. There were a few interesting searches that brought people to this fine Formula One blog.

The favorite search was "jenson button beard" which has led peoples to my page at least 10 times in the past month. Last year the winner was Nick Heidfeld and his beard. This year Jense is storming all aspects of the F1 world!

The only other search that came back multiple times was "lauda jokes" which was searched three different times over the past 4 weeks by at least two people.

Here are some other searches:

"video did not the death of the old devil"
"usa f1 ecclestone"
"usgpe"
"usgpe contacts"
"blogspot superass"
"michael fucking schumacher"
"mclaren's devil horn"
"nicke lauda"
"the wee scot stewart"
"scott speed lashes franz tost"
"nick lauda senna's"
"punishmax"
"sex in nazi camp"
"frank william on myspace"

...and then there is my favorite:

"my big dick"

How about all that?

Ross Brawn may be Jesus Christ...

Brawn said his magic wouldn't take hold until his second year at Honda and boy-howdy did it ever! The man aren't no liar! Just goes to show if you give a mediocre driver a good car they can do good shit with it!

As I am a Barichello fan I was pulling for him to do well and was absolutely appalled at that turd of a start he had to the race. I almost got angry at him, but the old goat proved he still has some fight in him as well as proved the Brawn GP car could take a lickin' and keep on tickin' as he got into quite a handful of melees during the race!

I was also impressed with the pace of the Red Balls car, Vettel holding down the fort till the end of the race when he got over protective and took himself and the Koob out. As much as I pull for Vettel, I can't say I wasn't clapping my hands and talking shit to him/the TV after he fouled up. I've got the hand the kid some credit for him immediately getting onto the radio and taking full blame for the incident, though he need not call himself an idiot. He's just a passionate young racer... but I wasn't heartbroken as the Vettel/Koob incident brought my old friend Rubens back into P2 and I was secretly hoping for that.

Until his run in with Vettel I was also very impressed with Kubica's performance. The guy did a good race and proved that he is in fact a great racer. Heidfeld and his beard are worthless and the only reason he's still with BMW is the fact that he's a Kraut.

Hamilton did a hell of a job too, hanging in there and charging up to 4'th place.

As a Toyota owner I was happy to see Truli slot into P3 due to perseverance and good luck (my Toyota is named Jarno, after Truli). When picking my Fantasy F1 guys I almost went with Truli but decided to go with less likely choices. Only Heidfeld proved me wrong, though that wasn't a surprise to me.

The Ferrari's came off as plain pathetic. That's it.

Overall I must give props to Brawn GP, the Toyota drivers whom both started from pit lane and finished P3 & P5, as well as old Lewis Hamilton who started from the dead end of the grid.

I was right... this year's race was better than the last and for the exact right reasons. I'm surprised the FIA pulled these rule changes off with out having them hamper the race and flopping all over the floor making the sport look bad and boring.

Good job to all!

Brawny & The Killer B's

I have a feeling this season is going to be even better than last season. I'd like to say that this upcoming race is going to be better than last seasons, but I doubt that in the sense of all the failure and unpredictability of the previous season opener. I'm still wowed by the massive amount of failure and epic destructiveness of that race. It would be quite pleasant if this race was as exciting but for different reasons.

It was VERY nice to see the two Brawn GP cars qualify 1 & 2 today. I was hoping old Barrichello would win pole, but maybe there's a tiny chance he can win the race. I'd like to see that old dog win 1 more race before he retires.

Either way, I hope the Brawns score a 1-2 tomorrow as on Monday I decided just for the hell of it to set my Fantasy F1 choices as the two Brawn cars (and Nick Heidfeld for further giggles) and Brawn as the constructor for winners.

As always the first GP of the year is always a doozy but this year it might not be just because people are driving wild.

I wonder how the guys in the board room at Honda feel about this, as they paid for this car but no longer have the branding.

For some reason I almost felt bad for Ferrari and McLaren. I don't know why, but I did. I'm glad they are lagging behind, but still, I sort of feel for them though they will bounce back soon enough to their "rightful" places I assume.

Not that these thoughts to follow are of much news or surprise to any F1 fan but I was amazed at the lack of performance from McLaren & Ferrari. I had a feeling they weren't going to be on the first two rows, but I did not foresee the Ferrari's in P7 & P9 and was really flabbergasted to see the McLaren's in P14 & P15.

While it was said Hamilton's car suffered a problem, the way the SpeedTV team announced it was that "He lost all drive" as the reason he didn't even go out in Q2. While I knew they didn't mean in the metaphorical sense, it still made me laugh, thinking if he had "lost all drive" and decided the weekend was a throw away.

I'm not happy about the race starting so late for a few reasons: A) Even as a TV spectator all the shadows suck. I can only imagine how lame it must be for the drivers. B) They moved the race to a later time to help the European TV viewers out yet now for me to be able to watch it live, the damn race won't even start till 2am. This isn't really a problem for me as it is 553am as I write this and I've yet to go to sleep, but the principal of it all irks me. I liked it better when it started at 11pm or midnight or whenever it did last year.

Some other things that caught me by surprise were the semi-lack of performance from Williams and Toyota (the other "rogue diffuser" teams). After all the hubub I figured at least one driver from each team would be in P3 & P4. However we have a Red Bull & a BMW. Interestingly none of the guys in P1 thru P4 are running KERS on their car which I also found curious.

Anyhow, as with last year's Melbourne grid, this year's grid is fantastic and even better than the 2008 grid!!! I do look forward to the madness that will ensue!

Super Brawn GP & USGPE

How about that... Ross Brawn now is a stakeholder of the old Honda F1 team and now has a F1 team named after him. In all honesty, I didn't see that one actually panning out. I figured for sure a large company of some sort or a Richard Branson would end up buying the team. Good for Brawn and company. Now they just have to make it work!

Another thing that I didn't expect was to see the mighty Rubens Barrichello back in a F1 car either. How fun. While I think Rubens might as well throw in the towel, it is nice to see him back for another season in some way. Not that I'm against Bruno Senna being in F1, but it does make sense for Rubens and Button to team together since they are the most experienced couple on the grid (according to grandprix.com)

I find it funny that when the USF1 team was announced a few weeks back it was mentioned Bernie Ecclestone was all about the idea, yet he then made them change the name to USGPE standing for US GP Engineering. That just irks me since FOM doesn't even own the F1 name. Way to help out the little guy Bernie. The team had to tack on "engineering" to the name since Tony George is thought to own the rights to USGP, even though he doesn't currently have a USGP to run.

Gah!

Superass

I am so sick of the F1 drivers bitching about their superlicense fees! I am a very fucking good driver, taught by a former 3 time consecutive auto cross champion who was a SCCA nationally licenced driver who also professionally drove in Formula Vee and am myself professionally licensed to teach in most of the states in The United States of America the art and science of driving to people of any age, sex, creed, etc... and I'm pretty sure I could artfully scare (in a good way) many of the people reading this blog with my mastery of driving were I driving a 1996 Ford, a 2005 GM, a Lotus, or a Ferrari... My goal in life is to test drive cars and write articles about said cars and test drive Bridgestone tires. I will probably never be paid a small fee to do either and I'm a fucking good driver and would be happy to make my living driving competitively. Sure, I'd be unhappy about the man taking some, be it in license fees and/or taxes due to the absorbent amount of money I made driving in circles for a shitload of money with other professionally licensed drivers... but ya know what? I'd live with it.

I professionally teach people how to drive. People who don't know how to drive well, on roads full of licensed drivers who also don't know how to drive well either and that's a lot more fucking dangerous than me and a bunch of other professionally licensed drivers making a shitload of money to compete for a dickload of cash driving in circles in cars built to sustain life after heavy crashes. I have a better chance of dying in my profession than Fernando Alonso does. I can statistically prove it right now: Senna died in 1994 driving an F1 car. It is 2009 now. Nobody has died driving an F1 car since 1994. In 2007 41,000 people died driving just on United States highways alone. So eat a dick. I made $27,000 last year.

Fuck you.

I've spent 75,000 miles on US roads teaching people to drive in the last 2 years alone. I've made roughly $50,000. Somehow I'm not dead. F1 drivers competitively drive about 5000 miles a year tops and make much more than $25K a year on average.

Go to hell!

I think the FIA should give me some of that money that is supposed to go to their "Safe Driving" program to help me keep my car going that I owe $13,000 on and my mouth fed. I teach safe driving. F1 drivers artfully drive in a beautiful way to entertain themselves and millions of other folks around the world. I enjoy it, but you know what, my driving job isn't for personal or others enjoyment. I teach safe, sound, and smart driving technique and as much as I'd like to be able to take all my students around a track to show them how to attack a 3-point corner, I'm just happy if they properly navigate a left turn whilst utilizing their turn signal!

USF1

I am very glad to be seeing all of these stories about USF1 in the news recently. This is a good sign. I was worried last week when I saw the first story that it was the only one I would ever see and never again would we hear anything of or about USF1. Hopefully they can keep their momentum and gather funding and get a team going. I wish them the best in their effort to marry F1 and America... for everybody's sake!

Bernie, Honda, and Senna Jr.

I just read an article on grandprix.com that claims Honda has signed Bruno Senna. I found this odd as up until now, there had been no word on whether the team had been "saved" or not, which would make it a rather curious thing to sign a driver if it is not even known if the team would make the grid for the first race.

Obviously things have been going on behind closed doors because signing a driver to a nonexistent team would be a bad thing on many levels, as I'm sure under the circumstances said driver would probably be able to sue if in fact Honda couldn't go racing, since Senna could have easily signed up for another season in GP2, even though the team he was with last season had to fill his seat... so what I am getting at is obviously things are going on at Honda that we don't know about... so I was not surprised to read further on down the article to see that supposedly none other than Bernard Ecclestone may in fact be involved with keeping the team alive. Grandprix.com went on to explain:

"This would not be a surprise as Ecclestone is keen to make sure that the teams are not unanimous within the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) and having a financial interest in one of them is a good way to ensure that this happens.

It is believed that the majority of the money to run the team will be coming from Honda itself as it is cheaper to pay to keep the team alive than it is to lay off all the staff."

Go figure?

Luckily Olivier Panis did not show us 'lil Panis...

While the picture is funny due to the striped underwares, it is a sad picture overall. From the Canadian Grand Prix in 1997 when Olivier Panis crashed his Prost F1 car

While it doesn't look like a horrid crash (if you can find a clip of it on youtube) the poor guy ended up breaking both of his legs and showing the world what his underpants looked like that day.

An American F1 team?

I just read a curious story on yahoo.com's UK F1 site. The story claims that Peter Windsor who is a veteran F1 journalist who currently works with SpeedTV in the USA as their on-site personality at F1 races as well as formerly working as Team Manager for Ferrari and Williams back in the 80's and early 1990's has partnered with IndyCar technical and design guru Ken Anderson and are planning a Formula One team to be called "USF1" which would showcase American drivers and technology in Formula One. It is said the team may be based in Charlotte, North Carolina which is the heart of NASCAR country with a possible second location in Europe.

Apparently the idea was hatched at the 2008 Canadian GP and it is said that good old Bernie Ecclestone has no objections to the venture (which is always a good thing).

It has been noted that Ken Anderson may be one of the people interested in purchasing the Honda F1 team and was last attempting to purchase Honda's other cast-away team Super Aguri last year... so the guy is pretty serious about getting into F1, which is always a good sign. Coupled with the fact that the guy has a background in racing design (and not just being an ex-race driver like many failed team heads are) and is working with a great mind such as Peter Windsor whom I greatly respect has me quite giddy right now and I honestly do hope to see USF1 on the grid in 2010 or 2011. That would be fantastic! Hopefully this isn't a fluke. I'd like to see this project come to fruition!

And for today's F1 Puerile MS Paint pic:

What this picture of Frank Williams says to me...

While I am pretty sure Sir Frank has never actually strung the words "Eat-a-Dick" together, as he is a far too elegant and proper man... that is what this picture says to me. It is what I imagine him saying to somebody given his pose in the picture as well as the look of contempt on his face. This could have been taken shortly after BMW informed Sir Frank they would no longer be working with them?

Tom Pryce: A Welshman who drove like a Welshman!

I just read an interesting little bit on grandprix.com about a memorial being built to the dearly departed Welshman Tom Pryce who died in a horrific accident at the age of 27 during the 1977 South African Grand Prix. I remember the first time I saw the footage of Tom Pryce's death. It was rough.

Pryce hit a 19 year old track marshal running across the track at approximately 170mph, throwing the marshal high up into the air and more or less tearing the body apart in the mean time in a diagonal fashion in the torso area. It is seriously a foul foul site. The track marshal was carrying a big assed 40 pound fire extinguisher which hit Pryce in the helmet, pushing the helmet as a whole upwards and ultimately partially decapitating the poor Welshman.

The accident is so horrid that it had ended up on "Faces of Death" videos and crap like that over the years. I showed a friend the accident once on youtube (where you can see Tom Pryce & a track marshal die and Budd Dywer blow his fucking head off, but you can't see a bare titty) because he was curious and he told me upon seeing it "They showed that accident over and over and over again on a huge screen at a Slayer concert I was at back in the 1990's"

Never thought I'd be able to find a way for F1 and heavy metal to become friends.

Check out the Tom Pryce memorial thingy as well!

Why is Sir Jackie always pointing at Emo?!

For the past two years or so I have not been terribly good about harvesting current F1 photos during the season for some reason. I still blame it on Michael Schumacher, as ever since he left I'm just not as bat-shit about F1 as I used to be. I don't know why, since the past two seasons have been really great... Idol worship? I don't know? But there really aren't any living Gods in F1 currently. Give it time, sure, but as of now, just a bunch of kick ass youngins. Lewis Hamilton is well on his way, and while he has won my heart, he hasn't done enough yet to call him God... but I'm sure he will eventually.

Anyhow, with nothing better to do in the midnight hours I decided to go hunting for F1 photos from the past season or two and I curiously came across a photo from the Italian GP 2008 of Sir Jackie Stewart pointing his finger at Emerson Fittipaldi which has an amazing likeness to a photo from 35 years ago.

Stewart & Emo 1973:


Emo & Stewart 2008:


Why you always pointing at Fittipaldi, Sir Jackie???? Ya wee Scot bastard!

Formula Drugs

Pictured is former F1 Williams and McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya. As a native Colombian he naturally has a nose for sniffing out cocaine. I'm not insinuating JPM was or is a cocaine user, it was just an easy joke due to the picture and him being from Colombia and all...

Interestingly no Formula One driver has ever been busted for any kind of drugs, performance enhancing or recreational by random FIA drug testing. Tomas Enge tested positive for marijuana in 2002 after winning the F3000 championship, a year after he did 3 odd GP's with the Prost F1 team but other than that... nothing. The reason I decided to look into the matter was I was talking to somebody about good old James Hunt (F1 Champ 1976) the other day and that got me to thinking, as that dude liked to party. He was an alcoholic and openly enjoyed smoking a spliff as well as a bump of cocaine here and there. To calm his nerves before races it has been said by some that he would have a beer or two early in the day.

The only modern racer that comes close to Hunt-esque acts is Kimi Raikkonen, whom interestingly entered and won a snowmobile race in his native Finland under the assumed name "James Hunt". Räikkönen has openly admired the lifestyles of 1970s race car drivers such as Hunt.

Soon (in the next month or two) I will be unveiling my first new driver biography in a year or two, on the one and only James Hunt.

With that said, I will leave you with a vintage Hunt interview:

Classic!

Fifty Four More

I'm glad to see that the FIA is doing away with the horrendous closing of pit lane nonsense this coming season. That rule pissed me off so much. In theory, I understood the rationale, however, I did not like the penalization of cars that had to come in or else their race would be over due to lack of fuel, as calamity always seemed to strike during pit windows. I understand the threat of penalty was to dissuade cars from quickly leaping in to the pits to take advantage of whatever the current situation was. Even that never sat well with me. The closing of pit lane always seemed like a tampering of potential race results plain and simple. If a team were able to change strategy quickly due to unforeseen circumstances to benefit their cause, I say all the better. It never felt fair to restrict such things. I understand this whole rule was supposedly put in place to keep cars from "racing" back to the pits in haste under a safety car, thus keeping the track a safer place for all. Just why didn't the FIA think tank come up with the current 2009 rule sooner? It seems to make a mite more sense than just closing the pit lane for X amount of time. While I think I like the new configuration, I won't know until I see it put to use in actual race conditions, however Charlie Whiting seems to make sense when explaining how the new rule will work:

“The only difference is we intend to implement a minimum time back to the pits. When we deploy the safety car, the message will go to all the cars, which will then have a “safety car” mode on their ECUs. As soon as that message gets to the car, it’ll know where it is on the circuit, and it’ll calculate a minimum time for the driver to get back to the pits. The driver will have to respect this and the information will be displayed on his dashboard."

That seems to make a whole hell of a lot more sense than the old rule... whether this current rule sucks or not... just in theory the new rule sucks less than the old rule. However, instead of making the driver "respect" the information they are given, why not just make a limiter like the pit lane speed limiter button the drivers have. If the ECU can figure out where the car is on the track, and calculate the minimum time to get back to the pits why not just add one extra step and have the little fucker figure out the speed the car needs to go to get to the pits in the time the FIA would like the car to get there and voom. The driver doesn't have to worry about respecting anything other than the road ahead of him, there is no rushing to the pits... I mean why not just go all the way FIA?

Going back to the old rule one last time before it is forever put to bed: I always wondered why there wasn't a provision that if the teams could quickly provide proof to race control that there was no other option than to pit due to lack of fuel that a penalty would not have to be issued, especially to cars/teams that had nothing to do with the causing of the safety car to be deployed in the first place... as those F1 cars have so many damn sensors on them that I'm sure proof could have been provided quickly. Either way, that stupid old rule is gone so I need not muse on it any further.

Lastly... I have completed a new batch of doctored F1 photos for my famous "Formula One Paint" series of puerile humor:


More to follow in the coming days and weeks!