The #TJ13 #F1 Daily News and Comment: Wednesday, 24th June 2015

Little running for Susie and illegal wing on her car Algersuari’s racing license suspended Little running for Susie and illegal wing on her car Susie Wolff completed her third testing day for Williams this season, and like in Barcelona she will drive the first practice in the upcoming British Grand Prix. She has been exposed … Read more

#F1 Daily News and Comment: Thursday 4th September 2014

This page will be updated throughout the day. Please if you are on Twitter press the tweet button below. If you re-write and tweet individual story headlines don’t forget to include #F1. You may not realise how hugely important this is and has helped grow our community significantly Previously on TheJudge13: #F1 History – The … Read more

On this day in #F1 – The Toro Rosso Chainsaw Massacre

Brought to you by TJ13 contributor Adam Macdonald. 14th December 2011 saw the termination of two F1 careers in such a savage and unforeseen manor it seemed unfair, even to the most critical of onlookers.  Jaime Alguersuari  and Sebastian Buemi were cut from the Faenza setup when they had previously been assured their seat was … Read more

2012 season review and musings (part 1): Toro Rosso sack both drivers, Who is Dr Helmut Marko, Alguesauri had 2012 offers, Young driver programmes mean nothing

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. Just to give you some perspective, the incredibly popular site of James Allen which has been running a number of years, this year has had 1.5m reads.

thejudge13 is in its 15th week and in November had 34,000 reads, an annual run rate of over 400,000, which is over 25% of the total for an established F1 commentator – who by the way I think is one of the best.

Thank you all and I intend to keep it coming strong in 2013. Posting links on the BBC, PlanetF1 and other sites (we had a lot of German site traffic one month) really helps. A thejudge13 reader did this yesterday and we had 300 extra reads and another 25 email registered followers.

(This page will be updated through the day – if F1 news breaks –  new stories will be posted just above the ‘on this day in F1’ which is at the bottom).

Editor’s note: I haven’t like other sites done a review of 2012, and in fact I’m still filtering and absorbing what has been an incredible season – 7 winners in the first 7 races set the tone for what was indeed a cliff hanger.

I remember Vettel spinning in Turn 4 Brazil and I stood up from my seat involuntarily feeling a shiver of incredulity course through me – I said to Mrs. Judge – “You couldn’t script this – no one would believe it credible”.

Anyway news is thin, so I have started to collect my thoughts on 2012 and those musings are about to flow. We’ll start with what I consider one of the most ridiculous decisions made for the 2012 season, by someone who should know better.

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Kamui website raises $800,000, HRT have ‘miracle’ hope, Melbourne tax payers cough up $55m, Brawn warns Red Bull, RB staff bonys £10,000, Grosjean in the naughty boy corner, Lewis expects 1/4 of sponsor work with Mercedes

I think it might be a little early for thejudge13, but you could try voting for us at the Silverstone media awards – “Best F1 blogger”. (Link). Still nearly 55,000 reads in 10 weeks – not bad I guess

Support Kamui: The website set up last week to help Kobayashi get the funds to find an F1 seat is seriously working. They have raised 65,813,672 yen as of today (I think this is about $800,000). This is fairly startling and it will be interesting to see if the momentum and rate of donation can be maintained or increased.

Kamui is a very good driver, and as one of thejudge13 readers demonstrated in the comments to yesterdays news, if points were awarded 24 for 1st place down to 1 for last place (a consistency analysis) Kamui is way ahead of Perez this year. So if KK can raise $4m or more, he has to be in with a chance at Marusia or Caterham. I still think Mallya will take Senna’s $10-12m and sign him for that reason.

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Heikki 2013 chances slim, Perez burns his bridges, Mercedes abandon Coanda, Luca relinquishes political ambition

Editor’s note: Thank you for the many kind words about my rehab. I am on less hallucinogenic tablets now and am raring to go for the seasons finale.

In line with recent habit of identifying far flung thejudge13 readers, I want to say Hello to those of you from Malaysia. Say hello in the comments – we’re glad of your support.

 Heikki on 2013: thejudge13 reported yesterday that Heikki may be struggling for a drive in 2013. Having had a chat with someone who knows more than me, I revealed the analysis of Kovaleinen’s performance against his team-mate which was not great – and this in part is what teams do look at.

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What now for Lauda? Ecclestone fraud charges still loom, Kart won’t listed to Vettel’s s*^t, Alguersuari suggests Vettel will be spooked, RB will use new spec alternator in Brazil

The end of Lauda Watch? This could be it folks, maybe Lauda watch will be no more. Today Reuters report that Damiler-Benz has severed all ties with Aabar investments who sponsor Lauda’s cap at $500,000 a year. Not only have they acquired Aabar’s 40% of the F1 team but also the 9% holding the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund had invested in Damiler-Benz the global car manufacturer.

Aabar have lost over $2bn by trying to be clever and underpin the Daimler-Benz acquisition with a derivatives deal which went wrong. They have in effect lost their shirt and the banks that funded the deal have retained the stock, which by the way is worth double the price Aabar paid for it.

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Alguesuari to get nod from Force India, Renault: Renault blame RB over fuel, Nicole up’s the pressure on Lewis, India voted 2nd worst race of the year

FIA to stamp out bad language: La Stampa reports the FIA are looking at sanctions for this behaviour. This follows the podium misdemeanours on Sunday and the revelations that teams use bad language in radio transmissions to prevent FOM TV transmitting them – thus keeping them secret.

The paper doesn’t tell us what is proposed, but its likely to be fines rather than grid penalties or points deductions.

Bahrain strips opposition of nationality: The Bahraini authorities today stripped 31 opposition figures of their Bahraini nationality in a move described by Amnesty International as “frightening and chilling”.

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Lauda poking around Brackley, Expect double overtakes with 2 DRS zones, Alosno persists with denials, Marrusia in finaicial crisis, Alguesuari gets desperate, Sunsets Stats & Kimi too

Lauda – what exactly is his job?: In a Q&A with Auto Motor und Sport, Niki explains his contribution to Mercedes. When asked how Mercedes can find 1.5s to match Red Bull when the drinks company spends 100m euro more he tells us, “We now have to analyze carefully whether the money factor plays a role, and if so what. I can say it but not yet, because I still go to school. This is part of the inventory.”

Remember Lauda said a couple of weeks ago that money had been wasted so far at Mercedes F1, and they needed to deliver more for less. Mmm.

Niki was asked how he could bring Mercedes to success. “The first part of this task is to take stock. I find myself just in the learning phase. That’s why I’m already some time been in the factory in Brackley and I will continue to do so regularly. It is important for me, along with Ross Brawn introduced to every aspect of the team, the car and the tools in the factory to be. Every time I go to Brackley, I get it. I need to understand the context of the processes, and then with my logic, direct access, which I, in common with Ross find a solution.”

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Montreal promoters go bust, Schumacher gives Mercedes 5 mins warning, Perez must stop fibbing, Kingfisher employee family suicide

It’s race weekend, and for those of you who have only joined us since Singapore, thejudge13, is often a little quieter over race weekends – as the focus of the F1 world is on reporting breaking news – who said what to who – who was fastest in which session, so Friday (or is it now Saturday in Japan) before a race is a good time to try to tie up any loose ends that are worthy of note, but not a full article.

A bit of housekeeping first.

Please, please leave comments to the articles, even if you think I’m talking rubbish – tell me. I’ve only had to moderate 1 comment so far for use of the f-word – it still got published but with “[mod]” replacing the offending  euphemism.

Also, if you enjoy thejudge13 follow us. This will help us further down the line get live F1 twitter/site guests to come and debate with us and answer our questions. You can follow on twitter and/or email. The buttons on the  vertical bar to the right of the screen. If you click for email, you will ONLY receive email when a new article is first published. Retweets and favourites are very good for getting us ranked higher in the busy twitter #F1.

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