F1 Fanatic round-up: 9/1/2010

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Welcome to the weekend everyone! For those of you in Britain it’s one week until the Autosport International show opens to the public in Birmingham so if you’re planning to go make sure you’ve got your tickets sorted.

Links

Kovalainen: McLaren stint made me better (Autosport)

Heikki Kovalainen talks about how his two years at McLaren made him improve as a driver: “I am a better race driver. I can drive the car quicker than when I drove the Renault [in 2007]. I have learned many things – how to work with a team, how to set-up a car, how to go racing. I think I am better in every area.”

GM seeks to close Saab despite offers on table (The Guardian)

“General Motors, the American motor manufacturer, has infuriated potential bidders, including the Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, by appointing liquidators to begin a formal shutdown of Saab, less than 24 hours after receiving at least three offers from buyers keen to rescue the ailing Scandinavian car brand.”

Comment of the day

Mark Shen has some excellent advice for anyone planning to go to the Chinese Grand Prix this year.

1. According to my experience, drivers and team boss and staffs will stay in Shanghai Four Seasons Hotel (5 Stars) and Shangri-La Hotels ( 5 stars) instead of the trackside villas. So if you choose these hotels, there are a high probability to meet some famous guys.

2. The metro Line 9 is completed this year and now you can take it directly from city center to the circuit. I highly recommend you not to take the shuttle bus because you can avoid the heavy traffic and save time if you take metro.

3. Don’t miss Shanghai World Expo 2010. It will open on 1st.May and just some days later than the Grand Prix. You can visit both Grand Prixs and World Expo and make your trip much more valuable.

From the forum

Yes, we had a snow F1 car the other day but the BBC’s Jake Humphrey liked this one and who am I to disagree? Here’s thestig84’s effort.

Site updates

Not much today apart from a small update to the Flavio Briatore biography.

Happy birthday!

First time we’ve had two in a row – happy birthday to Romulo Shortback.

On this day in F1

It’s 33 years since the Wolf team made history by winning the first race they started, when Jody Scheckter triumphed in Argentina.

I remember the first time I read about that I thought “well, that’ll probably never happen again.” But of course it did – last year when Brawn scored a one-two finish at Melbourne.

If you’ve got any suggestions for comment of the day, links to share or anything else to say about the site, please post it in the comments.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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20 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 9/1/2010”

  1. Kobayashi: McLaren stint made me better (Autosport)

    Im guessing you meant Kovalainen!

    And wow Keith its barely turned the 9th, you dont waste anytime do you.

    Great stuff about Jake Humphrey posting the link…I wonder who else on the BBC team reads F1Fanatic

    1. ‘And wow Keith its barely turned the 9th, you dont waste anytime do you.’
      yeah keith, so is each round up actually about the day before the stated date?

      1. It’s good that he posts them so quickly because here in Australia it is about noon when they first pop up on the site. Great work Keith.

        1. Huh I never thought about that Macca! all the news updates must happen during the night for you then does it?

        2. Yeah that’s partly why I started doing them earlier.

    2. That’s why Kobayashi was going so fast last season – he was driving a McLaren painted with Toyota livery! The secret is out!

    3. Fixed it, thanks!

  2. About the wolf victory, was it this day? or this year?
    Because then I ask, did they ever have an f1 races this early?

    1. yep they did. i think keith mentioned in a previous article championships starting in janurary and waiting til may for the next race!

    2. Yep they did. The last F1 season to start in January was in 1982 at Kyalami, January 23rd followed by a two-month wait for the second race in Brazil on March 21st.

      Often with these January races teams wouldn’t have their new cars ready and would race the previous year’s model instead.

  3. “In 1974, while living in Milan and working on the stock exchange, he met Luciano Benetton. That encounter set him on the path to F1.

    By 1982 he was working for Benetton in New York as the business sought to establish itself in America.”

    1974-1982 big “empty gap” in his biography, Keith.

    For those who can read Italian, I would recommend to have a look at this link:

    http://wingbeatman.blogspot.com/search/label/Facce%20di%20merda

    It’s very detailed explanation about Flavio Briatore’s life before he joined Benetton and how he made money (laundering) before he had to scape from Italy to Virgin Islands for avoiding a sentence of 1,5 years in Bergamo and 3 years in Milan for game fixing (poker, and others) “plucking” several naives billionaires, pop stars and politicians.

    In the words of Luciano Benetton, talking about Briatore: “He’s a little bit hooligan, but a very amusing and nice person”

    Luciano did not like poker… obviously.

    1. Thanks IDR, I’d looked around to find some info on what happened in those years but couldn’t come up with much.

  4. Thanks for a note in the round up Keith! Seems Lee Mckenzie likes it now too. Probably more as case of seeing it on Jakes twitter than here though.

  5. This one bellow is, for me, the ‘Comment of the Day’ written by Jason in the post “Hamilton: “I blew Alonso away”:

    The comment ‘blew him away’ doesn’t have to refer to either ability or points, as many people seem to be taking it. When Hamilton showed up in the F1 scene he, quite frankly, ‘blew’ everyone ‘away.’ Nobody expected him to become a force in most advanced motorsport in the world as a rookie. Nobody suspected, let alone EXPECTED him to lead the championship for most of his rookie year. How many people here thought it was a fluke that he made it onto the podium is first race? How many thought, ‘this kid is good, but I bet he won’t get up there again anytime soon’? How many started taking this kid seriously only after he podiumed at almost every race the first half, and even WON his first race in his rookie season? There are guys who have been racing for years and still haven’t had a win. Look at Webber! What? 9 seasons without a win until this year?

    With the results that he was getting because he was 1) a rookie and 2) because he was so young. To ASSUME that he means he is/was better than Alonso because he says ‘I blew him away’ is folly. I don’t care that Hamilton didn’t get in a Jordan, or a Minardi, or some other backmarker seat and sit at the rear of the grid half his career before he ‘earned’ himself a spot at a top team.

    Do any of you suspect that there were any other rookies on the grid in ‘09 that would have hauled the Brawn, or the RB (clearly the top two cars – yet not as venerated as Ferrari/McLaren) to as many points as Jensen/Vettel? I suspect not.

    That top team, with a top car, could be any one of the teams this next year, just like we saw in ‘09. Fact is, he took a dog of a car to two wins and a good number of points they never expected to haul in in ‘09. He’s a great driver and he made an impact his first race all the way to the end of the season. That’s one way to interpret the meaning of ‘I blew himaway.’

    1. and even WON his first race in his rookie season?

      I’ll have to object to the nomination for Comment of the Day. Hamilton came in third in his first race in his rookie season. (At Australian GP)

      He did not win until the sixth race of the season, in the Canadian GP.

      Sorry to steal Jason’s thunder. He is obviously a great Hamilton fan. He just needs to get his facts straight.

      1. I dont think that be a “Hamilton fan” is sin that our friend Jason — or any f1FANatic — would be ashamed, anyway his comment is well balanced, trying to dismiss all the bash around Lewis monologue at Johnny Walker´s site…

        1. Saying he is a great Hamilton fan was not meant as an insult. I find nothing wrong with being a fan of any driver or team. That is the way of the following, to have favorites.

          My comment meant only that he is a great fan for Hamilton, but his statement was in error, Which it was, and he needs to get his fACTS STRAIGHT. (fUNNY, i THOUGHT i’D SAID THAT.) No argument there.

          If any part of a post is factually incorrect, I would oppose it for a nomination for “Comment of the Day”.

          That was the only agenda for my post. Nothing I said should be taken as anything for or against Hamilton, McLaren, or fans thereof.

          (I’m going to have to start putting in disclaimers, lol, can anyone recommend a good barrister? )

      2. It depends how you read it:

        won his first race…
        …the very first he was in

        or
        won his first race in his rookie season
        …in his rookie seaon he won for the first time

        1. well, the text as typed in Jason’s post reads as follows:

          How many started taking this kid seriously only after he podiumed at almost every race the first half, and even WON his first race in his rookie season?

          Alright, I see how you read it. I read it differently. Since you pointed that out, I’ll give Jason the benefit of the doubt. But I’d ask him to be a bit more exact in his syntax in future.

      3. dsob, i think you read it wrong actually. he is saying that Hamilton’s first F1 victory came in his rookie season. not the first race…

Comments are closed.