F1 Insiders Est. 2012
brought to you by TheJudge13 chronicler: CavallinoRampante
Hamilton Abuse
Bernie Slams Big Ron
Birth of Roger Williamson
2008: F1 saw an ugly side of the sport during pre-season testing in Barcelona. McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton was subjected to racial taunts and abuse from a number of spectators. Hamilton had become extremely unpopular in Spain after the previous year’s rivalry with Spanish ex-teammate Fernando Alonso.
Lotus January 28McLaren January 31Ferrari February 1Force India February 1Sauber February 2 Red Bull February 3 Mercedes February 4 Toro Rosso February 4 Caterham February 5 Marussia February 5 Williams February 19
First impressions of the car itself. Clearly, Ferrari have no interest in participating in the Resource Restriction Agreement as they have gone to the incremental expense of fitting a modesty panel over the stepped nose. Truly, compared to last years ugly sister this is the princess Cinderella. Let’s hope her slippers are not made of glass.
Ferrari has signed a sponsorship agreement with Weichai Power.The agreement with one of China’s largest manufacturers of diesel engines and machinery vehicles is for 4 years and will run until 2016. Weichai Power, a part of the Weichai Group, is the first Ferrari sponsor of the People’s Republic of China.
Marrusia: Rumours are emerging Louis Razia is replacing Timo Glock. TBC
Nostalgia reigns: The big launch today with an emotive and haunting piece on Bruce McLaren, speaking as though from beyond the grave he spelled out his vision for McLaren which is still clear today. Then we were privileged to see this CanAm-winning M8D driven into MTC, the car which Bruce was killed by during testing at Goodward.
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Marko Watch: Return of the Helmut. Having spent far too long making thejudge13’s big reveal – which I thought would have amused more people than it did’. Clearly you are a wholesome, substance free generation of healthy motor sport enthusiasts… and for that you should be applauded. Onwards….yes…the Imperial March is now ingrained in my mind having synched it about 500 times over the 4 minutes of video playback…hence the EPIC – Return of the Helmut.
It looked yesterday as though the Empire’s Doctor was heading for the abyss. Lauda’s disheveled but hearty cowboys were making a full speed frontal cavalry charge; el matador de toros – was whirling his magenta (say PURPLE) and gold capote with wonderous flourishes to mesmerise and distract Marko; then the killer, the dastardly and traitorous Ned Kelly was creeping up behind Helmut, long metal bar in hand.
Yet, just as Jerry evades the inevitable smiting by the fly swatter from Tom – loosing only a single mouse hair each time – today we see ‘Return of the Helmut’.
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SKY launch in Italy: There are times when as a collective, humanity stands together in unity. Man with fellow man (okay person…whatever), nation with nation and both friends and foes alike – are as one – in the face of such monumental horror wreaked upon a foreign land.
Well my Italian friends its time to join the lamentable union that is pitied with deep empathy from around the globe. We in the UK have ‘awight me ole cocker?’ SKY pundit Johnny Herbert and you’re about to get the controversial self publicist that is the one and only – Jacques Villeneuve.
For those who only remember the TV footage of his thrilling driving antics, here’s a potted extracts from a history written by F1Rejects.com. (Full article)
A potted history
“It was a messy and inglorious exit from Formula One, little better than those of fellow ex-World Champions Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill. But for Jacques Villeneuve, there was more than a touch of acrimony surrounding his departure from BAR on the eve of the Japanese GP in 2003.
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Ferrari: The FIA has permitted teams to use a “structurally irrelevant” section of carbon fibre to hide the what many believe to be an ugly platypus stepped style nose section. We heard earlier in the month that Williams are taking no stepped nose advantage of this, yet at the first F1 car launch of the year Lotus clearly have not had either the time or inclination to fabricate this section – the step remains.
We’ve not spoken much about Ferrari since the first day of Wrooom as they have rather been hijacked by Lauda’s posse and then #Red Bull spyshot and now Lotus’ spluttering launch. Ferrari – lovers of all things artistic and beautiful (including themselves) will not resort to the crude aesthetics of the Enstone team.
Reports are surfacing in Italy that this is indeed the case. Marco Canseco of the Spanish publication Marca reveals, “Visually, there is no step on the nose, but the nose remains high to allow the airflow under the car.” Ferrari don’t care about a few hundred extra grams – this is probably why Alonso has gone into deep training for a month – lose a few kilo’s to compensate.
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TJ13 updates: Huge thanks to theUsher. He has driven twitter readers from 50-80 per day to nearly 300 a day, whilst again battling with the twitter Overlords who sanctioned him again yesterday.
If you are in twitterlandinium, follow the Usher, he tweets links to all interesting pics and a range of F1 bits and pieces. Have a brief chat with him because whilst he can be dour it helps him avoid the Federation secret police who are looking for twits who simply post links.
If you see a link starting with ‘Wp’ it is to TJ13 site and will be articles you’ve probably read. If the link begins ‘goo’, then it will be one of the eclectic and fascinating F1 minutia he digs up – and takes a few seconds to view and move on.
Purple F1 cars: Following the TJ13 RB9 livery reveal, I found this. Was this the last F1 car to be coloured purple and who were the team, the driver and the year?
Here is a guest article from rpaco – a TJ13 reader.
In the last few years the rules have curtailed much of the primary development in F1, if you want to see innovation at it’s most spectacular and you are starting to look now, you were born too late, it happened and it was revolutionary in all sorts of exciting ways and then it was banned. Now what we have left is “aero effects” and electricity, oh and the new power units in 2014. There is some room for development there but if anyone makes a leap forward in design it will be banned. As the rules get tighter each year so innovation is stifled.
Thus the new “xyz” with 6 wheels, double chassis, or active suspension or ground effect or abs or anti dive will not be providing the interest and excitement for fans. We are now looking at innovation bringing a lap time advantage that cannot be measured with an analogue stopwatch any more, you need a digital one and a digital finger (a digital digit!)
So unless reasonable development of the new engines and ERS is (KERS and HERS) allowed, we cannot rely upon the technology to hook the mass audience, the devotees yes, but are there enough of them? Or does it matter?
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 have now put 2 RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand bar for those of you who know how to … Read more
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 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.
Update from the Bench: Craig has defeated the death star with just a solar powered Trebbant and his trusty saber – we are now in business. The Over Lords of twitter have activated our No. 2 account but didn’t bother to tell us it was now approved 🙂 It is @thejudge13twts
This will attempt to pick up the best of what is out in the twittershpere, so you have source that will aggregate a lot of content for you. We will not include anything from AUTOSPORT as it may affect your limited free click-throughs available.
This is not to say stop following who you do now. In fact if you can think of good twitter sources (not mainstream journo’s) please let us know.
After the week we’ve had, news not surprisingly a little slow…so he’re what there is, and then a bit of weekend fun to follow.
Russian GP 2014:Never let it be said, Mr. E is too proud to not learn from his mistakes. It appears the 2014 calendar may be concluded before the 2013 version. The mayor of Sochi, Anatoly Pakhomov, tells Russian publication r-sport that “After the Olympics, in November, the Formula One will be held.”
The huge complex at Sochi is to host the Winter Olympic Games in February 2014. There had been some concern that the final conversions for the inaugural F1 event would not be completed on schedule due to political shenanigans that caused work on the circuit to all but halt in 2012.
