Formula 1 – Back on track?

Being a Formula 1 fan has been tough the last few years. Same team winning all the time. Tyre management. Vettel swearing at everything.

Yes, saying you’re a fan of Formula 1 often feels like you’re admitting to stealing underwear off washing lines (that wasn’t me though, honestly). People look at with a mixture of amazement, horror and sympathy. Why would you do that? Surely not for fun? You need some kind of help.

The Mercedes team have dominated for the last few years, and whilst 2016 gave us a decent battle between their two drivers, no-one else was really in with a shout.

Everyone complained endlessly about having to drive cautiously to stop their tyres wearing out too soon. Former champions were reduced to pedalling cars that were either slow and fragile (Alonso and Button’s McLarens) or dogged by poor strategy calls and a propensity to get into any accident going (Vettel & Raikkonen’s Ferraris).

2017’s season kicks off this weekend in Australia, and there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic.

Over the winter F1 was sold, finally ending Bernie Ecclestone’s throttlingly-tight grip over the sport. It’s new owners have already allowed teams to film clips of their cars in action for social media (ridiculously previously not allowed) and a top to bottom review is underway that is already addressing some of the sport’s issues.

The cars have been built to a new rulebook over the winter, and look lower, wider, meaner and more like the brute-force power monsters of years gone by. Aerodynamic changes and fatter tyres mean they go round corners as if on rails, and lap times are set to tumble. The chunkier tyres will also last without needing to be gently managed too, and delighted drivers are already saying the cars are, at last, challenging to drive again.

Winter testing also suggests that Mercedes might have a fight on their hands, with a resurgent Ferrari raising eyebrows with the speed of their red cars.

The World Champion, Nico Rosberg, dramatically decided one title was enough, right after the end of the season last year. British favourite Lewis Hamilton will no doubt be hoping his replacement, Valterri Bottas, isn’t as big a threat to his 4th title dream as the retired champ was.

Elsewhere, the Force India team will be showing up in a fetching shade of pink, whilst troubled McLaren have turned orange. Unfortunately, a colour-scheme change hasn’t helped their reliability. The team struggled to keep the car running in testing, it’s fragile Honda engine apparently rattling itself to pieces.

Even when it was working, it had about as much speed as my first Honda - a 50cc moped. At least that usually got me where I wanted to go.

Fingers crossed then. Some thrilling, flat-out racing, a close battle between different teams and drivers, and it might be OK to say you like Formula 1 again.

Otherwise, the weather looks good this weekend. People might be hanging their smalls out to dry...

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 24th of March 2017. The version used on their website was re-titled as "Revved up for F1 season", which was actually the title of my season preview from this time last year. I like a bit of recycling.

Despite being excited, I'm stuck with the fact that I'll be watching the highlights on Channel 4, as I'm not going to pay Sky oodles of cash to view. So, it's back to avoiding social media, news, the radio, TV and human contact on half the race weekends, so I don't hear anything before I tune in. If you don't want to know the score, look away now... and for half the day too.

A baffling announcement from F1's new owners, about the fact that F1 stops being on free-to-air TV in the UK after next year, contained lots of words, but pretty much no intelligible information. I work in marketing, and even I didn't understand it. You have a go...

Yup. Couldn't have said it more confusingly myself...

(CD A-Z: Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" - but the rather splendid 2009 stereo mix. Because I'm a nerd, yes.)

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 ...

Unstable Stables: Throw away the key

It’s comforting to know that there is one less threat to the people of Cumbria this week, following the conviction of white supremacist, Ethan Stables. The 20 year old from Barrow had planned to attack the town’s New Empire pub in June 2017, in the midst of a gay pride event. Despite social media posts saying he was “going to war” and planning to “slaughter”, online searches about how to make bombs and chemical poisons, and expressing hatred of Muslims, Jews and gay people, he claimed his online comments were merely to impress far-right friends. Fortunately, following Facebook posts about his intentions, the police were tipped off and armed officers intercepted him as he headed towards the pub. His aim was to kill anyone he found, with a machete. In a bizarre slip-up, Stables had erroneously added an innocent woman to his neo-Nazi Facebook group. When he vented his outrage at the Furness LGBT support group’s event, the shocked woman contacted the authorities. He’ll have ple...

Is it foggy? No.

When I get put in charge (which is bound to happen soon), I'm going to introduce a whole raft of new laws, for I shall be a just and fair ruler. I'm quite liking the title of 'Most Marvellous Emperor Of Sensible Regulations And Bountiful Lovingness Not To Mention Exceedingly Handsome', but it might be a bit long. On that basis, I'll settle for the more informal 'He Who Is Smashing' from my loyal subjects. Anyway, I digress. I do that sometimes - had you noticed? Here, then, is the first law that will introduced: grumpyf1 law No.1 - Turn your fog lights off, you complete git. Don't get me wrong; If it genuinely is foggy, fog lights are quite handy. The reason for introduction of this law is because 96% of the time (based on my own in-depth research) it isn't foggy when some utter cockwomble blinds you. This has always been a bit of a problem but in the last couple of years it seems to have escalated out of control, possibly because of the...

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