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.

Baba O'Riley

No, I haven't only just heard the One Direction "cover" of The Who's great song and been horrified at their cheek, that's old news, at least a month old, and as Pete Townshend has apparently come out and said it's fine - no IPR has been compromised, who would I be to argue anyway?

So why bring it up again? Well, I've just been having a bit of a "punk" day, and to cut a short story long, it began by listening to Sandinista!, the triple-album by The Clash, a follow up to the double London Calling. Incidentally that made me think "surely it was London's Burning?" but that was of course on the first album, along with White Riot and the wonderful cover of Police and Thieves. But back to Sandinista!. I'd never listened to it as I always thought it was rubbish, because that's what I'd heard or read (and a triple album is a bit of an investment when you're at college) but it's not rubbish at all. An hour into it on Spotify and I hadn't hit the "next track" button, which is pretty unheard of for me these days. Well worth a listen, which I guess means I have to give Fleetwood Mac's Tusk a spin, previously rejected for the same reason.

I enjoyed listening to Mick, Topper and Co, so much so that I figured a punk playlist was in order. The Damned, Buzzcocks, Ramones - the usual suspects. And then I got to playing X-Ray Spex. Germ-free Adolescents. Surely that's the song that 1D ripped off? Or X-RS ripped off from The Who? But still, no matter; as Townshend says, it's all three chord stuff, you can't have a copyright on that. So not really anything to say about it, is there?

I bet you're glad you came here now. You may as well at least listen to Poly Styrene, Laura Logic and the other :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGROSJbCPV8‎

One thing I also didn't know before today. Poly passed away peacefully in her sleep two years ago. Makes you think.

Gaining an Advantage

In the days when I used to race single-seaters, one of the circuits we'd visit was Pembrey, in Wales. It's an interesting little circuit, about a mile and a half long, with a couple of reasonable quick corners.

One of these corners, Dibeni, would always be mentioned in the drivers' briefings. Because it was a long, double-apex corner, with a lot of tarmac on the inside, there was a tendency for drivers to shorten the corner by running their inside wheels across the white line.

The Clerk of the Course made it quite clear that if we were seen doing it, we would be shown a warning flag, and if we did it again afterwards, the black flag (Go direct to Jail, do not pass Go etc).

Note that this had nothing to do with passing another car. Just gaining an advantage.

So why don't the stewards at a GP enforce the "cars must remain on track" consistently?

Which would mean, looking at yesterday's race, that anyone leaving the track at Turn 3 (eg Rosberg, Webber) or on the exit of Turn 5 - or maybe 6 (Kimi, Vettel, probably just about everybody) should have been served with a drive through. I certainly don't think that Grosjean gained more of an advantage by leaving the track than Vettel did by repeatedly pushing the limits of the track.

F1 drivers are greedy. If they believe that it's possible to get away with something, they will do it. Firm and consistent enforcement of the rules is the clearest approach.

Ouch

This isn't news, but I was looking at the championship standings today and noticed something that, well, it didn't surprise me, but it was still a shock.

Everyone says that Felipe Massa is having a bad year, and isn't good enough for Ferrari. And yet he has scored more points than the two McLaren drivers added together.

That really shows just how much they are suffering in Woking. I just hope they have at least one good result at either Spa or Monza when the cars are running in low-drag specification. At least nobody will be running any downforce...

The Fragility of Life

I was on a tram yesterday, heading out to The Orange Cinema, that great lakeside viewing experience, to watch a film about getting old (The Quartet). It's especially lovely on a warm sunny evening, which it was.

Suddenly, the tram bell rings, brakes are applied hard and there's a thud. A woman is whirling past the window I'm sitting next to. I see her fall to the ground; the back of her head hitting the ground hard.

There is no movement.

A feeling of helplessness, tempered by the knowlege that at least 50% of the Swiss on the tram will be trained in first aid. They spring into action but there is ân obvious reluctance to move her at all.

I get off the tram, I'm right by the front. There is a bicycle lying under the front of the tram. It looks like the woman decided to sneak in front of the tram at the tram stop, probably didn't hear it and didn't look. She wasn't wearing a helmet either.

I decide that I cannot do anything, and that staring is pointless. I leave and complete my journey on foot but I find I keep wondering if that was the right thing to do. I wonder if she lived, or what her injuries were. As I got out of the tram, I noticed her face had changed colour to a sort of bluey redness. It's not exactly haunting me but I do keep looking in the local newspaper sights to see what's been reported. Nothing yet, other than a few other accidents involving trams, trains, trucks where people will never complete their journey.

Many other relatives and friends whose lives have changed in an instant.

What sort of flag is that?

Very pleased to see Mark on the podium yesterday. He is one of the best drivers on the grid, and very high up the list of decent blokes.

But what was that behind him? There was an outcry from the Australian side of the sofa: "That's not an Australian flag! It's horrible".

And I looked and agreed. Something didn't look right.

So I investigated (ie, had a look on google and fiddled with a pic from the podium). Here's what the flag looked like according to FOM:

and here's what it should really look like:

Obviously the colours are a bit out, but it's the aspect ration and the size of the stars that make it look wrong. Wrong in the sense that it looks like a child has drawn it.

I'd be very unhappy if it was my national flag, and frankly the Union Flag quadrant does look nasty here - although it's actually quite close to the 5:3 aspect ration commonly used on land for the Union Flag. At sea, the ratio is apparently normally 2:1, like the Australian flag, which is not surprising as the Australian flag is based on the design of the White/Red Ensigns that you'll see on ships of the British Royal/Merchant Navies.

Given that Bernie is normally such a stickler for detail, I'm very surprised that he allows this sort of thing. Can we go back to real flags over the podium please?