Grand Prix POP - Podium or Pits
- Published on Aug 12th, 2010 by Ant Hot Wheels
Badger's guest contributor, Ant Hot Wheels brings you this week's POP - an irreverent report on grand prix news stories alongside some other little snippets...
PITS - A Schumacher 1-2 – “Ya Ya I’m not listening to you anymore”
The persistent rumours of yet another Schumacher ‘come back’, continue. However we at Badger HQ feel the sport simply is not big enough for TWO under-performing Shueys clogging up the formula racetracks of the world. The German newspaper Bild: “Ralf had a concrete offer but it wasn’t the challenge he wanted. (What was the ‘driving issue’ - team or money? we wonder)
The 34 year old driver continues his third straight campaign in the DTM series in a works Mercedes. It is understood Lotus, Virgin and Hispania are still considering options on him. The possibility of a Schumacher German ‘dream team’ and double brother act have been quashed by Ross Brawn following Michaels frustrating season thus far. Those older viewers may remember that although his bathroom trophy cabinet is considerably smaller than his ‘bros’ he did score 6 wins and 27 podiums when he raced mainly with Williams before switching to the once yen strong Toyota as one of the highest paid drivers.
PODIUM - McLaren - Show time
McLaren have confirmed they will be the first tenants to set up shop next year in the prestigious 1 Hyde Park development where an average penthouse flat goes for a cool £100 million.
This has been designed to coincide with the launch of their new baby road racer the MP4-12C.
It will also give London Badger readers the chance to press their snouts up to the bullet proof glass and gawp at the latest McLaren F1 car which will be heavily sellotaped to one of the side walls as part of a decorative display. Not for sale.
PODIUM - Jenson Button Finishes Fourth
Just short of a podium place (starting to sound familiar!) Jenson did ever so well considering he was suffering a bout of tonsillitis leading up to the event out of a total of 10,999 other ‘triers’ The event consisted of a first course of a 1500 metre swim, a main course of a 40-kilometre bike ride and just when you thought you couldn’t possibly stuff a step more, a 10 kilometre run.
It was all in the name of ‘c-h-a-r-i-tee’ and if you feel compelled to chuck a couple more coppers at him then visit: www.justgiving.com/jb2010
PITS - 13 – Unlucky for some?
Room for expansion? Ross Brawn - the portly Mercedes F1 team boss has hit the headlines again with his outspoken disapproval for increasing the grid to 13 teams.
He was quoted by ITV F1 as huffily declaring
“I’d suggest it’s getting pretty tight right now. We’ve started our car for next year. Obviously the amount of effort and resource we put is front line...I think teams can get together in shorter periods of time, as some of the (new) teams demonstrated. But it’s very difficult”
When pushed he goes on to say “I think we’ve got to look at the fact that we’ve got a pretty healthy grid now. 24 cars is a pretty good size” get the impression that one of Ross’s favourite words is ‘pretty’ even when the outlook isn’t?
As a side note, did you know that no driver on the grid has a car with number 13 on it? It's true and it's been the case for quite some time - quite bonkers!
PODIUM - Matchbox Cars
No we’re not talking about the die cast ones introduced in the 50s’ and so named because the original ones were packed in boxes similar in style to a box of matches; but the life size F1 car assembled in the bedroom of German racing fan Michael Arndt in a bid to impress his now ex girlfriend.
Fact fans - Michael spent 6,067 Euros and used 956,000 match sticks (Yes I have counted ‘em all) stuck together with a total of 1,686 tubes of glue. Wood you believe it?
PITS - Lewis' stealing artwork?
Badger loves great promotion, the clever sort that really does add value to a brand and make you want to go out and give them your hard-earned pounds and pence, but seriously - what is all this 'Secret Lewis' malarkey about?
Have a gander at the latest video below, entitled "Heist" where we follow a hooded Lewis on his quest to steal some artwork, while wearing some sports shoes - it's all a little odd, or have we missed the point...?
PODIUM - Mini Me
Delving back into the dusty archives; ‘By Jove’ the tached man’s back - Graham Hill with Hill Junior aged just 4 and a half.
As today’s teams ever strive to make cars faster and lighter their forebears can be traced back to 1964, when teams seriously looked into dramatically reducing the size of the car and even toyed round with the idea of training up young drivers to replace the already ‘jockey size’ ones. However the replica 20cc Lotus costing £112 in yesterdays finest pine notes was no match for Daddies 1500cc, 220bhp BRM, costing £10,000!
oh and i’d love to see a mark webber movie he is the most...
Comments and Discussion
Much better this time around. Well done!
It would be quite cool to have Ralf back as well, at least while Michael's still around. Schu Junior always felt he had something to prove against his brother and wasn't afraid to push him off the track. We need this!
I reckon he'd be the opposite of Michael in a return. When Michael retired he was still winning and now that he's back he's slow and uninspired. When Ralf left he was slow and uninspired, so perhaps he'd have more fire in his belly for a return.
The only realistic place for him though would be in Schumacher's seat. I don't see any of the new teams taking a chance when there are so many decent drivers around already up to speed on the modern tyres.
As for the 13th team, i don't think there will be one. I'm not convinced Hispania will make it onto the grid in 2011. So there will be a new team, but it will be another 12th team, not a 13th.
Have we stepped into a time-warp? That Matchstick McLaren story is at least 2 years old! It's probably found its way onto a bonfire by now... or more likely; been lit by his ex-girlfriend!
If all of the other Germans in F1, plus Heidfeld, di Resta and a couple of GP2 drivers were unavailable Ralf would be a Schu in. He's got nothing left to offer, really.
As for the 13th team it's Epsilon or nobody, unless there's a secret bid we've not heard about yet. Manor/Virgin only became public knowledge once the teams had been selected. Team Villeneuve would be interesting, but he's hardly got the best partners in Durnago.
What happened to all the other applicants?
ART Grand Prix- who really should be an F1 team- pulled out and so did Cypher. Ken Anderson (the genius behind USF1) is supposedly still having a go, as are Stefan Grand Prix, but you'd have to say no new team would be better than either of those. There probably are other entrants who haven't been named yet. Villeneuve didn't want to go public but someone talked.
I have to say that lewix ad was really crap!!
I hope he was meant to be the good guy stealing the painting back?