Welcome to a new week on F1 Fanatic. Later today I hope to be telling you all about my plans for testing and launch coverage this year. It all starts on Friday as the covers come off the new Ferrari.
See below for details on the changes to the server that took place yesterday as well as the usual round-up goodness.
Links
Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:
Jenson Button teases Nico Rosberg who’s dropped out of a running race in South Africa: “Oh just heard that Britney is not doing the Half Ironman because of knee problems! Shame, fella, hope to compete with you soon….”
Briatore: Webber wrong to hide injury (Autosport)
“It would have been better had he not revealed that. Otherwise he should have said that immediately.”
“Trying to find ways to make the domestic karting and racing bigger, better and more affordable for the next generation of Indian F1 drivers”
Proton Holdings confident of turning around Group Lotus (The Star)
“Proton Holdings Bhd is in talks with CIMB bank and several others to secure loans and investments totalling £480m (RM2.35bil) needed to turn around Group Lotus.”
Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.
Comment of the day
Mike is worried about the latest doubts over the future of the Australian Grand Prix:
Next year, in 2012, I am attending the Australian Grand Prix.
I will be going all out in terms of expenses, to make it something I really can look back on. I want to get a package where I can walk through the pits on the Thursday. To see the teams setting up, I understand this is possible. I want to meet fellow F1 fanatics who are there.
And lastly, and for me the most special part is I want to see Schumacher race live in F1 once in my life.
Don’t ruin this Mr. Politician.
Mike
From the forum
I doubt the car colour schemes we’ll see unveiled over the coming days will be as inventive as some of those in the 2011 livery ideas thread.
Site updates
The site is now running on a new server. If you find you can’t see new comments or articles that means you’re still seeing the old site. Unfortunately the DNS record can take up to 24 hours to update. However if you’re confident running things in your command prompt you can use ‘ipconfig /flushdns’ to speed the process up.
If you’re signed up for an F1 Fanatic account since 5pm GMT yesterday you may not have received a confirmation email yet due to slowness in the email system caused by the move. This should also be remedied over the next 24 hours.
Thanks very much to Ed Marshall who’s worked very hard on configuring the new server set-up which will should prove a step forward over the previous arrangement.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Ling!
On this day in F1
Chris Amon never won a round of the world championship despite coming close on several occasions. But on this day 40 years ago he won a non-championship race at Buenos Aires in Argentina.
The event was run over two heats. Rolf Stommelen won the first but collided with Amon in the second heat and had to retire with gearbox trouble.
Ferrari had entered four cars for the race but withdrew when Ignazio Giunti was killed in a sportscar race at the track two weeks earlier.
mcmercslr
24th January 2011, 0:28
YES YES YES. THE I AM FREE FROM THE MOBILE VERSION!!!!! CHEERS KEITH
US_Peter (@us_peter)
24th January 2011, 6:36
Yes! Thanks Keith! Nice to be able to see the full version on my phone!
IDR
24th January 2011, 8:38
Great to been able to read&write using my phone.
Thanks
PJ
24th January 2011, 10:40
Is there a way to switch back to mobile version for those of us who do prefer it though?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
24th January 2011, 11:02
There will be once the server installation has settled down.
PJ Tierney
24th January 2011, 13:17
Good to hear, many thanks :)
US_Peter (@us_peter)
24th January 2011, 21:24
Keith, I just added a request to the mobile site suggestions thread on the forum, that relates to this a bit. https://www.racefans.net/forum/topic.php?id=790
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
24th January 2011, 2:08
Congratulations to Aus_steve for his victory in Round 5 of the Collantine Cup. I think slr deserves a mention for his impressive pole position too.
And may I blow my own trumpet by saying my own drive was pretty stunning, as I roared home in last position well over a minute behind the leaders. I blame it all on my late switch to inters…
Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey)
24th January 2011, 7:27
Really? I thought it was because you were going so fast that you actually went back in time.
Sush Meerkat
24th January 2011, 7:57
Whenever I lose a game online I blame it HAXX!, always hackers.
http://screwattack.com/videos/Jose39s-Puntos-CoD-4-Pt1
See even pro players blame HAXX!
unfortunately that guy has never done a racing game video.
Stephen Jones (@aus_steve)
24th January 2011, 11:48
oh man the video makes me laugh.. i want some mexican food now as well
RIISE (@riise)
24th January 2011, 21:00
I get the points for best acrobatics!!!
Gridlock
24th January 2011, 3:09
“Britney”
*chuckle*
SoerenKaae (@soerenkaae)
24th January 2011, 11:12
I think this refers to the “Abu Dhabi Passport prank” someone pulled on Rosberg. Genious :D
Patrickl (@patrickl)
24th January 2011, 12:51
It refers to Rosberg’s engineers calling him Britney.
F1 links: Lotus and Britney
mcmercslr
24th January 2011, 16:04
Maaaark wibber has been calling him britney ever since he was teammates with him in 2006. He’s been knowns as britney since then not Abu dhabi. Very clever though with the passport trick
US_Peter (@us_peter)
24th January 2011, 21:29
Looks like he’s trying his best to shed the Britney image: http://bilder.bild.de/BILD/sport/motorsport/formel1/2011/01/23/rosberg/rosberg-19256554-170kg.jpg
David-A (@david-a)
25th January 2011, 1:32
And trying his best to embrace the “Prince Charming from Shrek” image
Stephen Jones (@aus_steve)
24th January 2011, 7:16
Doyle and Ron Walker are still having WW3 about the Albert Park Grand Prix.. fair fun to watch
Travis (@)
24th January 2011, 11:38
@SoerenKaae – The joke’s been going well before the passport prank. The other drivers gave him that nickname a while back as far as I know.
@AUS_Steve – Yeah it’s all over the news. I’m quite surprised but I guess it is a big thing. Good to watch, let’s hope for the best.
Travis (@)
24th January 2011, 11:44
I forgot to say – Walker is dead right in some of his points.
I’m a chef and have worked in St Kilda, Richmond the CBD and now in North Melbourne and we have always been busier over the F1 weekend, in some cases even from mid-week as people fly in (mind you, the trade still isn’t as good as around Christmas).
This was especially the case where I worked in the CBD as it was a higher end restaurant which got recommended by most of the hotels (some sort of in-the-pocket-of-the-concierge deal).
Reminds me of a funny story. The restaurant manager claimed to have an autograph of Michael Schumacher – turned out to be his signature on the credit card receipt of his bill!
Stephen Jones (@aus_steve)
24th January 2011, 11:52
thats awesome!
yeah its funny how doyle doesn’t mention that the city gains a huge profit from the gp (including 30m from taxe’s alone!), but only the 50m lost in terms of Ticket Sales vs Cost of Event.. which is a horrible comparison.
and also: doyle is mayor of “Melbourne City”.. Albert Park is actually in “Port Phillip” Council’s area, which mean Doyle has no interest in it at all..
ahh i love the media
McLarenFanJamm (@mclarenfanjamm)
24th January 2011, 12:07
Is it today that Force India are supposed to be announcing their driver line-up?
Fixy (@)
24th January 2011, 19:06
I signed for Force India accidentally! (In F1 2010)
BasCB (@bascb)
24th January 2011, 12:17
Happy birthday Ling.
UneedAFinn2Win
24th January 2011, 20:48
Keith, Your interview with Mika Häkkinen in the Finnish tabloid Iltalehti translated, of course.
f1fanatic mentioned by name.
UneedAFinn2Win
24th January 2011, 20:49
my bad, it was actually Ilta-sanomat, if you’d like to correct that…
sorry
topdowntoedown (@topdowntoedown)
25th January 2011, 11:04
To finish first, first you must be Finnish.
Calum
24th January 2011, 22:04
With half a billion pounds to play with, Proton will have a good chance if turning round Lotus for the better. Hopefully they get the money and this doesn’t go belly up. It’s a terrible shame for the company’s legacy that it is being failed time after time. Here’s hoping the rich get fed up with Aston DB9s and Vanquishes, Porsche 911 and Panameros, Lamborghini Gallardos, Ferrari F458s and Mclaren MP4-12Cs, afterall these slate the cars Lotus will be takin on in the car Market – a lot tougher than F1!
Calum
24th January 2011, 22:06
These are the cars … Will be taking on…
Andy c
25th January 2011, 12:53
Interested to hear the proton guy talking of group lotus as assembling a real Madrid type team.
Real Madrid (unless my memory serves me badly) have been bailed out a number of times by the local gov when they were in massive debt.
That wouldn’t be the link I would use as an analogy. Perhaps there are parallels there. ;-)