Fantasy Formula 1: Singapore

Fantasy Formula 1: Singapore - the other stuff

According to Eddie Jordan (and he's completely reliable, right?) tomorrow is the day when we'll find out some of the big changes in driver line-ups for 2013.

Schumi to retire again? Robohamilton to join Mercedes? Kovaleinen, di Resta, Perez or just about any driver (currently in F1, or even dead, it doesn't seem to matter) in the vacant and tantrum-stained McLaren seat? Massa dropped by Ferrari? Perez in the Ferrari? Perez in every conceivable car, possibly at the same time? With knobs on?

More importantly (being a BBC viewer) who will get Jakey-Wakey's ipad and chance to trip over forklift trucks? I don't think Lee McKenzie is quite up to it: her stock question is "So (insert driver name here) tell us what happened". Brilliant. Wish I'd thought of that. Mind you, if they decide to put her in the post ahead of James Allen, I'll be positively dancing. Dad dancing, admittedly, but dancing all the same.

Who do I want to see in a top seat for next year then? Perez in a Ferrari sounds like a winner to me, and I'd quite like to see Grosjean in a McLaren, although I'm not sure he's quite ready for it yet. I still miss Nick Heidfeld and his lovely beard, so how about Quick Nick..?

And so we come to the important matter of the Fantasy Formula 1 random bits and bobs...

Naughty corner: Has to be the Schumiester, doesn’t it? Made worse by the fact that rather than saying “hands up – it was my fault” he tried to come up with some flannel about “maybe there was a problem with car...” Yes, there was. The problem was holding the steering wheel.

Hero: This doesn’t mean I suddenly think he’s great, or want to be his bessie mate, but di Resta did a very tidy job, didn’t he?

Fantasy Formula 1driver of the day was Vettel, wavy finger and flashing helmet (plus a great race) handing him 29 points.

It is getting rather close at the pointy end, with only 8 points keeping Mark E out front for the 14th time. With the top 8 all within 100 points, it’s looking good for a late battle over the 6 remaining races.

393 points now separate first and last. I’ll be honest with you – I don’t think Henry is going to win this year.

A quick rummage through the FF1 stats box reveals Alonso still out front, but Vettel now up to 3rd, whilst (and I want you to try and remain calm) de la Rosa isn’t last any more! He’s handed that particularly unpleasant batten to his team-mate Karthikeyan, and for good measure nipped up to 21st as well. Ferrari are still top team, with Lotus 2nd, and Hispania are still last, but not by miles.

Olie B continues his steady progress – he’s moved up the standings for 9 races in a row now, and is currently 12th, 133 points adrift of the lead. Has he got time to make it all the way to the top? Tune in next time!

Oddly, all the teams bagged FF1 points this race, including Williams, even though Maldyolddough and Senna were respectively parked in a garage and by some Armco. “Well, How come?” I don’t hear you ask. The FIA classify someone as completing the race if they are within a certain amount of laps of the winner. Even though he was parked, Bruno had still done more laps than Petrov when Seb tootled over the line.

Next race: Another great circuit coming up – it’s the Japanese GP on the 7th of October.

(More chillout stuff tonight - Robert Miles' 23am. To be honest with you, I don't think he's quite grasped the concept of 24 hour clocks...)

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...

grumpyf1

Search This Blog