Lewis Hamilton Explores Brave New Worlds...Of Hair?

Over the years Lewis has sported all manner of chin straps and assorted facial hair attempts,  this one though...
Does Mercedes provide him with a 24hr barber  hair curator to keep that outline sharp?

Who Has The Most To Gain From Pirelli Looking Bad?

Griping about tires continues in Monaco as pressure on Pirelli  increases.   

Vettel's relentless whining was in full glory on the Riviera with the German accusing "someone" of not having done their homework.

Sebastian must know that was not Pirelli as much as Red Bull who had missed the boat but, with Webber dutifully piling on it's clear there is a campaign to pressure Pirelli into doing something it cannot legally (sports legally anyway) do without the consent of all teams:  change rubber compounds mid season.

There is a contract on the line,  Pirelli still have not been given the official go ahead for 2014 onward and one has to wonder how all this plays into that.   Red Bull applying  pressure to ensure future tire specs better suit their design philosophy?

Yes but I doubt that's all there is,  after all up until just a few races ago,  the F1 of the past few years was being hailed as very exciting and a great show,  now all of a sudden it's declared a shit show that needs to be completely overhauled.  Strange right?   Power of the Red Bull Hospitality Buffet or maybe something more?

You might have caught a little item about how Bernie E "dissed" Jean Todt in Monaco by placing the FIA trailer in a supposedly less desirable spot in the paddock this year.  Trivial maybe but a hint at the growing tension between Bernie,  who many are foolishly waiting to drop dead retire any day and FIA boss Jean Todt who nobody quite knows what he does.    


It was Bernie's idea to convince Pirelli to produce not the best tire they could but one that would present a challenge to engineers while preventing one team from dominating.   Todt on the other hand, being French might want to get a French company... say, Michelin back in the game.  Koreans are at the door too,  looking for an opening, eager to spend big bucks .  There are plenty circling, waiting to  bite the Pirelli donut.

For Pirelli this is becoming a potential PR nightmare,  as Filippo Zanier said in our email discussion, if  forced to leave the sport, public perception would be it was because they could not produce good enough tires .    Paul Hembery must not get much sleep these days, our guess is that when tires construction gets reconfigured in the next few weeks "for safety reasons" there will be a little special something for RBR in the rubber.

Green Hell Doesn't Allow Mistakes

Another day, another great Nürburgring video, must be that time of year!.

Photo: Porsche

The clip up top is an intro to the main event below:  our old friend, Frenchman  Kevin Estre   chasing Brit Sean Edwards in the third round of the 2013 German Carrera Cup.

Sit back, turn the volume up and enjoy every bump and curb hit as the two barrel though the Nordschleifle.  What a great spot for a camera,   there's not much between the two until Edwards makes a small mistake at Brünnchen.

Don't feel too bad for Sean though, after the Carrera Cup race he hopped into the Black Falcon SLS AMG which took the overall win in the 24h race!

10/10ths And Blind In A Soggy Green Hell

Onboard with Leh Keen in the Farnbacher Racing Porsche GT3 R competing in the top SP9 GT3 class at the ADAC 24 Rennen at the Nürburgring this past week end. Leh was running in P 17 when the race was stopped because of weather.   The Farnbacher car dropped out in the 18th hour ending 141st overall.

A sick thought: as impressive and terrifying this video is (check out the "code brown moment" at the Pflanzgarten 2 crest!) it's entirely possible there may have been drivers even faster than Leh in the rain!  Insane.

First WIn For Mercedes At The Nürburgring 24

With a name almost as long as its bonnet, The Black Falcon Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 took the overall win in the 2013 edition of the ADAC 24 Rennen at the Nürburgring. The car was driven by DTM ace Bernd Schneider with Porsche Supercup regulars Sean Edwards, Nicki Thiim and Jeroen Bleekemolen. If winning the N24 was not a memorable enough, Bleekemolen had to run from the track during the night to be at the birth of twins... what a week end!

The Black Falcon SLS was in a hard battle with the Marc-VDS BMW Z4 driven by Martin, Piccini, Buurman, Göransson. Maxime Martine was at times lapping 40 seconds faster than the rest of the field and had an 8:22.088 lap four laps from the end of the race.

In third another Mercedes, the ROWE Racing SLS.

The race was (...shocker) punctuated by rain so heavy it had to be stopped overnight.

Full results on the ADAC 24 Rennen official site and lots of pictures on Dale's Bridge To Gantry and on Drive Cult

Andrew Mulholland/ DriveCult

Watch Michael Schumacher Drive An F1 Car Around The 'Ring...Slowly

Watching Michael Schumacher tootle around the Nürburgring Nordschleife in a Mercedes Formula 1 car has got to be one of the most underwhelming moments of our day.  

Granted, the track may have been damp, greasy and covered with more or less obscene graffiti but, c'mon!.

At least Save The Ring got a good plug!

The Horse Whisperer Is An Axis Reader?

Probably not but he sure has the same point of view you read and commented on here last week ...

From The Horse Whisperer on Ferrari.com

"These are difficult times for people with poor memories. Maybe it’s because of the huge amount of information available today that people are too quick to talk, forgetting things that happened pretty much in the recent past. Or maybe the brain cells that control memory only operate selectively, depending on the results achieved on track by their owners.

A classic example of this is the current saga regarding the number of pit stops. Voices have been raised to underline the fact that various teams, some of whom got to the podium and others who were quite a way off, made four pit stops in the recent Spanish Grand Prix, making the race hard to follow.

It’s a shame that these worthy souls kept quiet two years ago when, at the very same Catalunya Circuit and on the Istanbul track, five of the six drivers who got to those two podiums made exactly the same number of pit stops as did Alonso and Massa last Sunday in the Spanish Grand Prix.

In fact, there’s nothing new about winning a race making so many pit stops, even discounting those where it was down to changeable weather. One only has to look back to 2004, when Michael Schumacher won the French Grand Prix thanks to what was a three stop strategy, later changed to a four stopper. That was the key which allowed the multiple champion’s F2004 to get ahead of the then Renault driver, Fernando Alonso, who made three stops. And on that day and we remember it well, our strategy and the tyre supplier were showered with praise for allowing us to get the most out of the car.

Today however, it seems one must almost feel ashamed for choosing a strategy that, as always for that matter, is aimed at getting the most out of the package one has available. On top of that, if this choice emerges right from the Friday, because all the simulations are unanimous in selecting it, then why on earth should one feel embarrassed when compared to those who have gone for a different choice, only to regret it during the race itself."

New Commenting System

Fed up with having to erase spam posts ,  we installed Disqus commenting on Axis.

Axis always wanted to have commenting be as easy and transparent as possible, unfortunately miserable spammers are making this intolerable..

On the plus side, you can now easily post pictures and links!   Carry on.