Pat W

Lots of news

Sorry for the short quiet period there – I had a great weekend of Wii, much beer and an engagement party (not mine!). Unfortunately that wiped out the last couple of nights as I had to do my college work then instead of in a block at the weekend.

A lot has happened in the six days since I last posted, it seems as though the racing world has just suddenly realised there’s a season upon us in six or eight weeks.

Here are some snapshots:

F1
– Someone seems to be actually working on an American Formula 1 team. The idea has come and gone over the last couple of decades but nobody has really tried it since Penske in the 70s, and his cars were based an hour from me in Poole, England. Rumours suggest this ‘USF1’ team will be based in Charlotte, North Carolina with an operating base in Bilbao, Spain. I’m taking this with a pinch of salt until further notice. I didn’t believe the Prodrive F1 entry until very late on and I won’t with these guys, and that’s down to a) their choice of splitting across two continents, b) the fact no bona fide indie has entered since who knows when (not counting Aguri), and c) uh, hello, recession? What is in their favour is the new agreements about ‘cheap’ engines and drivetrains.

– FOTA and the FIA have agreed to engines costing no more than 5 million Euros and a drivetrain (gearbox etc) 1.5 million Euros. They also agreed that any team may choose to use the control Cosworth/Xtrac option currently in development – you might remember Mad Max originally intended every team to use it. Discussions continue this week.

– The Singapore GP organisers plan to adjust the layout of the circuit for this year. The pitlane entry and exit will be moved away from the racing line, turn one will be tightened to create a harder braking area, and other turns will be reprofiled.

– The great Teddy Mayer has died aged 73. Mayer was the man in control of McLaren between the death of Bruce McLaren in 1970 (he helped Bruce found the team) until Ron Dennis bought his way in in 1982. McLaren were active in F1, CanAm and USAC/CART and won the Indy 500 with Johnny Rutherford. After McLaren, Mayer moved back to America where he set up a team in CART, hiring Tom Sneva who nearly won the title with them. After a stint with Beatrice back in F1, Mayer joined Penske where he remained until his retirement in 2007. His son Tim is the COO of the American Le Mans Series and IMSA.
Please read this obituary at Motorsport.com, with thanks to No Fenders for pointing it out.

IRL
– Multiple reports had Robert Doornbos signing with Newman Haas Lanigan, however his own site denied this – for the time being. Reading between the lines it seems they are still discussing the finer points of the contract.

– Yet more reports, originating from Robin Miller I think, have Milka Duno also joining N/H/L…. which will be interesting. It seems an odd choice to me and I wouldn’t have put that team down as a ridebuying team, so I guess times really are hard.

– Five car manufacturers were unveiled as being in discussion with the IRL about future engine regulations. These were Honda, Audi, VW, Porsche and Fiat. Obviously 3 of those are actually under the same ownership now. The Fiat link is interesting, originally it was supposed to be their Alfa Romeo brand but perhaps with the recent Chrysler tie-in they may feel Fiat is the better marketing platform.

GP2
– Bruno Senna confirmed to Autosport.com that he will not be returning to GP2. The GP2 driver market has been hanging on his decision, expecting that with the Honda F1 team now defunct he would return for another year. Bruno seems to think he has a shot either at Toro Rosso, or is pinning his hopes on someone buying the ex-Honda team outright. I think he made the wrong choice – unless F1’s 3-car rule comes into effect in which case he’ll look very smart indeed. Or just lucky.

– Ocean Racing (formerly BCN) has signed Karun Chandhok for the 2009 main series.

Sportscars
– The ACO has received 82 applications for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours. There are only 55 spots. 15 places have already been allocated through invitations based on results at the 2008 Le Mans, Petit Le Mans and the championships of the LMS and ALMS. This leaves 67 entries for 40 places. The ACO will select 55 entrants and 8 reserves and announce them at the end of this month. I’m tempted to do a little blog post about that when it happens.

Loads more has happened but it’s half past midnight and I want to go to bed!

**
Back tomorrow with Weekend Preview – although I think the Bud Shootout is the only thing on.

By the way, I don’t know who of you is from Bristowe, Virginia and keeps visiting every two hours but please stop, you’re fucking up my Feedjit stats. Just once (or twice) a day will be fine. Ta. You’re probably a bot.

Weekend Preview: 31 Jan & 1 Feb

Weekend Preview: 31st January & 1st February 2009

After last week’s excitement at Daytona we have a couple of quiet weeks again, with my listings only showing two events happening at all this weekend and absolutely nothing next weekend. Time for everyone to get their houses in order before the racing madness kicks off again in earnest.

I was actually thinking of setting up a Google Calendar showing all of these events, but actually I’d be better off giving you the link to one of the sources of info for this series of posts.

FORIX Race Calendar < < < Bookmark this page!

Red dots show events upcoming, green dots are past events and are clickable! The list of series expands as the year progresses so don’t worry if it looks small now.

FORIX (main page) is a colossal motorsport database which aims to record the result of any race anywhere. It started out as a Formula 1 resource in the early 90s, until they eventually filled in the gaps in F1 history and started adding other series. Now they cover all sorts of things. I’m not saying their coverage of other series is as comprehensive as their F1 coverage, it’s getting there though.
These days the site is hosted by Autosport.com (hence the banners and domain) but as far as I know it is still free. I have a sub to Autosport so it’s free for me anyway!

You might think giving the link defeats the object of these posts but I disagree – these posts are to flesh out those single-line entries and hopefully provide a bit of background and context.

On to the listings:

World Rally Championship [website]
Rally Ireland
Round 1 of 12
Rally HQ: Sligo, Ireland

The first round of this year’s WRC gets under way with the cross-border event on the Emerald Isle. I don’t know if this is the only rally in the world held in two countries, in this case Ireland and the UK, as the cars will cross the border into Northern Ireland. For that reason alone this event should be supported by everybody – it’s nice to see that kind of positivity.
For the WRC, the loss of the Monte Carlo Rally to the IRC is a bitter blow but one they put upon themselves. WRC is going through a turbulent time at the moment with crazy rules and crazy schedules. If you are able you should watch this year anyway as it may be the last we’ll see of the current-spec World Rally Cars before IRC-style Super2000 comes in, and let’s face it these guys throwing cars at the scenery (and missing) is still pretty spectacular stuff.

Trophee Andros
Clermont/Superbesse, France
Round 7 of 7

The final round of the sideways ice racing series. Take a look!:

Okay I’m out of here, maybe for a few days, maybe not…

UOWWB: Hamilton & Dixon

United Open Wheel Word Butchers Question of the Week:

If Lewis Hamilton and Scott Dixon switched places for the 2009 season, how would each driver fare in the other’s league? Who would be more successful in 2009?

Dixon would have a year much like Raikkonen’s 2008. F1 cars are not easy to get your head around because they are much more ‘knife-edge’ in terms of setup and driving style than any other car. I’m not doubting he has the talent to be a successful F1 driver because he clearly does, I’m just saying it’ll take time and F1 cars can be notoriously finicky things to learn. If you don’t get the car right or it inherently doesn’t suit your driving style you’re nowhere – again see Bourdais who was driving better in the STR2 early in the season than he was in the STR3 for most of the rest of the year. And how else do you explain Kimi’s lacklustre season?
So if he dials it in, and the car suits him, he would do very well. I think he’d end up on the middle road with an ‘average’ but respectable first season before stepping up in performance in 2010. He’d probably win a race in that first season. This assumes McLaren are still a top team in 2009!

The same would be true of Hamilton in the Dallara, he’d have the same kind of year as Dixon in F1. But he wouldn’t be properly up to a Ganassi-level of performance until after the huge mileage they do at Indy over those few weeks. Jumping directly into two street fights at St Pete and Long Beach is going to be a challenge for all the newcomers this year! And then on to the ovals. There isn’t what he’d know as a ‘normal’ track until the Glen in July, so he’d have to completely relearn how to race. And I include the street races on purpose here, American street tracks are not like Monaco, Melbourne or even Montreal, they have to be treated differently.
Again he’s with a top team so a win isn’t out of the question. Ganassi’s guys certainly know how to use strategy to get him there and you have to assume they and Penske will remain top dogs in ’09.

I do think the Dallara would be the easier car to learn but the tracks the IRL races on are a lot tougher, more rough and ready, more physical. F1 drivers are quite pampered when it comes to race track surfaces and run-off areas, so Hamilton would have to mentally adjust himself. Meanwhile Dixon could let it all hang out without fear of hitting much of anything.

There are so many variables which could affect the performances, not least of which is how much pre-season testing they do. There isn’t any doubt though – they’d both get there eventually.

Racing Podcasts

The racing season is quickly approaching and in some places has started already, and that means the racing podcasts are doing the same. I just thought I would mention some of my favourites:

Midweek Motorsport
I’ve known about MWM for a couple of years now and 2009 represents their 4th season. At two hours every week it is a pretty hefty commitment which is why I’ve not listened until now, I until now preferred LiveFastRacing’s podcast which was a similar length but every few weeks. With the demise of that podcast I’ve decided to switch over to MWM. They cover all sorts of racing with several guys from different backgrounds. There’s an F1 guy, a sportscar guy (the legendary John Hindaugh who is the track announcer at ALMS events and the man behind Radio Le Mans), and many more.
Very knowledgeable and actually very much like the Eurosport MotoGP commentary in terms of style, the ‘down the pub with your mates’ atmosphere. I say that having only heard episode 1 of 2009 and they are on to no.3 as of today (there’s a new one every Wednesday), so maybe they’ve settled down a bit? I’m playing catch-up so I get back to the ‘current’ week if you see what I mean, and I highly recommend you do the same.

Check it out at RadioLeMans.com!

FastMachines.com
Chris, Josh and George put together a fast and furious ride through the world of racing, everything from NASCAR to ALMS to bikes to their crazy no-holds barred opinions of F1. And all in about half an hour! I’m not quite sure how they cram it all in but they seem to cover everything and in detail. I’ve been listening since ep9 or 10 and it’s a lot of fun.

Ep.21 is coming soon so keep checking FastMachines.com!

MyNameIsIRL.com
Jeff is the host of the I Am Mindy Show, a run through the latest IndyCar news in 30 minutes or less or your money back. Still relatively new to podcasting although you wouldn’t know it from listening, our mate Jeff is considered by many to be one of the ‘senior’ IRL bloggers out there (along with Pressdog) and his blog is quickly becoming the focal point of IRL fandom. You tend to go there first then link through to other sites. His podcast is equally as good.

Head on over to MyNameIsIRL.com and search for ‘Podcast’!

Try all of these once and then settle on the ones you enjoy most. I fully intend to listen to all of them throughout the year.