We weren't all that impressed with the Nations Cup yesterday, but Mr C has already written about the whys and wherefores. I am not here to moan about the scheduling or the lack of atmosphere but simply provide the second half of our live commenting threads - for those that can overlook that stuff.
Sadly, I have no access to the video, but it was fun reading through your comments after the event. Keep it up!
Yesterday, the Nations Cup was won by the Schumacher/Vettel team who notched up their third consecutive victory. However, they haven't shown so well in the individual event previously, so it really could be anyone for the win!
Have fun, ignore our moaning, and enjoy the Race of Champions 2009.
It is Jacques Villeneuve Sr's birthday today - brother to Gilles and uncle of the baggy-overalled Jacques we know and love. Eh-hem. He was also a race driver too, and took part in a couple of years worth of F1. What a family! Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're talking about:
The Race of Champions Nations Cup happened and whilst we live commented it, we also did not enjoy it. Read more about Mr C's disappointment, and why he probably won't be watching today. We'll set up a thread anyway, because it would be wrong to cover half an event.
Meanwhile, I spent the evening putting together the last F1 Digest race review, and it's quite a short one. On the same subject, Rich wrote a blog entry about his thoughts on the race from the build up to the aftermath - an interesting read.
Also, a few days late, but I only just remembered, the Sofa F1 pole poll was decided, and Mr C came second. He was doing so well! I am firmly mid-pack, with Pat just two points above me. Well done to everyone who took part, and even more next year please.
That's all for now. As mentioned above, there'll be some more live commenting in the form of the Race of Champions individual event, although it is on in work hours. Boo. Nevertheless, I'll see you in the comments.
Cast your mind back to the middle of December last year. It was a time when very little racing was going on, things were winding down for the year and many of us were itching to see some track action.
Step forward the Race of Champions.
Held for the second year running at London's Wembley Stadium, and broadcast for the first time on the internet, the event saw international racing drivers from a variety of backgrounds pit themselves against one and other. Several models of vehicle were used, from a dune buggy to a touring car and drivers ran head-to-head on a custom course built inside the stadium.
In 2008 the RoC event captured our collective imaginations, and consumed a whole Sunday. We followed every heat and live commented all the action, including the half-time entertainment. During the day 1,624 comments were posted and things ran so late we had to cancel a planned live show that evening. Additionally, both Dank and Lou travelled to London and sent us live updates throughout the day.
I will be the first to admit the 2008 show wasn't prefect. Those who attended froze on the terraces in the midst of an English winter, tickets prices were extortionate and the place wasn't remotely close to being packed. The stars did turn out though. Beyond the racing, Coulthard crashed his F1 car a number of times while Hamilton signed a giant piece of card with the rear wheels of his.
Land of Confusion
In explicably, for 2009, organisers decided to fiddle with almost every aspect of the RoC. They upped sticks and moved to the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing. They brought the date forward to piggyback on the end of F1 season and they opted to run the races in the middle of the week.
Complete madness.
The result of all the changes appears to have ripped the heart out of proceedings. We tried to tune in and follow the action earlier today but it's a Tuesday, and we have to work. Not only that, the whole process is dragged out across two days, which means there's more madness to come tomorrow. I don't know about anyone else, but we need a break from watching cars go round in circles this week. The very long Formula 1 season literally just ended, we certainly don't need to watch another 8+ hours of things going around in circles.
The changes don't just affect us though, the earlier date means the NASCAR season is yet to finish and thus their drivers are otherwise engaged. I guess they're not worthy champions then?
Calling All Stations
As if all of that wasn't enough, this years live streaming solution which is again provided by Freecaster.tv proved beyond hopeless this afternoon.
Last year, said company provided a top notch visual experience, backed up by the Radio Le Mans commentary duo Bruce Jones and John Hindhaugh. This year the same technology managed to lag almost ten minutes behind satellite broadcasts of the same content, while Freecaster.tv opted to employ only Hindhaugh to handle the commentary duties alone. An impossible task, by anyone's standards. I tweeted Freecaster.tv for an explanation, but as yet none has been forthcoming.
It would appear costs have been cut in all the wrong places in 2009, and organisers have shown themselves to be incompetent on almost every level. I hope those who attended enjoyed their day and I hope the drivers who were able to take part had fun too.
I for one found the entire thing to be a complete disaster at almost every level, and a shadow of last year's success. We regularly laugh at the stupidity of some decisions made within Formula 1, but the Race of Champions proves things could be a lot, lot worse.
If you watched any of todays running, console yourself with some classic highlights from 2008, and then hope like hell that somebody gets a clue before next year.
We covered the Race of Champions last year in great depth, and the event was a brilliant success thanks to the free streaming provided by Freecaster.tv. Here we are again, although the scheduling is vastly different, and not good for us at SPC Towers. Nevertheless, if you're about and fancy catching the Nations Cup, please join us in the live comments.
You'll find some familiar F1 faces in the cars today, as scheduled to take part are Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button, David Coulthard and Michael Schumacher. Plus, other favourites set to race include Tom Kristensen, Andy Priaulx and Yvan Muller.
Apparently this is also the first major international event to be held at the National Stadium in China since the Olympics, so it should be quite something to behold.
Radio Le Mans are covering the event, and if you have any more handy links, please share them in the comments.
Although we are still reliving the joy of Australia, it really is time to start looking forward to Malaysia. I've already seen some preview quotes from the teams sneaking out, and the action gets underway again in just four days. Here's what we're talking about at the moment:
During the live stream of F1 Debrief last night, we discussed the fact that Race of Champions isn't going to be held at Wembley anymore. The organisers say they have five options to choose from, and their could be a possibility of it staying in the UK. Where could it be held though?
We've also been discussing whether the penalties the stewards are giving out are similar to/harsher than/more lenient than in 2008. After Spa-gate they suggested this year would be different, but we've seen a weekend dominated by protests and penalties. Is the start of another politics filled year?
Finally, I am losing my voice, and appear to be coming down with some kind of sniffles - I didn't go outside or anything! What I want to know is, how are you recovering from the weekend? Is it just a lack of sleep? Having to spend more time with your significant other to make up for being absent? Perhaps you are still swigging champagne? I'd love to know what it's like where you are the morning after the... um... morning before.
That'll do it for now. It's been an awesome weekend and the comment count has shot up, so I expect more of the same through the week. I'll see you in the comments.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
The Race of Champions is an annual event that pits leaders from many different motorsport series against each other in a set of races. Organised by ex-rally driver Michele Mouton, it used to be in France, but moved to Wembley Stadium last year. The grass is covered over by some temporary tarmac and the big stars are invited to come and drive.
This year we saw several big names including Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and David Coulthard. They represent their nations for the first championship, known as the Nations Cup, and then they battle it out individually to be the Race of Champions Champion.
Nations Cup With Schumacher and Vettel teamed up together, they were always going to be a hard act to beat. The US team had a last minute replacement, as did team Australia. With Mark Webber scheduled to race, and breaking his leg in November, they had to draft in Jaime Alguersuari. They became Team ROC All Stars, with one Australian and one Spanish driver.
Team France and Team USA were knocked out in Round 1, and it was left to the British teams plus Team Scandinavia to try and hold off the German success. It didn't happen though, and Schumacher made it an easy victory.
Race of Champions The Nations Cup was good, but this is what it really came down to. I was secretly cheering on Vettel, but hoping Coulthard would do well. Vettel was put out by Sebastien Loeb, who had just finished a race where he crashed and still came back to win. Coulthard was busy knocking out his side of the table, and soon it was DC versus Loeb - best of three. They won one each, squeezing every last drop out of the cars they were given. Eventually, Loeb was victorious and Coulthard very gracious in defeat. I think he was just happy to be there.
Other than that, Hamilton opened proceedings by driving a Mercedes round the track with various passengers. He was supposed to be in a race against Chris Hoy - British Olympic cycling gold medallist - but apparently conditions were just too treacherous for Hoy to take to the saddle. Both Hamilton and Coulthard did demonstrations in their F1 machinery though, burning out the tyres, performing donuts, and generally being quite loud.
We watched the event via Freecaster.tv and they've got highlights available to watch now, as well as a replay of the entire event. It's highly recommended viewing, although obviously I've given away who won each event.
As promised, here are some highlight clips from yesterday's action at Wembley Stadium. I think more are still being made available (was hoping to see some of the X-Fighters demo), so we'll probably update this page as and when.
All the runners, riders and results can be found in the original RoC thread. The 1,600+ comments are also worth a read through, and a great way to gauge the mood of the day.
Nations Cup: Highlights
The first half of the afternoon was dominated by the Nations Cup. The podium ceremony is worth watching, if only to show Bernie how it could be done.
Race of Champions: Highlights
The main event saw a certain Mr. Coulthard do obscenely well, given that we all thought he was past it way back in Melbourne.
We've never followed RoC before, but were bowled over by how entertaining the whole event was. Wall to wall action, and available online for free.
What were your favourite moments from the day, and after watching live on Sunday or seeing the above clips, are you more or less likely to catch it live next year?
More video is available from freecaster.tv, including a 120 minute live replay. I'm still trying to find a clip of the 'half a Sidepodcast shout-out' that was being delivered out before Schumi ruined everything like always.
We're still coming down from the Race of Champions high, but now it is time to turn our attention back to Formula 1. There's more testing going on this week, so there should be plenty to keep our eye on, although it will no doubt be more of the same - not knowing who is actually fast, and who is just running 2008 rather than 2009 setups. Elsewhere:
Mosley has admitted that the current points system isn't exactly ideal and it may even have been a mistake to bring it in. However, he doesn't want to bring in a new points system without consulting the public, as he doesn't want to confuse everyone. This just sounds so out of character!
Hamilton missed out on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, and if you look at the screen shot used for the BBC video story, he doesn't look too happy about it. I bet he's just wishing they could have duelled at the RoC cause he was bound to have won.
Sebastien Loeb pipped DC to the Race of Champions trophy, which is really telling considering that Loeb was recently testing in the Red Bull. Was this just a demonstration of Loeb's multi-car skill, or would he have outshone DC in Formula 1 machinery as well?
Please feel free to share any thoughts or news you come across today, and don't feel limited by what I've mentioned above. I'll see you in the comments.
We're trying to shoehorn a podcast between the Race of Champions and Top Gear. It's never going to happen, mostly because we're so busy recovering from such an amazing RoC event. It's been brilliant watching and commenting with everyone, but now it's time to get down to business. We've got a podcast to record, with all of Max's ideas to cover.
We'll be live asap, so stay tuned to the comments to find out when. Notice that I'm not putting a time, because we'll only let you down!
Update: Ha. I joke that we can't possibly follow the RoC and it turns out that is very true. Live streaming went terribly wrong, and unfortunately we can't do a stream today. Enjoy Top Gear though!
Update 2: We have a problem here that may be tough to solve. We record podcasts on a Sunday evening, that's the way it's always been done and it suits us just fine. Top Gear also happens to broadcast on a Sunday evening, but seeing as neither of us watch it, it seems daft that we have to shoehorn a podcast around Clarkson's musings.
Technically there's only a couple of Top Gear episodes remaining in this series so it shouldn't be an issue, but there will be others, and lord only knows what the BBC are planning to do with F1 on a Sunday evening. The question is what to do about it?
I'm thinking that live shows need to go back to being less scheduled. They're on when they're on and if you happen to browse along and have no other pending engagements, by all means stick around. Trying to hit fixed targets with the equipment we have, and ensuring we're finished by 9pm is only asking for trouble. Thoughts?
For the first time ever, this year's Race of Champions is being broadcast online. freecaster.tv have kindly provided a streaming player which is embedded below and we'll be following all the action from 13:50 GMT (14:50 CET) this afternoon.
Lou is to be found somewhere in the audience, as are Dan and Lady Laney, all braving Wembley Stadium in December, but you'll find us in the relative warmth of the Live Commenting, Live... Thing.
We'll also keep the thread up to date with the respective race winners listed with a (w), as they happen.
Schedule of Events
Time (GMT)
Event
13.00-14.15
Displays
13.55-14.15
Hoy vs Hamilton "Man vs Machine" Challenge
14.30-16.30
The ROC Nations Cup
16.35-17.15
Displays
16.35-16.50
Lewis Hamilton in his title winning McLaren
16.55-17.15
X-Fighters Freestyle show
17.30-19.30
The Race of Champions
Man vs Machine (cancelled - track too slippery for cycling)
