Someone asked me what would be my perfect Formula 1 calendar and I have had a think about it and the answer is as follows. It would have 18 races. Six in the American timezone; six in Europe/Middle East/Africa and six in Asia/Pacific. It would start in somewhere warm and southern hemisphere. I would prefer [...]
Archive for August, 2011
My perfect F1 calendar
Posted in Humour, Personal musings on August 31, 2011 | 86 Comments »
A new F1 calendar
Posted in F1 Teams, F1 politics, FIA and F1 politics on August 31, 2011 | 40 Comments »
There has been talk over the last few weeks about a few changes to the previously announced draft F1 calendar for. The word was that Turkey would be dropped and Bahrain put to the back of the year to give the country more time to sort out its problems which caused this year’s race to [...]
Why F1 is heading hybrid
Posted in F1 Teams, FIA and F1 politics on August 31, 2011 | 63 Comments »
There are some in the F1 paddock who think that Formula 1 should ignore the environment and go on racing with the current machinery. This would be cheaper than building a new generation of engines for 2014 but there is a danger that F1 will lose relevance to the automobile industry, which has long been [...]
The future of Silverstone
Posted in Circuits on August 31, 2011 | 9 Comments »
It is worth noting that the reports that have been peddled (at length) in recent days about the Qatar Investment Authority being the potential leesee of Silverstone have been denied out in Qatar, where they have some idea of these matters. An official spokesman at QIA told the Qatar News Agency that there were “no [...]
A little reminder
Posted in Blog news on August 31, 2011 | 33 Comments »
Some of the recent comments on this blog have been a little bit over the top. So, for those who do not know or have forgotten, this is what it says in the “Blog Rules” section. Joe Saward’s Grand Prix Blog is not a traditional news source. The aim is to amuse and inform about [...]
A date to watch out for…
Posted in F1 politics on August 30, 2011 | 8 Comments »
CVC Capital Partners will be discussing its involvement in the Formula One group with its investors at a meeting of the firm’s advisory board on September 13. There will then be an annual meeting of investors the following day. It is reckoned that US pension funds and other institutional investors will be asking questions about [...]
Big picture stuff…
Posted in F1 Teams, F1 politics, FIA and F1 politics on August 30, 2011 | 17 Comments »
The motor racing world is a gloriously inward-looking one. People worry more about the number of sets of tyres that should be allowed for a weekend rather than whether the world is teetering on the brink of a new economic crisis. It has always been like this, but the relative ease with which F1 sailed [...]
Murray and Group Lotus
Posted in F1 Teams on August 30, 2011 | 28 Comments »
Gordon Murray has been named as a member of the Advisory Council of Group Lotus. He will join industry names Bob Lutz and Burkhard Goeschel who will give their opinions about how best to develop the business. Recruiting such names is a way in which Group Lotus hope to give their efforts a little more [...]
The highways and byways of Belgium
Posted in Personal musings on August 30, 2011 | 6 Comments »
I have been to Spa and back many times by road from Paris and there are basically two sensible choices of routing. You can go north up the A1 autoroute and then curl away to the east to Valenciennes and cross the middle of Belgium to arrive in Liege and then turn south to Spa, [...]
Politics at Mercedes
Posted in F1 Teams, F1 Drivers, F1 politics on August 30, 2011 | 92 Comments »
The Mercedes GP Petronas team ended up with a good result in Belgium with Michael Schumacher finishing fifth and Nico Rosberg sixth. When the busy executives in Stuttgart have this piece of information shoved beneath their noses, between reports about truck sales in China and production figures in Estonia, they will feel good about it [...]
