Still wading my way through it on Anytime myself. Certainly very comprehensive coverage.

Sky's coverage is going to live or die by the way the season goes. If it's a bit of a dull-fest with Vettell trotting off into the distance again then no amount of analysis, punditry and super-slow-mo is going to make it exciting. I know that's not very fair but that's the way of it. People will watch if the racing is exciting not because Sky has launched an snazzy app for the iPad.

I actually expect it to be a much closer season with Mercedes winning at least 1 GP and Mclaren winning the constructors. Vettell is clearly still going to be the man to beat for the DC but again I think that will be much closer. I think Ferrari will find themselves 4th best and the mid-field will be much closer and more competative with Lotus, TR, Sauber & FI all getting podiums at times. I think Sky's coverage will be hailed as a resounding success thanks mostly due to much closer races.

Missed the preview on Pick TV on sunday night, Is it being repeated?

Have Freeview HD.

You imply that last season was rubbish because vettel won by a country mile.

I thought it was rather good even though Vettel won by a country mile.

I had a look for it yesterday but can't see any scheduled repeat on Pick.

I wonder who Montezuma is going to fire at the end of this season?

S'funny but I still recall the Alesi/Berger era in the 80s/90s where Ferrari were a bit of a joke in F1 and I think that a lot of the Ferrari management has become a bit "spoilt" by the Schumacher era.
They seem to expect success these days without actually stopping to ask themselves any of the hard questions about WHY they're not getting it.

Put Alonso in a RBR and I reckon he'd bury Vettel TBH, so it's certainly not down to him.

Ferrari have been in decline ever since the Todt, Brawn, MS team broke up. Todt ran a tight, disciplined team, Brawn supplied the tactical brain and MS was obviously the best driver on the grid. Since they left the team has slowly lost the discipline and tactical edge and become, well, more Italian again.

I dont think he would bury Vettel. Alonso would finish ahead of Vettel, but it would be a lot closer than you think. Bury him, no. Beat him, yes. Alonso is the best driver on the grid so put him in any car and he will beat his teammate (given a fair crack).

Vettel is a better driver than people on here give him credit for. Listen to any former/current drivers and they do hold him in high regard. The mistake a lot of people make, is they think he only wins because he has the best car. If that was the case Webber (who is not a bad driver either) would have finished 2nd in the DC and not 3rd. He would also finished a lot closer to Vettel in terms of points. The car is a big help, no doubt about it. But you have to have skill as well.


That dream team took several seasons before Schumacher won the DC. It was team work and progression over 4 seasons that got them there. At the moment I cant see anyone in Ferrari (apart from Alonso) that can push them forward each season to win the DC. If anything they seem to be going backwards. Alonso can only do so much. The designers/technical team also need to do their bit.

Like he did(n't) in 2007 you mean?

Like the way you didnt quote what I wrote in brackets. He wasnt given a fair crack of the whip at Mclaren.

He couldn't beat Hamilton though, could he.

Must say, I think it takes a very special driver to have the effect on a team that Schumacher had.

First, he's got to have enough clout that he can get whatever resources he demands and then he's got to be articulate enough and insightful enough to see where time can be gained and express that to the team in such a way that they can develop the car to take advantage of the opportunities that the driver sees.

I don't think we know enough about the drivers to be able to say, with any certainty, which ones might have that gift but I bet it's not many.

Trouble is that the teams have so much technology at their disposal that they probably always think they're right about things and it's probably quite easy for a driver to allow themselves to become a "trained monkey" who does what he's told rather than actually initiating development steps.

Thing was, with Schumacher, he really was the "golden goose" at the time so it'd be crazy for a team to hire him and then ignore what he wanted so they listened to him.
I fear that, even for the likes of Alonso, if he started demanding things that the team didn't think were a good idea he'd probably find himself replaced by whichever "rising star" happened to be available at the time.

The situation at Ferrari kinda reminds me of what seems to happen with football managers though.
A new one steps in and it's all smiles and then, after half a dismal season, the fans and the board of directors want them fired and then they're replaced.
To have any hope of continued success you really need to commit to a multi-year plan, let that play out and then think about changing stuff if neccesary.

Yeah, but did he have to cheat to achieve it all?

I think that's a bit strong. Assuming you're talking about his tangle with Hill (or even his attempted kamikaze against Villneuve) as far as I'm aware he never faced any penalty for either. It may not have been sporting but it was hardly the first time one driver has tried to take out a rival when the DC was on the line. Neither Prost or Senna get the kind of villification MS gets for their shunts.

Rumours were rife at the time of MS's first 2 titles that Benetton were running less than legal software on their cars which gave them a distinct advantage but again nothing was ever proven (I'm not sure it was ever really investigated) and you can't blame the driver for what his team does.

OK, with first practice coming up tonight are we going to see a true representation of the teams' performances or will they still be sand-bagging and using these pre-qualifying sessions as further testing? How much of a risk is it for the teams if they never run their cars at full chuff before qualifying?

I agree with you. MS gets a lot of stick for some of the stunts he pulled. For some rightly so, parking his car in the Monaco quali being one such incident. Taking out Hill and Villenueve being another case in point, which for me is not a big a deal as what he did at Monaco. Yet as you mention Senna and Prost did the same, yet they dont receive the same sort of vilification.

I believe it was Senna who cast doubts on Schumacher. He believed that the Benetton had some sort of traction control device. This was the year Senna went to Williams and all driver aids were banned. Senna was losing to Schumacher so he gave a reason. Maybe it was sour grapes, maybe not. However as you say nothing was proven.

You are right Schumacher was special. Not only could he drive the car, but he could set one up as well. Something which the drivers of today seem unable (at least to the same level of Schumacher) to do. I think we have all seen the footage of his younger years racing in karting, and Michael was setting up Ralfs go-kart. It was something he learnt from his karting days. In those days, technology was not as widespread as it is today, so (maybe?) you had to get your hands dirty. Where as today, the teams run al-sorts of computer simulations so the driver doesnt really need to get involved with setting up the car? Which is the point you make about technology.

The way I see it technology will get you so far. Then the driver needs to have some input. He knows if the car feels wrong, something technology cant tell you. If the car feels wrong, you can bet the driver wont perform as well. The thing with Schumacher was he could tell you why the car felt wrong, and tell you have to solve the problem. The team would then have something to look at. Todays drivers would say it feels wrong, yet wont be able to offer ways of sorting the problem out.

Its seems the Mercedes F-Duct is legal.

I'm not completely sure how much advantage a passive system will yield.

I mean, if you've got air sucking in through the nose and being channeled out the back of the front wing all the time, surely that reduces downforce and, as a result, you have to add more wing to make up the deficit?

I guess the idea of it channeling more air to one side than the other in corners might have some advantage but I would have thought properly set-up turning vanes built into the front wing could create the same effect.

Also, I wonder how the driver will feel about a car that handles differently in different speed corners because of changing air-flow through the wing?

Part of the problem is we've got the stage today in F1 that the engineers think they know what the car is doing better than the drivers. A driver can walk into the garagwe and tell his engineer that the car was a bit jittery around corner A or lost traction coming out of corner B and the engineer can show him the telemetry on the laptop and say 'no it wasn't'. What they forget is the driver has to drive the car and it's his impression of what's going that's important because he has to have complete trust in the car's capabilities and be comfortable putting it into corner at 160mph. Back in the day the engineer would listen to his driver, make a few tweaks and out he went again to try it. The driver knew enough about the set-up to give constructive advice and help his engineer. Mansell was very good at this apparently. Today's driver haven't the foggiest about any of this and today's engineers wouldn't trust their driver's opinion over a micro-chip so you end up with driver's who have never known a car to be set-up specifically for them and their style of driving so they accept the car the way it is. Unless you have an experienced driver like MS or JB or dare I say it Barichello who knows enough about the subject to actually talk to his engineer and articulate what they want this is the way it will be.

You mean Blahblahblahrichello?

David Croft and Anthony Davidson back together commentating on first practice, hopefully will maintain their humorous banter with the odd guest now and again.

FP1, a sign of things to come?

Massa bins his FIAT, Alonso can barely keep his on track and Raikonnen did 1 lap in the Lotus and decided he isn't happy with the way it steers so the team spent the rest of the session monkeying around with that.

Early days, of course, but I can't see Ferrari challenging for wins any time soon.

Alson ended up posting some decent times last night so maybe Ferrari aren't quite in the bad state we all thought. Mercedes looks good and Mclaren are going to be happy. HRT are in a world of pain after both drivers failed to post a fast lap.

Of course there was no investigation or penalties; money talks in F1. Just look at the Ferrari International Assistance.

"Tangles" and "incidents" are hardly worthy of the description of his behaviour on track. What about the "parking" incident at Monaco in 2006? Schumacher all but admitted he cheated.

As far as Senna was concerend, he was punished, quite severley, for what was nothing more than a racing incident and arguably Prost's fault anyway.

Senna was every bit as ruthless as MS when it came to racing but I think the sport was less forgiving of that kind of behaviour post Imola 94. MS was certainly unsporting, doing everything necessary to win but I'd say he bent the rules rather than broke them.

TBH I don't recall Senna being punished for either of the comings together with Prost at Suzuka. The second one was clearly intentional on Senna's part but he won the DC none-the-less.