FIA Presidental Nonsense

Max Mosley, the President of the FIA, is at it again with his comments.

After reportedly calling Jackie Stewart a “certified half-wit”, he has now said that Lewis Hamilton will have a negative effect on F1. Read the full story here at the BBC website.

Mosley has stated that,

“If he does the same thing next season as he’s done this season, it will certainly have a big effect,” he said.

“It will start to be negative because we’ll get the Schumacher effect where people start writing to me saying can’t you do something to slow him down.”

Yet again his comments seem to have no basis. I don’t think that I ever remember anything about people complaining that Schumacher was too fast and we need to slow him down. Is it me, or isn’t that the purpose of the World Championship that the fastest driver will always win, and that it is up to his rivals to try and beat him?

Personally I cannot see Lewis Hamilton having a negative effect at all on the sport. Especially not in the UK, where even non-Hamilton supporters will still give him credit for what he is probably going to achieve in the sport. This season he has definitely brought the sport to the forefront again.

I’m not the only person with these views, here are Wolfie’s comments about it.

Also looking towards the 2008 Championship, Mosley stated that next year’s McLaren will be heavily scrutinised by the FIA, to ensure that none of the ideas from the Ferrari dossier are used.

“The difficulty we have is that you’re not going to find on the McLaren a part that was designed by Ferrari.

“What you may find are ideas and at this level of technology at this level of motorsport, if the idea is given to the chief designer he will make a component utilising that idea which bears no relation at all to the component perhaps being used by the other car.

“So we will be looking for the ideas. The investigation will be thorough, it will use outside experts and we will do everything we possibly can to make sure that either of the McLarens has no element of Ferrari intellectual property in it or if it does we will then have to consider taking some sort of action.

“That would not necessarily be preventing them from running. It would be more likely that they would be given a negative point allocation.

“Finding something will not be easy. On the other hand, there are sources we are going to deploy who will give us as good a chance as its possible to have to find it.”

I can see it now that their could be as much controversy at the start of next season as we’ve seen this season, because I’m sure that McLaren would appeal and argue that all the ideas on their new car are their own. But we shall have to wait and see.

I’ve never really liked Max Mosley, and the sooner he leaves his position in the FIA the better the sport will be. But as he’s already been there for the past 14 years, and always seems to get re-elected, usually because no-one stands against him, I don’t hold out much hope for it happening any time soon!

Middle lane drivers

Why do people insist on only driving in the middle lane on the motorway?

The worst type of middle lane drivers are the ones who stay in the middle lane for the entire duration of their journey. They get onto the motorway and head straight to the middle lane, even if there is nothing in the “slow” lane! And there they stay until they want to get leave the motorway.

The thing that annoys me about these drivers is that if they come up behind some traffic in the middle lane, they won’t overtake by going into the outside lane if it is clear, they’ll slow down behind the traffic and wait for it to pull back into the inside lane. They will then put their foot back down and accelerate.

This was the case on Saturday, when we all went to Wrexham, as it was Gemma’s dad’s 50th birthday. Gemma was driving and she is not a driver that will speed, but the amount of times we passed the same few cars was unbelievable! We would overtake these cars that were sat in the middle lane, usually stuck behind some traffic, and then pull back into the inside lane. Then as the traffic moved back to the inside lane you could see them putting their foot down, overtaking us again and then when they came up behind some more traffic they’d slow down yet again, and the whole cycle would start again.

There have also been a lot of occasions recently when we’ve been travelling at 70mph in the inside lane with nothing in front of us for miles, and we are actually travelling faster the the”fast” lane. The cars are all bunched up trying to overtake a couple of middle lane hoggers.

The reason that many people do this, is that they lack the concentration for driving on a motorway. Yes, we all know that driving on a motorway is boring, but that is no excuse for you to switch off and sit in the middle lane. In fact, people should be even more alert as to the dangers of driving at high speed.

I think that this is one of the reasons that the government is sanctioning using the hard shoulder in places to cut down the congestion. There is no need to do this, just make everyone move back to the left hand lane after they have made their overtaking manoeuvre. That would then keep a 3-lane motorway a 3-lane motorway, not reducing it to a 2-lane motorway.

While I’ve been writing this I looked “middle lane drivers” on Google and did you know that there is a website dedicated to these people, and their misdemeanours! It’s called Middle Lane Morons. I also came across another website, How Motorways Work, that covers even more indiscretions on the subject of motorway driving.

I feel so much better knowing that there are other people out there who think the same as me. Glad I’ve got it off my chest!

Potty Training Pt.2

The potty training is going really well.

Its now been 2 weeks since we started on the road to no nappies, and Ellie has really taken to it. It is really great to see, because if we’d mentioned the potty before Ellie would have told us where to stick it.

As you would expect there have been a few accidents, but these are few and far between. Ellie is really finding her feet with using the potty. She seems to be recognising the signs that she needs to use the potty.

It’s quite funny to watch her when she’s on the potty as Ellie will give you a commentary about what’s going on, “it’s coming, it’s coming” she’d say, and then when she’s finished she’ll give herself a little cheer, “yay!”

We’ve also got her a trainer seat for the toilet, which she is not scared of using either. The good news with this also is that she is getting into the habit of wanting to go on the toilet when she wakes up in the morning, and last thing before she goes to sleep.

Ellie is still in her nappies at night but they don’t feel as full as they used to so she’s getting used to holding it in a bit now.

Gemma and I are so proud of our little girl

F1 Calender for 2008

Just as the 2007 F1 World Championship is finished, the FIA has released the calender for the 2008 Championship. There are two new circuits staging races for the first time, Valencia and Singapore. Both of these are street circuits and will test the skill of the drivers.

Singapore has also been given the honour of staging F1’s first ever night race. With the race being staged at night, will enable the race to be shown live at a more reasonable time of day for the European audience. It will be interesting to see how it will all look. It is quite an exciting development.

Here’s the full calender:

2008 FIA Formula One World Championship

16/3 AUS Australia
23/3 MAL Malaysia
6/4 BRN Bahrain
27/4 E Spain
11/5 TR Turkey
25/5 MC Monaco
8/6 CDN Canada
22/6 F France
6/7 GB Great Britain
20/7 D Germany
3/8 H Hungary
24/8 E Europe
7/9 B Belgium
14/9 I Italy
28/9 SGP Singapore*
12/10 J Japan
19/10 CN China
02/11 BR Brazil

* Night race

Honeymoon

I’ve added some pages about our honeymoon in Portugal.

These can be found here.

Is there a final twist in the F1 World Championship?

As befits a season full of twists and scandals, how better to finish than with another one?

After the Brazilian GP, in which Kimi Raikkonen won the title, the race stewards got together to investigate whether the cars from Williams F1 and BMW-Sauber were guilty of fuel irregularities. The fuel from the cars of Nico Rosberg, Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica was found to be outside the temperature range permitted for the fuel.

The race officials spent time analysing all the available data, and came back with the decision that there was insufficient evidence to penalise the teams. Had the 3 drivers been disqualified, then Lewis Hamilton would have been promoted to 4th, and would have gained enough points to be crowned World Champion in his first season.

Kimi Raikkonen is confirmed as World Champion, for now, as McLaren have appealed the decision to the FIA.

We shall see how it all pans out, but it would be a pity if this World Championship was to end in a courtroom farce.

Disappointment for Hamilton, Elation for Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen is the 2007 F1 World Champion.

At the start of the race Kimi was the least likely to secure the title. But after a really dominant race from the Ferraris, in which they finished nearly 1minute ahead of 3rd placed Fernando Alonso, it was Kimi who stole the title from under the nose of Lewis Hamilton.

Lewis Hamilton had a nightmare of a race, not from the point of view of his driving, but technical problems that dropped him from 7th to 18th on Lap 7. Having started 2nd on the grid, Hamilton was quickly down to 7th due to some well choreographed driving from the Ferrari drivers, and being passed firstly by Alonso into Turn 3 and then dropped further down the order when he ran wide trying to re-pass Alonso going into Turn 4.

Imminently though, disaster struck! Hamilton’s speed dropped because of a dodgy gearbox and he was quickly passed by most of the field. After about 30 secs of just cruising, the McLaren kicked into life again, and Hamilton set off to recover the places that he’d lost.

He finally finished 7th, after a spirited drive through the field, which could have been helped if McLaren switched him to a 2-stop strategy rather than the 3-stop strategy he was on.

Kimi Raikkonen crossed the finish line first, after running in second until the final round of pit stops, when conveniently he and Felipe Massa ’switched’ places so that Kimi would gain enough points to become World Champion.

Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen, if it wasn’t going to be Hamilton’s day, then I’m glad it was Raikkonen who took the title and not the spoilt brat, Fernando Alonso!

Another great drive from Nico Rosberg, who is showing that he is definitely a star for the future, and it was great to see the Williams really competitive again. Bring on 2008!

Blackpool Illuminations

On Thursday night we took Ellie to see the Illuminations at Blackpool.

As it was Gemma’s night off from work we thought we’d take the opportunity to go to Blackpool to show Ellie the Illuminations.

Once we got there it was still quite light, so we got ourselves some fish and chips and waited for the light to disappear. Once the darkness began to descend we took a walk along the promenade towards the North Pier where we were got on the tram to take us some of the way down the promenade to see the Illuminations.

It seemed to take an absolute age for the tram to appear. So when it finally appeared we got on and paid our money to the conductor. We were sat on the top deck, which gave us all a good view of the lights. Ellie was pretty excited about it all, calling the tram “Toby” after the tram from Thomas the Tank Engine.

After a few stops we got off the tram and went for a walk along the Central Pier. It was getting quite cold now and Ellie was all wrapped up warm in her winter coat. She enjoyed see all the lights and noises on the pier, but did seem a little unfussed by some of the rides.

After walking around the pier it was starting to get quite late so we decided to head home. It had been a lovely evening.