It's Saturday, and for about half the UK, it seems like it's snow day as well. I have only seen the occasional flake but we're hearing about all sorts of various weather reports from around the country. I wonder whether it really will be a white Christmas. Anyway, here are some of the F1 related things we're talking about:
Stuart seems to have the scoop on the single launch idea going kaput, and there has been no official word from FOTA as yet on the matter. It seems likely that this is the case, though, because I can't imagine the smaller teams were at all happy with the idea.
The Schumacher comeback is looking even more likely, as Luca di Montezemolo wrote about it on the Ferrari website. The poor guy doesn't seem that impressed, using the age-old trick of claiming it is a twin brother involved, rather than facing up to the fact that Schumi just wants to move onwards and upwards.
Also, the future of the Turkish Grand Prix began to look a bit uncertain as Bernie has apparently asked for double the current amount to host a race. Needless to say the organisers are not impressed and that means the fabulous Turn 8 could be off our calendars from as early as 2011.
With so much news bouncing around, we realised we'd be doing a double show this weekend, and as Sunday is busy enough with the Sidepodparty, we'll be doing an impromptu live show tonight - a Saturday. I know, it's wrong, just like Doctor Who felt wrong when it was on Sunday. Still, we'll do our best to muddle through. Expect a thread about seven or eight-ish. I'll see you in the comments.
Jackie posed this week's topic for Thursday Thoughts, and she wanted to know who should replace Luca di Montezemolo as head of the Formula One Teams Association if he decides to stand down from his current role as president come the end of the year.
To answer that question, it's worth examining what it is the president is supposed to do. According to the FOTA website Luca is officially named Chairman of the organisation, although I'm assuming the term president and chairman are interchangeable in this instance. From the same site, his duties shall include:
The Chairman presides the Executive Committee and the Members General Meeting. He is responsible for implementing their decisions and for supervising the work of the Secretary General.
Chairman and Vice Chairman bind FOTA with their joint signature.
Chairman and Vice Chairman are appointed for one year.
The executive committee additionally receives guidance from the findings of a number of subsidiary working groups.
So now we know what Luca's role is, who should replace him?
It's a Man's World
According to the above statement, my list of possible candidates has been significantly reduced by the specific wording "He is responsible...". That makes the entire female population ineligible for starters.
However, it's perfectly possible that the wording on the site was tailored toward Luca and nobody saw a reason to recognise equal opportunity laws when writing the man's job description.
Taking this into consideration, the person I'm nominating as boss of FOTA is Williams F1 communications officer Ms. Claire Williams.
I can see me getting into some trouble here...
Communication Breakdown
Now I'd love to wax lyrical about how Claire is best qualified to fill the shoes of a person worth an estimated $400m, but I don't really know that much about her. I could pick up the phone and find out some background information in the morning, but that would be a really odd telephone conversation wouldn't it?
I thought so.
Instead I'm just going to point out that women are severely underrepresented within the upper echelons of Formula One, and that is reflected in the complete lack of oestrogen present in every one of FOTA's general meetings. I've no idea if adding a female voice to proceedings would make the tepid waters any smoother, but as no-one has any evidence to the contrary, we'll call it evens.
Given the absence of BMW and Toyota, the Teams Association need Williams more than ever right now, and Claire is lovely person, who has many years of experience handling public relations at the very top flight of F1.
She even presents her own podcast, what more could one ask?
Last week, we introduced the concept of Thursday Thoughts, a question posed here on Sidepodcast to encourage F1 bloggers and writers to publish a few words on the subject. The first question seemed to go down quite well, the experiment was successful despite it's hasty organisation.
This week, we have had a bit of time to prepare, and are giving you plenty of time to think up an answer to today's question. I asked for a couple of suggestions in the comments, and Jackie came up with a great idea:
Who should be the next boss of FOTA?
Now that Luca di Montezemolo has suggested he won't continue with the role for too much longer, as he has himself a proper job, who do you think should take his place?
If you have thoughts on this subject, please post them to your F1 blog and share the link in the comments (even if the pinger gets there first). If you don't have a blog, you can still participate by posting in the comments here or if you've got a lot to say, I'm sure many blogs will be happy for a guest post, or we can publish them here.
I'll be thinking up my answer to the question later today, and we would like to put a deadline on it by about 9pm GMT. Of course, it's not the end of the world if you miss it, but we'll have probably started pondering what next week's question should be by then. Happy blogging!
Here we are, halfway through the week, and the news has been pouring forth over the last few days. What else can there be to come over the next few? Here are some of the things we're talking about:
Mark Webber was at Paul Ricard yesterday, testing out the new GP3 car. I hadn't realised there was going to be a feeder series into GP2, the feeder series to F1. Still, Webber had a go around the track and seemed to have a good time. I bet he can't wait to get back behind his F1 car instead, though.
Yesterday we heard that Glock has signed up to Manor GP, and the story has it's own breakout thread with plenty of interesting thoughts about why he would make that decision. Still, at least he has a drive for next year, unlike many of the other drivers we are keeping our eye on.
Elsewhere, Luca di Montezemolo has suggested that he doesn't want to head up FOTA for too much longer, as he has a regular day job to attend to as well. Does this mean that someone else will take his place? Who would that be? Or will FOTA start falling apart - if they aren't already?
That'll do it for now, enough to keep us going for another day. Let us know what you're up to and how you're getting through the week, and I'll see you in the comments.
Ferrari seem to be keeping hold of the 'worst kept secret' title today as Santander announced a five year sponsorship deal with the team. Luca di Montezemolo said:
"We share common values, such as striving for excellence, a passion for competition, an international approach and, last but by no means least, the colour red. These values will make this a fruitful partnership, noteworthy around the world."
I don't know why the 'colour red' bit makes me laugh, but it does. Have we established this means they're not sponsoring McLaren any more? Does this make the Alonso deal almost certain? What do you make of the new partnership?
We're in the middle of the week now, and I promise not to mention Wimbledon once. Oops, I just did. Never mind, today is supposed to be the next big thing in the journey to the end of Formula 1, so perhaps I should focus on F1 for a bit:
The WMSC are meeting today in Paris with Max Mosley and Luca di Montezemolo going head to head over... well, everything, I guess. Max has already said he will restand for election in October which will come as no surprise to anyone. What other revelations are in store?
Shaun was at Silverstone over the weekend in his usual guise, checking tickets at the gate. He's written about some of the famous people he spotted, and get this - Legard has a fan!
Dank has found some more excellent Red Bull video, this time a tour of the factory in Milton Keynes. It's always good to get a look behind the scenes of how the cars get made, even if they are fugly.
That'll do it for now. If there is some news coming out of today, I'll have to designate this daily post as a happy place again, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'll see you in the comments.
We are right in the middle of live commenting Le Mans, so if you haven't joined in yet, then get over there and start talking (up until 2pm). For those not interested in the endurance event, here are some F1 things to discuss:
Luca di Montezemolo started the Le Mans race and has been talking about the current goings on in F1. He says that for Ferrari, it is either a change of the proposed 2010 rules, or the team will definitely be upping sticks and heading elsewhere. Naturally, he is using Le Mans as a high profile platform for his thoughts, but he did say he wanted to avoid too much negativity, as France is a happy place right now!
Giorgio Pantano is hoping for a race with the new Campos team. He raced with them in GP2 in 2007, and hopes they can help him return to F1. He's 30 now, though, and still moaning about the fact that he hasn't had a second chance in Formula 1. What about the younger drivers who haven't had their first chance?
That'll do for now. It's a quiet day in terms of news, but there's plenty of racing action to behold. I'll see you in the comments.
It's been a rough weekend in Sidepodcast Towers what with The Case of the Disappearing Doohickey, and Mr C's Illness: The Return. However, we're into a new week so things must be looking up already. Here's what we're talking about at the moment:
Luca di Montezemolo has made a point of saying that Michael Schumacher remains as a consultant for Ferrari, but that's all he is. He has no responsible role. This is a direct response to all the criticism recently regarding tyre choices attributed to the multi-world champion. I'm still curious what a consultant does, though.
The big talk of the weekend is Formula 1's journey into space, as Niki Lauda wants to train up to be a space pilot on Virgin Galactic's flights. Barrichello has also paid for a ticket to space - presumably not with Lauda at the wheel? Virign certainly are making their impact on the sport already, aren't they?
The Sunday Times rich list has seen Bernie Ecclestone fall down to 24th, but he still has an estimated worth of £1,466 million. Things aren't that tough just yet then. There are tons of F1 related people in the list, including Ron Dennis, Flav, DC, Button and Hamilton. There'a good summary here.
That's it for now. Please keep on chatting, about these or other topics that might be on your mind. I will see you in the comments.
Shh. No one will notice that this post is going up so late. In fact, things are very quiet around Sidepodcast at the moment, so perhaps no one really will. Here at Sidepodcast Towers we're working hard on some behind the scenes bits and pieces, and hurrying to try and catch up with all the year end stuff we want to do. Damn all those mince pies being so distracting!
Anyway, things are beginning to pick up again in the F1 world, so here are a couple of news stories I've noticed:
The drivers have decided that the Algarve circuit is good. Pedalo says it's not very demanding, though, which as a viewer... makes things less interesting.
Luca D is moaning that bringing KERS in to the sport is a serious mistake. So, I thought perhaps the Ferrari protestations that they weren't ready for KERS was just sandbagging talk. This is evidence enough that Ferrari won't be one of the KERS front runners.
That's all I can find. Hopefully things will pick up a little bit more as we move away from Christmas. Although I'm also hoping they don't pick up too much as F1 Minute is on a break. Nevertheless, if you find anything worth talking about, feel free to post it in the comments. See you there.
This is the second episode of the second series of F1 People, a set of shows from Sidepodcast that chronicle the lives of the important people involved in the sport we love. Yesterday we looked at Colin Chapman, and today we’re going to focus on Niki Lauda.
Andreas Nikolaus Lauda was born on 22nd February 1949 in Vienna, Austria. His family were not impressed with his desires to become a racing driver, but despite their disapproval, he took up the career. He started in the very low Formulas, and moved up the ranks to racing Porsche sports cars. Then his career hit a plateau, and to move onwards, Lauda took out a sizeable bank loan to buy an F2 drive with the then-new March team. He drove for them for one year in 1971, was promoted to F1 in 1972, and drove in both formulas that year. Lauda’s skills were heralded by the March team, but they were not very successful at that time within F1. Lauda took out yet another bank loan to get into BRM the next year. Unfortunately, this was another team struggling, but when team mate Clay Regazzoni transferred to Ferrari, he spoke highly enough of Lauda that the red team signed him up as well.
The Ferrari team were on their way back up in 1974, and Lauda fitted in perfectly by taking the second step on the podium on his debut race. His first victory was three races later. 1975 saw his first World Championship, and 1976 appeared to be heading the same way. Lauda had finished either first or second in the first six races, but then it came to the German Grand Prix. The full Nurburgring circuit was used in those days, and on only the second lap of the race, Lauda ran off track, hit an embankment and flew back onto the track into the path of another driver. The Ferrari burst into flames, and Lauda was trapped inside. Four drivers pulled him free from the car, but he had already suffered severe burns and had been inhaling toxic gases. Lauda fell into a coma and even had the last rites read to him.
However, it took Lauda only six weeks to recover from his terrible injuries, and he was back in the car finishing fourth on his return. The championship had closed up by then, and it came down to the last race of the season. In torrential rain, Lauda decided to withdraw from the race after two laps, saying he felt the conditions were too dangerous. He therefore handed the championship to James Hunt.
This decision left his relationship with Ferrari in tatters, and after a troubled season in 1977, Lauda left the team. He raced for Brabham for just over a year, then retired mid season to start up an airline. In 1982, he returned to F1 with McLaren and took his third World Championship in 1984.
He retired again, the next year. The Lauda Air business was taking off, no pun intended, but in 1999 the company was sold to Austrian Airlines. Lauda has kept himself very busy however. When his old friend Luca di Montezemolo took over at Ferrari, he joined them as a consultant. He has also managed the Jaguar Formula 1 team for two years, started a new airline for which he sometimes acts as a pilot, commentated on F1 TV coverage and writes books.
The severe burns Lauda suffered from caused a lot of scarring, and he chose only to have enough surgery to allow his eyelids to function correctly. He has never felt the need to have further reconstructive work done. It makes him a recognisable figure in the world of motorsport, but the respect he commands comes from an entirely different source. He is considered brave, not only for returning to the cockpit so soon after his accident, but for trusting his instincts and withdrawing from a championship-deciding race.
Thanks for listening to today’s F1 People. Share your thoughts in the comments on Sidepodcast.com or leave a voicemail on 0121 28 87225. I’ll be back tomorrow with another VIP in the world of F1.
