Back to the grindstone, today, then, as the year of work begins again. It's Franck's birthday tomorrow and I'm mentioning it today because firstly, I will probably forget when it matters, and secondly, it's nice to start the week with a mention of Franck, and hopefully he'll get a mention tomorrow as well. Meanwhile, here are some of the things on our radar today:
Ollie has a post with some updates on when we can expect testing action this week. You can also see the new version of his site, with more featured posts, and a little bit more colour. Keep an eye on it, and let Ollie know what you think.
Gavin has another post from his 2009 in review series, and this time he's looking at qualifying and how the drivers compare to each other. It's a good read so make sure you head on over to look at the graphs. Apparently the next one will be about fastest laps, which should also be good.
I posted the review of the Best Comments of the Year wiki page yesterday. It was supposed to be a poll where we selected the best one, but there were so many good ones, I figured that we could just pick out a couple and point you towards the rest.
That should do it for now, let us know how your Monday is going and I will see you in the comments.
It is Friday, and we are still waiting for the F1 news to die down this week. There have been breakout threads flying all over the place, and I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the weekend for a rest! Yesterday was all about another driver announcement but here are some of the other things we're talking about:
Over on Metro F1, there's a couple of reviews for some games, just in time if you're planning to buy an F1 fan something like this for Christmas. We had our own F1 2009 review, of course, but it's always interesting to see other people's takes on it, plus a couple of other games for good measure.
I missed this when it was initially posted, but I see that RG has been doing some detective work, and discovered a potential new design for Timo Glock's helmet. It's probably a bit early to think about helmet designs, the season is still several months away, but it's good to see some colours.
Stuart has some thoughts on Flavio Briatore and his attempts to overturn his lifetime ban from motorsport. There are already sme disagreements happening in Stuart's comments over this, but it's an interesting topic, and will be fascinating to find out how Flav gets on.
That'll do it for now, let us know what you have planned for the weekend, and as ever, I'll see you in the comments.
I don't think we'll ever win the battle of convincing everyone the off season is brilliant, but instead, we can make it the best we possibly can. Last year, we had a quick run through of what we were planning to do, and then we reviewed what we had managed to achieve before the season began. This year we're going to do something similar.
Although it will be good to have news to talk about as the off season gradually progresses, we don't want anything like last year with constant speculation over who will buy or not buy Honda. I know there are teams out there waiting to be picked up, so let's hope these things can be sorted out smoothly. I'm not holding, my breath though.
While the F1 world rumbles on, we'll be busy with some awesome things, including (but not limited to):
The 2009 Season Review - you can (and will) be getting involved with this!
The return of Sidepodpanel - assuming the technology comes together in time
A review of our predictions from pre-season and a catchup with our New Year's Resolutions
Best of shows - you can suggest best of moments over on the wiki
Continual website improvements - Sidepodcast 3.0 is taking shape nicely
Preparations for the 2010 season - again, you can (and will) be getting involved with this!
Plenty of 2009 analysis and nostalgia
I'm sure there's more I've missed, and no doubt there will be plenty of impromptu ideas along the way. If there's anything you'd like us to have a go at, now is the chance to let us know. Also, why not share what you're planning to do with your off season, particularly if you are blogging your way through it, or taking a much deserved break.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
The BBC used to have rights to show Formula One in the UK, but for the last 13 years the coverage has been provided by ITV. The BBC website for F1 formed part of their Sports site, and although the news was factual and engaging, the stories were often a few days late, and didn't go into too much detail. I used to say that you could tell when a story was really important because it showed up on the BBC.
For 2009, though, BBC have won the broadcast rights to F1 back from ITV, and that includes TV, radio, mobile and online coverage. Last week, they launched a redesigned site, and moved the links on the Sports homepage to second, underneath football. This already shows much more dedication than they had previously.
But what is on the site itself? There is all the news, as previously featured, although with more regularity, and slightly more in depth features. There will be a few columnists, including the journalists who are involved with making the TV and radio coverage, plus Mark Webber will provide a driver's perspective.
Although the news has increased, I do have a slight problem with the design. A black background always makes it difficult to read text, whether it is a stark white or charcoal grey font. I understand the desire to make the site different from the football or cricket section, but it doesn't make for easy reading. However, hopefully the content will be good enough to make it worthwhile.
There is also a picture of the week feature from respected photographer Darren Heath. Although it is called picture of the week, it looks like the series will feature a photograph from Heath's collection after each race. His pictures are usually stunning, with a different viewpoint than the usual car and tarmac approach. At the moment, until the season gets going, the picture is one of Massa on the podium at Brazil, and it sends shivers down my spine remembering that moment.
Hopefully, this year will be just as good, and the BBC can capitalise on a great season, by making their website one of the best.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
GPUpdate covers a few motorsports, including A1GP, GP2 and MotoGP, but their F1 site is what interests us. Their news is up to date and well written, with pictures to illustrate what is going on in the text. The archives are easy to navigate, although the ads can sometimes get in the way of the content.
One of the best things about this site is it's testing coverage. Formula 1 tests are notoriously lacking in information, with the occasional lunchtime update. Normally, we have to wait until the end of the day to see what's been happening. GPUpdate tend to have photos going up throughout the sessions, and keep us posted on the weather conditions as well. They also have a very good upcoming calendar to keep track of what tests are happening where and when. It's easy to miss or forget about tests, so this is a good way of keeping on top of things.
The one thing GPUpdate is missing, although perhaps isn't in their remit, is any in depth analysis. They're usually quick off the mark with a news story, but it doesn't go much further than reporting the facts. Sometimes this is useful because all you need to know is what's going on, but sometimes it would be nice to have a bit more background information to learn from. There are plenty of other places on the web to find this, though, so perhaps GPUpdate thought they would be better off concentrating on what they do best.
There are other features to the site though, as mentioned earlier, they have a great photo library. There is also a Fantasy F1 manager style game that takes place each season, and invites you to buy components to receive points and prizes. GPUpdate is also a reputable place to buy from, with a shop selling merchandise, tickets and many other things.
All in all, this site is good to have bookmarked, or tucked away in your RSS feed reader, as it delivers the news in a timely fashion. However don't expect too much more from it, otherwise the news might start getting slower!
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
Although the season has finished, there are still lots of things to look forward to, and plenty to look back on. Throughout the 2008 season, Williams released a podcast after every Grand Prix, and the shows were packed with interviews and features to give any fan something to listen to. The podcasts have stopped for the winter, but they are still available as a download, and I thoroughly recommend listening back through the year, if you haven't already.
I am part-way through listening myself and am really enjoying what I'm hearing. The presenting can sometimes be a bit starched and stilted, but the information we're getting is insightful and makes you feel much more a part of the team.
Each show is structured in a similar way, with different elements making up the entire podcast. Firstly, there is always a segment looking back at the race that just happened, evaluating how well the team did, and more often than not, how they could have done better. Then there is an interview with the drivers, usually separately. Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima tell us how they are preparing for each weekend, and what they get up to in their spare time. It's not all about Formula 1 either, as I've just listened to a couple of episodes where Rosberg tells us which sport he'd want to compete in at the Olympics, and Nakajima talks about his time at university.
Then there's an interesting Behind the Scenes segment, which features a look at some of the departments you don't usually hear about, but the team couldn't function without them. We've met the team that run the Corporate Hospitality boxes, talked to those in charge of Logistics, and even had a secretive interview with the incredibly important simulator department. They even featured an interview with some Toyota personnel, as Williams run a customer engine from their rival team. This is my favourite part of the show, as each department is something that most teams have, but you wouldn't normally get to hear anything about them. I didn't realise how much hard work was involved serving lunches for the team at a Grand Prix weekend!
Finally, the interview returns to the track, with Sam Michael or another one of the engineering team preview the next race, looking at how the team hope they will do and whether the car should be any good. Obviously, the Grand Prix talk is out of date now, however, I still think it's worth listening to. If you don't want to relive the season, I would heartily suggest keeping an eye out for the podcast, and hoping it returns when the 2009 season begins.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
The anticipation ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix was rising from the moment it was announced as a night race. Even when Valencia was staged, and we were excited about a new street circuit, Singapore was always at the back of our minds.
Unfortunately, Valencia didn’t manage to live up to the hype, as the street circuit saw wide field spread and the views weren’t very interesting. Singapore, however, lived up to our expectations and exceeded them.
From the early moments of Free Practice 1, you could instantly tell that this track was different. Firstly, there’s the stunning scenery. With FP1 and 3, there was a beautiful sunset to take in, as the rays filtered away behind the city landscape. Once it was dark, the skyscrapers were lit up, the traffic was blinking into the distance, and a single circuit of tarmac was illuminated for all to see.
Whilst the background was too dark to affect the view too much, the lighting did make things more interesting. Only a couple of corners seemed to be slightly darker than the rest, and as predicted, shadows were not a problem. The track itself, although long, slow, with many corners, allowed for some fascinating racing.
The entire weekend saw incident after incident, as drivers bounced over the kerbs and into the walls. This brought out the safety car, which can only ever mix things up a bit. It’s not a good idea to have a circuit relying on a safety car to make for an interesting race, and Singapore looked as though it could hold its own without any outside interference.
The only worrying aspect of the weekend was the marshals. Whilst they seemed to do a good job once they got going (and things certainly improved as the weekend went on), they were very slowly to get to an incident. When Piquet hit the wall in the race, it took him a few minutes to climb out of the car, and there wasn’t a marshal in sight. The only way we knew he was okay was because we heard him on the team radio, apologising to his team. There were struggles with the crane, and getting cars out of harm’s way, but whether this was partly to do with the narrow streets and tight run off areas, remains to be seen.
There was a small problem with the pit lane entrance during qualifying, as drivers slowing to come in for a stop, naturally hinder anyone on a lap behind them. It seems likely the pit entrance will be altered for next year, although it didn’t cause any problems in the race itself.
All in all, Singapore can count itself as a big success. Without the night race aspect, it would probably be a worthy event anyway, but for now, the added novelty of racing in the dark means it’s up there as one of the best on the calendar.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
GPWEEK is a free online magazine that is available weekly. It covers a few different areas of motorsport including Formula 1, MotoGP and World Rally Championship.
The Formula 1 content is extremely well written and insightful, and as the magazine doesn't have to wait for printers, it is up to date and informative. GPWEEK is available every Monday, and after a race weekend it is full of all the gossip from the paddock, including results, analysis, and a team by team review. The pictures are sometimes stunning, and even though I skip through the non-F1 content, I do find all the pictures worth looking at. The very last page of the magazine is a "Parting Shot" and it's always something fascinating.
The online distribution model is an interesting one. The magazine is available to view online, assuming that your browser allows it. You can scroll through the pages of the magazine, which is displayed in a regular page by page fashion. Where there are advertisements you can click on the links if you want to visit for further information. If you want to keep the magazine, or can't view it on the browser, there is a PDF download available. The pictures are of inferior quality to those on the web, but it is another format to read it in.
My favourite thing about the magazine though, is that you can sign up to get email reminders that it's available. Every Monday morning I open my inbox and find the reminder that tells me GPWEEK is available. I head straight there and browse through the F1 contents, enjoy the pictures, and then carry on with my day. Without the email, I probably wouldn't remember to go there, but I think that's more of a reflection on my memory than the quality of the magazine.
There have so far been 27 issues of GPWEEK, it started in March 2008. All the previous issues are available in the archive for download, as well as the high quality online version. I highly recommend GPWEEK as worth a look, it's free and very easy to use.
Once again, we're reviewing other people's websites, this time looking closely at the teams to see how they fare. The first five can be found here, in Part 1 of the series, and this is Part 2, looking at the final five. I'll be checking out how good they are from a fan's point of view, whilst the geeky one will lift the hood on the technical bits.
Toyota
There’s more detail here about the car than anywhere I’ve seen so far, Toyota don’t seem afraid to share things with the fans. There’s an incredibly deep interactive experience looking at the team’s setup for Grands Prix, the motorhome, etc. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of connecting with their fans, but there are videos, images, wallpapers, and a nice set of features that will keep you reading for a short while.
Toyota's site is stuffed to the rafters with content. With technical details, images, videos and an immersive factory tour, you'll want make sure you have some free time before visiting this place.
Considering the breadth of information available, the navigation is okay. The virtual tour opens in separate window making it feel like a bit of an afterthought, and there seems to be a couple of different routes to the same content, leaving me confused as to what I'd seen and where I'd been.
Generally though, this is a nice site and you can't argue with a team that merrily answers the frequently asked question - "Please let me drive for the team - I am loads better than the current drivers!". No doubt a hangover from the 2007 season, that one.
As you would expect, Toro Rosso is very similar to the Red Bull site, including the flashing timings that don’t actually do anything. I can’t find anything that makes it stand out, in fact, except a newsletter sign up. Does anyone still do that?
Hmm, this is a typical example of corporate branding gone wrong. Apparently STR aren't even allowed to stand on their own two feet online. But while the homepage may look like a second-rate version of the Red Bull site, there's a couple good things hidden under the covers.
I especially love the interactive car on the Flash version of the site. It displays specific details about the inner workings of their F1 challenger, yet when you rollover the tyre information hotspot, it simply says "Wheels". That's my kind of education. Additionally much kudos should be given for text displayed as the image gallery starts up. The message reads "Loading page XML". Even for me, that's one step too geeky.
Points must be deducted for the annoying engine noises that endlessly loop, never wanting to go away.
The Honda site opens up a new window that takes over the screen, and it moves around a lot before settling into a homepage. I feel like either I’m being a bit backwards, or the site isn’t quite right, because I clicked on the GP link expecting results or news from Canada, and it took me to images. Still, if you can work out the navigation, and put up with the switch between screens, there’s the excellent Honda Racing TV to watch, and a fans area to upload your photos and videos.
Considering how uneasy on the eye Honda's current Formula 1 campaign is (think dumbo wings, earth livery and green pants), I had low expectations of their home on the web. Those fears are unwarranted though as this is a surprisingly nice looking site. I personally prefer the HTML version (although I'm denied access to the videos from there), because the pages are clean, simple to navigate and they get the information across with little fuss.
A brief excursion into the hi-band, flashy pages sends my processor and accompanying fan into overdrive. I get the impression whoever designed the interface had plenty of fun doing so, but the constant flipping around gets tiresome quickly. The TV section of the site works well though, and Honda are the class of the field when it comes to online video production, although the embedded player is unfathomable in its refusal to rewind or forward anything, ever.
The Force India site seems a bit rough and ready about the edges, things open in new windows and some of the links are confusing, but they really embrace the online culture. There are widgets for you to download, so you can have a Force India count down to the next race, and there are embed codes for badges to support the team. As I look at it today, there’s even a poll about budget capping. I like its homely feel, like it’s been cobbled together by a fan.
I'm a fan of this site. Everything in moderation seems to be the motto, it's not extravagant, but neither is it understated. The homepage provides a quick-fix of the latest information and the rest of the pages contain the in-depth detail. Talking of which, some of the those could do with more content or layout revisions, the contact page for example looks positively lost in a sea of grey.
Club Force, the social network for all FIF1 fans is a worthy addition to the site and the team have really got this right. From personal experience I know some of the interfaces in the section look half finished and 50% of the time videos we upload simply never appear. But while I think it needs more work, I appear to be in the minority given there are 15,855 registered users and counting (currently twice that of Renault), so they can't be doing much wrong.
The McLaren site could be considered the exact opposite of the FIF1 pages, and represents the team perfectly. Looks pretty good, does what it does well, but is more interested in being corporate than being friendly. The only thing that even vaguely caught my attention was the link to the official Facebook page, and the information on Racing Line – the members only McLaren magazine. They also have a Fantasy F1 league, which is quite cool, but we all know how good I am at those, so I skipped past that.
Did this site get a lick of paint recently? I remember it being more imposing in the past, but I like the new airy feel. Navigation is consistent across every browser I could throw at it, but I dislike the links that appear to the right-hand side of some pages. I feel I have to tilt my head 90 degrees just figure them out.
The use of light-box popup windows when viewing pictures and videos is a nice touch, but good lord the videos are awful. Check out the "French Grand Prix Track Guide" from Heikki to see what I mean. I can only assume a team member's youngest child offered to do them for free, blindfolded, because they're not up to the McLaren standard at all.
Video complaints aside though, I did enjoy browsing around. I would probably suggest a wider window for displaying content as reading tended to involve a lot of scrolling, because panel width had been constrained, but that's about all.
One final thing to mention, and this isn't strictly related to McLaren's site, but we know how much people enjoy F1 games. Santander have created their own version of a pit-stop game at santander-racing.com and it is worth 5mins of anyone's time.
That's it for our team website reviews. As ever, we'd love to hear what you think about them below - and watch out for our circuit website reviews coming up shortly.
A week or so ago, we looked at how the driver's websites stacked up against each other, in fourveryseparateposts. Now we're turning our attention on the teams, but the criteria is still the same. I'll be looking at it from a fan's point of view, assessing the content and general usability. The geeky one takes a more, well, geeky look at the sites, and then we rate them. Here goes.
Ferrari
I tried to link to the actual Ferrari Racing bit of the site, but it’s so flash-based, there’s no unique ID for that page. You have to pick your language, navigate whether you want the site or the store, then click on racing. Too much effort! Once you get that far, there’s not that much information on there anyway, but I do like the timeline through the years. A unique way of doing a biography, that includes a fascinating look at the way the cars have changed. The one problem I found is, even though I picked English, there still seems to be the odd Italian word thrown in here and there, making navigation harder, but not impossible.
I do like a website that resizes and repositions my web browser, no really, nothing makes me happier. I mean why stop there, why not rearrange my desktop while you're at it? I'm only the visitor, that's all.
Regardless of the heavy handed welcome, you would have thought that F1 was important enough to Ferrari to warrant its own site, wouldn't you? Instead you'll find your racing information buried under a sea of tiny little text links, oh and good luck finding your way around, even the English language version with its 6pt sized links contained Italian phrasing I could only guess the meaning of.
Incidentally, Ferrari have some great video interviews on YouTube, and I rather expected to find something similar here (albeit better quality), but alas if they're around anywhere I couldn't find them.
Firstly, it was impossibly slow to load. There was a competition for a trip to Malaysia, but I couldn’t wait for the site to load, so I’ll never be able to participate, let alone win. There is information about the Pit Lane Park, which is useful, and some team news, but nothing out of the ordinary to make it stand out.
Okay, I'm going to come right out and say it, in contrast to Christine, I think this is the best website I've visited in a very long time. Yes, I know it's built in Flash and I know there's no HTML version, but when a team of people put in this much effort and attention to detail, I can only sit back in awe. Seriously a thing of beauty.
To best illustrate why I like this place so much, allow me to guide you through but one section of many. Selecting 'Season 2008' from the top menu, followed by 'GP Canada' will introduce a short video clip. Watch closely as for a few brief seconds a BMW screams past not only the Casino de Montréal but also The Olympic Stadium. Clearly an F1 challenger was never in the vicinity of those two landmarks, which means somebody had to put it there by hand. I can't even speculate the amount of effort that went into creating those 3 seconds of film. Literally the car could've been anywhere on any track in the world and who would've noticed? That's my kind of attention to detail.
I will concede that all is not perfect though, and the sudden bursts of noise did ruin a particular track I was listening to at the time, and yep the site's slow, and sure the shop's a touch weird, but I forgive all sins because BMW's abode simply oozes character.
We’ve covered the Renault site in great detail previously, how it went completely wrong once a certain someone left. However, I’ll look at it with fresh eyes. It’s split into two – fan and team, which already makes me feel alienated. The team site is your standard news, statistics and history. The fan site is slightly more interesting, with the blog and the member additions. They were almost up to 7,000 members when I looked, so they must be doing something right.
As Christine points out this is a site of two halves, but I'm going to ignore the "Fan" section due to the fact it didn't load. In truth it very rarely does, the words "scalable" and "architecture" spring to mind here.
Five seconds... count 'em. That's the entire length of time I spend on the Renault site and that was enough to tell me nothing had changed. The offensive music startled me once again, while a huge window opened and automatically commandeered my screen - I think they call that the element of surprise. No doubt it looks great on a 40" projector beamed on the wall of the teams HQ, however it simply mocks my inferior equipment.
I really dislike the bubble thing, when I went to click on one of them, it disappeared. That’s not a great start in terms of usability. If you discount that, though, the navigation is easy with the menu along the top, and leads to some good stuff. There’s some really nice track guides, packed with information, and a fantastic animation of the 2006 car, where you can break it down to its very basic components. With detailed biographies on the key team members, including drivers, and a really good interactive tour of the factory, I could visit the Williams site over and over again. I just wish they’d get rid of the bubbles.
If Williams were as fast on track as they are on the web, we'd be crowning this year's constructors champions already. It's nice to wander around the site, the layout is uncluttered, the colour scheme is friendly and I felt drawn into digging deeper. So much information and I just wanted to read more.
No mention of the Williams site would be complete without a hat tip to the multimedia section. They're one of, if not the best in this area. Although, I could've sworn the Earth was more spherical the last time I checked. Maybe Sir Frank knows something we don't?
I don’t understand why, when I hover a link, the timer things go crazy. It doesn’t add anything or tell my anything, and simply makes me dizzy. There aren’t too many extras on the site, just the usual driver info, car statistics, and press releases. Red Bull have a style about them, though, that makes every piece of writing worth reading, in case it holds a hidden gem. They’re not afraid to poke fun at themselves, and everyone else, which keeps me on the site. I dislike having to click “Read More” on a news article, though, when there’s plenty of room on the page to fit it in.
At last a HTML site to rival the Flash incumbents. I actually prefer the basic version, best described as "how the web should be" given that it reinforces the team's brand whilst remaining both useful and user friendly. The over the top alternate version sadly offers little or nothing extra, except I quite liked the motion-blur-rollover-effect. Flawed though it is, given that your attention automatically moves to the thing that's supposed to be blending into the background. I saw some text to read but was far to busy fading the images in and out to pay any it attention.
One quick mention for the paddock fly-by at redbullf1.com, just because someone put a lot of work into it. It doesn't add anything to Red Bull's main site but kudos for the hours of work that went into an entirely pointless but frankly gorgeous animation. I stand up and applaud such a pretentious waste of bandwidth.
