Sidepodcast

Live: Jerez Testing - Day Two (February 2010)

Thursday sees the second day of testing in Jerez get underway. Teams, drivers and fans alike will almost certainly be hoping for better weather than day one produced. There's very little change on the driver front to look out for, with only Michael Schumacher and Robert Kubica the new faces in the crowd.

Yesterday saw the surprise introduction of the Williams live timing system. First day gremlins saw the site struggle to keep up with demand, but when it works it is rather fantastic. Williams weren't the only ones experiencing first days blues either, Virgin Racing managed just 5 laps on their F1 testing debut. Fingers crossed for a better run today.

Petrov had been scheduled to drive the Renault today, but good weather prompted the team to run the more experienced Kubica instead.

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
• Williams Live Timing (official timing updates)
• Autosport Live
• F1 Today
• Motor 21
• The F1.com

Keep checking back for updates, news and pictures will be posted throughout the day.

Live: Valencia Testing - Day Two (February 2010)

Following a frenetic first day of testing in Spain, Formula 1 teams continue to test at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste, Valencia today. Monday brought all forms of excitement from the unveiling of the STR5 to the return of Michael Schumacher in a modern F1 cockpit. Additionally, Mercedes GP finally allowed fans and the media to see this years W01 chassis, while Robert Kubica began his new life as a Renault driver.

Lewis Hamilton arrives today to relieve Gary Paffett of his test driving duties, while Kamui Kobayashi will settle into the C29. Is it possible that Tuesday could be even more chaotic?

On track action begins at 10am CET (9am GMT).

Circuit Information

• Track length: 4.051km
• Corners: 14
• Lap record (unofficial): 1:08.544 (Anthony Davidson, Honda, 2006)

The Circuit Ricardo Tormo circuit is located to the East of Spain, not far from Valencia.

Drivers and Teams Attending

We are expecting to see the following drivers and teams in action today:

Useful Links

• Official Circuit Homepage
• F1 Direct (live updates)
• Motor 21 (live updates)
• The F1.com (timing updates)
• F1 Today (timing updates)

F1 People Who Are Tweeting from Valencia

• Claire Williams - AT&T Williams
• The Fifth Driver - Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
• Toro Rosso Spy - Scuderia Toro Rosso
• Sarah Holt - BBC
• Edd Straw - Autosport
• Jon Noble - Autosport
• Alex Comerford - F1Photos.org
• Craig Scarborough - Scarbs F1

Don't forget you can follow Twitter lists of F1 Teams, F1 Drivers and F1 Media for up to the minute information.

James Allen launched a handy Twitter aggregation service to coincide with the start of testing, and we recommend you take a look.

As ever, regular updates will appear in the comments throughout the date. Dive in if you have any questions or spy something interesting.

Live: Valencia Testing - Day One (February 2010)

F1 teams will today descend on the Spanish track Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste, Valencia for what will be the first official Formula 1 test of 2010. From 1 February - 3 February, a number of teams will be running their new cars on track for the first time.

On track action begins at 10am CET (9am GMT).

Circuit Information

• Track length: 4.051km
• Corners: 14
• Lap record (unofficial): 1:08.544 (Anthony Davidson, Honda, 2006)

The Circuit Ricardo Tormo circuit is located to the East of Spain, on the outskirts of Valencia.

Drivers and Teams Attending

We are expecting to see the following drivers and teams in action today:

Useful Links

• Official Circuit Homepage
• F1 Today (timing updates)
• Motor 21 (live updates)
• The F1.com (live updates)
• F1 Direct (live updates)

F1 People Who Are Tweeting

• Claire Williams - AT&T Williams
• McLaren eShop - Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
• The Fifth Driver - Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
• Toro Rosso Spy - Scuderia Toro Rosso
• Sarah Holt - BBC
• Edd Straw - Autosport
• Jon Noble - Autosport
• Alex Comerford - F1Photos.org

Don't forget you can follow Twitter lists of F1 Teams, F1 Drivers and F1 Media for up to the minute information.

We'll post regular updates in the comments, feel free to jump in if you spot anything of interest.

F1 Advent Calendar 2009 - Day Twelve

• Length: 3:00 
• Size: 3.5 MB 
• File: advent12.mp3 
• Transcript: advent12.pdf 
• Torrent: advent12.torrent 

Hello and welcome to our F1 Advent Calendar 2009, brought to you by Sidepodcast. We’re in the middle of an extended mini series, where each day we open the door on another story of the 2009 season, picking out the key moments that shaped the year. Today we’re moving right along to Day Twelve - In the Dark.

Although qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix was overshadowed by concern for Felipe Massa after his accident during the second session, there was more to come from the action on Saturday.

Previously to that, McLaren had been on top form during Friday practice - Kovalainen fastest in the first session and Hamilton in the second. Lewis was also strong in Saturday practice, so was feeling very confident for qualifying.

Rosberg was fastest in Q1, whilst both BMWs, Force Indias and Alguersuari were all knocked out of the running. In Q2, the yellow flags caused by Massa’s accident did cause a few problems for other drivers, and it was Barrichello, and the Toyota drivers who fell by the wayside. Massa was quick enough to get through to Q3, but by that time he was en route to hospital, so only nine drivers hit the track for the final session.

There was a delay before Q3 got underway, as the marshals had to rebuild the tyre wall, but finally the last ten minutes were ticking on, and the timer hit zero. Thing is, no one knew who had crossed the line fast enough to take pole position because the live timing had died. For us at home, for the commentators in their box, for the teams in the garage and on the pitwall and for Race Control who were trying to keep order.

It was between Alonso in the Renault, two Red Bulls, and Hamilton in the McLaren. Alonso climbed from his car and approached the nearest driver, asking: “What was your time?” They get a read out on the dash of their car, but could it be trusted? They hovered around the parc ferme area, waiting to find out who was on pole, and asking each other if they could remember their times. It was absolutely chaotic, complete nonsense, but also slightly brilliant.

After a good few minutes, they finally confirmed that Alonso had taken pole, with Vettel and Webber behind him, so the three of them posed together in front of the bemused crowd. Fabrice Lom - the Renault engineer for Red Bull - summed up the confusion: “A very strange qualifying session today with Massa’s accident and the collapse of the timing, but in the end, it was a one, two, three for Renault, so we can only be happy.”

After investigations later, FOM were keen to explain what had happened: “In the closing minutes of the third part of the Formula 1 qualifying session yesterday the finish line sensor suffered a mechanical failure in the form of a damaged cable. Standard procedures were followed and the back-up sensor used. Once the verification procedures were complete, the full results were published. At no time was any timing data lost.” They seem keen not to blame LG - the official timekeeper.

That brings this particular story to an end, I hope you can join me again tomorrow when we peer through another door on the F1 Advent Calendar 2009.

Renault Race Control

During yesterday's Free Practice live commenting session, discussion turned to McLaren's new telemetry widget. A tool that is at best underwhelming and at worst, broken. It didn't appear to be working at all when we tried it, and had it been, the information conveyed doesn't appear to be that insightful.

By comparison, Renault's live Race Control console is leaps and bounds ahead of the things McLaren are attempting, and has been for over two years.

We've covered Race Control several times around here in the past, but it might be worth a quick refresher for anyone who hasn't discovered the beauty of live data, pushed direct from the garages of an F1 team during each and every session.

I think I've had Renault's live timing page open during every session of the 2009 season. It offers a fantastic array of otherwise impossible to come by data on what's happening at Renault during the course of the weekend. Each race has a dedicated page providing track maps, up-to-date weather information and pre-race statistics such as fuel consumption per lap, and throttle usage.

After each session, detailed results are provided. More detailed in fact than the official FOM data, including the maximum speed of every driver and their ideal fastest lap. The results are interactive, you can drill down for a limited amount of additional information, although the emphasis remains on the red / yellow / blue / white / orange team.

That's all well and good, but the site really comes to life when there's action to be found on track. The circuit map lights up whenever Alonso (or the other guy) takes to the asphalt, showing both car's track position. In some ways this content has been superseded by the official F1 iPhone application which positions all cars, but Renault were doing this first and their cars appear to move at a more consistent pace.

Elsewhere within the console, super-detailed stats are available for both drivers - including gear selection, speed, steering angle, braking and g-forces the drivers are being subjected to at the time. Again this information is interactive and you can pick the relevant pieces you're interested in. I wouldn't mind the ability to overlay more than two series for comparison, but it's still considerably more insight than any other team are willing to provide right now.

Finally, the consoles provide lap-by-lap timing figures which can be cross-referenced each time a car crosses the timing beam. If you need to know who's on a long run and how each lap compares, the detail is fantastic.

We've long been asking for both FOM and other teams to follow Renault's lead, to no avail. We should therefore congratulate McLaren for at least giving it some thought. Calling out to Bernie, of course, is a complete waste of effort and bandwidth.

I love that Renault take the effort to provide this content, and I wouldn't be without it any more. If you've not tried it before, please do take a look this weekend, it's free so what have you got to lose? Let us know what you think if it's your first time, similarly if you're as addicted as I am let us know your favourite bits.

Hats off to Renault F1 for showing Bernie how it's done these past 30 months.

Please Wait...

I know I'm not the only one who is finding it difficult to be a Formula 1 fan at the moment. When qualifying is the one and only highlight of your race weekend, something isn't working quite right. The politics has become overbearing, and I was worried the boring Hungaroring wouldn't help. How wrong could I be?

When this format of qualifying was introduced, I would quite often get to the end, the chequered flag would drop, and I'd look up in confusion. I was never sure who was where and without live timing I'd be lost. How awesome was it to see the drivers doing that exact same thing today?

Alonso climbed out of his car, and looked around him, unsure of where he should go or what he should do. Button joined him and the pair must have been saying: "What time did you get? Where are you?" Even the nearby FIA officials were scratching their heads and looking at each other. The entire paddock was shouting: "Who's on pole?"

I never thought an epic FOM fail could make Formula 1 so much fun. We got to see the drivers standing around, chatting, laughing, interacting with each other. Alonso pretty much cracked up in the press conference recalling how they didn't know what was going on. They had to wait for Webber to join them for the top three photo call, because he was elsewhere chatting to the media. It was absolute chaos and I loved it.

What made it special was not that one single broadcaster had failed. We were all following along in the live comments, having enjoyed a brilliant session with some great insights from across the globe, and then suddenly, it was all gone. We were left floundering. It was annoying, but for me, it was also brilliant. As long as it doesn't happen too often. F1 needs something like this to break the strain every now and again though. We don't want to take ourselves too seriously.

It's also worth noting that for UK viewers, the BBC TV coverage seemed much more limited than the 5live/world feed combination. David Croft was joined by Johnny Herbert, who did a good job under the circumstances, and the pair of them saw us through the highs and lows of qualifying. During Massa's accident, they had a lot of time to fill and weren't afraid to report on the speculation, but they were spot on the entire time, so I know they weren't just waffling for the sake of it. The radio coverage didn't cut away to other sports as they so often do, either. It was non-stop Formula 1. Full marks for the 5live team today.

Massa was MedEvaced away to hospital. We're still waiting for further information, but keep checking the comments as we try and stay up to date. We hope he is okay, and has a smooth recovery. We love you Felipe Baby!

There's an Official Formula 1 iPhone App, and It Rocks!

If you've been hanging out in the comments over the past 24 hours, you might have concluded that Sidepodcast quite likes the iPhone. A dearth of interesting Formula 1 news has meant we've been getting most of our kicks from technology updates planned by the people in Cupertino.

However, aside from announcements tenuously relating to plans we have for the future of Sidepodcast, there wasn't much to tie the new iPhone back to Formula 1. That was until I read Will Buxton's blog post this evening.

The man discusses the brand new, and more notably the official, F1 Timing Application available for purchase from the App Store. It's a good one, too.

Actually, the first time we heard mention of this thing was during 5Live's race broadcast on Sunday, when David Croft said both he and Anthony Davidson were using it to receive updates in the commentary box. Somehow we promptly forgot to look for it afterwards, but if it's good enough to be used when you're broadcasting live to the nation (and to the six fans who bothered to turn up in Turkey), it's good enough for me.

But what do you get for your money?

I'm Broke but I'm Happy

The software works during all live F1 sessions from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon. You're initially presented with an interactive circuit map that details all driver positions at any stage and you can select an individual driver to focus on. Weather data is continually updated, whilst a timely race order is also present.

Flip the device into landscape mode and you'll get a full screen live map, or hit the info tab for a more typical live timing display similar to that already provided via f1.com.

If a session has already finished, you can watch it back in real-time as often as you like, although data must be downloaded before playback. It probably goes without saying, but although this application runs just fine on the iPod Touch too, you'll still need an internet connection to receive any live updates.

A second screen provides circuit maps for every race on the calendar, current championship standings and driver bio's. A third offers a rather simple text description of any ongoing action (live commenting, it isn't!).

With One Hand in Your Pocket

In the UK the software sells in the App Store for £4.99, although it's not entirely clear if there are further charges to pay on a race-by-race basis.

It will work on current iPhone and iPod Touch models (and presumably also on the 3.0 update due next week). The code has been pulled together by a company called Soft Pauer and although this appears to be their first App Store submission they've done a fine, fine job of developing it.

Of note, the terms and conditions do state that software may collect anonymous data useage statistics, although apparently solely for quality control purposes.

That's pretty much all we know at the moment. We intend to road test the thing properly during the British Grand Prix weekend and will likely report back with details after that. It looks to all the world like it'll be a winner and Formula 1 has just taken a huge step forward in terms of giving fans more access to what's going on during a race.

Nick did point out earlier that this information should really be available on your desktop too, so we're keen to hear more thoughts and opinions on whether you think this is a good thing for F1 fans or not? Would you buy the F1 Timing App, or have you already?

Mosley and Ecclestone Debate the Internet

This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.

As someone who uses the internet regularly, I am always interesting in what Formula 1 related media is available. Here in the UK, we got simulcast streaming of the Qualifying and Grand Prix on ITV's website. As it was broadcast on the TV, it always went out on the site as well. They also gave us unprecedented access to Free Practice which was streamed on the site and not on the TV, although for some reason, they missed out FP3.

This year, coverage will be done by the BBC, which is even more exciting, as they have a much larger site, with plenty of different options to digest F1 information.

Last week, FIA president Max Mosley spoke out about the future of F1 on the internet, and admitted that it is a neglected area of the sport. He said the ideal would be to have all the timing screens available online, with archives, plus everything that is available to the teams. He included multi-camera angles, with choices of in the garage, the motorhomes, and everywhere around the paddock. Nothing intrusive, of course, but anywhere public within a Formula 1 weekend could be available on the web.

Now, Bernie Ecclestone has jumped to his own defence saying that the onus is not on him to provide internet broadcasts. As the rights holder to Formula 1 and all it's footage, you would think otherwise, but Bernie says the contracts he holds are very specific.

Bernie says that all the countries have different contracts, and each individual one restricts what FOM (his company) can do with the content. This does make some sense, as ITV would not have wanted to invest in simulcasting the sessions, if they were going to be available on the official F1 site as well. However, it is Bernie that negotiates the deals, and he could surely do something about this. Stipulate that there has to be some kind of internet activity, or else FOM will do it for them.

It seems as though, for what is supposedly the most advanced technological sport of it's age, Formula 1 is lacking severely in it's IT department. NASCAR fans get a lot more from their coverage. However, as the different broadcasters around the world begin to catch on, things may be about to change.

An Exciting Friday for F1

It's been ages since I felt the need to grab a screenshot from the f1.com live timing screens, but Friday free practice two was just such an occasion.

The day had got off to a bit of a slow start with all teams opting to sit in their garages for the first 25 minutes of session one, and it looked like all of last week's testing had conspired to make this Friday a dull day.

However, during the break before practice two, I get the impression that a number of teams figured they didn't have as much information as they needed, because from the off it was action all the way through the second session.

Force India climbed to the top of the timesheets early on, with Fissi leading Sutil, but more surprisingly they managed to hang in there for quite some time. I don't remember when that team were so high up the ranking so late in the day.

The fun didn't stop there though, because the Williams team achieved a similar one-two soon afterwards, this time with Nakajima the lead driver.

That sort of thing has to be kept for posterity.

And if that wasn't enough, Renault followed suit as well, their second driver coming out ahead of his (double world champion) team mate. It all made for a fantastic break from the norm.

Without a doubt this was my favourite F1 Friday so far this season, and Christine will have a full run down of the action shortly. In the meantime I'm just going to smile at the timing sheets some more!

Live Timing

This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.

On the official Formula1.com website, there’s a section that allows you to watch live timing as the action is happening out on track. All the information about the cars during Free Practice sessions, qualifying and the race is fed through to your browser and it brings you closer to the action. It does require an email address registration but it’s free, and I’m going to tell you why it’s worth tuning in.

What Live Timing Is
Essentially, any car that posts a time out on track is logged and you get to see this information as it happens. So, at the start of a session all cars are registered as being in the pit lane, indicated by the driver’s name in red. As they emerge, the name goes white, and then the sector times are logged. The drivers are listed with the fastest at the top, or the race leader on a Sunday. Drivers who have retired are listed as stopped and you don’t need to follow their progress anymore. There is also information about the status of the track, ambient temperature and sometimes a limited commentary as well.

Free Practice
There isn’t a lot of coverage of Free Practice to choose from, not here in the UK, anyway. Up until recently, we only had the live timing to rely on, although now a limited video feed has become available during race weekends. The two Friday sessions and early Saturday practice are the perfect situation to enjoy live timing. For a start, it helps to know who is out on track, and how many laps they are doing. It also gives you a good overview of who is running fast laps, and who is clearly working on setup.

Qualifying
For me, qualifying is what live timing was made for. With so many cars dashing towards the chequered flag in such a short space of time, it’s essential to see whether each driver manages to beat the current pole leader, or at least escape the drop out zone. You can watch as the drivers are pushed down the grid and see who is eventually victorious.

The Race
Although it’s likely you have more access to coverage of the race, it can still be handy to keep the live timing up as you watch. If you don’t have the action on a TV screen near you, then it’s a great substitute but it also helps to sometimes catch things that the cameras miss.

All in all, live timing can be a good addition to your viewing pleasure, or if needs be, an acceptable alternative.