grumpyf1

Formula 1 roars back into the lives of armchair motorsport fans this weekend, with the first race of 2019 taking place in Australia on Sunday. If you’ve paid up to watch the races on Sky, congratulations – you get all of the races live, and an extra Button too, with the former F1 champion, Jenson, joining their presenting line up. If, like me, you’ll be watching it on Channel 4... well, there’s less to be excited about. Only the British GP will be live, as a deal signed by former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone kicks in, giving Sky the rights to show all other races exclusively live in the UK. Instead, Channel 4 will have highlights only. Cue the tricky task of trying to avoid picking up your phone, turning on the laptop, or watching TV/listening to the radio for half a day after the race has finished, to try and avoid an unwelcome “and the winner was...” situation. Plus, some awkward late-night timeslots. Formula when..?! Sky’s big promo film also conspicuously used Fleetwood M...

Five v Four You’d have been a brave F1 fan to have bet against Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula One World Championship last Sunday in Mexico. He’d almost managed it the previous weekend, and arrived in Mexico in the comfortable position of only needing to finish seventh to bag the trophy, even if his rival, Sebastian Vettel, won the race. As it turned out, it was a challenging race for the British star for a rare change, and Vettel came reasonably close to winning. Hamilton might not have stood on the podium, but his fourth place was enough for him to be crowned a five time champion. That 5th title really is something special, putting him on equal footing with the great Juan Manuel Fangio from the sport’s early days, and bettered only by Michael Schumacher’s seven titles. I may not be Hamilton’s biggest fan, but even I have to concede that what he’s achieved is something genuinely special... even if he does have a silly haircut and some questionable fashion sense. Is th...

"Excuse me whilst I say something mind-bogglingly stupid..." It’s a tough time for Brits in Formula 1. Both British teams, McLaren and Williams, are a million miles away from their championship-dominating glory years. McLaren are in a perilous 6th place, and Williams 10th. In case you’re unfamiliar with F1, and think that sounds OK-ish – there are only 10 teams. Whilst brilliant British drivers have won many titles (Hunt, a couple of Hills, Button, Mansell etc.), 2018’s championship boasts just one driver from our fair isles – Lewis Hamilton. To be fair, he is pretty handy, having bagged four titles himself. With the British Grand Prix taking place at Silverstone this weekend, if you want to support your home team or driver, you’re probably going to need to back just Lewis. If either of the two teams manage to have the first car past the chequered flag, I’ll be talking next week about the most dramatic race in history, whilst bookies sob uncontrollably. It’s been ...

F1 2018: Catch it while you can... It’s set to be a thrilling season for Formula One fans. Both Britain’s Lewis Hamilton and Germany’s Sebastian Vettel have now achieved four world titles each, with Hamilton equalling his arch-rival’s tally last year. Who was battling it out for that title last time? Yup – those two. It wasn’t always the most gentlemanly of battles either, with Seb famously banging wheels with Lewis after he believed the Brit had brake-tested him. So far, so tremendously entertaining. True, Vettel’s team, Ferrari, along with their driver himself, lost the plot somewhat when it really counted. Happily, it looks like we may be on for another ding-dong (and potentially bodywork-bashing) re-match. The cars look a little different this year too. Imagine someone sticking the bit that goes on top of your foot from a flip-flop onto the cockpit of the cars, and you’ve pretty much got the ‘halo’. This controversial new safety feature should help protect drivers from in...

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 reaso...

F1 – or “The Lewis Hamilton Show” as it should probably be called now - zooms back into action this weekend. Will it be exciting this year? Despite being a huge F1 fan, even I can see that it’s been, well... kind of dull the last couple of years. In 2014 it looked like a good battle was on the cards, and fellow Mecedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg did just that for most of the season, at times acrimoniously, before Brit Hamilton took his second title. Everyone else was left looking like they’d turned up for a heavy drinking session with a thimble-full of shandy. Last year it was a bit closer, with Ferrari’s Sebastien Vettel taking a few wins, but it was again the Hamilton & Rosberg show most of the time, with the blinged-up Lewis tying up title number three much earlier, and the entertaining personal conflict better suppressed by the team. So will the 2016 season, featuring a whopping 21 races, be another one dominated by Hamilton? The all-too-brief winter te...

It must have been a shocking moment at Ferrari HQ. Um... Mr, di Montezuma, Sir...? This had better be good news, or you'll be swimming with the fishes. Oh. Right. Well, I just thought I ought to point out that we... I don't really know how to put this... we... haven't done anything spectacularly stupid this year. What?! But we complained about bits of the Red Bull car being too flexible! Yes, Sir, but... well, that was quite reasonable, wasn't it? What about cutting the engine seal on the little monkey-fella's car so the Golden One could move one place up the grid? Surely that counts! Not really Sir - legitimate tactics. Getting whipping-boy to move out of the way at every possible opportunity? Again, tactics. A bit unplesant maybe, but not stupid per se. Hmmm. Hang on... why don't we try and get the championship overturned with some daft complaint about a barely noticeable flag incident at the final race, that even the stewards found too ...

I’m guessing a lot of us had a wish-list heading into the last race of the season. With Seb 13 points ahead, it probably involved rain, a shunt/spin that dropped Vettel down the order, a great race by Alonso, some more rain, crashes, more rain and whole heap of tension. Maybe with a British winner. And some rain. Don’t expect much for Christmas – it looks like all our wishes came true early, in a breathtaking race to finish off a pretty stunning year. Qualifying took place on a drying track, with Grosjean dropping out in Q1 after a dopey tangle with Karthikeyan, and Hamilton grabbing pole from Button. The title protagonists were 4th (Seb) and 8th (Nando) respectively, each with their team-mate outqualifying them. The Gods of F1 luck smiled on Fernando again, as 8th became 7th after Maldonad’oh got a penalty for (you’ll like this) failing to go to the weighbridge – this isn’t a penalty in itself, but it does get you a reprimand. Enough reprimands and you get a penalty. D’oh. ...

Seeing as he was challenging for his third title at this race, it’s actually quite startling to realise that Vettel was only competing in his 100th GP. Yes, we’ve become that used to the pointy finger and innate winningness of Das Sebulator, it’s easy to forget he’s still only 25 years old. With the championship in his grasp (and Red Bull set to bag the Constructors crown to boot), the first visit to the new US GP circuit in Texas seemed quite likely to deliver Seb his third title with a race to spare. The circuit was great, the weather fantastic, enthusiastic fans packed the stands and a nutter in a helicopter seemed to be intent on skimming the tops of the cars like a deranged seagull, all in the name of getting a good camera angle. Unfortunately for Button, his screen time was somewhat limited as he dropped out in Q2 on Saturday, whilst Grosjean’s excellent P4 was diminished by a five place drop for a gearbox change. Whilst Seb bagged pole, Hamilton was next up with We...

Abu Dhabi saw Red Bull in with a shout of taking the constructors title home, but Seb was already having an iffy weekend with brake issues, before clouting the wall in Q1. He survived, but Hamilton was clearly the fastest man of the weekend, even at this stage. Q2 saw Rosberg give a dejected Mercedes team a brief glimmer of hope, as he managed to progress through to the final session, but the surprise outcome was Hamilton with an easy pole, followed by Webber and Vettel, with Alonso only 7th. Or so we thought. Seb had been told to park the car on track rather than return to the pits, and it turned out the FIA couldn’t get the requisite litre of fuel out to sample. Suddenly, the championship was looking much more lively, as Das Sebulator got bunged to the back of the grid. Race start saw Webber get his customary crappy getaway, dropping down to 4th, whilst Raikkonen passed Maldonad’oh into 3rd place. Senna, Hulkywulkyberg and Dire Sta all attempted to use the same bit of t...

I’ll be honest with you – I didn’t see qualifying, as I was away for the weekend, being vaguely sociable for a change. Well, drinking mostly. Same thing, isn’t it..? What I did pick up was that Seb was continuing his dominant form, being right at the pointy end during the Free Practice sessions, and then nailing pole comfortably during quail. It certainly looked ominous for Sunday... And so it proved to be. Das Sebulator squeezed Webber at the start, scything into a lead that he was never to be relieved of, for the whole 60 laps of the Indian GP. Alonso was doing his best to stay in touch, diving between the McLarens into a temporary 3rd place, only for them to pincer him back. After a couple of scary, millimetre-perfect, corners of battling, Fernando had to settle for 4th with Jenson ahead, and Lewis behind, him. Schumi’s dismal end to his second stab at F1 continued it’s drawn-out death throes, as a slight clip by Vergne left the veteran German with a puncture and a blo...

Still smiling from his win in Britain, Mark Webber kept the grin factor high between races by re-signing for Red Bull for another year. It turned out to be a good time to do it, as Germany was about to be a duff weekend for him. Q1 was damp, and nearly saw home hero Schumacher taking an early bus back to the hotel, as he just managed to squeak through to the second round. Q2 did a good impression of recreating an English Summer, the only surprises being how consistently rubbish Massa and Senna can be. The final session really needed something with more tread than even the wet weather rubber provided, but even tractor tyres would have struggled to cope with the standing water, as a lucky Hulkenberg discovered, surviving a full tilt spin without hitting anything. Alonso proved again his mastery of all conditions to bag pole, but with Webber dropping 5 places for a gearbox change, Vettel and Schumacher were the nearest to him, with super-spinner Hulkenberg a startled 4th, Mald...

In preparation for the European GP at Valencia, I considered painting the wall next to the TV just before the race. That way, I’d have something more interesting to watch if necessary. Good job I didn’t (it’s quite a nice colour anyway) as the race turned out, for the first time in it’s miserable history, to be a corker. The lap record around the circuit is held by Timo Glock, back in the days when he drove a Toyota very rapidly. Unfortunately, the only thing he was doing rapidly this weekend was nipping to the loo. Although it’s possible he might have broken some kind of record for that too, as he was poorly enough to miss the race. Qualifying saw a dejected Webber out in Q1, his DRS not working, whilst a thrilled Kovaleinen made it into Q2. The second part of quail wasn’t a good one for those driving red cars, as both Ferrari drivers failed to make it through to the shoot out, with the top 10 covered by a measly 0.22 seconds. Whilst it looked like it would be similarly...

Yay! Vettel's in the lead! Ooo. He's out. Yay! Alonso's in the lead! Grosjean might win! Ooo. Romain's out. Hamilton might win! Ooo. Lewis is out. Fernando's going to win? From 11th?! 2012 finally lobbed the biggest surprise of the season so far into the mix - the Valencia GP was actually exciting. We really have seen it all now. At least there was one constant, reliable, factor in all this - Pastor Maldonad'oh is still a gigantic tit. Various drivers moving up loads of places during the race meant some big Fantasy F1 scores this race (except for me): RACE RESULT Position Name Points 1 Tony's Mum 144 2 Ollie C 133 3 Martin S 120 4 Jane 111 5 Stephen H 105 6 Olie B 94 7 Elmon 91 8 Ian ...