F1 Driver Simulator’s, Formula E’s 1st team, PIrelli’s organic tyres, RB9 launch date and Britney, FanVision withdraws from F1, Have F1 hosting fee’s peaked?

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Red Bull: will launch their RB9 on the 3rd of February at their base in Milton Keynes. Sebastian Vettel is calling in a promise made by Horner that he could have ‘anything’ if he won his 3rd consecutive title in 2012 – well each of his car’s are christened with a girl’s name so he has insisted Christian Horner allows US pop idol Britney Spears to whisk the sheet from the car amidst paper fireworks and with ‘Baby one more time’ blasting through giant rock band speakers ( 😉 ) – can anyone actually think of anything worse?

FanVision withdraw from F1: I asked for it – this is the worst F1 news I’ve heard for quite some time. Utterly disastrous. FanVision I count as an essential for any of the F1 GP’s I attend each year. It was formally called Kangaroo TV and it gives track side fans the clarity of viewing a race that they would get at home.

Some think its expensive, but at 50 Euro’s for Mrs Judge and I (we put a headphone splitter in) to have all the practice sessions, qualifying, the support races and the main event – we think adding 5-6% to the total cost of us visiting a  race other than Silverstone is well worth it.

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Sergio Perez 1st day: The F1 event of the year, but what for the traditional F1 media?

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Editor’s note: Well, at some point today thejudge13 received its 1000th subscriber. 579 of you follow by email, 439 by twitter and 14 on the new RSS feeds we introduced in the last week. Also in the next 7 days we will reach our 100,000th visitor.

The end of season survey demonstrated that about 50% of you come direct from a saved favourite in your browser or by typing in http://www.thejudge13.com. So in just 17 weeks here we are – 2000 regular’s. It’s my round and I’ll get the drinks in.

I hope you’re all enjoying tj13 and please comment on what you feel. I nearly dropped the youtube video links until one reader said they really enjoyed them. Also, ‘on this day in F1’ was under threat until another reader said they really appreciated the historic information this section brings.

If you do come direct from a browser or by typing http://www.thejudge13 – REMEMBER to click on the orange title of the latest article or any article you are reading. If you don’t you won’t see the comments of others or be able to make one of your own.

Media event of the year: Today saw the arrival of Sergio Perez at the Technology Centre in Woking for the first time. It was the media event of the year so far. I have seen the twitter accounts and web news reports for scores of journalists advertising their interviews with Checo – and remarkably he says pretty much the same thing to them all. Hey ho.

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Brabham family win 3 year legal battle, Bottas discusses Williams 2013 car: FW35, Alonso responds to Her Marko – briefly, Grosjean strategy for F1 in 2013

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Brabham family win legal battle: Before the start of the 2010 season, a German businessman who bought the remains of the Super Aguri team lodged an application with the FIA to start a team under the Brabham name. The Brabham family then began court proceedings, claiming they knew nothing about the team or the businessman’s rights to use their name.

Two other legendary F1 constructors, Lola and March, also lodged applications to join the circus in 2010 but their efforts that came to nothing.

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Hartstein begins to “Let the world know what’s really going on with the medical side of the FIA”

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Background Information

There are those of you who may not appreciate the history of this story, so I’ll recap in a couple of paragraph’s.

I had been watching the fans FOTA forum and writing some stuff for the blog – eyes glazed from the late night, I stumbled upon a twitter link to @f1doc – the twitter account of Gary Hartstein.Gary took over from Sid Watkins as the senior medical officer for the FIA and on Wednesday 14th November, just before the Austin GP weekend, he tweeted “Not sure about the ‘whys’ of the decision, but not down to me to know. Brazil will therefore be my 247th and last Formual 1 Grand Prix. It’s been a life changing experience and something I’ll never forget” (tj13 article)

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Jackie Stewart accuses FIA of ‘disorganised management’, Maldonado funding hangs by a thread, Ferrari’s big plans for a new F1 facility, F1 drinks Texas dry

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Jackie Stewart dismissed by the FIA: Just when you thought it was safe to read F1 news again we get Big Ron vs Lewis revisited, the F1 2013 calendar and now flag-gate all resurrected in a week.

Following the Brazilian GP, Jackie Stewart has been critical of the FIA’s handling of ‘flag-gate’. In an interview with Christian Sylt Stewart on cityam.com the former triple world champion asserts, “Was the judgement of yellow and green flags right or wrong in Brazil and why would that have to come up on a Wednesday or Thursday? That is a huge statement of a disorganised function that it should come up then.”

Sir Jackie argues the FIA practice of rotating the stewards race by race is problematic. ““How can you possibly have four different stewards at every Grand Prix? Why have you not got one professional – one man who goes to every race who is going to make consistent judgements and has got authority?”

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Ferrari announce… no launch date, Helmut Marko: Alonso too political, Nurburgring still not confirmed, Banks close to seizing Mallya’s assets, F1 car evolution

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Follow thejudge13: Why not follow thejudge13 by email. Click on the button at the top right of the page to receive an email when (and only when) a new article hits the interweb. I may be changing the way I publish articles, so that instead of updating the main daily post, 3-4 articles a day go out. If you don’t want to be bothered by an email each time you can ‘manage your subscription’ from within any of the emails you receive and set the frequency you desire to say ‘1 max per day’.

I have now put 2 RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand bar for those of you who know how to use them for updates.

2013 F1 calendar: Our favourite subject. At risk of getting reader DwilD started again, I’m afraid there is more to report. Having said that, I don’t remember a season in recent times where the number of issues on the calendar are yet subject to uncertainty.

Yesterday tj13 reported potential unrest in Bahrain. The week before Christmas we had the bizarre scenario of Barcelona claiming they knew nothing of the widely publicised bi-annual sharing arrangement with Valencia (LINK) and Valencia’s surprised response (LINK).

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WTCC more viewers than F1, Evolution of RB cars, Bahrain: More trouble for F1, Alonso Samuriesque, F1 on a slippery slope

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Editor’s note: Sorry the news roundup is a little late today, I spent quite a long time piecing together Gary Hartstein’s conversations over the past week or so for the earlier article. It appears today is rather bitty news, but here we go.

Spin, spin and more spin: The World Touring Car Championship site released the following last night.

“WTCC’s TV audience is growing fast. Since the inception of the World Championship in 2005, figures grew from 70 million viewers across 20 broadcasters to over half a billion viewers across 84 broadcasters in 2012.”

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The mystery behind the sacking of FIA doctor – Gary Hartstein

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FIA doctor sacked: In November, during the inaugural Austin Race the FIA doctor Gary Hartstein – successor to the legendary Sid Watkins – was dismissed by the FIA. thejudge13 reported a number of his tweets expressing bewilderment and the fact that he had no explanation for why this was happening. The FIA were then and have been silent since. (tj13 article)

Clearly Gary has been hurt and most upset by this and in December he resorted to an extraordinary and extended expression of this hurt and anger on twitter. The twitter explosion included the following, “I might launch a crusade to get some answers, or get my f***ing job back, or let the world know what’s really going on the medical side of the FIA”. (full exchange in tj13 article).

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Vettel new pit radio messages, Ron Dennis and Lewis, Honda returns to F1 2014? Davidson 1st drive since Le Mans crash

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Lewis and Ron: I’ve taken a bit of stick on twitter for my Lewis was pushed” story and to be honest I can’t be bothered banging drums or justifying myself – and as Chris and erstwhile thejudge13 commentator pointed out, “we may be quibbling over semantics”.

I have said what I have to say on the matter, but what is worth of note is why is Big Ron still talking about it to CBI magazine and raising the issue again?

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Dominicali: Early winners take all, Stewart: Mercedes could leave F1, Red Bull RB9 on time

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Mercedes gone in 5 minutes: Jackie Stewart has been talking to ‘Metro’ on a number of matters. He expresses concern for Lewis suggesting, “McLaren is part of the F1 furniture, but manufacturers come and go”. Jackie believes if things do not go well the Dailmer Benz board could follow the suit of Toyota, Honda and BMW and make “a board decision that takes 5 minutes”.

Interestingly, Stewart gives the greatest playboy title to Sir Stirling Moss ahead of James Hunt. “Stirling was a great playboy but was so professional that the sport did not suffer” – inferring it did from Hunt’s antic’s. I’m not sure Sir Jack and I have the same definition of playboy.

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