SofaF1

This site has found all of the grand prix circuits on google maps. Some with much higher detail than others, so if one of them is bad quality then persevere.

http://www.mergetek.com/grabmap.aspx?CategoryID=33

One of the strangest things about Formula 1 is how little the fans seem to care where their driver is from.

During the time of Damon Hill when there was a chance a British guy might win the championship there was a lot of support but in many ways it was caused by the rivalry with Schumacher who was German and therefore the jingoistic elements were stirred into action.

Now we seem to have a similar thing happening with Jenson Button. Jenson is one of the most overrated drivers of all time. He sometimes has amazing moments. He sometimes pulls something really great out of the bag. Whether it’s a flawlessly smooth qualifying lap or an overtaking move where nobody else would consider one but I remember in his first year a Williams when at Monaco he hotheadedly tried to overtake de la Rosa in Monaco. There was almost a massive and very dangerous crash, he was very lucky. But even so he did cause the race to be restarted.

He’s still never won a race so what’s the fuss about?

During the intervening years between Hill and Button we had Coulthard, Irvine and Herbert who all won races. Irvine was robbed of winning the championship even. And Button still hasn’t won a race.

Now I never have thought that any of these people could win a championship. Not so with Hill. And that might make me sound like a glory supporter to a non-F1 fan but that does seem to be much more in the F1 spirit.

Some people do have certain drivers or certain teams that they love. There’s something about them that they identify. I’d argue that the reason that they choose this driver or team is often much less to do with nationality than it is in other sports though. And these people will tend to support their driver or team through thick and thin.

But there is another type of supporter doing something else. Another type of supporter is watching the season more like a fantasy football season. I often think about who I think will win the race rather than who I want to win the race. It’s more about trying to guess who’s going to win. Perhaps this derives from the similarities with horse racing.

And I think that’s why nationality plays much less of a part in F1 than in other sports. Although try telling that to an Italian, Spaniard or Brazilian.

Which I forgot to add:

* this reminded me of the incident involving Pedro Deniz, which lead to the fantastic Sun headline:

Deniz in the oven

This picture actually came from this site: http://www.gpracing.net192.com/ which hasn’t been updated to even include the 2001 season but seems to have some interesting history of F1 on it.

The tire wars are going away from F1 very soon, and we’ll be back to a single provider. Allegedly this is to cut down on costs but it will also cut down on confusion. People probably don’t care (and definitely don’t cheer) about a particular tire manufacturer. But simple economics will tell you that reducing competition won’t drive down costs.

I suppose there is an argument to be made that you’d need less testing if there was only one tire manufacturer but I don’t imagine that there will be any shared data between teams. I guess there might be a reduction in the cost of industrial espionage if you’re all on the same tire there’s less to modify in setup and so the winter testing stats might be easier to read. But none of this really makes me think that it’s much to do with costs.

I’m glad that proper pits with tire changes are back in many ways. There was something rather interesting about last year when there was only a continuing degradation in the tire towards the end and you had a driver simply trying to hang on to the thing for grim death. This year we still have that kind of situation with the engines but with the engine it seems to be a bit safer for the driver (although there were more flames than usual coming out of the back of Jenson’s car in Oz)*

So I emotionally think that a single tire supplier will be good for the sport. I think that nobody cares which tire you were racing on, and that it’s often confusing as to which compound of which supplier each driver (let alone which team) is on.

But…

I think that a lot of the mixing up of the races that we’ve enjoyed so much in the last few seasons has been caused by the resurgence of Michelin. The fact that it’s not clear who has the better compound, who is working the best on a given day etc has really spiced up the races.

Take Australia for example (I can’t believe I haven’t written a post just about that race yet) Toyota, Williams and yes Super Aguri all benefited from the Bridgestone tires flattering their cars I think. But why didn’t Ferrari get a performance bump if that were the case? Because they didn’t use the new compound. Ferrari don’t trust Bridgestone anymore after last year so they decided to stick with what they know.

The tire wars have created an extra roll of the dice to the mix of F1 which I think we may miss more than we think we will in the coming years. I remember all too easily the years a few years ago when Martin would say “maybe the way to spice up F1 would be for Bernie to add sprinklers to all of the tracks and set them to random”.

itv.com/f1 – 22 teams apply for 2008 entries
Twenty-two teams have submitted entry applications for the 2008 Formula 1 world championship, the FIA revealed on Friday.

Apparently the FIA are oversubscribed for the 2008 season but they are only going to let 12 teams actually run.

Wouldn’t it be much better to actually allow all teams to run but re-establish the 110% rule. Therefore making it so that qualifying really means qualifying. Some people might not be able to put together a flying lap, so you’d end up with some events where the big boys not in the race.

That could really mix it up and make it interesting, but it will probably never happen because the cost of visiting a race where the only sponsorship airtime you’d get would be in qualifying would be too high for the little teams and they’d all go bust after one season.

This site, I hope, will be a discussion forum about Formula 1 (or F1 if you’re in to the whole brevity thing). I want to discuss everything that’s going on in Formula 1 with other people.

I often have discussions with my friends Nick and Stewart who I hope will join me in posting on this site.

None of us are connected with Formula 1 in any way. This site isn’t about the latest announcements and news in F1 but is more about in depth thoughtful articles and also brief observations. We’ll often actually talk about the coverage itself as well as the races and all of the other things about F1 that make it such a great and intriguing sport.

I hope you enjoy it.