Podium or Pits is Badger’s weekly guide to what’s hot and what’s not in Formula One.
Stay tuned for Thailand’s F1 dream, Alonso’s team mate requests, local schooling – F1 style, Nico Rosberg’s PR fun and Niki Lauda’s BFF, Lewis Hamilton…
Thailand to join the F1 party? – Another month, another possible new circuit on the F1 calendar. This time, it’s Thailand in the hunt for a race, possibly as early as 2014.
To be honest, as much as we always dream the next new track might be a corker, we’re not too encouraged by the words of Kanokphand Chulakasem, governor of the Sports Authority of Thailand, who told the Bangkok Post that it would “be a city race like in Singapore and Monaco. It will be a night race like the Singapore Grand Prix.”
Oh.
For more details on all of it, click here.
Starting the mind games early – Fernando Alonso, who famously loves having competitive team mates, has been having his say on potential replacements for Felipe Massa, should such a situation present itself.
Our favourite line is: “With all the names you hear, if you compare what Felipe has done in Formula One and what these little names have done in Formula One”. So Charles Pic won’t be getting a look in then. See what we did there?!
Another gem is this: “In my opinion we need to have a driver that respects Ferrari, that respects the tradition that here we work for the team, for the red cars. This is the first priority.” So basically, remember who’s boss, yeah?
You know POP loves a good local story – Jenson Button’s race engineer, Dave Robson, dropped in on his old school after the Singapore Grand Prix to have a chat with some of the current pupils.
The pupils even got to help design miniature cars. Jealous.
The downside of being an F1 driver – Is that you have to pretend to be interested in nonsense like this.
It’s basically Nico Rosberg at a petrol station in Malaysia.
Apparently he (or some PR bod) said: “Congratulations to Petronas on the opening of their 1,001st station. Last year, we did a programme at the first ever Petronas station and today I am at the 1,001st station which is an impressive accomplishment.”
Good grief.
For more on this toe-curling episode, click here.
Niki Lauda’s getting involved – According to The Daily Telegraph the legendary Austrian racer is getting on board with Mercedes’ efforts to secure Lewis Hamilton for next season.
To be honest, we’re not entirely sure how much the two of them have in common, beyond the fact they can both drive cars bloody fast.
Maybe Niki’s about to get an introduction to the world of Lewis Hamilton – one we hope he’ll enjoy.
