During last week's show, we talked about McLaren's latest initiative to engage fans, by asking them to design the next McLaren hoody - one that would actually be sold in the McLaren eShop. Merchandise created by the fans for the fans. Excellent idea.
The team haven't stopped there, though, reaching out that one step further by inviting Steve at the McLaren Fan Blog to hold the official vote to decide the winner.
We've seen fan submission ideas before, particularly from Jenson Button, who has previously asked fans to design a Christmas Card and his helmet. They have been a little less interactive though, with submissions disappearing into the ether to be selected presumably by JB himself. McLaren are letting us make the final decision.
Thumbs up to the team, then, and now it's over to you. Who will you vote for? I don't want to sway your vote at all, but we do have submissions from two people of Sidepodland - designs from two of our favourite commenters Lou and Lukeh are up for your clicks.
I am intensely jealous of people who can design things, although to my eyes, some of them seem as though they already exist. It's probably just the red and silver look, though. Either way, I can't wait to see who wins, and I'm off to vote right now. If you haven't already, make time to do it now, and we'll report back with the winner!
Kimi Räikkönen bounced back during the second day of the Arctic Lapland Rally to come within 0.8s per km of his more experienced team mate Dani Sordo. Day one, saw the Finn lose 30 minutes of running after he came off worst in an argument with a tree.
Credit: Tony Welam/ Red Bull
A smiling Kimi Räikkönen enjoys his time in ice and snow of Lapland. Far away from the world of F1 livery launches.
Räikkönen, and co-driver Kaj Lindström escaped unhurt from Friday's incident, but couldn't make up lost time before the end of the event on Saturday. The pair eventually finished in 58th position, but Kimi declared himself happy with how things had gone for them:
"We put a few more kilometres under our belt, which was vital to help us continue learning the C4 WRC. As well as being pleased by our performances I was also pleased by the way we were able to work with the team."
The Arctic Rally offered Kimi his first competitive outing in the C4 WRC and his Citroën team treated the event as test session in preparation for Rally Sweden, the first round of the 2010 World Rally Championship which begins next month.
If you are interested in seeing more from Lapland, Christine has compiled a gorgeous collection of large photographs in her F1 Big Picture - Kimi Special while the following video offers some insight into how much fun the Finn had in the snow.
All Posts in The Series: 2010 Arctic Lapland Rally
The Arctic Lapland Rally begins today Friday, and that's of particular interest to F1 fans, as a certain Mr. Kimi Räikkönen will be tackling the icy roads in his first rally outing since exiting the Formula 1 scene. Kimi will be driving a C4 WRC for the Citroen Junior team.
Credit: Vesa Koivunen/Red Bull
Kimi Räikkönen finds some air testing for the Arctic Lapland Rally.
Kimi's co-driver for the event will be Kaj Lindström, with whom he took part in last year's Arctic Rally. During that outing the pair finished in 13th place, although their car of choice was a Fiat Grande Punto S2000. Kimi's brother will be at the wheel of the little Punto this year, while the star attraction moves up to the WRC class chassis. Dani Sordo will drive the second car and should provide a useful benchmark with which to compare our Finnish hero.
Speaking prior to the event, Kimi said:
"This rally is a very good opportunity for me to work with the team in competitive conditions and continue my learning curve with the car."
Those in the know, suggest Räikkönen's best hope will come in the super special tonight. He finished 4th there last year.
Keep an eye on Live Timing for up to the minute information. While an overview of the Arctic Rally can be found on the official site.
All Posts in The Series: 2010 Arctic Lapland Rally
Last year, we debuted the sing-a-long Christmas Carol in the shape of The 12 Days of F1 Christmas. It featured nine willing volunteers, 12 lines of song, and quite a lot of laughing. It was chaos, the singing was questionable, but it was great fun, and we want to recreate that tonight.
As mentioned a couple of times across various Sidepodmedia, we're attempting our second annual live streaming party tonight, in which there will be some singing, and you will be getting involved.
We're posting this reminder of the original Sidepodchristmas Carol because firstly, you can never hear it too many times, and secondly, we know it's going to be hard to beat it and want to celebrate how good it was in 2008.
The lyrics are only slightly out of date, some of them are still quite relevant:
Twelve years of gridwalks
Eleven points for Rubens
Ten Kimi fast laps
Nine dromes from Tilke
Eight points positions
Seven different winners
Six wet races
Five Massa spins
Four Heidfeld podiums
Three maiden winners
Two teams a-leavin'
And a last corner Championship win!
Stay tuned for more information on the party, and I hope you can join us as we live stream, consume some wine, and eat mince pies. Should be a great night. Enjoy!
Our Sidepodcommunity have many talents amongst them and we do like to showcase these whenever we can. Lukeh for example is a whizz on Photoshop and if anyone has a thought about something that would make a good photo, just a word or two in the right direction and he's the man who can sort it out.
In the last few days he has come up with some brilliant work regarding Luca Badoer. You can skip down and see it at the bottom of this post if you like, but bear with me and we'll work through some of his older, but timeless works of art.
Don't Take Away My Breakaway
Let us begin with this cleverly doctored article from the BBC F1 website discussing the possibility of an F1 championship breakaway.
In case the text is not clear, the image reads:
The new FOTA-created world championship that has broken away from Formula 1 will in fact be sponsored by Breakaway Chocolate, it was revealed this evening.
Current FOTA President Luca Di Montezemolo this evening confirmed rumours that the actual breakaway was inspired by the sponsorship deal with Breakaway. Di Montezemolo told reporters "They do make a nice chocolate snack, I must admit. We at FOTA had to decide what we wanted more; Max or chocolate. It was a no-brainer."
Get Me Out of Here
Next up, we're hoping Nintendo will consider releasing this Formula One related game for the 2010 season.
You know you want a go.
Time Travel, Baby. Yeah!
We have no recollection of why or how championship leader Jenson Button took on the role of The Doctor, however, he's clearly made for the part.
Now who would he have as a companion?
Just an F1 Minute
After Jon commentated at the 2CV race at Snetterton, he found the following picture.
The sign originally read 1 minute. It makes sense for a guy to be advising the drivers of the time remaining. However, Lukeh thought maybe they needed to be made aware of a rather important podcast instead.
Sacrificial Lemming
This next image freaks me out, but Mr C said we had to include it. Recently, we introduced Steven Roy to the joy that is Lemmings, and somehow those forfeited for the greater good, turned to Heikki Kova-lemming.
Naturally, it only took a few moments for this picture to appear before our eyes.
That is all kinds of wrong.
Ooh Betty
Moving on, then, to the final and most recent installment of this crop of Lukeh greatness.
Luca Badoer has caused us all kinds of merriment for the last week or so. It's easy to feel sorry for the guy, but really, he is bringing a lot of it on himself. Mr C thought that Luca's antics last week and this reminded him a little of Michael Crawford's portrayal of Frank Spencer - a walking disaster of epic proportions. Nick also pointed out this video, showing how Luca very likely made his own way from Valencia to Spa.
Lukeh is clearly a rare and exceptional talent. His creativity has made 2009 considerably more enjoyable for us than it might otherwise have been, and for that we owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
If you've enjoyed these images, don't forget to keep a close eye on the Sidepodcast drop. You can follow Lukeh on his blog or his Twitter stream. Thank you for the laughs, Lukeh!
Here we are, then, the last of the four episodes of Alex's music radio show for the postponed Sidepodradio initiative. We've enjoyed three excellent episodes already, check them out, if you haven't already:
Many thanks to Alex for the hours he put into making these. You have brightened up an otherwise difficult weekend, and I think the entire Sidepodcommunity will join me in raising a glass to Dr Giggles' health.
If you haven't already watched the first two installments of Alex's submissions for the Sidepodradio effort, then you are in for a treat. Not only can you catch up on part 1 and part 2, but the third video is ready for you to enjoy. Sit back, relax, and revel in some music and chatter from Dr Giggles himself.
Please heap all your praises onto Alex as these videos are awesome and we are loving every minute of them. One more still to come!
We have already enjoyed one half hour music and chatter segment from Alex, and now it's time for another one. As mentioned in the previous post, these were originally created for the mammoth Sidepodradio event that has now been postponed. They were too good to just sit on our servers until we sort everything out, so here is Giggles Part Deux.
I am loving the mix of music and funny skits that Alex has come up with. The amount of effort gone in to this is remarkable!
Although we have had to postpone Sidepodradio, Alex still sent us the files he had made for his four half hour music segments. They are so amazing that it seemed a shame to waste them, so we decided that to lighten the mood, we'd share them anyway. Giggles can always make more, right?
As mentioned above, there are four of these, so expect a few more posts along later today. Our heartfelt thanks to Giggles for the amount of effort he put into these. It's brilliant!
Massa hasn't really had an easy time of it recently. Following on from his strong, but disappointing, finish to 2008, the Ferrari hasn't really been up to scratch. It's understandable that the drivers confidence might not be as sky high as you would expect but just lately, they seem to have been very downbeat about this whole racing business.
It's a surprise, particularly going into Bahrain, where Massa tends to do well, and the team have testing experience in the desert as well.
I can only imagine what Rob is saying to his young ward right now. In fact, I did imagine what he was saying, and I formed into a little ditty that you might care to listen to.
Here's my song to Massa, entitled Felipe Baby, that is intended to wish him good luck for the race tomorrow.
Hopefully that does the trick. If not, Luca di Montezemolo is in town, and that will surely make the Ferrari's fly up the order. We'll find out tomorrow!
