sofaF1

The News of the World is reporting today that Max Mosley has been caught in a sex scandal.

F1 boss Max Mosley has sick Nazi orgy with 5 hookers

Obviously until the facts are in... Well... It's never been known for the News Of the World to just make something up has it?

McLaren put to back of pit lane

McLaren will have their pit box at the back of the pit lane for the Bahrain grand prix.

"Bahrain organisers had expected McLaren to take a similar position [fifth] at Sakhir but said on Sunday they had been forced to make a late change after being told by Formula One Management that would not be the case."

Interesting... What with the qualifying changes and this I wonder if it will cause trouble for McLaren on Saturday?

If the first race of the season was hard to predict then the second wasn't much easier. Our points haul in total was pretty meagre with only 22 points being earned out of a possible 120! Exactly the same as Melbourne!

Alex and GrifF1 hit the big time with Raikkonen's win earning them 4 points each. Igor had 2 for Kubica's second place and I got 2 for Kovalainen's third place but again all the rest of the points were singles picked up here and there.

Fourstar, Nick and myself all got one for Raikkonen. We may have been a bit cautious there! Igor, Nick and Fourstar took one each for Kovalainen, who has had quite a good start at McLaren.

Nick and GrifF1 got one each for Alonso who made it into the points again and Coulthard, who although finishing outside the points was close enough to net Igor and Alex a final point each.

The low points scoring does indicate that the top eight are quite difficult to pick, there isn't a clear pattern emerging yet with 11 drivers claiming points so far. Which makes the championship pretty tight both for them and us!

So Round 2 gives Alex a boost

1 Alex 5
1 GrifF1 5
3 Igor 4
4 Bearded Stew 3
4 Nick 3
6 Fourstar 2

but not quite enough yet!

2008 Championship

1 Fourstar 8
1 GrifF1 8
1 Igor 8
4 Bearded Stew 7
4 Nick 7
6 Alex 6

A pretty clean race all in all, after the carnage of Melbourne. Disappointing to see Bourdais and Glock out so early in the race, and Vettel too later on. Critical off road excursion for Massa too. He is looking a bit on the back foot for a championship challenge already, especially with Heidfeld matching Raikkonen for points at this stage and Kubica pretty close behind. Good to see Webber in the points too after Melbourne.

Roll on Bahrain.

I think we’ve spoken on this blog several times about what can be done to improve qualifying but I’ve started to realise an underlying nagging problem. I’m not sure I know what qualifying is for?

In the old days qualifying used to be a method for ensuring that all of the cars were suitable for racing on Sunday. It also was a chance to see the cars running at their absolute optimum flat out. The only way to get the cars to run flat out was to give the teams and drivers a something worthwhile to compete for grid position. But what is qualifying for now? It has almost become a separate event and we have lost the principle aims of qualifying. You can no longer fail to qualify, and the spectators don’t get to see an ultimate fastest lap because of qualifying with race fuel.

Why was race fuel introduced? Apparently it was introduced to spice up the show and to make the grid order occasionally erratic. I’m not sure it has been totally effective at this. What seems to happen is that things are erratic and uncertain for the first few races of a season, when these kinds of rules are introduced, and then after a while everything returns to normal.

The simplest option would be to either return to a free for all qualifying format like in the old days - which will result in most of the qualifying session being sat out by competitors. Or perhaps a preferable option for the TV audience which is that we stick with what we have now but have the final session be like sessions 1 and 2 with no race fuel.

The problem is that this leaves us with the grid order being almost certainly fastest at the the front slowest at the back and no overtaking. I must admit to being a fan of the reverse championship grids suggested here last year and most recently by Patrick Head. I understand some people think that they aren’t pure and some people think cars will get stuck behind other drivers but what we have now is non-pure. Race fuel confuses things, Kimi was fastest last week but opted for more fuel. That’s a pretty confusing state of affairs which points to the increased irrelevance of qualifying. And I’m pretty sure that the teams would suddenly wake up to the problems of overtaking a slower car. Aerodynamic simplification would have to happen and quickly because it would suddenly be in the teams best interests.

But what would we do on Saturday? Bernie won’t be able to sell all of those precious tickets - he’d never allow it. Unless...

What if qualifying on Saturday was a pure qualifying, no race fuel. Just the fastest cars going as fast as they can. I personally would still go for the three sessions and just have the third one be without fuel. It means people are racing the whole time.

But why would drivers go quickly? Simple. We’ll give them points:

1st - 5 points
2nd - 4 points
3rd - 3 points
4th - 2 points
5th - 1 point

This would throw up one weird possibility that qualifying well on Saturday could move you backwards on the grid on Sunday. But I think that would be the exception rather than the rule.

What do you think? Too radical?

I believe some of you read F1Fanatic and I spotted this interview (on londonist.com) with the chap who runs it:

Keith Collantine, F1Fanatic

You may or may not agree with him!

For those of you who want to watch the race again and try and work out exactly what happened and when, but can't quite face all that fast forwarding and so on check out VisionF1 as recommended by Clive (two mentions in a week for him!)

It shows you an overhead view of the track, a blob for each driver and you can play the races at incredible speeds. It's great for working out what happened to a backmarker the tv pictures ignored.

The BBC have won back the rights to F1 from next year.

Will this mean the end of James Allen?

I hope it won't mean the end of Martin Brundle. If the BBC haven't poached him I will be very disapointed.

The lack of adverts will be awesome though!

You may remember the Australian Grand Prix was characterised by what can only really be referred to as chaos. And the newly resurfaced very hard circuit that Malaysia has would seem destined to create the kind of tire ware that will cause even more problems. Except the surface won't be the main talking point of the grand prix weekend. The main topic will probably be the 90% chance of rain on Saturday and Sunday.

Driving in the rain without traction control looks to be quite a spectacle especially as very few of the teams have opted to keep testing when it rains - having wanted to save testing miles.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a completely random grid and race result which makes the predicting harder but I'm sure we'll work something out. As Clive likes to say, "perhaps it will throw a Spaniard in the works". It might also be good for Jenson if you subscribe to the theory of his smooth driving style working well post traction control. He often does go well in the wet. Lewis did rather well at Fugi too last year don't forget.

So the result might be a lottery, but we want your pole sitter and top eight finishers in the race. Good luck!

Note: The Qualifying will be early on Saturday morning for those of us in the UK, so make sure you get your predictions in early!

Labels: Pole Poll

Sorry for the delay, as Alex kindly informed you all, i've been having a few phone line problems!

But here we go...

Its always hard to know what to expect at the beginning of the season, and I would suggest even more so this year, BMW had a good car but then it didn't really perform, Ferrari were fast and reliable, McLaren still had the pace, Red Bull had an Adrian Newey car, Honda still had a ropey car but they had Ross Brawn, Williams were making good progress, Renault were still playing down their chances. Then there were the rule changes, banning traction control is probably the most well known change, but how much difference would it really make? They've been trying to make the show better for years and not much has really worked.

There may well be a few words people would use to describe the 2008 Australian Grand Prix and I'm sure crazy would be one of them. 22 starters only seven finishers, with points going to drivers who didn't even make it across the line!

By far the most spectacular race for a long time and I'm sure much will be written about it, but what has been happening in the SofaF1 Championship?

Well this year we have six contestants, welcome to GrifF1 and Igor who join Alex, Nick, Fourstar and myself for 2008.

The first round predictions seemed to place a fair bit of confidence in Raikkonen, but it was Hamilton who dominated the weekend. Fourstar and Igor scored 4 points apiece for the Hamilton win and Fourstar gathered up the only two pole position points scored for Hamiltons pole too.

GrifF1, Nick, Alex and myself all had to make do with picking up the odd points here and there where we could. Predicting Hamilton for second place gave us a point (just the one this year). Nick and myself both had a point for Kovalainen and Alonso, while GrifF1 took 2 for Kovalainen. Nick and myself both scored a further point for Kubica and Bourdais respectively. Frustratingly I would have scored more for Bourdais if Barrichello hadn't been disqualified and Alex would have got one for Nakajima, but hey anything can happen in Formula 1…

So the first glance at the championship standings after Round 1.

Fourstar 6
Bearded Stew 4
Nick 4
Igor 4
GrifF1 3
Alex 1

Not such a good start for Alex, after his championship win last year, but there's a long way to go.

So that was a good race wasn't it:



Sorry about the lack of updates on the Pole Poll but Bearded Stew is in the process of changing internet suppliers and they seem to have decided that the best way forward was to cut him off!

Pedro de la Rosa has been named as the chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers Association, replacing Ralf Schumacher.

Not that it's a particularly powerful body or anything but it does lobby in response to certain situations. It's interesting that the directors under him will be Alonso and Webber. All three are huge Alonso fans and none of them have much time for Lewis or Kimi neither of whom are even in the GPDA.

I wonder if this will cause trouble if there is a racing incident.

The beer is chillin'. The chain is playin'. And the Formula 1 season 2008 is about to be Go! Go! Go!

Ferrari and McLaren have been topping the time sheets. But Red Bull have surprisingly been right behind them.

There are a large number of inexperienced rookies on the grid this year. The traction control ban has made the cars harder to drive. The lack of launch control means that it's much easier to have a slow start off of the line. And Australia's first corner has often had problems in the past. There is a good chance that a large number of drivers don't make it past lap one.

So give us your pole prediction and your top eight. And if you haven't already make sure you get your season prediction in as well entrants for both end before qualifying tonight.

Thanks to ITV-F1 and F1.com!

One of the things that immediately seems lacking when you compare Formula 1 to MotoGP is the celebrations from the drivers at the end of the race. While F1 invented the champagne spraying (which still looks natural and real only once a year at Monaco) the rest of the celebrations have been stopped by Max for safety reasons and by the teams for engine protection.

Drivers aren’t allowed to do doughnuts or wave flags from their cars anymore. They aren’t allowed to pick up stranded drivers like they once did. And what Max would do if one of the drivers organized his mates to dress up like a 10 pin bowling alley I can’t imagine. Alonso has his weird standing on top of the car thing, Kimi actually did a doughnut last year, and Lewis got in trouble for hugging his father. They all want to do it, but there doesn’t seem to be much they can do.

So in the comments here I think we should suggest some of the things that they might be able to do that the drivers might be allowed to get away with. We’re not going to get the rules changed so we’ve got to help them be a little bit creative. So what have we got?

In theory there should really have been more teams in the run up to this but unfortunately a major project is being launched at work this week and so it's all gone a bit wrong.

So what's this all about?

Each Friday we ask you to predict your top eight drivers for the race and who you think will get pole.

You get 4 points if you get the race winner correct and two points if you get any other position or the pole correct. This year you get one point for a near miss in the race (eg. a driver in second you predicted to win gives you a point).*

Anyone can play. And the first part of the game is the hardest part of all - predicting the whole championship. So what we'd like from you is how the top eight drivers will finish the championship. And which driver will get the most poles. It's important to get it right because these count for double.

Good luck and Scott Speed.**


* For those of you who played last year there are two changes. No near miss point for poll. And you don't get two points if the person you predicted to win comes second - just one.

** I wish that joke still worked.

The Team

Could this be a big year for Red Bull? Adrian Newey has more support now and has been in the job just about long enough to have made a difference. The team have a budget three times that of Williams (I'm not sure if that includes Torro Rosso). So they'll want to see that money starting to work.

The Drivers

David Coulthard had a return to form right after joining Red Bull when he relaxed and started enjoying racing again. One wonders if David might have relaxed too much. When his back went in testing Red Bull borrowed Vettel for the day. David's time might be drawing to a close.

Mark Webber seems to have become a bit of an old man too. Maybe he's just been standing too close to David. He's the unluckiest competitor out there. If things don't change for him perhaps he too won't hang around too long. His whingeing must get quite wearing on the team.

Obstacles

The car falling apart on a regular basis. Last years car, especially its gearbox, wasn't very reliable. This year the gearboxes are being asked to run four races. If Red Bull haven't fixed the problem they're in deep trouble.

Prediction

The car has flashes of speed, but the drivers and the cars are a tad unreliable. They will be fighting for best of the rest. But so are Renault, Williams and Toyota.

Labels: 2008 Outlook

You may remember the debate that raged (well sort of) last year about Bruce McLaren's nationality, well anyway for a concise answer from the people who should know I consulted McLaren's own website for clarification. Somewhat surprisingly this opened another slightly rusty can of historic worms. So after consulting the collective wisdom of my fellow Sofa loungers, Al and Nick, I have now (finally) sent the following email to McLaren highlighting a less than clear section of their company history.


Dear McLaren,
Following an article last year on SofaF1.com. I referred to your website just to check my own understanding of some historical facts.

http://www.mclaren.com/historyofmclaren/timeline_intro.php

I greatly enjoyed reading the history of Bruce McLaren's racing career, but was slightly confused by this paragraph:

"Bruce became engaged to Patty Broad that winter, and would marry her the following year. On his return to Europe, he was Brabham's teammate again, and once again, the New Zealander won the World Championship. Bruce actually led the championship for a race and won in Argentina. He was second to Brabham in the championship."

Reading this, and knowing that Jack Brabham won the world championship in a Cooper in 1959 and 1960, I was confused that he seemed to be referred to as a New Zealander. As far as I knew he was as Australian as they come.

If you were to read the sentence "On his return to Europe, he was Brabham's teammate again, and once again, the New Zealander won the World Championship." in isolation then it seems suggested that Bruce McLaren won the world championship (again) in 1960, which doesn't tie up with the next couple of sentences which are themselves historically correct!

Regards
Stew
SofaF1.com


It would be great to have a response to this, if only to raise the profile of SofaF1. I'll keep you posted if we hear back!

Pernickety Stew

The Team

Stability and growth are the watchwords for BMW this year. Although Dr Mario Thiessen very graciously pointed out that they weren't really in second place last year (because McLaren had been excluded) he was clearly also trying to manage expectations. The team are not expected to be in second place by the end of this year. What they want is to stay in third and perhaps start winning some races.

The Drivers

Quick Nick Heidfeld was a revelation last year. He really does seem to be driving consistently and even seemed to out drive his much touted rookie teammate. There is a nagging doubt that Nick might not really be a superstar but as long as he's beating Kubica he's doing something right.

Robert Kubica managed to adapt to the Bridgestone tires just in time to have a massive crash. Perhaps the lack of traction control will be a factor between these drivers this year? There is a feeling that Kubica might well enjoy the lack of TC better. Either way he's got to deliver on his promise this year.

Obstacles

Testing seems to have not gone as well as it could have. Perhaps there are problems. The main issue for BMW is that Renault, Williams, Red Bull and maybe even Toyota have perhaps
caught up to them.

Prediction

Should be third but could be as low as fifth if they're not careful.

Labels: 2008 Outlook