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What are Renault up to firing Nick Heidfeld?

Posted on August 26, 2011 by driverjohn

OK, so the bearded one hasn’t set the world alight (even if his car has set itself on fire), but he has done a competant job driving the thing. He is an experienced development man and you would think that his experience could have been put to good use, although others have done that better and the Renault has been left behind after a promising start.

But duping him at this point doesn’t make sense. Grosjean has shown that he has what it takes after all and could have been brought back in later in the season, but Senna? What has he got other that a name that vaguely rings a bell?

Maybe this weekend will prove me wrong, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, fingers crossed for Robert Kubica and his recovery.

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weekend round up – 14th August 2011 – #NASCAR #IndyCar

Posted on August 15, 2011 by driverjohn

#IndyCar – a bit of a cock up with the green flag in New Hampshire was fortunately without injury and the right thing was done by calling the result on the previous lap’s running order. Sometimes what you think is the right thing goes belly up on you. Well done to RHR on his win, and the title race closes up again as Dario went out early and the Toowwomba Kid got 5th in the mellee.

#NASCAR – Rain mucked up Sunday’s action at The Glen completely, and more good news for the Aussie contingent as Marcus Ambrose wins one for The King. Great to see him get the win that he has deserved for a while, and good also to see both Petty cars in the top ten with the Dinger backing up the Digger.

A shame that one of the idiot Busch boys had to punt the Dinger off, especially as he was running a lap down at the time and should have kept out of the way. Maybe he mistook the #43 for the #48? And talking of idiots, the animal Said was in the  middle of the nasty shunt for Rooti.

 

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Racing, or not, in the rain

Posted on August 7, 2011 by driverjohn

Keeping an eye on the NASCAR as I sit here this evening, but rain in the Poconos has stopped the action and the weather prediction is that more rain will arrive just as the track is dry enough to go out again.

For those of in the world where motor racing originated, the though of stopping for rain is something of an anathema, but I do understand why they would not want to race in the rain on an oval. However, surely it is not beyond the skill set to run on flat tracks like Pocono and road circuits?

NASCAR stockers are hefty beasts, but it isn’t as though we haven’t had big and heavy cars racing in the wet before. It’s all about the skill of the drivers. OK, the NASCAR lot aren’t used to it and don’t get any practice (other than the likes of JPM and a few who have come through series where racing in the rain is normal), but surely we could let them have a go? They have in the Nationwide series after all.

 

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#skypaynoway #F1 #BBC #Sky My final moan on the subject, I promise

Posted on July 31, 2011 by driverjohn

If you’ve followed the blizzard of tweets you’ll know that I am not a fan of the 2012 onwards F1 TV coverage plans. My #skypaynoway campaign is completely futile I know, but I will not watch the BBC coverage this weekend in protest and may not bother with any of the other 2011 race coverage. I’ve moaned about how boring some of the races have been anyway, and have wandered off or gone to sleep part way through several of them, so what am I really missing?

Well, obviously I’m missing any that turn out to be crackers, but I’ll take that chance. I watch with the sound turned down as I can’t be bothered with the commentary and, as yesterday in qualifying showed, Twitter kept me in touch.

I’m not sure why I’m so cross about it, but I think that it is because of all the twaddle from Bernie and others about how the new package is better. I’ve blogged here about how I will not watch any race from the middle or far East where Bernie has changed the time to make it more Euro market friendly. If he wants to do that to suit me then let’s have all the races start at 1045 as I can watch between getting in from Sainsbury’s and making lunch. That works for me and doesn’t muck up my Sunday.

Our household pays a ludicrous amount of money to the BBC and Sky for the privilege of several hundred channels with not much worth watching on, so there is no chance that I will pay for F1 coverage on the box. As for what the BBC plan for 6pm, regardless of whether it is highlights or the whole race, that is not a convenient time for me to watch. We have our dinner then, and TV gets turned off so that we can have a civilised conversation over our meal. In any case, what is the point when I will know what has happened thanks to various cybermedia?

If the BBC want to cut costs then cut out the wasted hour before qualifying and the race. And why ship herds of people to every race? Why not take the feed and have someone commentate back here from the monitor like good old Murray used to do for some races in the early days of his tenure? Eddie has become an embarrassment and the grid walk went that way long ago, so to have cut it all out would have cut costs.

Goodness knows what Sky have planned for viewers, but I’ve stopped watching my beloved NASCAR on Sky as their fill in bits are so puerile that even turning the sound off has not worked.

Talking of NASCAR, rather than needing all of these extra dollars that Bernie’s new TV deal will bring in, why not have some F1 cost cutting? Like taking a NASCAR approach to pit stops? Only enough pit crew to do one side (or end) at a time, say? Cutting the bodies per crew down to 25% of what we have now would save on wages, logistics and more. It would shake up the pit stop side of things a bit as well if we started to have the cars stationary for 15-17 seconds at a time and would also affect race strategy at many circuits as it could mean that you couldn’t get both cars in on successive laps. The risk and consequence of error would make a difference too.

Anyway, the TV deal is done and will happen and my cost cutting thoughts won’t. I will not watch much F1 on the box and, frankly, doubt that I will miss it too much.

Filed under: F1, NASCAR | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

weekend round up – 24th July 2011 #F1 #NASCAR #IndyCar

Posted on July 25, 2011 by driverjohn

Having changed things around with our social media activity at the start of the month, and launching a Twitter account dedicated to this blog plus a link to a general motoring blog, we decided to stop the weekend round ups and just tweet pages from Autosport and other sources. However, several readers have asked where the roundups had gone and many thanks to those for their interest, especially the one who asked if Trucker Tog and I were still OK.

So we’re back, and here goes.

#F1. Well the Lewis of old is back and very welcome he is. A truly dominant win – the finish may have been close, but it was never really in doubt from the first corner. Lewis was on a mission and wasn’t going to let anyone by. Not sure who the Seb imposter was though.

#IndyCar. Over in Edmonton there was another return to form as the Toowoomba Kid was back in town after a couple of dnfs. We are rooting for him to take the title this year. He really should have nailed it in 2010, but maybe coming from behind will be the spur this time round.

#NASCAR – the big boys had a weekend off, so no Sprint Cup action, but we will be back on the trail next week at Indy no less for the Brickyard 400.

TT or I will be back next week, and we are also trying to catch up on some of the promised Setting the Record Straighrt posts – not enough hours in the day at the moment.

Filed under: Circuits, F1, Indycar, NASCAR | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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