F1 Fanatic round-up: 22/1/2010
Felipe Massa will be testing a Ferrari F2008 at the Circuit de Catalunya today.
Ferrari say the official purpose of the test is: “to gain confidence with the Formula 1 car after a long break, due to his accident during the qualifying at the Hungarian GP.” Still you have to wonder if other teams would benefit from having similar tests.
British F1 fans might like to look out for “A Question of Sport” on BBC1 tonight as Mark Webber will be a guest contestant. Thanks to TommyB89 for the tip. Here’s the rest of today’s round-up.
Links
‘Jenson Button Bridge’ for home town of Frome (BBC)
“Councillor Hooton said: ‘He [Jenson Button] will have a presentation scroll to commemorate it and we’re going to name the new bridge to be built in Frome after him.’”
McLaren signs 14-year old Nyck de Vries to Young Driver Development Programme (McLaren)
“The 14-year-old will be managed by Anthony Hamilton and the Hamilton Management Group, who firmly believe in Nyck’s status as an up-and-coming junior racer.”
Rubens Barrichello’s dream ‘closer than ever’ (BBC)
Video interview with Rubens Barrichello.
Comment of the day
Magnificent Geoffrey scoops the Comment of the Day prize today with a cunning mix of insight and flattery:
Like many of you, F1 is my major sporting interest and one of the aspects of this truly wonderful sport that strikes me as completely absurd is the fact that FOM and Bernie/CVC and whoever else pulls the strings in terms of broadcasting rights completely fail to grasp the massive opportunities that the web and online multimedia present.
We all know that for Bernie, TV rights deals are where a significant part of his revenue is generated, but how does he expect for that to remain the case when that effectively is the only means for him to get his product out there to its fans throught the world and to new potential audiences?
It is the year 2010 and the official Formula 1 website is a bare-bones embarrassment compared to almost every other major sporting website on the web – from NFL to the Premier League, MotoGP and NASCAR to take other motorsports into account, heck, even this site provides more in the way of intresting content and entertainment compared to what the ‘official’ site offers.
Magnificent Geoffrey
From the forum
People are wondering if a US version of the 2009 season review is ever going to a appear.
Site updates
There will be maintenance going on during parts of Friday and Saturday which may disrupt the performance and availability of the site. In the long run this should bring us a step closer to having a site which runs quicker and more reliably. If you’re having trouble getting to the site you can contact me via Twitter.
Happy birthday!
Birthday greetings today go out to Salut Gilles!
On this day in F1
F1 world champion Mike Hawthorn was killed in a car crash near Guildford on this day 51 years ago. Last year the 50-year anniversary of his death was marked with a parade through Surrey. Read a retrospective of his career here: Mike Hawthorn: Britain’s first champion.
“Rubens Barrichello’s dream ‘closer than ever’”
if i had a penny…
I would love to see Rubens win a championship! I hope Williams can produce a car at least capable of winning races, but it seems rather unlikely. They’ve had great starts to the seasons the last couple of years, but it just seems like they lose pace with development. With an experienced driver like Rubens, maybe Williams can put almost all of their weight behind him, and build on their successes from last year.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Salut Gilles!
i think you guys are giving formula1.com too much of a hard time. OK, they don’t post as many new articles as other sites, but on the other hand this means that every news message there is true, they are not reporting rumours as facts. Further the the technical analysis they are doing is great stuff, as is live timing. The videos are mostly OK. The only thing missing is a Forum, but if you see what people are posting in the Forums on oter F1 sites I have to wonder if it’s a bad thing they don’t have one…
And in my opinion this site provides everything that formula1.com doesn’t, so good job Keith!
I agree, I don’t think it’s that bad at all. A nice clean design, some good stats and live timing is quite good.
They should, however, be tapping into the internet broadcasting market much much more however – missing the trick there methinks.
will it be Nyck then?
Or Max Verstappen?
* dreaming about the first dutch world champion *
Salut Gilles, bonne anniversaire!
I really really really want to believe that Rubens thinks “his dream is closer than ever”…
Button Bridge. If your hometown commemorates you, and your achievements, by essentially building a metaphor for being a walkover, how does one take that?