1995 Canadian Grand Prix – Luck at Last for Alesi

“Luck is a goddess not to be coerced and forcibly wooed by those who seek her favours. From such masterful spirits she turns away. But it happens sometimes that, if we put our hand in hers with the humble trust of a little child, she will have pity on us, and not fail us in our hour of need.”

Circuit Profile: 2014 – Spain, Montmelo, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya – Round 5

By Track Profile Writer Alistair Hunter  After the slightly longer break, F1 kicks into action once again this weekend in Spain, for the fifth round of the 2014 season. A fond favourite with the teams, this will be the 55th edition of the Spanish Grand Prix, which is now relatively established at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. … Read more

Barcelona shafts Valencia, Ecclestone Ferrari vengeance, Bahrain loses GP2 race, Glock Safe? Alesi retires or dies, Rosberg and the ‘bulls’, Webber saves Vettel, Total Petroleum calm down, Why FIA changed 2014 rules, Pirelli aim to shake it up again, Haug gives reasons

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. WE REACHED 500 email followers yesterday only in thejudge13’s 14th week and just under 400 by twitter.

thejudge13 archive: There have been a number of questions about Nikki Lauda, his time at Jaguar, why Mercedes recruited him…I did a couple of articles around the time of the announcement so if you’ve joined the site since then, here they are. “Lauda: Ross Brawn’s new boss” I wrote this about 2am on October 2nd after reading an online article on a German newspaper site – that was going out the following day. The story hadn’t been picked up even on titter to my recollection.

This was a part 2 follow up – written when I was more alert (the next day) and had time to reflect on the  implications. “How Lauda got the top job in Mercedes F1” – my conclusions are now quite interesting post Haug’s departure.

Barcelona shafts Valencia: The circuit de Catalunya has over the past 2 years been making consistent noises about how much money it is losing which resulted in an initial agreement with Valencia, also under big financial pressure, to alternate the Spanish GP between them – al la Hockenheim and Nurburgring.

This deal has been agreed with Ecclestone clearly as Valencia’s extended contract signed in 2009 meant they would remain on the calendar until 2014. So either they are paying out $30m a year in hosting fee’s and not having a race – or the Spanish GP sharing with Barcelona has been agreed with FOM.

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Japan GP review: Kimui enjoys more pressure, Massa’s 1st podium for 36 races, Grosjean hounded again

We’re pretty fortunate in the UK in the amount of TV coverage we now have. Many UK fans were distraught last year when it was announced that the BBC would not be getting more than 10 races live and that SKY TV (subscription) would be covering all the races.

Of course having to pay a few hundred pounds a year to watch F1 for some is too much, but if we just look at coverage SKY F1 now provides, it is of the highest quality.

Of course most countries get the official podium interviews and some of the press pen interviews the drivers are compelled to provide. Yet where we are fortunate is we get many post race unofficial interviews with the various SKY (and BBC when they’re live) presenters from team principles, race engineers, drivers and many others.

In these informal chats away from the pack of photographers and mass microphones, the F1 players are often emotional, positive or negative, and can be very, very revealing

The main reason for me saying all of this is that when I’m fortunate to be at a race, I get to spend several hours after the chequered flag has fallen pouring through the race and post race footage.

So for those of you without SKY here’s some stuff I picked up.

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