Ferrari in for Lewis Hamilton

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Ok. This may seem a bit out there, but I’ve heard a couple of whispers tonight that Ferrari and Lewis are having a conversation.

This of course goes against how we believe Ferrari operates. They predominantly [not always] have had a number 1 and number 2 driver and clearly Lewis would never accept being a number 2 to Fernando. So would Ferrari change their historic approach and have (at the start of the season at least) 2 equal drivers?

On the con side of the debate, McLaren and Lewis are still making noises about staying together, but they are starting to sound like a couple whose relationship has run stale and are about to break up. Really, it’s not that hard to agree terms that have publicly been on the table for many weeks – and we were led to believe by Lewis this would all be dealt with and put to bed during the Summer break.

So the fact that McLaren and Lewis have not yet done the deal adds credence to the view that they are too far apart in negotiations to get over the line. I’ve pointed out in earlier articles how aggressive McLaren and Ron Dennis have been in staking out the ground that Lewis is going to have to take a pay cut. It’s feels like it’s become too personal.

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How teams will approach Singapore, Schumy’s first car a Ford Escort, Flavio to become apprentice ‘boss’, 1966 Singapore footage

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Here are the daily links that I think are worth reading or watching. I know often I want to read a story again and can’t remember the link, so hopefully – if I can master the software – this will provide not only the stories of interest for the day, but an archive of links for future reference. Some of it is just humourous and a bit of fun.

Analysis of how the teams will approach the Singapore GP. http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/09/how-the-f1-teams-will-approach-the-singapore-grand-prix/

Nico adamant Lewis not getting his seat. http://www.crash.net/f1/news/184113/1/rosberg_not_going_anywhere.html

Did you know there was a 1966 Singapore GP? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sVdEcGLgTk

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BBC search begins for F1 anchor

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So the search begins for who will replace the BBC F1 anchor Jake Humphrey. As I wrote last week and has been announced today, Jake is leaving the BBC for BT Vision who have a contract to air 38 live premier league football games from 2013. Jake has been BT’s target to fulfil the anchor role for some time, add to that his first passion is football and now he and his wife are expecting their first child.

The problem for the BBC is that many of the die hard F1 TV personnel want to work for Sky, as the BBC only have 50% the races live. This was evident when Ted Kravitz, Natalie Pinkham, Anthony Davidson and Martin Brundle left the Beeb for Sky at the end of last year. Brundle explained his decision, “Recorded and delayed sports television doesn’t give me the adrenalin fix I crave.”

Some have suggested Anthony Davidson may consider such a mainstream front man media opportunity because he and Georgie do not attend all the races with Sky – their ‘skypad’ analysis they deliver is broadcast only from the UK for a number of the flyaway races. Davidson has impressed this year with a relaxed style in front of the camera, a very personable character and knowledgeable; but he’s a remote possibility as he still racing and works for Mercedes – maybe still harbouring F1 driving ambitions.

In fact, it’s difficult to see any of the 2012 Sky defectors returning to the BBC for the very reason it’s more like a part time F1 TV job. If it’s hard for the BBC to poach from another channel, they’ll have to recruit internally – so who could it be?

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Lewis being pushed?

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The “where will Lewis drive in 2013?” debate has been raging since Eddie Jordan launched the “Mercedes to sign Lewis” story like a grenade between Spa and Monza.

The response of fans and F1 writers has intrigues me. Many are focusing on the pragmatic attitude that no better options to win are open to Lewis so he should stay put. Joe Saward for example saying only Ferrari (27), McLaren (32) and Red Bull (30) have consistently won races since Lewis joined F1; the next best was Brawn (8) who became Mercedes F1 AMG.

From a logical point of view this is incontrovertible. Yet in F1 politics logic doesn’t always prevail. I believe Lewis is being pushed and I’ll explain why.

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F1: Breeding ground for road car technology? No chance.

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Jean Todt has staked his FIA premiership firmly on this platform. Formula E(lectric) has been announced, one presumes to be associated with F1 and promote economic and efficient cars. I’m sorry, but this will be like watching Tomorrows World of old and pays lip service to the concept of making racing more relevant to 21st century car manufacture.

Luca de Montezelomo is quite obtuse about these matters. Ferrari are genuinely interested in cost cutting, for the simple reason that most of the money spent in F1 design now in the area of aerodynamics; something that is not relevant to the road cars Ferrari produce.

 “We want an F1 with less cost,” Montezemolo said. “Tell me why we have to spend a huge amount of cost to spend 24 hours in the windtunnel to do a small wing flap that for the public [the interest] is zero, for the television is zero, and for me as a road-car manufacturer it is less than zero because we will never use this for the road car?”. Absolutely true.

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Why F1 TV missing so much race action

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I have found myself increasingly irritated by the FOM TV coverage this year. Too many times the director is following a sterile situation and is missing developing chases and a significant number of overtakes whilst following mundane action.

If you’ve been watching F1 like me for 30 years, you will remember the TV coverage of the 70’s and 80’s being not of a particularly high standard. Partly this was due to the technology and its cost. Another factor was, unlike most mainstream sports that compete in a relatively small an defined space eg a football pitch, an F1 race takes place over several square miles. Add to this cars travelling at speeds in excess of 300km per hour and you have a tricky event to capture on film.

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A shrinking race calendar for 2013?

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I wrote this last week (15/9/2012) , but am re-publishing today after provisional calendar revealed and other news)

I was contemplating on the way back from Spa Francorchamps, when the 2013 race calendar would be published. Then something I heard in Monza made me even more curious…but we’ll return to that later.

In 2011, the draft calendar for this year was published June 3rd. It included Istanbul as part of a 21 race schedule. This race was dropped in the final version confirmed in September leaving the 20 races we have now.

However, this year, we’ve not yet heard a whisper regarding a 2013 schedule and the FIA is due to meet next at the end of September. So it’s unlikely they’ll be any news before then.

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Rules Damn Rules (Part 1: FIA makes historic changes)

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The old maxim, “rules were made to be broken”, has been somewhat ingrained in the DNA of F1 participants since time began.

It appears remarkable to some onlookers that this attitude is almost endemic within F1 teams. To them and others of course the Mclaren spy scandal and Flaviogate are examples of rule breaking that is completely unacceptable. Yet there will always be the run of the mill offences such as speeding in the pit lane, unsafe driving/pit release, blocking and a host of sins that are the ‘yellow card’ offences that we kind of expect.

However, its important not to lose sight of the fact that Formula 1 is a technological and development race every bit as much as a series of motor races, and it is this aspect of the sport that drives the DNA of the teams to develop the cars to the limit of the regulations. Which may be one of the reasons why someone appears to be always breaking the rules, but are the FIA changing the nature of this game?

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Jake, F1 and the BBC conundrum

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For Jake Humphrey, life couldn’t have been much better for the past few years. His rise has been swift from lowly CBBC presenter to the accomplished F1 anchor on the BBC.

Jake married his childhood sweetheart Harriet in 2007 and Tuesday this week announced they were expecting their first child. His sports reporting/commentary career began as a match reporter for BBC radio in 2005 and also he became the face of American Football for the BBC.

He presented a daily afternoon show from the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and has co-presented 4 times the BBC’s end of year love in that is “Sports personality of the year”.

There was a lot of speculation when Sky landed F1 for 2012 that they desperately tried to persuade Jake to join Martin Brundle in their new venture. The importance of this failed coup has become especially evident when you listen to many people’s opinions on Sky’s anchor, Simon Lazenby. They feel he comes across as an F1 Jonny come lately and consider his style a little stilted and fawning toward the senior figures of the F1 world – in general lacking gravitas unlike Jake.

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Hello world!

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It’s a rather sad and poignant day to launch my blog. Yet it is a day that demonstrates the awesome power of social media. This incredible power is to communicate to the world, or certainly those connected through social media across the world, news and information within seconds of it happening.

This was evident today when one of the renown F1 journalists tweeted this morning, “so sad to wake and hear about Sid…” of course referring to the death of Professor Sid Watkins. The first tweet I saw regarding Sid’s death was around 21:00 last night. It used to be the case that we the public would only hear about breaking news quite some time following the event. So for millions of F1 fans to have known that Sid had passed on to join Ayrton before a number of people closely connected with the F1 circus – would have been impossible a mere handful of years ago.

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