grumpyf1

Whilst that impossibly young German chap Sebastien Vettel won a 3rd straight title in his Red Bull rocket-on-wheels last year, he had his toughest battle for the title so far, which sets us up really rather nicely for a high octane blast around Melbourne on Sunday. 2014 sees seismic changes to the F1 rulebook, involving much smaller engines, dramatically less fuel available, all sorts of clever-clogs energy recovery shenanigans, turbos, and the possibility that the familiar scream of the cars flat out might sound more like as asthmatic wasp in a particularly large tin. Before that, we get to see if Fernando Alonso can finally get a title in his Ferrari and tame his eyebrows, if Jenson Button can do the same as the main man at McLaren whilst continuing to be extremely laid back, if Lewis Hamilton has a chance now he’s swapped to Mercedes and started getting tattoos and dressing like a ‘gangsta’, or if any of the other peddlers of the world’s most expensive go karts can do the sa...

After a break so lengthy even school teachers reckoned they were pushing the boundaries of acceptable, F1 was back in action with a bang in Belgium. Several bangs in fact. Many of them a bit too close to Alonso’s bonce for his liking... Whilst Schumi was breezing past the amazing milestone of taking part in 300 GPs, Webber and Rosberg’s returns weren’t quite going to plan, with both needing to change gearboxes, with the subsequent 5 place grid penalties applied. Nico’s duff weekend got immediately worse in Q1, as he failed to post a time sufficient to get out of the session, whilst Both Schumacher and Vettel were surprisingly out in Q2. Button had most definitely rediscovered his form, posting the fastest time in all three sessions and bagging a dominant pole, joined at the front by Kobayashi – the first time a Japanese driver had made the front row. Maldonad’oh posted the 3rd fastest time, but yet another penalty for generally being a bit of an pillock (and blocking di Re...

You wait ages for a Frenchman in F1, then two arrive at once. Hot on the heels of Pic, comes Grosjean. Or, to be more accurate, comes Grosjean again . Romain replaced Piquet Jr back in '09 and drove 7 races fore Renault, with a best result of 13th. After a couple of years back in the shallow end of motorsport, he won the GP2 championship this year, so maybe he's ready this time. With Lotus Renault going for the 'most number of drivers in 3 seasons award' (Kubica, Petrov, Heidfeld, Senna, Raikkonen, Grosjean) Romain will need to find his feet pretty rapidly - the team aren't that French any more, and failure isn't likely to be tolerated. It should be interesting to see how he gets on against Kimi. His problem is that, even if he trounces our Finnish friend, people will still question his ability, as Kimi is a tad... how can we put this...? Out of favour, and possibly out of form. It should be interesting to see how the team get on. Can they improve en...

If you're Romain Grosjean or Bruno Senna (which if you are, well... er hello. You may not like this next bit...) you were probably hoping to get the odd chance to go near a Lotus-Renault-Whatever this year, and maybe (if you were extra good) even touch one. In your wildest dreams, the thought probably occurred to you that Petrov might get inexplicably lost and not be seen for a fortnight (which isn't THAT far fetched, really) and you'd get to drive the car for a race. So when Kubica had his rallying incident, you'd forgive them for thinking that this just might be their big chance. Unfortunately for them, no-one else sees it that way. Both have had a chance in F1. Grosjean was massively average, and Senna got trumped by a guy who hadn't driven an F1 car for yonks, when Klien got a go on the HRT merry-go-round. L-R-W have wisely decided to try and get hold of someone half-decent instead. Actually, there aren't many people as good as Kubica, so it's a toug...