F1 Fanatic round-up: 2/10/2010

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It’s the IndyCar title decider at Homestead tonight (if you’re in Britain, at least, coverage here starts at 11:30pm) so I’m going to be watching that.

Another title outcome to be decided this weekend is the inaugural Auto GP championship. Romain Grosjean is leading by one point going into this weekend’s double-header at Monza – despite not having entered the first four races.

If you’re watching any races this weekend, let us know in the comments. Here’s the round-up:

Links

The Fiat/Ferrari Talk (The New York Times F1 blog)

“After the Corriere della Sera reported on Sunday that Fiat was considering selling a large part of its 85 percent stake in Ferrari, our reporter questioned the two men about this. ‘We would consider selling a part of Ferrari,’ [Sergio] Marchionne said, ‘but it’s not in the cards now, and I have no project on my desk.'”

Formula One diary: Singapore Grand Prix (The Daily Telegraph)

“Interestingly, Japanese driver Sakon Yamamoto is wandering around the paddock. Officially, he is not racing for HRT due to a nasty bout of food poisoning, but he looks absolutely fine: in all probability, it’s just that his replacement, Christian Klien, has been able to bring some much-needed sponsorship to the team. Be nice if they could actually admit as much and stop treating us like idiots.”

Comment of the day

DaveW identified a pattern in the “rate the race” results:

So the bottom ten is:

Tilke track, fixed race
Tilke
Tilke
Tilke
Spain
Spain
Tilke
Tilke
Tilke

The top ten, by contrast, has only two Tilkes and one of them is there because the Red Bulls crashed into each other. The other is there due to major rain-lottery. The ranking is not about the track, but is this a coincidence?

Case closed.
DaveW

Happy birthday!

It’s Stacy and Scribe’s birthdays today so a great big happy birthday to them!

On this day in F1

Here’s an article I wrote two years ago today on mistakes F1 must avoid.

Happily, none of them have come to pass – yet…

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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45 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 2/10/2010”

  1. And a bit of extra news, a crane at the Korea GP track has smashed into the main grandstand.

    http://www.planetf1.com/news/18227/6418131/-More-woes-for-Korea-as-crane-crashes-

    1. The Korean GP official theme song has been revealed overnight, as well:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8vINCq_IAI#t=0m10s

      1. O that one was good!

  2. Happy Birthday Stacy and Scribe!

    Shout out to Keith too!I have a new job and have been too busy to post much.

    I am off to Petit LeMans tomorrow at Road Atlanta.I am going down to the pre-race grid walk and hopefully meet Anthony Davidson and Alexander Wurz who are driving the Peugeot 908 :)

    1. Happy birthday to Scribe and Stacy! And good to see you back on here Wesley

    2. Hello Neddy Ol’ Boy!

      Anthony Davidson on pole position for tomorrow’s Petit LeMans!

      Sorry if you don’t want me posting this here Keith….I’m just really excited to go to tomorrow’s race.It is still a little while before I get to se F1 cars here.

      1. Hi Wesley, have a great time at Road Atlanta. A very nice track and i hope you have a thrilling race to see Ant Davidson win it :-)

    3. And if you follow Ant’s Twitter feed, you’ll find some nice photos of the Peugeot trio in their lighter moments… :D

  3. If anything, it’s not the track or Tilke that is to blame, it is the strict FIA regulations that govern any new tracks that are built. Sure they may be safer, but as has been proven in the rate the race feature, they are definitely less exciting.

  4. I read an article with Sakon Yamamoto in F1 Racing today. He comes across as quite a nice guy. Will Buxton wrote something similar the other day. I bet if we heard as much in the media from him as we do from Karun Chandok he wouldn’t get so much criticism.

    We all know he’s nothing special, but he’s hardly disgraced himself in the last few races either. I’ve not analysed the data or anything so I may be wrong on this, but he seems to be doing a comparable job to Chandok. Let’s not forget that Chandok, nice chap though he is, is a pay driver himself. (People may dispute that, but he’s hardly got an F1 seat on the back of his GP2 form…)

    1. Sakon kept up with the Virgin of Di Grassi at Monza, in a car that still has the wing setup from Bahrain.

      Haven’t seen Senna, Klien OR Chandhok manage that much, if at all, in 2010.

      1. I’d much rather see Yamamoto in the car if it means HRT have a better chance of being on the grid.

        1. Exactly. They’re going to be last either way, I don’t blame them for taking the money

          1. I don’t think anyone denies their right to do that. What’s insulting is how they treat the journalists and fans like idiots cooking up stories about food poisoning. I think everyone would feel better about it if they just said: “We’re putting Klien in the car this weekend ’cause he’s got a pile of cash and Yamamoto’s run out.”

    2. I think a lot of people just assume, “Groan, another Japanese driver” and leave it at that. When you consider that the standout Japanese drivers of F1 history (in terms of results) have been Aguri Suzuki and Takuma Sato, it’s easy to see why they are generally maligned. Plus the Japanese have a reputation for being crash-prone (see Sato, Katayama et al…)

      Also Sakon is the archetypal pay driver. Respectively he has booted out Franck Montagny, Markus Winkelhock and Karun Chandhok from their seats, all of whom were thought of as having more to show than they managed in their short time in F1.

      So it’s easy to form a negative impression of him without even knowing anything about his character or ability. Nonetheless I doubt he’ll ever be more than a pay driver.

      1. Don’t forget Yuji Ide!

  5. Happy Birthday Scribe & Stacey! :D

    1. Scribe & Stacey, it sounds as a Lawyers firm. Maybe you should…

      Anyway, Happy Birthday!!!!

      1. Ha thanks guys! Been a great morning a more than usually aceptable hangover with a decent night planned tonight.

        But First! An F1 fix.

    2. Yup, hope you two both have a great birthday! :-)

    3. Have a nice birthday Scribe, Stacey!

      Enjoy the party :-o

  6. So Excited for tommarow! Im going to see the Indy finale at Homestead! Tickets were just 45 bucks so me and my dad got 2 as a last minute trip (Just bought them today xD) and I’m SOOOOO Excited!
    F1 should look at indy when it comes to tickets, because 2 grandstand tickets for me and my dad cost 90 dollars together for homestead, thats less then 1/4 of what we paid for ONE ticket to f1 at valencia!!!

    1. WOW, sounds great and the finale promises to be a nice one this year!

    2. Go Will! :)

      Could be an aussie double in motorsport this year

  7. I will be following the Britcar 24H race on Silverstone as my teacher designed the polesitting Aquila CR1.

    1. Cool! A friend of mine called Ben is on the commentary team.

  8. Happy Birthday Scribe and Stacey!

    Now why would Fiat want to sell their stake in Ferrari?

    1. I suppose they would only do that in case they needed a lot of cash to buy something or pay of debt. Otherwise Ferrari is good for their pockets, image, staff job perspectives, etc.

  9. Sakon Yamamoto has not disgraced himself in the last race because he didn’t compete. ;)

  10. I ask the question, what happens if Korea is deemed not ready? Considering if it was missed, in f1 terms it would mean a long break, the financial losses, the championship would be shortened, surely teams are already investing in this event! Would the FIA slip in another circuit to cover for it?? Maybe 2 japenese Gps? The other at Fuji? The last thing that we as spectators, the team or drivers need is a disaster round while the championship hangs in the balance…

    1. I suppose it would mean one GP less this year.

      Money claimed by FOM (yearly fee, some refunds they have to give the teams, travel cost and possibly rebates claimed by broadcasters all around) would make for a pretty hefty amount of money for the Korean GP organizers.

    2. 1) We would have one less race this year and we get a horrible month-long break only three races after the last one.

      2) FOM keeps all the money plus gets more as compensation

      3) The Korean GP is banned from next year’s calendar

      4) Bernie looks like a real idiot for once

  11. What a great Comment of the day by DaveW… I couldn’t agree more.

    There should be a poll regarding what will be the downfall of F1

    A)Bernie’s mario cart idea combined with the medal system.
    and options B) to Z) All involve Tilke designing tracks on a permanent basis.

    1. Bernie built F1 up to what we have today, the only thing that will see F1 decline if Bernie becoming even more greedy and ambitious.

  12. Happy birthday Stacy and Scribe! Hope you’re both having a terrific day with plenty of presents. Although I half hope someone buys Scribe a Ferrari F1 model for a joke… :P:)

    1. haha ha haaaw. ;)

      Thanks Steph! Middle Day f1 fix, before celaarbrate wooohooo!

  13. What channel do we need to watch the race tonight?

    1. Sky Sports 4. Or on the Indy website. Hopefully this info isn’t too late!

  14. Here’s an interesting background story. Seems one of the Torro Rosso guys noticed a water leak on Jaimies car several hours before the race, but did nothing to have the team look at it.
    Now that’s got him fired.
    http://en.espnf1.com/tororosso/motorsport/story/29818.html

    1. That doesn’t surprise me… Toro Rosso has a very strict policy. Somekind of “Do something wrong and you’re out”. Look at how Scott Speed, or Sébastien Bourdais have been treated.

      I think it’s one of the reasons why Toro Rosso is not successful. It seems to me that they look more like a dictatorship than an united team.

  15. will i be able to watch the indy car online?? if so, can someone please tell me which website i can watch it from? cheers

    1. Yo can watch on their main site:
      http://www.indycar.com/

      You have to register though.

      1. wow icthyes!! thank you so much. now i can just chill and hope Franchitti wins…. again. Franchitti for IndyCar, LH for F1. c’mon Great Britain

        1. No problem, hope you;re enjoying it!

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