First of all, an apology is in order for all our lovely readers – sorry that F1 Badger hasn’t been around over Christmas. The Editor has been struck with illness for what seems like a month and at the same time there has been plenty of work done on the backend of the website to make it better for now and more importantly, the future. So anyway, we hope you’ve all had a very Merry Christmas and that Father Christmas brought you some wonderful gifts (did you get anything from Badger’s shopping lists!?) And if you’re not a fan of Christmas – we hope you’ve enjoyed the break, but now’s the time for a quick catch-up:
Schumacher! The legend that is the German racing driver is finally officially confirmed to be driving for the Mercedes Grand Prix team – it’s been in the rumour mill for so long that it was all becoming rather tiresome, so it seems that they actually made it true – it surely does add an extra bit of spin on the excitement of the forthcoming 2010 season. Thankfully, his brother Ralf can’t find a seat for his big comeback… except one in the grandstands. Whether or not the seven time World Champion can do it again is bound to be a hot topic for debate, but it’s all looking good for him; Mercedes have the cash, the car that won in 2009 and above all Ross Brawn – the very same man that engineered Michael to everyone one of his seven titles… blimey. On a side note, those conspiracy theorists who claimed Jenson Button had been forced out of BrawnGP for McLaren should be looking smug because this announcement does seem to fit with that line of thought… no?
Elsewhere, USF1 made a grand announcement just ahead of Christmas with a brand new, if slightly naff website, as well as a Twitter and YouTube presence. So far there have been a few massive errors on their part, most alarmingly being on their 2010 schedule where they have races in the wrong order or on different dates – ooops – and there they were telling Bernie he was silly for saying that they might not make it to the grid next year…. hmm, maybe the old man has a point!
Mr Richard Branson has made his mark on F1 by officially launching Virgin Racing F1 team and has gone one better than USF1 already by confirming some actual drivers in the shape of Timo Glock and Lucas Di Grassi. The British entrepreneur has also entered into a bet with Tony Fernandes – his fellow Asian entrepreneur who’s behind the new Lotus F1 Team. Whoever loses between the two of them will have to be a hostess on their aircraft – yep that’s right folks, this is F1 – a forfeit involves having to do a proper job on your own airline. It may be crazy, but it’s just the sort of characters that F1 needs and the Badger applauds them.
In terms of F1 Badger, you should have noticed some cosmetic changes to the site, hopefully you’ll like them and it will help you enjoy F1 Badger even more. The comments after articles have also been improved – you can now ‘nest’ comments and therefore reply to previous comments if you wish, rather than just the whole pile. Navigation has been improved along with the overall usability and speed of the site. Of course, we would love to hear your feedback, so do please get in touch and email us at contact@f1badger.com with any feedback. There are plenty more developments in the pipeline too, due to be available ahead of the new season, hopefully within a couple of weeks, stay tuned.
That’s all for now, except to say that it seems everyone, even F1 supremo Bernie is looking forward to F1 in 2010 already, the old man reckons it will be a ‘jaw-dropping’ season – let’s hope so. – only 75 days (ish) to go…
