Effing and Blinding

Apparently, Eric Boullier has apologised for the language used by his team during the Indian race.

Allegedly, trackside director Alan Permane told Kimi to "get out of the fucking way" when Grosjean (interesting that we call them Kimi, and yet Grosjean, isn't it?) needed to get past in a hurry.

Kimi's response was equally to the point: "don't fucking shout at me". although that mayhave had "in the fast corners" tacked on the end. It depends which report you read.

But why apologise? It's a private channel, admittedly a channel that can be broadcast to the public if the powers that be at FOM deem it suitable. If it's not suitable, don't broadcast it. Simple.

What Eric should have done, is tell anyone that complains to eff off.

Incidentally, I have followed David Hepworth's lead in using the fuck w***. It seems pointless to me to obliterate three letters in a w*** when it is quite clear what we are talking about. We are grown-ups after all, and if you are offended by that kind of language, then I'll send Eric round, and he can tell you what to do.

Photo: Autosport

More whinging about Tyres

Pirelli were apparently unhappy about the fact that some teams, Lotus for example, ignored their recommendation and ran more laps than the tyre manufacturer thought "safe".

I can understand Pirelli's POV: after a year where tyres have exploded in races, this doesn't look good. But in every other race they have allowed teams to decide when to change tyres, and haven't specified how long either the Option or Prime (they don't like those terms either) would last.

So they must have been feeling a bit panicky to come out and say that. But they also know that it is an F1 team's job to push every component to the limit. Colin Chapman once said that a race car should fall apart as it crosses the finishing line. Each component only just strong enough to do its job. Otherwise it's too heavy. OK, he got it wrong quite a lot and bits broke before it got to the line, but you see the point.

Pirelli are supplying tyres to F1 teams and they have to trust them to do their job. And as it happens, the teams were right. In comparison, at Phillip Island for the Moto GP race, teams were set a hard limit of 10 laps. And if you look at a picture of a tyre that did 11 laps, you'll see why. But MotoGP teams don't have the sophistacted telemetry that F1 cars do, so the organisers had to take a hard decision. It looked daft, but it was right.

As for Pirelli, let the teams do what they know best, otherwise you might as well try to tell Perez not to lock his brakes.