How can it possibly be Monday again? Not only is it Monday, but it is a double driver birthday, with both Nakajima and Sutil celebrating the anniversary of their births. Kazuki turned 25, whilst Sutil hits 27 - hurtling towards 30, but don't tell him that! Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're talking about:
Apparently, the organisers at Bahrain are hoping they might regain some of the F1 testing that they have lost to Europe. They appear to be hoping for bad weather conditions in Spain to give them a shot at hosting the teams as they evaluate their new cars. Have they forgotten the last test session they hosted though? Talk about bad weather!
Over on VivaF1, Maverick has a post about what he's expecting from the cars this year, in terms of aerodynamics and sneaky diffuser designs. It's an interesting post, but all I can think is the cars can't possibly be as ugly as they were this year... can they?
The official F1 site are running a multi-part series of posts, reviewing the season through the news that was breaking during each month. They've just posted July to September, which was a particularly difficult time of the season for pretty much everyone, I reckon. Still, it's a good way to review the season, with one more part still to come.
That's all for now, let us know how your Monday goes, and as ever, I'll see you in the comments.
During 2009, Sidepodcast managed to publish 1,319 posts on this website. That's more content in the past 12 months than we managed in the previous two years of blogging combined. A considerable amount of that content came from over 20 guest writers who contributed their thoughts and ideas and to whom we will be eternally grateful.
To celebrate such a fantastic year, and because we're feeling more than a little nostalgic on this eve of '10, we've pulled together some of our favourite topics from 2009.
We've shared some fantastic experiences this past year and we're promised many more in 2010.
Thank You for the Music
As this is the one time of year when Christine allows me to give thanks, and running the risk of missing someone important, Sidepodcast would like to share the love. The two of us would like to extend a huge thank you to all guest writers, to everyone who's helped transcribe a show, especially Amy for leading the effort, and to every person who pledged a donation this year. Much appreciation goes out to anyone who took time to pick up the phone, send an email, or leave a comment, especially if you did so for the first time.
Thank you to the participants of Sidepodradio, to those who tuned in and anyone who gave so much to charity that day. A special note of gratitude to Steven Roy for volunteering anyone and everyone who dared show an interest and to RG for the initial inspiration. A huge Sidepodthanks goes to the bestest host of the parade lap, Alex (Giggles) Andronov, without whom there would have been no pre-race shows this year, and to Katherine and Hyde Park for opening their doors to us.
Major kudos to Lisa McCormick and to Rob Smedley for both being especially lovely. The same goes to the 5Live team for providing such fabulous coverage that saved the season. To Danny from Fantasy Racers, and to anyone who's plugged, promoted or shared the Sidepodcast word, we also say cheers.
I would like to extend a personal thank you to everybody who offered their support back in the summer of discontent and encouraged us to continue, we quite literally would not be here today without you. A hat tip must also go towards Racecar Engineering and F1 Racing for featuring our McLaren photographs and to Stuart C for providing an education in journalism at no charge.
A special mention goes out to Joe Saward, a man who has given so much to Formula 1 for so many years and who this year, extended a generous hand in our direction.
Finally I give a huge hug to Ms Christine Blachford, for producing what are by far the best F1 podcasts on the internet and also for putting up with her co-host for another year.
Lord knows I hope we haven't missed anyone from that list, but just in case, Sidepodcast raises a virtual glass to everyone - may Formula 1 be good to you in 2010.
Gather round as our Sidepodcast listeners and commentors take to their microphones to bring you a round up of the 2009 season. All the major points are covered, with insight into the Brawn success, the Toyota failure, and everyone in between.
Less than a month ago, the first F1 game for a many a year arrived for the Wii console, and Lukeh provided us with a fantastic review. So good was it, that we went out and purchased the game solely on the man's advice. Lukeh returns today to offer similar insight into a mobile version of F1 2009 for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
This year we have indeed seen the return of F1 to videogames and it was a great return as I so much explained in my previous Wii review. It came just as much as a surprise to myself as it was to many others that an announcement last week confirmed that Formula 1 was indeed coming to iPods worldwide this week. The game weighs in at £3.99 / $6.99 so it’s got a bit of price on it for an iPod app, but is it worth it?
What must be remembered is this is an iPod, not a Playstation Portable or a Nintendo DS or any fully fledged gaming handheld. Whilst the iPod is more than capable of holding its weight with it’s gaming capabilities, it’s never going to include games as detailed as the aforementioned rivals. Nevertheless, I feel that the F1 2009 game for the iPod touch / iPhone is a nifty addition to the series that Codemasters seem willing to build.
First off, the graphics genuinely opened my eyes in surprise. For something so delicate, it really shows off the possibilities of gaming for this format. From the few tracks I’ve played since purchasing the game earlier this evening, everything noticeable from real life tracks is there – the urban classic streets of Monaco, the giant overhead stand of China, the overseeing forests of Spa. It is a visual delight and a true tribute to the power of the iPod/iPhone. When you’re flying down at 200mph it runs smoothly and nothing seems to be out of place, so needless to say this aspect of the app impressed me immensely.
The controls though are where things start to get dodgy. As with most iPod racing races, you use the system’s accelerometer to steer the car with various buttons on screen to accelerate, brake, change camera and use KERS. The initial impressions of the controls came to me with must frustration – the default steering sensitivity is, for lack of a better term, wild. You know how when Formula 1 cars warm up tyres they swing from left to right? That’ll be you initially upon first play. From my own point of view, I would suggest jumping into the options and turning the setting down a little, as it makes the driving a whole lot more tolerable. Furthermore, the default control system both acceleration and brake pedals on the right of the screen, and KERS button on the left. (Obviously it can be adjusted for left hand players.) Whilst others may find this alright, it felt very clumsy to me going to accelerate but finding myself braking instead – luckily an alternative setup of acceleration on the right and brakes on the left can be found in the options, an option I found immediately handier to use. Again, it’s just a personal thing so it may be different for you. In general though, it handles as you’d expect albeit it completely insanely at times, but it’s nothing deal breaking. Just very, very tough.
With 17 tracks and 20 cars you’re not exactly lacking variety
So what will you be getting in terms of content for your £4 or $7? Well I’d better give you a warning now – there is no racing as in 20 cars on a grid racing. The two game modes include Time Trials and Endurance, both seeing you racing in any car of your choice on any track of your choice. Time Trials does what it says on the tin, with your goal simply to set times and see which is fastest. Endurance sees you going out for laps and continually trying to beat them with consistency being the name of the game rather than the more general time trial mode. To be fair, with 17 tracks and 20 cars you’re not exactly lacking variety so there are no complaints there but I’m sure many will have wanted racing. It’s perfectly understandable though why it’s not there though. Your times can also be uploaded to Agon Online, a built in system that uploads your best times and shares them with the world as well as allowing you to browse yourself and view friends’ times.
So, should you buy it? Of course that is not my decision for me to make for you but in my advice I would only buy it if you really want an F1 game on your iPod / iPhone. Visually it is incredible, rivalling what we see on the Wii version of F1 2009 but it is very, very tough with the oversensitive handling and quite unique way of handling the game. Again, it’s what’s to be expected of the iPod and it is impressive considering what small weight the system has but, at £4 / $7, it’s probably recommended for the more advanced players of the system. It’s definitely a promising start though for future installments, just don't expect an easy ride with this app!
On this week's F1 Debrief show, we opened up the floodgates for the 2009 Season Review Megamix submissions. We debuted this idea last year, with the first ever show that featured neither Mr C nor myself, and it was a great success. Now we want to repeat the process.
What is it?
We want to get thoughts from all across the globe about the 2009 season. If you have even a simple sentence to sum up how the F1 year was for you, we want to hear it. Equally, if you've got a full season review ready to go, we'll take longer submissions as well. The more voicemails and mp3s we get the better, so we can mix them all up into one great big montage, and really break down the season for each and every one of you.
If you think you have nothing to say, then you're wrong. You must have an opinion about the season just passed, I know you do. Remember way back at the beginning of the year when Hamilton lied to the stewards? Or when Button won his first Monaco GP and celebrated by doing a lap of the track? Remember when Massa had his huge accident? Or when Bourdais spoke to his Toro Rosso pit wall in a way that left us in no doubt he was leaving the team? So much has happened this year, and this is your chance to sum it all up.
What do I do?
Getting involved is simple. You can either leave us a voicemail, or if you have the technology to record yourself, you can email an mp3. If you're on Skype, the username is "sidepodcast", or you can dial the number 0121 28 TRACK, that's +44 121 28 87225. The voicemail has a limit of ten minutes, but if you want to go over, you can call back and announce it as part two.
If you want to have a go at recording yourself, it's relatively easy to do. If you've got a microphone - either handheld or built in - all you need is to download something like Audacity and hit record. There will always be plenty of help in the comments for stuff like this. You can email your files to christine at sidepodcast dot com.
Is there a deadline?
We want to get the montage out by the end of the year, but there's still a good couple of weeks to get your submissions in. I think we'll set a deadline of the 14th December, but in true Bernie fashion, there is always room for negotiation.
If you're still in two minds about getting involved, I will once again point you towards last year's efforts, which were a great round up of the 2008 season. We featured some names you know and love, and some new participants as well. I want this year to be bigger and better, with more of you getting involved. From just a few words to a lot of minutes, everything is acceptable.
It is that day of the week again, but we'll pretend it isn't and maybe it'll be a good day anyway. Apparently it is also International Lefthanders Day, in which we celebrate those who use their left hands and recognise the inconveniences of a dominant right-handed world. According to Wikipedia anyway. Here's what we're talking about:
F1 Wolf has a great post pondering the future shape of the grid, with a rundown of which teams might be running which drivers in 2010. It is such a relief to be thinking of things like this, rather than whether F1 has a future at all. My favourite Wolf predictions are the Campos and Manor ones.
Maverick has written another graph-laden post on the Pitlane Fanatic blog. You know we like our graphs. This time he's reviewing the team's progress so far this year, with part one completed and part two coming soon. (I hope!)
Today seems like a good day to plug the Music Initiation page on the wiki. It came up in conversation yesterday, with a few people saying they'd missed out on the fun of sharing the first album and the first single they ever bought. Tell us yours, the more embarrassing the better!
That'll do for now. No one mention that it's that day of the week, and we'll all get along fine. Roll on Friday, I say. I'll see you in the comments.
Formula One is already marching headlong into the 2009 season, but before it gets there, Sidepodcast takes one final look back at the events that shaped 2008.
This isn't your normal F1 season review, but a chance for us to catch up on some of the things that slipped through our net during the past 12 months. These are things we wanted to cover but couldn't, either because of time constraints or video becoming available past our broadcast dates.
We look right back to winter testing, acknowledge Rubens for reaching a special milestone and hear what Jenson has to say about Formula One's first ever night race. All this and more in the last episode of Sidepodcast TV for 2008.
Music played:
The Futureheads, The Beginning Of The Twist
The Maine, We Change, We Wait
Bloc Party, Flux
Special thanks go out to Panasonic Toyota Racing, AT&T Williams, BMW Sauber F1 Team, ING Renault F1 Team, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, Honda Racing F1 Team and RTV GmbH for the use of their video footage.
Christmas is slowly creeping closer and closer, and today it's the Sidepodcast Christmas Party, or the Sidepodparty, if you will. There's plenty of planning going on behind the scenes, but feel free to add your thoughts to the Wiki. There is little going on in the F1 world, but here's what we've been discussing:
Bernie and Ferrari seem to have fallen out and details about the deal keeping Ferrari in the sport are leaking out. We mostly know it all already, but actual figures are starting to appear. Is it fair that Ferrari are paid a retainer above all the other teams? Why don't they kick off about it?
Kimi Raikkonen is getting a new race engineer for 2009, as Chris Dyer is moving onwards and upwards. Will this affect the Iceman? You'd imagine that he gets on with anyone, but we've also seen with Massa that the right combination can really have an amazing effect.
ITV's swan-song show is on this morning, 10:45 GMT, and as a review of the year it is called: Lewis Hamilton - World Champion. What would you call a review programme if you were in charge?
That pretty much sums up things for today. We're hanging the tinsel and getting the party food together for tonight, but until then, I'll see you in the comments.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
Honda had a terrible year in 2007 and were hoping that this season would see them at least start to return to form, if not begin scoring regular points again. The team brought ex-Ferrari strategy genius Ross Brawn on board as team principal, hoping he could use his expertise to save their ailing fortunes.
Brawn's presence was felt immediately, although he wasn't in time to have too much of an impact on the car itself. That would probably explain why it was not a particularly good one. The surprising thing, though, is that it hasn't got any better throughout the year, and has arguably got worse. At the start of the year, you expected Honda to fall somewhere in the second session of qualifying. By the end of 2008, it would have been a major shock if they'd have managed to get out of Quali 1.
A big part of this is down to a decision to focus on the 2009 regulations. The difference between 2008 and 2009 is so huge that Honda made the switch quite early in the season, and therefore sacrificed some development on this year's car in order to get a step ahead for next season. This may explain some of the lack of progress, and will hopefully prove to be true when we start to see the real pace of the 2009 specifications.
One of the worrying things about Honda's lack of pace is the motivation of the drivers. Button has put a lot of faith in the team, as they have in him, and he is still waiting for a car that can repeat his 2006 win in Hungary. Barrichello came to the team with a lot of experience at Ferrari, and hasn't been given the chance to show it. The team are currently testing out some new drivers, with it looking likely that Barrichello may not last until 2009. This would be a questionable decision, because developing a car takes experience, and whilst some new youth and enthusiasm may bolster the atmosphere, would they be able to help with testing the new aero parts.
It's still a rocky road ahead for Honda and their drivers, but when a season has been as bad as the one they have just experienced, you must think that things can only go up from here.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
Formula One Management, and Bernie Ecclestone in particular, are known for being particularly stringent when it comes to controlling their video output. Of course, it is the basis of their entire business model, so it's no wonder that illegal F1 videos are always being torn down from sites like YouTube and DailyMotion. The problem that we, as fans, have is that there's nowhere else to go and see clips of the races.
FOM sell rights to the broadcast companies, and therefore can't just let the races be given away for free. However, now that there have been many, many calls to see footage from the Japanese Grand Prix, they've relented somewhat. After three very controversial penalties were handed out at the Fuji Speedway last weekend, FOM have put video onto their official website F1.com.
The video footage sits outside of the normal highlights package, and is a single showing of all three penalty incidents one after the other. The title of the page is: Japanese Grand Prix footage - what do you think?
It's an interesting move from F1's distributors, as they are usually so closely guarded about what video is shown and when. It doesn't seem like something they are going to make a habit of, as the page seems quite hastily put together. Perhaps they have finally listened to the calls of fans to be more open about what is going on out on track.
However, the problem they face now is that we know they can do it, and we're going to want it more often. Why couldn't they have done this for the Raikkonen/Hamilton footage at Belgium? This would have been very useful for that penalty as well. Also, the fact that they're asking for opinions, but not actually giving anywhere to submit them, makes me think that they're really just trying to rally the fans into action. They don't really want to know what we think, but they want us to start thinking about it. As if we weren't already.
It's certainly an interesting development so close to the end of the season, and is what I believe to be a one off video enhancement to what was already a fascinating race. We can only hope it happens more often, though, and perhaps in less controversial circumstances.
