Yesterday I made my annual pilgrimage to the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the weather was just perfect for it. I usually go on the Friday but this year I managed to blag a couple of free tickets for the Thursday “Moving Motor Show” which is an a great new take on the car shows of old.

My favourite bit of Goodwood is the close access you get to the cars in the paddock. No where else can you see such an amazing array of cars and be within touching distance. Being a huge Williams fan I always search out the nearest FWxx.

Check out the pictures below for some of the cars that were on display yesterday. I will post some more over the coming days of the less important ones!

 

 

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I was at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last Friday and it has to be one of the greatest motorsport events anywhere. It is the only event that I know of that allows fans such unprecedented access to the cars. As you can see from the pictures you can get within touching distance of the cars. There are no barriers and no security guards keeping you back. While these cars are old they are also expensive so it is good of the owners to not worry about what must be their pride and joys.

This year the event celebrated 40 years of Frank Williams in motorsport and gave me an opportunity to see some of his cars that I have only ever seen in pictures or model form before. They were all beautifully presented and clearly had some time and money spent on them to get them into such condition. I am always amazed that so many have survived over the years.

I took plenty of pictures and as you can get so close you really get to see the cars in great detail. Click on the picture below to see them.

Click here for pictures from the 2009 Festival of Speed

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Autosport is reporting today that Max Mosley is thinking of running again to be President of the sports governing body as: "When a lot of people say ‘you should stay’, it would be sort of churlish not to." Well if it’s any help I am saying ‘you should go’ and perhaps he should consider that it is far easier to say to someone’s face “stay” than to say “push off”.

So “push off” Max.

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Last night the WilliamsF1 club ran one of it’s occasional trips to the Williams museum, a £50 million collection of cars spanning right across the 30 year history of the team. I always enjoy my visits even though I have been half a dozen times before but last night was special as Sir Frank Williams came along to speak to the group. He give a short talk thanking the members of the club for their support and then took the time to answer questions.

What I found interesting was the difference between the answers that Williams gave to that on the motorsport websites. For example a question was asked about the proposed standard engine and its place in F1. In the press it has been suggested that Williams have expressed interest in the engine but last night a number of things became clear. The engine is the same power unit that Williams used in 2006. There has been little or no development of it since then and the engineers that worked on it have all since lest Cosworth. So not such an appetising prospect to try and race with the manufacturer teams with what would be a three year old engine even if it is cheaper.

Following the questions Sir Frank stayed around for us to have pictures taken with him and there we are above. A great evening. Now all we need is a return to form in 2009. Fingers crossed!

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It has been announced today that from 2010 the British Grand Prix is to move from it’s traditional home at Silverstone to Donnington. While there has been many years of argument between the circuit and Bernie Ecclestone I don’t think anyone really thought that they wouldn’t come to some agreement in the end.

I personally wonder if the Grand Prix might not end up back at Silverstone a lot quicker than it might look as Donnington have to find £100M from somewhere to develop the circuit to the level that F1 requires. Right now it seems that Donnington don’t have either the money nor the planning permission to develop the circuit. Time will tell…

The photo, by the way, was taken on a trip to Silverstone to see the F1 testing a couple of weeks ago. You can see all the pictures here.

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Formula One is to be shown on the BBC for the first time in twelve years it was announced yesterday. This is great news for the following reasons:

1) no more adverts breaking up the action

2) Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” will (probably) return as the theme music.

Lots of people (well my Dad actually) have said that ITV have done a lot to improve the coverage for the lay person. However, as I only watch the race and not the build up I cannot comment on that. What I will say is that Martin Brundle is excellent and I will be very disapointed if he does not come across to the BBC.

The FIA have made some positive changes to the coverage this year by including a “ticker tape” showing current positions scrolling at the bottom of the page. They have also started including pictures and mini-stats of the drivers which helps people recognise who is in which car. Both these ideas have been nicked from NASCAR that has been doing it like this for years.

So what improvements can the BBC make to the coverage? Well for me it would be greater integration with digital services, such as the Internet. Including, real time statistics while the race is on would be fantastic. Some of this is already available on the F1 website but if the BBC could do a deal with the teams to provide an even greater level of detail which the viewer could personalise that would just be the icing on the cake. We await further news to see what the Beeb intend to do.

Read the official announcement here…

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So the first race of the 2008 Formula 1 season is out of the way with a great haul of points for the Williams team. With so few finishers it will be interesting to see if they can keep up the momentum next weekend in Malaysia. I suspect that it could be a little more difficult as by rights you would expect both Ferraris to finish ahead of the Williams under normal circumstances.

There was plenty of action and quite a few "incidents" that caused plenty of angst in the pit lane. One of the most amusing must be the following comment from David Coulthard following his coming together with Felipe Massa. Apparently this went out live when Coulthard was interviewed by Louise Goodman but was edited out by the afternoons replay:

"I screwed up the same way with Alex (Wurz) last year and took full responsibility for it. I would expect Felipe to do the same.

"If he doesn’t, then I’m going to kick three colours of shit out of the little bastard…"

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Yesterday saw the launch of a new online magazine iGizmo. This is a magazine in the traditional sense of the word in that it is presented as an electronic view with pages to turn just like the real thing. Of course being online allows it to do other neat things like embed videos and link to websites – both of which iGizmo makes good use of.

This seems to be the latest thing as I have been invited to "subscribe" to several online mags in the last few weeks. These include the aforementioned iGizmo (gadgets) GP Mag (motor sport) and idiomag (music). The latter is interesting in that it (allegedly) tailors its content to your musical tastes. You give it the name of three artists you like (or point it at your musical profile on, say, Last.fm) and it then tailors the output.

In general I like this advance in publishing options and it brings with it a couple of clear advantages over print magazines: 1) they are more regularly updated, or contain more up-to-date information and 2) they are (generally) free. Of course the downside is that you cannot (easily) read them on the train as they need a laptop and an internet connection. The question is whether they provide any information that cannot be obtained from a traditional website with a good RSS feed.

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As part of the McLaren F1 teams punishment for “cheating” last season was that they were stripped of all their world championship points thereby finishing last with nil points. The way that F1 works is that the best place to be in the pits is in the garages closest to the exit. This gives the teams both a tactical advantage and (usually) more space. So you would expect McLaren to be at the far end of the pit lane where you need binoculars to see them. However, it seems that this will not be the case. When the teams set-up ready for next weekends opening Australian Grand Prix McLaren were between Williams and Red Bull (i.e in fifth position). Rumour has it that the big white chief (Bernie Eccelstone) negotiated with the teams to get them moved up the pits. The story goes that Eccelstone wanted McLaren higher but Williams refused to give up their slot.

Now Autosport is reporting that not only is it true that McLaren are being moved up the pit lane but that the reason is because their very large motorhome would not fit at the far end. Now, you would think that this would be McLarens problem and not anyone else’s and that they would have to downsize. However, given that the motor homes are used for wining and dining sponsors and McLaren’s are pretty blue chip I suspect a deal has been done.

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I made my annual pilgrimage to the Autosport International show at the Birmingham NEC today. Each year I say that I am not going to go back as there are just too many suspension springs and wheels to interest me. I may be remembering this wrongly but it’s not as good as it used to be but then what is! I’m sure in the first years when the show was on there were more manufacturers in attendance, the live action was genuinely exciting and it was more aimed at the general public and less at the racing driver. Oh well, maybe next year I really won’t go. Anyway, here are some pictures of the sole Williams on display.

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So, Michael Schumacher is back testing with Ferrari in Barcelona – the first time he has run in anger since he retired – and guess what? He’s topped the timesheets. This wasn’t a small test either, all the teams were there and many of the top drivers.

I’m not Schumacher’s greatest fan but you do have to grudgingly accept that he was/is pretty quick.

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So Kimi Raikkonen is the new Formula One world champion, or is he… As I write this the McLaren team have appealed the decision not to disqualify the BMW & Williams team for being found to have fuel that is more than 10 degrees outside ambient temperature. Therefore, while a decision is made on that the whole thing hangs in the balance and that is not good for the sport.

On the one hand I can see why McLaren would want to appeal – if they succeed Lewis Hamilton will become champion. Also, having been found guilty of cheating this year and been harshly fined to see other teams accused of cheating and to get away scot free must be very galling.

On the other hand how can this be good for the sport for the championship to be decided by an appeal? F1 is all over the news this morning and once again it is not for the right reasons. Also, should McLaren succeed it would mean that Williams would be striped of their brilliant fourth place in the race and that would just be criminal!

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Today the FIA have released details of why they came to the decision to fine McLaren a record $100M in the Ferrari spy scandal. I did wonder yesterday if McLaren might appeal but seeing the evidence I don’t think they should bother and think themselves lucky that they weren’t kicked out for 2007 & 08. I also shows that Mike Coughlan was lying spectacularly to save his skin and lessen the damage inflicted on his former employer. Coughlan stated that he had only four contacts with Ferrari’s Nigel Stepney. It has become clear that there were in fact at least 35 mobile calls and 288 text messages and that an incredible amount of detail was passed. What is ironic about this is that McLaren title sponsor Vodafone produced the information to prove this had been the case.

I dislike Ferrari for how they go about racing but on this occasion I can only side with them and think that they should rightly feel hard done by and that McLaren have got off lightly.

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So the FIA have decided. McLaren are guilty and it’s going to cost them $100M and all their points docked from the 2007 constructors championship. In some senses it could have been worse. Earlier this afternoon Autosport.com were reporting that McLaren were going to be kick out of the 2008 championship too.

The interesting thing is that the points are only being stripped from the constructor and not the drivers. Surely is McLaren got some advantage from the information obtained from Ferrari then the drivers have gain because of this and not just the team.

If one was being cynical about this you might think that the drivers championship is close this year and could well still be decided at the last race. Would you want to take away that excitement and effectively kill off this season’s championship? Probably not. But it does seem to be a bit of a fudge as so often these decisions from the FIA are.

And of course still it could linger on if McLaren decide to appeal, which surely they must if they believe that they are innocent. This, however, just drags it out even more and make it such a bad news story for F1. I have a good friend who is into cycling and I also revel in the drug stories that taint the Tour each year – this is on the same level. Let’s hope it stops here.

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I have been playing around with Windows Live Maps today and doing a comparison with Google Maps. On a pure mapping front there doesn’t seem to be much between them but the aerial views are much, much better on WLS. The quality of the view for our house for instance is just stunning. It was clearly taken a couple of years ago at least but the clarify is almost frightening.  It’s not as good for every area but is still pretty good. As an example of the level much seems to be at take a look at the aerial of the WilliamsF1 factory. When you are bored of that take a look for your house.

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It has been interesting to watch the qualifying shenanigans over the weekend and then see the following announcements from the McLaren team regarding what happened and then try and match that to what was on TV. To me something doesn’t quite add up.

Why is it that the questions that you really want answering never seem to be the ones that get asked? Lets take the word of the team as being correct for a moment, i.e that the team decided that they were going to hold back Alonso for the right moment and then release him. This raises a number of points. Firstly that they would have known that this would have meant that Hamilton would not have been able to get out again in time to complete his flying lap. Why would they do that? To teach him a lesson? I can’t believe that.

More importantly if it was the “team” that decided to hold back Alonso then why was Ron Dennis shown throwing off his headphones and then marching Alonso’s personal trainer down the pit lane immediately after the event? No one seems to have bothered to ask this question and if they have not given the answer.

I think that the most likely answer is that the team are taking the rap for whatever actually happened. This raises a further point and that is if that is true and Ron knows the real situation then his words over the weekend have at best been bending the truth and so how can he be trusted over the “Stepneygate” situation?

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In a story reminiscent of the fabled “Who do you think you are, Sterling Moss?” tale, it has emerged today that former F1 world champion Nelson Piquet has had his licence revoked for speeding! Piquet now cannot get his license back until he has attended a weeks driving awareness. Now if only he had had he license taken away when he was driving for Brabham Williams might have won a few more championships

Full story here…

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It’s my birthday soon and I’ll obviously be showered with gifts and presents from family, friends and general well wishers. The big question though is just what should they buy the man who pretty much has everything he wants at a price people are willing to pay? Well how about the officially licensed WilliamsF1 beanbag? Now I am well know for my love of all things Williams but really even I would draw the line at a beanbag. I certainly couldn’t sit on it looking as sultry as the woman on the picture. Also she doesn’t have someone saying to her “and where would you put it?”

More to the point how can a beanbag be worth £135 + £27 P&P?

If you are still interested and just can’t live without one (and have plenty of space, or no wife) go to http://www.williamsf1-beanbags.com.

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The organising body of Formula One have offered this service for a while but I have only just got round to bloging about it. During all F1 sessions including the race live timing is available in exactly the same format as is available to the teams.

This means that even when the Williams are not on the screen (which these days is often) I can still see how they are doing relative to the rest of the pack. There is a great level of detail as you can see from the screen capture above including gaps, pit stops made etc. All of which is free. If you are into F1 it is an essential service. Check it out at www.formula1.com

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Let me introduce you to Alex Caffi. Alex is an ex-F1 driver and now a Grands Prix Master. In his F1 career he started 56 races driving for the Osella, Scuderia Italia and Footwork teams. His highest placed position was 4th and he scored a total of six points.

Oh and he has a small bladder…

Here is Alex taking a leak before the start of the race but rather than a quick dash to the loos in the garage Alex has decided on a more public display.

Caffi is stood between the armco that separates the pit lane entrance and the main straight at Woodcote Corner. So he has the BRDC clubhouse to his left and the Woodcote stands to his right. For those not in the know the BRDC are the British Drivers Racing Club who are the owners of Silverstone and a stuffy lot from what I can make out.

Anyway he got a big cheer (from the crowds in the stands at any rate) and then waved, which seemed to break his concentration! I guess that once you get past 45 you have to start worriying about whether your bladder will last a full 60 mins!!!!

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