Formula 1 - 2009 season

[ursus arctos]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

A number of teams are claiming that Ferarri's plans to allow Schumacher to "get more familiar" with the current car violate the in-season testing ban.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out; my own guess is that he'll be on the grid "testing" or "no testing".

[ursus arctos]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Nevermind.

Seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher has abandoned his comeback with Ferrari because of a neck injury.

The 40-year-old, who retired at the end of 2006, was set to deputise for the injured Felipe Massa at the European Grand Prix in Valencia on 23 August.

"Unfortunately we did not manage to get a grip on the pain in the neck which occurred after the private F1-day in Mugello," Schumacher told his website.

Schumacher suffered the neck injury in a bike accident in February.

"The consequences of the injuries caused by the bike accident in February, fractures in the area of head and neck, unfortunately have turned out to be still too severe," he added.

"That is why my neck cannot stand the extreme stresses caused by F1 yet. These are the clear results of the examinations we did on the course of the past two weeks and the final examination on Monday afternoon.

"As there were no improvements after the day in Mugello, I decided at short notice on Sunday to do that thorough examination on Monday."

Ferarri have announced that Luca Badoer will be driving in Valencia. Some interesting facts about Badoer.

[Eggchaser]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Bernie's chuckling all the way to the bank off the back of increased gate receipts from people hoping to see Schumacher, I suspect.

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Fisichella's got a pole. I assume that he's got no fuel in his car...

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Heh, Britain's interest fails to last the first lap...

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Well, I was disappointed not to hear the Indian national anthem yesterday, even if no-one else cares...

[dotmund]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

The real national anthem news was 15 minutes before the start... who the hell thought it would be a good idea for a rum-looking duo to give a freestyle acoustic folk/jazz rendition of the Belgian anthem on the podium?

[Levin]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

dotmund wrote:

The real national anthem news was 15 minutes before the start... who the hell thought it would be a good idea for a rum-looking duo to give a freestyle acoustic folk/jazz rendition of the Belgian anthem on the podium?

Aw. THat was the high point of my day. THose Belgians sure know how to groove man.

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Ah, now if you'd been BBC commentators, you'd've known that that was the Spanish anthem...

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Now we know why Fisichella let Raikkonen through on Sunday...

[dotmund]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Of course, the other reason Fisi let Raikkonen through is that he's just not a top-line Formula 1 driver. For purity of driving style and outright speed, he should have been, but on Sunday afternoons he just lacks something, time and time again. Fisichella will get you points finish after points finish after points finish - he'll even win if it's absolutely there on a plate for him - but whenever it comes to having to fight for it, he will always come off second best.

Still, in this regard, he's nowhere near as useless as his contemporary Jarno Trulli, who will have faded back to holding up a queue of frustrated faster cars long before the chance to fight for a win presents itself.

The longevity of their F1 careers is predicated, in the most part, by the enormously promising first 20-odd races they had... Trulli, you will recall, even led half of the Austrian Grand Prix in 1997, only his 14th ever F1 race, in the Prost whilst Fisichella troubled the podium in the same season and could even have won in Germany but for a puncture. It seems a little hard on people like Sebastien Bourdais and Nelsinho Piquet. Bourdais particularly was a victim of bad luck as much as anything else, but both of them are likely to be taunted forever by the fact that if they'd only just made a quicker adaptation, they'd still be tooling around for Martin Brundle's benefit on summer Sundays until some time in the latter part of the next decade. Hard business, Formula 1. The only room for sentiment there's ever been was Luca Badoer, which worked questionably at best for sentiment's corner.

All of this meanness aside, I am pleased for Fisichella. He's never really acquitted himself as an ultimate front runner, but neither he nor Trulli have ever looked anything other than Grand Prix-standard drivers. The Ferrari gig should provide him with a wonderful career swansong, and I'd not be surprised to see him on the podium again multiple times before Abu Dhabi. Such is his experience and quality as a driver, I'd also expect to see Force India lose their direction without him. Giancarlo Fisichella could well be the key to who wins the World Championship this year, one way or another.

[dotmund]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Note to self: next time, try not to sugar any pills or offer any balanced assessments, just go with what you think.

Giancarlo Fisichella is a plodder. Always has been, always will be. The end.

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Tee hee.

Incidentally, was that the Austrian anthem played on Sunday?

[blameless]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Fisichella and Trulli may be journeymen, but at least they're still placed as such - it still staggers me that one of the hardened mediocrities that is Rubens Barrichello or Jensen Button is going to be world champion this year.

[evilC]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Well, it just goes to show that there's a bunch of drivers out there who may not be of Senna, Prost or Schumacher quality who nonetheless can do a perfectly good job when given the right opportunities with the right equipment.

Button has always been dogged by terrible cars and plain bad luck and Barichello has been following team orders (i.e. to be no.2) for much of his career. Neither of them can be criticised for those circumstances. Ross Brawn was simply clever enough to realise that and give them a chance.

You can't have a Senna, etc every year.

[dotmund]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

If there WAS a Senna or a Prost or a Schumacher in Formula 1 at the moment, they'd have won this championship weeks ago. Barrichello and Button are not bad drivers, they would neither of them be undeserving world champions - the results never lie - but neither of them are from that very top drawer and with the ability to get the thing done and dusted.

If McLaren and Ferrari can give Hamilton and Alonso competitive cars next year, I think they will ably demonstrate this point, particularly in the case of Alonso.

2009 is going to go down as a strange old year, but whoever wins it is no stranger a champion than Jody Schecker, Denny Hulme or Alan Jones.

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Finally. Almost in a Jochen Rindt style, Button becomes the latest Englishman to be a one-off World Champion. Funnily enough, the Scots win more than once...

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

The season's been a 'funny' one precisely because of the very success of the changes introduced to equalise all the teams - the very thing everyone had been demanding for years, after the utter dominance of some of the "great" champions people are now harking back to.

After 16 races out of 17 this season, only Button's won more than two of them, and if Rubens Barrichello had pulled his finger out earlier on, it may well have been the case that the two of them would now be on 4 wins each (with the title still to be decided), not the 6-2 split that's seen the title go to the Englishman.

We're used to seasons where Schumacher or Prost win over half the GPs in a season, with their team-mates winning the majority of the other ones to finish second in the title race. But everyone moaned that was too boring, didn't they? Instead, this year, we've had a season where 7th place Nico Rosberg, in a Williams Toyota that hasn't once made the podium, has still finished ahead of the World Champion in 6 of the 16 races so far. That simply didn't happen when Schumacher was dominating in the Ferrari.

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

You're not wrong, but in a way, for a season with so many different winners, there's been disappointingly very little excitement or drama.

[Guest]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

You're right Gangster. I think it's because Button recorded all his wins in blitzkrieg fashion in the first half of the season, then saw his momentum disappear while all of his rivals struggled to mount half-decent challenges. The ironic result was the world's fastest sport coughing and spluttering towards the end of its current season.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Well, maybe F1, like the Premier League, is simply destined to be simply fucking boring, no matter what it tries. I'd still ban the drivers from going up on the kerbs, though. Put spikes up on them to burst the tyres. And allow the drivers to deliberately bump into each other again on overtaking, like in Jackie Stewart's day.

Stuff all this nonsense about health and safety for the drivers. They're already driving cars that weigh less than Ford Fiestas, but can accelerate to 180mph in about 3 seconds, pull 5G round corners, and are sitting above fuel tanks that are made out of aluminium foil and contain pure ethanol. If these people were the slightest bit concerned about their health or safety they wouldn't be in the bloody sport to begin with. They must all have a death wish.

That's why they get paid millions of pounds a year. And if truth be told, most fans want to see them crash into each other, as often as possible, to see what happens.

[Guest]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

The only way to truly level the playing field is to give all the drivers the same car. You can keep the technical side of F1; it does nothing but cloud the real issue: who is the fastest driver? Is it really Button? He's clearly a good driver, but better than Hamilton, Alonso, Massa or Räikkönen? We cannot know unless they all have the same equipment, and they never do.

[evilC]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

Gangster Octopus wrote:

Finally. Almost in a Jochen Rindt style, Button becomes the latest Englishman to be a one-off World Champion. Funnily enough, the Scots win more than once...

You seem to be forgetting Hill's first title with BRM in 1962.

(Apologies for the late response - meant to write this days ago!)

[Gangster Octopus]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

I didn't say that no Englishman had won more than one championship; just that they tended to. Although it's arguable to say that Hill's second only happened 'cos of Clark's utterly pointless death...

[hobbes]

Formula 1 - 2009 season

You can keep the technical side of F1; it does nothing but cloud the real issue: who is the fastest driver?

With all due respect, that's utter bollocks.
It's a team sport. It's about the best mix of technology, tactics and driving ability.
With very few exceptions the carbike is as important as the driverrider.
If you want a straight shoot out between drivers, go watch A1 racing.