F1 takes to the road September 27, 2009
Posted by richard in : Motorsport , 2commentsDriving to work every day – well, it’s just like being an F1 driver, isn’t it.
Hmm. Not something you’d normally think on the commute around the Wolverhampton Ring Road. But really, take out the glamour and the grid girls, and the two processes are very similar.
See, even if you’re Lewis Hamilton, what you actually want is not to get the tail out each and every time, catching it with an act of God (and do check out 0.50 and 1.30 here…) No, you want consistency.
It’s actually quite boring, this F1 driving lark. What you’re aiming to have is no surprises, just metronomic consistency, lap after lap – same lines, same feelings, same response, same position of the car on the track each and every time. Yes, being fast is, really, rather dull and formulaic. (Ahem.)
Just like, really, your drive to work. you go on the same road each and every day. Do the same things. Use the same gears.
So, tomorrow, why not try analysing this, as an F1 driver would do?
Consider your lines. Think about the placement of the car. Monitor what the car’s doing, and compare with what it did yesterday. Try and pick out exactly the same lines, exactly the same potholes to kiss with the rear wheel.
Ensure you have an entire month of seeing exactly the same rpm when exiting that second-gear bend after the railway bridge.
You want the same lines, the same feelings, the same response, the… well, you get the idea. Ah, you may ask, but what about traffic? Ah indeed, but F1 drivers are not immune to this either. Their skill comes in how they solve it, to get the car back on the ideal as fast and as loss-free as possible.
Believe me, it’ll transform your drive to work. Yes, you’ve followed exactly the same route for 8 years, which probably adds up to, ooh, 2000 ‘laps’. But that’s only what Hamilton, pre testing ban, would have done in testing at Jerez.
No, take F1 to the roads instead. (But maybe without doing this sort of stuff in the 318d, perhaps…)
Internet of Things joins motorsport
Why do people hate the Lotus Elan?
Why Barry Ferguson should look to Lewis Hamilton April 4, 2009
Posted by richard in : Uncategorized , 2commentsSO, you screwed up. You did something that’s regrettable, for which public mood rightly pings against you.
What do you do?
A: Hold a press conference, where you bravely face the cameras and admit you were wrong?
B: Say nothing, but later flick the V’s to the same said cameras?
Lewis Hamilton chose route A. Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor chose route B.
Today, who has rightful respect and an international career – and who may be dumped out of their respective sport altogether?
I don’t know the ins and outs of why Ferguson and McGregor stayed up all night in the bar. I also don’t know why Hamilton and Ryan withheld info to the race stewards.
In fact, in the Hamilton case, I’d wager there’s not a person the world who fully yet understands all that’s going on.
But, in the aftermath, only one person has emerged with his dignity and respect bulging.
And that takes guts.
F1 insight – Lewis Hamilton speaks
Lewis Hamilton radiogate April 3, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 2commentsANOTHER day, another take on radiogate. Seems Hamilton and team manager Dave Ryan told fibs to the stewards.
Yesterday, of course, I thought the FIA was mad. Just what was this ‘evidence’ being withheld?
After all, hadn’t we all seen him on TV, telling us that he’d discussed over the radio about what to do with Trulli? Cut and dried, we thought. The boy done no wrong. Here was the FIA, continuing its McLaren witch-hunt.
How odd, though, that McLaren didn’t protest it. Oh well. Then, this morning, McLaren suspended team manager Dave Ryan. Eye up.
Then, a contrite Hamilton apologised and, with admirable sincerity, told us he wasn’t a liar. What the? Why? Because, they didn’t quite tell the truth.
They’d only gone and ‘forgotten’ to tell the FIA about these radio conversations. Ah. A decision that was made just before they met with the stewards, but after Hamilton had spoken to ‘us’, via TV.
Ah indeed.
What on earth they were thinking, nobody knows. Suddenly, though, the FIA looks blameless. Merely the moral upholder of the law. But it still can’t be pleased with how things have turned out (there’s the bleedin’ obvious stated).
See, to fans, it’s all a bit sniffy, this whole situation. Why have we had to wait so long? Why could it in the end come down to someone telling porkies? Don’t they have computers, and tech, and, well, all sorts of gadgets? Don’t they monitor the team radios?
This is F1, for heaven’s sake. Pinnacle of world motor racing. Can the world really have been misled by a chap and his colleague not telling the whole truth to some other chaps? Really?
It’s took me this long to work it out, and I follow F1. For the casual F1 fan, listening to the news, they’ll be utterly, utterly baffled.
Guess that could all be part of the FIA’s plan, though. Hold back, hold back, become the whipping boys for a while, then – bam. The truth is, McLaren’s at fault. It’s serious. Fans have been misled. They had to be excluded.
I just wonder, though. Thinking about it, this week’s machinations look like yet another FIA political masterstroke.
Hats off to it, in one respect.
Pity the sport part of F1 seems to have been forgotten, by all concerned, though.
Mini owners sought for display
F1 insight – Lewis Hamilton speaks April 2, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 2commentsFIA decisions are generally illogical, as the latest McLaren saga proves.
But, at least motorsport’s governing body is, in the process of further befuddling F1, taking fans a bit closer to the background action – by publishing a delicious insight on its website.
The lunacy of wrecking yet another race and making the sport look a laughing stock in front of the world yet again apart, the audio excerpt it’s just published is pretty intriguing.
It uncovers conversations between Lewis Hamilton and the team, during the closing stages of the Australian Grand Prix.
You have to admit, looked at from a single-minded, closed-opinion viewpoint, they’re pretty illuminating. But do they clear the situation up for race fans, never mind the general public? Do they show the common sense behind the FIA’s decision?
Not at all. And so commences another weekend’s F1-McLaren-FIA-Hamilton-gate.
My take? The FIA is barmy. It’s placed great weight on what Hamilton said – but, really, you can’t take as Gospel something a driver said immediately after a race. I wasn’t party to the post-race inquiry, but surely ’someone keeping secrets’ shouldn’t be an issue?
Besides, didn’t Toyota decide not to appeal?
But whatever the actual rights and wrongs, look at it from all the new BBC viewers. Who may have sampled F1 for the first time. And, may now, be considering it a bit of a farce. In what other sport would this happen?
It’s not the last we’ve heard of it, though. Certainly, on that, I’m more sure than race goers thinking they’d seen a definitive result last weekend were.
