Cheers Everyone!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and much joy and newfound speed for the New Year.

Thank you for hanging out here,

AC

Lewis Hamilton sings on American TV

"Formula 1 needs me"  Lewis Hamilton declared  Sunday to 60 Minutes,  once America's most respected news show.

But F1 is too small to hold the talents of the British celebrity and Lewis was kind enough to share bits off of his upcoming record release, the next leg of husbanding masterplan,  soon to expand to fragrances and a home lifestyle collection.

On "J'adore",  Lewis sings a few words in French  giving him something in common with former F1 and Indycar champion Jacques Villeneuve.

The other track is  a more hard hitting, yet sensitive effort at describing the inner turmoil and complicated life of a celebrity race car driver who slept on a couch and was not raised on jets,

"I give my diamonds a zero compared to you baby".

Keep your eyes on the UK charts in 2016!

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The battle for control of Formula 1

If you read only one thing today, make it Mark Hughes' article in Motorsport on the political struggle for control of the future of Formula 1.

The players are always the same,  old men who will not let go:  Ecclestone, Mosley, Todt.    Their accomplices, Red Bull, their enemy, Ferrari.

Mosley and Todt are the men responsible for the current Formula One Power Units, that's a fact.   When they realized how badly they messed up, rather than admit their mistake...

Well,  read the article.

Only in F1, only in F1
.

Mulholland Highway night assault.

Ben Radler/Flickr

When I moved to the west coast, I was hoping someone would introduce me to local, er... customs. The other day, this popped into my inbox.

Now, I can't say I "condone" such behavior but I suppose hooners will be hooners and, having driven some of the local canyon roads, this is quite a thing.

Want to teach us more about things that are "things" around California?
Post to ac (at) axisofoversteer.com

Cheers!

The most fun Fernando Alonso had racing in 2015

If F1 fans thought 2015 was painful to watch, imagine what it must have felt like to "Fred" Alonso: 

Sidelined by a yet to be (and probably never to be) explained testing accident, 7 DNF's, scoring a measly 11 championship points,  Alonso tried to convince anyone who would listen how he was certain his decision to "leave" Ferrari was the right one.

But that's the public figure. 

Underneath, Fernando the racer is still alive and well as Gordon Mellis tells us.

Fernando Alonso – Still a Winner Away From the F1 Circuit

A Good News Story from (just after) the Season Finale!
By Gordon Mellis

Formula 1 drivers are much maligned these days, accused of being devoid of any personality and shunning any real connection with the fans. Take the F1 drivers race day parade as an example, when the vast majority of drivers are too preoccupied amongst themselves to wave or even acknowledge the fans and Marshals trackside, (which after all is the whole point of the exercise!).

However, glimpses of personality and hope may be appearing for F1 fans from some drivers over the last few race weekends of the year, first we had Alonso relaxing in the chair photo and the Photoshop variations that went viral on the web, followed by the Button and Alonso mock pose on the podium after their retirements in Brazil.

Then last weekend we had Daniel Ricciardo’s impromptu dance session topped by the ever upbeat and increasingly affable Sebastian Vettel, when he elected to sing happy birthday to his Race Engineer at 300kmh while hitting every apex around the Yas Marina circuit during one of the sessions at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a gesture that surely gained him thousands of new fans (Including me).

This has all been a welcome contrast from the sulking and temperamental displays of Lewis Hamilton this year when he doesn’t :  a) Get on the top step of the podium,  b) Agree with the engineer’s strategy or c) Feel 100% of the love quota from the Mercedes team.

So you would think that given the torrid, horrible and totally demoralising season that former world champion Fernando Alonso has had to endure at the other end of the grid this year, that the last thing FA would be interested in would be grass roots motorsport .....in this case karting, arguably the purest form of motorsport and the first step on the career ladder to Formula 1.

But nothing could be further from the truth, for less than 24 hours after yet another lack lustre race in the season finale, where ‘FA ‘felt aggrieved by inconsistent officiating and an undeserved penalty, F1 superstar Fernando Alonso turns up at the ‘Dubai Kartdrome’, for one of the circuits regular Sodi World Series (SWS) races, first to present the trophies to the winning junior drivers on the podium, and then, to the absolute astonishment and delight of all the other competitors, enters and competes in the senior SWS races.

Alonso, an occasional visitor to the Dubai Kartdrome, had previously competed in the circuit’s prestigious endurance and leisure (but highly competitive) karting events, where he has driven, without any fuss, airs or graces, and has always willingly posed for photographs and happily signed autographs for the young kart drivers who aspire to follow in his tyre treads.

But on Monday night, in a search for the close wheel to wheel racing action that has been missing from his F1 season, the McLaren F1 driver quietly and effectively went about his business and was soon on the pace, qualifying second fastest. But despite his F1 world champion status, the races proved that track and seat time are paramount in any racing vehicle and with the spotlight on Fernando throughout, he could only manage 4th and a 5th in the races, still credible, but he did go on to show his prowess by setting the fastest lap of the entire SWS season in the final race.

But forget the results, Fernando proved that you don’t have to be on the podium to be a ‘real winner’, for in an absolutely epic demonstration of his character, stature and his absolute love of all things motorsport he unselfishly put aside all the disappointments and frustrations of Honda’s F1 unreliability, the semantics and political bickering at McLaren, the will he – won’t he race in 2016 speculation to give his fellow competitors and junior drivers a night they will always remember, creating countless opportunities for them to retell “when I raced with Alonso” stories.

Dubai Kartdrome Assistant Circuit Manager, David Bright commented on Facebook “It was great to see people's facial expressions last night at SWS Race night, when they realised Fernando Alonso would not only be doing podium presentations, but racing himself! Hats off to the guy....less than 24hrs after finishing the final Formula 1 race on the calendar, he enters an SWS kart race! The guy is a legend and true racer. A motorsport role model and a credit to the sport!” Hear Hear......Let’s hope the rest of the F1 grid takes note.......motorsport fans and the general public need (and want) to see the human side of the drivers and not just a helmet flashing by at speed.

So if you want to race karts and have a chance to get up close and maybe, just maybe race against a F1 world champion, get down to the Dubai Kartdrome and sign up to race in the Dubai SWS series.

Fernando, you are a class act! More of the same please.

2015 Formula One end of season rant and ratings

Formula 1's longest ever championship came to a close in Abu Dhabi, for many it was accompanied by sighs of relief.

It was a history making, record braking season for Mercedes,  the culmination of a project started with Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher at the end of the last decade.
The Mercedes W06 produced astounding numbers in terms of pole positions, 1-2 finishes, wins, points scored and reliability.    Lewis Hamilton was able to cruise to his championship win with relative ease,  capitalizing on the early season advantage over teammate Rosberg.

Bit of a shame the season ended with controversy between the three time champion and his team.    Hamilton made public comments saying F1is boring because teams are focused on 1-2 finishes rather than individual results.   He was referring to Mercedes' practice of giving both drivers the same strategy in the race.
While we might agree teams should let drivers choose their fate, as they did for Lewis in Monaco, it's a bit of a sour note for Hamilton to bring this up as he was facing the downside of that policy,  not when he was the beneficiary of it.

That said, hats off to everyone at Mercedes,  well played!

Standouts of the season?

Ferrari's resurgence has to be one.   With the epic shake up last summer, that 2015 would turn out as it did was a huge surprise.   It was a bold, brave move by the Scuderia that paid off with a driver in red on the podium in sixteen of the nineteen races, three times on the top step.  Expectations for 2016 are huge,  everyone is looking at Ferrari to break the inevitable monotony a Silver Arrow domination has given the sport.

Vettel has taken to the Scuderia like a fish to water, I'm sure he enjoyed this season tremendously but going forward the pressure will be much higher. Mayor talking points for the coming season will be Vettel's a ability to raise his career to the next level by winning in an "underdog" car and  Lewis Hamilton finding the motivation to keep his driving at top level.    Hopefully the cars will be close enough in performance for real sparks to fly.


Best crop of "young guns" in a long time.  Sainz, Kyat, Nasr and  Verstappen.

Verstappen had the added pressure of relentless hype.  First year in and already he's "Son of Senna", smart move to keep him at Toro Rosso a bit longer, hopefully he will mature into the driver his promise hint at.  It will not be easy for "17 year old" Max Verstappen to keep his head in the right place with Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes all in a bidding war for his services in 2017 and beyond.

Sainz was  in the media shadow of Verstappen and unlucky with DNF's but he showed some real speed.  Nasr too did very well considering what he had to work with.

Kvyat dealt with pressure incredibly well.  at one point in the season he had Helmut Marko telling everyone he would be fired yet he ended up beating a previous "Son of Senna", his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.  Unexpected.


the Negatives

McLaren and Red Bull.  Their debacles will surely be case studies for bad management in future textbooks.
How two, hyper competitive, front of the pack teams with huge budgets could fail so spectacularly is almost incomprehensible,

McLaren was  honorable:  convinced Mercedes would never furnish them with a winning engine, they decided to jump into the Honda boat only to sink, Titanic like, to the bottom of  ocean.

To his credit,  Ron Dennis has mostly avoided taking shots at Honda in public but it's hard to imagine how things might progress at Woking (and at Honda's engine department) without a Ferrari style "night of the long knives".

Red Bull is a team that prided itself on great organization and management and frequently mocked their competitors for not being clever and responsive enough with new solutions.   How they moved so awkwardly with their engine supplier is amazing.  How their management structure is still in place unaltered is baffling.

A quick recap: As soon as it became clear the 2016 engine was not up to the  task, Red Bull started to  dump on Renault in public.  They courted Mercedes and, based on a verbal understanding, announced they would break the  contract they had with the French.   When Mercedes turned them down and Ferrari said they would not be able to provide another team with 2016 spec engines Red Bull thought the best strategy would be mocking their competitors for being afraid of their awesome Taurine Power...

When that did not work, they threatened to pull out of the sport.  This got the attention of Bernie and then Jean Todt  who were pushing the "alternate engine" idea.  This creates the ironic situation where the team that had outspent its rivals for years, that had pioneered creative accounting to get around budget caps was now pushing  for a poor man's power solution.  Only in F1
Mateschitz and the boys are aligned with Bernie and Todt against the Mercedes-Ferrari axis for control of the sport.    Will this strategy pay off for the Austrians long term?  We will find out was we move closer to the next schedule rules shakeup in 2017 but for sure it did not win them any good will on pit lane or with the fans.

What else do we have to look to in 16?

Will Rosberg come out swinging?
Will Renault really buy Lotus?
How will Haas F1 do?
How will Pirelli's new tires choices influence races?
Will Alonso quit half way through the season if McLaren is still a dog?
Why is Will Stevens in F1?

We'll have to wait at least until the end of February when the new cars will start to break cover.   In the mean time please feel free to leave your own rants in the comments below.  It will be a long couple of months!

Someone's excited seasons over.

A video posted by Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) on Dec 1, 2015 at 6:18am PST