grumpyf1

Who'd have thunked it, eh? A seat in a Williams F1 car for 2012 is now the most hotly contested thing in F1 (if you ignore the piece of tarmac Lewis and Rubens want to be on, that is). With surprise signings at both Lotus Renault and Toro Rosso resulting it all their 2011 drivers getting the F1 heave-ho, it's fallen to Frank's mob to offer a chance for the refugees from these two teams, plus a few other drivers unceremoniously dumped in the constant quest for "the next Seb". Sutil, Senna, Petrov, Buemi, Alguersuari and D'Ambrosio all need a drive, and Barrichello certainly wasn't planning on calling it a day either. And, before you mention it, I know HRT have a seat free too, but... seriously... who'd go there? Apart from Pedro de la Rosa, of course. It's on the way to the pension office, I believe. I'm guessing Sutil, but with Maldonado signed up again for next year (along with some more hefty bags of cash), Williams need a decent d...

Hands up who thinks FIFI are going to move up the field this year, and perhaps catch one of the bigger teams having an off-season? Renault, perhaps? Maybe Mercedes? Anyone? Hello? Precisely. Probably the only people bigging that up as a serious possibility are Force India's Marketing department. People who work in Marketing Departments are dribbling, incoherant nincompoops, with a twisted sense of reality. Yes, I do work in a Marketing Department, you're quite right. I rest my case. Vijay's mob came a pretty dismal 8th last year, having been reasonably quick in '09. They seriously need to arrest that slide. Slight problem is, they've been losing key technical staff as rapidly as I see off Cadbury products, so it doesn't look overly promising. Adrian Sutil keeps his seat, but isn't likely to set it on fire any time soon, despite various people trumpeting him as one of F1's next big things. Wee laddie Paul di Resta finally gets the F1 call up, and se...

Hurrah! It's another car launch! Last season, not many cars started the season with prospects as dim as Force India - maybe only Toro Rosso. But Vijay's mob certainly surprised us all later in the season, with Fisi pulling off a fantastic pole at Spa and following it up with second in the race. True - they only managed this kind of pace at fast circuits, but it definitely showed promise. They have Mercedes engines & gearboxes again this year, and clearly aim to move up a notch this season too. The big question is: Can they though? They should be better than the new teams (if any of them make it apart from Virgin and Lotus) and must be hoping to beat Red Bull II as well. But who else? Toyota have gone. Williams? Optimistic, surely? Should be interesting to see. One negative comes to mind - they're missing the experienced Fisichella. Adrian Sutil did pretty well last year, putting in some solid performances, but a seemingly dangerous problem with attracting grumpy Finnish...