Catching up with Ross Brawn (Autocar)
"'They were clearly surprised at this because their view was that the team was unsaleable. Equally, the notion of a management buy-out is something virtually unknown in Japanese business circles.' Thank heavens Ross introduced to the concept, is all I can say."
And hopefully someone's explained it to Toyota as well.
Q & A with Franz Tost (Autosport)
We have to design the car by ourselves, we have to build the car as well and the infrastructure still needs to be improved. This will take time. We just have to wait and see. I can only hope that the experience of the designers is good enough and they will do a good job. The rest we will see. Top teams have sometimes brought out a not fantastic car. I hope that we as a small team can do a good job and bring a car to the racetrack that can achieve good positions from the beginning.
Toyota still committed to NASCAR (Autosport)
Toyota on why they're leaving F1 but staying in NASCAR: "I think there's a message there that should go globally to every motorsports contention around the world. It's not only cost containment based on the current economic challenges that we all face, but just keeping motorsports relevant to fans and looking at green elements, entertainment factors and competition and so on. There's a lot involved with keeping motorsports a sport, but also making it an entertainment that attracts fans. NASCAR's done a great job on that, they're doing a great job in leading the way and looking forward and at this point in time we're very, very pleased with our relationship with them and the direction that they're taking."
Time to follow Toyota’s lead and give F1 the swerve (The Guardian)
"Toyota's withdrawal leaves the sport with no Japanese team after Honda left Formula One at the end of 2008, while Toyota became the third manufacturer to quit in the last 11 months after BMW announced it was leaving in July. Such news is enough to warm the cockles of those who can only pray that it is the beginning of the end for Formula One as a sport, if such it is." Not a point of view I have much sympathy for…
Lewis’s post-season Q&A (Lewis Hamilton)
"Coming out of the Nurburgring hairpin and heading uphill into the fast esses, I accidentally left my radio switched on, and the whole team could hear me yelling and screaming because the car felt so good! I felt a bit embarrassed afterwards, especially when Martin told me he’d played the recording back to the whole team! But I can see now that that was important for everyone’s morale."
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from the pit lane (BBC)
"[Brawn] did some development work on the car, but by the time of the Turkish Grand Prix in early June, Brawn took a gamble. He believed the car had enough in hand to win the championship, so told his design engineers to switch their attentions to the 2010 car. Brawn told us that they only switched wind-tunnel attention back to the 2009 car for one week between mid-summer and the end of the season when they realised they might need a bit more performance to secure the championship. All the other time was spent on next year's car."
Daily Telegraph wins libel case brought by daughter of Bernie Ecclestone (The Guardian)
"The Daily Telegraph has today won a libel case brought by Petra Ecclestone, daughter of Formula 1 owner Bernie, over a report in the paper's Mandrake diary column."
These are links I’ve bookmarked using Delicious. You can see my Delicious profile here.
Rikadyn
10th November 2009, 1:59
Maybe cause NASCAR requires nothing from Toyota other than a small check to a couple teams, seeing as the cars are spec, the engines aren’t built by toyota, all they do is produce sticker packages…
Prisoner Monkeys
10th November 2009, 4:48
Attn: Steve Bierley
Grow a pair. I don’t like puppies or communism, but I don’t try and hide my prejudices behind my journalistic credentials. I’m not actually a journalist, so I’m forced to be upfront about it, but even if I was, I would not pretend to be a greener version of Jeremy Clarkson.
On the other hand, if all of your work is constructed out of vaguely-connected buzzwords that have been roughly arranged into sentences – like 95% of the filler in your article (which, in turn, made up about 95% of the article itself) – then I’m clearly crediting you with an over-abundance of schooling.
Are the end of the day, what I’m really asking is this: do you actually believe what you’re writing (if so, more power to you), or are you just using a politico-environmental soapbox as your ticket out of obscurity? Reading the other stuff that you’ve attached to the article, like Andre Agassi – why? I cannot think of a person with less of a connection to Formula One other than the Pope – it’s clear that you fall into the latter of the two categories.
A tip for later in life: don’t just regurgitate public sentiment onto the page and call it your own opinion, and then make your actual opinions out to be some kind of common belief even when no-one agrees with you. You are not the vox populi. It’s unattractive, and from reading the comments attached to your article, nobody agrees with you. Go back to whatever tabloid newspaper or current affairs programme you came from, because at the very least, you’ll have an audience more suited to your level of intellect.
Okay, you stop reading there. Everyone else with an IQ above room temperature, continue:
Go back to whatever tabloid newspaper or current affairs programme you came from, because at the very least, you’ll have an audience more suited to your level of intellect. This is largely due to the fact that they lack the capacity to form their own opinions, and will just substitute yours as their own. But at least you’ll feel appreciated.
Prisoner Monkeys
10th November 2009, 4:50
Short verion:
You really don’t have the resources to be giving out pieces of your mind, because you might need that for regulating your body temperature or remembering how to breathe.
F1Yankee
10th November 2009, 7:33
wow, that article really was crap.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
10th November 2009, 9:09
Thing is, this article apart, the Guardian’s F1 coverage is pretty good. I enjoy Richard Williams’ columns.
Becken
10th November 2009, 5:20
Interesting about Toyota is that I read that they are just tryint to ruin NASCAR:
HERE the link to the rest of the article.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
10th November 2009, 9:08
This is why I never bother with Bleacher Report stuff. I don’t care if some random bloke in America hates Japanese manufacturers.
steph90
10th November 2009, 8:52
I’ve always reserved a special hatred for The Guardian but this is absurd.
This ‘journalist’ has probably just read the other drivvel what usually comes out of the tabloids regarding Formula 1 and thought ‘oh my opinion is much better’ and has had the arragance and ignorance to spout off thinking they know what they are talking about.
Anyone could rant for half an hour about how much they hate something. Grab a kid from the playground and they’ll do it for free and probably put forward their ideas much better. So why on earth this paper would think it would be a good idea is beyond me. Why does this person feel they are in a position to talk down to us about our sport when we actually have at least some understanding of what is going on?
To anyone else in the world who would cheer this writer on: if you don’t like F1 fine there are a million other channels to watch but don’t project your prejudice on us because after this initial outrage we’ll all have calmed down and realise something- your opinion counts for nothing to us. You’ve failed. We won’t buy your paper and so your writing may as well not exist.
If you want a debate about f1 then come on have one I’m all for it there are flaws in f1 but don’t get on your soap box and tell me what to watch. I hate cricket but others can enjoy it and good for them! Let people have their pleasures in life it doesn’t hurt anyone else!
F1 excites and is a whole new world, Top gear is escapism. Clearly if people want to spend so long having a go at it they need some relief. It sounds like they are having a pretty miserable time.
As for green issues, fine make the world greener but do it and don’t spout off. I’m sick of everyone being taxed for green issues, now having media control and that stupid advert to scare children that the world will end in a massive flood (we do have that advert now in Britain). Stop going on about electric cars-they are a quick fix and if time was actually invested maybe hydrogen would be better.
It’s hilariously ironic how there is sarcasm aimed at New Labour and Mandelson- you are cut from the same cloth. You both want to control us and you are both going to fail.
I apologise to my fellow fanatics as my argument has been nowhere near as good as Prisoner Monkeys but I felt I had to say something and that’s good because on this site we can debate. It isn’t totalitarian and we consider each others opinions and are willing to accept mistakes and other sides of the story. That is why I love this site and why The Guardian will never again be on my screen or the paper in my house.
I would also like to apologise for grammar and typos as I’m about to rush out the door and when I typed the red mist had came down, I was slightly irritated to say the least
:PIcthyes
19th November 2009, 10:13
Hear, hear!
Phil T
15th November 2009, 19:41
Steve Bierly – Tit