Sidepodcast

Daily: 23rd February 2010

Today is Tuesday, and I can't quite believe that it's almost the end of February already. That's both scary, and also very cool. The season will soon be here and I can no longer moan about the countdowns. It's close enough that counting down to the season is acceptable. Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're talking about:

• This week's F1 Debrief is all up and ready for you to listen to. We discuss plenty of news from the past week and gather a lot of lovely feedback as well. If you're keen on the outtakes, I posted a couple on the daily post yesterday, and am pointing them out here as well: Mr C can't speak and Christine can't speak.
• I also updated Christine's Rankings yesterday, in which Heikki Kovalainen got the most points. Unfortunately for him, they weren't all in the right direction. There are also notes on the Virgin Racing drivers, plus Webber gets his first (minus) points as well.
• It looks as though Stefan GP have postponed and/or cancelled the test of their new car in Portimao. Apparently the downfall is the lack of tyres, which is down to Bridgestone. The tyre supplier aren't allowed to give them F1 tyres, and couldn't get GP2 replacements in time, so for now, the Stefan test is off.

That's all for now. Don't forget to vote on the latest part of Life in the Fast Lane. We're getting towards the end of the story now, so each vote is more and more important! I will see you in the comments.

A Mixed Result for Heikki on Christine's Rankings this Week

It's been a pretty quiet week in the world of Christine's Rankings. Most of the drivers have been keeping to themselves, busy with pre-season testing. There haven't been any launches which means no major public appearances, but that doesn't mean we haven't been eagle-eyed.

Heikki Kovalainen has been brought to my attention the most. Firstly, he joined Twitter which was good news, particularly as he was tweeting from the garage in Jerez when he wasn't even driving that day. However, then he went and starred in a video for MTV3 and some of these pictures are quite scary. A horse!

Heikki isn't the only one to be moving around on the list though. Di Grassi and Glock both make a move, whilst Webber and Hulkenberg join the rankings.

There's just one more week of testing left for our drivers to get onto my radar before the season begins and the real points start flying around. Don't forget you can let me know if you spot anything I should be aware of for next week's rankings, be it video, interview or photographs. Leave a comment below, or email me christine at sidepodcast dot com.

Live: Jerez Testing - Day Seven (February 2010)

Heikki Kovalainen managed to make a bit of mess of Team Lotus' testing plans yesterday. He's scheduled for more car time today, but if I were Mike Gascoyne I'd be calling on Jarno Trulli to hop in that (slightly damaged) seat a day early.

Elsewhere in the pitlane it's all change again, as Button takes over from Hamilton, Webber's in for Vettel and Alonso will keep Massa's seat warm. Notably Kamui Kobayashi will be manhandling the Sauber C29 around what likely be a wet Jerez track, while Ferrari's man on the ground bemoans, well, everything.

On track action begins at 9am CET (8am GMT).

Circuit Information

• Track length: 4.428km
• Corners: 13
• Lap record: 1:23.135 (Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Williams, 1997)

You'll find Circuito de Jerez located in South of Spain.

Drivers and Teams Attending

The following teams and drivers are confirmed for testing on Wednesday

Useful Links

• Official Circuit Homepage
• Autosport Live
• F1 Today
• Motor 21
• The F1.com

Daily: 19th February 2010

Friday has arrived and with it comes more testing in Jerez. It looks as though it might be a little less damp out there in Spain, but since when did the weather people ever predict anything right? I've been enjoying consuming testing through our dedicated threads though, so I hope you'll join us through the day. Anyway, here are some other things we're talking about:

• The digital version of Autosport Magazine was launched yesterday, with three magazines available to peruse. We snapped up a subscription instantly, and although it isn't exactly a bargain, if you were thinking about subscribing to the paper version, definitely consider the digital version instead. You also get access to all the online stuff, including Forix, so it is well worth the money.
• Yesterday, I mentioned the US F1 rumours which are still just that at the moment. More respected sources are reporting the Argentinian newspaper thoughts, but we're still not sure of anything official. Meanwhile, Campos are getting ever closer to being bought out and it looks like former Force India employee Colin Kolles might be involved as well. I do wish these teams would sort themselves out, don't they know I have an F1 Digest Preview series to write?
• In former F1 driver news, Takuma Sato has secured himself an IndyCar drive with KV Racing, David Coulthard has said that he would like to have another test in a DTM car and apparently Mercedes are considering it, and finally Kovalainen is still keen on trying his hand at rallying despite having his work cut out with Lotus at the moment. I like to see drivers keeping busy.

There were other things I wanted to link to today, but at the time of writing Wordpress.com had spectacularly died, leaving me without some of our favourite blogs to share. Hopefully it is already back, or will be soon. I will see you in the comments.

Live: Jerez Testing - Day Six (February 2010)

Lotus F1 Racing had a fantastic first day of testing, completing 76 trouble free laps before the end of the day. Seemingly the only issue the team faced was the enforced lack of power steering, something the drivers will no doubt be keen to see resolved quickly.

Vettel in the RB6 headed the pack with a time of 1:22.5 after covering 99 laps, while at the other end of the scale Timo Glock managed just 10 laps for Virgin. They'll be hoping for much, much more today.

On track action begins at 9am CET (8am GMT).

Circuit Information

• Track length: 4.428km
• Corners: 13
• Lap record: 1:23.135 (Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Williams, 1997)

You'll find Circuito de Jerez located in South of Spain.

Drivers and Teams Attending

The following teams and drivers are confirmed for testing on Wednesday

Useful Links

• Official Circuit Homepage
• Autosport Live
• F1 Today
• Motor 21
• The F1.com

Daily: 18th February 2010

Although it was raining in Jerez yesterday, it was intermittent and that meant we saw a good bit of running, even if it wasn't representative of anything. Virgin Racing are still struggling, and they are who I am keeping my eye on today. I hope you'll join me in the dedicated testing thread to do the same (or similar for whichever team you're interested in). Elsewhere:

• We're also keeping an eye out for any US F1 related news, as the rumour mill is really hotting up that there are bad vibes coming from Peter Windsor and the team. There is nothing concrete, and it's all speculation at the moment, but this is a similar feeling to the one's that happened before Honda and before Toyota.
• In better news, KerbRider gave us some more thoughts on the upcoming season in another great guest post - this time focusing on the relationships between the drivers in the four teams we'll all be watching closely. There are some interesting thoughts in there, and it's well worth a read. The inter-team relationships are going to be super important this year, I think.
• We were curious why Lotus ran Fauzy on their first day of testing, particularly as Heikki was at Jerez, tweeting away from the garage. Apparently, the car lacked some power steering though, so perhaps Heikki didn't want to bother when the car wasn't going to be setup right? Either way, the new team did really well, certainly won the battle of the new boys in terms of first day of testing!
• Dan Brunell has published this week's Thursday Thoughts question and it's a tough one. Head on over to his site for more detail, and leave a comment or blog your response before the end of today. Don't forget to plug like crazy if you take part.

That should do it for now. Let us know what you're up to, and how you're coping with horrible Thursday, and I will see you in the comments.

F1 Debrief - I Hate Them All

• Length: 47:38 
• Size: 43.8 MB 
• File: debrief134.mp3 
• Transcript: Coming soon 
• Torrent: debrief134.torrent 

Coming up this week we discuss moonlighting, licensing issues, ideal tracks, self sponsorship, Virgin’s woes, and F1 fiction.

Intro

It's Valentine's Day and what are we doing? Making a podcast, obviously!

Good Week / Bad Week

A good week for Stefan GP because they still have the belief they will get onto the grid at some point in the first four races. Also a good week for Ron Dennis who was inducted into the Motorsport Magazine Hall of Fame. A bad week for Heikki Kovalainen who had to take a second job for Finnish TV during the Lotus launch, and for team bosses as Bernie Ecclestone would like to license them.

News and Views

Before we talk about the launches, there's a quick update on Silverstone who confirmed they would be running the new MotoGP layout for the race. Damon Hill is not impressed.

Three teams unveiled their new cars this week, with Force India the first to do so. Their online launch was barely a launch with just a few photos making an appearance. The car and livery look exactly the same as last year. Red Bull also have a similar car to last year, and also to Toro Rosso, but you can tell the (magic) hand of Adrian Newey has been on the case. Their launch was marginally better, as the car was at Jerez already.

Finally, Lotus showed them all how it was done with a real life London launch, and the green/yellow livery caused no end of debate. They also have a podcast starring none other than Ted Kravitz (and some Lotus people...).

Here's the updated table of our launch scores:

We move on to testing talk, but really it was not as exciting as last week due to the weather. Virgin Racing had a terrible time, Michael Schumacher prefers to eat at Ferrari, and they like to run out of fuel on purpose.

Feedback

I'm keen on starting a Mailbag show, but for now, two voicemails kick off the Feedback section. RG is not at all impressed with this year's liveries, whilst Adie had a minor breakdown when the doohickey malfunctioned.

Luis tells us how Formula 1 is in Portugal, Myles credits Ted, Sandy confirms he will photograph the marmots for me, Alberto talks F1 and music, and Steve points out McLaren's latest initiative for bloggers and fans. Also, happy birthday to Zoe.

Housekeeping

The wiki is in a state of disrepair at the moment but I'm working on it. Also I have started writing some fiction, in which you can vote on the outcome.

Outtakes

Not really an outtake, but something you wouldn't expect Mr C to say:

Now to the good stuff:

Linkage

• Sidepodcast: All Up in the Air (KerbRider guest post)
• Sidepodcast: F1 2010 Launch Coverage
• Lotus Podcast (iTunes link)
• CNET Mailbag
• F1 Wolf: 2010 F1 Drivers Helmets
• Air Wolf One - F1
• Claire Williams on Twitter
• McLaren Fan Blog: Help Design the New McLaren Hoody
• Sidepodcast Wiki
• Ten Step Stories

Lotus F1 Racing Launch the T127 in London

Lotus F1 Racing unveiled their 2010 challenger at a launch ceremony held at the Royal Horticultural Hall, London on Friday evening. The covers came off the car, named the T127, after an emotional introduction from team owner Tony Fernandes.

Credit: Lotus F1 Racing

Credit: Lotus F1 Racing

Mike Gascoyne on the Lotus Cosworth T127:

"The last few months have been some of the most challenging of my career, but it's been a challenge the whole team and I have thrived on since we first started work on the car up in Norfolk. I'm delighted that we’ve reached this point, and now we have a beautiful car that gives us a great base to work from for the season ahead and a fighting chance of going racing in the right way, with a winning mentality. The hard part starts now, and I know everyone in the team and I are up for whatever lies ahead."

Credit: Lotus F1 Racing

The new chassis was run briefly on Wednesday when Fairuz Fauzy tested it at Silverstone, and is set to take part in next week's F1 test in Jerez on 17 February. The T127 is powered by a Cosworth Engine and will use an Xtrac gearbox.

Daily: 12th February 2010

It's a super busy day today, as testing continues in Jerez, Lotus are due to launch in London, Kimi gets some rallying action, and... well, it's Friday! It's been a subdued test so far with weather, and little running from Virgin Racing, but perhaps things will perk up today. Elsewhere:

• Talking of rallying, we got some Fantasy WRC scores from the special stage yesterday, and it looks as though Mr C is last in the league. Haha! I shouldn't laugh really, as I didn't even know we'd set up a league, but at least I'm not last. If you're keen to get involved, please sign up - don't worry, we don't have a clue what we're doing either.
• Scott has been working at the Classic Team Lotus factory for a while now, and has seen some exciting people come and go. Yesterday, he posted a picture of himself with Kovalainen, which is just fabulous. What is up with Kovi's hair though?
• Lukeh has started a new feature on his F1 blog, in which he poses a topic, discusses whether it is a good idea or not and then asks for your opinion - Yay or Nay. The first one is about Silverstone's new layout - what do you think?

That should keep us going for a bit. I have a feeling we'll have a few threads up during the day, so I will see you in the comments.

Daily: 12th January 2010

Tuesday arrives, and it is time to wish Tom G a very happy birthday! I hope the weather isn't too bad for you, Mr Tom, and that you are not falling down anywhere! I notice there were some Tom-shaped updates on the Sporting Injuries page on the wiki - don't forget to update it if you have anything to add! Anyway, here are some of the things we're talking about:

• Alonso has been spotted out and about with his new Ferrari team, wearing some particularly striking red outfits. There are a few pictures on the drop. It's interesting that Alonso looks right at home in the red, whilst Button's appearance in his new McLaren gear was a bit of a shock. It's also good to see Massa looking so well.
• Kovalainen has been talking about who he thinks will be battling it out in 2010, and has picked out Alonso vs Hamilton for the championship fight. This is bringing back all kinds of memories from 2007, and the debate is raging in the comments once more. If Kovi is right, I hope F1 is prepared!
• Today, Michael Schumacher is getting behind the wheel of a GP2 car at Jerez in a development test for the series, which presumably also helps him continue to acclimatise to driving fast again. It's an interesting mix of the oldest driver on the grid taking part in the feeder series testing for young drivers to get into F1. I'm sure they'll be some pictures throughout the day.

That's all for now. Let us know what you're up to and how the weather is where you are, and I will see you in the comments.