The MP4-31 has been declared "provisionally fit" to take part in this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.
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 car, which only just managed to outpace the hapless MotherRussiaMARUSSIA
The second incarnation of Virgin Racing, a rebranding instigated when a Russian car maker decided to increase the level of its sponsorship to such an extent that it effectively bought the team. In doing so, it chose to ignore the recent salutary example of Spyker, another supercar manufacturer nobody had ever heard of before its purchase of the former Jordan team and which nobody has really heard of since it sold it again pretty damned quickly.
Changes like this are usually of no great significance to the viewing public but in this case it means that fans will no longer be able to anticipate commentating faux pas, such as "Let's see how this Virgin handles in slippery conditions." For that reason, the name change is a bit disappointing. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper in 2015 through being driven by infinitely more championship-winning drivers, faces further tests before being given the full go-ahead.
"This car is sick," said one of its drivers, a Bunsen Jet-OnBUTTON, JENSON
Jenson looking a bit scary, quite frankly, after his first win, at Hungary in 2006. Jenson Button came into the world in Somerset in 1980. He has two slightly silly middle names - Alexander Lyons - and three slightly older sisters, born at regular internals in 1967, 1970 and 1973, although far be it from us to suggest that little Jenson was slightly less planned than his sisters. Success in karting and Formula Ford led to Formula 3 and then almost immediately on to Formula One, where he made a few rookie mistakes but also qualified third in a Williams at Spa, which went a long way towards shutting everyone the hell up. Still under contract to Williams, Jenson drove the 2001 season for Benetton, which became Renault in 2002 and BAR the year after. This was clearly all a bit confusing for Button, who announced in mid-2004 that he would be driving for Williams the following season, having signed contracts for both teams. Once that legal Gordian knot had been cut, Jenson went and did it all again in reverse in 2005, as he tried to wriggle out of his contract with Williams to stay with BAR. Throughout all this vacillating, Jenson was linked with a succession of beauties, perhaps indicating that what women really want is a rich man in touch with his feminine side or, to put it another way, a Formula One driver who can never make his f**king mind up. Button is often joined at races by his father John who, ever since Jenson won the first race of the 2009 season, has taken to wearing his "lucky pink shirt", conveniently forgetting - in the way that superstitious people do - all the times he wore the same shirt and Jenson finished three laps down. Jenson has homes in Monaco, the UK and Bahrain, where he pursues his hobbies of mountain biking, almost growing a beard and browsing through lingerie catalogues to find his next girlfriend. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper, 36, of Frome, "and I don't mean in the good way like what the young people say these days, dig?"
When asked whether he was looking forward to getting back into the car for practice, other driver, one Fernando ALongTimeSinceHisLastChampionshipALONSO, FERNANDO
Fernando always keeps abreast of the latest technical developments. Alonso's full name is Fernando Alonso Diaz and few people realise that he is the half-brother of Cameron Diaz, the well-known jizz-haired actress. His success in Formula One has led to a huge growth of interest in the sport in his home country of Spain, where not so long ago you could easily pick up cheap tickets to the Grand Prix and pretty much have your pick of seats, so thanks for that, Fernando. Like many of the sport's stars, Alonso began his F1 career with Minardi and he made a splash at his first race, where he out-qualified his team-mate by over two and a half seconds. That margin is rendered slightly less impressive when you learn that his team-mate was Tarso Marques who, as racing drivers go, has a lovely personality. Fernando was soon snapped up by Renault, where he spent a year testing before being promoted to a race seat. He became the then youngest world champion in 2005 and the youngest double champion in 2006. There followed an abbreviated tenure at McLaren which failed to yield a third title, largely because he proved unable to beat a rookie, after which he was welcomed back to the Renault team, where he is expected to wait grumpily until a Ferrari seat becomes available. Alonso is an exceptionally talented and complete racing driver but he also has a reckless - often self-destructive - streak and an eccentrically unique take on what it means to be a team-player, traits which have doubtless closed a number of F1 doors to him. In 2005 he was appointed one of UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassadors, which may explain why he never has any left for anyone else. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper said "Don't make me laugh."
"No, seriously - don't," he added. "It hurts when I laugh."
The car of the quite interesting British squad, 50, will be given a second check-up after taking part in first practice on Friday.
Governing body the FIEh?FIA
Max Mosley's preferred option for the location of the new FIA offices in Amsterdam. The FIA (or Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile to give it its full, inexplicably french, name) is an ominous association formed to represent motorists and motoring organisations. Its headquarters are at 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris (ring top bell), coincidentally just up the rue from one of the city's best bordellos. The federation acts as the governing body for a number of motorsport series and championships, mostly in a venal or, if we're feeling charitable, incompetent manner. It should not be confused with the Fédération Internationale de l'Alcosport, which governs Drink-A-Long-A-Grand-Prix almost as badly. Comprising 222 member organisations, the FIA can also boast a Senate, a Court of Appeal and a General Assembly and it wouldn't take a stretch of the imagination to see its activities as part of a sinister plan to get itself recognised as a sovereign state in its own right. It's not a million miles from how Hitler started, that's all we're saying. Its decisions have at times left the FIA open to accusations of favouritism and manipulation and its credibility wasn't helped any by revelations that its married president, Max Mosley, was partial to sado-masochistic orgies involving more tarts than you can fit on one hand. Mosley, seeing no incompatibility between his behaviour and his position, failed to tender the resignation that many were keenly anticipating. They claim to do a lot of work on road safety but we've never knowingly seen any of their campaigns. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper took six hours to make this decision after testing the MP4-31 on Thursday.
"We knew straight away it would be OK for the car to participate in FP1," said FIEh? Napoleon Jean Toad, "but I do like to see Ron SeriousDENNIS, RON
Ron Dennis upsets Max Mosley by explaining that they don't offer that kind of service in the McLaren motorhome. Ron Dennis is the saviour of the McLaren team, a cold-hearted megalomaniac or the epitome of corporate tedium, depending on the view to which you subscribe. It's more than likely, of course, that he's actually all three. After taking over the reins in 1980, Dennis quickly transformed McLaren from a team that hadn't won a race for three years into a highly successful outfit. They may not inspire the slavish, mindless devotion that Ferrari enjoys but the team is all the more grounded because of it. In his time, Ron's had to referee feuding team-mates (although Alonso v. Hamilton didn't really come close to Senna v. Prost for sheer volatility), he's seen Mika Hakkinen nearly die in one of his cars and he's had to stomach a one hundred million dollar fine. On the plus side, he's never had to work with Michael Schumacher, he's got a CBE and he's rich enough to have paid the hundred million dollars from his own pocket if he'd wanted. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper squirm."
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