The Dream Continues…

Six races in and Brawn GP and its two drivers, Jenson Button and Ruebens Barrichello, are running away with the driver’s championship and the constructor’s championship. Ferrari is struggling, McLaren is slipping backwards, BMW-Sauber is already caught in the whirlpool. Red Bull and Toyota are stronger (sans Monaco for Toyota) than ever before. Even Scuderia Toro Rosso is consistently scoring a point here and there. My only wish for this dream is for Barrichello to be able to take the fight to Button a lot stronger and beat him fair and square for a while. If not long enough to take the driver’s championship at the conclusion of the final checkered flag.

Am I Dreaming?

Brawn GP, 36 points
Scuderia Toro Rosso, 4 points
Force India, 0 points
Ferrari, 0 points

J. Button, 21 points
L. Hamilton, 4 points
F. Alonso, 4 points
K. Raikkonen, 0 points
F. Massa, 0 points

2009 F1 Season

The world debut of the 2009 Formula One world championship revs up this weekend in Australia. If you thought the 2008 championship was spectacular then I would suspect that the 2009 version will be just as spectacular, if not more.

How, you ask, could 2009 be better than 2008? It’s hard to consider a Ross Brawn-run team a dark horse for the championship but that is what his young outfit, Brawn GP, are this year. Now that the former shuttered Honda F1 program has been saved by Brawn and the other executives of the team they have breathed new life into the winter testing snowglobe.

Participating in only the last two sessions of winter testing before flying off to Melbourne for the opening round of the F1 championship, Brawn GP cars scorched the field with qualified speed on both short and long runs. Their drivers, as was the case in 2008, are Ruebens Barrichello and Jenson Button. Barrichello, sporting the longest tenure in F1 history, could easily place in the top three in the drivers’ championship at season’s end if the car, and team, can support this kind of speed and reliability season long. 

Seen as a last grasp for his career, Barrichello has shown his usual vigor in winter testing for Brawn GP. Much speculation centered around the second Brawn seat for ‘09 as Brazilian F1 rookie Bruno Senna was thought to be in line for this drive. I’m glad Ruebens is back for another season. He spent too long in Schumacher’s shadow at Ferrari and deserves to shine in what could be his last season in F1.

Jenson Button, the likable Brit, may have just seen his ship come in. He was beginning to look a lot like Jacques Villeneuve at the BAR/Honda team. Spending so many years there you began to feel he would go nowhere else no matter how pathetically off-pace the cars were. Not that JV didn’t show a smattering of brilliance behind the wheel of a BAR Honda, especially on starts, but the cars were blowing engines like it was a contest to see whose engine explosion was the coolest. Button won at the Hungaroring a few seasons back so he has the potential to do big things if the car is great.

The fact that Ferrari drivers, Massa and Raikkonen, have mentioned Brawn GP as a serious threat to their championship ambitions bodes well for the pureness of the Brawn GP program. Ross Brawn was the brains behind many a Schumacher victory. He could very well do the same for Barrichello and Button.

Let us hope so.

2009 Formula One Season

I’m not often right about things but I couldn’t have been more right when, a year ago, I knew posting to this blog would play second fiddle to everything else in my life. And it did. 

Here we are, four weeks out from the Formula One season opener in Australia. I can’t wait. Although most teams have remained stable as far as drive lineups go the cars are anything but carryovers from ‘08. The FIA has made major changes to the car regs and they claim it’ll shake things up this year as far as excitement on the track. But who could argue with the Championship last year? It was absolutely fantastic except for all the petty penalties that the officials like to randomly dole out. Or, in the case of some, the penalties the officials don’t hand out. 2008 proved just how random, and at times, completely unnecessary, those penalties were. As long as you weren’t a Ferrari fan in’08, the Championship action on the track was generally the best in many, many years. Sure, Schumacher had a few “close” races with Raikkonen, Montoya and Alonso but he never was truly hassled and bothered consistently from race to race. And that is what set 2008 apart.

Drivers like Kubica and Kovalanien got maiden wins and Kubica actually led the Championship for awhile. The first for both of those feats for him and the first for a Polish driver in F1. Renault’s late season form, and Alonso’s bravado and the McLaren chip on his shoulder, made the last half of the season nail-biting. Thankfully, Ferrari added some tension relief at a few wet races and one stellar night race. OK, Sutil being punted out of 4th by Raikkonen (no penalty? Come on Stewards? It’s not like he’s Michael!) at Monaco wasn’t the least bit funny. But, Massa’s string of wet spins a few races later looked like his stead was forever caught in the downward spin of a toilet flush.

2009 car regulations are so mixed up from last season the machinery no longer looks like they were dried in wind tunnels. Now, they harken back to cars of yester-year and from a junior formulae. Generally, I haven’t seen a flattering photo yet of a 2009 contender. Shame. My bet is that at least half the starting grid will need a nose cone replaced before the first race is over. A team or two may actually run out of replacement noses, oh my!

Safety Fast!

Silly Media

Only two races of the F1 2008 schedule have been run an already the sport’s media circus are saying Ferrari have already taken an edge over McLaren and that McLaren is on the downswing. This is only two races down out of 18 and they’re already writing McLaren as losing their edge. Come on, look up from your laptops long enough to realize that the only thing they should be concluding after two races is that BMW-Sauber has indeed improve from last season, that Kovalainen does have huge potential with McLaren, and that Massa looks out of his league. Red Bull and Honda have been consistently quick and Toyota may finally showing some real potential this season. I have never been a Ralf Schumacher fan and his reputation, with me, plummeted while at Toyota. Whine, whine, cry, cry. Both parties are better off this season. Glock seems to be doing well in the team and has shown great speed so far.I was disappointed that Williams scored zero points in Malaysia. Poor grid positions can often do that. Just ask McLaren drivers Kovi and Hamilton. Although they scored points and Kovi was on the podium they would have done better if they had better grid positions. I didn’t see the blocking move that got them penalized but I was glad to see the stewards make the call if it was indeed warranted.

Round 2 of real racing

So round 1 of the Formula 1 2008 calendar is in the books. To say I’m loving seeing Scuderia Toro Rosso with twice as many points as Ferrari is an understatement. I like an underdog. But lets be realistic. After Rd 2 I’m sure Ferrari will be pummeling STR. Won’t they? I mean, surely the race in Melbourne was just a fluke. Right? I mean, how often does Raikkonen make 2 bonehead errors in a single race? And Massa, what was up with his race? Did he actually think he had position on Coulthard to be “gifted” that ridiculous move on the inside? If it hadn’t been for so many safety car periods McLaren probably would have had a 1-2. Kovi deserved better. So did Bourdais, for that matter. So round 2, Malaysia, is tonight, er, early tomorrow morning here in the East US. I’d like to stay up and watch it live before my proper Easter Sunday schedule begins. Any predictions on this race? Ferrari has a lock on the front row and the McLaren duo have been penalized 5 spots apiece for blocking Heidfeld in Q3. Both Toyotas are in the top 10 but can they last? And what of Rosberg? Will he be able to charge through the field to take another podium? Hope so. I’d love to see Williams fighting at the top again.

Finally, real motorsports is back in action

I realize some forms of motorsports have been racing for several weeks already but for one reason or another those other racing series just don’t cut it for me. Not even close to what Formula 1 and ALMS/Le Mans do for me.F1 starts tonight with quali from Australia and I plan to stay up late tonight to watch it live. Then, tomorrow night, I’ll stay up till the wee hours to catch the race live with my racing buds.I used to watch CART religiously but over the last few years the fields became weaker and Bourdais cleaned house four years running. I lost interest and hadn’t seen a CART race in a few years. Now, CART is dead. Did I do it? Or, did CART do it to themselves? Both, probably.CART’s old guard competition retired or moved to the idiot league with their teams, drove dumbed-down machinery that had the knack of crippling even the best drivers. That left CART with up-and-comers with little experience and absolutely no name recognition. I found AJ Allmendinger and Ryan Hunter-Reay worthy of following, both Americans, both talented, and both looking impressive. For one reason or another they left CART and with them my last bit of interest in watching.The way my life is now it is just so much easier for me to find time to watch F1 religiously as the races are generally on when I’d just be sleeping. And I’m willing to sacrifice sleep for leading edge technology, international intrigue, and road courses any day of the week. CART races, in comparison, were on in the middle of the afternoon. Coincidentally, that’s also when I have to run errands, do chores around the house, etc. Then, to make it even harder to follow CART race broadcasts were flipping from one network to another and many times the broadcast was delayed. Geez, I recall when ABC (I think they were the broadcaster at the time) cut from a great CART race to watch some baseball player (probably on roids) try to hit yet another homerun. Another time, maybe even the same tv network, cut from a CART race to watch some billionaire golfer take a putt! Those are just slap-in-the-face insults to the race fan.

“Here, we know you’re enjoying this thrilling race with risks and high speeds but we think you’re really going to like watching this guy tip toe across the worlds shortest grass and tap a little white ball at a non-moving whole in the grass.”

 Gee, thanks guys. At least SPEED doesn’t do that to their F1 broadcasts. Their equivalent is cutting to a commercial and missing the races’ lone pass for the lead that actually took place on the track in the heat of battle and not in the pits. Of course, all those PINKS and NASCAR commercials make me sick to my stomach. Who freakin’ cares? I was invited to the first Brickyard 400 and all I had to do to get there was pay for the ticket and be ready to roll at a moments notice. Easy enough. That was such a boring race. I recall there being a handful of laps behind the pace care for “debris” on the track about every 15 minutes. And this was all during the final 100 miles. It all seemed so orchestrated. So, I’ve got 1 hour until the season premier of F1 qualifying for 2008 and I’m nearly giddy.Catch ya later – Kevin