Click on the headline to view a single story or tick the checkboxes next to the headlines you'd like to see and then click the "View item(s)" button. For a full explanation of the series abbreviations on the left, hover your mouse over them or see the key at the bottom of the page.
The news items on this page are also available as an
RSS feed
and an
Atom feed
, depending on whether you like your motorsport satire tinted orange or blue.
| (The specified date and series categories did not return any items, so the ten most recent items are listed below.) |
| |
| show all | series | headline | date posted | |
 |
F1 |
Ecclestone: No room for FOTA in F1 |
9th Jul 2010 |
|
|
|
| F1: Ecclestone: No room for FOTA in F1 |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 9th Jul 2010 |
|
Ecclescake: suspicions aroused.
Batty Formula 1 supremo™ Bernie EcclescakeECCLESTONE, BERNIE
 Bernie and Slavica Ecclestone: it's hard to say who looks more uncomfortable. F1 supremo Bernard Charles Ecclestone owns various bits of Formula One and has done since the 1970s, all of which has made him a very rich man. He also co-owns QPR Football Club, which does at least demonstrate that not all his decisions are spot-on. In his time, Ecclestone has managed drivers, owned teams, sold TV rights he probably didn't have in the first place and married someone 28 years younger and 28cm taller than him. He has also developed a slightly bewildering antipathy towards Silverstone. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper says there is no room in grand prix racing for FOTA.
"FOTA, as any fule kno," said the diminutive billionaire, "is the Formula Three Association, see? So they really shouldn't be in F1 at all, I mean, what were they thinking? Jeez!"
FOTA 'representative' Peter Briggs reacted swiftly to the man they don't call Shorty.
"I don't know how we haven't been found out before," he said, "but it is a shame, as we hadn't quite managed to implement our devious masterplan to make F1 more exciting by encouraging closer racing, promoting overtaking, and putting bizarre pod things on the side of the engine cover.
"I think we were only spotted thanks to the sponsor logos on our truck in the F1 paddock.
"And we would have got away with it too if it wasn't for this meddling kid."
|
|
|
 |
FF1600 |
Viewers complain about SA Formula Ford coverage |
14th Jun 2010 |
|
|
|
| FF1600: Viewers complain about SA Formula Ford coverage |
by Virgil Ellipse 14th Jun 2010 |
|
Broadcasters around the world have been receiving complaints from motorsport fans about coverage of the Formula Ford festival currently taking place in South Africa.
Dissatisfaction in the UK reached a peak on Saturday evening, when ITV broadcast a programme that showed almost two hours of a scrappy kickabout between two teams of mechanics on an area of grass behind the pits, while no pictures of the Formula Ford race were shown, despite the distinctive droning sound of the cars' engines being clearly audible.
The problem was compounded by confusion amongst the commentators, whose attention was focussed on the game of football throughout the race.
ITV has been quick to defend itself, explaining rather unconvincingly that the source of the noise wasn't low-powered, high-revving engines but a musical instrument called a vuvuzela, which fans of the football match were continuously blowing to express their excitement, boredom, surprise, impatience and, at times when they felt no particular emotion, just for something to do.
The editor of a satirical motorsport web site was sceptical of this justification. "Formula Ford engines make a noise that no one would describe as mellifluous," he said, "so it seems highly unlikely that anyone would try to duplicate it, especially without the distraction of a race to take your mind off it.
"Such behaviour at a football match would surely render an already dull sport virtually unwatchable."
|
|
|
 |
LeM |
The Lion goes from retirement to retirement |
14th Jun 2010 |
|
|
|
| LeM: The Lion goes from retirement to retirement |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 14th Jun 2010 |
|
Your humble dotdotdotcomma correspondent was thrilled to be invited to watch this year's 24 Heures du Mans in the company of the Peugeot works team, thanks to Googling "le mans live video stream" and not being so arsed about the world's most prestigious sportscar race as to actually want to pay for it or anything.
Peugeot were expecting to dominate the race, with the works teams having locked out the front three grid slots, and with a non-works Oreca Peugeot between them and their nemesises, the Audis.
The broadcast comprised 24 long hours of coverage of some badly-shaved french blokes sitting around a table with a television on it, occasionally showing some in-car footage, but mainly pictures of random mechanics standing around looking bored, and Sebastien Bourdais standing around looking bored and grumpy.
The pace had picked up a little after two-and-a-half hours when the pole-sitting number 3 car retired with suspension failure, leading Bourdais - who had been expecting to take over from Pedro Lamy in the car - into a brief period of looking less bored, but very grumpy, tinged with an element of relief that it couldn't have been his fault. For a change.
Interspersed with a few short glimpses of in-car footage from the remaining works Pugs, viewers were treated to the occasional "and-er-yeah" from Anthony Davidson (helpfully translated into "et-errrrrrr-oueh" for our french cousins), several reels of Peugeot's sportscar racing glory (quite short) and their triumph in qualifying (quite long), and, of course, many more pointless clips of Sebastien Bourdais looking increasingly bored and pretty much evenly grumpy, although what passes for brief smiles may just have flickered across his hideous visage when, after 17 hours the number 2 Pug suffered engine failure and retired from the lead, followed four hours later by the number 1, leaving the Audis to a 1-2-3 victory, and the Peugeot garage to an awful lot of gallic shrugging.
In other news, dotdotdotcomma were thrilled to see perennial jack the lad Danny Watts help guide his team to victory in the LMP2 category - and fifth place overall. In the same class, erstwhile dinner companion Jean de Portales managed gallically to shrug off the now legendary Curse of Dotdotdotcomma™, and finish the race for a change, albeit 10th in class, 3rd from bottom overall, and behind most of the GT field.
Not that we saw any coverage of those races at all. Next year, we might actually pay. Or not bother watching. Probably the latter, on reflection.
|
|
|
 |
IRL |
More news on Baltimore EasyCar race |
6th Jun 2010 |
|
|
|
| IRL: More news on Baltimore EasyCar race |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 6th Jun 2010 |
|
As inclusively reported here the EasyCar Series will race at Baltimore from next season on a temporary street circuit around the city's harbour.
We asked some local people for their reaction to the news.
"Oh, f*ck," said one harbour patrol officer we spoke to.
"Oh, f*ckity f*ck f*ck f*ck f*cker," he added.
A city police detective we spoke to was similarly excited.
"M*therf*ck," he said.
"For sure," he added, hastily remembering that he was supposed to be talking about motorsport.
The race, to be sponsored by local import/export business The Greek® and distribution company Barksdale's™, will be held on a 2.4-mile course taking in downtown Baltimore, the docks and an area of low-rise projects that will be home to The Pits.
Intel is somewhat sketchy, but rumour has it that the scoring system for the race will be even more fiendishly complicated than usual.
[That's enough crap references to The Wire. Ed. Burns.]
|
|
|
 |
IRL |
Baltimore joins 2011 EasyCar schedule |
4th Jun 2010 |
|
|
|
| IRL: Baltimore joins 2011 EasyCar schedule |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 4th Jun 2010 |
|
She's Lost Control. Again.
The EasyCar Series will race at Baltimore from next season on a temporary street circuit around the inner harbour of the Maryland city.
The race will be held on a 2.4-mile course in downtown Baltimore, with the first event of a five-year contract scheduled to take place on August 5-7 next year.
"This is an historic day for Baltimore and the State of Maryland," said Joy Division, CEO of the Baltimore Grand Prix.
"When we first had the Insight to put Baltimore forward as a Candidate for a race, Decades ago, we had a number of major steps to bring it Closer. Exercise One was to put our Heart And Soul into the Incubation of the project.
"We didn't work in Isolation, and These Days we are thankful to the state, city and the Colony for the Chance to do so. This Novelty race will bring Twenty-Four Hours of speed to the Wilderness of Baltimore and not just include car racing, but will feature a family-friendly Atmosphere with the Sound Of Music and Still more Unknown Pleasures.
"As You Said, The Drawback, one of our Failures, The Only Mistake really, which we mustn't Passover at this point, is that we didn't use the process as A Means To An End of attracting Formula 1 to this Interzone Ice Age of an (Atro)city (Exhibition)."
[That's enough crap Joy Division references. Ed.]
|
|
|
 |
IRL |
Fitchick denies NAFFCAR hurt her form |
12th May 2010 |
|
|
|
| IRL: Fitchick denies NAFFCAR hurt her form |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 12th May 2010 |
|
Don't you just love my arse?
Danica Fitchick has denied that her parallel NAFFCAR programme has had any impact on her form in the 2010 EasyCar season.
After extensive research, dotdotdotcomma's rogue pictures editor is inclined to agree.
|
|
|
 |
F1 |
Election fever hits motorsport world |
6th May 2010 |
|
|
|
| F1: Election fever hits motorsport world |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 6th May 2010 |
|
It's general election day for the UK's mother of all parliaments, and we mean that in every sense, and election fever has struck voters across the country, with literally thousands of them simply too ill to get up and vote.
Considering, as it often does, what the motorsport world offers by way of analogy for much of life's rich pageant, dotdotdotcomma spent about five minutes of quality thinking time in the smallest room earlier, thinking about how the minds behind Formula 1 might affect the outcome of a general election, and then stopped, suddenly very depressed, with the realisation that:
(a) the Yellow team will show occasional flashes of inspiration, but will ultimately always underperform, just like BoredomJORDAN
 The innovative Jordan tyre-warmer ultimately proved to be unsuccessful. And quite skanky. Jordan was the original incarnation of F1's hot potato, founded by brass-necked chancer Eddie Jordan. The team was famous for draping bikini-clad lovelies over its cars and also for discovering new talent but will never be excused in certain circles for giving Michael Schumacher his first drive in Formula One. The team stepped up from F3000 in 1991, with Andrea de Cesaris and Bertrand Gachot behind the wheel, and ended the season in an impressive fifth place in the constructors' championship. The year was not without incident, however. Gachot found himself unable to complete the season after being imprisoned for attacking a London taxi driver and his replacement, the debutant Michael Schumacher, was nicked by Benetton after just one race. Jordan claimed a breach of contract but the case was thrown out of court and the next time a Schumacher would sit in a Jordan was in 1997, when Michael's petulant brother Ralf somehow talked his way into a drive. Events in the Jordan pit were often more entertaining than those on the track and Eddie Irvine wasted no time in contributing to this, when he made his debut at Suzuka in 1993. Years of racing in Japan had given Eddie intimate knowledge of the track (and of some of the less choosy local lovelies too) but that didn't wash with Ayrton Senna when Irvine passed the Brazilian's McLaren to unlap himself in the closing stages. Senna later paid a visit to the Jordan garage and punched Irvine in the face, which may have been a slight over-reaction but is something that a lot of blokes and no doubt many, many women have wanted to do to the cocky little gobshite over the years. For a whole decade Jordan's title sponsor was tobacco-pushing giant Benson & Hedges and, after painting the 1996 car a fetching gold to make it look like a B&H packet, the team showed not inconsiderable creative flair in getting round the cigarette advertising ban. Who can forget the "Bitten & Hisses" snake, the "Buzzing Hornets", um, hornet, the "Bitten Heroes" shark or the simple entreaty to "Be On Edge"? An extraordinary Belgian Grand Prix in 1998 saw the team record its first victory and they did it in style, with a euphoric Damon Hill leading his sulking team-mate Ralf Schumacher in a one-two that seemed to be almost universally celebrated. The streets were strangely quiet in Kerpen that night. The 1999 season built on this, with Heinz-Harald Frentzen somehow recording results, including two wins, that gave him an outside chance at the world title, before McLaren and Ferrari stopped mucking about. Frentzen still finished third overall and Jordan also claimed third in the constructors' championship but it was all downhill from here, until Midland bought the team early in 2005. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper used to do and YellowRENAULT
 Jean-Pierre Jabouille in the RS01, the first turbo-charged F1 car. The history of Renault in F1 reads like a company with an addiction it's trying to kick. They entered the sport as a constructor in 1977, winning a respectable number of races but no championships, then spent one season (1986) as an engine supplier, before pulling out completely at the end of the year. After going cold turkey for a couple of years, they rejoined the sport as an engine supplier in 1989, winnning five drivers' and six constructors' titles, before quitting again in 1997. By 2000 the itch had to be scratched again, so they bought the Benetton team, although they didn't rebrand it as Renault until the 2002 season. They have introduced a number of innovations to the sport, including turbo-charged engines (since banned), V10 engines (since banned) and mass-damper systems (since banned). The one thing they seem to have pioneered that hasn't been outlawed is something that actually makes the cars slower: live-feed in-car cameras. The team persists in building their chassis in Oxfordshire and their engines several hundred miles away, somewhere in france. There is undoubtedly a very good reason for this, although your chronicler admits that any sort of logical explanation eludes him at the moment. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper do now;
(2) the Blue team would fail to listen to popular opinion and lay off their most promising assets just when they're most needed, just like 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 did in 1996;
(iii) whatever really matters, at the end of the day, everyone will probably vote for the Red team because they don't have the imagination to do anything else.
dotdotdotcomma: the world's only motorsport-related political satire website, thank the deity of your choice.
|
|
|
 |
IRL |
iSprout miss 'Easy' headline opportunity |
6th May 2010 |
|
|
|
| IRL: iSprout miss 'Easy' headline opportunity |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 6th May 2010 |
|
Not a clue.
The EasyCar test scheduled to take place at Kentucky Speedway yesterday had to be cancelled due to moisture seeping through the track surface.
"It's a difficult decision to cancel the test," said an EasyCar bigwig.
"The track surface is damaged and water is seeping through as a result of recent heavy rain. You could say the surface is basically fried.
"It is disappointing, but you have to think safety first," he added. "The track is wet in a lot of places and you can't run the normal line, so you're not going to learn much, but even if you could, most drivers would be too chicken."
iSprout ran this item under the banner: "Kentucky EasyCar test cancelled", but dotdotdotcomma wonder if there might be a more fitting headline. Why not email your suggestions to Matt Beer, the interestingly-named author of the piece?
|
|
|
 |
F2 |
Palmer clinches maiden F2 victory |
19th Apr 2010 |
|
|
|
| F2: Palmer clinches maiden F2 victory |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 19th Apr 2010 |
|
Jolyon Palmer clinched his maiden victory in the opening Formula 2 race of the season at Silverstone today.
The son of series boss Jonathan Palmer dominated from start to finish after making a sound start and commanding the 40-minute race throughout.
It's a funny thing you know, but now that I actually come to tell the story to someone else..., I mean does it strike you as odd?
|
|
|
 |
IRL |
Indy 500 shakes up qualifying format |
14th Apr 2010 |
|
|
|
| IRL: Indy 500 shakes up qualifying format |
by Mathias Olaf Uncertain 14th Apr 2010 |
|
Qualifying for the 2010 Indianapolis 500 is set to receive a radical reboot following the earlier announcement that it will be compacted from a two-weekend procedure to a single weekend in 2010, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has now revealed full details of the new system.
The details, which are, well, highly detailed, are available to anyone with a at least six spare major city libraries to store them in, and make the A1GP qualifying format look like a cakewalk by comparison.
An almost entirely incomprehensible summary that at least has the advantage of minimal risk of gravitational collapse is available here.
Basically, each entrant has 5 long hours to set a time on the Saturday, with the top 24 getting a race entry. The fastest 9 drivers will then have their times erased (or rubbed out, in English) and have 90 minutes to claim pole, with their best times setting their place within the top 9 grid slots. On the Sunday, the drivers who didn't make the cut on Saturday will get the chance to fight for positions 25-33 on the grid, thereby also getting a race entry.
Volumes 17-42 of the qualifying rules go on to explain how much prize money is and how many points are awarded to each driver.
"This new-fangled and improvalised formatation for the Indianapolis 500 qualificationalising will deliverate even more actionalisation and intensificity for fanaticistifosis," said Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Jeff Belskus.
"It's going to be a fantastic weekend of qualifying," he added. "Shame the race will be as tedious as usual."
|
|
|