F1 Fanatic round-up: 23/9/2010

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The “F1 2010” review should be on the site later today. Apologies for the delay with this – I was supposed to receive the PC version earlier than I have.

I saw several sites, mostly gaming ones, did very early reviews based on a short amount of time playing just the Xbox 360 version. As F1 Fanatic readers are planning to buy the game for a variety of formats, and expect a bit more than the many unimpressive, perfunctory reviews I’ve read, I hope you don’t mind waiting a little longer for it.

Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

Briatore on 2010 and his own future (F1.com)

It’s depressing that the official F1 website would run such a sympathetic and unchallenging interview with a man who was a key player in one of the worst acts of cheating in any sport. No wonder it hasn’t got a byline – I wouldn’t want my name on it.

A mess developing in Malaysia (Joe Saward)

“Group Lotus, which is owned by the Malaysian government-controlled Proton car company, has embarked on three legal actions to stop Tony Fernandes from using the Lotus name next year. The Group allied for various trademarks relating to Lotus Racing earlier this year. The group is also believed to have withdrawn permission to allow Fernandes to use the Lotus name and is claiming that David Hunt, the owner of Team Lotus Ventures Ltd, had no right to sell the rights and logos to the Team Lotus name. The apparent aim of all this is to grab the Lotus name and to enter F1 with a Lotus-branded team, run by ART.”

Singapore seeks “must-have” F1 status (Autosport)

Michael Roche, executive director of the Singapore Grand Prix, on whether the track configuration will be changed for 2011: “It is still in discussion. There is nothing inked or anything like that – but that is another part of the whole puzzle. Will it be more interesting for the spectator? Will it be a better race because of it? And that will always be an ongoing discussion. But would we pick the track up and take it to a far and distant place? I don’t think that is the intention at all. It is working within what we have got, and there are limitations because of the buildings.”

The Aero Test Diaries (Club Force)

Lots of videos from Force India of their recent aerodynamic test.

Comment of the day

Keep sponsor-friendly Vitaly Petrov or choose someone else? Patrickl on Renault’s dilemma:

How much money do they lose because Petrov is not scoring points and he’s costing them fourth place in the constructors’ championship (where the money gets handed out).

How much money do they lose because they can’t find a big title sponsor who would only get on board if they present themselves as a top team with two (reasonably) good drivers?

If Renault is serious about its attempts to get back to a winning team then they cannot continue with "sponsor drivers".
Patrickl

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to TisoyJrIII and Paul Prinnel!

On this day in F1

Nigel Mansell won the Portuguese Grand Prix on this day 20 years ago – but not without incurring the wrath of his team mate.

At the start Mansell was so preoccupied with defending his position from team mate Alain Prost it allowed the two McLarens – including Prost’s championship rival Ayrton Senna – through into the lead:

Mansell eventually got back into the lead ahead of Senna and Prost. The race was stopped short of full distance after Alex Caffi crashed his Arrows:

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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38 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 23/9/2010”

  1. Wow, the Lotus debacle is even more strange sounding than it initially did. Seems pretty cut and dry to me that Fernandez now owns the rights to the name Team Lotus. I hope that isn’t taken away from him due to a political fight in Malaysia.

    1. Yeah this is a shame, a real shame. We don’t need more mire in F1. Weird that this is all kicking off. Oddly, I’m kinda hoping that its some kind of malicious rumour! Joe Seward isn’t often wrong with his sources though :S

    2. I am pretty sure this is exactly the reason of why Fernandez went to soo much effort to get the chapman family behind him and get the rights to the Team Lotus name.

    3. This is exactly what I expected when it was announced that Fernandez was entering as Air Asia into GP2, a battle for the lotus name.

      I suppose this is a bit in the spirit of Chapman, as he did get the company structures of the differing Lotus entities as complicated as possible as well.

      So Fernandez might end up running Team Lotus and ART will set up running a Proton-Lotus team in GP2, GP3 and indycar from a Toyota base and have another try at F1 next time around?
      Maybe in 2-3 years Fernandez can sell up and let ART get on with the Lotus bussiness, after building it up to a level.
      Gascoyne will be up to a new challenge by then (taking the tech team with him).

  2. From the sound of things Fernandes has the high ground and will keep the Lotus name.

    I suppose that still leaves open a “Proton-ART” entry for next year, i’m FAIRLY sure the Malaysian government has enough money to fund an F1 team but knowing Bernie…

    Despite this little mess though i’d be happy to see them join is. I’m of the opinion that the more teams there are the merrier the racing, and unfortunately i see only 11 teams for 2011…

  3. Michael Roche, executive director of the Singapore Grand Prix, on whether the track configuration will be changed for 2011: “It is still in discussion. There is nothing inked or anything like that – but that is another part of the whole puzzle. Will it be more interesting for the spectator? Will it be a better race because of it? And that will always be an ongoing discussion. But would we pick the track up and take it to a far and distant place? I don’t think that is the intention at all. It is working within what we have got, and there are limitations because of the buildings.”

    I like this. It’s a common criticism of the sport that the new circuits have no soul, no history and no purpose other than to line Bernie’s pockets. But from reading this article, it’s fairly obvious that Singapore wants to develop a character of its own.

    1. To me it looks like Singapore GP has a management doing exactly what is needed to make it work.

      Have unique selling points, and work hard to make them work. Great job and it might get even better.

      I hope they do have some good discussions not only with Withing but also some drivers into that as they could be the ones making the difference (and engineers to tell us weather it will work with next years cars)

    2. Even the oldest tracks once had no history. You have to start somewhere.

      1. Agreed. When did Montreal start – 80s? And now it’s one of the best-liked tracks.

    3. It certainly sounds as if the management team is having the right frame of mind to make it a uniquely notable GP over the coming years. In the context of F1, it is almost scary how much sense Roche is making.

      I still think the night race is a bit of a gimmick, though an interesting one. But, so far the races we had were pretty good (even if one was manipulated), and maybe in future years it will grow to just be part of a “Singapore GP experience”.

      1. They must be doing something right in Singapore, since Bernie also has the ‘F1 Rocks’ or whatever its called on the back of it…….

  4. Codemasters has just released a new trailer on their official f1 2010 website. My gosh it looks awesome. They show some cars getting smashed up so the damage engine looks pretty good.

    http://formula1-game.com

    I cannot wait. Only 1 more day to wait!

    1. I picked up the Xbox360 version yesterday. I’ve only driven Bahrain so far. That twisty section of the track, that has been dropped for next year is really twisty, I kind of like it.

      I like the game, it’s fun, a bit addictive though. Was planning to play for half an hour last night, but that turned into three hours before I knew it. It’s very fast to dish out penalities (I manage to score myself a 5 place grid penalty about every second practise lap); maybe the FIA could use Codemasters penality code to make timely decisions during a real grand prix.

    2. Keith, I really look forward to your F1 2010 review.

      I watched a few PC gameplay videos on youtube last night, and many of them make the game look VERY arcade-style and unnatural – so much so that I’m possibly changing my mind about buying it – but I hope this is because they’re probably playing on keyboard or with a gamepad or similar, whilst I (and probably most of your regular readers) will be playing with a wheel.

      As part of your review, would you mind letting us know about the controller you’re using? Cheers!

  5. Is it me or that track layout looks way too much like Catalunya???

    1. Which track? Singapore?

    2. Yeah I thought T1 at Estoril was tighter than that, I guess they might of changed it since though.

      1. Turn one has been tightened since F1 last raced there in 1996. This was also before they put in that nasty Saca-Rolhas chicane in 1994.

        Which reminds me: 10 worst… chicanes

    3. That’s what I thought it was before reading ‘Portugese GP’

  6. Possible scenario:

    Team Lotus continues as is.

    Proton/ART – buy Hispania Racing and move to Toyota’s old facility.

    Would explain why there are separate GP2 teams, the Toyota/Hispania rumors from earlier in the year, and allow for an even more competitive grid.

    However what would they call the Proton/Art entry?

    1. Would explain why there are separate GP2 teams

      No explanation is needed: Lotus Cars backs ART, Lotus Racing runs Team Air Asia. Although Proton own Lotus Cars, they do not directly control it. Lotus Cars still operates on its own, and the decision to sponsor ART was made on their own. It has nothing to do with Proton.

      1. Especially as the guy running Lotus Cars is a former Ferrari man, who no doubt has good connections to Todt Jr., the man behind ART.

        Thinking further, maybe the reason we saw no 13th team entering this year might have had a lot to do with giving ART the time to make the deal and get a F1 entry during next year for 2012 and beyond?

        Or they could have a try at HRT instead (not sure about that, although Kolles would probably agree to a the move to Germany)

      2. @ Prisoner Monkeys – And your evidence of this is?

        You are suggesting that a large state owned car company would buy a historic, but otherwise debt ridden failure of a car company, and then exercise no control over it?

        I strongly doubt management at Proton/Malaysian government would allow a company they own to act independently of the wishes of the main company.

        Plus the fact that they are suing each other suggests things might not be so friendly…wouldn’t you suggest?

    2. @magnafw07 Protart?

      1. @supernicebob.

        God I hope so. That would be AWESOME!

  7. Just a thought. I religiously follow the rest of your content on the site (I’m here reading it at 2:43am…), and watch every minute of BBC’s F1 coverage, but I’ve realised: I never bother watching the vids you post. The trouble is, they are videos of exciting moment older races – but tend to be prefaced them with discussion about the outcome. It’s something of a spoiler and takes away the enjoyment and suspense. Why bother watching it if you know what’s going to happen? I know that the titles on youtube are sometimes a giveaway, but that isn’t always the case.

    How about putting the videos up with information about the build-up to the race and then say “watch what happened!”, as opposed to giving the outcome of it up front? Maybe move the discussion about the significance of the result further down the window, outside of the view of a reader watching the video? Or does your website software support “spoiler” tags like film review sites?

    Basically, we trust ya, Keith – if you tell us we need to watch something, we’ll watch it – no need to tell us WHY first.

  8. 1) It took you 16 minutes to type that?
    2) I like it as is personally. I read this everyday but I won’t watch the video every day it is available. I will usually read the commentary side of things to it, and if that it not enough I’ll watch the video. Depends on each days event basically.

    Each to their own though.

    1. 1/ yep, typos and all… I tend not to do my best work when I really should be asleep, lol…

      2/ I can see your point. Also given that I’m on an appalling internet connection, I know that people often can’t watch the videos, so it’s important not to cripple the articles by relying on them soley, but I just wonder if there’s a way to layout the information in the articles to serve both interests?

      1. I think you’re both right. :)

  9. Have a nice birthday the both of you (TisoyJrIII and Paul Prinnel).

    A new game as birthday present maybe?

  10. Tonight… I will be able to play F1 2010. I am impatient to know what you think about the game Keith !

  11. Schumi the greatest
    23rd September 2010, 13:14

    Just recieved my copy for ps3 this morning…cant wait to get home and play it. Very dissapointed you cant play out a championship as 1 of the real drivers though. Ive waited 4 years to be able to ram alonso off with hamilton and know i can only do it as a mess around race weekend :-( apart from that looks incredible

    1. Looks like I won’t get mine for days :-(

      Shopto took my credit card details and a pound from my account which they credited back, accepted the order, but when I logged on to check the status said I didn’t have an account or any card details, bank says otherwise. Emailed them they told me to register again…. NO thanks.

      It gets better, I then ordered it from Zavvi, I checked on my account each day to see if its despatched, just showing ‘out for pick’, guess what? today I can’t log on, clicked on the remind password in case I’d got it wrong and they sent me an email saying no account registered. Rang customers services leave a message, getting angry now.

      Seems very strange I would think it was a problem with my PC but I used a different one for each site. Very odd to have similar problem with two suppliers.

      So I’ve now ordered a copy from Tescos that should be safe, £29 as well. Bet I end up with two copies now.

  12. HounslowBusGarage
    23rd September 2010, 17:17

    Keith, I just spotted this on the BBC site
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9027595.stm
    with the headline “F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone calm over Delhi F1 race”
    I dismissed it initially as a saide-story from the problems with the Commonwealth Games facilities, but in the article is this
    BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey visited the track with Karun Chandhok this week on his way to the Singapore Grand Prix.

    He said: “I must confess I was surprised by how much there is still to do.

    “At the moment, Turn One leads into a lake as the track drops away. I’m sure that will be gone by the time 2011 arrives though!

    And I took it a little more seriously.
    Has there been any more news about the Korean track? I thought the FIA had planned the ‘commissioning’ of the track for last weekend.

    1. HounslowBusGarage
      23rd September 2010, 17:19

      Crikey. Sorry for the mess in the layout of my post, I tried to include the blockquote tag in front of ‘BBC F1 presenter’ but they must have got deleted. Makes it much more difficult to read I’m afraid.

    2. It’s going to be just like the run-up to Korea, isn’t it, with loads of stories about the track not being ready. But as Ecclestone said, the F1 track is being built privately by different people.

  13. TheGreatCornholio
    23rd September 2010, 20:36

    Why oh bloody why does any self respecting F1 entity have anything to do with Flav, he’s more tainted with scandal than a premiership footballer. Dodgy geezer personified and don’t blame you for not wanting any association with the article Keith:)

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