Formula One - Fat Heads Butt Heads

I'm a big fan of F1 racing and I've been watching the evolution of the sport under the tutelage of Bernie Ecclestone with some amusement and a lot of frustration.

The Montreal Grandes Prix is on Bernie's chopping block of financially unrewarding venues...
As reported....

He scoffed when an interviewer for CJAD asked whether his demand - reportedly $175 million over five years, plus advertising and attendance revenues - was unreasonable.

Ecclestone said many other places around the world pay far more to host the race. He said the offer to Montreal was actually a steal, compared with what others pay.

Mayor Gerald Tremblay had called it unreasonable.

"Unreasonable compared to what?" Ecclestone replied in his radio interview.

"We do business worldwide and nobody else thinks we're unreasonable. We've got a queue of people that want races. So we can't be unreasonable."

Well actually Bernie .... you can apparently .......... and most of the time you get away with it!

Nevertheless...... I get a big kick out of someone telling the butthead politicians their full of crap.

OMMAG

Weekend of Motor Racing Joy!

Update ...

At Monaco ... the worlds most expensive street race.

No luck for Ferrari ... Felipe Massa got third after messing up the lead with a dumb move and Kimi Raikkonen really screwed up taking himself out in the closing laps along with the hapless Adrian Sutil who was looking good in p4. Bad strategy and bad timing for the Ferrari boys.

Lewis Hamilton was all business making up for an early shunt to beat back the clock and his opponents positions right up to the end.
Hamilton 1st, Kubica 2nd, Massa 3rd

At Indianapolis the 200mph merry go round.

My rooting for Danica Patrick do no good whatsoever ... after starting on the second row in p5 she slid back in the pack for most of the race.... eventually making her way back up to 5th and then getting knocked on pit road of all places by the guy I pegged for being a problem Ryan Briscoe. Plenty of drama in a race that had nearly as many laps run under pace car speeds as racing.
I shut the TV off when Danica got clipped on pit lane.











Thanks to grandprix dot com

Although the Monaco F1 race is probably the least promising in terms of pure racing action and passing ... the tight and unforgiving course has it's own particular set of challenges.

Often described as a high speed parade due to the lack of passing or even possibility of passing under race conditions the event remains one of the high points of the F1 season.

The television coverage is excellent with plenty of great camera locations and live action from many angles. The event itself is often either a turning point in the fortunes of teams and drivers or a milestone on the route of the seasons trend line. It's the potential for and history of calamity that in my view makes this race one of the must see races.

In that sense we already have a good one shaping up. Team Ferrari has locked up the essential front row spots with Massa and Raikkonen sitting in P1 and P2 the first since 2000.
It's Felipe's first pole at Monaco. However, a less positive statistic for the young number two man in the Ferrari camp ..... the last time a Ferrari pilot one the race from the pole position was 1979 when Jody Scheckter took the checkered flag. The upside of that was that it turned out to be Jody's championship year.
So there are many questions to be faced and resolved in Sunday's race.
And that makes it all the more fun.

It's champagne and orange juice in the morning with croissants and marmalade followed up with strong cafe au lait.

Then in about two hours after the Grand Prix ......it's The Indianapolis 500!

For the 92nd time the boys (and girls) will be firing up their engines to put on one of the best speed sport spectacles that you can find.

Even though their are plenty of people who don't get it ... I will not be deterred.

It's an afternoon with cheese and crackers and a beer or two to wash them down.
Always good for a laugh or two and some form of drama.
Personally I'm hoping that Danica will be in it to the end. With her 5th place qualifying spot putting her in the middle of the second row between tow solid drivers in the persons of Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan ... tucked right in behind former teammate Danny Wheldon who is flannked on the grid by Scott Dixon on pole and sophomore Ryan Briscoe in the third spot.

She's in some serious and fast company although Briscoe the sophomore is the big question mark in that little pack of six racers. If Danica can just cruise with those boys she'll be looking good for a win this time out and that will be history!!

Cheers!

OMMAG

What Do 7 Time F1 Champs do After Retirement?

Well since there is only one to date ....... the answer is RACE !

But it's not the fact that Michael Schumacher is racing it's WHAT he's racing that really catches my interest.

Photo from AP Photo by Eckehard Schulz

Schumie ... is racing Superbikes in the IDM International German Motorbike Championship.
Although there's realy no reason to expect the kind of success in SBK that Michael enjoyed in all his previous motorsports ... it's still pretty cool. Thanks to Paul Crowe who publishes the Kneeslider an online interest mag and blog for folks who love motorcycles and the technology and engineering of motorized vehicles.

Cheers!

OMMAG

The Fastest and Furiousest!

All Right! This week marks the start of a brand new season of politics, greed, skullduggery, drama and maybe even some good racing for a change.....

Yes indeed people it's Formula One time again with the opening event This Sunday at the Melbourne Australia venue... Albert Park !


Team McLaren has a BIG score to settle and with their Number One for this year being last years Rookie phenomenon Lewis Hamilton backed up by the quick and aggressive third year driver Heikki Kovalainen who was seen on a sharp upward trend of improvement last year I'm betting that they WILL be the team to beat.

With Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari this should be an entertaining season.
Kimi's penchant for either Breaking the Car or Winning the Race will keep the Ferrari fans on their feet and the Engineers on their toes. I just hope that perennial No.2 Driver Felipe Massa get's a fair shake because I believe he's got what it takes to BE a number One driver and a champion.

Be sure to check out formula1 dot com for insider news and lot's of technical detail....

Last season’s trio of title contenders will face the media on Thursday, while debutantes Sebastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso) and Nelson Piquet Jr (Renault) join some of their more experienced counterparts to answer questions on Friday.

OMMAG

F1 - Finale 2007 - Drivers Champion ... The underdog!

Last race of the the year decided who would win the drivers championship and the least likely of the possible contenders turned up trumps!
Kimi Raikkonen did it with a little help.

First he had an assist from rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton who only needed a 7th or better to win .... but obligingly took himself out of the front from a P2 qualification by delivering a weak start.
He was passed by Raikkonen from P3 on the first turn then by his teammate within the next couple of bends.

Lewis then drove off the track early in the race, taking himself from from P4 in the race to 7th or so. All in all it looked like the pressure of F1 got to him in a big way!

After Lewis's series of gaffs there was a second assist courtesy of Team McLaren. When the Mercedes powered car had a control system hiccup that put Lewis back to 17th or so. Add to this fiasco the sorry shape of second drivers champ contender Fernando Alonso's McLaren which was on it's second race with the same engine and forced the contender to baby the car for the entire race.

Now pole sitter and Ferrari #2 man Phillipe Massa basically had this race in the bag and this is where things really got spoiled. The team is not allowed to have "Team Orders" in place and if they would have been "seen" to have commanded Massa to allow Raikkonen to pass him would have forfeited probably the the drivers championship win and the constructors prize as well.
Which would have been ironic after the FIA's previous drama the had taken the prize from McLaren who'd had a lock on the prize over some industrial espionage involving a Ferrari engineer and the British team. But I digress....
Any way ... the Ferrari boys orchestrated a superb little performance in the pit sequence late in the race that did allow Raikkonen to pass Massa for first place with about 10 laps to go.

Thus with all the drama possible Ferrari takes the 2007 championship for the Car and for it's #1 driver.

Yikes!

Politics..... scheming.......bad planning.... on track hijinks...... what a season!

Can't wait to see what happens next year....
Much More from BBC Sports

OMMAG

$100 Million Dollars !

And the cancellation of ALL the 2007 Constructors Points for F1.......

That's the price that F1 and The World Motorsport Council put on the collection and distribution of Confidential Team Ferrari data that was stolen by a couple of Ferrari employees and passed on.

Although the McLaren team says they did not use any of the information to gain an advantage this would be a moot point.
Moot, because the act of corporate espionage was already determined to be factual and the FIA already had allowed the 'mea culpa' from the parties involved to stand based on that assertion without penalty to the team McLaren .
So when it was subsequently revealed that the information had been distributed among team members the only conclusion to be drawn was that Ron Dennis (the team principle) and the McLaren staff had not been completely truthful.

The good news for McLaren is that the monetary fine may yet be reduced and both drivers ...
Defending F1 Champion Fernando Alonso and F1 rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton will keep their hard earned Driver's Championship standings of 1st and 2nd (to date).

NOW .....
This being Formula One ..... conspiracy theories abound.
Insiders acknowledge that espionage is practiced consistently as teams seek to gain technical and tactical information from each other. Some of this is even above board with cooperative deals and information sharing in specific areas. BUT it is certainly NOT only McLaren that gets approached by members of other teams hoping to trade information for money or positions.
It is illegal! But it is also common.
How many other investigations have been made by the FIA?
Speculations Abound :
1- Ron Dennis, Team McLaren head honcho is the head of the constructor's association.
He has been at odds with megalomaniac F1 Head Honcho Bernie Eccleston over a number of
issues! This leading some to ponder whether there is an element of retribution that goes
well beyond the actual issue of spying.
2 - It was a put up job by Ferrari! The team with it's long history of suspected Machiavellian
machinations somehow motivated the two employees to act as the bait in a 'Trojan Horse ' operation.
3- Any combination of the above including participation in the plot by the big spending
Toyota and Honda teams who are blowing through money faster than anyone else
with little hope of seeing any reward through the pointis system with a clearly dominant
team taking home all the bacon all the time!

But these are just products of the rumor mill and sticking to facts alone we have McLaren acting in self interest and breaking both F1 rules and civil laws.
They could still end up facing charges!

IMO - The $100 million fine is going to go away and so it should, because losing the constructor's championship will cost them that much anyway. I see the combination as being overly punitive.

AHHHH ..... If only we could get through a season of F1 racing with no drama but the racing itself!!

OMMAG

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