Welcome to Podium or Pits (or POP for short), your weekly dose of (fun) Formula 1 news! This week we discover Heikki's past-times, the romantic future of Lewis Hamilton, and the precariousness of Renault's financial situation...
An incredibly subtle clue for the quiz below...
PODIUM. Heikki Kovalainen -
[poll id=8]
If you picked A, then you'd be vastly over-estimating the interestingness of Heikki 'Vanilla' Kovalainen. In fact, Heikki loves to do a bit of gardening when he gets a break from driving for Lotus. However, POP loves a driver who bucks the trend, it's so refreshing. He doesn't even have a trashy popstar/under-wear model girlfriend like the McLaren boys some drivers. He's engaged to British girlfriend Catherine Hyde, who studies sports pyschology. Aww.
PODIUM. Red Bull -
Joke presents are great, such as getting your aging grandmother some racing nuns for Christmas (always a winner), or giving Fernando Alonso a signed grinning picture of Lewis Hamilton. Ace. So when POP heard about Red Bulls 'joke' birthday present for 80 year-old Bernie Ecclestone, POP was both highly amused and very worried for the team.
Bernie enjoying his birthday present yesterday
Someone thought it'd be genius to give Bernie (who, as you all know, is the great puppeteer of F1) a personalised zimmer-frame, complete with racing steering wheel and front wing! Hilarious ... until Bernie starts diverting funding into the coffers of Ferrari & Co as punishment.
PITS. Jonathan Legard on Twitter -
Inadvertant comedy gold. Marginally better than watching paint dry....
Pitlane exit. Silverstone say no risk of flooding, no drainage issues cos new lake built to cope
Pitlane garages http://plixi.com/p/50580006
Drizzle in Mokpo, nearest city to Korea gp track. Meant to continue all night. Turn 16 was being repaired again tonight
Lotus announce building of wind tunnel at team base at Hingham
PITS. Renault -
Despite recent on-track hiccups, Renault haven't been too shabby at all (well, if you discount the "performances" of Petrov, that is). But rumour has it that the Renault team have been forced to take out a loan from the amusingly-named 'Snoras', a Lithuaian Bank. According to reports, Renault has lost £50 million in sponsorship in the last 12 months, largely in the wake of the race-fixing Singapore scandal revealed last year. Not good.
PITS. Stefano Domenicali -
"Woulda everyona pleasa staya calm for Stefano!!" Following Fernando Alonso's win at the inaugural Korean grand prix, Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali has urged his team to remain calm. Good luck with that. You try telling a bunch of hot-headed passionate Italians to calm down in the face of potential victory in the Drivers' world championship. Yeah, impossible.
PITS? Lewis Hamilton -
The future Mrs Hamilton is very serious, ahem
How POP could have missed this bit of F1-gossip is beyond belief, but here it is anyway, albeit a couple of weeks late... Lewis Hamilton's girlfriend, Pussycat Doll singer Nicole Scherzinger, has been quoted as saying,
oh and i’d love to see a mark webber movie he is the most...
Comments and Discussion
I wish I had a trashy popstar/under-wear model girlfriend like the McLaren boys!
Check out Kamui Kobayashi's girlfriend. She's a trashy underwear model like the best of them.
However she used to be a trashy softcore porn model before that.
Have you got a personal vendetta against Jonathan Legard?!
People may not want to admit seeing it, but by all accounts he is the new Murray Walker, i'm sure the BBC are aware of this and will keep him regardless.
On Sunday he was on spectacular form; getting drivers wrong then talking at length about said misidentified driver, wondering how he got to where he was and where the people who were supposed to be there were; getting excited over nothing and asking Martin extremely lengthy questions which had lost their meaning come the question mark.
If Murray's really such a legend then i'd give JL a PODIUM for filling Murray's shoes and reminding us all what F1 on TV in the 90's was like.
I'd also give PITS to all the people who didn't get up to watch the race Live, then complained about the BBC switching channels thereby ruining their recordings. Either make the effort to get up if you're really interested, or watch the re-run/highlights if it's not important to you!
And quite simply; Heikki rules!
Although his girlfriend's given him her cold, so get well soon Heikki!
Shallow I know!
pictures?!