tinkerswords.com

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

As posted over in SFI's Pub earlier tonight:

tinker · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 8:21 am Post subject:

It has long been a bit of a scandal how pro-french the French are when it comes to auto-racing. Now the Italians are getting into the act. As for McClaren's 'espionage' that's a long and time-honored tradition in racing! Keep us posted if you see more on this, OK?
_________________
"Then one night as my car was going backwards through a cornfield at 90mph I had an epiphany..."

Faith is belief despite a lack of evidence. Belief despite the evidence isn't faith; it's self-delusion.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

Well, on 09/21/2008, Mercedes-McLaren appealed the penalty to the FIA court and it was rejected. No great surprise there, huh? In the mean time, one of the Red Bull teams, Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari, took first at Monza for a very popular victory and not only with the Italian fans. At Singapore, a street race under the lights, Fernando Alonso took first for Renault. We now go to Japan this weekend. The points lead for the drivers is: Lewis Hamilton for McLaren at 84, Felipe Massa for Ferrari at 77, Robert Kubica for BMW-Sauber at 64 and Kimi Raikonnen for Ferrari at 57. The manufacturer's championship stands at 135 points for Mercedes-McLaren, 134 points for Scuderia Ferrari, and 120 pointts for BMW-Sauber.

If any of you get SPEED Channel, they are the people broadcasting the events.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

Suspicions that McLaren and Hamilton are fighting not only Massa and Ferrari for the World Championships but the FIA as well. I had suspected this after the European Grand Prix at Valencia where Massa and Ferrari received a cash penalty for damned near colliding with another car while exiting the pits and then at Spa in Belgium when Hamilton was penalized 25 seconds for "racing off of the course" when he had been forced off by Kimi Raikkonen in the rain and wet. Then, at Singapore, the Ferrari team has Massa leave the pit with the fueling hose still attached to his car, spewing gasoline all along the pits. It was damned fortunate that there wasn't an inferno as a result. But Ferrari got no penalty.

Now, the latest is best summed up by the following links:
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/081012152844.shtml
http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/f1-update-bourdais-penalized-massa-closes-gap-to-five-points/
Please note Massa'a attitude on his having bunted Hamilton into a spin: that it was merely racing luck. Hamilton was given a "drive through" penalty for a much lesser offense while Massa got the same penalty for his hitting Hamilton. I have concluded that Massa's behavior is overly aggressive and in that he doesn't seem to care about how his driving may endanger others. I have also concluded that the FIA is facilitating his behavior because he is a driver for Ferrari just as they allowed Michael Schumacher to get away with pushing rivals off course when convenient, as he did to Jacques Villenueve in 1997 at Jerez in Spain. It is also eerily similar to Ayrton Senna's actions in the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix where he intentionally crashed into Alain Prost's car, eliminating him frm the championship race so that he, Senna, could take it.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

The first five grid positions for tomorrow's Chinese GP have Lewis Hamilton's McLaren on the pole, Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari in second spot, Felipe Massa's Ferrari in the third position, directly behind Hamilton, and Fernando Alonso's Renault in fourth. Heikki Kovalainen in tne the second McLaren is fifth. But please understand that all of this could be easily turned topsy-turvy by how the various drivers make their starts and how they get through that first corner.

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/081018092728.shtml

For more FIA silliness, please see this link:
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/081018162056.shtml
FYI, Donnelly is the man who approved of Ron Dennis' and Lewis Hamilton's proposed handling of the incident at Spa where Kimi forced Lewis off the track while Lewis was making a pass. Lewis let Kimi repass him just AFTER the corner and then repassed Kimi in a better location.

Ron Dennis, the McLaren team's boss, has expressed his continuing support for his young protege and wunderkind, Lewis Hamilton. Big surprise, huh? See this link:
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/081018104247.shtml

tinker · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:14 am Post subject:

Thanks for the update Hugh! Could be a very interesting race...
_________________
"Then one night as my car was going backwards through a cornfield at 90mph I had an epiphany..."

Faith is belief despite a lack of evidence. Belief despite the evidence isn't faith; it's self-delusion.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

Well, Lewis Hamilton and McLaren won at the Chinese GP followed by Massa and Raikkonen in the Ferraris then Alonso in his Renault. THe BMW-Saubers took fifth and sixth with with Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld driving. As it now stands, only Hamilton and Massa, with 94 and 87 points respectively, stand a chance of winning the title in the Brazilian GP. Massa being a Brazilian in that car-crazy country would be an extremely popular winner and their first champion since the late Ayrton Senna.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

The Brazilizn Grand Prix, which will decide the world drivers' championship is this weekend. Check your local Speed Channel listings for times.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

Lewis Hamilton finished the Brazilian GP in fifth and that gave him sufficient points to win the championship even though Felipe Massa finished first. Up until the last turn of the last lap, Hamilton was in sixth place which would have given him a tie in points and the tie-breaker was who had the most wins. Massa had 6 to Hamilton's 5, so he would have been the champion. But Timo Glock in a Toyota had stayed out on the dry tires when it began to rain and he could not keep up the pace and Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton passed him in the final turn of the final lap. How's that for a Hollywood-type ending? The cameras showed the rejoicing in the Ferrari pits changing to disbelief and then shock as it sank in that Hamilton had, indeed, won the championship. I am actually sorry for them that it had to happen in the manner that it did rather than cleanly. Also, poor Timo is being accused by some media of purposely letting Hamilton by, an absolutely stupid accusation if you were watching the race.

tinker · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:45 am Post subject:

Huzzah! I just love pulling for the underdog!
_________________
"Then one night as my car was going backwards through a cornfield at 90mph I had an epiphany..."

Faith is belief despite a lack of evidence. Belief despite the evidence isn't faith; it's self-delusion.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

Tinker, I wouldn't exactly call Hamilton and Mercedes-McLaren "underdogs" in F-1. They and Ferrari are the two top contenders and it is just that the FIA seems to favor Ferrari for its history and not to favor Merceded-McLaren for personal reasons, part of which may be Ron Dennis' personality which can be rather abrasive. It also may have something to do with the "Spygate" scandal last year when Mercedes-Mclaren were found in possession of hundreds of pages of Ferrari's technical data for the 2007 as well as the 2008 year. It urned out that hese were passed along to a second or third level employee at Mercedes-McLaren by a disgruntled employee at Ferrari who was seeking a job at Mercedes-McLaren.The result was a bad PR black eye for Mercedes-McLaren as well as forfeiture of all manufacturer's championship points for the 2007 season and a $100,000,000 fine.

There is some thought that Dennis is behind the news story that broke last summer about FIA presiden Max Mosley's sexcapade in a London apartment with a number of call girls. The "fantasy role-playing" included dressing up as NAZI SS prison camp guards and as inmates of a prison camp. There was one huge scandal over this but Mosley did not resign and the general betting is that he will be re-elected as FIA president since there does not appear to be an acceptable alternative. Given that Max's father, Sir Oswald Mosley, was the leader of the British facists during WWII and a NAZI sympathizer, I do not consider Max Mosely to be acceptable. Neither do the German Automobile Club and a number of other sanctioning bodies for the various national Grand Prix races.

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

To update this issue to the current year, Mercedes-McLaren and Hamilton were accused of lying to the race stewards over some incident after the Australian GP. It turned out that Hamilton was ordered to do so by the team management. The upshot was a severe penalty in Hamilton's starting position in the naxt GP, the one in Malaysia, and Ron Dennis leaving Mercedes-McLaren and turning the management of the team over to Nigel Whitemarsh. Dennis has stayed on as CEO of the co-ordinate McLaren company that is developing a new supecar for the street to replace the legendary F1.

In the meantime, Nelson Piquet, Jr. was let go by the Renault Team. He had been Fernando Alonso's junior driver but had not qualified nor finished very well in the past couple of years. Well, it turned out that he and the Re nault team had a dirty little secret from the Singapore GP last year, the only win for Renault or for Alonso. Piquet went to the FIA and told them that he had been ordered to crash his car on the 13th lap to bring out the safety car and a full track yellow. This allowed Alonso to make up for time and track position lost in an early pit stop. Here, below, is a good discussion of the matter:
http://blog.taragana.com/sports/2009/09/21/renault-receives-suspended-ban-from-f1-in-crash-scandal-briatore-banned-30591/

As I said, it goes on. The really interesting thing is that Finnish ex-rally champion Ari Vaatanen is running to replace Mosley as president of the FIA. His opponent is ex-CEO of Ferrari, Jean Todt. Vaatanen has already accused the FIA of secretly supporting Todt's bid. Of course both Todt and the FIA deny this, but read the following and decide for yourselves:
http://www.autoblog.com/tag/fiapresident/

Hugh Fuller · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 185

With the final GP yet to be run at Abu Dhabi, both the drivers' and the manufacturers' championships were decided yesterday in Brazil at Sao Paolo. Although Mark Webber and Red Bull-Renault won the race, Jenson Button placed his Brawn-Mercedes high enough and none of his rivals were close enough so that he clinched both of the championships. It was a weird race, however, It had oured rain on Saturday and the track was washed clean so that it was, in effect, a "green" track on Sunday. The first corner of the first lap was, therefore, quite a scene of confusion with cars going off every whichaway and acting like dodge-em cars at an amusement park What a mess!
http://formula-one.speedtv.com/

One interesating bit is that Ferrari has apparently bought out the last year of Kimi Räikkönen's 3 year contract with them so that they can let him go and hire Fernando Alonso to replace him. They apparently believe that Felipe Massa will have recovered from his terrible accident in practice for the Hungarian GP and be able to return.