sofaF1

So if the rumours continue to say that Alonso is going Renault next year, at some point next year somebody will say, "well, where's that half a second that Alonso said he carried with him to McLaren? He seems to have left it at McLaren". Even if it's not true for the whole of the season Ron or Martin Whitmarsh will say it at some point.

My guess is that Fernando really pissed them off with that comment.

Formula 1 has been accused of being boring so many times, that the argument almost seams boring. But what are we going to do about it?

Here’s Alex’s Six point plan to fix F1:

1) Qualifying has three sessions. First two same as current. Before the third starts the teams determine the starting fuel load and submit it to the FIA in secret (not revealed until after the race). Then qualifying takes place, in low fuel, and the order of the fastest cars is the order that the drivers start in. The drivers then start the race with the fuel loads they picked before the session.

2) The cars are to have no pieces of bodywork which allow air to pass between them and the car or that deviate from the form of the car, with the exception of allowing air to pass through the engine, or to exit after passing through the engine.

3) No engine or gearbox penalties, or rev limits (it’s not saving money anyway) the penalties get in the way of the sport.

4) The standard points per race are as follows:

Pole – 2 points (to keep people wanting it, see point 5)
1st – 15 points
2nd – 10 points
3rd – 7 points
4th – 5 points
5th – 4 points
6th – 3 points
7th - 2 points
8th – 1 point

5) You get 2 points for every person that you overtake for position on the track (literally passing manoeuvre) if you simply have a faster pitstop than somebody then you don’t get any points. If that doesn’t get people wanting to overtake then I don’t know what will.

6) The person who finishes the full race distance and used the least fuel gets 5 points. This balances out point 4 in a much more effective way.

As we head into the final third of the 2007 season the SofaF1 championship, like the F1 Drivers championship, could still go 4 ways. Nick like Hamilton still leads but the rest of us like Raikkonen, Massa and Alonso have eaten into his lead.

I almost smiled in amazement when Massa got the pole and Nick seemed to be onto it again, ready to increase his lead still further, but…

Nick only got 2 more points, for Raikkonen taking the second place, points which Alex, Fourstar and myself also got. The race was on.

Fourstar and myself managed to bag one for Hamilton starting on the front row, Alex picked up a couple of loose ones for Massa and Alonso, and got Rosberg spot on. Fourstar did the same with 2 for Heidfeld in 4th and one each for Rosberg and Kubica.

It was up to me though to really keep the scoring going, I managed to land 6 for Kovalainen, Rosberg and Kubica down in 6th, 7th and 8th and with 2 more for Alonso and one for Heidfeld I landed my second highest points tally of the season.

So

Round 12

1 Bearded Stew 12
2 Fourstar 7
3 Alex 6
4 Nick 4


Which really tightens things up …

Championship

1 Nick 71
2 Bearded Stew 67
3 Alex 63
4 Fourstar 51


Good race for Massa, but Raikkonen lost out in qualifying, Hamilton hampered by a puncture, but not hurt as much as he could have been. Alonso closes the gap up, slowly but surely.

What was surprising though, wasn't that Webber retired, but that only he retired, easily the race with the most cars still going as the winner crossed the line.

F1 is back. And amazingly this year the story that F1 left us with when it went on holiday was so juicey that it was still running right up until this weekend. That's right we all want to know whether Sebastian Bourdais will be allowed to wear glasses next year (is this right - Ed).

So we find ourselves in Turkey. Already established as a great track even only two years in and this year looks set to be a cracker. Not only will we have the awesome rivalry of Alonso and Lewis fighting it out, but also Ferrari suit this track much better than the last bringing all four of the top flight drivers into the equation this weekend.

At McLaren we have open hostilities between the drivers which might mean one of the driver's leaving the team come the end of the season but might also mean one of the drivers leaving the circuit this weekend. I'm all for this rivalry playing out because rivalry like this is what makes the sport interesting to me and lots of others. Casual viewers don't care about the rivalry of the mechanics back in the factories or the rivalries between agents as they try and get their drivers into the best team. They want to see drivers spitting feathers before the race and then go out and push each other to the limit on the race track.

Note to Alonso and Lewis (who I'm sure are keen readers of SofaF1) if you need to stop the other one by way of dirty trick that means you aren't fast enough and don't deserve it. At the very least, if you need to push each other off of the track can you wait until the race because a) it's a lot more subtle and b) we'll get to see some racing between the two of you on the track.

Over at Ferrari the desperation gong has been sounded and they want nothing less than first and seconds in every race for the rest of the season. It's possible of course but unlikely. More likely is that they can do this quite a bit in the next six races while MaLaren get tangled up with themselves and fail to finish the race. The key question is whether Jean Todt has taken Massa to one side and asked him to fall on his sword. He might have said something like, "even Michael was a team player in this way in the season when he broke his leg".

So the key questions you have to consider when thinking of your top four order are is Ferrari faster than McLaren? Are the two McLaren's going to crash into each other? Are Ferrari going to deploy Massa tactically?

Behind them we find BMW and Renault who have both stopped development on their cars. Renault look in a more precarious position to have started doing that. Red Bull have been trying hard to get on terms with their car finally. Williams and Rosberg finally seem to be getting into their stride too.

Behind there we have Honda who have finally admitted defeat and gone back to last years car (doesn't that mean that their cars are now customer chassis from Super Aguri?) and we'll have to be watching to see if Vettel's three weeks of experience have put him ahead of his team mate.

So your pole and top eight please. And Ron when you're playing at home you can't have this:

1 Lewis / Alonso tied
2 All of the other drivers except
DNF Massa / Kimi

Because even then you'll have to put one of their names first and we'll know your secret!

At a press conference today DC said what a few have been thinking. He accused Ferrari of deliberatly messing up Massa's chances at Hungary to favour Kimi. Presumably he was asked to bring it up by his old mate Ron. If Ferrari are found to have deliberately interfered with the qualifying they could face a similar ban of constructors points from Hungary to McLaren.

It was the way he asked the questions that was brilliant though:

"How do we know that Ferrari didn't deliberately not put fuel in Felipe's car?" asked Coulthard, adding a mischievous twist to a discussion about team strategy.

"Maybe that was a team decision to benefit Kimi. How do you forget to put fuel in a car?"

Massa, sitting in front of the Scot, smiled uncomfortably and replied: "Yes, but it was not on purpose. It was a misunderstanding."

"A pretty fundamental misunderstanding," retorted Coulthard, who was Raikkonen's teammate at McLaren from 2002 to 2004. "I think it's a conspiracy to favour Kimi. Good luck."

How to cause team strife in 4 simple sentences. It's the "Good Luck" I really like.

I don't know about you but i had forgotten about Prodrive entering the fray next year. Also i am reminded of the talk all over the place in the last few weeks about whether Alonso will stay at McLaren and what his options would be if he didn't, well what if Prodrive do go for the McLaren partnership, actually even if they don't they will still need some drivers, could this be an oppotunity for Alonso to have a team built around him?

Alonso has decided to join a Swiss Division 3 football team to burn off his spare energy. Rather interestingly a certain M. Schumacher of Switzerland also plays in a Swiss Division 3 football team. So there is the rather bizarre chance that Alonso vs. Schumacher could happen again.

A friend who talked about this to the press made a wonderfully none-to-subtle jab at McLaren while talking about the situation when he said, "His goal is to be able to play simply, first of all to stay in shape, and to play a sport at the heart of a team". You'd think being a driver in an F1 team would make you "at the heart of a team" wouldn't you?

So last season they banned the drivers from wearing jewellery. This seemed like a ploy to particularly unsettle the red bull boys with their earrings. But it also upset Michael because he wore a necklace. Apparently it was a safety issue because the metal could burn you if there was a fire. Here's a picture of Liuzzi with his earring.



The interesting problem for next season is the announcement of Sebastian Bourdais. He races while wearing glasses:



Now which will the F1 rule makers think is more important?

a) The metal from his glasses might burn his face in an accident.

b) That he can see.

I'll leave you to answer the question.

If there is any justice in the world McLaren should probably win this year's world championship (unless they were found to be cheating). I say this from a totally non partisan point of view. So why do I say "should"?

Formula 1 is about the details. It's about getting the little things right a million times in a row. It's about winning all of the races you're fastest at and not being asleep when a faster team messes up. The team that has excelled at this technique has been Ferrari up until this season. McLaren have been terrible at it up until this season. This year it feels like they've been looking at each other's play book (not actually obviously Ron - calm down dear).

Ferrari also used to run excessive team orders and I never felt it was necessary. Schumacher was good enough to prove himself on his own. I don't mind some team play and at the end of the season if you have a clear leader it seems only sensible. There was a clear sign which will probably define which team wins the championship in Hungary. But it wasn't the battle between Alonso and Lewis. That is about which McLaren driver will win.

Ferrari probably won't win the championship this year because they seem unable to capitalise on situations like this. Situations where the two McLaren drivers don't trust each other are exactly the situations they should be using to win races. I personally feel the worst thing that happened in the qualifying pit lane in Hungary was Ferrari failing to fuel Massa. This showed much of the problem Ferrari have been having this season. Not only are their cars fragile but they keep scoring these own goals. And unless they change something, and fast, it will be too late for this championship. It probably is already.

With the summer holiday almost over it's time for us to get back to racing this weekend and now there are no more chances to fix the cars (or very few) you're stuck with what you've got (sorry Jenson) and that's it. But who has the faster car at the front? Is it Ferrari or McLaren? And if it's Ferrari can they overhaul McLaren's points advantage? And can they finish the season without giving away points to Ferrari? Or are the two McLaren boys going to spend the rest of the season driving into each other?

Whatever happens it's going to be a fascinating end to a fantastic season. So let us know what you thinks going to happen in the comments below and vote in our new pole (up in the top left) for which of the top four you think will win the championship.

And for reference in the last poll (which did last a rather long time) Murray was the clear winner.

The big dangling question of the week other than if there was a countdown indicator of Alonso's car was that of swearing on the radio.

Somewhere somehow two different newspapers reported the same story on the same day. This means they were probably using the same source. So who was that source?

McLaren now realising the way that this swearing has been really damaging Lewis' reputation have sought to clarify that he didn't swear.

At this stage everyone's spinning the story so fast it's like Lewis just told them to swivil. Personally I'd love to hear the transcripts for myself!

Oh god, nooooooooo, but you did warn me:

Arsenal interest F1's Ecclestone
Ecclestone on verge of launching Arsenal bid

Alex, I blame you (I'll think of a reason shortly)

The other week we saw the Williams trucks on the motorway presumably heading out to the Hungarian Grand Prix, which reminded me of another sighting of F1 trucks earlier this season.

I'm not sure when it was now but it would have been for one of the first couple of European races. We were buzzing along the motorway, when, heading the other way came the McLaren trucks with their new Vodafone McLaren Mercedes paintwork. As you can imagine they looked pretty impressive, streamlined and futuristic. After a couple of seconds of excited pointing, Jo shouted out "Honda truck", I looked up from the wheel to see what looked like a small old horse type truck with faded dirty paintwork and Honda painted on the side just visible through the grime.

Of course it wasn't a Honda F1 team truck, but given their performance at the time (and their performance this year generally come to think of it) the analogy was hilarious.

Hmmmm maybe you had to be there.

Does Alono's McLaren steering wheel have a display of the time left during qualifying sessions, or not? This seems to be an essential point no one can agree on. Mark Hughes says:

'He knew how long he needed for an out-lap to arrive at the start/finish line to begin his flying lap just before the session ended and he knew how many seconds of the session were left because he has a display showing that on his steering wheel.'

But Adam Cooper says:

'It was my initial assumption that his steering wheel display showed a countdown to the end of the session, and that he was savvy enough to know that at 1:38 or thereabouts he could still safely go, and that Hamilton would not be able to make it. Some cars do have such a dash readout, but the McLaren does not, and thus the drivers rely on information from their engineers. In other words, Alonso took a huge risk when he sat there as the seconds ticked away. Indeed on his out-lap he asked the team how he was doing, and had to be told to hurry up.'

Well, a slightly different race to the Nurburgring, I did have to smile wryly when Alonso landed on pole, and wasn't really too surprised that he, rightly or wrongly, had some kind of penalty imposed on him. As Alex pointed out we all lost out with Alonso's demotion, except for him who pulled 2 points out of qualifying instead of the one he would have got.

In the race Alex and Nick landed very similar points, 2 for Raikkonen and 1 for Kovalainen, with Alex taking another one for Kubica and Nick one for Rosberg. Fourstar and myself fared marginally better, with us both taking 1 each for Hamilton and Raikkonen and 2 for Rosberg, with Fourstar grabbing another one for Heidfeld and myself one for Kubica and two for Kovalainen.

Round 11

1 Bearded Stew 7
2 Alex 6
3 Fourstar 5
4 Nick 4

As we head into the summer break the championship is looking very much like the drivers championship with Nick out in front, but not out of touch,

Championship

1 Nick 67
2 Alex 57
3 Bearded Stew 55
4 Fourstar 44


In contrast to the Nurburgring, and a bit of a return to the norm, the podium positions were decided by the first corner. We saw Raikkonen taking Heideld at the start and then scampering after Hamilton, and getting pretty close too. Raikkonen again showing good long distance pace, and pushing Hamilton hard, Hamilton did well to keep him at bay.

Kovalainen finished in the points for the 5th time in the last six races, its good to see him scoring consistently, Rosberg in the points again, where he should be I reckon, but has been a bit out of place recently. Schumacher has a good points finish for Toyota. Alonso eventually managed to get past Schumacher to take the fourth place, probably the best he was going to do in the circumstances, but he did fight all the way around.

The only one missing from the usual suspects at the top was Massa, dragging his Ferrari home in 13th behind both Renaults, both Red Bulls and both Toyotas.

Honda still performing badly, although Barrichello did finish, Button did not. I would be surprised if we saw any decent form from them this year now.

On the commentary side of things surely James Allen must cringe every time they replay Button winning last year.

This year Damon Hill was in the second seat and I thought he did a good job, maybe a bit hesitant to fill in dead air time, with some characteristic Hill pauses mid sentence but by about half way it seemed like he knew what he was going say before he said and it all flowed much better.
Great to have him around though, and hear his enthusiasm. Especially at a track where he had some of his most momentous races.

The most significant moment for me though was just before the first round of pit stops. James was, typically it has to be said, blabbering on about Schumacher's position for next year and whether he would be on the grid and actually asked Hill what he thought about it, a direct question, but as he paused for Damon to answer, Damon burst in with a description of the action in the pits almost taking over the lead commentary himself, and not ever answering James question as far as I could tell. Great stuff.

Don't forget, through the summer break, keep it SofaF1.

Allegedly this is part of the radio conversation between Lewis and Ron Dennis.

According to the Times and Daily Mail:
Hamilton: "Don’t ever f****** do that to me again!"
Dennis: "Don’t ever f****** speak to me like that again!"
Hamilton: "Go f****** swivel!"

People have been speaking a lot over the weekend about the problems between Lewis and Alonso and how it's going to be very difficult to rebuild. But while it's an important relationship it isn't the most important relationship at McLaren for Lewis. The most important relationship is with Ron. Team bosses are megalomaniacs, they want power and they'll do anything to get it. Being told to f-off by a little pip squeak is going to annoy Ron even if they are world champion leading pip squeaks.

Having Damon Hill on the commentary reminded me that sometimes team bosses will even fire a driver who just won them the world championship. Remember Ron cares far more about the constructer's championship than the driver's championship.

I think in Ron's mind what Lewis did at the beginning of Quali 3 and Alonso did at the end were equally stupid. But what he might never forgive Lewis for is not singing from the corporate hymn sheet with the race stewards. It was basically Lewis' testimony that lost McLaren the constructer's points. While some might say that Lewis wouldn't have had to have lied if Alonso hadn't done what he did, I'm not sure Ron will see it like that.

Alonso is refusing to speak to Lewis and that might be bad for Lewis, but I wonder if it is his relationship with Ron which may be in deep trouble. And if that's the case it will be far more crucial.

This might be a bit overdue and probably irrelevant now after Radio Five's commenatry from the Nurburgring brought Murray Walker back to the airwaves, but a few weeks ago (it actually could have been months) I heard Murray chatting away on Radio 4. He had been invited to talk about the championship and Hamilton mania, and it was great to hear him of course, but it got me to thinking...

He just has the kind of voice that makes you want to listen to what he is saying, ok sometimes in the race he gets a bit jumbled up, but his excitement in describing what is happening out on the track seems to overide all of that and you get carried along and feel like you are involved with what is happening too. On this radio segment he even ended up talking about hearing aids and was still interesting to listen to!

You may have read about Kimi taking part in a powerboat race in the last few weeks. He didn't win the race but he did win the prize for best dressed crew:



Yes that's Kimi with the beer.

And they say Formula 1 doesn't have any characters?

Hungary is often described as "Monaco without the houses", but as well as being twisty it is also very dusty which means if you think it's hard to overtake at Monaco you ain't seen nothing yet. Unless it rains.

But it might rain.

McLaren seemed to have a massive advantage over Ferrari at Monaco for which the blame was placed squarely on the long wheel base, something Ferrari won't have been able to change, but certainly other Ferrari improvements should have brought them much closer.

To win the race you really want to be in 1, 2 or 3. The pole sitter wins a lot, but starting off-line in the dust of 2nd brings you very close to danger from the 3rd place man. Probably expect the 1st place man to scamper off as 2nd and 3rd place swap.

If it rains watch Jenson as everyone is saying he was pretty quick last race (0.2 seconds a lap faster than Alonso) and he also won this race last year in the wet.

Apparnently it's really hot in Hungary and suffering from occasional showers. If that happens in the race then it will be mega, if not then we'll probably be faced with a bit of a procession. All the more reason to be paying attention in qualifying - that's where a lot of the action will be!

I would like to introduce to the famous portal of sofaF1 the idea of 'sledging'.

For those of you not in the know, this is the deliberate use of humorous and/or offensive banter by cricketers (and baseball too, although it was described as 'trash-talk' by our Canuck guest in the Rack & Tenter) to put off an opposition batsman/batter.

So what can this have to do with the exciting world of Formula 1, I hear you shout above the sound of Bernie counting his yachts?

How about this - all teams are permitted not only to listen in to other team radio conversations but to interject with witticisms and fruity comment designed to distract the driver/team form their intended course of action and hopefully gain an advantage for yourself.

Now that might sound stupid (might? - Ed.) but it would be no good just shouting insults across the airwaves "la la la you're crap you are Alonso", it would just be ignored; he clearly isn't crap. But how about "Mmmm, lovely bit of chorizo" or "What colour is that on the pit wall? Is it taupe? Or camel? Do you think they have it at B&Q?" or "Isn't that Maggie Gyllenhaal wearing Manolos and a smile?".....

And if that fails, you could always lob jelly beans onto the track :)

Any suggestions for (un)suitable banter? Comment below!

* famous Freddie Flintoff sledge, in case you were wondering

Near my office today there is a F1 Simulator being run to celebrate the launch of New Look's mens clothing department which opens today 3rd August 2007.

So yes you get to sit inside a 2005 replica Ferrari and play a Formula 1 simulator game, there is a screen at the front that you are looking at, and a screen at the back so when you look in your mirrors you see what should be there.

It might be the closest you get to the real thing so head on down:

It's on the corner of Moorefields and London Wall which as you can see from the Map don't look like they join. It's actually a large pedestrianised area.

This weekend Martin Brundle is having his usual Hungarian break and this
time his replacement is going to be Damon Hill.

We already know about the strong feelings on here about the lead
commentator and my guess is that most people rate Martin but who is your
favourite Number 2 other than Martin?

Amongst the contenders are: Jonathan Palmer, James Hunt, Peter Windsor
(in the states on Speed TV), Mark Blundel, Jenson Button and Anthony
Davidson. I'm sure there are loads more but I just wanted to get you
started.