Communication Breakdown

By now, everyone must have made their mind up about what happened in Turkey between the Red Bull drivers, no need to show all that again right?

I found this little clip from the second free practice interesting. Let's see if you can figure out what Mark Webber is trying to communicate before it ends....



Couple of points this brings up:

Hey, that new mandatory mirror placement on F1 cars really works, Webber does a splendid job backing into that narrow lane!

Seriously, fire guys at a Formula 1 event keep the pin in the fire extinguisher during a live practice and take 20 seconds to fumble it out?

Did you notice Webber's left glove has neoprene on it, like the Ferrari drivers had last month to control their first version of the F-duct?

Now to wider points lost in translation:

Who forgot to tell Webber you can't ask your teammate to please slow down?
Who forgot to tell Vettel that Webber has the widest car in F1?
Who forgot to tell Red Bull that Webber is leading the championship?

and while I'm at it:

Who forgot to tell Martin Brundle that calling Alonso a miserable son of a bitch to interview, live on the BBC broadcast just makes Brundle sound like a bitter, non two time world champion, old fart?

Who forgot to tell the press to stop complaining about F1 drivers being "primadonnas"? Show me a driver who's not a "primadonna" and I'll show you someone who will never be world champion. Senna, Schumacher, Prost, PIquet, Hamilton, Button, Alonso, you name them, they all want to get every possible advantage and stopped at nothing to get it. Look at Hamilton, he was all pissy after winning this past week end because he thought the team was behind Jenson....sound familiar?

So why this effort against Alonso, who really has done no major complaining about Ferrari's lack of pace,to paint him as the only "primadonna"? I can understand the UK press having it in for Schumacher or even Vettel, after all WW II has only been over for 70 odd years or so but this war with the Spanish? You have to let go at some point.



end of post

Turkish GP: cheer for the underdog.

In a Grand Prix that was as devoid of surprises as it was spectators, the only real pleasure was to watching the two drivers most in the... "hot seat" at the moment put on the kinds of moves that, had their names been Hamilton or Raikkonen, would have been hailed as definitive proof of a second coming. I'm referring to Kovalainen's great defense against the vastly superior Brawn of Rubens Barrichello and Nelson Piquet's exquisit smackdown outside pass on World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

Barrichello no doubt must have complained bitterly about the slower Heikki daring to stand in his way. In past races we have seen Barrichello's histrionics when he felt held up, usually big, dramatic hand gestures. Barrichello is a man who's career is coming to a close in a repeat of his biggest nightmare, to be a second driver in a top team. In fact, more than one source claims the only reason Rubens is at Brawn is because of the testing restrictions which did not allow for Bruno Senna to be in the car at all before the season. Clearly frustrated, he unleashed the frustrated man's move: the impossible divebomb. Not satisfied with his first failed move, Barrichello later repeats on Sutil's Force India.

Nelson Piquet is another F1 driver everyone, not always unfairly, pretty much writes off. The kind of move he dealt the mighty Hamilton however, was something out of his father's playbook. If Piquet has not found the proper mindset and motivation to raise his game, it is clear that somewhere there is the talent. Kudos Nelsiño.

Oh the race results? Button dominated, Webber had a good race, Vettel showed he is human but Red Bull gave blatant team orders. Ferrari, who would haveve been raked over the coals for a radio transmission like Red Bull's, was nowhere and BMW showed a small improvement.

Home

Lewis Hamiton might try acting

...but what he really wants to do is direct...

I just got back to the US and on the plane I happened to read this gem from the Herald Tribune's extensive F1 coverage this week end.

Q. After Formula One do you think you’ll want to continue racing in another series, or do something else?

A. I honestly don’t know. It depends on what opportunities there are, and I don’t think there will be a lack of opportunity. It’s just that, for example, what I like now music-wise might be different in five years time. So I really can’t say. But I love music, I love movies, I don’t know if I can really act that well, but you never know until you try. It could be another area I could go into.

You can make what you will of Hamilton's tendency to always somehow mention Ayrton Senna and himself in the same sentence, but for sure his exit in Q1, beaten by his team mate, is the low point of his season so far. What made it worse is that it was not due to an accident or bad strategy...he was just not able to set the car up well enough and had to blatantly lift in turns where others were essentially flat.

Oh well, at least he's happy for Jenson!

Don't miss these two articles also from the IHT/NYT

To Every Grand Prix Season, a Scandal

Test Drivers Get Lost in the Cost Cutting

After the jump I will link to f1 live streams in case you don't want to wait until this afternoon (in the US) for the lame tape delayed broadcast...




refresh as I will be updating links as they crash or get trashed..
quality will be crappy and it's entirely possible they might not work at all, don't shoot the messenger!

best english stream try: http://www.p2p4u.net/ choose Other sports> link 2

In spanish:
Watch live video from . on Justin.tv

try here too http://www.justin.tv/mc_kik_2
http://www.trt.net.tr/Canli/anasayfa.aspx?kanal=tv1&slv=0

Watch live video from World Cup Games Live on Justin.tv

Watch live video from ROLEX_TV on Justin.tv

access= London Zoo

access code = f1

Talk Turkish

Sunday's Turkish GP, it could be argued, was won by Felipe Massa on Saturday during qualifying and today many pundits are slamming Kimi for making too many mistakes. But what does a mistake in F1 qualifying look like? Not Sutil-Yamamoto mistake but a slip that will cost you pole by hundreths of a second?

Here are the last two corners of Kimi's quali lap...don't blink. That's all it takes.




In any case, I don't think Kimi had enough for Massa or Hamilton even if he had nailed that last complex. He was only .082 ahead of his own best after the second sector, he probably did not do the turn 9-10 complex optimally and compromised the following long run down to the section shown in the clip. However, on the second to last lap of the race, Raikkonen turned the fast lap of the race with a 1:27.2, faster than Massa's pole lap...timing Kimi, timing.

Now speaking of Hamilton, it takes some luck to go with the skill and on Sunday he showed both those boxes are checked on his resume. Of all the possible outcomes, to have a fully blown and flailing front tire and come out of it with only minor damage to the front wing and still in the points is amazing. The skill part was in his adapting to the now damaged car well enough to control Heikki Kovaleinen and bring home a fifth place. Renault aero engineers might need some extra aspirin today.




On the opposite end of the luck plane is Jarno Trulli who must listen to the complete works of Albert King all day long. If Jarno "did not have bad luck, he would have no luck at all", hosed by Fisichella in the first corner, Jarno nonetheless had the best passes of the race. Here he skewers Rubens Barrichello in turn 1.




Rubens and Honda did provide some comic relief:

Key Corners

Amazingly, there was something other than the standard inane banter said at today's post qualifying press conference, something of actual interest to drivers. It came from Kimi prodded by Peter Windsor.



This applies even to autocrossers*, it's the slow technical bits that will get you. A car will spend much more time in a slow corner than in a fast one so there is much more of an opportunity to really screw up your lap time. In Turkey it's turn 9-10 complex and the final 12-13-14 section. Especially true of turns 9-10 which immediately precede the longest straight on the track.






If you are going to the track this fall and want to learn more about line and technique, I can recommend two sources beside the more obvious textbooks:

• The Rookie Chronicles by Jeff Gabel.
• High Performance Driving a one off magazine and DVD.

Both are great starting points and have loads of info in easily digestible form.

Have fun at the track and keep saying to yourself..."what would Kimi do?"

* the US style autocross, not the euro offroad

Red Bull is on fire!

Today, during the Turkish GP free practice, Red Bull Renault showed off their latest technological breakthrough in tire warming.

DC continued to channel Hollywood starlets by declaring "That's SO hot!"

Gag Rule

While most of the UK based press is simply reporting that Alonso and Hamilton skipped going to the track on the Thursday before the Turkish GP, only Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport goes a tad further and reveals a a strict keep your trap shut diktat from McLaren with regards to the only two topics anyone wants to write about: the Feud and the Scandal.

There is a lot to read between the lines in this clip, edited from a news feed of a Vodafone promotional event. To me, for having just returned from a holiday, Alonso does not look like a particularly happy man on the eve of his 100th GP start.

After a little karting demo, the press is instructed not to ask either of the questions they really want to ask. Telling is the exchange (volume is really low but you can hear it)between one of the team's handlers and the reporter from Tele5 Spain. The reporter is told Alonso will not be available because "this is the first chance that everybody has had to get together and they need to have this conversation within the team"...(!) . His pleas for anything juicy fall on deaf ears and we see Alonso answer some standard inane questions "..so Fernando, how do you like Turkey?"

But perhaps most telling is his body language at the end of the clip when on his way out he looks at the spanish journalists and shrugs... what do you think?