F1 Fanatic round-up: 6/3/2010
The teams are packing up and heading out to Bahrain. The long wait will be over soon. Here’s the Saturday round-up:
Links
“Citroen Junior Team driver Kimi Raikkonen rolled his Citroen C4 World Rally Car out of Friday’s competition almost within sight of the end of SS7 – the repeated El Cubilete stage… Eyewitnesses report seeing the car roll off the road at high speed, before coming to rest at the bottom of a bank. Both Raikkonen and co-driver Kaj Lindstrom are out of the car and are reported to be okay.”
Virgin Racing’s secret: Behind the scenes at Wirth Research (James Allen)
“The design of the monocoque was frozen in June last year, probably three months earlier than the top teams who have greater resources and experience in manufacture. The team has a strict budget of €45 million all in and so far has hit all the deadlines it set itself. It will travel to Bahrain with two cars and a spare monocoque as well as five sets of spares for most parts. Wirth says that the troublesome differential, which has been causing the hydraulic leaks and destroyed their Barcelona test, has been fixed. There were quality control problems causing it to crack. But new spec ones are in short supply, so the drivers had better not crash into the barriers backwards before the race.”
Comment of the day
Geo isn’t happy with how F1 rules are changing:
I’m more interested in rule changes for reasons of fairness and to prevent any sort of gamesmanship (cheating is perhaps a too strong a word).
It seems we increasingly see rule changes for the sake of people who watch on tv.
Now, I love Formula One, and have watched since I was about 12 years old (I am now 25). I didn’t need any rule changes to get interested in the sport and follow it closely.
If people aren’t natural F1 fans then so be it, the FIA should stop trying to ’sex up’ the sport to make it appealing to part time fans, who are only interested if there are ‘big crashes’ or lots of ‘action’.
Either you like F1 or you don’t, I’m sick of MANY sports dumbing down to try to encorporate the plebs and part timers. See 20/20 Cricket and the recent proposals in snooker as other examples.
Geo
Site updates
You will now find driver biographies and team details for all the 2010 F1 season participants via the links at the bottom of every page. The following were added yesterday:
Happy birthday!
No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
Mario Andretti, who turned 70 last month, won his first F1 race on this day in 1971.
He qualified fourth on the grid in the season-opener at Kyalami in his first appearance for Ferrari.
He moved up to second at half-distance but leader Denny Hulme looked to have the race won – until his suspension failed four laps from home. Andretti swept by to win his tenth F1 start – but his second career victory didn’t come until the last race of 1976.
Speedy Gonzalezzzz said on 6th March 2010, 16:19
Just realised of my mistakes, sorry!
rfs said on 6th March 2010, 16:32
I read on a couple forums that this week’s Autosport quoted a Bridgestone spokesperson as saying that Jenson was having tyre wear problems during the Barcelona test, while Lewis was doing perfectly fine. Funny eh?
Lotus 49 said on 6th March 2010, 20:26
Maybe Jensons ‘smooth’ driving style just doesnt get enough heat into the tyres, therefore causing some graining issues. Whereas Lewis tends to be more aggressive, getting heat into the tyres quicker?
maciek said on 6th March 2010, 16:32
@Geo
Without cynicism, it’s all about money. If you want the big sponsors you need the large audiences. If you want all the technology, you need the big sponsors. You just can’t have everything. If you want to keep F1 pure (i.e. not tinkered with so the popcorn crowd can get into it) than you have to cut down costs – if you don’t want to cut down costs, you have to live with what the sport’s decision-makers think will attract bigger audiences so that sponsors keep pouring in the funds. But I’m afraid that the days are past where we can have unbridled innovation and keep the sport “pure” too.
maciek said on 6th March 2010, 16:38
In a related vein, Time magazine has published an article entitled “The turbulent times of Formula 1″
Here’s an excerpt: “Six hundred million people around the world watched some part of the season on television. That’s why companies such as Korean electronics conglomerate LG Group are prepared to lay out “several hundred million dollars” to have their logo plastered all over F1, says Andrew Barrett, the company’s VP of global sponsorship, who recently inked such a deal. “We were looking for as broad a global reach as we could get with one sport, and nothing else even came close.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1969288,00.html
NomadIndian said on 7th March 2010, 20:53
Thanks for that link. Great article by Time!
Jonty said on 8th March 2010, 10:01
Keith, your web site just gets better and better. It is now the first site in my favourites that I go to each time I log on!
Many thanks, can’t wait for the season to begin, especially with such good info coming from here.