F1 Fanatic round-up: 15/2/2010

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I’m putting the finishing touches to today’s round-up as NASCAR’s Daytona 500 comes to an end after the best part of seven hours. Glad I only tuned in for the last two laps…

The race was interrupted twice because of the track breaking up. You have to go back to 1985 to find an F1 race which was disrupted in the same way – that year’s Belgian Grand Prix had to be re-scheduled after the circuit disintegrated. There was some track break-up during qualifying for the last Canadian Grand Prix in 2008, but the problem was largely solved for race day.

Hopefully it won’t be a problem at the Montreal circuit when F1 returns there later this year. Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

Concerns for MalaysiaÔÇÖs Petronas after Marican (Financial Times)

Only just seen this story although it’s a few days old. A change at the top of a company with significant involvement in F1 via Mercedes and the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Comment of the day

SeattleChris rasies a question about US F1:

I find it hard to believe that they canÔÇÖt find sponsors and cash in America of all places. We are pretty anxious to conquer foreign markets and this would be a great opportunity for any company to do that. IBM? Microsoft? Apple? Warren Buffet has money printed to go to the toilet, why wouldnÔÇÖt he put something up? Or how about companies like Samsung, Sony, Dell, RCA?

Happy birthday!

A trio of F1 Fanatic birthdays today so happy birthday to Tom, Tim P and East Londoner!

On this day in F1

We’re still waiting to discover the complete line-up of F1 drivers and teams for 2010.

On this day four years ago the 2006 F1 grid was fixed with the confirmation that Super Aguri would run an all-Japanese squad of Takuma Sato and Yuji Ide.

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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53 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 15/2/2010”

  1. I’m putting the finishing touches to today’s round-up as NASCAR’s Daytona 500 comes to an end after the best part of seven hours. Glad I only tuned in for the last two laps…

    Bad for you… You lost a lot of ‘shunts’! ;)

    1. Yer, it was a good race. Pitty about Ambrose though.

  2. Why would Warren Buffet put money up for USF1? Give him a reason. He’s too busy putting up 30 billion dollars for worthwhile things, you know, like 3rd world health.

    Formula 1 (and big business for that matter) is sufficiently global enough that it doesn’t matter where a team is located – just because a team is in the US doesn’t mean that it would be easier to attract big sponsors.

  3. I gave up after an hour of waiting for them to fix the first pothole. Its a pity because I just watched the finish on the nascar website (yes they already have video highlights up free for all to watch) and I would have liked to have seen the whole thing live.

    1. It wasn’t all bad. The broadcasters were able to interview heaps of drivers, get down into pit lane and see how different drivers and crew chiefs were handling the situation, what they thought etc. They also interviewed the NASCAR CEO to find out what was going on with the track repairs. He mentioned something about a NASCAR fan council, and how NASCAR has been implementing the fan council’s ideas. Surely something like this would be good for F1.

      Last year when the Malaysian Grand Prix was washed out all we got as television viewers was pictures of the rain, and drivers sitting around talking to each other, with the exclusion of Kimi Räikkönen who had decided an ice cream and a coke was the best option.

      1. Fan council for F1? We already had two surveys–the first one of which came up with “don’t fix whats not broken.” I’m sick of FOTA&FIA&FOM trying to improve the show with rules that end up sterilizing F1.

        1. If there was a fan council, you, inc0mmunicado would be able to tell F1 organisers that they need to stop messing with the rules, etc. At the moment there is no official method for fans to express their thoughts, with the exclusion of some crappy surveys with predefined questions and responses.

          1. That’s true but basically the FIA don’t really care what fans think, what other explanation is there?

  4. i watched a good 3 hours of nascar tonight. lots of crashes! it is incredible how drivers can make up about 5 to 8 positions on the last lap.

    1. I watched the whole lot. Afterwards I realised what a waste of time for exactly the reason drivers can make so up so many positions. It makes the race bar the last lap pointless. Just meaningless overtakes swapping places waiting for the last few laps to eventually come round when your overtake will only mean something because it can be reversed as there are no more laps!!!

  5. also, is it just me or has the text font become alot smaller since yesterday? and when will our gravatars return?

    1. ANYONE????! :(

      1. Hiya Sato just read through comments so apologies for no reply. The text seems the same for me but my browser/computer or whatever seems to have a mind of its own at times

        1. thanks steph

  6. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO Tom, Tim P and East Londoner

  7. I saw the painful last hour of the Daytona 500. That is a perfect demonstration of why F1 should never race on an oval and I hope you agree with me Keith, haha.

    1. Isn’t Daytona restricter racing.

      If ever you watch Nascar don’t watch the restrictor races, they are genuinley awful.

      One AND ONLY ONE non restricted oval would be brilliant.

      An Force India would probably win.

      1. Well, NASCAR gimmicks aside it just seems like there’s so many safety cars in American racing. IndyCar isn’t as bad as NASCAR but the pace car is still a frequent feature there. Presumably this is because there’s no run-off area for the damaged cars to escape to…

  8. Terry Fabulous
    15th February 2010, 4:35

    Guys I know we may have already discussed it somewhere else, but is anyone else proud of Jaques Villenueve at the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony?

    I was watching the 8 noted Canadian heros, voted for by the public, walk in with the flag and said to my wife “I recognise that handsome guy up the front near Donald Sutherland”

    Blow me down if it isn’t Jacques!

    What an honour, and it shows how esteemed he still is in the eyes of his countrymen.

    1. I’m starting to feel like always come across as sour grapes around here – but personally I thought poor old Jacques looked woefully out of place among the other flag carriers + I honestly don’t know how much his choice had to do with his being held in high ‘esteem by his countrymen’ – more like the Vancouver organizing committee’s effort to put together 8 Canadiens who might be recognisable outside Canada.. (Here’s a who’s who of the others http://winterolympicgames.suite101.com/article.cfm/canadian-olympic-flag-bearers-in-vancouver )

      1. Terry Fabulous
        15th February 2010, 8:30

        I don’t know man, Jacques won The F1 title and the Indy 500. Not many guys have done that.

        And he always got a massive reception at Montreal each year.

        I reckon Canadians love him and he looked fine in there. Any Canucks out there to tell me I’m dreaming??

        1. only him clark, hill and andretti if i am not mistaken.

      2. I amazed that they missed out the first person I think of when I think of a Canadian…and someone who is a big sports fan…Bryan Adams…!!

        1. Donovan Bailey?

          But these are the flag bearer people which is one step down from the touch bearer people like Wayne Gretzky right?

        2. Bryan Adams did have a go at singing during the opening ceremony. Regrettably.

          1. what about jim carrey? or even tom green if you want to scrape the barrel.

      3. He was the only sprotsman flagbearer that I recognized. The question is why did he have to share it with so many others? They never won a grand prix world championship.

  9. Terry Fabulous
    15th February 2010, 4:37

    I know I spelled his name wrong, I’m sorry!

  10. Imagine if Aguri joined in 2010! Ferrari’s “Team Latin”, McLaren Team Great Britain, Mercedes Team Germany & Super Aguri Team Japan, with Sato and Ide wiping out all opposition (literally) in true kamikaze style!

    1. BMW-Sauber-Ferrari are a sort of “Alps” team – Bavaria, Switzerland and northern Italy ;)

      1. And Renault for Eastern Europe. Maybe they should rename to Dacia.

        1. Renault owns Dacia! :D

          1. Shame they don’t own the team any more lol.

  11. Happy Birtday to Tom, Tim P and East Londoner!
    Villeneuve in Canada is a kind of a national hero, i used to live in Canada and he´s a respected guy there!
    Regarding Petronas and the sponsorship of Mercedes, it seens something is not right at least following the Portuguese news!
    Anyone has more details about, what´s happening exactly?

  12. I heard that USF1 was backed by a YouTube founder, any chance that Google would support the team?

    1. He’s not part of Youtube really anymore, Google bought him out.

  13. I guess the problem of USF1 is not how many sponsorships they may get to finance the team but the capacity to deliver and finish the car in time for the first race!
    If you cannot show a car to a sponsor, how can you get a sponsorship?
    Sincerely, i would like to see the tam of the grid this year, but i am starting to have many doubts about them!
    I also heard today that Volkswagen wants to buy Campos, maybe a good thing for the team.

    1. On F1 Today I read USF1 is busy getting the superlicense for Lopez. That was the first bit of new in a week from USF1. I am hopeful they will startup testing in Alabama soon.

  14. I have a birthday today too (:

    1. happy bday SaloolaS

      1. today?!
        tell Keith louder

        happy birthday man.

      2. Happy birthday SaloSalo!

      1. Why have you changed your name to Enigma?!

  15. Can any one tell me ,are the tyre rules still the same as last year, as in, using both sets of dry tyres in a race, or can someone try to do a race distance on the one set?.

      1. That’s a shame, could really have brought something extra to a race, like Senna used to do, try a whole distance in single tyres to gain an advantage by not stopping.

  16. Plink Plonk Plunk
    15th February 2010, 16:44

    Scott Speed actually lead the race near the end but ended up finishing 35th. Guess he still has bad luck, although he gets paid almost $270,000.

    As for the Olympics, I’m just glad that Celien Dion didnt make an appearance. I was expecting her to start singing at anytime….

    1. Did William Shatner ‘sing?’

  17. I heard today that Lopez doesn’t yet have a super licence!?

  18. SeattleChris asked why don’t companies like Samsung, Sony, Dell, and RCA put up money for the USF1 team, if I understand his comment correctly.

    Samsung – Korean
    Sony – Japanese
    Dell – American
    RCA – trademark owned by French, not an actual company anymore.

    One out of four ain’t bad….

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