It’s April the first so if you see any unlikely-looking F1 headlines you know why…
Links
Put your money on Michael Schumacher walking away early (The Times)
Just two races in and already some people are writing off Schumacher.
Tickets are now on sale for the new race on the 2010 calendar, check out the official website here.
Comment of the day
K wants some changes to the Predictions Championship to improve the show:
I think something should be done about the predictions championship for next year. I seriously think you need to improve the show. Maybe medals instead of points, I think that would help the layperson relate to it better.
We need to see more overtaking, maybe if we handicapped the top ten by forcing them to keep there predictions from the week before. A changed prediction should result in a ten place drop. How about every time they double the last persons score they get some kind of a penalty because there’s just no skill in doubling the the last person’s score any more.
K
Site updates
Just a minor update – you can now find all the F1 race and qualifying results for this year with a single click via the F1 2010 Season tab at the top of the page.
And the Malaysian round of the Predictions’ Championship is open. You can make your predictions here. As ever you have until the start of final practice on Saturday to make your predictions.
Happy birthday!
No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
Lewis Hamilton may have had a rough weekend in Melbourne this year but his last visit wasn’t much fun either.
On this day last year the FIA announced it was opening a new investigation to determine whether Hamilton has purposefully let Jarno Trulli pass him during a safety car period, and then lied about it.
Lenny
1st April 2010, 0:38
Aussie police have released CCTV footage of Hamiltons burnout: http://tinyurl.com/yeto93c
TommyC
1st April 2010, 1:01
i got excited…
Joey-Poey
1st April 2010, 4:31
“This video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”
LAAAAAAAME
GeeMac
1st April 2010, 6:45
So lame! Darn corporates stopping me watching Lewis doing burnouts!!!
LewisC
1st April 2010, 0:43
That comment of the day is brilliant. :D
HG
1st April 2010, 6:12
yes, that comment is brilliant
djdaveyp
1st April 2010, 0:53
Loved it too. He should officially be re-named Bernie Ecclestone!
LookingSpiffy
1st April 2010, 0:58
If he’s changing his name midway through the season, he should start from the pitlane for the next 10 posts. Wearing a silly hat.
Lenny
1st April 2010, 1:13
He’ll have to make do with “K Bernie Ecclestone” just like “BMW Sauber Ferrari”!
VXR
1st April 2010, 1:15
It will shortly be announced that Max Mosley is to be made F1 Commissioner!
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=40359
hmmm….*checks calendar*
Prisoner Monkeys
1st April 2010, 3:53
If it were any other website, I’d agree that it’s a bad April Fool’s joke. But since it’s Spitpass “reporting” it, they’re no doubt serious about it.
macahan
1st April 2010, 2:11
Hublot appointed official F1 watchmaker??
Just happen to run across that one. I guess Bernie don’t want F1 to be for regular people? The cheapest I found a Hublot watch was $1700 but most between $7 and $20k. Someone lost his marbles.. lol..
David A
1st April 2010, 3:42
Better than having, say Casio lol
Joey-Poey
1st April 2010, 4:33
*hides wrist*
>.>
Mike
1st April 2010, 9:32
Can’t work out this watch business, I mean, I have a Casio, It tells the time, It even lights up when it’s dark, I mean, what more could you want?
And in the defence of Casio, My dad recently told me that his watch had broken, I think, it was close to 30 years old perhaps. Oo
Maybe I’ll understand when I’m wealthy…
Joey-Poey
1st April 2010, 17:31
No, I’m with you. Same goes for $100 writing pens.
US_Peter
1st April 2010, 6:06
I thought the same thing. Seems like a strange move for a sport that already has problems being perceived as elitist. A company like Nixon would’ve been a better choice. They make both classy and racy watches and their attitude would be a better fit for race car drivers…
Plink Plonk Plunk
1st April 2010, 4:14
anyone know who holds the record for most consecutive pole’s?
David A
1st April 2010, 4:22
Senna, with 8 consecutive poles.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st April 2010, 8:05
See, you wouldn’t get that question answered more quickly on any other F1 site :-)
bob
1st April 2010, 8:19
Montoya had about 7 i think, with none win in 2002
Macca
1st April 2010, 4:52
Hey guys,
I’m back from my trip to the Australian GP. As an F1 fan, that was probably the best race I have seen in a long long time, as a Mark Webber fan it was a giant middle finger.
A belated thanks to all of you who sent birthday wishes for my birthday on Sunday, the GP was the best present I could have gotten.
P.S. Keith I took a heap of photo’s (including one of my siting with Lewis Hamiltons 2008 championship winning car), so if you want I can send them to you.
IDR
1st April 2010, 5:29
Yes please, I’m pretty sure he wants your pics…
and the rest of us also!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st April 2010, 8:42
Hi Macca – please do: http://www.dropio/f1fanatic
Macca
1st April 2010, 11:26
Ok, I’ll do it sometime over the weekend.
wasiF1
1st April 2010, 8:17
It’s true that Schumacher is struggling a bit with his performance but I don’t think he will go away from racing without completing the year, even Ross of the sponsors won’t allow that.
Mike
1st April 2010, 12:54
Michael doesn’t seem like the type to just give up, and I think, it is a Naive view.
It seems to me that most of the “will Michael give up” talk is coming from the media…
The only way I can see him not completing the year at the very least is another injury, unlikely in my opinion.
DGR-F1
1st April 2010, 17:26
I think we have to ask why Old Schuey is struggling with his performance:
Are the years out of the ‘Show’ taking their toll and hes still not getting it right?
Is the switch from Ferrari, after being there for so long, to Mercedes, even with Ross there, not as easy going as it appears?
Is his neck injury still playing up, but nobody is officially talking about it?
So, OK, he is not the type to just give up after a few races in the season, but he’s already banged wheels in an attempt to pass another car, and I think he loses his momentum in a race after a while stuck in the traffic, (unlike Hammy and Alonso who just get on with passing everybody), so he may get bored, frustrated etc and then begin to return to his antics of old, which will either get him banned or sacked….
JProc
1st April 2010, 8:19
I was extra alert reading todays round-up…..not been fooled yet :D
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st April 2010, 8:35
Nico Hülkenberg getting in on the April Fool’s Day fun:
http://www.nicohulkenberg.net/index.php/en/the-news/93-leading-article
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st April 2010, 8:41
And we’ve got a Finnish site reporting F1 cars will have three wheels in future:
http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/f1/uutiset.shtml/arkistot/f1/2010/04/1090849
rfs
1st April 2010, 8:47
Why can’t they be more subtle, like pitpass with that Max Mosley headline.
Mike
1st April 2010, 10:11
I’ve got bad news for you….
UneedAFinn2Win
1st April 2010, 13:50
That actually kinda reminds me of the supposed deltawing entry for IRL in 2012, with the frontwheel(s)in the middle.
http://deltawingracing.com/2010/02/photo-gallery-1/
Hallard
1st April 2010, 15:34
That deltawing car is a hideous, phallic torpedo. What a perversion of the open wheeled race car concept.
K
1st April 2010, 9:38
lol Comment of the Day.
I guess the law of probability was in my favour.
It’s funny, if you apply how F1 is run to other sports the ridiculousness of it all becomes very apparent, take Italian football for instance.
Italian football is very boring. The show needs to be improved. We need more goals so we should make the goals bigger and we should ban goal keepers. Goals from out side the area are spectacular so they should be worth 2 to encourage them. And there’s not enough skill any more so we should make the balls smaller and oval shaped. Modern football boots are too high tech and provide too much grip so we should make them play in bare feet. 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw is to great a gap which allows the winners to run away with the championship so to keep it closer we need 25 points for a win and 17 points for a draw.
PJA
1st April 2010, 10:02
Autosport is reporting that outboard mirrors will be banned from China onwards.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82572
Tom
1st April 2010, 10:52
Outboard motors are still allowed though:
Monsoon-like rain right now at the Sepang circuit as it has been every day at this time (17.30) this week
Magnificent Geoffrey
1st April 2010, 11:31
Tom, this particular comment provoked a minor involuntary reaction within – quite commonly referred to in a colloquial sense, as “lol”.
Maciek
1st April 2010, 15:54
Keith – any progress with the forum…?
Icthyes
1st April 2010, 16:07
Actually, I kinda like not having the forum anymore. Most F1 issues are regularly discussed by Keith in his articles, and if we have anything for people to see we can just link and discuss it here in the round-up.
Sure would like my Gravatar back, though!
steph
1st April 2010, 16:44
“Sure would like my Gravatar back, though!”
Yeah I miss my Massa gravatar, PM’s Virgin logo, Ned changing his Flanders picture every so often :P
It’s worth the wait though as the site is really growing.
As for the duplicate comments and threads Keith, it was an issue but if you’re still using mods could they delete them? Or would there be a way for the creators of the thread to be able to delete it?
Although I’ve pretty much forgot about the forum as it’s been so long and your articles are top quality so they’re distraction enough!
Maciek
1st April 2010, 17:34
I don’t miss the occasional antagonism, that’s for sure; but I do miss people posting off the wall topics/questions/pics + there’s something about the forum environment that seems to make the discussions more lively.
Just saw Keith’s response below. If it means a quality forum, it’ll be worth waiting for.
PJA
1st April 2010, 17:38
While one of the problems with forums is the duplication of discussions, I don’t think it was that much of a problem on the F1 Fanatic forum.
It also allowed for off topic discussions and posts. The trouble with using the daily round-up to post links and start debates which are not covered in other articles is that it can be easy to miss them and they won’t stay active as long.
I have found myself wanting to start a few debates or ask some questions which I felt would be more suited to the forum as they didn’t really relate to any current articles.
I think a good example of something which seemed more suited to the forum was the long running topic during the off season on who would drive where in 2010.
Like Maciek, after reading Keith’s comment I would rather wait for a forum with no problems which doesn’t compromise the site.
IDR
1st April 2010, 16:24
I think the time to understand (and accept) the forum will never return has already came some time ago.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st April 2010, 16:30
It’s not quite that bad – I would like it back but at the moment there are other technical things to fix that are more pressing. The only solutions to bring the forum back right now would be to go back to the old server or to use a new type of forum software, both of which would compromise site quality and performance and I’m not prepared to do that.
But I have to say Icthyes makes a good point about the problem with the forum – we did get an awful lot of duplication. There were often threads started on the forum that duplicated blog content, and people posting comments on the blog that were just copy/pastes of what they’d written on the forum.
BasCB
1st April 2010, 21:12
Still, i hope you can find a suitable solution to bring the Forum on line again.
I really miss discussing various car liveries, technical details, discussion on race weekends or just general F1 or racing related discussions.
Maybe the threads could just be linked to from arcticles/statements starting (so if somebody would want to start a thread, let them write a short introduction with a statement or theme) them to help posters to discuss in the right place?
BasCB
1st April 2010, 21:06
If Pitpass is right, i have to agree with the no-name representative of a F1 team. Let us just hope this is a 1st april joke.
Otherwise Todt is in for a lot of “disapprove” next time and i expect some F1-fallout as well – looking forward to the horse whisperer getting some intelligent piece on this ;-)
Tom L.
2nd April 2010, 8:43
The 1st April is also the birthday of that F1 legend, Shinji Nakano…
Chaz
7th April 2010, 16:18
“Put your money on Michael Schumacher walking away early” has been in the back of my mind but I would prefer he did not…