grumpyf1

I was just watching the TV this evening, and saw something truly shocking. DFS have a sale on. No really. A sale. DFS. Unbelievable that. I can't remember the last time they had a sale. Oh, hang on. It was about a week ago. Hope you all had a great Christmas. (NP: Christmas present CD number 1: They Might Be Giants "Here Comes Science")

Having woken up to yet another 3 inches of snow this morning, then managed to avoid the 6ft snowman some git had built in the middle of the main road through our village, you'd think I'd be a bit fed up with the white stuff by now. It would be fair to say that, on at least a dozen occasions this week, I have been pretty sure I was either going to crash and die, or become trapped, freeze and then die. And it would also be true to say that I've probably spent nearly as much time in my car than at my desk, too. But there have been a whole bunch of moments when I've peered through my windscreen and seen stuff so unbelievably beautiful that it made by jaw drop, literally. Went out for a slither in the snow tonight and now it's just a couple of hours left to go. The first white Christmas I can genuinely remember. Wherever you are - Happy Christmas.

It's been the worst-kept secret in F1, but today it was finally confirmed. 7-time World Champion Michael Schumacher has signed for the new Mercedes team for next season for a tidy £6.2 million. It might even be a deal that sees him there for 3 years, but doubtlessly there are "options" on both sides. This is stupendous news. The most successful F1 driver ever is coming back to have another go! Against 3 existing Champs (Alonso, Hamilton & Button)! With his old mate Ross Brawn! NOT Ferrari! The thought of this had obviously upset that dapper Italian chap from the Prattling Horse (Di Montezuma or something) enormously, as he was interviewed this week and kept banging on about there being two Schumachers (no, not Ralph) and that one would always be a Ferrari driver etc etc and the OTHER one wanting something else. Keep looking at him and smiling, and slowly back towards the door. Anyroad, I digress, just for a change. The point is... Schumi is back! That's going to l...

It's all very nice talking about Formula 1. I do it quite a lot in fact. Maybe a bit too much. Maybe I'm doing that now. Oh no - an existential quandary, and I haven't even finished the first paragraph! Anyway, the point is, I'm starting to get a bit twitchy, and in need of actually seeing some cars. Well, first visible outing should be the 1st-3rd of February, when pre-season testing commences in Valencia, and we get our first look at the new teams running, and our first (and notoriously unreliable) taste of who is quick... Only five weeks to wait. Sigh.

It seems that the idea of all the F1 teams launching their car at the same time has been dropped, for the really rather obvious reason that some of the teams won't actually have a car to launch at the end of January. Now, call me old-fashioned, but surely it might have been a good idea to check this before announcing anything. No? So, we'll be back to individual launches, but they are all likely to be resolutely low-key affairs. Ah well. The thrill overload might have been too much for Jenwis's snow-addled brain anyway.

This, my friends, is what next year's Mercedes may well look like. "But Jenwis!" I hear you bleat... "Isn't that a McLaren with some blue logos on it?". Well, kind of yes. But at the same time, Nope. If you remember back a bit (no, a bit more....there! You've got it!) the McLaren cars were once red and white and looked rather like a packet of well known fags. Once Mercedes started supplying them, they still had the ciggie branding, but of a different variety. The silver colour was a Merc thing. And now it would appear, they want it back. As previously mentioned in the FF1 Newsletter, McLaren were once orange in colour. With all those new teams next year, what better way to stand out from the crowd? What they need is some compatible sponsorship. Now, if only there was a company who were very.... Orange....? Mercedes have also picked up a spot of handy title sponsorship by Petronas, who used to sponsor Sauber. Hence the blue bits. (Currently listening to s...

Jenwis's home village in the North West awoke on Sunday to a comfy couple of inches of snow, which had increased to three or so by the time bacon butties has been consumed. A stroll seemed to be in order and 5 minutes into this, I made a startling discovery. Inside the body of every 40-something man beats the heart of an 8 year old. Deliberately walking in the deep bits, wishing it was me building the snowman, sticking my tongue out to catch snowflakes, enjoying the noise of the snow scrunching underfoot, the snow building up on my scarf, making a perfect snowball, the feel of snow hitting my face... ah.... Life is great sometimes. I've never seen so many brilliant snowmen in one day. Is there a gene that means kids can do that, or is it passed on from generation to generation? With global warming and changing weather patterns, we may see less and less of days like these. Treasure them. It's not often you get to feel young and carefree nowdays, even if it is only for an hou...

Lovely rumour doing the rounds today - that ex F1 driver and Toro Rosso team boss Gerhard Berger may be coming back to be in charge of Renault. I believe Gerhard once put a whole load of frogs in Ayrton Senna's room as a prank. When an angry Senna caught up with him and said "I've just found 15 frogs in my room! Was it you?" Gerhard replied "15? You haven't found them all yet, then...." Always entertaining when interviewed, it would be great to see Mr. B back again. Let's hope the rumour turns out to be true. (Today's tune - The Kooks "See The Sun". Oooo! Jenwis in 'has a song from this decade' shock!)

Good news everybody! Kamui Kobayashi, who you may remember stood in for Glock at Toyota for the last couple of races of the 09 Season, will be in a Sauber next year. This is great, simply because he was completely un-intimidated by Button... and just about everyone else, in fact. In Abu Dhabi he fended off a whole bunch of experienced drivers, and he did it aggressively, and (just about) fairly. No meek "letting your elders through politely" stuff. And we need a bit more of that, don't we? Reports are that his team mate could be Fisichella, De la Rosa or maybe Heidfeld (but only if Schumi doesn't return. Mercedes will be wanting another German!). (Today's post was, er, posted to the tune of the They Might Be Giants track "Another First Kiss")

It's a big, cheery, hello to Virgin Racing, who had their launch today. Although they aim to have one of the smallest budgets on the grid at under £40M, anything Beardy Branson gets involved in usually works well (with the possible exception of his balloon flights), so they should do OK. Mind you, his bendalino trains make Jenwis a little queasy. Timo Glock & Lucas di Grassi (Renault's test driver last year) will be in the hot seats and pedaling a car entirely designed using CFD. Or to put in another way, they aren't building test versions and putting them in a windtunnel. I'm guessing that their computer is a tad better than my laptop (and probably more expensive too). Judging from the logo, I'm assuming a moody black car, but hey - who knows. I guess we'll find out at the group launch next month... (Today's tune plucked at random by my MP3 player is "Precious Things" by Tori Amos)

Jarno (I like a good argument) Trulli & Crikey Heikki Kovaleinenenenen have both signed to the new Lotus team for the next 3 years, and have both been making lots of positive comments about "growing with the team" and "not expecting too much" etc etc. Using my special F1-Speak Translator matrix (made from an old Quality Street tin, some random bits of wire and the shrink-wrap off a tray of mange-tout - ooo... much like my Fiat Punto then!), I can now reveal what these bland, corporate mutterings really mean. Jarno: Wow, that was lucky! I'm knocking on a bit, have a reputation for holding everyone up and have only ever won one race! After Toyota packed it in, I thought I was screwed! Heikki: Wow, that was lucky! I've been majorly shown up by Lewis, crash a bit too often and have only ever won one race! After McLaren dumped me for Jenson, I thought I was screwed! Expect to see them in the following places next year: Jarno at the front of a big ol' queu...

A Footrballerist has won the BBC Sports Personality of the year award. Jenson Button came 2nd. It was such a surprise, that the footballerist himself, Bryan Greggs (or somebody... who cares?)hadn't even bothered to learn how to speak in time for the ceremony. Still, I'm not bitter. Just incandescent with rage. Good to see a nice turn out from the F1 world at the ceremony. Apart from Eddie Jordan playing drums on a slightly suspect rendition of "The Chain", David Coulthard, Ross Brawn, Jackie Stewart, Damon Hill, Martin Brundle and Christian Horner were all in the crowd. I'm sure they enjoyed seeing yet another British F1 World Champion failing to win (in a row!). (My keyboard took a hammering to the sound of "New Dark Ages" by The Cross during the creation of this blog. Hmmmmm.)

It still remains the biggest story in F1 as we rush headlong towards the new season. Will Michael Schumacher return to F1 with the new Mercedes team? It seems increasingly likely and there are even stories of him having a cool £6.3M waved under his conk. If it happens, Schumi will be 41 years old when the new season starts. Bit ancient? Damon Hill was still racing successfully at 37, so that shouldn’t be a problem. It would be nice to see him come back and teach those pesky kids a thing or two, wouldn’t it? Equally interesting should be the look on the faces of the Ferrari team the first time he “accidentally” removes Alonso or Massa from a race... Stick a fork in me - I'm done. (Now playing - Wayne's World soundtrack from 1992. It's party time - ex-cel-ant...)

Sensible. Not a world that usually comes to mind in the fickle, frantic and fundamentally funny world of F1. But a recent decision by new FIA president Jean Todt, does seem to be just that. At each race there will be four stewards who will make decisions on any incidents during the race. One of these four will now be an ex-driver. You’d think that was kind of obvious, wouldn’t you? Not until now! It’s unclear at this stage who they might be, but I’m voting for Montoya or Irvine. That should stir it up a bit. (Yes, it's still the Queen album)

Paul Hardcastle once had a tune he called “19” that went N-n-n-n-n-nineteen, nineteen, nineteen, n-n-n-n-nineteen (you get the picture). He probably wouldn’t give a fig then that the F1 calendar for next year has been published with... yup, 19races! Here’s what you’ve got to look forward to: March 14 - Bahrain (Sakhir) March 28 - Australia (Melbourne) April 4 - Malaysia (Sepang) April 18 - China (Shanghai) May 9 - Spain (Barcelona) May 16 - Monaco (Monte Carlo) May 30 - Turkey (Istanbul) June 13 - Canada (Montreal) June 27 - Europe (Valencia) July 11 - Great Britain (Silverstone) July 25 - Germany (Hockenheim) August 1 - Hungary (Budapest) August 29 - Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps) September 12 - Italy (Monza) September 26 - Singapore (Singapore) October 10 - Japan (Suzuka) October 24 - South Korea November 7 - Brazil (Interlagos) November 14 - Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina) South Korea has to hang on a bit for confirmation, as the circuit has to be holomo.. homalogoat... homergo.. approved first...

Bring on the dancing girls! Remember the days when an F1 launch involved dangling cars from helicopters, or the high pitched screech on the engines being drowned out by the high pitched screech of the Spice Girls? All gone. It looks like all the F1 teams will launch their cars in the same place at the same time in a “look, we really aren’t squander bugs!” rare example of togetherness. Looking forward to January then! (it's still the Queen album, by the way)

If you’re reading this on Monday, then come on! Where’s you’re dedication!? I posted it on Sunday!! Anyway, I’ll make a confident prediction. At a bit before 9pm tonight, Jenson Button will be awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. Now playing: Queen's 1976 album "A Day At The Races". Cassette again!

And here comes Hamilton for a brilliant victory, giving him a handy 25 points and a 52 point lead in the championship after just 5 races! No, I haven’t been on the absinth again (oh hang on... yeah, I have), but this might well be the sort of weird stuff you’ll be hearing next year. The World Motorsport Council look likely to agree to a radical shake-up of the points system for 2010, so the top 10 finishers will all score points. It will go like this; 25, 20, 15, 10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1. Had it been applied this year, Button would have been champ a race earlier. That’s going to be confusing... and for the first time in it’s glorious 14 year history, I may have to reconsider the FF1 improvement points too. Curse you, WMC! Still it could be worse. Bernie could have got his way with that crazy medal system. Musical accompaniment this time: Tom Petty - Psychotic Reaction (live)

Renault are staying in Formula 1. Sort of. This is confusing, so put that down (you’ve been warned about that before) and pay attention. It looks likely that they will be flogging 75% of their team and keeping the other quarter, but whoever buys the team looks like they will still be calling it Renault. There are a couple of interested parties, including the man with the worrying comb-over (no, not me), David Richards of Prodrive. You remember Dave. He was in charge of Benetton before Flav. Then he was in charge of BAR. He was snubbed by F1 earlier in the year when his entry for next season was denied in favour of the likes of Campos, US GP and Manor) Can't keep a determined man down though. Maybe he'll be back again shortly... or maybe he won’t. Musical accompaniment to this post: Tori Amos - Crucify (Limited Edition Live EP) from 1992.

Well, there have been a few interesting bits of F1 stuff this week. I run a Fantasy Formula 1 competition for friends entirely for the fun of it, and decided this winter to do an off-season newsletter. It should be relatively simple to blog the articles I create for that right here, so I'll give that a go today as I'm writing them up. Apologies if the rambling is more wooly than ever - I went to my organisation's Christmas Party last night and, quite frankly, I'm knackered. Still, it was an entertaining evening... I never realised our head of finance was directly related to Mick Jagger, or that some of our Regional Development Managers have NO SHAME! Alarmingly, I was the oldest person on our table. When the hell did THAT happen?! Creation of this blog ably assisted by Queen's 1974 album - Sheer Heart Attack... on cassette (remember them? Bit like video without the pictures...).

Nearly Christmas then. Just 2 weeks left. That reminds me, I really should write some cards some time soon. In next to no time (well, 2 weeks, as previously mentioned) most of the hideous, materialistic, corporate, greedy bit of Christmas will be done, we'll get a nice day without all the crap (except for the different crap on TV) and then it'll be time for the Sales. Wooop. Sorry, I can't raise a second wooop. Maybe I'll be able to get one half price? Still, Christmas day does at least offer us the chance (in the UK at least) to see David Tennant off as Doctor Who. Looking forward to that. Did that sound bad? What I meant is, I'm looking forward to Doctor Who, not getting rid of Mr T. He's actually even better than Tom Baker. There, I said it. I expect that 40-something hate mail to start arriving any time soon. Some crud from the X-Factor will probably be No.1 for Crimbo, although I've long-since stopped caring. I wonder if I can pinpoint the exact week I ...

It's nearly Christmas. Pretty soon, some well meaning Auntie will be posting your Toyota team shirt and BMW team trousers that she got for a quid each down at PoundPlanet . Never mind - they'll go nicely with your Brawn team baseball cap... Welcome to my blog. I didn't know what to call it, but Grumpy F1 seemed reasonably suitable. I'm a long time F1 fan and I'm grumpy. See? It's making more sense by the minute. I'll try not to ramble on exclusively about F1 - I'm also into music - real music, mind (don't get me started), chocolate and generally being cynical about just about everything. No, really. (That was sarcasm - I do that to.) I'm probably not going to be one of those people who spends their entire existence blogging. If I wanted to do that, I'd be on Twitter (Look at me, I'm typing! ...long pause... I'm typing again, weeeeeee !.... even longer pause...... Gosh! I'm still typing, isn't twitter great!) and lets face it, ...