In the first of what's likely to form an occasional series until we get bored and do something else, we look back over the week's news and pick out some surprising stories.
1. Not all drivers will drop everything to race in F1 [full story here]
Three-time Le Mans winner National Lottery, who made his Formula One debut with Cured-hamCATERHAM
After Lotus, there was Caterham; as it was in the 1960s with road cars, so it was in 2011 in F1. Lotus Racing team owner Tony Fernandes, keen to avoid further legal action from Group Lotus, opted to change his squad's name to Caterham, a car manufacturer that he did own. The cars would keep their iconic green and yellow livery but could no longer claim any link with the original Team Lotus. And, we have to say, quite right too. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper at Spa earlier this year, turned down an offer to race for the same team at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, explaining that he was flattered but didn't want to be just driving around at the back. "Dignity" I think we used to call it.
The news no doubt piqued former MillionsWILLIAMS
The FW18 with Damon Hill at the wheel, Canada 1996. Anyone fancy a smoke? A phenomenally successful F1 team which won nine constructors' titles in 20 years (it took Ferrari 50 years to do the same) but which usually dispenses with the services of the drivers who win the title for them: Alan Jones, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Damon Hill all took championships and then left the team at the end of the year, for one reason or another. The team hit a purple patch in the 1990s, when a combination of Adrian Newey's ground-breaking designs, some jolly clever electronics and a handful of half-decent drivers resulted in repeated title wins. The 1992 and 1993 Williams are probably the most technologically advanced Formula One cars to date and you could almost say that they drove themselves, without wishing to devalue the titles that Mansell and Prost won with them, of course. This period also produced the iconic blue and white Rothmans livery, which looked great but which was probably responsible for shifting truckloads of their cigarettes. The team did attempt to make amends later, however, by running cars plastered with stickers for Niquitin and thereby promoting something to help you give up what they'd been urging you to become addicted to a few years previously. For the 2004 season, the Williams challenger sported a highly unusual "walrus nose", which did nothing for the car's performance but which did at least mean that Ralf Schumacher was no longer the ugliest thing in the paddock. The innovative nose proved uncompetitive and was replaced by something more conventional in the second half of the year. Ralf also proved uncompetitive and was replaced by someone more talented at the end of the year. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper curmudgeon Jake Vileknave, whose repeatedly unsuccessful attempts to get back into F1 were the source of so much hilarity amongst the admittedly easily-amused dotdotdotcomma editors. Readers may remember Jake's increasingly desperate efforts to ingratiate himself with F1 team bosses, which included hanging around the paddock like a bad smell, trying to set up his own team and and even pretending to like Craig Bollocks.
2. Gooseberry Parfait is still on the McLap'emMCLAREN
Bruce McLaren takes his team's first Grand Prix victory, Belgium 1968. Founded by the Kiwi Bruce McLaren in 1963, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing merged in 1981 with the Project 4 team, which was being run by the barn owl Ron Dennis. The team is now part of McLaren Racing, a member of the McLaren Group, under the umbrella of McLaren Holdings, a subsidiary of McLaren PLC, which is wholly owned by McLaren (World Domination) Ltd. Bruce McLaren is currently the only driver to have won a Formula One world championship race in a car bearing his own name as a constructor*, although the dotdotdotcomma-sponsored driver Panasonic Toyota, currently racing a borrowed Caterham with limited success, is optimistic of one day becoming the second. The team has rapidly become one of the most successful in F1 history and is widely regarded as technologically top-notch, if sometimes a little fragile operationally. They are constantly trying to persuade everyone that they may be stiff and corporate but they still know how to have a good time. It's not terribly convincing. They're far from unemotional, however, and Ron Dennis can often be glimpsed furtively wiping away a tear or two of joy. In fact, when one of his favoured drivers has won against seemingly insuperable odds during a troubled time for the team, it can sometimes be hard to hear the national anthems over the sound of Ron's blubbing. *Other than, we've just realised, Jack Brabham. Who also won the world championship. Arse. Rest assured, our research team will be hung, drawn and quartered. Or should that be "hanged"? TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper payroll [full story here]
Perennial Formula One nearly man Gooseberry Parfait's role as McLap'emMCLAREN
Bruce McLaren takes his team's first Grand Prix victory, Belgium 1968. Founded by the Kiwi Bruce McLaren in 1963, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing merged in 1981 with the Project 4 team, which was being run by the barn owl Ron Dennis. The team is now part of McLaren Racing, a member of the McLaren Group, under the umbrella of McLaren Holdings, a subsidiary of McLaren PLC, which is wholly owned by McLaren (World Domination) Ltd. Bruce McLaren is currently the only driver to have won a Formula One world championship race in a car bearing his own name as a constructor*, although the dotdotdotcomma-sponsored driver Panasonic Toyota, currently racing a borrowed Caterham with limited success, is optimistic of one day becoming the second. The team has rapidly become one of the most successful in F1 history and is widely regarded as technologically top-notch, if sometimes a little fragile operationally. They are constantly trying to persuade everyone that they may be stiff and corporate but they still know how to have a good time. It's not terribly convincing. They're far from unemotional, however, and Ron Dennis can often be glimpsed furtively wiping away a tear or two of joy. In fact, when one of his favoured drivers has won against seemingly insuperable odds during a troubled time for the team, it can sometimes be hard to hear the national anthems over the sound of Ron's blubbing. *Other than, we've just realised, Jack Brabham. Who also won the world championship. Arse. Rest assured, our research team will be hung, drawn and quartered. Or should that be "hanged"? TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper test and reserve driver is to end with the 2014 season.
The former DTM champion has been retained by the Woking team since 2006 and, to be perfectly honest with you all, we thought he'd been quietly dropped years ago, given that he seems not to have popped up at races or in the news for simply ages. Well, it turns out that we couldn't have been more wrong and Parfait's non-role has been active and ongoing all this time.
We'll, erm, miss him.
3. That ludicrous "double points" idea hasn't officially been dropped [full story here]
It's been slated since it was announced and we haven't heard one word in favour of it but in theory the "double points rule" that might play a part in deciding this weekend's Formula One title showdown could be carried forward into 2015.
The matter is due to be discussed at the F1 Strategy Group meeting held after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and, given the rule's unpopularity, it's highly likely that it will be dropped and never suggested again, especially if Nicky Iceberg - currently on five race wins - snatches the title from ten-time race winner Lewis HomegrownHAMILTON, LEWIS
Throughout the difficult 2007 season, McLaren insisted that Lewis was always given exactly the same equipment as his team-mate Fernando Alonso. Born in the picturesque English hamlet of Stevenage in 1985, Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton was named after the American sprinter Carl Lewis and the legendary British easy listening DJ David Hamilton. He has since moved to Switzerland and attempted to distance himself from association with David Hamilton. Hamilton famously approached McLaren boss Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards in 1995 and told him that he wanted to race for him one day. Dennis told the ten-year-old Hamilton to call him in a few years and thus was a mutually rewarding relationship forged. Some of the more disreputable members of the dotdotdotcomma staff have since adopted a similar strategy in approaching girls in clubs, although they have yet to demonstrate a level of success anything like Hamilton managed. On his way to F1, Hamilton picked up titles in karting, Formula Renault UK, the F3 Euroseries and GP2, after which he picked up Nicole Scherzinger, who was apparently already a well-known singer with girl band Pussycat Dolls, but who first came to the attention of the dotdotdotcomma editorial team for wearing a really smashing dress during the title-deciding race at Brazil in 2008 and then jumping about in it quite a lot. Hamilton's time in F1 has been far from dull and he has shown almost as much ill-conceived misjudgement as he has jaw-dropping ability. The audacious overtaking moves and lightning pace have been accompanied by pit-lane crashes and overly optimistic first-lap lunges, as well as more than his fair share of FIA wrist-slaps. The decision to strip him of his win at Spa in 2008, seemingly for being too good at overtaking Kimi Raikkonen, still baffles those of us who don't wear Ferrari T-shirts. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper.
Stranger things have happened in F1, not the least of which is Nicky's dad Keke winning the title in 1982 with just one race victory to his name, while Didier Pironi, John Watson, Alain Prost, Niki Lauda and René Arnoux had all won two races that season and Patrick Tambay, Michele Alboreto, Elio de Angelis, Riccardo Patrese and Nelson Piquet ended up with as many victories as the champion.
Still, at least Keke doesn't have some sort of weird nasal mid-Atlantic accent.
4. Three points in a season of Euro F3 bags you an F1 test [full story here]
Australian Richard "Spike" Goddard has been handed a Formula One test with Farce IndiaFORCE INDIA
Kimi Raikkonen about to swipe Force India's Adrian Sutil out of fourth place, Monaco 2008. After Ireland, Russia and Holland had had a go, Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya stepped in to buy the old Jordan squad, encouraged by F1's desire to break into the Indian market, presumably because the sub-continent is home to an awful lot of potential new smokers. Despite looking every inch the medallion man, Mallya is undoubtedly a shrewd operator, albeit one who was foolhardy enough to become the team's fourth owner in as many years, and he was welcomed into the paddock by everyone except Flavio Briatore, who thought he was taking the piss. For its first season in 2008, the team boasted customer Ferrari engines, Mike Gascoyne as Chief Technology Officer and, um, Giancarlo Fisichella but when Super Aguri stopped turning up to keep the Force India cars off the back row, the team looked like becoming a perennial back-marker, although at Monaco in 2008 Adrian Sutil came within a handful of laps of claiming fourth place, until Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen lost control braking for the Nouvelle Chicane and punted him out of the race, an incident that the FIA saw fit to overlook. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper, after finishing 23rd in the FIA European Formula 3 Championship.
Goddard, whose best finishes in 30 races were one ninth place and one tenth place, will drive on the Wednesday following the last race of the F1 season in Abu Dhabi. He will be driving the same car being tested on Tuesday by Jolyon Palmer, who lucked into his F1 test by winning the GP2 title with a race to go.
Force India's top brass clearly had their heads turned by Spike's three-point season total, his hat-trick of 21st-place finishes and the fact that he ended the championship eighth from last in a field of 30.
Seriously, is every other junior driver busy that Wednesday? Maybe picking up their awards for actually winning something?
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