Silverstone

Nurburgring lifeline, Consistancy analysis, Vettel yellow flag storm brewing in Italy, Kingfisher Airlines finally finished, Champagne & Hot Dogs in Milton Keynes

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Vote for thejudge13 at the Silverstone media awards. “Best F1 blogger” is the category if you think we are. (Link). It only takes about 1 minute to do. I believe we have 14 votes so far from thjudge13 readers.

Nurburgring: My favourite subject, the 2013 F1 calendar. It’s a week for lifelines, first HRT and now Nurburgring. To cut a long story short, in February the operators of the circuit, NAG, were given an eviction notice for non-payment of rent. Today Motorsport are reporting this matter is now ‘settled’ – how or by whom we don’t know.

2 weeks ago a spokesman for NAG said, “Formula 1 is no more at the Nurburgring”, discussions with Ecclestone were cancelled and all the other 2013 events were at risk.

Today, “Now we have to make progress in the talks with the Bernie Ecclestone toward a contract”, said Thomas Schmidt of NAG. I presume the operating company had been declared insolvent or bankrupt and the original contract is therefore no longer in force. Anyway, good luck lads – Bernie’s feeling a little down and unwanted at the moment, you may catch him in a rare moment of weakness.

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Mallya on cash hunt, Storms now set for Interlagos decider, Austin 2013 now a double clash, Cash machines answer to Korea GP losses, Coca-Cola & Lotus for 2013

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Editor’s note: Many sites run driver polls after each race and we have done a couple. I’m not sure if it’s what thejudge13 readers want though. Let me know your thoughts. I am going to run 3 driver of the year polls – I’m thinking of splitting it into 1 poll for the bottom 4, 1 for the middle 4 and 1 for the top 4 teams.

Further, the end of season is swiftly upon us, and it may be there are not articles every day from thejudge13 after next week. So to save you from visiting the site unnecessarily – why not sign up for email notification (right hand side bar – top) and you will get an email when a new article is uploaded. I have no access to the email addresses submitted as in the software there is a ‘widget’ handles this.

Just in 17:18 GMT: Red Bull maybe using some fancy rear wing end plates, that have a ruffle sticking out of the back plate. Could be a defensive aero part to create dirty air behind the car making overtaking more difficult for the car behind.

This wouldn’t be an aero compromise because the cars normally in Interlagos run a lot of wing due to the altitude and thin air. Usually at sea level this would create more drag and affect the performance of the RB car too.

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Lewis rude helmet, Perez under pressure, TR quick to blame drivers, F1 team bosses ‘bubble’ world,

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The deep south: London Times reporter tweeted the following, “Blimey. We hear gunshots and ask William our cabbie what they are aimed at. “People, man, people” he says and speeds up”.

Hotels: Still puzzling me, Austin tourist info tells us there are 30,000 hotel rooms city wide. At 2 per room that’s only 60,000 people and yet when I checked, there were many vacancies tonight.

Fans: COTA says there were 83,000 fans there today, which makes a total of around 148,000 so far – Silverstone levels.

Ferrari qualify as in Abu Dhabi: 7th and 9th again, except this time with Massa in front. Alonso is magnanimous and says his team mate did a better job than him. Bleak picture for Ferrari after Q3 (pic)

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American Pensioners buy 9% of F1, German GP Highly doubtful, FIA sack American chief doctor, FOTA forum a JOKE! T Rosso ditch Ferrari, SKY to replace FOM TV, Unser racing family dynasty born

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thejudge13 readers: The power of the internet is amazing, and it has been 9 weeks today since the site first said Hello to the world, they sad day following the death of Sir Sid Watkins. In that time we’ve had visits from 121 countries including places you would never think have even heard of F1 like Bhutan, The Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Swaziland and Nepal. Yesterday we had our 40,000th visit –  which I find staggering. Thank you all for supporting the effort that goes into producing this site.

Just to let you know a little about how the blog software I used works, it shows me every location (by country) from where people click on the site – but it gives me NO personal information at all. Even if you register for the email notification when a new article is published, I can’t access the list of people or emails inside the widget that manages this for me.

If you do leave a comment you are asked for an email address, however there is no way of knowing whether this is valid or not – and I can assure you there will be no junk mail sent out from thejudge13. So today I’m saying Hi to the people who will visit from Mauritius (I truly wish I were with you today as its cold and wet in the UK  😎  )  – if you want to just say hello back, please leave a comment at the bottom.

Over the winter there may not be thejudge13 articles every day, and I know many of you land on the home page each day when you visit. This is because thejudge13 is saved in your web browser as a favourite or you just type in http://www.thejudge13 into the URL. To save you clicking and typing each day when nothing is happening, why not register for the email service on the right hand side bar of the page at the top (max 2 articles a day) – or follow @thejudge13 on twitter (again click on the right blue twitter button).

On with the news…

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Austin will favour Red Bull, Mercedes should’ve kept Schumy not Nico, FOM wants USA GP2, McLaren supply to Force India ends, Huge Brawl, How Maldonado finds an extra 1s per lap,

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Note from the editor: Sorry folks, had a couple of days off – anyway we’re back. I notice quite a lot of you must have thejudge13 saved in your internet browser as a favourite and use this as the way of coming to the site. Over the Winter there may not be an article every day, so if you sign up for the email service (side bar on right at the top), you’ll get an email when thejudge13 has published an article/news AND only then. Anyway some news catchup. . .

Mallya sells, implications for Force India: Shares in United Spirits soared this morning 14 per cent to hit its new 52-week high after Uk-based firm Diageo Plc said that it will acquire 53.4 per cent stake in United Spirits for around $2bn. Vijay, will remain as chairman, however the real power is transferred to Diageo representatives who will take on the roles of CFO and CEO (Economic Times).

This sounds like good news, yet industry experts reckon it will cost no less than $1bn to get Kingfisher airlines back in the sky’s and Vijay has until 30th November to satisfy the Indian Aviation Authorities that the Kingfisher Airlines new business plan is sound – and clear the debts.

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Sauber given no choice, Mallya share scandal revealed, Who is Caterham’s new F1 boss? Austin – 1 year ago, Ecclestone cocks up the calendar

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Sauber have no choice: If Sauber’s biggest sponsor has its way, Esteban Gutierrez will next year line up on the Formula One grid alongside confirmed 2013 driver Nico Hulkenberg. Gutierrez’s fellow Mexican Sergio Perez, who is heading to McLaren, was until now the cream of Sauber backer Telmex’s Formula 1 programme for the last two years.

But waiting in the wings all the time has been the one year younger Mexican reserve driver Gutierrez, who is this week testing Sauber’s C31 in Abu Dhabi, as is another 2013 candidate, the highly rated dutchman Robin Frijns.

Telmex chief and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, however, could have a substantial influence on the final decision.

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A Race with over 300 cars, Lotus developing 3 cars at once, Mallya’s license suspended, more F1 News….

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Mallya: The judge13 has been following more closely than elsewhere the events unfolding that affect the Indian owner of Force India. Having sold a chunk of the Kingfisher empire this week, paid overdue airport dues and had the warrant for arrest withdrawn, Mallya has now had his airline license withdrawn. The suspension signalled the regulator’s lack of patience with Kingfisher after months of cancelled flights and staff walkouts, and marked a rare tough stance by the government against a high-profile corporate (Reuters)

The move had been widely expected after Kingfisher failed to respond properly to queries from the regulator regarding its ability to provide a “safe, efficient and reliable service”. The airline has never made a profit since its inception in 2004, and a well know airline commentator suggests it could take $1bn to turn Kingfisher Airlines around. (Force India: How the card tower will collapse)

Max Mosely: A very plausible and knowledgeable guest on the Sky F1 show admitted the expose of his by the News of the World of ‘spankgate’ weakened his hand in pushing through cost reforms.  In 2003 Mosely, then head of the FIA, cancelled the use of special qualifying cars and engines in a move to level the playing field for the competing F1 teams. He instigated a ‘parc ferme’ following qualifying that meant the teams could not change engines and other components designed to provide ultra 1 lap speed but not be capable of lasting the full race distance.

In 2008-9 Mosely was trying force the teams to agree to a cost cap on expenditure, and Ferrari in particular were refusing to comply, there were threats of a breakaway series and Moseley admits he should have faced them down as he did in 2003. The reason he gave for avoiding all out confrontation was that Williams and Ferrari in particular had supported Mosely during the highly embarrassing matter of ‘spankgate’ and he felt he owed them for this loyalty. So Max agreed not to stand for re-election and the fudged Resource Restriction Agreement was accepted, something Mosely now admits is not working.

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