F1 Fanatic round-up: 6/2/2010

6th February 2010, 1:10 by Keith Collantine 18 Comments »

It may not be the same as watching an F1 race but yesterday’s GP2 Asia race helped slake my thirst for some proper racing action. If you’re not already seen it, check out the race report which has a small selection of pictures added too.

The second race is at Yas Island today which for British viewers is once again on Eurosport 2 at 2pm. Here’s the rest of today’s round-up:

Links

Motor racing-Force India reject closure threat, ready to race (Reuters)

“Force India rejected a report on Friday that they were in danger of being forced out of business and said their new Formula One car would start testing as planned in Spain next week. A spokeswoman said the new VJM03 car had passed all its mandatory crash tests, with German driver Adrian Sutil giving it a successful shakedown at Silverstone’s Stowe circuit on Wednesday.”

Jerez weather forecast (Weather Underground)

Early forecasts for next week’s test at Jerez suggests a chance of rain which would be bad news for Red Bull, Force India and Virgin Racing. The test runs from the 10th to the 13th, see the F1 Fanatic Google Calendar for more details.

Nico Hülkenberg official website

Williams driver Nico Hülkenberg has a new website – it’s only in German at the moment but he says an English version is coming soon.

Comment of the day

After yesterday’s article on F1 fans’ experiences of different tracks we’ve started to get more contributions from fans who’ve been to Grands Prix. Pieman was at the wet Italian Grand Prix of 2008:

With Silverstone and the British GP under constant threat from Bernie, I went to Monza in 2008.

The weather was atrocious and it didn’t show Monza in its best light. The infrastructure and fabric of the autodrome was falling apart behind the image you see on tv. The track was cracked, cabling was lying all over the place and the marshalling of crowds and vehicles was non existent. The toilets were stomach turning and the tifosi were very anti-Hamilton/McLaren. I thought what part of Silverstone is as bad as this? Has Bernie ever experienced this side of a GP. Perhaps he does from his helicopter as he arrives at the paddock?

Having said all that Monza was fantastic. I was cold, wet, thirsty(!), muddy, uncomfortable and a little bit fearful at one point with the tifosi but it was GREAT. I’d go again without a second thought. The walk through the park to get to the circuit and hearing the engines roar up coupled with the natural passion and enthusiasm of the Italian crowd.

PS. Watch out for the Police one of them grabbed my mate’s bottom.
Pieman

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Happy birthday!

Birthday greetings today go out to Smitty and Chris Gordon-Smith!

On this day in F1

This time last year Toro Rosso confirmed Sebastien Bourdais would race for them in 2009.

Well, for the first half of it anyway…

Read more: Articles in brief