Tuesday 10 November 2015

On and on and on and on ... will it never end ?!!?!?!

It’s November already … damn it November and we still have two races to go. Two pointless races let’s not forget, effectively live test seasons for next year for pretty much everyone. Well maybe not Nico, he’s got something or other to prove to whoever picks up his contract in a year or two’s time. We could all pack up and go home now, nothing is going to change, no one is going to pull out an amazing update to go two seconds a lap faster all of a sudden.

But the circus has rocked up to Brazil, so I suppose we should take a look at the boys and girls, see what is on offer.

First up and Suzie Wolff has announced she is no longer going to pretend that she was ever going to get a ride in a William on a race weekend. Now I personally think this is a bit of a shame, from what I’ve seen of her career she was tenacious and single minded enough to earn the right to be there on merit. She might not have been the kind of driver you just watched because you knew she could pull something special out of the car. But she wasn’t tooling around at the back of the pack getting in the way of the leaders trying to lap her. Solid midfield, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.  For every Lewis Hamilton there are 15 Ericcson’s and Grosjean’s. Drivers that could have the odd extraordinary race once in a while, even Maldonado won a race once, so to dismiss Mrs Wolff as a rubbish for just being a girl is narrow minded and  rather pathetic. I think she would have been a good ambassador for the sport, erudite, informative and knowledgeable. The sport needs people like Mrs Wolff, but alas it is the usual tale of not enough money for that final step. Hopefully the next lady to arrive with a race suit and the talent will finally get the backing she needs.

Redbull’s 2016 engine saga took a new twist this week with the news they plan to make their own engine now. Quite why a drinks manufacture , yes a very successful and possibly the biggest drinks manufacture in the world, needs an engine making department is anyone’s guess. Maybe they want to put it into the Vettel signature edition Infiniti FX50. Yeah that crazy ultimate street SUV you’ve never heard of that no one wanted, not even the driver with the signature on the dash board.

About as desirable as piles ...
Ferrari makes cars, McLaren makes cars, Mercedes even makes cars whilst Williams and Sauber sell engineering know how to car manufactures. Redbull makes a sickly brown fizzy liquid that rots your teeth and keeps you awake all night. They do not in any way, shape or form sell anything engineering … unless it’s how to put little bubbles into metal cans and sell the resulting toxic waste to all and sundry.
Sure Redbull as an extreme sport, “high five dude, that was gnarly bro” brand. But that’s just on cloths,  baseball caps and snappy paint jobs. It’s not the tinkering in shed out back mob,  those people that know which end of the spark plug goes in first, they’re all for a mug a tea and bacon butty. Partying all night with a tray of Vodka Redbull is something the kids get up to. And the muddy scum standing on the backing at Monaco and Monza are most certainly not dreaming of the day they breeze into an Infiniti dealership and drive out with a new low slung whip.

So why are Redbull going down the own brand engine route. There was talk of Aston Martin poking around looking for a bit of qualify F1 branding a few months back. They’ve got a bit of Arab oil money these days and need something a bit more high profile than GT cars at Le Mans. Their attempt to design their own engine and top flight LMP1 car for Le mans was an utter disaster, a mess from start to finish and almost destroyed the companies reputation. So if they stump up a bit of cash to Redbull, let them use the design centre at Aston martin and stick their name on the engines. Redbull gets a prestige motor manufacture name on the side of the car, they get to design an engine specifically for themselves with no compromises to any other team and if it all goes wrong they can blame someone else, Redbull don’t have to build an engine design centre, they just use the one Aston Martin already have. If it all goes right, then everyone comes out of it smell off high grade four star.  win win.

The next few weeks could be interesting.

Then they announced they’re going to apologies to Renault and gracefully accept their engines next year.

Right Brazil then, which i believe might have had a bit of a makeover.  Well it was supposed to be having a one, the plan was to move the pits to the lower section of the circuit and tidy up the bumps and stuff. But I can’t find anything online to show the result, so maybe they didn’t change it after all.

Anyway, I think Nico might win this, he’s got pride as his co pilot and Lewis has his name on the trophy. The rest ... much the same as before ... But still not predictable enough for some of you. Good luck kids

Don’t forget to update your predictions before Friday.

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