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Roy Salvadori RIP

Posted on June 4, 2012 by driverjohn

With a name like that he could only have been a racing driver really, but he was also a successful businessman and, most of all, a gentleman.

As a man of his word he stuck with Aston Martin’s dreadful F1 project instead of staying on with Cooper where he might have won a world championship; certainly he would have won a Grand Prix or two. Instead of rear engined results he followed the handshake agreement into wasted time and races with one of the last front engined F1 cars. Continue reading →

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44 years ago today Jim Clark died at Hockenheim

Posted on April 7, 2012 by driverjohn

I was sat quietly pondering about the lack of international motor sport over the Easter weekend; no F1, NASCAR or IndyCar, and reminiscing about the glory days of the sort of events we could enjoy when I was a teenager, those races where several of the F1 stars of the day would turn out to drive a GT or saloon in one or more events on non GP weekends and we had plenty of non championship F1 races too.

We also had F2, and of course it was in one of those races that we lost Jim Clark, 44 years ago today. I’ve written at length about that day here in another blog post so I won’t go all over it again, but it underlined those words that used to appear in motor sport programmes and on the back of tickets: Motor Racing is Dangerous.

It is of course a lot safer today and I would not want to go back to the days of such high risk, even for those with the highest skills, but I must say that those days of my youth were times when there was more opportunity to watch racing here in the UK and also to get close to the top drivers.

Anyway, with the recent loss of Alan Mann, we have lost another key player in that April day 44 years ago, for had the cards fallen slightly differently, Jim Clark and Graham Hill might have been at Brands Hatch driving for Mann instead. As it happened they loaded up the Lotus 48s and went to the European Championship F2 race deep in the woods of southern Germany and Jim’s number was up.

That’s how things were back in those days. Motor racing was dangerous.

 

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all change at torro rosso

Posted on December 16, 2011 by truckertoggle

The news came as a bit of a shock, and more so not doubt to Seb and Jaime, but, as a stance, we have to admire the principle that Torro Rosso are adopting. Where we have a problem is in that they seem to have made it up the other day; why else did they not let their existing drivers know earlier so that they had chance to chase some of the other rides?

And having them fulfilling PR duties up until the day before the announcement does seem a touch cynical to say the least.

Hopefully the new lads will do well, and that Seb and Jaime can pick up a ride elsewhere. They both deserve it.

#F1

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Musings on #NASCAR and #F1 December 2011

Posted on December 11, 2011 by driverjohn

On the NASCAR front all is still quiet regarding Shrub Jnr following the parting of the ways with Penske of Shrub Snr. As we wrote here at the end of the season, the latter’s behaviour was pretty shameful, and especially so in the way it showed a lack of respect for the team’s heritage. Captain Nice would not have behaved that way and nor would Rusty. We’re always sad to see talent wasted, especially by the individual, but these two boys just do not seem to be able to contain themselves, and so the standards have to be set by others. We applaud Penske, and Shell, for taking a stand, but we also applaud JGR for trying with their man, albeit that his future may not be with the team.

The Darien Grubb story looks to have ended well with him going to JGR to work with Denny Hamlin. He deserved a decent job; just because he and Smoke didn’t gel to the latter’s satisfaction doesn’t mean that he hasn’t got talent and he did crew chief the #14 through to the title even if he knew he was under notice. The bloke is made of the right stuff.

In F1 the 2012 line up is starting to come together with the Iceman going to what will be Lotus and being joined by Romain who clearly deserved better than he got there in the time he was alongside Alfonso. Petrov is out, but he deserves to have a place on the grid and, being well-funded, maybe that can be at Williams. The Grove boys had a dire year in 2011, but maybe with Patrick moving aside things could improve. It would be hard to get worse, and the big man cast a long shadow.

Also in F1 we are still seeing a calendar silly season emerge. Austin may or may not hold a US GP, Bahrain may or may not be on and so on. Is this an attempt by Bernie to keep F1 on the sports pages? Who knows, but it all seems a shamble to us here at MM. Sort it out Bernie; they are in or they are not.

Returning to Lotus, nee Renault, is the top seat there cursed? Last year we had Robert putting himself out of action and now we have Kimi hurting himself falling off a snow mobile. Hopefully he is OK and can take his ride, but we do wonder if the team can pull round. If they can’t, then their linear progression backwards might suggest that the Iceman would have done better going to HRT.

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Weekend round up 27th November 2011#NASCAR #F1

Posted on November 28, 2011 by driverjohn

#NASCAR – well, the season may have ended, but the grace with which Carl Edwards accepted defeat was not reflected in the actions of the Elder Shrub. Once again there was a demonstration of why we don’t like this pair; they may be decent drivers, but they are a long way short on personal skills. Yes he was frustrated by an early equipment failure, but his team, sponsors and fans do not need to encounter that sort of behavior.

And so we again find a sponsor wishing to disassociate themselves from their driver. Penske Racing is a class act, built on the foundations of RP and Mark Donahue, and KB senior might like to to consider how his actions at Homestead are a grave dishonour to the memory of Mark.

#F1 – The Brazilian GP passes without a Hamiliton/Massa incident, albeit that it looked like one mught have been on the cards before Lewis gave up with mechanical problems, and it was nice to see that he went over to Ferrari after the race to make peace. Good to see Webbo add another win, even if it was slightly gifted. JB nailed second overall for the season as we thought that he would and Force India and Lotus (or Caterham as we’re going to call them next year) inked in 6th and 10th respectively in the constructor’s title.

But little news on who goes where for the teams that have not settled their line ups. Seems odd to have so many potential vacancies with the season over, although we know that Charles Pic will join the famous Irish driver Tim O’Glock at Marussia Virgin next year. It will be a shame if the Barra Boy is out of F1 after such a poor showing at home. The home fans didn’t have much to cheer about with Senna making a complete cods off it and Massa handicapped by a poor qualifying maybe. Still, they enjoyed his doughnuts after the race.

That is it for our weekend round ups for a while, but we will try and post at least weekly with news and views and we have a few articles almost complete that we need to dust off and publish here. Thanks for all the support,

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