seo-check-probe

The Birth of the ‘Silver Arrows’ and the greatest race of all time.

October 21, 2012 at 8:12 pmOctober 19, 2012 at 4:57 pm by The Judge

Bernie Ecclestone controversial said early this year, “What have Mercedes ever done in F1?” He was of course referring to the Brackley based F1 team which have had a number of names, as opposed to Mercedes per se. But modern F1 history often only begins in 1950 because this is when the inaugural FIA Formula One World Championship season. Yet Grand Prix racing Formula One style was in existence way before 1950, and was exactly the highly competitive prototype car development race we have today. The 1935 German Grand Prix Victory for the massively under powered Alfa, is considered by many to be the greatest Grand Prix vicotry of all time.

A New Premier Formula

The previous governing body, the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) announced a new formula in 1935. The formula that limited the car minus driver, fuel and oil to 750kg without restricting engine size and the length of a Grand Prix was set to a minimum 500 kilometer – nearly twice as far as today’s races. The rules were designed to make the cars slower, but as been for all time the car designers had other ideas. Mercedes developed 4 litre engines with new lightweight materials – the previous thinking was that anything over 2 litres couldn’t be fitted into a proper race car. Mercedes’ chief designer, Dr. Hans Nibel, designed a car around a conventional layout but incorporating some of the latest development in racing technology

New Jersey out, Turkey in?, Schumacher to receive ‘Legend of Sport’ award, and other F1 News and comment

October 22, 2012 at 4:41 pmOctober 19, 2012 at 1:03 am by The Judge

Great to see contributors coming up with news I’ve not yet found. Thanks to madmax for this one (23:36 18/10/12). By the way madmax, you gave us this about 7 hours before the mainstream media reported it. Probably something to do with my permanent state of insomnia too.

New Jersey: Unlike most new circuits who run the approval gauntlet with Mr. E, it appears New Jersey have declined to participate in the 2013 calendar. “The race, scheduled for June 16, 2013, will be pushed back a year in order for track organizers to finish the permitting process needed to complete the 3.2-mile road course along the Hudson River in Weehawken and West New York, N.J. Among other things, track officials are waiting approval from Corps of Engineers to take control of property along the Hudson River where grandstands will be erected” (Speed).

11:40 (19/12) Interesting that Mr. E isn’t saying the usual stuff about no money, in fighting or contractual matters being the problem. They just ran out of time to get everything organised” (Reuters). Interesting how in the developing world the legalities of Health and Safety and a whole host of other bureaucratic red tape don’t affect a new venue as much as in Western Society.

The judge13 did suggest in “A shrinking calendar for 2013” (link – published Sept 15) that, “unless some real sweetheart deals are done, and that 2013 will could well have fewer races than 2012”. Ecclestone’s problem is he can’t be seen to letting his grasp slip on the calendar; particularly as he has negotiated with the teams that they will participate in up to 23 races each season. On this basis to keep the momentum it must be highly likely Turkey, a track owned by Ecclestone and co., will make a return to the calendar. This is one of the better Tilke venues and has always provided a race that’s no procession.

Mallya charges dropped, but problems just beginning, Sir Jack Stewart talks sexy (Ugh), F1 opportunity for Porsche, F1 News and Links…

February 13, 2016 at 7:32 amOctober 18, 2012 at 10:00 am by The Judge

Mallya: Boss of stricken Kingfisher Airlines – has bounced cheque charges dropped (business today), and has paid off his arrears on the airport fees – presumably because he has raised some cash from selling a chunk of United Spirits to Diageo (Mallya forced to sell). Before the champagne (Crystal we think) is cracked this may just be the beginning of Vijay’s problems, because everyone else who is owed money should have realised the way to get paid is to issue legal proceedings. Indian tax authorities who have not received the deducted tax deducted Kingfisher Airlines from their employees are beginning action – it may be some employees are technically liable themselves even thought the Mallya company has taken the money from them. (Economic Times). The Indian courts may find themselves very busy soon particularly if the author of “Is Vijay Mallya India’s worst businessman” is correct. (firstpost.com)

Mercedes: After being heavily criticised by Helmut Marco for recruiting 3 former team technical directors to head up sub-divisions of Mercedes F1 (link), it appears Ross Brawn has decided that he has enough his search for “art directors” and is looking for some “Indians” – less expensive candidates. Here is a link if you are an undergraduate and interested in taking a 1 year placement with the team. (Merc Grad Recruit). To be fair, an amazing opportunity.

Mallya forced to relinquish Control, Ecclestone U-turn, Tooned Cancelled, Sky F1 reporting gets even worse

April 27, 2015 at 9:43 pmOctober 16, 2012 at 11:58 am by The Judge

London GP: Ecclestone says the race is off that was never on. London – city or Olympic Park http://www.cityam.com/sport/central-london-grand-prix-says-ecclestone. I love how he then goes to great lengths to explain why it would be cost efficient and a great idea though. Maybe this undying enthusiasm for pointless ideas and lost causes is how Mokpo not Seoul ended up with the Korean GP (South Korea, Ecclestone and The Emporer’s New Clothes)

Tooned: is cancelled due to Lewis leaving the team – so for the rest of this year at least. Would love to see it return with Jenson and Perez next year. Perez character could be based on being a relative of my childhood favourite cartoon, Speedy Gonzales, a very very fast mexican mouse. For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure…(YouTube). If you enjoyed that and want a free box set worth of them…(YouTube). More importantly Tooned is a way of attracting kids interest in F1 and was a good idea. I think they should just do a best mates breakup story about Lewis and Jenson anyway. My best mate aged 22 didn’t speak to me for a year – its life.

Massa honoured as Buddh InternationaI Circuit (BIC) name a kerb after him

May 3, 2015 at 10:47 pmOctober 16, 2012 at 12:11 am by The Judge

It appears Felipe Massa had an impact on the BIC, beyond anything he could have imagines when he retired from the inaugural 2011 Indian GP with broken left suspension after hitting a kerb. Some drivers have corners or grandstands named after them but it appears the first kerb in F1 to be named will be the new ‘Massa kerb’ at turn 8, says the BIC.

Its fascinating when F1 returns to a new circuit for the first time following its inaugural event. All kinds of snagging is required after the first race and no wonder when the entire facility is often only finally completed a couple of weeks before the F1 circus arrives.

Korea was no exception. The pit lane entrance and exit were so badly conceived by Tilke that for year 2 the FIA took an unprecidented step by deploying a set of traffic lights at the exit of the pit lane to prevent cars re-joining the track in the path of others approaching turn 1 at high-speed. The pit lane entrance was also redesigned because the final turn was a blind apex, taken flat out but the problem was the drivers couldn’t see in advance those cars slowing to enter the pit lane – a highly dangerous situation. For year 2 the entrance was moved but even this wasn’t sufficient and prior to this years event the final corner was flattened to give better visibility for the drivers as the entered the curve.

Monday Post Korea Blues: Mercedes woeful slide continues, BBC story panics Red Bull and more…

February 13, 2016 at 7:33 amOctober 15, 2012 at 4:38 pm by The Judge

Funny how from week to week the Monday morning feeling following and F1 weekend can be quite different. With Japan and Korea being back to back the contrast is stark. Last Monday, I was still buzzing from the Japanese GP. not that the battle for the win was great, but there was a lot of good racing down the pack, the fans were amazing, Kamui getting his podium at last before he loses his F1 seat, Grosjean’s latest incident…lots of stuff to think about and write about.

Today…Zzz…I’m struggling. Part of the reason is I think my post race thoughts posted yesterday for Korea was more comprehensive than the one from Japan, so there are fewer loose ends to tie up today. Another the reason is that the F1 circus is battling its way back from the remote part of S. Korea and today is a quiet news days. Any way let’s see what’s going on.

BBC – Old News and Wrong News

You can spot quiet news days, for example, today the BBC F1 story is a re-hash of something we have known about for months – Vettel/Ferrari possibly/maybe 2014. Even so, someone at Red Bull just told me the team have been forced into action and brought forward their post race debrief from Tuesday to today 3:30pm – to quash the rumours.

Force India: How the tower of cards could collapse

April 16, 2015 at 6:36 amOctober 14, 2012 at 10:48 pm by The Judge

Over the past few days I’ve been asked many times and seen people enquiring on various F1 websites as to how much is an F1 team worth. Of course the answer is simple, different teams are worth vastly different amounts. An F1 team is a business venture – registered with a legal identity independent of any rich owner and subject to the business regulations from the statutory authority where they are registered.

Valuing a business

The way business ventures are valued is highly complex and sector/performance specific. There was old 3 times profit rule that was a fundamental when I studied Finance many years ago. Yet even this most simplistic valuation methodology is fraught with danger when you dig deeper. Is that profit before or after asset depreciation, asset goodwill, taxation, one off accounting entries of substance – I could go on..and on..and on…

I guess my favourite methodology which can be proved beyond doubt and its an old adage, which says “The value of something is best measured by how much someone is actually prepared to.”

Korea GP review: Alonso and Kobayashi know the game is up. More poor marshalling ruins the race

April 16, 2015 at 6:18 amOctober 14, 2012 at 10:20 am by The Judge

The rather limp wristed waft of the chequered flag by Psy, of “Gangnam Style” fame, probably encapsulated the event that was the 2012 Korean GP.

The headlines are, Vettel takes the lead in driver’s WDC from Alonso for the first time since Valencia, and Red Bull extend their lead in the constructors’ table, with Ferrari significantly overtaking McLaren for 2^nd place.

Marshalling ruins another race

As I suggested following Singapore, the marshalling of the event had a significant impact today and robbed us of what could have been a very exciting race. How it took until lap 10 to move Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes is beyond me, particularly when considering where it was. Races with high tyre wear are often fascinating in strategy and can produce exciting finishes. By lap 2 when the DRS was available, the cars were still tightly bunched any number of drivers may have been able to have a go at Vettel and a number of position interchanges would have occurred.

Mallya lives in opulence whilst unpaid staff starve and commit suicide

October 15, 2012 at 8:54 pmOctober 13, 2012 at 1:24 am by The Judge

Thejudge13 reported last week that a family member of Kingfisher airlines staff was reported to have committed suicide due to financial ruin by Indian police (link)

Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher airlines have been grounded now for 2 weeks and are on the brink of financial ruin: “The Economic Times” (click on search, put in “Kingfisher” and you’ll see a number of articles over the past few months), Police said last week that the wife of an employee who had not been paid since March committed suicide last week due to the stress of financial ruin. Before the Japanese GP staff were demonstrating as they had not been paid for months and this lead to violent confrontation.

Airline start up

The history of airline start up’s in the past 50 years is littered with failure. Around 9/10 fail owing hundreds of millions of dollars. The problem is not in the early days, as the entrepreneur identifies a few profitable routes, invests about 50% required and gets the project off the ground. Where the issues begin is when they wish to expand. Due to initial success they find financial backers prepared to put up vast sums of money for their expansion.

Each route they take on is incrementally less profitable and it only takes a dip in trade for a short time for them to struggle to generate enough cash to pay the interest on the loans. In the case of Kingfisher airlines they owe $billions.