A1GP: Malaysia '06

Yes I know this is round 4 of the World Cup of Motorsport and I missed the previous two, but I don't care!

Anyway, the 12 lap sprint race was again boring to a large degree, With Switzerland winning from Germany. However, they have changed one thing since the last time I watched - the qualifying for the Feature Race is now solely down to Sprint Race finishing positions! Well done A1GP!!

The Feature Race started behind the Saftey Car due to it being monsoon season in Malaysia and them having a lot of rain between the two races. Normally in F1 the advent of rain makes for a more interesting race, not so A1GP! After the safety car came in on lap 3 nothing really happened for a while, except for Germany storming past Switzerland for the lead. Eventually people started making moves for position, and about a third of race distance, Great Britain's Robbie Kerr decided to wake up and start to fight for position - eventually managing to finish the race in second place.

I'm still not sold on this series yet, although the idea is great, it just doesn't grab me in the way that F1 and MotoGP have. I'm willing to keep trying though.

F1: 2006 Season Review

Well 2006 had more than it's fair share of Politics what with Flexi-wings, Mass Dampers and Driver Penalties but I'm going to try to ignore them as much as possible and concentrate on what F1 is meant to about; Racing.

The first part of the season belonged to Renault, although Honda went into the first race in Bahrain full of confidence they left it in a mess that would take them half a season to recover from. After a promising pre-season, Williams Cosworth had a good race at Bahrain with both cars finishing in the points, but soon fell back down the order (although as usual they were fast at Monaco) and into reliability problems - once again citing problems with the Aerodynamics of the car, which has pretty much been the problem since Adrian Newey left all those years ago...

The mid-season was somewhat boring, except for the multiple pile ups at Indy and McLaren's replacing of Montoya with Pedro de la Rosa after JPM announced that he would move to NASCAR in 2007. Eventually McLaren released JPM from his contract and he has competed in a few NASCAR Busch Series races, and he will take a seat in the final 2006 Nextel Cup race in Miami. McLaren are a funny team, I find it hard to like them as they are just too damn corporate, and they've hardly been reliable for the last few years, which makes you wonder if Alonso will enjoy his time there from 2007...

In August, BMW followed McLaren's lead by dropping one of their drivers - in this instance former World Champion, Jacques Villenueve - for the relatively inexperienced Robert Kubica, in a move that frankly paid off!

August also brought us Jenson Button's first Formula 1 victory in an action packed Hungarian GP, which I feel was one of the Englishman's best drives and proves that given the right strategy he is capable of great things - I'll be looking out for him in the early part of 2007...

Red Bull's two teams had interesting season's, with the Toro Rosso 'Junior' team largely perfoming comparitively better than the Red Bull 'Works' team for much of the year, although after Adrian Newey joined the ranks at Red Bull, development of the 2006 car was halted in favour of making sure next years car is up to the job. DC spent most of the season blaming other people for his being slow and even complained about the rain in China!

Ferrari were solid all season, and Schumacher put in some excellent race drives in his final year in F1. Ever since Massa went to Ferrari a few years ago as test driver I've considered him to be a talent of the future, and this season - at least the second half - he has proved that he has matured a great deal when compared to his first couple of seasons at Sauber. I think someone needs to do the same for Takuma Sato, I really think that this guy is a good and quick driver waiting for the right team to take him under their wing. He did brilliantly in the latter stages of this year in a car that was based on a four year old Arrows Chassis, even finishing in the top ten at China.

Midland managed to kill the 'Racing Romance' of Jordan Grand Prix - the team that in 1999 finished third in the Constructor's Championship despite spending most of their time in F1 struggling for money. Midland managed to turn the team into anonymous also-rans that no one cares about in double quick time. Hopefully new owners Spyker F1 can turn it around - even if it's only in Holland!

In the end, despite some dodgy decisions by the FIA and it's (independant) stewards, Fernando Alonso managed to become World Champion for the second consecutive season, with his team Renault taking the Constructor's crown, whether either will manage it next year is anyone's guess at the moment!

So we move onto 2007, and with the Engine freeze in place and almost every team having major personnel changes and manufacturer support, it could be an interesting year, and it's also the first 'Post-Schmacher' year. Look out for a preview in late December before the Teams start unleashing their new identities, liveries and, most importantly cars in January - oh, and who will get that second seat at McLaren?!

F1: The Race on Sky One

Ok, so I've not been around much this last week and I haven't got my Season Review underway yet and guess what - I'm going away tomorrow for a week so it won't be done anytime soon!

But I did have to bring up one point of contention with Sky One's new show, The Race, that starts tonight at 10pm. It sounds good, Girls V Boys in different forms of motor racing, I'm not looking forward to Denise Van Outen hosting as I think her 'Cockney Ladette' thing wore thin a long time ago, but I will still be watching.

My problem with the show is to do with the two F1 Drivers they have signed up to captain the two teams - David Coulthard and Eddie Irvine. Both capable racers and more than up to the job in hand, but Sky have advertised the show by saying

"It's Boys against Girls with two teams captained by F1 legends David Coulthard and Eddie Irvine"

I'm sorry? LEGENDS?! Who the hell are they trying to kid?! An F1 legend is Fangio, an F1 legend is Ayrton Senna.

At no stretch of anyone's imagination can two driver's that spent their F1 careers as "Number 2" Drivers ever be considered legends. Eddie Irvine even had the (arguably) genuine legend Michael Schumacher support him in a push for the 1999 title after the German broke his leg and missed half of the season - and still couldn't win! DC is now on borrowed time and won't be racing much longer and has never been in a position to win the championship - despite spending much of his career in the best car!

I suppose Sky think they wouldn't get many viewers if they advertised the show with the truth instead...

"It's Boys against Girls with two teams captained by F1 also rans David Coulthard and Eddie Irvine"