F1

On This Day in F1: 22 February 2013

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On this day in F1 is brought to you by TheJudge13 chronicler: Bart De Pauw

– Irvine faces wrath of Rahal

– FIA opens tender process for standard ECU

2001: Newly appointed Jaguar Racing team boss Bobby Rahal lashed out at the team’s first driver Eddie Irvine for openly criticizing the new Jaguar R2 after suffering a heavy crash during the car’s first outing at a testing session in Valencia: ‘I think Eddie is trying to tweak us into getting the job done, but I believe the way to motivate is to be positive. I mentioned to Eddie that I thought he needed to contribute his commitment more positively.’ Rahal’s reproach was the onset of what would become a very blurred relationship between Irvine and the three times CART champion who in the beginning of his career was also a nameless participant to the 1978 American and Canadian Grand Prix for the Wolf F1 team.

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The Bar Exam: 14 February 2013

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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 have now put 2 RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand bar for those of you who know how … Read more

F1 on an Oval track

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I’ve read a number of articles over the years on this subject matter – some for and some against the idea. With the inaugural F1 race in Austin upon us, I think its worth looking once again at the issues surrounding an F1 race on an oval circuit.

Could the engines cope?

Interestingly, in some of the older debates on this matter I have just re-read, the technology of the time often had the final say. Gerhard Berger commented on this about 12 years ago when he said that the modern F1 engine could not maintain 100% revs for more than about 20 to 30 seconds.

Yet in 2005, we saw the first of the ongoing engine regulation changes from the FIA to ensure they are more reliable, last longer and reduce costs. 10 years ago – the engines were probably the biggest restrictive factor preventing F1 racing on an oval because hardly any F1 cars would’ve finished the race.

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Lauda to sack Brackley personnel, Nascar mother of all pile ups, Lola closes doors, Tooned will be ‘racey’

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After battling with F1 and global finance until gone midnight on “Ecclestone to load a mountain of debt on F1“, then the day so far has been spent with lawyers – so we’ll start with a News Links post and see if I’ve got enough time and energy for an in depth article later. (Anything in wite on this page is a URL link to the original or pic or video).

Quick thanks to someone on German site MotorsportTotal.com who posted a link to thejudge13 and we’ve had over 50 new German visitors today from their site. Great work.

  1. Last week I did a couple of articles on Niki Lauda, suggesting there may be fireworks at Merceds F1 now he’s the big boss (a position he couldn’t help refering to on TV at the weekend I noticed). Niki’s inability to “suffer fools gladly” is legendary. So today, our favourite German publication Bilde has the following, “Schumi’s car builders are fired”. (I always put the link to prove the source, but be careful with any translation software – particularly verb tenses). Anyway Christian Danner RTL expert pundit and ex F1 driver of note (I’ll come back to this) says today that Niki Lauda needs to fire the designers of this years car. He suggests that after 9 months the car is performing like a Torro Rosso and heads must roll. He urges Niki the hatchetman on, “He is responsible to make the next decision. And the next decisions will be primarily personnel decisions”. RTL commentator Danner, a little bit like Mr. J Herbert for SKY, drove in Formula 1 over 4 years. 2 of those he was not classified with any points and had a career best P4 in USA 1989 when he also had his best season scoring a total of 4 points. WATCH OUT ROSS

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Ecclestone to load a mountain of debt on F1.

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It’s not possible to in a single article convey the mess that is F1 and its financial arrangements, and I’m not feeling inclined to write a book. Yet there are severe storm clouds on the horizon for F1 and it appears the governing body and the teams are oblivious to this.

The Korean Times reports the organisers’ of the F1 race are facing again huge losses. It is claimed they have avoided the contractual 10% escalation in fee from last year but still have a total budget of $67.5m to find.

The national government picks up about $5m and the rest is shouldered by the South Jeolla provincial government. Of course there is the ticket receipts, but the event has not been a raging success with mass crowds attending. The losses the provincial government has had to fund are 2010 $65m and in 2011 $54m. With a contract to 2016, local commentators are not sure they will be able to fulfill this commitment.

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Schumacher Retires – Really?

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So Michael announces his retirement in Suzuka. Adam Cooper has the full and rather emotional speech here, so I won’t publish it all. What surprises me is that Schumacher has been driving pretty well this year, here’s some head to heads

Head to Head – Schumacher/Rosberg/Massa

Ave grid position                     Ave qualifying time outside poll position

7.5     Schmacher                    0.936secs    Schumacher

8.5     Rosberg                         1.145secs    Rosberg

10.8   Massa                            1.095secs    Massa

Ave finish position                 Head to head qualifying

7.1      Schumacher                Schumacher/Massa       10 to 4

8.1      Rosberg                       Schumacher/Rosberg    8   to 6

9.8      Massa

Finished ahead of (completed races)

Schumacher/Massa        3 to 4

Schumacher/Rosberg     6 to 1

People have criticised Schumacher for not finishing enough races, 7 in fact, but If you consider the list of problems Schumacher has had, his contribution has been minimal (in bold)

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Whitmarsh: It was all about the money

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James Allen reports Martin Whitmarsh speaking today at a Vodafone phone in (say that after a few drinks) when discussed his feelings over losing Lewis Hamilton, his lack of regrets on the matter and the matter of Ferrari’s complaint to the FIA of the McLaren front wing being too flexible.

On the matter of Hamilton and sans regret, Whitmarsh words are, “The offer that we made was higher I believe than any driver in Formula 1 is currently receiving or will receive next year.”

Ok, thanks Martin that’s all cleared that up then… or does it?

I’ve read this carefully constructed sentiment a number of times over the past week and Whitmarsh has repeated it on a number of different occasions, not a single occasion merely reported differently by different sources.

“We made a very, very big financial offer, bigger than I believe any Formula One driver is enjoying today,” (Reuters)

And in a different interview reported in the Mail,

“‘We made a financial offer which is better than anyone in Formula One, other than Lewis himself, receives today, and that is something I am comfortable with.” (Daily Mail)

I try at times to resist my instincts, but after a semester of textual and literary criticism that has never been fruitfully employed in over 20 years, it’s time to dust off the text books.

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