A Daily Round up of Formula One news, inside whispers, opinion and comment. Today,
And on this alluring Teutonic bombshell…
Lewis Hamilton’s new contract, coming really soon, no seriously, man…
Fat Hippo’s Rant Lite: F1 is heading towards collapse
The silence of Mick Junior
Imagine you are the son of a Formula One world champion and all the world looks at you, expecting you to repeat the feat. Michael Andretti, Damon Hill, Nico Rosberg, Nelson Piquet jr, Gary and David Brabham have all been there, tried that and went home with a lousy tee shirt, except for Damon Hill, who actually pulled it off. Although it needs to be said, that the red-haired bastard child of Jean-Deniz Deletraz and and the Fedchenko Glacier in Tajikistan would have pulled it off just as well in the 1996 Williams.
And now imagine your dad has won the title seven times. Of course a big name opens doors, but can equally become a millstone around your neck, if dad’s trophy cabinet rivals the precious metal reserves of a third world country.
A 16 years young chap called Michael Schumacher Junior, racing under the pseudonym – Mick Junior, entered the 2014 German, European and World Junior Karting championships. He came second in each.
This year, Mick has stepped up to open wheel racing cars and is tackling the German Formula-4 season for Ammersfort racing. F4 is the spiritual successor to Formula BMW. No less than eighteen teams and a mind boggling forty-two cars have been registered for series’ the inaugural season.
Those bottom-rung entry-level series normally run in front of a four digit audience. Back in the day when this championship was still called Formula-BMW, I met a guy called Vettel right there in the pit lane and I had time to talk to him because only perhaps twenty people bothered with the pitwalk. For the pre-season test of Michael Schumacher’s first-born – no less than one-hundred journalists applied for accreditation.
Having been mentored by Big Schu for most of his career, Vettel is quietly acting as a racing guardian for Mick Junior together with Michael’s long-time confidant and spokesperson Sabine Kehm. She made it clear, Mick Jr. would not be available for the press.
Jeebus Christ on a Pogo stick – 100 hacks for a junior winter test. Now that’s putting pressure on a kid!
And on this alluring Teutonic bombshell…
Since F1 these days is a wee bit depressing, we have another bit of entirely non-F1 related news.
Fans of the great British philosopher Jeremias Clarksonius, who was recently sacked by the BBC for sociopathic and physiological tendencies similar to those of a Fat Hippo, will remember that the pompous self-confessed petrol head from her Majesty’s empire was more than once put in his place by a female called Sabine Schmitz.
This female German racing driver made several guest appearances on Top Gear, her most infamous to put Clarksonius well and truly in his place. Visibly elated by his lap time of 9:59 – bridge-to-gantry on the notorious Nordschleife – in diesel-powered Jaguar S-Type, Jezza quickly realised he was rather a big girl’s blouse as the local-born lady Schmitz not only thrashed his time by forty-two seconds in the same car BUT several months later finished only nine seconds slower in a bog-standard Ford Transit van.
Schmitz, who by her own estimation has lapped the famed Nürburgring Nordschleife about 30,000 times, which is about the same as going to Vulcan, doing a few hooligan laps around Mount Seleya and driving back, has been contracted to drive a Chevrolet Cruze for the Münnich-team in this year’s WTCC season highlight – a race on the Nordschleife. Those guys better watch out, because the lady will be a tough nut to crack.
Schmitz is a two-time winner of the Nordschleife 24h race.
Lewis Hamilton’s new contract, coming really soon, no seriously, man…
Thou shalt be suspicious if your new contract is written in pixie dust on unicorn skin.
The unruly crowd in the TJ13 towers once staged a drinking game over Lewis Hamilton’s contract negotiations, but we had to abandon it when the staggering Hippo had trampled most of the furniture into firewood, the Grumpy Jackal started bellowing the Italian anthem at a volume normally reserved for starting jet air planes and our inebriated project manager shot everything that looked like two lions, including, but not limited to the judge’s prized dog, which once came 47th at Crufts.
We are unsure about the number of times the sealed deal was announced to be ‘really done soon’, but since the Hippo has stacked up an empty beer bottle for every time it has been announced, we can tell it was often, since he has christened his artwork ‘Olympus Mons’.
After ditching his previous – frankly quite inept – management team, the champion says he negotiates the new deal himself. It does not look like a most fortuitous endeavour though as just days after announcing that the deal was 99.6% done and ‘going to be announced really soon’ now, he suddenly expresses a slight doubt.
“I think it is unlikely,” Hamilton told Sky Sports News HQ when asked if his contract would be signed this weekend.
“Obviously at the last race I said it would be done within a week, this is my first time negotiating myself and you don’t know how many times I’ve had to read about 80 pages – it is so much reading and it is all in lawyer jargon. So it has been a quite a pain in the backside to be honest.”
Hint Lewis. Look for something in those 80 pages that reads vaguely like that: “Fahr für’n Appel und ‘n Ei oder mach die Fliege.”
It’s German for ‘Take it or leave it.’ Call 0800-456-I-RAN, ask for Seb.
Fat Hippo’s Rant Lite: F1 is heading towards collapse
Disclaimer: The views expressed in Fat Hippo’s Rants are those of the contributor and not those held by TJ13.
Adolf Max Mosley, the man, who once colluded with an ageing ghetto musician called MC Bern-E or something to defraud F1 of insane amounts of money, is mightily concerned about the state of affairs concerning the product he failed to kill many moons ago. ‘It’s about to die’, Max says.
“If everything is in one pair of hands then I think you have a problem,” he said. “I don’t know what’s in the arrangements which have been made but my understanding is that Bernie together with the teams can outvote the FIA. I might be wrong about that and shouldn’t really speculate but I get the impression the FIA is not perhaps in as strong a position as it used to be.” (translation: *belch*)
The problem that Adolf Max is facing is that FIA is run by a Frenchman who surrendered last night to a nudibranch that randomly happened to obstruct his way back to the gated community and F1 is owned by a senile old man whose mental capacity is exhausted at hearing the sound of someone saying ‘money’. He may dribble a bit, but he just about gets it.
Now one could understand that the good Sir Max would prefer all contracts sent through a chimney be ripped up, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a colluding party in selling off the F1 crown jewels to Bernards’ Imperium for one-hundred eleventy years at the price of an apple, an egg and half a dozen east European hookers in Wehrmacht costumes.
Do us a favor, Max. Just shut up. Let F1 die and we’ll rebuild it when old geezers like you are no more. Thank you.
ROTFLMAO! I love this place.
Who woulda thunk, the lighter side of Hippo?
Classic, yet thoughtful, thanks Fats.
Didn’t Mick crash at spa during his f4 test? But that was firmly held out of the news… so the 100 of journo’s can be there but if they don’t do their job it doesn’t matter 😉
Considering that the test was conducted at Motopark Oschersleben in East Germany, I would say crashing at Spa is a wee bit impossible, unless of course young Mick had one helluva out-of-body experience…
he finished 8th, 5th and 12th out of 42 attendees in the three test sessions on wednesday.
Of course my dear hippo. But my memory goes a little further back than last week. Maybe a little less beer for you this week? 😉
I just mentioned spa cuz I only saw it on one (Belgian) site. And since they discovered that baby Schumi started racing they reported every fart he did. Yet this one was kept a bit of a secret and i just wondered why.
Please provide the link to that Belgian site.
See below
They reported he had a crash testing in Germany, not Belgium, some articles detail that “his car skidded into the gravel”. My guess? He had an incursion to the gravel and because he is a Schumacher they plan to report every single time he puts a wheel outside the tarmac, when he goes to the bathroom, and what color of underwear he is wearing in every test, practice, qualifying and race.
Will that be the colour BEFORE he gets on track or after he comes off?
Could be important…..
I think bruznic is refering to the 100mph crash Mick had a few weeks ago at a private test. The crash was reported to be not so big despite it being a high speed crash, he could walk away completely unscathed
Yes that’s the one.
any sources for that?
Only one Belgian news site to my knowledge. Wait while I search the web
m.hln.be/hln/m/nl/954/Formule-1/article/detail/2256069/2015/03/18/Zoon-Schumi-aan-160-km-u-van-de-baan-in-eerste-testritten-Formule-4.dhtml?
Don’t Know how good your Dutch is but I don’t have time to translate it since I’m on the sh*tter at work 😉
my father’s older brother emigrated to Tilburgh in 1951. I have a fair grasp of it 😉
One question, precious? How can he have crashed in Spa when he beached it at the Eurospeedway? Do you really think we’re *that* clueless? And by the way that was in the seventh(!) hour of his first test. and he merely shoved it into the gravel…
I’ve read the news on several Dutch, German and English sites but here’s a link to one of the English newspapers that copied the news from Welt
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/michael-schumacher-son-mick-in-100mph-crash-10116057.html
BTW. 100mph at Eurospeedway is quite pedestrian. I’d say if they used the GP course it was T4, T5 if using the club course.
Both are right b*tches to hit. Badly dented a Viper in T4 two years ago. *blush*
Don’t know which layout they used but having said that 100 mph isn’t very fast for the EuroSpeedway but for a F4 car it isn’t very far from it’s top speed either.
In general I was not overly impressed with the newspapers for reporting on the crash of a car racing rookie at one of his first tests (there have been several private tests and 1 public test so far), especially when you include that he must have been tired after a full day of testing (nothing special or remarkable for a car racing rookie). Can’t they leave the kid alone and wait till he’s winning races before sport journalists start acting like paparazzi. I though the reporting around Max V already was excessive but with Mick it’s going in the realm of ridiculous.
The president of the FIA “… [doesn’t] know what’s in the arrangements…” between the FIA and F1 teams / BE.
Just how much of a haole is this guy? That’s hilarious!
Hilarious? If only it weren’t so serious….
Has there been coverage of this anonymous organisation on TG13 ?
http://saveourformula.com/
https://twitter.com/SaveOurFormula
“We love Formula One. We love its history and heritage, we love its heroes past and present who together, through their passion, bravery and racing talent have built the pinnacle of motor sport into what it should be today. But what has it become? Self-interest rules like never before. The fans are forgotten, audiences are declining, costs are spiralling, legendary circuits are failing, the manufacturer teams dominate and the independent teams are left out in the cold.
Who is going to save our sport?
#SAVINGF1 is a grassroots campaign calling on fans to express their support for a fairer, more accessible, more affordable and more sustainable Formula One that puts the fans and the sport we love first.
Let the bankers who currently own our sport know that enough is enough – it’s time to kick-the-crisis-out of Formula One.”
Not yet… believe TJ13 is trying to get hold of them…
Thank you for helping start my Thursday with a dose of laughter FH. I’m glad that Sebastian Vettel and Sabine Kehm are looking after Mick Jr. He is his own person and not his father and should be given the necessary space to develop his skills as a racer. He can’t help it that his father accomplished so many great things.
“…it is so much reading and it is all in lawyer jargon…”
I suspect that a-readin and a-figgerin ain’t what Lulu does best.
…..believe he consults with the other Merc driver…..you know, the brainy one….;-)
I came home last night and there was a story on various sites about Bernie blaming Toto Wolff for F1 heading for collapse. I wonder where those posts went?
Looks like Fernando has already given up and looking forward to his retirement in 3 years’ time
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118412
He said exactly the same about Ferrari in 2010…
I think this is different, back then he was still very hungry and looking forward to winning a title with Ferrari.
Reading between the lines, you can almost see he’s resigned to his fate of not being in a title-challenging car and all he has to look forward to is his retirement in 3 years’ time.
When I read his words they scream of a tired man from chasing that elusive 3rd title who has now thought “Sod it, I’ll just enjoy the ride for the next 3 years and then enjoy my life, I’ve left my mark on F1 anyway!”
If Mclaren Honda comes good, you’ll see Alonso’s attitude change quite quickly. I still hope (perhaps foolishly) that we’ll get a 3 way title fight between Alonso, Vettel and Lewis that goes to the wire.
His mood reflects his politics. Him saying ’15, 16 or 17 years’ while in his 15th year is aimed at McLaren and Honda to upp their game, or he walks.
Alonso is a political animal, but at this point his options for a competitive car are limited. He’s just got to suck it up and hope Honda come good. The MP4-30 is not the issue, McLaren seem to have turned the design problems around on that score.
“Fahr für’n Appel und ‘n Ei oder mach die Fliege.”
Is that in Nico’s contract too 😂
It was in Nico Hulkenberg’s contract when he drove for Sauber ;-P
I see a solution for McLaren Honda’s hybrid woes –
https://twitter.com/chrishoy/status/586190219327774720
So Sabine has lapped the Nordschleife “about 30,000 times, which is about the same as going to Vulcan, doing a few hooligan laps around Mount Seleya and driving back”, yes ?
Hmm, so far as I know the lap is just under 21km, so let’s say that is a total of 630,000km. No let’s be generous, let’s round that up to 700,000km, which gives a one-way trip into space of 350,000km. Well, according to that depository of all knowledge, Wikipedia, the demi-planetoid we call ‘the Moon’ is about 384,400km from Earth, which sort of implies that Vulcan is somewhat closer to home. Curiously, I’ve yet to spot the latter – any pointers as to which way I should be staring into the night sky ?
*facepalm*
You haven’t spotted it because it has an invisibility shield. Duh.
Now there was me thinking that only the Klingons had those things…..
@bomboi69 It could be in another dimention 😉
That answer is a perfect illustration of what separates me – a humble engineer – from those on a higher astral plane. Respect, my lord, respect…..
You can only see it when you’ve got your head between your knees.
If only my body form these days permitted such flexibility 🙂
Nah, you’re thinking of Uranus…
The phrase “People with too much time on their hands” springs to mind. 🙂
Not so much ‘too much’ but infilling the bit between getting back from the pub and falling into bed 🙂