SofaF1

As we’re talking about Martin at the moment I thought it might be a good idea to lay on the line my feelings about James Allen.

Unlike some I’ve never hated him. In fact for a long time I tended to be his defender in arguments. I have always realised what a tough job commentating really is and that it was supremely unfair for us to compare Murray who had been a commentator for fifty years and James who had just started.

It wasn’t the same when Martin started because he had Murray standing next to him. He only had to chip in the odd thing at first and then slowly but surely said more and more.

The thing is that being a commentator is really hard, as Martin once said, “Next time the Grand Prix is on, turn the volume down and start talking. See how far you get before you run out of words, or start repeating yourself, or you make a mistake. And it’s not very far.”

And we have really slammed James for his mistakes where Murray’s mistakes we treated with a kind of sense of fun. This must have seemed particularly unfair.

The thing is there is a justifiable reason for this and not just an unfair thing and there was a prime example of it at Canada. Martin was talking about something that had been happening in the pits and he came to the end of his sentence. At this moment the shot changed to one showing just how close Kimi had got to the back of Alonso. And what was James reaction? It was something like this, said in a near monotone, “right so now the two leaders are close together on the track”. And then he went on to talk about something else until he was interrupted by Martin who wanted to point out Kimi had almost overtaken Alonso. He just never seems to get excited.

Actually no that’s not true, he does, but he gets excited just after everyone else does. And when something really great happens he’ll say something like, “Yeah! And who says Formula 1 is getting boring”?

Just imagine the same scene with Murray and you can see the difference:

Murray: “Look at this, the fastest two men in formula 1 at the moment are litterally less than 1 second appart and Rikkonnen is looking racy, I say the fastest men in Formula 1 because Michael is in the pits”.
Martin: “Actually Murray he’s just lapped a Super Aguri”.

Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t miss commentating like that! It might have been wrong, but there was no way you could accuse him of lacking passion. James please, please get more excited.

Forget Murrayisms, what about Martinisms?

Schumacher very much in a Renault sandwich, but not a lot of butter in it for him.

It went out as a V8, came back as a V7.

A Formula 1 car is one of the best hoovers in the world.

Looking at the way Karthikeyan’s car was handling, I imagine his pit stop was for fresh underwear.

Normally the Renault understeers like a cross-channel ferry.

Is it a Ferrari sandwich, or a BAR snack?

Hello, Jim. Hello, everybody. Congratulations for getting up early or setting your video correctly!

You can read old quotes here: Quotes Page, and find regularly updated ones here: Racing Lines

Things are slowly starting to take shape: James Allen says Raikkonen will drive for Ferrari next year, regardless of if Michael quits. Both Williams drivers are staying. Klein is probably leaving Red Bull. Will Ron Dennis really give in to the media and his sponsors and let Hamilton drive that McLaren? Both Toyota drivers are staying. Montoya could line up alongside Coulthard, giving David a chance to thoroughly thrash him and show he should never have been replaced a year ago. The test driver for BMW, Kubica, is suddenly being mentioned a lot for a race drive. And what about that chap Paffett? How can he not get a drive having been recommended by Bernie?

Lastly, a headline from Sunday: ‘Button frustrated by lack of pace’. Isn’t this the same headline we’ve heard for almost two years now? I think DC has it right: Honda should stop expecting too much. They were a better team when they didn’t expect wins.

Canada was a great race. Made all the more interesting by the fact that it started broadcasting here in the UK while and England football match was on. I wonder what happened to the number of viewers although I don’t think there is much crossover between fans. We’d have to ask our resident football expert Adrian.

The most annoying thing of the whole weekend came on Saturday when James said, “as we all know revenge is a dish best eaten cold”! No James we don’t know that, it’s “served” cold not eaten cold! Who wants to eat revenge? Okay well that and Kimi just missing that overtake of Alonso.

Is it make or break time? The two races on the North American continent will determine the tone of the second half of the season. If Michael wants to get back in the hunt then he should be pushing in these two races.

Michael has won in Canada seven times and Alonso hasn’t ever been on the podium.

Canada is hugely unpredictable, and with American grand prix tire from Michelan being bound to be a safe option Ferrari might be smelling a chance.

So here comes the now traditional place where I say “but don’t discount Kimi” only for everything to go wrong for him between here and Monday. I’d still like to say it as Kimi seems happier with his car this weekend than he has for a while. And if things get crazy in Canada then he might be in the right place at the right time.

Further down the grid we might see a chance for something rather special from BMW who really seem to be improving. A team that seems to be spending its budget wisely.

The only thing stopping a chance at a podium from the is JV’s bad luck in Canada. That’s the kind of luck that could see your teams maiden grand prix podium handed to your team mate.

“I’ve realised my ambition to release an albumn”. William Shatner’s done it, Keanu Reeve’s done it, even Celine Dion has done it. And now Jaques Villeneuve – no really – has done it. Want a listen:
http://www.myspace.com/jvofficial

Reviews accepted of course.

Motogp. The Grand Prix of motorbike racing. The fastest riders in the world on the fastest machines. Overtaking is guaranteed at every race all the way through the field: the leader never finishing more than a few seconds in front of second place, normally having to fight for that first place until the last corner. The crashes are spectacular, the risks high (last week, above, three riders crashed out with broken bones). The rules are more relaxed (spectators shake hands with the riders on the slow-down lap), and the characters more flamboyant (Rossi getting off his bike on the slow-down lap to hug fans). Why did Rossi decide to stay there? Why aren’t we watching it instead?

The proposed rules for engines in formula 1 from 2008 will be a massive change to the sport.

The rules suggest that the teams will enter a single engine design for 2008, 2009 and 2010 this year. And that they will use the same designed engine for that entire period. The idea is that engine development is damaging the sport as it is so incredibly expensive, it’s rather boring to most people and it reduces overtaking (as the cars get faster they can stick to the ground more which means you have to lift less and most overtaking happens when cars are slowing down not speeding up).

The FIA think this is also the right time to go for the rule change because coming, as it does, only a year after the change to V8s it means the engines are closer together than they usually are.

Well so far no argument from me. It is expensive, they are close together, it does reduce overtaking and it is kind of boring. This last point is the one that most commentators have focused on. They say things like Formula 1 needs to be at the forefront of design and innovation and that this change and they are almost saying “if we don’t have this forefront thing then we’re no better than GP2 and they even have overtaking over there”. Actually nobody will remember that the engines are the same unless the commentator says things like “you have to remember Martin that these guys are driving using old fashioned engines designed two weeks / two months / two years ago” every race for the next three years. Although we know he will.

There are actually three genuine problems with this rule:

The first is of reliability. We know that the although the small speed differentials between current engines will be beaten over the next three years by aerodynamics and so doesn’t really matter. But a) reliability doesn’t work like that, nothing can change it if the engine design is locked down, b) reliability is more important to the overall championship campaign than raw pace and c) the reliability is the part of engine design that is already the most divergent. Even amongst the fastest teams there are massive variations in reliability already.

The second is of costs. While engine costs are extremely expensive this rule change isn’t going to make a difference to that at all. What are the teams going to do with their engine designers over the course of the three years. Fire them? What will they do in three years when they need new engines? I think they will end up spending the money on future development and also on other parts of the car development thus saving nothing.

The third is of what happens next. This is the most troubling part of the plan as far as I can tell. One of the main defences of how it is going to be possible to do this is that the engines are very close together right now. The only way to really keep engine development costs low would be to not change the regulations again, and give the teams three years to come up with their next engine. The problem with that theory is that the engines would be wildly different with three years of closed room development (nobody gets to see what the competion is doing out on the track) and by the time people realise they are wildly different the engines will be locked down and they won’t be able to change things. In fact the only way to stop this is to make a sudden sweeping engine rule change a short period before the new engines are required and hope that everyone ends up on the same playing field. And even then there would be no way of knowing if the next 3 years were going to be a fair and close competition. If they do try and fake it with a sudden rule change then it will make engine development even more expensive than it is now making a mockery of the whole process.

So yes I think engine homologation is a bad idea. But not for the wishy-washy reasons most people seem to be suggesting.

What do you make of the itv-f1.com polls?

I think I’ve only ever voted once (something to do with Jacques that I was infuriated by), but they are interesting to see how the public reacts to events. For instance, the majority damned Schumacher for what happened in Monaco. But by Silverstone they were all wanting him to win. Is it the same people voting? Sometimes they seem knowledgeable and intelligent, at others simply prone to the media’s whims. At the moment they’re voting that Kovalainen will partner Fisi, which seems a sensible conclusion.

One problem I have is the phrasing of some of the questions, which sometimes invites people to vote for what they like rather than what they believe will actually happen (which I think is the better way). For an example of the difference, compare the current poll on f1.com: they ask ‘who would you most like’ to partner Fisi (and the answer is Raikkonen), whereas itv have it right for once and ask ‘who do you think’. Itv also have many more options to choose from.

The news that Fisi has signed for another year at Renault is sadly more one of desperation than good judgement. It will be very interesting to see who the other driver is but to my mind it must be Hekki not Kimi. Why hire an experienced hand if you have Kimi on the way. Unless the idea of an all Finnish team was just a little bit too scary for the sponsors?

Actually I think that’s exactly what’s happened.

My feeling is that the situation goes something like this. If Michael retires then Kimi has a water tight contract with Ferrari. But that if Michael leaves Ferrari then Kimi can chose where to go out of at least three contracts on offer to him. One from Ferrari, one from McClaren and one from Renault.

I’m pretty sure that michael is going to stay in formula one at this point. I think he has to make a decision now ish and can’t wait until the end of the season and if he had to guess right now he’d have to guess that he won’t win this year. So this leaves Kimi free to choose.

Which one he chooses will be very interesting. I don’t think he’ll stay at McClaren although it would be truely interesting to see what would happen.

So then it’s between being the new gun in an old team at Ferrari or jumping into the ultra reliable Renault.

I know who i’d pick if I was me I’d go to Ferrari thinking that there’s a team that knows winning and knows how to get back to winning.

But if I was Kimi and i’d had the unreliability that Kimi had had I’d go to Renault.

But I’d sign a one year contract and see what happened after a year.