Thought on the Final race of the 2007 F1 season

This could be Ralf Schumacher's last race in F1.

What to watch this weekend

Obviously, the F1 Race at Interlagos.
Champ Car, drawing out there sparse schedule as much as possible, is finally racing again, this time at Surfer's Paradise in Australia. Will it be televised?
MotoGP, though the championship is already decided in Stoner's favor, is racing in Malaysia.
The American LeMans Series has the season finale at Laguna Seca on Saturday.

Mmmm DVR.

Brazillian GP Pick'em

Pick'em for Brazillian GP to be finished before practice on Friday.

Surely the most important Pick'em of the season.

My name is on the KR212V for Valencia

Enter your name and e-mail address at the Team Roberts website and they will print your name on the teams single Honda KR212V for the final round of the MotoGP season at Valencia. Submit your name, then root for the ginger kid Kurtis Roberts to finish somewhere besides last place!

http://www.teamkr.com/index.cfm?p=bikelogo

Chineese GP Pick'em

Post before tomorrow's practice. Only one more race after this!

Grand Prix of Japan Pick'em

Pick'em before Friday practice.

Simulation the name of the game

http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2007/9/6819.html

Pretty cool article on how the F1 teams are able to overcome the unknowns of a new track via existing telemetry data and computer simulation. Perhaps I should look into a career change.

Belgium GP Pickem

Late again, oh well.

Ferrari wins 2007 F1 World Championship

Well, effectively, given today's FIA decision to revoke all of McLaren's constructor points, and disallow them from scoring any more points this year. Congratulations Ferrari.

Italian GP Pickem

Post before practice, if you still care. Todd will eventually score the backlog of pickems results.

Turkish GP Pickem

Yes, it very late, but better late than never. Try and maybe post your picks before qualifying.

Bourdais in at STR for 2008

Ferrarri's president is Jean Todt. Ferrarri engines are in the STR cars. Nicholas Todt is Jean Todt's brother. The Todts and Bourdais are all Frenchmen. Bourdais is a 3 time Champ Car champion. Nicholas Todt is Bourdais' manager. Who doubted that he would get the drive with STR?

When Bourdais first found success in Champ Car, he had a stock response for journalists who asked him what it would take for him to move to F1: "A drive with a top team". Bourdais must fear that he is getting to old to puyssyfoot around in America with the likes of Katherine Legge and Rahal Jr., and has lowered his standards. Almost as low as they can go (in F1 terms).

Bourdais will partner the German infant Sebastian Vettel. What?! Two Sebastians on one team?

I think the most exciting aspect of this story is that next year's Champ Car championship will be more interesting.

Drivers Sacked

Oh dear. Scott Speed, the greatest American F1 driver of the past two years (barely beating out Marco Andretti) has been brutally sacked by the Scuderia Toro Rosso team. Scott had a physical altercation with team boss Franz Tost after retiring from the rainy European GP. Apparently that has not sat well with Red Bull and Mr. Speed has been replaced with German infant racer Sebastian Vettel. Rumor still has Sebastian Bourdais moving to the STR team, bringing with him his manager one Nicolas Todt, brother of Mr. Todt, the mousey, cagey, nail-biting president of Ferrarri.

Also sacked was a personal hero of mine, Tomas Enge. Enge would have been F3000 champion in 2002, beating Sebastian Bourdais, but was stripped of a race win after a positive drug test (for pot, no less!). Enge is a highly experienced driver, having raced 3 races with Prost F1 in 2001, GTS class winner at LeMans in 2003 with Prodrive in the Aston Martin DBR9, in the IRL with Panther, A1GP Czech Republic Team, and most recently, the Peterson/White Lightning Ferrarri F430 in the ALMS.

Tomas first got himself into trouble (again) at the ALMS race in Lime Rock a few weeks ago, when trying to pass one of the Risi Ferraris he ended up taking out all the Ferrarris in the race in one fell swoop. He was put on suspension and was under the microscope at the next race in Mid -Ohio. There he collided again with Risi's Mika Salo, while attempting to pass him after following him for a handful of laps, clearly faster. Salo came back at Enge in the next turn, deliberately spinning him off into the grass. Both drivers were penalized, Salo later calling Enge and "idiot" and saying he should be "banned" from the series on TV. Now, Enge is officially out of the Peterson/White Ligntning team, replaced by some loser who probably doesn't get stoned.

Video of the Enge/Salo incident can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bbwrEC4k-E

F1 Pick'em Results and Hungarian GP Postings

First off, let's use this posting for the Hungarian GP pick'ems - so leave a comment here.

I found an error in the pickem results for the British GP
The actual results were:

Todd - 56
Evolute - 49
Tyler - 46
Mike - 38

Onto the results for the European GP.

Todd - 38
Tyler - 37
Evolute - 28
Mike - 27

Todd has taken the lead!

Championship standing are:
Todd - 177
Evolute - 167
Tyler - 156
Mike - 128

Sorry about the formatting, blogspot's tables don't work right. Sooner than later we'll move to a site that gives us a little more power.

If anybody would like a copy of the spreadsheet i'm using to calculate the scores for auditing purposes let me know.

F1 Silly Season

Its the halfway point of the season, time to talk about who should be fired, who should be hired, etc. We'll revisit this topic every couple of weeks, as rumors fly and contracts are signed.

Ferrari
1. Kimi
2. Massa

I don't think these will change.

McLaren
1. Alonso
2. Hamilton

Nor will these, unless Alonso really is upset about Hammy and bolts to some other team.

BMW
1. Heidfeld?
2. Kubica?

Will one of these drivers be replaced by Vettel?

Renault
1. Fisi
2. Heikki

I think Heikki will be replaced with current test driver Piquet Jr.

Toyota
1. Trulli
2. Ralf

I think Trulli will stay on, Ralf will be dropped. He could be replaced with pretty much anyone and Toyota would be a better team for it.

RBR
1. Coulthard
2. Webber

I believe both these drivers are confirmed for next year. What was that about Red Bull's youthful image? And their young driver development program?

Williams
1. Wurz
2. Rosberg

Rosberg will probably stay, Wurz will probably be replaced. You never really know with Williams though.

Honda
1. Rubens
2. Jenson

Both these drivers were recently confirmed for next year.

STR
1. Liuzzi
2. Speed

One of these drivers will stay on, one will be replaced, I think.

SuperAguri
1. Davidson
2. Sato

Sato will surely be back. Davidson has disappointed so far this season.

Spyker
1. Jesus
2. محمد (Muhammad)

Who cares really. Albers is out already.


Comment away. Again, wild speculation and rumormongering is encouraged.

Learn CFD, get a job with Honda F1

This is a joke, but I did find an online set of lectures for an "Introduction to CFD" class. These lectures assume knowledge of partial differential equations, so, uh, I guess evolute could maybe make sense of them...

In Praise of Sponsorship...

A substantial portion of the motorsport-related press releases which I wade through on a daily basis are merely mechanisms for one of a team's sponsors to try and increase awareness of their not-quite-racing-related products or services. Today I came across a press release from Sandisk, a sponsor of the Ducati MotoGP team, advertising their new SanDisk Extreme® Ducati Edition line of the now ubiquitous technological artifacts known as memory cards. Supposedly these are the fastest memory cards available, like the 800cc Ducati has been fastest in most of this season's sessions.

This has led me to review in my memory some other fine examples of race team sponsorship being used to sell products to race fans. These rage from the magnificent (Mclaren Mercedes SLR - $450,000) to the slightly interesting (Acer Ferrari Laptop - $2,000) to the absolutely absurd (ING Renault Aeromesh cufflinks - $190). Doubtless I am unaware of the true extent to which corporate sponsors take advantage of a racing team's name and status to promote their products.

In my dream world race teams would not obfuscate the beautiful lines of their cars with logos and text, yet the team's budgets would still be as prodigious as they are in the real world. Oh well. I suppose I'll do my part and buy one of these awesome Ducati Sandisk USB keys. It looks like a fuel tank!

Goodbye USGP

OK, so we've been slacking. As mike hinted earlier - the USGP will not be on the 2008 schedule! I have mixed emotions about this one. It hurts to see F1 removed from America, but damn it feels good for someone to stick it to Tony George.

Sadly, I'm not sure America has another venue with the facilities to host another F1 race anytime soon. If anyone out there reading this is filthy loaded and looking for a new benefactor in their will, please consider 'The Glen'.

GP of Europe Pick'em

Post your top 8!

British GP Pick'em Results

Todd, Tyler, and Evolute are penalized 10 pts each for late entry.
Which makes the results:

Mike ..... 37
Tyler ..... 37
Todd ..... 37
Evolute .. 33

Tie goes to Mike, British GP Pick'em champ!
The Pick'em championship battle is heating up! Don't forget the Grand Prix of Europe - just a fortnight away.