Sidepodcast

Renault Race Control

During yesterday's Free Practice live commenting session, discussion turned to McLaren's new telemetry widget. A tool that is at best underwhelming and at worst, broken. It didn't appear to be working at all when we tried it, and had it been, the information conveyed doesn't appear to be that insightful.

By comparison, Renault's live Race Control console is leaps and bounds ahead of the things McLaren are attempting, and has been for over two years.

We've covered Race Control several times around here in the past, but it might be worth a quick refresher for anyone who hasn't discovered the beauty of live data, pushed direct from the garages of an F1 team during each and every session.

I think I've had Renault's live timing page open during every session of the 2009 season. It offers a fantastic array of otherwise impossible to come by data on what's happening at Renault during the course of the weekend. Each race has a dedicated page providing track maps, up-to-date weather information and pre-race statistics such as fuel consumption per lap, and throttle usage.

After each session, detailed results are provided. More detailed in fact than the official FOM data, including the maximum speed of every driver and their ideal fastest lap. The results are interactive, you can drill down for a limited amount of additional information, although the emphasis remains on the red / yellow / blue / white / orange team.

That's all well and good, but the site really comes to life when there's action to be found on track. The circuit map lights up whenever Alonso (or the other guy) takes to the asphalt, showing both car's track position. In some ways this content has been superseded by the official F1 iPhone application which positions all cars, but Renault were doing this first and their cars appear to move at a more consistent pace.

Elsewhere within the console, super-detailed stats are available for both drivers - including gear selection, speed, steering angle, braking and g-forces the drivers are being subjected to at the time. Again this information is interactive and you can pick the relevant pieces you're interested in. I wouldn't mind the ability to overlay more than two series for comparison, but it's still considerably more insight than any other team are willing to provide right now.

Finally, the consoles provide lap-by-lap timing figures which can be cross-referenced each time a car crosses the timing beam. If you need to know who's on a long run and how each lap compares, the detail is fantastic.

We've long been asking for both FOM and other teams to follow Renault's lead, to no avail. We should therefore congratulate McLaren for at least giving it some thought. Calling out to Bernie, of course, is a complete waste of effort and bandwidth.

I love that Renault take the effort to provide this content, and I wouldn't be without it any more. If you've not tried it before, please do take a look this weekend, it's free so what have you got to lose? Let us know what you think if it's your first time, similarly if you're as addicted as I am let us know your favourite bits.

Hats off to Renault F1 for showing Bernie how it's done these past 30 months.

Sidepodradio - An Update

Since I first talked about Sidepodradio, the idea has grown and expanded, and we now have a few more details to share with you.

Firstly, the times and dates. We're broadcasting live on 2nd August 2009, for 12 hours, starting at mid-day and ending at midnight UK time. We will be live for the entire time, but will play out the pre-recorded shows as we go. If you've signed up for (or are thinking about) a pre-recorded show, then you need to know the deadline for submissions is 31st July 2009. This should give us enough time to check the files and prepare them for broadcast, plus complete any editing necessary.

Next up, the shows. We still have seven half hour slots available, if you haven't already signed up for a show. You can go live, or pre-record. You can choose your subject matter, and you can do it alone, with real life people, or via Skype. The possibilities really are endless. If you have chosen a show, and require some audience participation or preparation, then the best thing to do is create a sub-page on the wiki. There's an example here, and you can dive write into the wiki to make your own. Or if you ask very nicely, we might do it for you.

If you are planning on listening to any or all of the Sidepodradio event, don't forget to check out the wiki for things you can get involved in, or games that might be being played on the day.

The final thing I wanted to mention is voicemails. I don't think we've had any yet, and I really want to encourage everyone to call in with your thoughts. You really can say anything you like, but if you're stuck for something to say, why not pick one of these two options:

Hi, my name's [your name here]. If you're enjoying Sidepodcast Radio, why not donate? We're raising money to cover the costs of production, and the extra will go to charity. Just visit Sidepodcast.com and click the donate button on the right hand side.

Or:

Hi, my name's [your name here]. I like the Sidepodcast Community because... [fill in your reasons, for example] they teach me about space travel and we get to play I Spy.

Any little jingly type voicemails would be appreciated because we can use them to fill in gaps, or transition between shows. Don't be afraid to call us. The number is 0121 28 87225 (or search for the username Sidepodcast). If you mess it up, just call again. We won't tell anyone.

So, to sum up:

1. Visit the wiki to keep up to date.
2. Make sure you're all done by Friday 31st.
3. Call us!! 0121 28 87225.

Keeping in Touch

Back in 2007, Christine and I attended our first ever Grand Prix. We went to the British GP at Silverstone, and it's fair to say we weren't very prepared. We stayed on site for the full three days, courtesy of Honda, but had no internet connectivity for the duration.

Although Sidepodcast had only been going for a couple of months, it meant we couldn't keep the site up-to-date in our absence, and we couldn't track any breaking news stories either. Predictably, because it's Silverstone, a major story broke on the Friday (on this occasion it was news of Nick Fry's meeting with Stepney / Coughlan), and having no other means of finding out what the heck was going on, we resorting to quizzing Maurice Hamilton for info instead.

_{2007 Honda Scooters}

Twice as Nice

In 2008, we again visited the British Grand Prix, this time having had chance to try out some form of 3G connectivity at the preceding Silverstone F1 test.

Armed with a fairly clunky mobile phone and what felt like a military spec laptop, we set about keeping the site up-to-date, and passing comments about our weekend back to anyone following at home. It wasn't a massive success though, given the laptop lasted barely an hour between charges and the phone struggled once more than 500 comments had been posted.

On returning home, we were faced with what seemed like an endless list of improvements to be made before coming back.

Third Time Lucky

We've already covered in depth changes made this year to our hardware setup. Whilst in the background, Sidepodcast commenting functionality has quietly been improving to the point that it's now perfectly suited to following discussions from the grandstand at Copse - as we discovered when we settled in Friday morning at Silverstone.

During Free Practice one, we found ourselves relaxing with a Kangaroo TV in one hand, live comments in the other, 5Live commentary in our ears and race cars screaming past in front of us. We must've been the most informed people at the circuit. The folks in the media center may have had all the live timing screens in the world, but did they have a group of people watching, contributing and offering insight too?

Better yet, commenting has improved such that it's not just possible to follow, but posting and interacting was a breeze too. I fired off a quick question relating to 5Live's third presenter, and 20 seconds later received three replies that DJ Johnny Walker was in the commentary booth too.

On returning home this year, we came back without any kind of to do list.

_{Sutil Tackles Copse in 2009}

Live commenting just works. It's a fantastic thing to have with you trackside and joining in the fun is free (connectivity costs aside). Should you be interested, there are multiple ways you can contribute to the conversation:

• Live Commenting, Live... Thing - The ideal solution if you're travelling to a race with your laptop (and we spotted a few who do).
• Real-time Doohickey - Perfect for following and commenting if you have a modern hand held device (iPhone, G1, Blackberry etc).
• Real-time Mobile - A page for everyone else (especially anyone with older mobile phones).

There are plenty of races remaining this season, and if you're going to any of them, please don't forget to bookmark those links and comment to us from track. These days we live in a remarkably small world and there's no reason for anyone to feel as disconnected as we did back in 2007.

Keep in touch won't you?

Live from Silverstone, Sort Of

He went without me!? Well, he's lucky I'm in a good mood and don't mind updating you on his progress.

The laptop used to post the previous pictures died, but not before capturing some live video. Check it out:

I can also tell you that it is nigh on impossible to hold a sensible telephone conversation with someone standing near the track of an F1 test. However, we shall do our best to remain in touch, and keep you in the loop as well. Stay tuned.

Update: 1:30pm - All quiet as the teams go to lunch. Well, that's not true. The pit lane is accessible for an hour over lunch, and all but Force India have put up screens to shield their work. This means Force India are now our favourite team, ever.

Elsewhere, Vettel is struggling with a gearbox problem, and is really frustrated because he wanted to spend the time learning the track. Apparently he's not impressed with the lack of marker boards around the circuit, he wants more time to practice, but has so far only done 10 laps.

Update: 3:15pm - Nelson Piquet has broken down on the pit straight. His [direct quote from my man on the ground] "engine made an odd noise." The session has been stopped as a result.

Also, he has bumped into Fraggle and AMC (not sure of the correct placement of capitals here, apologies if it's wrong) from the Renault blog, and they were just off to chase after Nico Rosberg for a picture.

Final Update: 5:45pm - He's on his way home now, and has very little news of testing because he spent the afternoon in the Renault garage! I have no further information on that, so I look forward to finding out what he got up to.

What he did say about the on-track action was that Ferrari stopped out on track (fuel?) and caused a red flag. Renault were apparently laughing at that, but then, they laugh at anything, don't they? Also, the Honda engine sounds, shall we say, different to the others, and not in a good way.

That's all I can tell you for now, but I'm sure we will have pictures and more information as soon as we can.