We've got shoutouts, news and views, good weeks and bad, a circuit link up, race discussion, Sidepodtour updates, Fantasy Racers stats, voicemails galore and just a little bit of housekeeping. It's all go, go, go!
Intro
Two shoutouts for Sidepostcast. We think that might be us.
Good Week / Bad Week
It's been a good week for iPhone users and for bizarre surveys, but a bad week for Campos Racing and Donington Park.
News and Views
FOTA only went and did it, didn't they? Announcing a breakaway competition in the dead of night. Although things are still at a stalemate, at least we are one step forward. This is progress, and it creates lots of questions. We answer the most important one though.
The Race
We quickly run through all the happenings at Silverstone, such as the quick drop off of KERS, Button and Barrichello's varying performances, Bourdais vs. Heikki and those donuts.
Fantasy Racers
I am now 88th in the league, whilst Mr C went up for a change, now sitting in 308th. We also read an encouraging email.
Feedback
Voicemails galore, as Dan Brunell is pondering why the FIA are creating such a fuss over four grid spots, RG gives us an update on Croft, and Paul wishes me a Happy Birthday.
Housekeeping
There's a guide for anyone new to the site to help get started on Sidepodcast, plus a new way of commenting if you're on an old browser.
According to the Sidepodcommunity, anyway. A few days ago, we put up a poll to question whether this was the best off season, based on how our total comment count was rocketing upwards. The results are in and a whopping 98 of 119 people believe that this was, indeed, a great off season.
Was this the best off season ever?
Yes 82% (98 votes)
No 18% (21 votes)
Total voters: 119
The majority of opinion actually seems to be along the lines of - it was a good winter with plenty to discuss, but actually it was quite painful. What with the Honda saga dragging on endlessly, and the FIA's propensity to screw around with the regulations, it certainly hasn't been the easiest few months.
Also, as an update to the original post, Mr C informs me that we did, in fact, go on a Sidepodtour. It wasn't the one we had in mind, but we visited Autosport, checked out a KERS talk (or two, in his case), visited the odd F1 factory, and managed to catch up with Mark Webber at Silverstone. I suppose that makes the winter an unmitigated success.
Perhaps we should start counting down to the next off-season now?
There must be something about the off-season that leads us in the direction of Mark Webber. This time last year we ended up dining in his restaurant, and 12 months later we spent an afternoon at Silverstone listening to him talk.
The Porsche Driving Centre, a recent addition to the Silverstone circuit and situated next to Hangar Straight, were running a workshop today called "Fit to Race". In essence this consisted of a number of demonstrations relating to driver performance metrics, from diet and training, to mental preparation and psychology. Mark was in attendance as a guest speaker, offering his take on subjects such as hydration, working out and how he's been coping with a dodgy leg.
The man talked at length in two separate sessions, and we'll no doubt go into more detail in future. Suffice to say, on behalf of all Sidepodcast listeners we put the question of Michael Schumacher's speedy recovery in '99 to Mark and the official word is, he believes he'll match the former World Champion with an eleven week recovery period. How annoyingly diplomatic.
We have to say a huge thank you to Mike Garth, who originally mentioned the workshop on Twitter. Mike was another speaker at Silverstone today (and if we may say so, best after Webber), he specialises in psychology and performance coaching in motorsport, and you can find out more information at Sun1400. As a sideline, he also finds things for Sidepodcast to do during the winter, and we can't thank him enough.
There's so much more to discuss about our day, we met so many fantastic people, we don't know where to begin. We'll cover more in a future podcast, but with the debut of Sidepodchat tomorrow, it may have to wait a while. It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on our Flickr pages during the week though.
As part of our end of year round up, we like to take a look back at our year through the eyes of our camera lens. Usually, all the good photos are posted to our Flickr account, but this is the place for those photos that tell a story although they aren't quite up to my personal publishable standards.
Autosport International
AI is a good way to kick off the motorsport year, breaking us into the Formula 1 world after a festive season of working on the website. In 2008, my main mission was to collect as much junk as possible, although it left me feeling unfulfilled and wishing I'd paid a bit more attention. One thing I did pay attention to, however, is the Main Stage, which hosted several famous faces. We saw Jenson talking candidly about his hopes for the Honda team, and as the above demonstrates, we saw Webber, discussing his Tasmania Challenge and how Red Bull would be performing in the coming season.
The reason I've chosen this photo for the 2008 In... series is because it also features Henry Hope-Frost. At the time, I had no idea who he was, and Mr C was vaguely aware of him from the Autosport podcast. For reasons unknown, he didn't come across well during these interviews. It's a difficult performance to give, with the stage being double sided, F1 drivers being usually reluctant to talk, and the usual pressures of keeping to the schedule. I can understand why he seemed a bit hassled.
Roll on six months though, and we caught up with Mr Hope-Frost at the British GP. He was a brilliant guy, really funny, and certainly an under-used talent at Autosport. I like this photo because it reminds me not to judge people based on one glimpse of them, the same way we shouldn't judge Formula 1 drivers on one bad performance. That being the case, Nakajima, you are forgiven.
Silverstone Test
This was my first attendance at a test, after Mr C scuttled off by himself last year. I had a really good time, but only because of our Silverstone Racing Club tickets. If you've listened to the podcast related to this outing, you'll know that we were quite impressed with the benefits of being an SRC member. Special car park, access to food, facilities and a grandstand, but most importantly, access to the paddock in the afternoon. We recommended the tickets highly, but now there's no in season testing and Silverstone are losing their grip on the Grand Prix itself, it's perhaps not such a good investment.
Nevertheless, at the time we were unaware of all this and I was particularly looking forward to the pit lane walk. However, once inside the sacred stretch of concrete, there was very little to see. The above picture was taken thanks to the long reach of Mr C's arms. Never has being of regular height been such a disadvantage.
I can understand that the teams don't invite the public to come and gawp at them as they work through their lunch, and that it is the circuit that allow the access. However, they don't appear to be doing anything particularly secret. It's nothing we don't see on the television during a race weekend. If the teams are worried about their competitors getting a glimpse, wouldn't they need to keep shut through the whole day? It was such a disappointment, with only Force India allowing fans a peek into their garage. Thankfully, I married a tall man and can foil the other teams plans.
British GP
It's very easy to rave about what a great time we had at the British Grand Prix this year, because it was amazing. However, it was also a miserable experience. Forget the fact that I caught the worst cold I've ever had from sleeping in a cardboard bread bin in a freezing cold field. Forget the fact that it was a bit rainy. Silverstone is a nasty place to be.
When the action is going, particularly if the sun is out, you can be forgiven for getting all sentimental about the place. The history is plain to see, the power of Formula 1 can overwhelm you as the cars speed around each fabled corner. Turn the sun off for even a second, though, and it's not a fun place to be. The walkways get muddy, the majority of grandstands are uncovered, and don't get me started on the rotten bridge.
Sunday, this year, was completely drenched, and the above picture proves that even the teams have to take special measures to try and survive a weekend in the British countryside.
That was the first half of our year in pictures, don't forget to check out Part 2.
As a guest of the Williams F1 Grand Prix Collection tour, there's a chance to sit in an actual Formula 1 car towards the end. Tucked away in the corner of the trophy room is Ralf Schumacher's car from 2000, I believe - feel free to correct me on that one.
I wasn't at all sure about having a sit in the car, partly because being anywhere Ralf has been isn't particularly enticing, and partly because it was the centre of attention. Nevertheless, I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Getting into the car is easy. The very nice Williams man tells you to hold yourself on your arms, tuck your feet in, and slide all the way down. Simple. Once inside, I was amazed. I'd expected it to be really claustrophobic, but it was actually quite nice, although definitely a snug fit. I wouldn't go so far as to say comfortable though. Granted, I never had a fitting, but the seat is all knobbly and there's a tendency to elbow oneself in the ribs when holding on to a steering wheel. I can't believe this is conducive to concentration when whizzing about at high speeds.
The other thing that surprised me was the visibility. I wasn't as low as I thought I would be. Again, no seat fitting will make this experiment quite unscientific, but I could touch the pedals so I can't have been too far out. I thought it was going to be just a glimpse of the horizon, but I could actually see quite a long way. I imagine the added restrictions of a helmet have a huge impact on visibility, but it certainly wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
The only problematic moment was trying to climb out of the car. The natural instinct upon standing up is to lift your knees and then haul upwards. Not in here. You have to slip out of the seat far enough for your knees to be able to bend. It had me quite confused for a while, and I was worried I'd be stuck in an F1 car forever. Thankfully, the very nice Williams man was on hand to explain how I was doing it all wrong and just had to get my limbs under control.
All in all, it was great to have a glimpse into Ralf's drivers office. I know it was nothing like what he would go through on an average race weekend, but I reckon being jostled about for two hours in one of those things is worth a trophy or two. Have you ever sat in an F1 car? How did you find it?
We rely on broadband for pretty much everything at Sidepodcast HQ, so when it stopped functioning earlier this month, the unthinkable happened. We went outside!
It had been on our minds for a while that we needed to go to Ikea and pick up some things for the office and for the set of Sidepodcast. There is no Ikea near where we live, so we decided to make a day trip of it.
Ikea is wonderful, but I don’t think a visit there counts as a Sidepodcast event. Once our purchasing was done, we headed to a nearby pub in the depths of the countryside. This was not just any old pub, oh no, this one housed the Il Maschio restaurant, owned by a certain Mr Mark Webber.
I say owned, I’m not entirely sure how it works. I assumed he owned it, but upon further research, it looks like his wife is more involved than he is. And once we were there the amount of Red Bull paraphernalia made it seem as though they were sponsoring the pub rather than him.
However, I get ahead of myself.
We got lost trying to find this pub, of course. It really is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. But soon we saw the sign.
The actual pub part of things appears to be very, very small: perhaps two tables crammed together and a bar. However, the restaurant is much more spacious. We ordered a table for two and were seated by the window.
It was slightly bizarre, because aside from the signed Mark Webber helmet sitting in a glass case in the middle of the restaurant, and the Red Bull t-shirts the staff were wearing, you wouldn’t know this pub had anything to do with F1 at all.
But if you didn’t know it had anything to with F1, you would be wondering why there was a helmet in the middle of the restaurant. Quite a weird setup, when you think about it.
The menu was pretty standard for any Italian restaurant, there was plenty to choose from of pizzas and pasta. I had to order the Mark Webber pizza, of course, named after... okay, you know that much.
It was yummy, and that’s as much as I’m going to say because anymore leads to innuendo and I’m much too polite for that sort of thing.
After we were stuffed (didn’t get to try the desserts, unfortunately, which may mean a return trip), we headed outside into the pub garden. The table umbrellas were, you guessed it, Red Bull umbrellas, and we sat underneath one with his beer and my Diet Coke.
Using our portable audio technology, we recorded a podcast right there and then in the comfortable but cold surroundings of Mark Webber’s pub. It wasn’t ideal, chilly, as I mentioned, an unusual amount of traffic, and two little children playing and shouting. But it all added to the atmosphere, I think, and ended up being a nice day out.
Having said that, I was glad when we got in the car to come home. Much too cold. The broadband still wasn’t working though.
This article was originally posted on a personal website and is published here for posterity.
Jason Plato is a well respected driver in the British Touring Car Championship. He drives for Seat, and he wins sometimes. He also presents Fifth Gear on Channel Five with Vicky Butler Henderson. It's basically a cheaper version of Top Gear, but still really, really good. Jason Plato was at Autosport International on Saturday.
We rounded the corner and were confronted with a giant Seat stand. There were a couple of the cars and the normal propoganda that you expect. I was trying to explain to "me" who Jason Plato was and how he should know him, but he was struggling to remember. I searched around for a picture of Jason because I knew there would be one somewhere. The stand also seemed to have a little alcove where selected people, probably official Seat types were sipping tea and coffee. Behind their heads, a picture was tacked on the wall of Jason and some other people celebrating a race win with a trophy. I grabbed "me"'s arm and pointed excitedly, happy to have found a picture.
"me" studied it for a while and realised he did know who it was. I was looking at the people standing under the photo. They were talking and had noticed that I was pointing at them. I turned to "me" and said "Oops, that man thinks I'm pointing at him." Imagine my horror, when I realised it actually was Jason Plato - the man himself! He had spotted me pointing, he watched as realisation dawned and he saw when I ran away, mortified. "me" had sense enough to take a picture, but I was miles away by then.
Later on, after we had giggled way too much over the embarrassment, we found ourselves at the stand again. There was a mini stage there, and a man with a very dodgy beard was introducing... guess who... on stage. We stood and listened for a while. "me" went to take a picture. Jason Plato posed. "me" realised that he hadn't actually switched the camera on yet. Embarrassment, yet again. Running away, yet again.
I'm quite annoyed really, because we had planned to go to some BTCC races this year, but I don't want Plato to think we're stalking him - which now he inevitably does!
This article was originally posted on a personal website and is published here for posterity.
I won't bore you with the details of the morning, which mostly consisted of me saying "Have you seen the time?" and "me" swearing as he missed his exit. All I need to say is tempers were frayed when we finally got there and he even managed to storm off, before remembering that I actually had the tickets. But as soon as we got through the door, the nightmare morning was completely forgotten.
And none of it matters anyway, what matters is that I saw David Coulthard! But I get ahead of myself.
The NEC is huge. Whilst I'm pretty confident that we managed to see everything in the four hours that we were there - we weren't exactly stopping for an extensive look at each booth, and if we'd have actually wanted to take in the details, we'd have needed to live there, day and night, for about a year. We managed to walk round in circles the whole time and still keep stumbling across bits we hadn't seen before. There were karts, and motorbikes, sports cars and F1 cars, t-shirts, helmets, overalls, pictures, teddy bears in team colours, and of course, that thing that no motorsport event is without: pretty ladies.
There were blonde ladies and brunette ladies and they were all caked in make-up and in either skimpy or tight (or both) outfits, and they were posing and pouting and writhing all over their particular piece of machinery. One particular lady was very busy signing things (she might have been famous) and there was a huge crowd of interested men. I tried to take a picture (in case she was famous) but I was jostled about a bit too much.
There were several stages where we saw Justin Wilson (who drove for Minardi and Jaguar last year), Louise Goodman (ITV F1 Reporter) and then Allan McNish (ex-Formula 1 driver). I had him lined up for a couple of great shots but had to zoom in too much - and then when he was in the perfect position, the autofocus on my camera played up again and the picture took too long to take. He turned around just at the wrong moment, and I ended up with a shot of Allan McNish's back!
We stumbled upon an enormous queue of people waiting to get pictures and things signed. We strained to see who it was and lo and behold - David Coulthard! I heard a couple complaining that they'd been waiting for two and a half hours to meet him - that seemed like an awful waste of time to me. It would have been much easier to do what we did - sharpen our elbows and push to the front of the onlookers, hoist the camera into "me"'s extremely tall arms and get snapping.
Jenson Button wasn't there (well, apparently he recorded a piece that was shown earlier - but we missed it and it didn't sound fun anyway). I didn't care about this at all, of course, given my "hatred" of the man. Eh-hem. In fact, I didn't care so much, that I didn't spot the BAR-Honda merchandise from the other side of the hall, I didn't drag him through crowds of people to look at the "I Love JB" T-shirts, and I didn't take a picture of a cardboard cutout of Jenson.
I think "me" is starting to get suspicious.
Anyway, to sum up: lots of F1 fun stuff, lots of F1 flirty people, and David Coulthard.
