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!

ShareThis

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

ShareThis

So “push off” Max.

ShareThis

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!

ShareThis

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.

ShareThis

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…

ShareThis

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…"

ShareThis

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.

ShareThis

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.

ShareThis

.

ShareThis