Happy birthday to F1’s most experienced driver Rubens Barrichello, 38 today.
Here’s today’s round-up:
Links
Monaco GP in quotes (Red Bull)
Frank Williams: “Does Monaco still excite me? It still worries me! I think everyone’s adrenaline pumps a little more, more than at any other circuit. I think it’s because so many simple things can go wrong and do a lot of damage.” I wonder if that was said before both his cars crashed in the race?
Comment of the day
I hadn’t heard much about the rivalry between Vijay Mallya and Karun Chandhok’s father Vicky – Anoop explains:
It is basically a fight for who wants the bigger piece of the pie! But if I am not mistaken, both Mallya and Chandhok’s father are on the same page. The latter is the vice-president of FMSCI (Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India), of which Mallya is the head.
FMSCI is the older body while MAI (Motor Sports Association of India) is the breakaway faction. However MAI was the authorised body until 2008 when the FIA ratified FMSCI as the main body in India.
Though the feud was in place since 1999, I guess it heightened after Narain Karthikeyan’s foray in to F1 which resulted in motorsports gaining huge popularity in India. Also Mallya’s full fledged entry into F1 must’ve contributed to the feud.
Anoop
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Emmet!
On this day in F1
Rubens Barrichello, who turns 38 today, is F1’s most experienced driver. He took the record for most Grand Prix starts in 2008 when he surpassed Riccardo Patrese’s tally of 256.
Patrese scored his first F1 win at Monaco on this day in 1982. In a dramatic ending to the race a series of potential winners either crashed or ran out of fuel, leaving Patrese – who had spun but got going again – to claim the spoils:
Enigma
23rd May 2010, 0:15
Webber said “I think it’s going to be very competitive with Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes”, but it turned out the closest was a Renault.
Patrickl
23rd May 2010, 12:08
Ferrari and Mercedes were pretty competitive, but they dropped the ball in (or before qualifying)
McLaren just wasn’t on the pace. I wonder what went wrong there. They obviously had such high hopes (with Whitmarsh repeating their number of wins over the years again and again)
Ronan
23rd May 2010, 0:24
“which resulted in motorsports gaining huge popularity in India.”
Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. I happened to be in Delhi when Fisi put Force India on pole and almost won the race. I had to ask specially in a restaurant in central Delhi for quali to be put on the TV. Come race day I had no such luck and couldn’t find the race broadcast anywhere. Most people I asked didn’t know what F1 was. Huge popularity? I think it has some way to go.
Ronan
23rd May 2010, 0:26
Still I should mention in fairness to Anoop, very interesting about the feud and hopefully the Delhi GP in 2011 will help put F1 on the map in India.
Hare
23rd May 2010, 4:01
a) You’ve seen the way they drive over there? I think motorsport may well be alive and kicking on the roads of Delhi and further afield in India
2) Any sort of popularity in India is conceivably bigger than say in the UK, Over 1 billion people, 30 to a tv set? :)
f) This is tongue in cheek post. Don’t take it too seriously anyone :)
Vikas
23rd May 2010, 4:59
Ronan i completely agree with you…I live in Bangalore,India and I have to fight with my cable guy to switch on the F1 channel during almost every race weekend.
TommyC
23rd May 2010, 0:34
does that mean patrese was the only one to finish that race? i thought that was only possible on the playstation… what a crazy race.
Hare
23rd May 2010, 6:13
That has to be the greatest example of ‘commentators curse’ in the history of sport… :)
Icthyes
23rd May 2010, 1:16
I love that video, especially the commentary. James Hunt’s line about not getting a winner is classic!
Stealthman
23rd May 2010, 2:02
I love the end, with Patrese giving Pironi a ride back to the pits. And how awesome do the cars sound?
Pinball - roadography.com
23rd May 2010, 3:37
I love the look of the cars, no front wings, really wide, they look great.
Hare
23rd May 2010, 6:14
Agreed, they look fantastic. One car had no rear wing either! Design or accident, I’m too ignorant to know.. :P
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
23rd May 2010, 8:59
It was Derek Daly, who’d gone into the barriers at Tabac backwards a few laps earlier.
As well as knocking his rear wing off he had also cracked his gearbox which was dumping oil all over the track and eventually caused him to grind to a halt.
Alex
23rd May 2010, 9:42
Just proves that back then drivers were even braver than today’s. Now they would’ve never ever let a car without a rear wing and an oil leaking gearbox continue racing. And in the rare case the stewards did (they missed it or something), about 10 drivers would go something like “Charlie there’s oil on the track it’s sooooooo dangerous!!” over the boardradio.
Ronan
23rd May 2010, 12:52
A bit of trivia (correct me if I’m wrong Keith!) but I think had Daly hung on he would have been the first driver from the Irish Republic to win a Grand Prix, something which to this day still hasn’t happened.
Northern Ireland has seen more success with the likes of John Watson and Eddie Irvine although both raced under British nationality.
wasiF1
23rd May 2010, 2:11
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BARRICHELLO
Himmat
23rd May 2010, 4:10
Wow amazing video of Monaco there….nvr seen it before!
ElliottB
23rd May 2010, 5:50
From http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/formula-1-news/235238/button-we-should-be-well-suited-to-turkey/
“Jenson Button is optimistic over McLaren’s potential ahead of the upcoming Turkish Grand Prix. Although the World Champion – whose last win to date was at Istanbul Park almost year ago – feels that mistakes from Red Bull may be required in order for rivals to continue challenging, the Somerset driver is pinning his hopes on latest updates.”
Huh? Have they not been watching this season? Button has won two races.
Hare
23rd May 2010, 6:20
Yeah, shoddy journalism! I’ve seen some other sites that just recycle news from other outlets, and some journalists who start ranting about things not to do with F1…
Thats why I like this crop of blogs and sites such a James Allen, Adam Cooper, Scarbs f1. They’re just total pro’s…
And Keith has to be the most addicted F1 fan in the world??? He’s definitely up there!
Calum
23rd May 2010, 11:01
In most newspapers, F1 is usually restricted to just a small article most days, and a double page after a race, the papers don’t really seem interested – that’s why we all come on websites like this every day, to get F1 Journalism with a passion from the likes of Keith!
Prisoner Monkeys
23rd May 2010, 6:07
Gascoyne recently alluded to some “major changes” for 2011 when talking about the development of the T127’s 2011 successor. According to AMuS, these changes include:
1) A ban on double-diffusers and F-ducts.
2) The return of KERS which will now have a greater output than in 2009.
3) Banning vertical pod wings and flow aids under the chassis.
4) Rules to reduce the scope of development for rear wings.
5) A possible change in the width of the front wing to make it smaller,
6) Adjustable front wings to be banned (the drivers admit they don’t use them, anyway), but the possibility to adjust rear wings.
Prisoner Monkeys
23rd May 2010, 6:08
Also, Pirelli have apparently been tipped to be the 2011 tyre supplier.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
23rd May 2010, 8:23
Point six is a surprise, I thought they were using them a lot to balance the car as the fuel load comes down?
Prisoner Monkeys
23rd May 2010, 11:53
Well, they weren’t used last year. I recall Barrichello mentioning that he fiddled with it at Melbourne last year after he lost part of the front wing at the first corner – he was trying to compensate for the loss of the endplate – but they were apparently otherwise underused. I can’t speak as to their useage this year, but if the teams are considering scrapping them, then I very much imagine they’re not being used too much. And I suppose the talk of adjustable rear wings is to create a solution similar to the F-duct without actually using one.
However, I gather the AMuS article is speculative.
Patrickl
23rd May 2010, 12:09
Indeed, several drivers have said that they use those wings a lot. Either to manage tyre wear or to extract lap time and change it at the same spot of the track on each lap.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
23rd May 2010, 8:54
Away from F1, today’s Lamborghini Super Trofeo race in Brno has been cancelled following a serious accident in qualifying which left Giorgio Bartocci in critical condition:
http://official-super-trofeo.blogspot.com/2010/05/lamborghini-blancpain-super-trofeo_22.html
I hope he pulls though.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
23rd May 2010, 10:02
Sequence of photographs showing what happened to Bartocci. Horrific accident and quite graphic photos so proceed with caution:
http://www.foltyn.cz/car/lambo.htm
Nathan Bradley
23rd May 2010, 10:21
Oh my god! I really hope he’ll be okay.
That’s terrible, but it just shows you the dangers of racing, but I might have expected the car to stand up to a crash a little better than that, although I’m no crash expert. (Do we have a crash expert here?)
Thanks for the links Keith.
Nathan
HG
23rd May 2010, 11:07
Wow, what a terrible crash. I hope he pulls through, i’m guessing from the dust and tyre marks he dropped a tyre onto the grass/gravel, but like Nathan, i am surprised by how bad the car is. Maybe this is a illustration of how safe a modern F1 car actually is. Best wishes Giorgio, hope you get well soon.
Ned Flanders
23rd May 2010, 11:57
Oh God that looks horrific. It’s awful to see a car disintegrate like that
beanzoo
23rd May 2010, 18:16
That is not nice to see and i’m concerned how he seemed to be no longer strapped to his seat and was hanging out the door like that. Hope he recovers i presume his injuries are quite bad.
MPJ1994
23rd May 2010, 9:58
Lewis Hamilton has been charged over his burnout incident which occured during the Australian Grand Prix. A court date has been set for August 24.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/lewis-hamilton-charged-after-hoon-driving/story-e6frf7jo-1225869991938
Scribe
23rd May 2010, 10:34
I know this is just conjecture but come on, they do seem to be going for him with his season at the front of their minds.
An when are these people going to acept that lighting up your tyres leaving a car park for fans is very different to lighting them up from the lights.
steph
23rd May 2010, 14:27
Well rules are rules but this must be a dream for them to get a high profile star and be able to make an example of them.
It’ll probably be just a fine I imagine.
If it is anything more serious I predict Eddie Jordan will replace him and take the 2011 championship :P
Nathan Bradley
23rd May 2010, 11:23
By the way, for any McLaren fans, their new screensaver is very cool:
For the Windows version: http://mclaren.com/download/screensaver-pc.zip?utm_source=NL&utm_medium=NL20100521&utm_campaign=NL2010
For the Mac Version: http://mclaren.com/download/screensaver-mac.zip?utm_source=NL&utm_medium=NL20100521&utm_campaign=NL2010
If the links don’t work; just go into http://www.mclaren.com/download
And even if you’re not a McLaren fan, still a cool gadget!
Nathan
Ned Flanders
23rd May 2010, 11:58
Happy birthday to my fellow Newcastle United fan Emmet!
Calum
23rd May 2010, 12:45
Just watching one of my other Fave motorsports, Moto GP, and I noticed the Ducati Marlboro barcode seems to have been replaced with a similar box to Ferrari’s.
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