Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Why the BBC has messed up so badly
I haven't posted here for a while, well nearly a year infact, but this decision by the BBC made me so angry...I've had to re-open the account!!
To start with I'd like to congratulate Sky, as they do an excellent job with everything they cover, football and to be topical cricket, and also plenty of other Motorsports alongside Eurosport (which comes in a SkySports package) including Indycar, Nascar, GP2&3, WTCC, Le Mans Series etc. Ffor me it is less that it (Formula 1 I'm referring to here!) is on Sky, but the way it has gone to Sky and the nature of the deal.
First off Bernie promised not many weeks ago that F1 would definitely be on free to air TV in the future, although Bernie may have literally answered the question such that the end of 2011 is in the future to which I for one wouldn't be surprised, he has clearly broken that promise. Second the Concorde Agreement states it must be on free to air TV, and whilst Bernie has not technically broken this rule, as with yesterdays cricket controversy which was resolved correctly to the spirit of the game, this deal does not meet the spirit of the Concorde Agreement. Third it means ultimately all Bernie cares about is his back pocket and not the fans, although we all knew that anyway......
Regarding the BBC, they believe it is the first sport they should drop, and whilst I understand that it clearly costs more than others, it is I'm informed the sport they show with the highest viewing figures. What the BBC should have done, is ask first the fans how they could cut costs on their coverage, and surely cutting half the races would have been a very unpopular choice. Possibly more like cutting all the reporters they send to races, just showing the actual track action, or cut the forum to name a few examples.
Consider this though, if they did the same to Wimbledon or the Grand National i.e. show HALF of the coverage you would think that a preposterous suggestion, to which I would agree, it is, if you were that dull to enjoy watching either Tennis or Horse Racing in the first place that is! So in that case why does the same not apply to F1!? This also happened I remember with the US Masters earlier in the year, when I sat down to watch the first piece of midweek telly worth watching in 2011 (F1 practice excluded as during the working day!), to find they only had live coverage of Saturday and Sunday and was very disappointed. To follow on from this, fans would have been perfectly happy I imagine if the BBC had split the coverage with ITV, Channel 4 or Channel 5, all free to air channels. The Nascar in the States I know is split, across as many as 3 channels I believe, ABC, ESPN and Versus, I follow it, all streamed I must admit (which also may happen with the Sky coverage of F1), but between them they are all free to view as far as I know.
As stated above is the point relating to the US Masters being the only decent midweek telly so far this year, surely means plenty of spending cuts could go on by getting rid off pointless documentaries on BBC3&4 which is watched by perhaps a couple of sole individuals or endless repeats of Eastenders or the such like. Or alternatively the, clearly necessary, £900m move to Salford, which would have paid for 20 F1 seasons, even at the BBC’s high cost of coverage!
Another important point is if I now go out and pay £600 to get SkySports with the HD package, to get the same level of enjoyment as we currently get, that comes out at £30-60 per race depending on whether you watch the BBC ones on BBC or not. But surely why would you bother with the BBC coverage anyway? If I have to pay to watch it on Sky, why would I then bother to not use the coverage I’d actually specifically paid for by watching the BBC. Second keeping with Sky keeps the continuity in presenters and coverage, particularly if the likes of Martin, DC and gorgeous Lee to name a few, decide to move to Sky. Therefore this renders any spending by the BBC on the sport a complete waste of money, and thus in my opinion the BBC are wasting more by showing less……
This will for me do incredible damage for the sport of F1, as many British fans at least, will disappear from watching the coverage and, as many people I know cannot afford Sky or refuse to pay money to Murdoch, adding an extra twist to all this, viewing figures will be massively hit. All the teams may be happy now, but in the future not so as sponsors quit the sport to go elsewhere.
Sorry Bernie and the BBC, but this one is a huge mistake.
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Gaytona - Milton Hole
Oh god, over a month since I last entered something here, it all seemed such a good idea at the time...well I suppose my job keeps me well occupied so I'll take that as a front foot forward.
Anyway onto todays action, and as you can see from above, some of us Warwick Motorsport ALUMNI delinquents headed to the most rundown place in the country, after Liverpool, Bolton, Blackburn, Hull, Birmingham, Bury, Rochdale.....okay so nearly the worst, for a spot of banditisation. We arrived to spots of rain, a greasy track just to add into the mix with the rest of the drivers.
Hankey seemed psyched, wearing as he was his condom on top, and so we headed into qually. The condom was working well, as Hankey was more lit than Brian Blessed's mouth on a bad day and took, what seemed from my viewpoint, a dominant pole. The rest of the grid was
2. Teags
3. Toby
some public
6. Ed
more public (I don't have the qually times unfortunately)
And so to the Race....
There was to be a Lucas Di Grassi topping moment before the race began as Hankey lost power from 1 of his engines and fell back through the field on the first lap as Toby jumped to the front with Teags for close company (although not close enough for my liking!). Toby and Teags made a move on the field as Ed cleared back markers to get into 3rd place, and with Ed closing for an epic 3 way battle first Teags, who couldn't get the power down at the final hairpin all day long, ended up facing the wrong way on the exit and then Toby likewise found his rear too hot to handle, Ed, with his no fun policy (read no crash) powered into the lead.
Nobody saw anybody for a while, as far as I know, we all spent the time getting angry at too many of the public completely ignoring yellow flags then getting angry when you tapped them on corner exits cause they were soooooooooo slow. That was until Toby got black flagged, which I never knew until after the race, for overtaking under yellows, although this was probably as a result of some imbocile stopping to not overtake a stationary kart.....I'm just guessing.
Until the last couple of laps nothing much of note occurred, except Teags getting caught on the curb at the exit of 2 and being pulled round into the tyres at turn 3, and gave the marshal, who realised he was in a podium position, a little smile as he thumped the steering wheel in frustration. Not to mention whilst recovering pulling a Hakkinen-esque move as the back marker in front spun at the hairpin.
With 2 laps to go, with Hankey now stormed back up to 3rd with a drive even Mike Fryatt would have been proud of, there was a strange and unexplained red flag, I was informed someone was hit at turn 1, but Ed in the vicinity claimed to see nothing....we decided there was no accident, just a test and everyone was told a corner they couldn't see! Anyway by this point Teags was getting angry under his helmet as the amount of ridiculous overtaking under yellows he felt was ruining his race and complained to the marshal as a result, before telling the guy who had sidled up behind him when the red flags came out, 'Did you not watch the briefing, a red flag means fucking stop, not think "ooo I'll just make up 30 seconds"'. Everyone drove over the line and it was time for those in the top 3 to get themselves up on the podium.
Teags got a mention for 4th, but congratulations go to Ed, who's no spin no fun policy worked a treat, as he came up trumps to a wild round of applause. Unfortunately they haven't invented a Skipton anthem and flag yet......sorry Ed. Special mention must go to Hankey who despite 3rd takes the moral victory as we all know he would have won the race by a rather large margin. Toby limped in 11th, no prizes for that my friend.
Results
1. Ed 21 laps best - 1:37.562
2. some turd who prevented a WM ALUMNI cleansweep (if I ever met you.........)
3. Hankey 21 laps best - 1:35.108
4. Teags 21 laps best - 1:37.201
more public
11. Toby 20 laps best - 1:37.786
some more public
Some good best laps
30. 1:54.127
25. 1:55.253
This was all rounded off beautifully by a curry at the picturesque Golden Curry house in Bletchley, except for Toby who's a killjoy. I very much enjoyed getting back behind the wheel for the first time since April and am already looking forward my next sesh.
Anyway onto todays action, and as you can see from above, some of us Warwick Motorsport ALUMNI delinquents headed to the most rundown place in the country, after Liverpool, Bolton, Blackburn, Hull, Birmingham, Bury, Rochdale.....okay so nearly the worst, for a spot of banditisation. We arrived to spots of rain, a greasy track just to add into the mix with the rest of the drivers.
Hankey seemed psyched, wearing as he was his condom on top, and so we headed into qually. The condom was working well, as Hankey was more lit than Brian Blessed's mouth on a bad day and took, what seemed from my viewpoint, a dominant pole. The rest of the grid was
2. Teags
3. Toby
some public
6. Ed
more public (I don't have the qually times unfortunately)
And so to the Race....
There was to be a Lucas Di Grassi topping moment before the race began as Hankey lost power from 1 of his engines and fell back through the field on the first lap as Toby jumped to the front with Teags for close company (although not close enough for my liking!). Toby and Teags made a move on the field as Ed cleared back markers to get into 3rd place, and with Ed closing for an epic 3 way battle first Teags, who couldn't get the power down at the final hairpin all day long, ended up facing the wrong way on the exit and then Toby likewise found his rear too hot to handle, Ed, with his no fun policy (read no crash) powered into the lead.
Nobody saw anybody for a while, as far as I know, we all spent the time getting angry at too many of the public completely ignoring yellow flags then getting angry when you tapped them on corner exits cause they were soooooooooo slow. That was until Toby got black flagged, which I never knew until after the race, for overtaking under yellows, although this was probably as a result of some imbocile stopping to not overtake a stationary kart.....I'm just guessing.
Until the last couple of laps nothing much of note occurred, except Teags getting caught on the curb at the exit of 2 and being pulled round into the tyres at turn 3, and gave the marshal, who realised he was in a podium position, a little smile as he thumped the steering wheel in frustration. Not to mention whilst recovering pulling a Hakkinen-esque move as the back marker in front spun at the hairpin.
With 2 laps to go, with Hankey now stormed back up to 3rd with a drive even Mike Fryatt would have been proud of, there was a strange and unexplained red flag, I was informed someone was hit at turn 1, but Ed in the vicinity claimed to see nothing....we decided there was no accident, just a test and everyone was told a corner they couldn't see! Anyway by this point Teags was getting angry under his helmet as the amount of ridiculous overtaking under yellows he felt was ruining his race and complained to the marshal as a result, before telling the guy who had sidled up behind him when the red flags came out, 'Did you not watch the briefing, a red flag means fucking stop, not think "ooo I'll just make up 30 seconds"'. Everyone drove over the line and it was time for those in the top 3 to get themselves up on the podium.
Teags got a mention for 4th, but congratulations go to Ed, who's no spin no fun policy worked a treat, as he came up trumps to a wild round of applause. Unfortunately they haven't invented a Skipton anthem and flag yet......sorry Ed. Special mention must go to Hankey who despite 3rd takes the moral victory as we all know he would have won the race by a rather large margin. Toby limped in 11th, no prizes for that my friend.
Results
1. Ed 21 laps best - 1:37.562
2. some turd who prevented a WM ALUMNI cleansweep (if I ever met you.........)
3. Hankey 21 laps best - 1:35.108
4. Teags 21 laps best - 1:37.201
more public
11. Toby 20 laps best - 1:37.786
some more public
Some good best laps
30. 1:54.127
25. 1:55.253
This was all rounded off beautifully by a curry at the picturesque Golden Curry house in Bletchley, except for Toby who's a killjoy. I very much enjoyed getting back behind the wheel for the first time since April and am already looking forward my next sesh.
Monday, 13 September 2010
Spa 2010 - Our F1 Experience
Well well well....I've been away for some time, busy getting a job amongst other things, but I'm pretty convinced todays postings will make up for that!!
As a member of Warwick Motorsport, we always take a trip to an F1 race each year, this year was (strangely enough!) Spa en Belgique. After all the hassle of the organising, done marvellously by me if I may say so myself, money collecting and heart wrecking wait for the tickets to arrive we met up at the house of Nader on Wednesday evening for an entertaining evening. This included getting psyched for the event by watching the highlights of the epic 1998 Belgian Grand Prix and painting our Sakon banner, which read 'The Fourth Greatest Super Aguri Driver Of All Time' and if you don't get it then Wikipedia is a brilliant tool!
Personally from the number of mishaps on Wednesday just evening, including Jezza getting epicly lost and me tripping in a puddle I didn't think Thursday could possibly get any worse. Surely with my experience I should of known this not to be the case. It began with all and sundry falling out of bed at ridiculous hours and the proof came as we all completely ignored the Sakon banner hanging on the kitchen table, we even had to avoid it to get out!! Thing is we only realised as we hit the M25, about 20 minutes drive into the journey, of which mine and Nader's face as we looked at each other was a picture I only wish I'd had a camera for. So we went back to get it, sending the others off to Dover (of which Ed now informs me he briefly went the wrong way!) .
Once at Dover we managed to have about 6 intelligent lads, we all have been to Warwick university at some point (not that you'd think so!), having a mothers meeting regarding how to fit the headlight deflectors, drawing rather downing looks from those nearby. The rest of the journey passed by with little incident, excepting a randomly parked lorry in the middle lane of the Bruxelles' version of the M25 and Jezza constantly going the wrong way, until we reached the town of Malmedy. A lovely town it was, and perhaps its beauty was what was so costly, as after reminding Nader that people in Belgium drive on the RIGHT hand side of the road and not head on towards a van then cutting the central reservation at a roundabout, he succeeded to prefer driving straight into the flowerbed in the middle of a fork junction rather than picking one side. Once there we had some lovely Belgian food at a recommended restaurant but it would surely be too boring to tell you about what went well!!
So on that count Friday and Saturday passed with little problems I can remember, apart of course from some Citroen driver who either wasn't good enough or lacked the power to ascend the steep hill to the car park at the track, eventually giving up, us kindly leaving someone a breakfast present and Jezza nearly ran out of fuel and got called 'Kein Schumacher' by a witty car park marshal. Of course the rain played it's part too, and we now all hate Robert Wickens, he blatently cheated by ruining the last lap of GP3 :(. Oh and it was great finding out who understood our banner, which we walked round holding in front of us, to which those who did get the joke had a good grin and nod in approval.
All I know for sure is this, you'll wish you were with us to alight from the bedding at 4.45 am on Sunday morning where despite the race being quite excellent, and I'm sure I needn't mention it you've seen it!, there's still plently of off track action to provide analysis on. Firstly we used binbags to keep ourselves warm (actually a very good tactic, as you don't need to remove your footwear unlike a sleeping bag or the like) and then it all kicked off when Piggott found a Joe Tomato lookalike. I firstly replied he looked to geeky to be Joe, so I hope he finds out I said that, and then within his earshot dubbed him the asian Harry Potter, at which point I'd like to point out I was unaware he was within earshot, but I'm sure he'd be proud at that. Then someone came and sat in front of me, which was clearly worth a penalty and after completely overstepping the mark by sitting on my foot, I decided he was off down the hill, which was incredibly amusing seeing him get up and reposition his seat every 5 seconds. What was written on the back of his cap said it all, I only ever repeated it!!
Then it came time for the drivers parade, for those who haven't seen an F1 race live before the drivers go round on the back of a lorry or in cars to wave to the crowd and such. Luckily for us on this occasion all the drivers had individual cars, and I must admit they were all beautiful old cars, each team with a car of their own ilk, for example old Ferrari's for Fernando and Felipe and old Merc's for Michael and Nico etc. Naturally everyone was cheering their favourites, so a combination of mostly Jenson, Lewis, Michael, Fernando and Vitaly Petrov ;)! Once we reached the guys at the back of the field everyone had gone quiet, so when Sakon passed we screamed at the top of our voices and he started reading our banner, how much I have to admit I do not know, but I swear I saw Bruno having a private giggle.....
Once the race finished we marched onto the track and up the hill from our sitting position at Pouhon (and once again Mr. Wikipedia can help you if you are unaware of such locations) and took several photos of drivers binnage, including Lewis and Fernando's marks on the tyre barriers where they went off respectively. Then we departed the circuit in true F1 style as we created a new queue and then leapt in front of those using the correct protocol of joining at the back, well I mean we are 'Les bloody rosbif' so we might as well use it to our advantage!
Monday was possibly the day packed with most incident of all. We decided on the way back to visit Bruxelles itself, and after parking next to what appeared to be the most useless statue ever, we passed a theatre advertising drugs and a chocolate shop publicising pornography, reaching a big open space where we stopped for some free hugs whilst contemplating what similar service we'd put ourselves up for as an alternative! Then came the restaurant debacle, which would take an entire blog on its own to explain (and I really can't be bothered :p), where I truely would have got up and walked off paying absolute zero.
On the way back to Dunkerque, Ed and clan popped off to the beach to spend some really useful hours, and was just in time for the ferry, but the best is yet to come. I rather amused the British woman working on passport control by commenting how much more efficient she'd be cause she wasn't Francais and then we reached the boarding lanes. Far from being a well organised procedure, it ended up with some idiot blocking the far lanes causing utter mayhem, I even voiced such opinions in the open and some guy who couldn't work out row M was infact between row A and row N. When it came to boarding, after a visit to the most lifeless departure lounge there must be, I moved the cone at the end of our row, so we could go. This entailed us edging ever forwards slightly to detect the guy (badly) directing the traffic and by the time we saw him it was too late and we just drove onto the ferry, totally out of turn (there is a little more to it than that, but I've been writing hours by now and losing the will to live!). This caused chaos as everybody, not really suprisingly, tried to emulate our spectacular maneuvre such that 5 lanes of cars were attempting to get into 1 lane and the ferry was held up leaving by about 10 minutes, and it was all because of us haha!
I look forward to many more trips to F1 Grand Prix in the future, I think this my favourite to date, and next year we plan on Monaco and Monza, and yes we have McLaren fans :D!
As a member of Warwick Motorsport, we always take a trip to an F1 race each year, this year was (strangely enough!) Spa en Belgique. After all the hassle of the organising, done marvellously by me if I may say so myself, money collecting and heart wrecking wait for the tickets to arrive we met up at the house of Nader on Wednesday evening for an entertaining evening. This included getting psyched for the event by watching the highlights of the epic 1998 Belgian Grand Prix and painting our Sakon banner, which read 'The Fourth Greatest Super Aguri Driver Of All Time' and if you don't get it then Wikipedia is a brilliant tool!
Personally from the number of mishaps on Wednesday just evening, including Jezza getting epicly lost and me tripping in a puddle I didn't think Thursday could possibly get any worse. Surely with my experience I should of known this not to be the case. It began with all and sundry falling out of bed at ridiculous hours and the proof came as we all completely ignored the Sakon banner hanging on the kitchen table, we even had to avoid it to get out!! Thing is we only realised as we hit the M25, about 20 minutes drive into the journey, of which mine and Nader's face as we looked at each other was a picture I only wish I'd had a camera for. So we went back to get it, sending the others off to Dover (of which Ed now informs me he briefly went the wrong way!) .
Once at Dover we managed to have about 6 intelligent lads, we all have been to Warwick university at some point (not that you'd think so!), having a mothers meeting regarding how to fit the headlight deflectors, drawing rather downing looks from those nearby. The rest of the journey passed by with little incident, excepting a randomly parked lorry in the middle lane of the Bruxelles' version of the M25 and Jezza constantly going the wrong way, until we reached the town of Malmedy. A lovely town it was, and perhaps its beauty was what was so costly, as after reminding Nader that people in Belgium drive on the RIGHT hand side of the road and not head on towards a van then cutting the central reservation at a roundabout, he succeeded to prefer driving straight into the flowerbed in the middle of a fork junction rather than picking one side. Once there we had some lovely Belgian food at a recommended restaurant but it would surely be too boring to tell you about what went well!!
So on that count Friday and Saturday passed with little problems I can remember, apart of course from some Citroen driver who either wasn't good enough or lacked the power to ascend the steep hill to the car park at the track, eventually giving up, us kindly leaving someone a breakfast present and Jezza nearly ran out of fuel and got called 'Kein Schumacher' by a witty car park marshal. Of course the rain played it's part too, and we now all hate Robert Wickens, he blatently cheated by ruining the last lap of GP3 :(. Oh and it was great finding out who understood our banner, which we walked round holding in front of us, to which those who did get the joke had a good grin and nod in approval.
All I know for sure is this, you'll wish you were with us to alight from the bedding at 4.45 am on Sunday morning where despite the race being quite excellent, and I'm sure I needn't mention it you've seen it!, there's still plently of off track action to provide analysis on. Firstly we used binbags to keep ourselves warm (actually a very good tactic, as you don't need to remove your footwear unlike a sleeping bag or the like) and then it all kicked off when Piggott found a Joe Tomato lookalike. I firstly replied he looked to geeky to be Joe, so I hope he finds out I said that, and then within his earshot dubbed him the asian Harry Potter, at which point I'd like to point out I was unaware he was within earshot, but I'm sure he'd be proud at that. Then someone came and sat in front of me, which was clearly worth a penalty and after completely overstepping the mark by sitting on my foot, I decided he was off down the hill, which was incredibly amusing seeing him get up and reposition his seat every 5 seconds. What was written on the back of his cap said it all, I only ever repeated it!!
Then it came time for the drivers parade, for those who haven't seen an F1 race live before the drivers go round on the back of a lorry or in cars to wave to the crowd and such. Luckily for us on this occasion all the drivers had individual cars, and I must admit they were all beautiful old cars, each team with a car of their own ilk, for example old Ferrari's for Fernando and Felipe and old Merc's for Michael and Nico etc. Naturally everyone was cheering their favourites, so a combination of mostly Jenson, Lewis, Michael, Fernando and Vitaly Petrov ;)! Once we reached the guys at the back of the field everyone had gone quiet, so when Sakon passed we screamed at the top of our voices and he started reading our banner, how much I have to admit I do not know, but I swear I saw Bruno having a private giggle.....
Once the race finished we marched onto the track and up the hill from our sitting position at Pouhon (and once again Mr. Wikipedia can help you if you are unaware of such locations) and took several photos of drivers binnage, including Lewis and Fernando's marks on the tyre barriers where they went off respectively. Then we departed the circuit in true F1 style as we created a new queue and then leapt in front of those using the correct protocol of joining at the back, well I mean we are 'Les bloody rosbif' so we might as well use it to our advantage!
Monday was possibly the day packed with most incident of all. We decided on the way back to visit Bruxelles itself, and after parking next to what appeared to be the most useless statue ever, we passed a theatre advertising drugs and a chocolate shop publicising pornography, reaching a big open space where we stopped for some free hugs whilst contemplating what similar service we'd put ourselves up for as an alternative! Then came the restaurant debacle, which would take an entire blog on its own to explain (and I really can't be bothered :p), where I truely would have got up and walked off paying absolute zero.
On the way back to Dunkerque, Ed and clan popped off to the beach to spend some really useful hours, and was just in time for the ferry, but the best is yet to come. I rather amused the British woman working on passport control by commenting how much more efficient she'd be cause she wasn't Francais and then we reached the boarding lanes. Far from being a well organised procedure, it ended up with some idiot blocking the far lanes causing utter mayhem, I even voiced such opinions in the open and some guy who couldn't work out row M was infact between row A and row N. When it came to boarding, after a visit to the most lifeless departure lounge there must be, I moved the cone at the end of our row, so we could go. This entailed us edging ever forwards slightly to detect the guy (badly) directing the traffic and by the time we saw him it was too late and we just drove onto the ferry, totally out of turn (there is a little more to it than that, but I've been writing hours by now and losing the will to live!). This caused chaos as everybody, not really suprisingly, tried to emulate our spectacular maneuvre such that 5 lanes of cars were attempting to get into 1 lane and the ferry was held up leaving by about 10 minutes, and it was all because of us haha!
I look forward to many more trips to F1 Grand Prix in the future, I think this my favourite to date, and next year we plan on Monaco and Monza, and yes we have McLaren fans :D!
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
F1 Midseason Driver Review
I thought on this occasion rather than writing a review of the British Grand Prix, which could be summed up by saying Vettel got a puncture and fought his way back and Alonso debatedly overtook Kubica, I decided I'd write a review of each drivers performance so far in 2010.
1) JENSON BUTTON - It seemed a stupid move for Jenson to go McLaren. But he's proved he knew best so far and has matched Lewis pretty much blow for blow so far. Those (admittedly like me!) who thought he'd be playing second fiddle from early on have been proved wrong. Is certainly still in the championship hunt.
2) LEWIS HAMILTON - Was desperate to get that number 1 back on his car for 2011 at the start of the year and where is he right now in the championship standings!? Needs to avoid the controversy however, for example weaving along the pit straight at Sepang in front of Vitaly Petrov, it rubs people up the wrong way. Having said this, his recent form has been very impressive, he'll want to make sure he keeps it up.
3) MICHAEL SCHUMACHER - Oh dear. Not sure he envisaged failing to reach the top 10 in qualifying in any race, nevermind 2 in a row with his car seemingly going backwards. That coupled with some rather poor driver decisions on his part, particularly in Montreal, will leave his mouth quite bitter I would think. Needs to up his game for me, all that can get him a seat in 2011 at present is his reputation.
4) NICO ROSBERG - Started the season on fire, but has since slipped away. How much this is to do with the car is debatable, in my view heavily. I've rated Nico highly for a fair few years and he seems to be able to get the results, Valencia and Silverstone are good examples, when the car ain't up to it. Proving his worth in my opinion, especially given his teammate!
5) SEBASTIAN VETTEL - Reliability, reliability, mistakes. Could have this championship pretty much wound up like Jenson did last year, but has been quite consistently unlucky and obviously made a dreadful error in Istanbul. This favouritism row is unfortunate for him, as it isn't his decision who Red Bull favour, but 2010 is a case of what might have been so far.
6) MARK WEBBER - He might make plenty of mistakes with his bitching to the press regarding the favouritism row at Red Bull, but boy doesn't he make up for it on the track! Is probably the best shot at the championship for him, and at the moment he's making it count.
7) FELIPE MASSA - It's difficult to know what to make of Felipe, whether his crash in Budapest last year is still affecting him, I suspect not, but who knows. He seems to show smatterings of brilliance amongst lots of not so good stuff. He's at home at Ferrari though, has a very good relationship with them and lets face it, who wants to see him split from Rob Smedley!? Deserves another shot at the title for me.
8) FERNANDO ALONSO - Many sources I read claim Fernando should be heading the championship, and with his ability coupled with a Ferrari it's difficult to disagree! However his season has been riddled with very poor mistakes, possibly as a result of the pressure Spanish media after 2 seasons in an uncompetitive Renault. Some luck must soon be coming his way, and with his talent he'll be sure to take full advantage.
9) RUBENS BARRICHELLO - Has been an excellent season for Rubens so far, he beat the Stig round the Top Gear test track!! In all seriousness 2010 started badly for him, but he's shown lately this was probably the car, because as the season's gone on he's moving towards the front. His experience must be aiding Williams's development in this case, plus he's keeping his whipper-snapper of a teammate well behind.
10) NICO HULKENBERG - Came into Formula 1 with the racing pedigree of none other than Lewis Hamilton and the manager of a certain Schumacher, but has so far failed to leave his mark particularly. Not every driver can be winning races all the time, but I expected better from him than fighting over 14th-15th place in qualifying. Needs to focus on Rubens and up the game.
11) ROBERT KUBICA - Has arguably proved he is the worlds best driver right now, after having an outstanding season to date and is way outperforming the Renault he has his hands on, I particularly remember his excellent podium on the famous streets (Monte Carlo of course!!). I can't blame Ferrari to be closely monitoring his progress, he's DRIVER OF THE SEASON so far in my view.
12) VITALY PETROV - Is very unfortunate to be in the situation he is right now, with Renault seemingly going to get rid of him. He's performing well within what the car is capable of, and is only looking bad as a result of his incredulous teamate, and sometimes even outperforms Robert. Is definitely the best rookie in 2010 so far and had it not been for terrible luck would have had a hatful more points to show for his efforts.
14) ADRIAN SUTIL - I'm not 100% sure what to say about Adrian if I'm honest. He's doing consistently well and is scoring many lower end points finishes, currently 6 consecutively, which is probably the limits of the Force India. Certainly he seems to be cutting out the mistakes from earlier in his career which is putting him out of spotlight as a result. Just needs to keep it going.
15) VITANTONIO LIUZZI - Another underperformer in 2010, and is now under pressure from Scotsman Paul Di Resta for his race seat. Showed plenty of promise when he gained the seat at the back end of 2009 but has failed, often miserably, to live up to it. It can't be long before Di Resta gets his chance, which is disappointing for us all, Tonio is an exciting racer on his day, but he hasn't had enough of them this season.
16) SEBASTIEN BUEMI - Solid yet unspectular would sum Sebastien up rather well. Has scored minor points quite regularly and being a team leader in your second season is a rather huge challenge! In qualifying has explored Q3 a few times, a good achievement from him. Has proved he has the racer characteristics though after his bizarre incident in Shanghai, and when interviewed was more concerned about his phone!!
17) JAIME ALGUERSUARI - Proven to be a feisty little racer and has built on the glimmer of promise we saw last season, what with twice failing to be intimidated by Michael for quite some laps, notably at Melbourne. Needs to try and focus on not being the odd car to be eliminated from Q1 all the time and build on from there into 2011. Definitely one for the future.
18) JARNO TRULLI - Hasn't had much luck in 2010. Made a good choice in my view to stick it out for a year in a bad car, knowing in 2011 with Mike Gascoyne (the best F1 car designer for me) designing the car, he should be back amongst the midfield at least. He just loves racing, could have retired to spend time on his wine, but decided to stay and we'll have to wait until 2011 to see if it's going to pay off.
19) HEIKKI KOVALAINEN - Has certainly been revitalised at Lotus after being pretty much hammered by Lewis and (certainly me!) wrote him off as an F1 driver. However slightly less in the limelight he has really sparkled and if Robert is driver of the season, Heikki takes home 'B' driver of the season by miles. He's hanging onto the tails of the midfield now on some race tracks which shows an excellent season from Heikki.
20) KARUN CHANDHOK - I like many others couldn't believe the news Karun had been given an F1 drive at the beginning of the season with his GP2 crash record, but I have to admit he's gutsy and is developing as a driver. We can't really comment on his ability to be competitive in F1 at this time given the car he's driving would barely win a GP2 race, but compared to Bruno he's doing ok so only time will tell.
21) BRUNO SENNA - Whether the name ultimately carried Bruno to F1 or not I feel he deserves a race seat on his own merit, and is so far generally a few tenths faster than Karun at every track which is all you can ask for. I would think his missing out at Silverstone was due to monetary problems rather than talent issues. Without another seat becoming available however I don't see how Bruno can move forward, unfortunately.
22) PEDRO DE LA ROSA - Not been a great season for Pedro, but by no means a disaster either. The Sauber boys seem to me to always be within a tenth of each other in just about every session at every track, only thing is that's all too often 16th-17th etc. Is matching his young promising teammate which for a driver who's been out for a few years is good. Can't see him getting a seat in 2011 though.
23) KAMUI KOBAYASHI - Japanese drivers have a bit of a reputation for being good....at crashing! Kamui however I'm pleased to say has so far avoided that branding and has pulled out some good results and is starting to live up to his promise from 2009. If the car improves he'd be fighting to make the top 10 shootout on a race in race out basis. After a nervy start is definitely worth his seat.
24) TIMO GLOCK - Like Jarno Trulli, Timo is putting his hopes on a competitive car appearing in 2011. From the performances so far he is certainly worth a shot further up the grid too. Perhaps it will be a very shrewd move as he gains a years F1 racing experience with no media attention. Should be focusing on keeping up with Lotus for the rest of the season, which he's doing.
25) LUCAS DI GRASSI - Didn't have the greatest of starts and was quite heftily dominated by his teammate. Is still more often than not a few tenths of Timo, but is definitely more competitive against his teammate and is showing promise of making the 'B' class a 4 way battle. As such Lucas can be pleased with his debut season to date.
Phew....I'm know not looking forward to the end of the season when a full review is the dish of the day! And I'm sure there'll be plenty to discuss then too.....excellent.
1) JENSON BUTTON - It seemed a stupid move for Jenson to go McLaren. But he's proved he knew best so far and has matched Lewis pretty much blow for blow so far. Those (admittedly like me!) who thought he'd be playing second fiddle from early on have been proved wrong. Is certainly still in the championship hunt.
2) LEWIS HAMILTON - Was desperate to get that number 1 back on his car for 2011 at the start of the year and where is he right now in the championship standings!? Needs to avoid the controversy however, for example weaving along the pit straight at Sepang in front of Vitaly Petrov, it rubs people up the wrong way. Having said this, his recent form has been very impressive, he'll want to make sure he keeps it up.
3) MICHAEL SCHUMACHER - Oh dear. Not sure he envisaged failing to reach the top 10 in qualifying in any race, nevermind 2 in a row with his car seemingly going backwards. That coupled with some rather poor driver decisions on his part, particularly in Montreal, will leave his mouth quite bitter I would think. Needs to up his game for me, all that can get him a seat in 2011 at present is his reputation.
4) NICO ROSBERG - Started the season on fire, but has since slipped away. How much this is to do with the car is debatable, in my view heavily. I've rated Nico highly for a fair few years and he seems to be able to get the results, Valencia and Silverstone are good examples, when the car ain't up to it. Proving his worth in my opinion, especially given his teammate!
5) SEBASTIAN VETTEL - Reliability, reliability, mistakes. Could have this championship pretty much wound up like Jenson did last year, but has been quite consistently unlucky and obviously made a dreadful error in Istanbul. This favouritism row is unfortunate for him, as it isn't his decision who Red Bull favour, but 2010 is a case of what might have been so far.
6) MARK WEBBER - He might make plenty of mistakes with his bitching to the press regarding the favouritism row at Red Bull, but boy doesn't he make up for it on the track! Is probably the best shot at the championship for him, and at the moment he's making it count.
7) FELIPE MASSA - It's difficult to know what to make of Felipe, whether his crash in Budapest last year is still affecting him, I suspect not, but who knows. He seems to show smatterings of brilliance amongst lots of not so good stuff. He's at home at Ferrari though, has a very good relationship with them and lets face it, who wants to see him split from Rob Smedley!? Deserves another shot at the title for me.
8) FERNANDO ALONSO - Many sources I read claim Fernando should be heading the championship, and with his ability coupled with a Ferrari it's difficult to disagree! However his season has been riddled with very poor mistakes, possibly as a result of the pressure Spanish media after 2 seasons in an uncompetitive Renault. Some luck must soon be coming his way, and with his talent he'll be sure to take full advantage.
9) RUBENS BARRICHELLO - Has been an excellent season for Rubens so far, he beat the Stig round the Top Gear test track!! In all seriousness 2010 started badly for him, but he's shown lately this was probably the car, because as the season's gone on he's moving towards the front. His experience must be aiding Williams's development in this case, plus he's keeping his whipper-snapper of a teammate well behind.
10) NICO HULKENBERG - Came into Formula 1 with the racing pedigree of none other than Lewis Hamilton and the manager of a certain Schumacher, but has so far failed to leave his mark particularly. Not every driver can be winning races all the time, but I expected better from him than fighting over 14th-15th place in qualifying. Needs to focus on Rubens and up the game.
11) ROBERT KUBICA - Has arguably proved he is the worlds best driver right now, after having an outstanding season to date and is way outperforming the Renault he has his hands on, I particularly remember his excellent podium on the famous streets (Monte Carlo of course!!). I can't blame Ferrari to be closely monitoring his progress, he's DRIVER OF THE SEASON so far in my view.
12) VITALY PETROV - Is very unfortunate to be in the situation he is right now, with Renault seemingly going to get rid of him. He's performing well within what the car is capable of, and is only looking bad as a result of his incredulous teamate, and sometimes even outperforms Robert. Is definitely the best rookie in 2010 so far and had it not been for terrible luck would have had a hatful more points to show for his efforts.
14) ADRIAN SUTIL - I'm not 100% sure what to say about Adrian if I'm honest. He's doing consistently well and is scoring many lower end points finishes, currently 6 consecutively, which is probably the limits of the Force India. Certainly he seems to be cutting out the mistakes from earlier in his career which is putting him out of spotlight as a result. Just needs to keep it going.
15) VITANTONIO LIUZZI - Another underperformer in 2010, and is now under pressure from Scotsman Paul Di Resta for his race seat. Showed plenty of promise when he gained the seat at the back end of 2009 but has failed, often miserably, to live up to it. It can't be long before Di Resta gets his chance, which is disappointing for us all, Tonio is an exciting racer on his day, but he hasn't had enough of them this season.
16) SEBASTIEN BUEMI - Solid yet unspectular would sum Sebastien up rather well. Has scored minor points quite regularly and being a team leader in your second season is a rather huge challenge! In qualifying has explored Q3 a few times, a good achievement from him. Has proved he has the racer characteristics though after his bizarre incident in Shanghai, and when interviewed was more concerned about his phone!!
17) JAIME ALGUERSUARI - Proven to be a feisty little racer and has built on the glimmer of promise we saw last season, what with twice failing to be intimidated by Michael for quite some laps, notably at Melbourne. Needs to try and focus on not being the odd car to be eliminated from Q1 all the time and build on from there into 2011. Definitely one for the future.
18) JARNO TRULLI - Hasn't had much luck in 2010. Made a good choice in my view to stick it out for a year in a bad car, knowing in 2011 with Mike Gascoyne (the best F1 car designer for me) designing the car, he should be back amongst the midfield at least. He just loves racing, could have retired to spend time on his wine, but decided to stay and we'll have to wait until 2011 to see if it's going to pay off.
19) HEIKKI KOVALAINEN - Has certainly been revitalised at Lotus after being pretty much hammered by Lewis and (certainly me!) wrote him off as an F1 driver. However slightly less in the limelight he has really sparkled and if Robert is driver of the season, Heikki takes home 'B' driver of the season by miles. He's hanging onto the tails of the midfield now on some race tracks which shows an excellent season from Heikki.
20) KARUN CHANDHOK - I like many others couldn't believe the news Karun had been given an F1 drive at the beginning of the season with his GP2 crash record, but I have to admit he's gutsy and is developing as a driver. We can't really comment on his ability to be competitive in F1 at this time given the car he's driving would barely win a GP2 race, but compared to Bruno he's doing ok so only time will tell.
21) BRUNO SENNA - Whether the name ultimately carried Bruno to F1 or not I feel he deserves a race seat on his own merit, and is so far generally a few tenths faster than Karun at every track which is all you can ask for. I would think his missing out at Silverstone was due to monetary problems rather than talent issues. Without another seat becoming available however I don't see how Bruno can move forward, unfortunately.
22) PEDRO DE LA ROSA - Not been a great season for Pedro, but by no means a disaster either. The Sauber boys seem to me to always be within a tenth of each other in just about every session at every track, only thing is that's all too often 16th-17th etc. Is matching his young promising teammate which for a driver who's been out for a few years is good. Can't see him getting a seat in 2011 though.
23) KAMUI KOBAYASHI - Japanese drivers have a bit of a reputation for being good....at crashing! Kamui however I'm pleased to say has so far avoided that branding and has pulled out some good results and is starting to live up to his promise from 2009. If the car improves he'd be fighting to make the top 10 shootout on a race in race out basis. After a nervy start is definitely worth his seat.
24) TIMO GLOCK - Like Jarno Trulli, Timo is putting his hopes on a competitive car appearing in 2011. From the performances so far he is certainly worth a shot further up the grid too. Perhaps it will be a very shrewd move as he gains a years F1 racing experience with no media attention. Should be focusing on keeping up with Lotus for the rest of the season, which he's doing.
25) LUCAS DI GRASSI - Didn't have the greatest of starts and was quite heftily dominated by his teammate. Is still more often than not a few tenths of Timo, but is definitely more competitive against his teammate and is showing promise of making the 'B' class a 4 way battle. As such Lucas can be pleased with his debut season to date.
Phew....I'm know not looking forward to the end of the season when a full review is the dish of the day! And I'm sure there'll be plenty to discuss then too.....excellent.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
World Cup Awards
Sorry all for not posting for a while, always been meaning to, never did, general story!!
As the title suggests this is where I will post my personal awards, including my top 10 goals from the FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa (you have to give it it's full title sometime!). I won't make it too long.
AWARDS:
Player of the Tournament: Diego FORLAN - Had an excellent World Cup, and was the rightful winner of the golden ball I think it is. I'd love some comments for Man Utd fans about this, he really moves into a different gear when he pulls on the Uruguay shirt, which in my view is refreshing to see as so many players seem to care more about their club these days. Was also the player to get the best of the Jabulani and equalled the golden boot winner for goals, and all were well worth the watch. For me he deserved the golden boot as well, for the quality of his goals. He effectively carried a rather unknown Uruguayan team with a rather small national population.
Bright Spark: Alexis SANCHEZ - Obviously the likes of Ozil would fit here, but he got too much airtime, so I was looking for someone a little less high profile! Provided Chile with a real spark and invention, was always available down the right and beat man after man. Not to mention that he (like all the Chileans it has to be said) was full of running.
Team of the Tournament: Here I've picked 1 player from each nation (only 11 nations obviously) so an exercise for you is to see how many you know!!
GK: Villar
RB: Maicon
CB: Puyol
CB: Mokoena
LB: Coentrao
DM: Toure Yaya
RM: Sanchez
CAM: Ozil
LM: Sneijder
ST: Forlan
ST: Honda
Now for the big one........
GOAL OF THE TOURNAMENT:
10) Keisuke Honda - Denmark v JAPAN Thursday 24th June
9) Luis Fabiano (1) - BRAZIL v Ivory Coast Sunday 20th June
8) Diego Forlan - URUGUAY v Netherlands Tuesday 6th July
7) Siphiwe Tshabalala - SOUTH AFRICA v Mexico Friday 11th June
6) Diego Forlan (1) - South Africa v URUGUAY Wednesday 16th June
5) Luis Suarez - URUGUAY v South Korea Saturday 26th June
4) Diego Forlan - URUGUAY v Ghana Friday 2nd July
3) Carlos Tevez - ARGENTINA v Mexico Sunday 27th June
2) Maicon - BRAZIL v North Korea Tuesday 15th June
1) Giovanni Van Bronckhorst - Uruguay v NETHERLANDS Tuesday 6th July
Some great strikes there, I'll (try to) get round to posting a World Cup review at some point!
As the title suggests this is where I will post my personal awards, including my top 10 goals from the FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa (you have to give it it's full title sometime!). I won't make it too long.
AWARDS:
Player of the Tournament: Diego FORLAN - Had an excellent World Cup, and was the rightful winner of the golden ball I think it is. I'd love some comments for Man Utd fans about this, he really moves into a different gear when he pulls on the Uruguay shirt, which in my view is refreshing to see as so many players seem to care more about their club these days. Was also the player to get the best of the Jabulani and equalled the golden boot winner for goals, and all were well worth the watch. For me he deserved the golden boot as well, for the quality of his goals. He effectively carried a rather unknown Uruguayan team with a rather small national population.
Bright Spark: Alexis SANCHEZ - Obviously the likes of Ozil would fit here, but he got too much airtime, so I was looking for someone a little less high profile! Provided Chile with a real spark and invention, was always available down the right and beat man after man. Not to mention that he (like all the Chileans it has to be said) was full of running.
Team of the Tournament: Here I've picked 1 player from each nation (only 11 nations obviously) so an exercise for you is to see how many you know!!
GK: Villar
RB: Maicon
CB: Puyol
CB: Mokoena
LB: Coentrao
DM: Toure Yaya
RM: Sanchez
CAM: Ozil
LM: Sneijder
ST: Forlan
ST: Honda
Now for the big one........
GOAL OF THE TOURNAMENT:
10) Keisuke Honda - Denmark v JAPAN Thursday 24th June
9) Luis Fabiano (1) - BRAZIL v Ivory Coast Sunday 20th June
8) Diego Forlan - URUGUAY v Netherlands Tuesday 6th July
7) Siphiwe Tshabalala - SOUTH AFRICA v Mexico Friday 11th June
6) Diego Forlan (1) - South Africa v URUGUAY Wednesday 16th June
5) Luis Suarez - URUGUAY v South Korea Saturday 26th June
4) Diego Forlan - URUGUAY v Ghana Friday 2nd July
3) Carlos Tevez - ARGENTINA v Mexico Sunday 27th June
2) Maicon - BRAZIL v North Korea Tuesday 15th June
1) Giovanni Van Bronckhorst - Uruguay v NETHERLANDS Tuesday 6th July
Some great strikes there, I'll (try to) get round to posting a World Cup review at some point!
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
What Next??
After England's dismal World Cup showing something surely needs to be done. First things first, the only people who really get passionate about England are English, not Italian. This, as you've probably spotted, means only one thing, Fabio has to go, he doesn't really have the real English feeling to an encounter with the Germans! Whereas I thought this may be a good thing, keeps him calmer, but in hindsight I rather believe an English manager would have fired the team up much better. So to the candidates, Roy Hodgson has to be prised out of the hands of the Scallies for the good of the national team and should be number one choice (I personally cannot believe Pool fans are already slating him saying he's not a big name, he's f***in LMA manager of the year what more do you f***in want!), Martin O'Neill is another for me who should be interviewed and (rather hopefully) Harry Redknapp or even David Moyes. In any case the manager should be English, and just for those smart arses pointing out O'Neill ain't so he's close enough!!
Second, I'll turn my rant on the FA, they need restructuring such that England take importance, not the Premier League (I'll turn on that later!), but they need more coaches etc. to make sure for example they can arrange training weeks for say 40-50 England prospects, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, splitting them into 2 groups of 20-25 at the end to play a separate friendly each. This enables youngsters to come in and play alongside those experienced players, those who have been to the World Cup, and we (or in this case the FA who decide the squad) can view more talents. This is rather than just playing endless pointless friendlies with 2 teams in each half, where nobody really learns anything! This also gets the players together more often and for longer periods so they can gel as a team and the national team really becomes the important thing to all English players.
Time to turn on the biggest contributor to the country's downfall, the money-spinning Premier League. There are so many issues here I'm sure I'll think of some later that I haven't written here! First regards the fact that it's reported as the best league in the world, which is true but for the wrong reasons as it is the World Club League in my eyes. How to put it right??
1) Have the breaks as described above for international breaks.
2) Scrap the League Cup, just a pathetic waste of time, no other country has a second cup and all the Championship, League 1 and League 2 sides have the Johnstone's Paint Trophy to play for.
3) Bring in the following rules regarding home grown players. In my view the Champions League rules should be implemented, like other European leagues, where 6 starting players must be English. Also introduce a rule, similar to that of the Football League for next season, where 13 squad players must be home grown (meaning any foreign player qualifying for British passport doesn't count!) and a maximum squad size, to prevent clubs just presenting first team squad numbers to home grown players who will never play!!! I reckon 25 is a good number.
4) If the worst comes to the worst, reduce to size until the number of games is manageable and players don't become knackered, start most likely with 18.
This we'd soon see would bring more emerging young English players to the top level and ready for the national team, for example I counted 11 out of 44 Champions League starters last season as home players, 25%, very very very poor.
However I think another massive contributor to the misery of World Cup 2010, is that of the media. For example the Sun advert where the England crest is presented with a second star is just far, far too much pressure. For 2014 this sort of stuff has to stop! Then suddenly the Sun slags off the team when they fall.
We should forget Euro 2012 in my opinion, if we do well then that should be taken as an added bonus, and turn our full attention on rebuilding a gelled, hungry England team to take to Brazil in 4 years time.
Second, I'll turn my rant on the FA, they need restructuring such that England take importance, not the Premier League (I'll turn on that later!), but they need more coaches etc. to make sure for example they can arrange training weeks for say 40-50 England prospects, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, splitting them into 2 groups of 20-25 at the end to play a separate friendly each. This enables youngsters to come in and play alongside those experienced players, those who have been to the World Cup, and we (or in this case the FA who decide the squad) can view more talents. This is rather than just playing endless pointless friendlies with 2 teams in each half, where nobody really learns anything! This also gets the players together more often and for longer periods so they can gel as a team and the national team really becomes the important thing to all English players.
Time to turn on the biggest contributor to the country's downfall, the money-spinning Premier League. There are so many issues here I'm sure I'll think of some later that I haven't written here! First regards the fact that it's reported as the best league in the world, which is true but for the wrong reasons as it is the World Club League in my eyes. How to put it right??
1) Have the breaks as described above for international breaks.
2) Scrap the League Cup, just a pathetic waste of time, no other country has a second cup and all the Championship, League 1 and League 2 sides have the Johnstone's Paint Trophy to play for.
3) Bring in the following rules regarding home grown players. In my view the Champions League rules should be implemented, like other European leagues, where 6 starting players must be English. Also introduce a rule, similar to that of the Football League for next season, where 13 squad players must be home grown (meaning any foreign player qualifying for British passport doesn't count!) and a maximum squad size, to prevent clubs just presenting first team squad numbers to home grown players who will never play!!! I reckon 25 is a good number.
4) If the worst comes to the worst, reduce to size until the number of games is manageable and players don't become knackered, start most likely with 18.
This we'd soon see would bring more emerging young English players to the top level and ready for the national team, for example I counted 11 out of 44 Champions League starters last season as home players, 25%, very very very poor.
However I think another massive contributor to the misery of World Cup 2010, is that of the media. For example the Sun advert where the England crest is presented with a second star is just far, far too much pressure. For 2014 this sort of stuff has to stop! Then suddenly the Sun slags off the team when they fall.
We should forget Euro 2012 in my opinion, if we do well then that should be taken as an added bonus, and turn our full attention on rebuilding a gelled, hungry England team to take to Brazil in 4 years time.
Monday, 28 June 2010
England v Germany
I assume you're well aware of the events of Sunday afternoon, as Fabio handed in his resignation! I don't think I'll say anymore, leave it to my World Cup Review.
However another England Germany duel was played out on the Spanish streets at the 2010 Valencia Grand Prix. Before discussing the race, clearly the most important thing is that Mark Webber walked away completely unhurt from his accident. Ironically an almost mirror image incident occurred in the GP2 sprint race in the morning, when Josef Kral ran over Rodolfo Gonzalez at the end of the next straight along. Obviously the GP2 cars aren't quite as sturdy as their F1 counterparts and as such Josef was rushed to hospital but again I'm very pleased to report he too is absolutely fine.
Before the race, it was refreshing to see some football related banter for Jake Humphrey and Martin Brundle with Sebastian Vettel and Timo Glock respectively, where Timo presented Martin with a German football shirt on the grid.
Now to the on track action, where Sebastian, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso (how dare he intervene on the rivals big day!) were all going for it in the opening stages and a potentially good, clean race looked likely to unfold. OH how wrong was I!!!! The safety car is clearly the talking point of this race, where I have to say in my view the blame has to lie at Mark's door. Heikki was defending his position, and as the Red Bull is miles faster than the Lotus then why Mark needed to follow Heikki's move to the left for that extra bit of slipstream baffles me, as he would have had the position wrapped up by staying put on the inside!
This safety car had many knock on effects, too many for me to even mention, but the main one obviously involves Lewis and Fernando. Now where to start tackling this, Lewis clearly from the replay overtook the safety car so is penalised, so everything's fine, well no! Firstly, I don't really understand why what Lewis did was dangerous, as had he not hesitated he would have crossed the safety car line before the safety car, it comes down to having to draw the line somewhere I guess. Secondly, had he remained behind the safety car then he would have been back in 8th place, or whatever was one place ahead of Fernando, at the restart, so at risk in England of causing uproar (although just consider if the positions were reversed), Fernando has a very valid point. Ferrari always have to blow things out of position however, and to call the race 'manipulated' is absolute rubbish! Whilst the stewards did nothing wrong and followed the procedure for dealing out punishments, the fact remains, like Spa 2008, for Lewis to lose nothing from the drive through clearly means the punishment is not befitting of the crime. Perhaps the penalties that can be dished out need to be revised, and once again 2010 throws up another example of how the rules aren't right........
What made a refreshing change, was that by handing out 5 second penalties to all those speeding during their safety car inlaps was to me a fair penalty, in the fact that by looking at the laptimes against the 'delta' (target) time, on average these drivers were about 5 seconds faster.
Another congratulations must be given to Kamui Kobayashi for an excellent drive in a highly ridiculed Sauber car and he was easily able to keep Jenson Button at bay, whilst overtaking Fernando, just to make him feel better!, and Sebastien Buemi at the end for 7th place.
It seems the football was on everyone's mind though as amusingly both Sebastian and Jenson were glued to a screen out of shot at the side during the press conference!!
So it was Germany's day, and after 24 years it seems Diego Armando Maradona will be supported by England fans, whilst fittingly the F1 season moves on to Silverstone.
However another England Germany duel was played out on the Spanish streets at the 2010 Valencia Grand Prix. Before discussing the race, clearly the most important thing is that Mark Webber walked away completely unhurt from his accident. Ironically an almost mirror image incident occurred in the GP2 sprint race in the morning, when Josef Kral ran over Rodolfo Gonzalez at the end of the next straight along. Obviously the GP2 cars aren't quite as sturdy as their F1 counterparts and as such Josef was rushed to hospital but again I'm very pleased to report he too is absolutely fine.
Before the race, it was refreshing to see some football related banter for Jake Humphrey and Martin Brundle with Sebastian Vettel and Timo Glock respectively, where Timo presented Martin with a German football shirt on the grid.
Now to the on track action, where Sebastian, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso (how dare he intervene on the rivals big day!) were all going for it in the opening stages and a potentially good, clean race looked likely to unfold. OH how wrong was I!!!! The safety car is clearly the talking point of this race, where I have to say in my view the blame has to lie at Mark's door. Heikki was defending his position, and as the Red Bull is miles faster than the Lotus then why Mark needed to follow Heikki's move to the left for that extra bit of slipstream baffles me, as he would have had the position wrapped up by staying put on the inside!
This safety car had many knock on effects, too many for me to even mention, but the main one obviously involves Lewis and Fernando. Now where to start tackling this, Lewis clearly from the replay overtook the safety car so is penalised, so everything's fine, well no! Firstly, I don't really understand why what Lewis did was dangerous, as had he not hesitated he would have crossed the safety car line before the safety car, it comes down to having to draw the line somewhere I guess. Secondly, had he remained behind the safety car then he would have been back in 8th place, or whatever was one place ahead of Fernando, at the restart, so at risk in England of causing uproar (although just consider if the positions were reversed), Fernando has a very valid point. Ferrari always have to blow things out of position however, and to call the race 'manipulated' is absolute rubbish! Whilst the stewards did nothing wrong and followed the procedure for dealing out punishments, the fact remains, like Spa 2008, for Lewis to lose nothing from the drive through clearly means the punishment is not befitting of the crime. Perhaps the penalties that can be dished out need to be revised, and once again 2010 throws up another example of how the rules aren't right........
What made a refreshing change, was that by handing out 5 second penalties to all those speeding during their safety car inlaps was to me a fair penalty, in the fact that by looking at the laptimes against the 'delta' (target) time, on average these drivers were about 5 seconds faster.
Another congratulations must be given to Kamui Kobayashi for an excellent drive in a highly ridiculed Sauber car and he was easily able to keep Jenson Button at bay, whilst overtaking Fernando, just to make him feel better!, and Sebastien Buemi at the end for 7th place.
It seems the football was on everyone's mind though as amusingly both Sebastian and Jenson were glued to a screen out of shot at the side during the press conference!!
So it was Germany's day, and after 24 years it seems Diego Armando Maradona will be supported by England fans, whilst fittingly the F1 season moves on to Silverstone.
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