SofaF1

Alonso has decided to join a Swiss Division 3 football team to burn off his spare energy. Rather interestingly a certain M. Schumacher of Switzerland also plays in a Swiss Division 3 football team. So there is the rather bizarre chance that Alonso vs. Schumacher could happen again.

A friend who talked about this to the press made a wonderfully none-to-subtle jab at McLaren while talking about the situation when he said, “His goal is to be able to play simply, first of all to stay in shape, and to play a sport at the heart of a team“. You’d think being a driver in an F1 team would make you “at the heart of a team” wouldn’t you?

So last season they banned the drivers from wearing jewellery. This seemed like a ploy to particularly unsettle the red bull boys with their earrings. But it also upset Michael because he wore a necklace. Apparently it was a safety issue because the metal could burn you if there was a fire. Here’s a picture of Liuzzi with his earring.

The interesting problem for next season is the announcement of Sebastian Bourdais. He races while wearing glasses:

Now which will the F1 rule makers think is more important?

a) The metal from his glasses might burn his face in an accident.

b) That he can see.

I’ll leave you to answer the question.

If there is any justice in the world McLaren should probably win this year’s world championship (unless they were found to be cheating). I say this from a totally non partisan point of view. So why do I say “should”?

Formula 1 is about the details. It’s about getting the little things right a million times in a row. It’s about winning all of the races you’re fastest at and not being asleep when a faster team messes up. The team that has excelled at this technique has been Ferrari up until this season. McLaren have been terrible at it up until this season. This year it feels like they’ve been looking at each other’s play book (not actually obviously Ron – calm down dear).

Ferrari also used to run excessive team orders and I never felt it was necessary. Schumacher was good enough to prove himself on his own. I don’t mind some team play and at the end of the season if you have a clear leader it seems only sensible. There was a clear sign which will probably define which team wins the championship in Hungary. But it wasn’t the battle between Alonso and Lewis. That is about which McLaren driver will win.

Ferrari probably won’t win the championship this year because they seem unable to capitalise on situations like this. Situations where the two McLaren drivers don’t trust each other are exactly the situations they should be using to win races. I personally feel the worst thing that happened in the qualifying pit lane in Hungary was Ferrari failing to fuel Massa. This showed much of the problem Ferrari have been having this season. Not only are their cars fragile but they keep scoring these own goals. And unless they change something, and fast, it will be too late for this championship. It probably is already.

With the summer holiday almost over it’s time for us to get back to racing this weekend and now there are no more chances to fix the cars (or very few) you’re stuck with what you’ve got (sorry Jenson) and that’s it. But who has the faster car at the front? Is it Ferrari or McLaren? And if it’s Ferrari can they overhaul McLaren’s points advantage? And can they finish the season without giving away points to Ferrari? Or are the two McLaren boys going to spend the rest of the season driving into each other?

Whatever happens it’s going to be a fascinating end to a fantastic season. So let us know what you thinks going to happen in the comments below and vote in our new pole (up in the top left) for which of the top four you think will win the championship.

And for reference in the last poll (which did last a rather long time) Murray was the clear winner.

The big dangling question of the week other than if there was a countdown indicator of Alonso’s car was that of swearing on the radio.

Somewhere somehow two different newspapers reported the same story on the same day. This means they were probably using the same source. So who was that source?

McLaren now realising the way that this swearing has been really damaging Lewis’ reputation have sought to clarify that he didn’t swear.

At this stage everyone’s spinning the story so fast it’s like Lewis just told them to swivil. Personally I’d love to hear the transcripts for myself!

Oh god, nooooooooo, but you did warn me:

Arsenal interest F1’s Ecclestone
Ecclestone on verge of launching Arsenal bid

Alex, I blame you (I’ll think of a reason shortly)

The other week we saw the Williams trucks on the motorway presumably heading out to the Hungarian Grand Prix, which reminded me of another sighting of F1 trucks earlier this season.

I’m not sure when it was now but it would have been for one of the first couple of European races. We were buzzing along the motorway, when, heading the other way came the McLaren trucks with their new Vodafone McLaren Mercedes paintwork. As you can imagine they looked pretty impressive, streamlined and futuristic. After a couple of seconds of excited pointing, Jo shouted out “Honda truck”, I looked up from the wheel to see what looked like a small old horse type truck with faded dirty paintwork and Honda painted on the side just visible through the grime.

Of course it wasn’t a Honda F1 team truck, but given their performance at the time (and their performance this year generally come to think of it) the analogy was hilarious.

Hmmmm maybe you had to be there.

Does Alono’s McLaren steering wheel have a display of the time left during qualifying sessions, or not? This seems to be an essential point no one can agree on. Mark Hughes says:

‘He knew how long he needed for an out-lap to arrive at the start/finish line to begin his flying lap just before the session ended and he knew how many seconds of the session were left because he has a display showing that on his steering wheel.’

But Adam Cooper says:

‘It was my initial assumption that his steering wheel display showed a countdown to the end of the session, and that he was savvy enough to know that at 1:38 or thereabouts he could still safely go, and that Hamilton would not be able to make it. Some cars do have such a dash readout, but the McLaren does not, and thus the drivers rely on information from their engineers. In other words, Alonso took a huge risk when he sat there as the seconds ticked away. Indeed on his out-lap he asked the team how he was doing, and had to be told to hurry up.’

Well, a slightly different race to the Nurburgring, I did have to smile wryly when Alonso landed on pole, and wasn’t really too surprised that he, rightly or wrongly, had some kind of penalty imposed on him. As Alex pointed out we all lost out with Alonso’s demotion, except for him who pulled 2 points out of qualifying instead of the one he would have got.

In the race Alex and Nick landed very similar points, 2 for Raikkonen and 1 for Kovalainen, with Alex taking another one for Kubica and Nick one for Rosberg. Fourstar and myself fared marginally better, with us both taking 1 each for Hamilton and Raikkonen and 2 for Rosberg, with Fourstar grabbing another one for Heidfeld and myself one for Kubica and two for Kovalainen.

Round 11

1 Bearded Stew 7
2 Alex 6
3 Fourstar 5
4 Nick 4

As we head into the summer break the championship is looking very much like the drivers championship with Nick out in front, but not out of touch,

Championship

1 Nick 67
2 Alex 57
3 Bearded Stew 55
4 Fourstar 44

In contrast to the Nurburgring, and a bit of a return to the norm, the podium positions were decided by the first corner. We saw Raikkonen taking Heideld at the start and then scampering after Hamilton, and getting pretty close too. Raikkonen again showing good long distance pace, and pushing Hamilton hard, Hamilton did well to keep him at bay.

Kovalainen finished in the points for the 5th time in the last six races, its good to see him scoring consistently, Rosberg in the points again, where he should be I reckon, but has been a bit out of place recently. Schumacher has a good points finish for Toyota. Alonso eventually managed to get past Schumacher to take the fourth place, probably the best he was going to do in the circumstances, but he did fight all the way around.

The only one missing from the usual suspects at the top was Massa, dragging his Ferrari home in 13th behind both Renaults, both Red Bulls and both Toyotas.

Honda still performing badly, although Barrichello did finish, Button did not. I would be surprised if we saw any decent form from them this year now.

On the commentary side of things surely James Allen must cringe every time they replay Button winning last year.

This year Damon Hill was in the second seat and I thought he did a good job, maybe a bit hesitant to fill in dead air time, with some characteristic Hill pauses mid sentence but by about half way it seemed like he knew what he was going say before he said and it all flowed much better.
Great to have him around though, and hear his enthusiasm. Especially at a track where he had some of his most momentous races.

The most significant moment for me though was just before the first round of pit stops. James was, typically it has to be said, blabbering on about Schumacher’s position for next year and whether he would be on the grid and actually asked Hill what he thought about it, a direct question, but as he paused for Damon to answer, Damon burst in with a description of the action in the pits almost taking over the lead commentary himself, and not ever answering James question as far as I could tell. Great stuff.

Don’t forget, through the summer break, keep it SofaF1.

Allegedly this is part of the radio conversation between Lewis and Ron Dennis.

According to the Times and Daily Mail:
Hamilton: “Don’t ever f****** do that to me again!”
Dennis: “Don’t ever f****** speak to me like that again!”
Hamilton: “Go f****** swivel!”

People have been speaking a lot over the weekend about the problems between Lewis and Alonso and how it’s going to be very difficult to rebuild. But while it’s an important relationship it isn’t the most important relationship at McLaren for Lewis. The most important relationship is with Ron. Team bosses are megalomaniacs, they want power and they’ll do anything to get it. Being told to f-off by a little pip squeak is going to annoy Ron even if they are world champion leading pip squeaks.

Having Damon Hill on the commentary reminded me that sometimes team bosses will even fire a driver who just won them the world championship. Remember Ron cares far more about the constructer’s championship than the driver’s championship.

I think in Ron’s mind what Lewis did at the beginning of Quali 3 and Alonso did at the end were equally stupid. But what he might never forgive Lewis for is not singing from the corporate hymn sheet with the race stewards. It was basically Lewis’ testimony that lost McLaren the constructer’s points. While some might say that Lewis wouldn’t have had to have lied if Alonso hadn’t done what he did, I’m not sure Ron will see it like that.

Alonso is refusing to speak to Lewis and that might be bad for Lewis, but I wonder if it is his relationship with Ron which may be in deep trouble. And if that’s the case it will be far more crucial.