F1 blogs & more: F1 drivers at Le Mans

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On Maximum Motorsport this week I took a look at the 28 former Formula 1 drivers who are competing in the famous Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend.

Elsewhere on the web changes to Magny-Cours, an top 25 drivers feature with an interesting slant, and 40 years since McLaren’s first Grand Prix victory.

F1 drivers in the 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours – The 28 former F1 drivers in this weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours including Marc Gene who survived a shocking crash in practice when his car flipped into a barrier (video here).

For more on the 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours visit Maximum Motorsport

BMW: Toyota’s worst nightmare – BMW embarass Toyota by becoming a winning team within two and a half years. Of course, they did take over an existing team, whereas Toyota started from scratch.

The final five could all have been No. 1, but only Foyt gets the prize – Attempting to do a top 25 racing drivers across all disciplines is ambitious and the selections in this list by ESPN have quite a heavy American slant. But Dale Earnhardt ahead of Juan Manuel Fangio?

Fox bites – A lot of people on the Canadian Grand Prix Live Blog were complaining about the standard of Fox’s coverage.

Stupidity from Canada does not apply to Hamilton – Grand Prix Diary thought McLaren’s complaint about Lewis Hamilton’s penalty was misguided…

Red lights and safety cars – …and in reaction to the above article Checkpoint 10 argues for the safety car to be dropped.

About that safety car pit stop by Button – Eagle-eyed Sidepodcast spotted why Jenson Button didn’t get a penalty in Canada.

Grand Prix brings human trafficking and sex trade to Montreal: activists – Can’t see Max Mosley having a problem with that. Speaking of him…

How an MI5’s involvement in a sex-scandal led to a high-speed car chase through London – More on the Mosley scandal.

Why Lewis shouldn’t forget his time in Montreal this year – Craig thinks Hamilton needs to learn how to learn.

McLaren’s first GP victory 40 years on – They had little to celebrate last weekend but Monday marked 40 years since McLaren’s maiden victory in F1.

Achitect competition to modernise Magny-Cours – Bernie Ecclestone may be determined to drop it, but Magny-Cours is going to get an overhaul following an architecture competition.

Dennis awarded Prince Philip Medal – Award for McLaren’s Ron Dennis.

A race calendar of old – Article by me for F1-Pitlane on how many races F1 drivers used to do. In 1958 Strling Moss did 10 Gradns prix and 30 other races!

If you want to keep track of what I’m reading and share articles with me you can find me on StumbleUpon.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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9 comments on “F1 blogs & more: F1 drivers at Le Mans”

  1. Well, it’s brilliant that Sidepodcast dissected the Jenson Button pitstop issue – except that if you watched the race on ITV you would know that Martin Brundle mentioned that Jenson was not penalised because he only stopped for new boots and not fuel.

  2. Did they? I don’t remember them saying that. Brundle’s an excellent pundit though so I wouldn’t be surprised if he spotted it. Hope this nonsense about him using the word “pikeys” doesn’t stop the BBC taking him up next year.

  3. My mistake, it was Ted in the pits, but yes they did mention it briefly. I too hope Brundle gets the BBC slot – it would be a great shame if he doesn’t. I would miss all those fantastic quotes – “Two weeks ago we had a wet track in Monaco; today we’ve got a disposable one, it seems.” The man is a genius.

  4. Brundle was on the Chris Evans radio show a few weeks ago and said he had had some meetings with the BBC about next season and he also said that he definitely wanted to carry on so I think it is a safe bet we will keep getting our Brundle fix.

  5. michael counsell
    11th June 2008, 12:24

    In some parts of the country pikey is an offensive word and in some parts it isn’t. Maybe he wasn’t to know but normally all TV presenters are aware of this kind of thing.

    I don’t really mind if he’s on BBC or not, someone like John Watson is just as good.

  6. Hey guys, not so sure where to post this, so I’ll do it here:

    http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns20456.html

    Ove Andersson passes away in a racing accident near his home in South Africa.

  7. Hey guys, not so sure where to post this, so I’ll do it here:

    Ove Andersson passes away in a racing accident near his home in South Africa.

    News on the grandprix.com website

  8. Of all the faults of the FOX coverage, they were better this year than year past (at least this year they didn’t have graphics promoting everything FOX under the sun covering the FIA information on the bottom of the screen – well at least not as much of it). I know this year I didn’t keep saying to myself: “I don’t know who’s winning, but least I know who’s playing in the baseball game tomorrow”.

    By far my biggest complaint was the lacking of ANY pre-race coverage. The SPEED crew didn’t get air time until 1:03pm, and even then they had to play so many promo’s that they couldn’t even BEGIN any pre-race ‘driver lineup’ or anything until they had already completed their “warm up” lap and were reforming the grid. I’m pretty sure all they didn’t even get past row 3 before the lights went out.

    Imagine trying to explain to a more generic crowd (that is the reason they’re on FOX, right?) all the important things to watch at the start of the race in 20 seconds or less. I thought David Hobbs was gonna pass out he was talking so fast.

    But what can be worse than this? Well let’s just look at what FOX had programmed before the race that was so important that they had to skip their pre-race coverage…. that’s right, an infomercial for some garden tool!

    Gotta love how FOX even cut to a commercial mid-sentance during the post-race interview with Heidfeld. Nevermind we never got to hear a word from DC’s mouth. The most unique podium in years, and we don’t even get to hear it. Glad YouTube had better coverage…

  9. Terry Fabulous
    11th June 2008, 23:20

    If you follow the links on ESPN’s top 25 race drivers of all time you can see the Author’s predications of the top 25 in the year 2025.
    1. Unser Jnr
    2. Andretti
    3. Earnhardt
    4. Schumacher
    5. HAMILTON!!!
    6. Senna
    http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/racing/columns/story?columnist=blount_terry&id=3408328
    That should get some people fired up!

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