The good week / bad week grand prix (fun) news review
This week you can buy an ex-Brawn grand prix trailer on ebay, Flavio settles with the FIA, and many more hilarious F1-related stories from this week…
PODIUM. Children –
This week McLaren unveiled a range of children’s clothing at the department store M&S. The range is called ‘Living the Dream’, which seems a little ambitious, as well as pretentious, for 5 to 9 year-olds. Perhaps ‘I like driving… my parents crazy’ would be a more realistic slogan. Many of us have been watching Formula 1 since we were tiny tots, so it’s great to see that Formula 1 appeals to a younger generation. We have a badger cub here at the Sett, but due to child labour laws we are unfortunately unable to utilise his talents on a more regular basis. Check out his thoughts on Monaco and Bahrain.
PODIUM. Flavio Briatore –
Following lengthy legal wranglings over the Crashgate revelations, things have finally been resolved between the FIA and ex-Renault boss Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds. They were handed lifetime bans from the sport as punishment for their involvement in Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate crash in Singapore in 2008, only to have the bans overturned by the courts due to procedural issues. Now Flavio and Pat have agreed to “abstain” from Formula 1 until 2013. Lifetime ban to 4 years ‘abstinence’ shows some impressive negotiation skills on Flavio’s part. This doesn’t mean, however, that they’re as innocent as the children in the picture above, given that they expressed their regrets and gave an apology to the FIA to bring about this resolution. So after saying farewell Flavio, we’ll be saying ciao to him again come 2013!
PITS. USF1 –
Ebay is brilliant. You can buy literally anything on there! Houses, cars, cats, and …. for £22,900 you can buy USF1’s trailers! POP kids you not… click here to make your bid. And it gets better. The sale is under Order of the High Court in order to pay a USF1 creditor. “As a keen motorsport fan, it is certainly one of the more interesting seizures we’ve made,” said the Sheriff responsible for enforcing the Order. The USF1 team never made it to the grid, but they did buy trailers from Brawn GP before things all started to fall apart. It still has the Brawn branding, but if you buy the trailers you’ll have to remove that due to copyright issues. £22k – bargain, or trailer trash?
PODIUM. The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association –
After firmly denying that he would join the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, Michael Schumacher has done a complete U-turn and signed up! POP thinks Michael had got lonely and depressed by his recent poor form, and joining ‘the gang’ suddenly seemed like a nice idea. Apparently it was the eternally loveable Felipe Massa who changed his mind, showing the strong ties that remain between Michael and his old team Ferrari, probably much to the annoyance of new Ferrari-driver Fernando Alonso.
PITS. Mark Webber –
In case you missed it from last week’s mini-POP, here is Mark Webber promoting milk. Enough said really. Thanks to Ino V for bringing this gem to POP’s attention.
