The original good week / bad week grand prix (fun) news review

This week Podium or Pits, your weekly F1 news review, is proud to present... the most ridiculous collection of genuine F1 stories in years...!

Sshh - it's Secret Hamilton!

PODIUM.  The Secret life of Lewis Hamilton -

What does Lewis Hamilton do in an alternate reality?  He plays the role of a hooded art recoverer performing Mission Impossible-like escapades of course!  POP isn't even making this up!  No photoshop has been used in the making of this story or related website (click here), and you can even play the game in Korean.  The concept is called ARG, or Alternate Reality Gaming, and this one has been over a year in the making in conjunction with Lewis.  It gets POP to thinking... what alternate realities would other drivers be involved in?  Giancarlo Fischella's Wine Tasting World, Webber's Milky Way, or Kimi Raikkonen and the Ice-cream of DOOM!!

PITS.  Volcanoes -

POP never thought it would see the day when the words 'volcano' and 'Formula 1' were used in the same sentence.  There's a first time for everything apparently.  At one time POP did think that Flavio Briatore somewhat resembled a dormant explosive mountain, but that was merely for the purposes of drawing an interesting analogy.  But this week we've had the story that everyone's been talking about: the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland.  Can POP pronounce the name?  Of course! It just chooses not to, that's all.  Thankfully for the teams there is an unusually-long 3 week break between China and the next race in Spain, so most are hopeful that the Spanish grand prix can go ahead as planned.  Still though, it's a pretty big headache for a lot of the drivers, teams, journos, etc - check out their progress here.

PITS.  ITV F1 -

POP understands that ITV are frustrated.  They lost the Formula 1 coverage last year to BBC, and now they're seriously in the reputational doldrums.  But still, it's not an excuse.  ITV F1: if you are reading this, you know what you did, and POP is highly unamused.

The Ferrari couple in happier times

PITS.  Massa-Alonso relations -

POP swears by the mantra: wherever there is smoke, there is fire.  This week Ferrari team-mates Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa have come out to say that there is "no rift" between the pair following the Chinese grand prix.  On the way into the pits during the race Alonso "muscled" Massa out of the way.  "The situation between me and Fernando is the one it always has been and an overtaking manoeuvre won't change it for sure" Massa told the press.  Even Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has come out to deny the rift, which basically equals (in POP's books) confirmation that such a rift does in fact exist.  Three articles were devoted to denying the spat on the ever-amusing Ferrari website.  A particular gem of a line was this one: "obviously someone is trying to create bad blood between the two drivers."  Obviously?  POP is not convinced somehow...