Sidepodcast

Who Are They, Anyway - Mercedes Young Drivers

As we continue our quest to find out more about the young drivers who will be testing in Formula 1 machinery at Jerez next week, we turn our attention to the Mercedes drivers. We looked at the Toro Rosso duo yesterday, but now it's time to have a look at the former Brawn GP team.

Mike Conway

• Age: 26
• Nationality: British
• F1 Experience: Test driver for Honda Racing in 2007.
• Notable Achievements: 1st in British Formula Renault 2004, 1st in British F3 2006, 12th in GP2 2008, 17th in IndyCar 2009

Conway is relatively old for the young driver test, and has been linked with Honda test driver roles for quite a few years now. His career has progressed through Formula Ford and Formula Renault, to GP2 and he made the switch to IndyCar this year. He had a mixed season with just one third place podium towards the end of the season. He also had quite the crash during practice for the Indy 500 and was taken to hospital with concussion worries.

He's managed by 2MB - the company formed by Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell - and has links with the previous incarnation of this team. He's currently scheduled to run for three days, sharing each with Ericsson.

Marcus Ericsson

• Age: 19
• Nationality: Swedish
• F1 Experience: None
• Notable Achievements: 1st in Formula BMW UK 2007, 1st in Japanese Formula Three 2009, 4th Macau Grand Prix 2009

I can't seem to find any reference to Ericsson in terms of previous Formula 1 experience, so this may be his first time in an F1 car - and what a way to start, with a championship winning team. At the moment, Ericsson is competing in the 2009-10 GP2 Asia series, with events at Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.

He's so far finished 11th and 12th during the Formula 1 support race in Abu Dhabi. Not great, but at least he is getting experience of F1 tracks. Previously his British Formula Three outings saw him race at Monza, Spa, Silverstone and Hockenheim as well.

Marcus is currently scheduled to test alongside Conway for all three days of the Jerez test.

What's the Business Case for ITV's F1 Website?

With the UK's Formula One television rights now in the hands of the BBC, we were expecting ITV's online F1 presence to disappear at the start of this year. Surprisingly ITV-F1 is still going strong.

It was pointed out to viewers at the end of the season, that the team had every intention of continuing with the site, but seeing as they no longer have any exclusive access, nor any unique video content, it's hard to see why they would bother?

Commercial Matters

The most likely answer is the site still brings in enough advertising revenue to justify it's costs. However, the main promotion for said site was a television program which regularly publicised it. Without any ongoing plugs, shouldn't the number of readers begin to drop like a stone?

Make no mistake, the British commercial broadcasters online popularity was massive. Googling the phrase F1 sees ITV listed second behind only Bernie's official homepage, and here's how Google Trends rates them compared to Autosport and F1 Live (who sit beneath them in the search results).

According to that data, ITV ranked second behind F1 Live throughout 2008, but ahead of Autosport. We can't see the most up-to-date information, but towards the end of November, after the season was over, they were clearly falling ever further into the clutches of Autosport's grasp.

You can see the chart in more detail on the trends website. It's hard to gauge just how reliable the figures are, but we were discussing web statistics in the comments recently, and by comparison they appeared to be the most reliable of those freely available.

I'm Not Dead Yet

With declining figures and no cost effective means with which to further promote the homepage, I assumed it would only be a matter of time before the thing was axed. At least, that was until I read an interview with Mark Blundell yesterday.

Talking to Crash.net, Mark revealed he still has a year left to run on his contract with ITV and they're looking at doing something a little bit different, but still motorsport related in the future.

It seems the broadcaster really hasn't given up on the project just yet, but if what we're led to believe is true, and the company really didn't want to deal with F1 any longer, why on earth are they hanging on in there. Drivers on their books and a website with content updated as recently as Thursday, it doesn't make sense.

Episode 48 - We Got Told To Call Him Kubica, So That's What We're Trying To Stick To

• Length: 18:09 
• Size: 17.0 MB 
• File: episode48.mp3 
• Enhanced: episode48.m4a 
• Transcript: episode48.pdf 
• Torrent: episode48.torrent 

This episode brings you up to date with the most recent launches, plus discussion of some of the more controversial rule change suggestions, all with an irritating helping of sampling fun.

Intro

The new keyboard, what it does and why he loves it.

Good Week / Bad Week

This week has been good for the environment, and for Hamilton's long term future, whilst his and ITV's bank balance look set to suffer from a bad week.

News and Views

The FIA seriously consider budget caps - perhaps one of their more sensible decisions, unlike the new engine penalty twist to the rules. We also discuss testing at Jerez and Valencia, with Alonso showing us all how it's done, BMW suffering with the weather, and Super Aguri staying tucked away in the garage. Two more cars launched this week, and complete opposites, a grand affair from BMW and a more sedate rollout for Red Bull.

Housekeeping

We found the Mark Blundell clips to try and clear up the pronunciation discussion. However, we're probably going to kick it all off again with a particular country's name. Finally, we discuss our inability to promote things properly, thus the need to clarify just exactly what you can find in the RSS Feeds section.

Episode 47 - If You Don't Know the Difference, You Shouldn't Be Wearing the Overalls

• Length: 19:06 
• Size: 18.3 MB 
• File: episode47.mp3 
• Enhanced: episode47.m4a 
• Transcript: episode47.pdf 
• Torrent: episode47.torrent 

An outside broadcast from Autosport International, Episode 47 takes you behind the scenes at the UK's biggest motorsport show from the comforts of the restaurant at the NEC.

Intro

Where we are, what we're eating and why we're absolutely exhausted.

Good Week / Bad Week

This week has been good for drivers and personnel getting jobs and signing contracts, whilst others are being left behind as time advances towards the start of the season.

News and Views

Alex Wurz joins Honda? Who'd have thought that would happen. We discuss why he's settling for a test role again, and what is in store for the team now. We also share our first impressions from the McLaren and Toyota launch - is Honest Ron not living up to his name, and why do Toyota seem to lack passion in every single department?

Autosport International

We've seen Jenson Button and Mark Webber on stage, plus a refreshing interview with Mark Blundell - the man actually talks sense! We dissect the F1 display and decide whether we were looking at 2007 or 2008 cars - the brand new Force India in all it's glory. Plus, non-F1 items include A1GP, monster trucks and dodgems.

Housekeeping

Not too much to talk about here, as we've been away for the weekend. However, we came third in that podcast award thingy, so big thanks to everyone who gave us their clicks. No update on the theme tune but watch this space.

The Famous People

Seconds after we walked through the giant doors of Autosport International, we were already on the chase of someone famous. Allan McNish, ex-Formula 1 driver was signing things for people who had special passes, and although we didn't have that pass, we got close enough to take a couple of fabulous pictures.

Then, Allan came out from behind the desk and was conducting an interview to camera. It was funny, because a space was cleared and then we spotted a guy with an enormous camera, followed by a sound guy and someone holding a bright light. We wondered what was happening, then spotted the interviewer checking his mic, and suddenly Allan was there, and they were talking. It all happened so quickly, all these random people who were milling about with their recording equipment all came together in seconds and were totally professional.

We started to look at the stands around the area, specifically the F1 line-up. They had recreated a piece of Formula 1 fabulousness and had every car from last year there.

Some of them had drivers and helmets, some of them didn't. Some of them had the wrong helmets in their team-mates cars, but it didn't really matter. We were amazingly close to the cars and that's what we came for.

While we were ogling the beauty of the machinery, our ears picked up on the announcer saying that Anthony Davidson would be turning up in minutes to do a little interview on the fake grid and then going over to the signing thing. We waited for those couple of minutes, and lo and behold, the Super Aguri superstar appeared. He walked up and down the grid and talked about the various cars, nothing particularly interesting and all very diplomatic.

He's so tiny, I wanted to pick him up, put him in my pocket and run off with him. But they wouldn't let you get close to him. Presumably he is more famous (or more delicate) than Allan McNish, because Anthony was roped off all the time and didn't come out into the main area for any television interviews.

Later, after having missed Mark Blundell (boo hoo... not), we found the Seat stand. If you've been reading for a while, you may have read the embarrassing incident that took place last year, where I pointed right at Jason Plato's face and said "That's him there!" It was cringeworthy and I'm trying my best not to relive it.

Anyway, having stumbled across the Seat stand, we wondered if Jason Plato was in there. He wasn't. "me" asked one of the official looking people if he was turning up any time soon and they gave us the ETA. We wondered off but came back a few minutes early. He was sitting inside the corporate area that was out of bounds, and he didn't look like he was going to be doing anything exciting. Last year, he was up on a little stage talking to an interview, but this year there was no stage. We decided to hang around and see what happened, and eventually he stood up, ready to leave. He exited the out of bounds area, accompanied by a Seat man. He signed a few things and posed for some photographs.

Then he just walked off into the crowd. I was amazed that he was just fighting through the bustle of people like any other ordinary person had to. "me" and I decided the best thing to do would be to stalk him. Because, you know, that's what we do.

I was starting to think we wouldn't get any pictures other than the back of his head, but then "me" used the same trick he did with Jenson Button at Goodwood. Running around all the other people to get in front, he waited for Plato to pass buy and took pictures. However, he didn't need to be quite so sneaky as he did at Goodwood, because when he missed the shot, Plato stopped and posed for him.

It's so worth stalking people.