McLaren parts delayed on way to Abu Dhabi

F1 Fanatic round-up

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A McLaren upgrade package has been held up at the airport in Abu Dhabi. Also, Lewis Hamilton has joined Twitter.

More in today’s round-up:

Links

Maurice Hamilton on Twitter

“Word is McLaren executive not allowed through airport with box of updates for the car because last minute and not right paperwork. Race organiser on way to sort out.”

Dispute threatens 2011 Australian GP (Autosport)

“Australian Grand Prix chief Ron Walker flew into Abu Dhabi on Thursday for talks with Bernie Ecclestone about the situation, but said he was confident that the matter could be sorted.”

Heidfeld in talks with Renault over 2011 (ITV-F1)

“At the moment it’s my last race for Sauber but I’ve thought that a couple of times before!”

Pirelli gets wet at Paul Ricard (Pirelli on Facebook)

“Over the course of the two days of testing, Pedro de la Rosa completed 826 kilometres in the Toyota TF109: 294 kilometres on Monday and 532 kilometres on Tuesday. The test was aimed exclusively at refining Pirelli’s family of two rain tyres: the extreme wet and the intermediate.”

Comment of the day

It seems not everyone shares my enthusiasm for Lotus bringing back their black-and-gold colour scheme, like Jihelle for instance:

History doesn’t repeat itself, it stutters.

Nothing will bring back the awesome looks of the 72, the 78 or the 79. These cars were not beautiful because they were black and gold but because they were the best cars of their respective eras and were driven by the best drivers.

To have a black and gold "Lotus" crawling at the back of the field, so what? You may put lipstick and a blonde wig on a cocker spaniel, it is still a cocker spaniel.
Jihelle

From the forum

The mobile version of F1 Fanatic will be overhauled during the off-season – what would you like to see from the new version? Post your suggestions here.

Site updates

Lewis Hamilton has joined Twitter and his profile (along with a few other new ones) has been added to the F1 Twitter directory.

Find him here: IamLewis4real

Happy birthday!

Today we’re wishing a happy birthday to Christian Briddon!

On this day in F1

The last race of the 1995 season was 15 years ago today. It was also the final F1 race at the Adelaide street circuit.

It was a strange race of very high attrition, won by Damon Hill with a lead of two laps. One of the best-remembered incidents is David Coulthard’s trip into the barriers during his pit stop:

Only eight cars were classified and with four laps to go it looked as though Olivier Panis’s Ligier wasn’t going to make it. Had he retired, Pedro Diniz would have scored a point for Forti!

Hill gave Panis a very wide berth when he lapped the Ligier and probably helped him hold on to second place by saving him from having to complete another lap:

Image © Bridgestone/Ercole Colombo

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Keith Collantine
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33 comments on “McLaren parts delayed on way to Abu Dhabi”

  1. I agree with Jihelle…

    but they already painted their car with the british racing green and the yellow stripe in the middle, like Clark’s Lotus 49.

    Tho i think painting the car black and gold, reminds me more about John Player Special than anything else. I think they should keep the british racing green and yellow.

  2. I’m not too concerned about the Australian Grand Prix. It will be sorted, in due time.

    1. CarsVsChildren
      12th November 2010, 0:29

      What does that mean?

      1. It means that Ron Walker likes to think he’s good buddies with Mr E.
        Bernie needs the race to take place so he can make money from it, and in the end they’re just bitching about money – will be easy to sort out.

    2. For the 500,000 pounds CAMS want you would imagine the Australian Grand Prix Corporation could almost afford to flying and accommodate officials from another Grand Prix.

      It would be interesting to know how that 500,000 pounds is spent by CAMS considering most of the officials are volunteers dedicating their time because they love the sport, and that Grand Prix Corporation pays for the officials uniforms and food.

      1. considering CAMS have sometimes been referred to as the Confederation Against Motor Sport it would be very interesting to see what they’re doing with that money.

        1. At the very least it would be interesting to know what the standard rate is that they charge for other major-ish races in Australia, such as the Clipsal 500, Gold Coast Indy etc. From what the Australian Grand Prix Corporation has been saying it would seem that it’s excessive, and if that is actually true, it would have to be a bit silly to try and price gouge on an event that makes a loss every year.

      2. On the other hand, consider CAMS Marshalls have been in both Singapore and Korea, and probably at other tracks as well to suport those GPs they have something going for them.

        Honestly, just think about the amount of people involved in the marshalling of the whole weekend, their training, outfits and bedding. Now compare 500.000 to Bernies race fees and event turnover. I think they have point here.

  3. On the Topic of Liveries…
    What will Williams Livery be next year?
    Aren’t they a team whose car colour is determined by their title sponsor? Who’s their sponsor next year?

    1. Well for every single season in the past 30 years or so* they have raced in blue and white, so I think it’s safe to assume they won’t be changing their colour scheme too much

      (* with the exception of the infamous red liveries of 1998 and 1999 which, incidentally, I really loved!)

      1. Well for every single season in the past 30 years or so* they have raced in blue and white, so I think it’s safe to assume they won’t be changing their colour scheme too much

        And while PDVSA’s corporate colours are red and white, they’ve shown that they’re not too fussy about teams running in their colours. T’ve seen PDVSA cars with white on blue, blue on silver and even yellow on black designs. So if Williams take Maldonado, I doubt the livery would change much.

        Which is a bit of a shame, because I haven’t liked much that they’ve come up with since thwe Rothmans liveries of old. Except their 200 design. I liked that one.

        1. Their testing livery at the start of last year was much nicer than their current one…

      2. I guess I just linked the blue and white to their sponsors/partners colours and not Williams own identity. BMW, HP, Rothmans, I guess Canon really isn’t blue, white and yellow.

        Kind of how last year when Mclaren and Mercedes severed their partnership everyone wondered if they would go back to orange or stick with the silver that is associated with Mercedes.

      3. The 1998 one was nice but the 1999 reminds of last year’s Renault. Awful.

    2. Well, surely they’ve kept AT&T but who exactly else is going to sponsor them?

      They’ve lost RBS, Phillips and RBS for next year, it maybe a bland looking Williams…

      1. RBS, Phillips and Air Asia even…

        1. What’s wrong with their current livery? I tink it’s the best on the whole grid!

  4. Sad ti hear that one of the good race of the season is in trouble.Nick have one last chance to stay in F1 & do something, Petrov may look to go to Virgin with the Russian car company backing so Nick do seems to have a seat open for him.

    1. Why does everyone assume Petrov is off to Marussia just because it’s owned by the Russians? Nikolai Fomenko has said he doesn’t want to put Petrov in the Marussia until he can guarantee the car will be faster than it is this year. No doubt he’s just being diplomatic and unwilling to upset his new business partners by starting to make team calls within an hour of the deal being announced, but he has said what he said: Petrov won’t race for them until he feels Marussia can give them a better car.

  5. Haha on that video of the last few laps at Adelaide, listen to the Muddly Talker get typically tongue tied at 5.30!

    1. “And the latest front from the lowest number of finishers latest er news from the lowest number of finishers front”

      … this is what he said, for anyone who couldn’t be bothered to watch the video :)

      1. :D Hilarious, I also noted right at the end, where he says “81 and potentially victorious lap” … That shows wisdom that does.

        It annoys me every time Legard says a driver has won it before they actually have. He does it every race.

        1. It’s even worse in qualifying when he does “And so-and-so’s got pole!!!!!!” when there’s still 10 minutes of a session to go.

  6. Hill gave Panis a very wide berth when he lapped the Ligier and probably helped him hold on to second place by saving him from having to complete another lap

    What am I missing here?

    If Hill doesn’t lap Panis a second time, he’d be the only driver only 1 lap down. Therefore it would be impossible for the third placed driver to overtake Panis if he stopped on his last lap.

  7. I’d like to suggest a livery article. Then we can all debate the topic there. ;)

  8. Seems to me like Jihelle’s dismissal of Lotus is the same haughty attitude displayed towards the new teams by di Montezemolo and I might say by many of those who were up in arms about today’s Lotus team usurping a tradition that isn’t rightfully theirs (whom we don’t hear from anymore by the way). Anyhoo, Lotus are clearly the most solid of the new teams and I doubt that anyone here has the insider information to know that they won’t make serious progress next year. And most of all, those JPS liveries were beautiful because black cars with fine gold trim are just plain cool looking.

    1. I remember here in the netherlands we had a competition by JPS, to ‘pimp’ (don’t know what the correct expression was in those days) your car with five little stickers of JPS.
      The winner would get his car, his whole car, done in the livery of the Lotus. Back then I couldn’t understand two things:
      – how to decorate a car (a very big thing) with hose tiny little stickers in such a way that you would win the price
      – and, what’s the point of having your car spray painted with some company’s advertising?

      They had these examples of cars in the Black ‘n Gold livery on the backside of the stickers, of which I only remember the citroen DS. For some reason that did make sense to me.

      Now years later, I’m wondering who won that price and if this car is still painted this way, somewhere out there..

  9. It’s raining hard in Abu Dhabi just before the start of FP1!

    http://twitter.com/adamcooperf1/status/2987680040226816

  10. In F-1 Mania 2010 I modified the livery and made it gold and black. I can see the future!

  11. HounslowBusGarage
    12th November 2010, 16:16

    Apologies if this has been dealt with elsewhere, but the BBC is reporting that Virgin allegedly has sold a controlling interest to Marussia – and thus becomes the first ever Russian F1 team . . .
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9178539.stm

    1. It has been covered elsewhere:

      Marussia invests in Virgin

      And it makes them the second Russian F1 team after Midland!

  12. Albert Park is normally a race I really like. Hope it doesn’t go anywhere.

Comments are closed.