PODIUM. Lewis Hamilton -
Frankly, it was hard to miss Lewis Hamilton this week. He was everywhere! There he was, grinning from ear-to-ear from an enormous billboard erected over a slightly dodgy-looking kebab shop. There he was again, sporting a rather good thumbs up from a shop window. And on TV! And on a giant video billboard in Waterloo station! And just when POP thought it had successfully gone 20 minutes without seeing Lewis' smiling face... there he was on the back of a toilet door. Enough!
Why all the Lewis-mania then? Apparently some massive bank is taking over Formula 1, nay, the world. That bank is Santander. Not only will they be sponsoring both McLaren and Ferrari this year, but they also now own what were formerly Abbey, Bradford & Bingley, and Alliance & Leicester. Enough with the free advertising, because it wasn't all rosy for Lewis this week...
Lewis and Nicole in happier times
PITS. Lewis Hamilton -
In what is a first for POP, the same person is on both the Podium and in the Pits this week! But rightly so. Lewis had a bonanza week promoting, er, banking, but scored a spectacular PR own-goal by simultaneously announcing his split from Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger.
POP, being an enthusiastic gossip collector in its spare time, had heard whispers of their split back in September. According to their joint statement on the split, "The two of them have decided to focus fully on their careers and will remain close friends." How lovely. POP is confident that Hamilton will find plenty of models, underwear models, bikini models, and popstars to keep him amused for the forseeable future.
PITS. Bernie Ecclestone -
This week Bernie has unveiled his latest plans for Formula 1... short cuts! Last year the 79 year-old F1 supremo attempted to introduce a medal system into Formula 1 in order to "make the sport more interesting". This year he wants the drivers to have a limited number of chances per race to use a specially designed short cut to overtake other drivers... in order to "make the sport more interesting". Anyone would think at Bernie didn't even like Formula 1? His lastest hair-brain scheme would be a lot like the lifelines you get in Who Wants to be a Millionaire?: once the short cut opportunities have been all used up, then they're gone. What next? Phone a Schumacher? Every driver will have one opportunity per race to phone Michael Schumacher for 30 seconds to get driving tips and tricks from the 7 times world champion. Press the wrong button, though, and you dial straight through to Ralf and are automatically demoted 5 places.
Bernie Ecclestone perusing the Saga holidays 2010 brochure
One of these days Bernie will come out with something SO outrageous that everyone will finally realise that he is just a crazy old, but incredibly wealthy, pensioner. Did POP mention his girlfriend is 30 years-old? Lunacy!
PITS. Red Bull -
The Red Bull team have confirmed this week that they will not make the first pre-season test of the year for the second year running. Is it confidence? Or some hurried last-minute revision of the car? POP is inclined to say confidence, given that the same strategy worked so well last year. They also have a stable line-up in the form of Vettel and Webber, whereas every other team will have new faces in their ranks. But still, confidence can also be a bad thing in POP's books. Just look at Max Mosley.
Comments and Discussion
I love Bernie's idea to allow drivers to take short cuts to overtake. Now if they can only change the rules to allow them to have dogs as co-drivers and to drop rocks on other cars from the top of cliffs then we can have the full Wacky Races experience.
Maybe the RB6 really could have wings and a machine gun and USF1 could enter with the Arkansas Chuggabug...
Mr. Ernie Becclestone has finally lost his last marble and gone completely senile!!!!!!
The shortcut idea is another of Bernie's wind-ups, he deserves a Podium for getting people to bite on it.. including POP as it turns out.
Although it's not a foreign idea to motorsport, they do something similar in Rallycross just the other way around. Each driver takes the optimum route around a section of the track, but must take a more tricky alternate route at least once during the (i think) 5 laps.
I recently drove around an indoor kart track with an alternative route in it. it was laid out so that each route, although different, resulted in identical lap times. This is never the case of course, there is always a quicker way. for one driver it might be the slightly longer but slighty higher speed one that results in the best time. But for the next it may be the other way around, resulting in very similar lap times. I had a great deal of fun with it, and it proved very handy in dealing with the back markers, since i could pick which ever route they didn't so i could get past quickly.
Making sure both routes are equal, would be very hard in F1, since everything is so finite. 1 of the 2 would likely end up being the same quickest route for everyone. The result would then be nullified, and frankly there is nothing interesting about seeing a car get in front by taking a shortcut.
Unless they come out side by side, knock wheels with each other under braking into the next corner with a switch back following. That way they would at least be side by side for a couple of corners. For safety reasons i doubt this would ever happen.
Bernie surely knows this, or he is just nuts.
Bigger Tyres, less downforce, more innovative, suspension, braking, and drivetrain technology is the go. Although maybe standardising the brakes to steel ones or a bear minimum of carbon ceramic, so that braking distances are increased. These are the best ways to increase overtaking IMO.
Disagree. Changing the rules every year invites difficulty in close-racing since there will always be one or two teams who gain a better understanding of the new rules faster and be miles ahead for the first half of the season; like we saw this year.
Stability in the rules will improve the racing far better than changing anything.
We had a big rule change for '98, then after that changes (to the aero rules) were minimal from each season to the next. Which is what made the 2007 and 2008 seasons so good. Most teams had optimised their aero packages within the rules by that time, updates were bringing miniscule amounts because there wasn't much else they could do. And so teams were coming up with ways of solving the problem of following other cars themselves; for example the variety of 'ears' that started appearing on the noses of the cars.
F1's shot itself in the foot again with the rule change this year and even though just looking at laptimes the cars were closer, on-track they were miles apart because there were a new set of problems in airflow that the teams hadn't been working around over a period of 10 years.
Though much of the blame can be laid at Hermann Tilke's feet. He's proved brilliantly that he peaked with Istanbul Park and has gone sharply downhill thereafter with all his latest tracks being the same thing in different countries and bad for racing.