Must Comment Monday

Eagle-eyed readers visiting the site will have noticed a red logo appeared in the sidebar a couple of weeks ago: Must Comment Monday. You may have seen it elsewhere too.

The idea is this:

- Visit several blogs on a Monday and if there are any new entries that day, you must leave a comment.
- If there are several entries on a blog you only need comment on one.
- If the blog requires a password it is exempt, although if you already have a login you may as well use it!
- Do try and say something interesting or constructive rather than something just to say you commented. The 'first comment!' phenomenon is to be discouraged.

Of course, us bloggers have to keep up our side of the deal too and keep posting blog entries as well as commenting elsewhere. Let's not have our blogs sleep through the off-season! This is a great way to keep comments flowing and every blogger knows comments are everything, the lifeblood of a blog.

This is another initiative from those fine folk of Sidepodcast, who seem to be good at prompting people to blog. You can read more on MCM in this post.

Thursday Thoughts: F1 Launches

This week's Thursday Thoughts question from Sidepodcast:

Should F1 teams launch 2010 cars in a single launch event?

When I first read the question I thought I would be in favour, but after considering the pros and cons I've turned out to be against the idea. Let's run through them.

In favour of a group launch:

- It cuts costs for everyone. Perhaps they would each pay a flat rate to FOTA who would hire a venue, perhaps they could even get a neutral company (say a series sponsor like LG) to sponsor the event and make it break even.

- All of the world's F1 media would be in the same place at once. Not only would this cut their costs but it would mean not having to choose between competing events held the same day.

- It would create a huge pre-season buzz with all the new cars appearing before the world at once, or in reality probably in stages through the day. The publicity would be huge! You could even set up a dummy grid, though I'm sure you'd have to draw lots for the order.


In favour of individual launches:

- 'Launches' these days aren't the frivolous affairs of the late 90s with the Spice Girls and the dry ice. The cost of plonking a tarpaulin-covered car in the pitlane in Jerez really isn't that high when it is there for testing anyway.

- If there are launches held on the same day in different countries, the bigger players tend to have enough staff or freelancers to be able to send one or two to each.

- We already have a huge pre-season buzz, it just isn't concentrated into a focal point, it is spread over many weeks or even months. This for me as a fan is the clincher. The anticipation builds from late January as car after car is steadily launched right up until we can visualise the full grid in early March, just days before the real thing. No other form of motorsport can or does do this.

- If they launched at the same time only the specialist motorsport press will cover every team. At the moment the general media might have a larger story for McLaren and a smaller one for Force India, but they'd pretty much all get something, at least in newspapers. If they launched all at once the editors would have the same space to cram in 13 or 14 teams and it just isn't going to happen, they'd pick Brawn, McLaren, Ferrari and maybe one other. This should be the clincher for the teams but they seem to have missed it.

The group shot idea I had above - it would look cool to have the cars lined up together but the team sponsors would probably prefer the focus to be on their car on that day. With an individual launch you get the focus on your team and your sponsors. For this reason alone I am amazed a team like McLaren, with their focus on "corporate partners" (never "sponsors" for McLaren) is prepared to even entertain the idea let alone consider it seriously.

In other responses I have seen it said the new teams would prefer individual launches to get the focus but actually I disagree with that. I think they are pushing for a group launch. Why? Because it legitimises them to be seen alongside Ferrari and McLaren and so forth. At this stage that is worth a considerable amount more to them than a single-focus launch - but that isn't enough of a reason to go for it.

Then you have other issues such as the invited guests. Would you have one conference room, wheeling in each set of sponsor's bigwigs before wheeling in the car? Then getting them all to leave in a timely manner before the next group, bearing in mind you have essentially 8am to 8pm to launch 13 teams?

I think the cons outweigh the pros on this one, not just in number but in gravity. It was a good idea and let's not fault them for coming up with radical ideas for they are needed, but the execution of it is a logistical nightmare and the media benefits - which after all is the point of holding a launch - are diminished in my view.

Weekend Preview: 21-22 November 2009

This is the final Weekend Preview of the season, thanks for reading and I hope these posts have been useful!

Windsor Arch 56th Macau Grand Prix

- Guia Circuit, Macau, PRC
- www.macau.grandprix.gov.mo/app/home/gp56/en
- Live Timing from MST (note this link is for all non-WTCC races at the circuit this week)
- with WTCC (see below), FBMW Pacific and a host of regional championships

The classic Formula 3 event attracts competitors from the Euroseries and the Japanese and British series, I am not sure if the Australians also attend? I am always surprised at how fast the F3 cars look at this course, the long straight sections mean the cars are in high gearing, low downforce trim which while fast on the open road, the drivers have to struggle with through the narrow twisty part of the track.

The Macau Grand Prix format for F3 is for a 10-lap Qualification Race on Saturday at 1.45pm Macau time, followed by the 15-lap Grand Prix on Sunday at 3.30pm their time. That's about 4.30am here... I think.

I can't find any live UK TV coverage!
I can't find any recorded coverage either.

FIA World Touring Car Championship

- Marriott Race of Macau
- Guia Circuit, Macau, PRC
- www.macau.grandprix.gov.mo/app/home/gp56/en
- and www.fiawtcc.com
- Live Timing from MST (WTCC only, for F3 use the link in the Macau GP section above)
- Final round

The usual format of two equal-length races on Sunday of just 9 laps each around this long circuit, that's good for the normal race time of about 25 minutes. It might be short but there's action all the way at Macau!



This is Tom Coronel in the 2007 race.

UK TV: There is continuous coverage encompassing both races from 4am UK time, with only a short break between races (which is utterly crazy with the damage this place can cause). It is repeated at 11.35am on Eurosport 2.

NASCAR Sprint Cup

- Ford 400
- Homestead Miami Speedway, Homestead, Florida, USA
- www.nascar.com
- UK TV: SKY SPORTS XTRA at 8pm Sunday
- US TV: LIVE on ABC at 2.30pm ET Sunday

Jimmie Johnson holds a large points lead going into the final round of the long, long NASCAR year. He's pretty much guaranteed unless there's one of those famous crashes all the "fans" apparently want to see, although since they pay points just for turning up perhaps they should give him the Cup now...

NASCAR Nationwide Series

- Ford 300
- Homestead Miami Speedway, Homestead, Florida, USA
- www.nascar.com
- US TV: LIVE on ESPN2 at 4pm ET Saturday (not covered in UK)

Speaking of just turning up, Kyle Busch only needs to start this race to secure the 2nd tier title.

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

- Ford 200
- Homestead Miami Speedway, Homestead, Florida, USA
- www.nascar.com
- US TV: LIVE on SPEED at 7.30pm ET Friday (not covered in UK)

I know nothing of this series and I'm not sure I know anyone who does..

Intercontinental Rally Challenge

- Rally of Scotland
- Perth to Stirling, Scotland
- www.ircseries.com

This is the IRC's maiden visit to the UK. There will be updates throughout the weekend on Eurosport including live stages! Tune at 8.45am and 4pm Friday, 9am and 1.45pm Saturday, and 6am and 7.15pm Sunday.

Australian V8 Supercars

- Barbagallo, Australia
- www.v8supercar.com.au
- Penultimate round

Weekend Preview 5-6 December 2009

Just for completeness, the final round of V8s is in two weeks' time:

Australian V8 Supercars

- Oran Park, Australia
- www.v8supercar.com.au



That's it! After these races the 2009 season is over. The first event of 2010 is the Dakar which is in South America again in early January, then the IRC opens the 'regular' season with the Monte Carlo Rally on the weekend of the 23rd. The first circuit race of note is the Daytona 24 Hours at the end of January, a mere two months away.

Thanks to the following sources this season:
FORIX;
Autosport magazine;
RadioTimes.com;
LiveSportOnTV.com;

Mercedes Grand Prix

Yet more big changes among the F1 teams for 2010! Not only do we get get a raft of new teams, the departure of BMW (who may yet come back in a new form) and Toyota, now we also have Mercedes completely restructuring their involvement after a long unbroken run with McLaren.


McLaren
Mercedes presently own 40% of the McLaren F1 team (not the group as a whole though). The problem Mercedes faced is that while they are the largest single shareholder, the others hold an agreement by which they vote as a single block, thus having the power to veto Mercedes. There is also the new supercar which is the first McLaren-built road car in years not to feature a Mercedes engine.

Plan: The 40% shareholding will be reduced gradually over the next 18 months or so and for the 2010 season (and beyond??) the team will still be called Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. The engine supply agreement remains and, for now, so does the colour scheme.


BrawnGP
After Honda departed F1 the team has had to cut back somewhat in personnel, and it still seemed to suffer the same problem as it always had under every incarnation, that of not being able to attract long-term sponsors. With benefactors like BAT and Honda it was never necessary only desired, indeed Honda effectively bankrolled the 2009 season. It was anyone's guess what would happen in 2010 and beyond. Yet amazingly the came from nowhere to dominate the first half of the season, and while it went south after that they managed to battle on to secure both championships.

Plan: Mercedes have bought 75.1% of the team in an agreement with a Middle Eastern investment company. The team will henceforth be known as Mercedes GP and the cars branded as 'Silver Arrows', harking back to the famous cars of the 1930s and 1950s. Ross Brawn remains in charge but will liaise with Norbert Haug.


Drivers:
Rubens Barrichello left Brawn last month and had already signed for Williams to replace Nico Rosberg, who was looking to leave that team. Nico had therefore been linked with the vacant Brawn seat in a straight swap and now Mercedes have a greater involvement the deal appears as good as done.

The big question is over the future of Jenson Button. There are strong reports placing him at McLaren with a pay rise, doing nothing to quell his reputation as a money-chaser. At least this time he's earned it. I am not sure what placing himself in what is Lewis Hamilton's personal team is going to acheive for Button other than damaging his career, he must be confident in his ablility to beat him. It will be interesting to see him try!
At this stage it could still be an elaborate bluff and Kimi Raikkonen could still get that seat, though you have to say that possibility is shrinking daily. In fact just this evening Kimi's manager has stated any chance with McLaren has now disappeared.

That leaves a space at MercGP. Will Kimi end up there? Are the Heidfeld rumours a ploy by the Kimi or Jenson to get more money (either take us for mega $$ or end up with Nick), and is that how he gets himself hired? What is the fate of Heikki Kovalainen?

Lots of questions still need answering. One thing's for sure, this is a much bigger deal for the ex-Brawn team than the Virgin deal suggested a while back and perhaps that's why Virgin are now hooking up with Manor.

One final point I saw mentioned:
Among entrants this makes BrawnGP the most successful team in history, in terms of strike rate.
Years entered: 1
Drivers titles: 1
Constructors titles: 1
Maximum score.

Standards

There is a lot of rumour and speculation in the motorsport world. There isn't anything wrong with a good bit of rumour on fan sites, blogs and discussion groups. It helps keep us all interested and we all like a good "what if" scenario over a pint.

Problems occur when these rumours are presented as hard news and people start believing them to be true. Us hardcore fans can often see through it but I'm sure we've all been in the situation where a casual fan, or just someone who knows we are fans, strikes up a conversation based on a falsehood and you have to patiently explain to them why they are wrong.

The respected F1 journalist Joe Saward has written on his blog about this problem and a fascinating discussion broke out in the comments. It is very long but it is worth reading every comment. This is about the future of web journalism.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/thieving-from-the-thieves/

For a while now a certain agency has presented rumour as news. I will never write an article based on the output of this agency. People like that give the web a bad name among traditional media and among the people being written about.

2nd F1 Bloggers and Friends Karting Competition

Anyone for karting?

Alianora from La Canta Magnifica Blog is arranging the 2nd F1 Bloggers and Friends Karting Competition, to be held on Saturday 16th January 2010 in Birmingham, and I am going to be there.

This is just around the corner from the NEC where the Autosport International show is being held and the karting is planned to start as the show closes so that we can enjoy as much of the show as possible.

Here are the details:

Event: 2nd F1 Bloggers and Friends Karting Competition
Date: 16 January 2010 at 6pm (arrive by 5.45pm)
Location: Birmingham - that's England, not Alabama
Booking deadline: 30 November 2009
Booking and contact details here
Cost: £50

I've not driven a kart for about five years so I'm really looking forward to this! There are several confirmed attendees already so we should get some good racing, and if we don't we'll at least have a good time trying.

If you can make it, contact Alianora to find out if places are still available.

I'm almost certainly going to the Autosport show on the same day so if I don't see you at the karting, perhaps I'll see you there?

Weekend Preview: 14-15 November 2009

There is only one major race meeting this weekend, with each of NASCAR's three main divisions holding their penultimate races of the season at Phoenix this weekend. The season will end at Homestead next week.

NASCAR Sprint Cup

- Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 presented by Pennzoil
- Phoenix International Raceway, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
- 1-mile oval
- www.nascar.com
- UK TV: SKY SPORTS XTRA at 8pm Sunday
- US TV: LIVE on ABC at 2.30pm ET Sunday

NASCAR Nationwide Series

- Able Body Labor 200
- Phoenix International Raceway, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
- www.nascar.com
- US TV: LIVE on ESPN2 at 4pm ET Saturday (not covered in UK)

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

- Lucas Oil 150
- Phoenix International Raceway, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
- www.nascar.com
- US TV: LIVE on SPEED at 7.30pm ET Friday (not covered in UK)


That's it! Nothing else. There is more happening next week when I will post the final Weekend Preview of 2009.

Thursday Thoughts: F1 Team Principal 2009

Who do I think deserves the theoretical title of F1 Team Principal of the Year 2009?

There are some strong candidates, particularly the men running the teams battling for the championship - after all most of expected it to be a fight between the 'usual suspects' of McLaren and Ferrari so the emergence of Brawn and Red Bull came as a pleasant surprise. That's not to take away from McLaren in particular who improved their car enormously.

When this question was first asked of me I only had one response. Ross Brawn. It had to be, didn't it? Brawn and his lieutenants not only developed a fantastic car pre-season but also found time to save the team from extinction. They'd built up such an advantage that the wave carried them through some pretty lean times in mid-season when the car just wouldn't work with the tyres, and yet despite those characteristics they still salvaged points from crap qualifying positions.

This is actually a close run thing. Christian Horner has arguably run the more sporting campaign with what would probably have been the fastest car on the grid if double-diffusers had been outlawed (their DD wasn't added until later) while allowing the drivers to race each other until surprisingly late into the season, which is how I prefer it to be. Webber was deployed in a 'support' role only when it became essential to do so. Now this may be an unfair comparison because Barrichello was still in the title running until Interlagos, yet it wasn't as clear cut at Brawn.. it almost seemed as if Rubens was being shuffled out of the way at times.

Still, the way RBR racked up points in the latter portion of the season shows they did a fantastic job and Horner has clearly turned the outfit into a Championship operation just as his fans from the Arden F3000 days, and I count myself as one of them, always hoped and suspected he eventually would - even if we didn't expect it this season! Still, RBR were a midfield team and Honda had fallen from even that position.

So, on balance, I give this award to Ross Brawn for his achievements in turning the team from back-of-the-grid no-hopers in 2008 to title winners in 2009. Frankly that's a hell of an accomplishment even without rescuing the team from extinction in the middle of it!

* * *
Blog Note

This is the first in what will hopefully be a weekly series as part of Sidepodcast's Thursday Thoughts initiative, in which a collection of F1 bloggers write about a chosen theme and post their entry at roughly the same time, currently slated to be 9pm GMT (a little late this week, it being the first week). Check out the idea here and if you have a blog feel free to join in!

Regular readers may remember I participated in a similar scheme during last off-season which was slanted around IndyCar. Unfortunately I couldn't keep up with it as I was studying heavily at the time, and it seems the concept has since been dropped entirely. I used my posts in that series to take a different angle to my colleagues, trying to relate the IRL questions to other championships as part of this blog's remit to cover a variety of racing. I plan to do the same with Thursday Thoughts wherever the questions allow it.

Race Notes: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2009

Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Date: 1 November 2009
Circuit: Yas Marina Circuit
Location: Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Distance: 55 laps
Tyre choices (red): SS / S / M / H

Coverage: BBC One
Anchor: Jake Humphrey
Analysts: David Coulthard (DC) and Eddie Jordan (EJ)
Interviewers: Ted Kravitz and Lee McKenzie

For this race I did not have the 5Live audio option on Freeview and the BBC's streaming version made each of my browsers crash (I tried FF and IE).

Does anyone know why this isn't called the UAE Grand Prix? Seems strange that after years of naming GPs after countries or territories we're naming this one after a city. Maybe the locals are trying to promote the place and get one up on their neighbouring Emirates.

Coverage begins at 12pm UK time.

A quick review of Brazil with new World Champion Jenson Button, Muse as backing music, works well. He says the last 3 laps were the longest laps he's ever driven. Very pleased to get it after 21 years of working for it, 21 years since his Dad put him in a kart.

Live in the paddock. Brawn garage. JB has a 'World Champion' sticker on his lid. Coulthard says for them this race is a celebration of a championship-winning year but he doesn't think they have the pace here to win.

A look of the points: The interest this weekend is that one point gap between McLaren and Ferrari.

Chatting with Richard Cregan, ex-Toyota F1 and has spent the last year or two overseeing the Yas Marina construction project. He says he likes the 'can do' attitude of the people in this part of the world.

Quali recap with Lee McKenzie, she points out:
Q1. Grosjean and Kovalainen spun. Alonso was very slow but he seemed to be expecting it.
Q2. Kovalainen then had transmission failure. Raikkonen slow.
Q3 in darkness. Hamilton very fast, Vettel tried hard but Hamilton lowered the bar considerably at the flag. Webber 3rd. Button had vibrations on the brakes.

Grid
Hamilton, Vettel
Webber, Barrichello
Button, Trulli
Kubica, Heidfeld
Rosberg, Buemi
Raikkonen, Kobayashi
Nakajima, Alguersuari
Alonso, Liuzzi
Sutil, Kovalainen*
Grosjean, Fisichella

*Kovalainen had a 5-place drop for a gearbox change.

We go to a review of Renault's year. A very fast review. Lots of ups and downs with the whole Piquet thing, Grosjean coming in, car sometimes fast and sometimes slow and now Alonso is off to Ferrari.

Review of BMW. Less of a review, more a 20sec montage to music and maybe two sentences after it. This is their 70th and final race and they only had one podium all year.

McLaren. Started with a terrible car and turned it around to become winners. The guys say Kovalainen is expected to leave the team (most of us expect Raikkonen to come in). DC says Heikki is capable of winning, given the chance - he just hasn't had the chance. (DC has been in the exact same situation against Mika.)

Ferrari. Worst ever start to a season, and the first season without a pole position since 1993. Massa injured, Badoer and then Fisichella in. Both they and we are looking forward to Alonso alongside Massa in 2010, it'll be a great partnership.

Seems that's it for the recapping the teams, apparently nobody cares about the rest.
We jump into a skit with Humphrey taking part in his first ever race in a Lotus Elise championship at Silverstone. This is show how hard it is to race, and also to promote GoMotorsport, getting more people involved in racing. (They cleverly used only a .net domain so I had to Google it to find it.) This piece is badly edited - he damaged the front of the car but it has mysteriously repaired itself..


Gridwalk
Martin Brundle and Eddie Jordan on the grid.

Boris Becker: "Amazing, they all say a lot before races how its gonna be but its all true what they say, amazing place."

350 British marshals are helping here, here's one of them: "Really good, fantastic experience, thanks to BARC for the opportunity and the ATC for accomodating us. I've been doing this 30 years, I've seen a lot of changes, its in my blood so I'll carry on. We're all a team."

Lewis Hamilton: "Great job all week, incredible feeling to be up front at the last race. We've got the pace and a good strategy to win. We never anticipated we'd be so fast at the end of the season though that was our goal."

Mark Webber: "Went pretty well yesterday in quali. Sensational circuit. Predict a good fight with JB, Lewis pretty strong and Seb and I, all three of us. For sure I'm not gonna do anything to hurt Seb's chances, totally in the team's interest not to lost too many points on that front."

Quick chat with cricketer Andrew Flintoff.. but I don't care. He says this is his first experience at a GP but I swear Brundle has talked to him elsewhere..

Richard Branson, arm in a sling. Says he turned a quad bike over and he just had an operation on the shoulder. EJ thanks him for swearing on TV before when everyone said Eddie would be the first (at the first race, no less).

Jay Kay. Says compared to this race, we've got a lot of catching up to do at home. One of the finest tracks in the world. Looking for a Ferrari podium.

Crown Prince of Bahrain: "It is spectacular, it does so much for the sport in the Gulf region." EJ layers on platitude after platitude on the Prince and Bahrain for introducing the sport to the region. The first race of 2010 will be held in Bahrain on March 14th.

Anthem of the UAE

Shots of the King Carlos of Spain walking on the grid with Bernie. Martin Brundle walks up and chats to him casually, as you do.. Not on mike this time.

Flypast by an Etihad jet. Jake calls it an Emirates jet despite the race being named after Etihad and there being giant Etihad banners all over the place. Sponsorship fail.

Replay of yesterday's piece with Martin and David racing two-seater F1 cars around the track a few weeks ago when it had just opened.. dust everywhere. Showing us the racing lines.

Ted Kravitz tell us who has improved the most since March. Ferrari are 2.8sec faster, Force India 2.6, Red Bull 2.0, BMW 1.8, Toyota 1.6, Brawn 1.0, with Renault and Ferrari much smaller gains. I recognise the music but I'm not sure what it is..
He also tells us about the fuel weights but it doesn't interest me.

Lee has found Ron Dennis. He's in an overview role at McLaren now. He says the team are doing a great job, quick interview because it is time to race.

Hah, the lead-in music is the KLF! 90s classic.
We're into the FOM intro.

Engines fired.

FORMATION LAP

55 lap race

1.2.3.4.5.hold.GO!

Hamilton leads immediately. Everyone clear and through lap one.

Replay: Webber cuts across Barrichello's nose and little pieces of Brawn go flying.

BMW and Toyota fighting.. I am having big trouble getting Firefox to stay open without crashing as it loads the 5Live audio feed, so I'm trying to fix that while following the busiest part of the race..

Hamilton building a big lead already!

L5 - Great helicopter shots.
L7 - CGI of the first corner showing everyone's positions! Not sure it was all that useful in this instance but it will be in future when existing camera angles aren't enough.

Heikki is told if he can't pass Kimi, he should save fuel instead. Millions of fans suddenly gather around their TVs to watch the amazing spectacle of guys saving fuel.

L10 - Not that good of a race at the moment, though Webber is fast and catching his teammate.

L13 - Lewis is told he has to pick up the pace, or fall into the clutches of the 1-stoppers.

F1 journalist @WillBuxton via Twitter:
"Apparently the Yas Hotel will be lit up in the colours of the flag of the winning driver at the end of the race."
That's crazy!!

L17 Barrichello and Kubica are the first to pit. They succesfully negotiate the tricky pit exit.
Hamilton sets the Fastest Lap.

L18 - Hamilton pits, so does Button. Button beats Kobayashi... no, side by side.. hairpin, and again along the straight, Button brakes too late and Kamui takes the position! He's a feisty one this new guy, isn't he?

L19 - Webber, Trulli, Rosberg, and Buemi pit. Hamilton is told he may have a brake problem.

L20 - Vettel pits and comes out in the lead!!

Ted Kravitz says McLaren are clearing a space in the garage!

Hamilton pits. Wow, he pulls into the garage and gets out of the car. We can hear Martin Whitmarsh telling Lewis that 'the data shows a problem, they might take it off and find nothing but they can't risk it.' With that long straight I concur, very big shame though, this basically kills the race stone dead.

L23 - It has all gone quiet again. Rosberg has been told to take risks because Trulli is slow.

Order:
Vettel, Webber, Kobayashi*, Button, Barrichello, Raikkonen*, Kovalainen*, Heidfeld, Trulli, Kubica, Rosberg, Nakajima*, Buemi, Fisichella*, Alonso*, Grosjean*, Sutil*
* yet to make their first (or only) stop

Kobayashi flying!

Hamilton with Lee: "Problem with the right rear brakes, it was too dangerous to continue. Struggling to stop the car."

Getting dark in Abu Dhabi now.

Brundle is talking about how Kobayashi had a poor GP2 season and Grosjean had a good one, yet F1 is all about absorbing pressure and Kobayashi is doing well with it, Grosjean isn't.

L28 Gaps opening between cars.. not much going on..

L30 Raikkonen pits.
L31 Kobayashi also in.
L32 Now for Kovalainen, can he beat Raikkonen? Yes, by some margin!

Wow, Sutil and Grosjean are side by side *without crashing*!

It got dark very quickly..

This is one of the most boring races of the season. The images coming through the TV look fantastic but that's not really enough - we could use some racing.

Kobayashi and Nakajima started next to each other... Kob is now 8th, Nak still where he started.

L42 Kubica vs Buemi, contact, spin! Kubica spins trying to get around Buemi, loses a place to Rosberg while he recovers.

L43 Vettel and Button pit. Seb has a clear lead and Button beats Barrichello!

All done bar the shouting. The only entertainment is watching the decorative lights on the hotel as they change colour. Blue. Orange. Purple. Different every lap, how can you get bored? Umm..

L45, 10 to go.

L49 Button is catching Webber at half a second per lap, but we are running out of laps.

L51 Vettel is only now putting laps on the back end of the field, strong pace from everyone yet still a boring race.. I wonder if that means lapping the backmarkers helps racing?

L52 Fisichella on Grosjean! Grosjean goes across the run-off and will have to give up the place for cutting the corner.
Brundle: "Its hardly going to change our day is it?"
Hah. Snark factor 50.

Button has caught Webber! Mark is all over the place, will he hold on?

LAST LAP

Great fight between Button and Webber, nice and clean, no weaving and Mark manages to hold him off. This is how it should be done. No hard blocking a la Kobayashi in Brazil.

SEBASTIAN VETTEL WINS!
Webber 2nd, Button 3rd.

Vettel screaming on the radio: "Bitte! Bitte! Kate's dirty sister did it again!"
A reference to the name he gave his car..

Donuts from Vettel but we can't see it because the director is showing us the crowd, and the hotel again.. it was showing a chequered flag! Not as good as a donut though..

About now @WillBuxton corrects himself when he realises it was a flag they were showing rather than the winner's colours..

Parc Ferme.

Replay of the donuts. FIA likes to penalise them. Brundle says donuts should be mandatory.

Drivers head upstairs.. Button talking to Webber, swears live on worldwide TV! Despite us being able to hear them all season, the drivers still haven't cottoned on to that fact..
Legard apologises on behalf of the BBC. I just realised I haven't mentioned Legard at all in these notes, did I mentally tune him out? Did I still listen and take in the info? I have no idea.

Podium

Anthems for Germany (Seb) and Austria (RBR). Sorry Austria, your anthem is way too long.

Trophies

Back to the guys. 19 weeks, or 133 days until we do it again. DC says, "it was a great bit of action on the last lap. Great spectacle in Abu Dhabi, incredible season."

Ross Brawn: "It was a great race. There are some things we could learn from the circuit, fabulous place. We haven't quite got the pace of Red Bull at the moment but we made the best of what we had. Our reliability record is stunning."

Pit board being held up behind the BBC guys, by a BrawnGP man: "Will you marry me Fatna?"
Hopefully she is race-mad and thinks this is romantic!
Boris Becker is around again.. Get James Corden off my TV screen, he's not funny.

Conference

Vettel, P1: "Had a very good start, not enough to beat Lewis but it was good, I was surprised. I was able to stay close enough, we were a little heavier. In the last sector the car was a dream today. Nearly went wide at pit entrance, unfortunately then he had to retire but up to that point it was a fantastic race, then we had a cushion to Mark and I could pace myself."

He's been drinking his sponsor's product, I can't keep up with his fast talking.

Webber, P2: "Made a pretty good launch (start), tried to get back on the inside, got hit quite hard on the left rear and was worried about a puncture, relieved it wasn't. Seb was just quicker today, especially the last stint. At the end, thought this is gonna be quite tight, we had a slight top speed advantage, we had a good clean fight. Want to thank the team for their patience with what happened (broken leg), my best season, 16 podiums together, very good."

Button, P3: "Fun race. Lot of understeer on the Prime tyre. Outbraked myself against Kobayashi but he was faster at the point anyway. The last couple of laps were a lot of fun, I was very excited about that battle, Mark is always difficult to overtake and it was clean but on the edge, it was perfect, I really enjoyed the fight. Today was a bonus after the championship in Brazil. Thanks to everyone at Brawn and Mercedes. Congratulations to Seb, sterling pace today and we didn't have the legs and we couldn't challenge them. I'm looking forward to coming back to Abu Dhabi."

Vettel again, what's next? "We'll face a long winter with no testing. The guys in the factory are pushing hard. No refuelling next year. This was a special season all round, hopefully next season will be just as exciting."

And so say we all!


Race Result

	Driver	Gap	Pts
1	Vettel	55 laps	10
2	Webber	17.8sec	8
3	Button	18.4sec	6
4	Barrichello	22.7sec	5
5	Heidfeld	26.2sec	4
6	Kobayashi	28.3sec	3
7	Trulli	34.3sec	2
8	Buemi	41.2sec	1
9	Rosberg	45.9sec
10	Kubica	48.1sec
11	Kovalainen	52.7sec
12	Räikkönen	54.3sec
13	Nakajima	59.8sec
14	Alonso	69.6sec
15	Liuzzi	94.4sec
16	Fisichella	1 lap
17	Sutil	1 lap
18	Grosjean	1 lap
DNF	Hamilton	Brakes
DNF	Alguersuari	Gearbox

Another win for Vettel and a deserved one. Even without Lewis' problems he could well have still won this race, he was fast enough and was catching Hamilton before the retirement.. of course we don't know how much of that was down to the brake issues.
I like the symmetry of the best four drivers and two teams of the season taking the top four positions in the final race, despite the resurgance of McLaren and Ferrari in the second half of the year.


Drivers' Championship

	Driver	Prev	AD	Total
1	Button	89	6	95	C
2	Vettel	74	10	84
3	Barrichello	72	5	77
4	Webber	61.5	8	69.5
5	Hamilton	49		49
6	Räikkönen	48		48
7	Rosberg	34.5		34.5
8	Trulli	30.5	2	32.5
9	Alonso	26		26
10	Glock	24		24
11	Massa	22		22
12	Kovalainen	22		22
13	Heidfeld	15	4	19
14	Kubica	17		17
15	Fisichella	8		8
16	Buemi	5	1	6
17	Sutil	5		5
18	Kobayashi	0	3	3
19	Bourdais	2		2

The top four drivers hammer home their advantage, yet it is the Red Bull drivers who made the most of this race with a maximum score for them. Surprisingly given recent form neither Raikkonen or Hamilton scored.
Heidfeld asserted himself over Kubica at the last gasp.
Buemi scored a decent haul this year for a rookie and a Toro Rosso driver.
Good to see Kobayashi get on the board, he's a hot prospect for the future.


Constructors' Championship

	Constructor	Prev	AD	Total
1	Brawn	161	11	172	C
2	Red Bull	135.5	18	153.5
3	McLaren	71		71
4	Ferrari	70		70
5	Toyota	54.5	5	59.5
6	BMW	32	4	36
7	Williams	34.5		34.5
8	Renault	26		26
9	Force India	13		13
10	Toro Rosso	7	1	8

Brawn and Red Bull cemented their significant advantage over the field, with RBR fighting to the last even though the titles had already been wrapped up.
McLaren and Ferrari are unchanged as the 'best of the rest'.
Toyota are a clear 5th with Williams just losing out to BMW at the final hurdle.
Toro Rosso prove that the last-placed team doesn't always have to score a flat zero.


Next Event

That's it for the season! Thanks to the BBC for their coverage, better than ITV's but still room for improvement in many areas. Thanks also to everyone for reading these and for bearing with the delays in these posts this season due to my studies. The next race is the 2010 Bahrain GP in March.

In the meantime I'll continue to blog through the winter as it takes my fancy, you may have noticed I don't really keep to a schedule! Watch out in particular for the F1 car launches in Jan/Feb, but before then I am going to try and catch up on the IRL and GP2 seasons. I'll also be active on the Twitter account and at Sidepodcast and in blog comments here, there and everywhere.

If you are the type to stop reading blogs during the offseason have a good break and I'll see you in March, I hope. If you are as obsessed with this stuff as I am, I'll be back very soon..


Flag courtesy of 4 International Flags

IZOD IndyCar Series

Congratulations to the Indy Racing League for securing a new sponsor for the IndyCar Series, which will henceforth be known as the IZOD IndyCar Series.

From all reports IZOD sound like a fantastic partner to work with, and not just reports from yesterday's announcement but also from during this season where they were a personal sponsor for Ryan Hunter-Reay. I like the attitude and marketing style they appear to bring to the series. I say 'appear' because living here in the UK I had never heard of them before they came to the IRL.

The announcement was webcast live last night, unfortunately the usual gremlins crept in and the feed was very quiet at first, then lost sound before dying completely. This is not unusual for IndyCar.com live streams, either pressers or races, and Allen makes a fantastic suggestion on how to fix it - the IRL team have some really good ideas but their tech and implementation don't seem to ever catch up, so imagine mixing those two groups of people.

So yeah, good news for the series which is finally starting to heal some of the old wounds of the past. First the reunion, now the sponsor, next.. the car?

Some have attempted to spin this as Tony George doing good. Ha. No. He is the cause of the mess we are only just crawling out of. We haven't quite got to the 'standing up and dusting ourselves down' bit yet, but we will.

Anyway, good to have some positive news after what has been a bit of a negative week for the rest of motorsport.

Presumably this means the series acronym will now be IICS - for those not following closely, i.e. most reading this I presume, over the last 18 months or so they've been redefining 'IRL' to refer to the sanctioning body rather than the championship, so the series has sort of started to be called the ICS, for IndyCar Series. So we now have IRL IICS. Not catchy.. needs work.

Jeff Olson has a good piece over on AUTOSPORT.

EDIT - IndyCar.com has a nice landing page explaining it all, though unfortunately the main site underneath is still a mess and has auto-run video (it is video of the announcement though, so check it out).

F1 2009 for Wii and PSP

I'm getting excited about the new F1 2009 game coming out for the Wii.

I know, I know, it isn't a 'proper' gaming system and F1 2010 for the PS3 / X-Box will be far better - but I don't own either of those things and that game isn't out in two weeks' time.

This is the first officially-licensed F1 game to launch on a non-Playstation system for years (damn that Sony and their exclusivity deal) and even the last PS game was some 3yrs ago, so you can imagine a lot of us are getting quite excited!

Check out this video which explains how the game will appeal to novices and the experienced alike:



(that's Anthony Davidson, BAR/Honda/BrawnGP test driver, alongside David Croft of BBC Radio 5 Live, and also quotes from a game developer)

I know, the Wii graphics are not stellar. I.Don't.Care. I get to play an F1 game online without needing to bother spending hours on car setups, a pricey console or a proper wheel, or in the case of the PC I don't have to worry about graphics cards and drivers and 'will it run on my system?'. How cool is that?!

Of course, I almost certainly will spend hours on car setups and if they release a proper wheel I'll probably get it... but that's not the point. If I just want to pick up a controller and have a quick race against Button and Hamilton around Interlagos, I can. In 2 weeks time, I will.


Just to say this hasn't been a paid piece or something done for a PR company, I did this off my own back because I'm genuinely looking forward to it.

Weekend Preview: 7-8 Nov 2009

Pretty much all of the major events of the 2009 season are now in the history books so this series is winding down. I'll keep going in a reduced format as long as there is something notable going on.

Feature Events

MotoGP

- GP Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana
- Circuit Ricardo Tormo
- Valencia, Spain
- (17/17)
- www.motogp.com
- 250cc (last ever), 125cc, etc

Valencia is the traditional finale to the MotoGP season and this year is no exception. Reasonable circuit, seems to me MotoGP is the only series to actually produce decent racing at this track. The title having been won, the only thing of note that I can think of is the demise of the 250cc support class, to be replaced by the new Moto2 category in 2010.

UK: LIVE on BBC Two at 12.30pm
US: DELAYED on SPEED at 6pm ET

Other Events

Single Seater:

Superleague Formula

- Jarama
- Jarama, Spain
- (6/6)
- www.superleagueformula.com
- Eurosport: Race 1 live on E2 at 9am Sunday // Race 2 live on E2 at 11.30am Sunday // Shootout live on E2 at 12.30pm

The only open-wheel action this week outside of SudamF3 is the SF finale at Jarama, which could be fun. I've never seen a race at Jarama and apparently these cars make the frankly ridiculous concept of the series worth checking out.

Stock Car:

NASCAR Sprint Cup

- Dickies 500
- Texas Motor Speedway, Forth Worth, Texas, USA
- www.nascar.com
- UK TV: SKY SPORTS XTRA at 8.30pm Sunday
- US TV: LIVE on ABC at 12.30pm ET Sunday

I can't make sense of this. I've double-checked and Sky says 8.30pm is live. ABC says 12.30pm is live. There is not an 8hr time difference between ET and UK and I can't believe there is a 3hr pre-race show.

NASCAR Nationwide Series

- O'Reilly Challenge
- Texas Motor Speedway, Forth Worth, Texas, USA
- www.nascar.com
- US TV: LIVE on ESPN2 at 12pm ET Saturday (not covered in UK)

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

- Winstar World Casino 350
- Texas Motor Speedway, Forth Worth, Texas, USA
- www.nascar.com
- US TV: LIVE on SPEED at 8.30pm ET Friday (not covered in UK)

Sports Car / Touring Car:

V8 Supercars

- Phillip Island
- Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia
- www.v8supercar.com.au

Super GT

- Twin-Ring Motegi
- Motegi, Japan
- www.supergt.net/en


Also for those in the UK I believe the new series of Top Gear begins on Sunday.


* * * *
Sources
FORIX (sub req.)
Live Sport on TV
RadioTimes.com
Series websites as mentioned
Autosport magazine

Race Notes: Brazilian Grand Prix 2009

Formula 1 Grande Premio Petrobras do Brasil 2009
Date: 18 October 2009
Circuit: Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace
Location: Interlagos, São Paulo, Brazil
(PitlaneFanatic) (AerialF1)
Distance: 71 laps
Tyre choices (red): SS / S / M / H

Coverage: BBC One with BBC Radio 5 Live audio
Anchor: Jake Humphrey
Analysts: David Coulthard (DC) and Eddie Jordan (EJ)
Interviewers: Ted Kravitz and Lee McKenzie

R5 commentary: David Croft (Crofty) and Anthony Davidson (Ant)
R5 interviewer: Holly Samos

Coverage begins at 4pm UK time.

NOTE - My notes will be shorter than usual because this race happened the day before I moved to a new address, so the time I hoped to watch a replay to catch the quotes was actually spent moving all my stuff. Also, I'll be honest, I thought I'd posted this already. Apologies.

Points situation:

- Button only needs to finish 3rd or better to secure the title today, no matter what Barrichello or Vettel do.
- Barrichello needs to win the race with Button scoring no higher than a single podium position from the last two races.
- Vettel can mathematically win but he needs to win both races and hope the Brawn team has a nightmare.


71 lap race.

Grid

Barrichello, Webber
Sutil, Trulli
Raikkonen, Buemi
Rosberg, Kubica
Nakajima, Alonso
Kobayashi, Alguersuari
Grosjean, Button
Vettel, Kovalainen
Hamilton, Heidfeld
Fisichella
Liuzzi took a 5 place penalty for a gearbox change and he's at the back


Rubens spoke to Jake after qualifying:
"My engineer Jock Clear was so loud on the radio, it is the first phase of acheiving the dream. I have [the chance] to win the championship but also I've tried for years to win the Brazilian GP."
Says he's relaxed.

Big focus on Rubens and his guys at the moment from the BBC. Talking with Jock now.

Switching to Button. [I'll be honest again... I mentally tuned this out in the live show because we've heard so many interviews with JB this season, and I was hoping to pick up the quotes later in the week. Oops.]

Felipe! He's recovering and looking forward to next season, he's looking for a good race from Ferrari but also from Rubens.

Half an hour to the start.

Martin Brundle joins us to talk about recovering from accidents, replays of Interlagos some years ago when Jos Verstappen's Benetton hit him on the head.. Ouch.

Lee caught up with Vettel:
"We are ready to fight and to attack today. Let's see what happens today, it's a very long race here and the last two years have been exciting. Right now the sun is shining but maybe later we'll see some showers, we have some good pace. I am motivated, I know it's not an easy position to start from, we will see."
Says he's aiming for 1st or 2nd - he needs to or he's out of the title fight.

Replay: Something has come off Vettel's car as he made his way to the grid, DC says it could be dry ice or the drinks system.


Martin's Gridwalk
He's on the start line.
Rubens, he waves at the crowd, can you do it? "Yeah, I can. I have a great car in these conditions. If it does rain we need to get it correct at the time, it's a lottery. My feet are on the ground, we push as hard as we can."

Mark Webber, a race you can win? "Yep, we'll give it us our best shot and quiten down the fans who want Rubens to win. The crowd up there are very passionate and emotional but they are racers too and we'll give them something. After quali I said to Rubens, 8 points will be enough, give me 10! We're in good shape."

Martin trying to get down seven rows on the grid, which he's not done before, to speak to Button and Vettel. En route he spies Kobayashi.
Kamui: "Yesterday was difficult conditions, our performance was really good. Today is another day in dry conditions." Just a quickie..

Interrupts Tanya yet again! Running theme for the season has been Martin interrupting German TV's gridwalk.
Vettel: "It's a long way from the bottom end of the grid but we'll see what we can do from here."

Button is not on the grid! Neither are the McLaren guys. No interviews so Martin bails out.

Brazilian National Anthem
Terrible sound quality! We can hardly hear the singer. This may be a blessing.

Button with Lee: "I'm feeling good, a circuit I enjoy racing on, nice and hot. It's gonna be a challenge. We'll make the best of it."

The BBC track guide with Mark Webber went in here somewhere. At this point before the race I'm busy getting myself a drink to consume during the event, so I don't usually see the track guide.

Ted, fuel weights:
[I think I was still getting a drink because I have no notes and Ted does this at rapid-fire pace, making it hard to follow even if you aren't trying to transcribe]

Both David and Eddie say they don't think Button will win this race.


Grid

Barrichello, Webber
Sutil, Trulli
Raikkonen, Buemi
Rosberg, Kubica
Nakajima, Alonso
Kobayashi, Alguersuari
Grosjean, Button
Vettel, Kovalainen
Hamilton, Heidfeld
Fisichella
Liuzzi took a 5 place penalty for a gearbox change and will start from the back or pitlane or something.


Live Notes

I'm now on 5Live coverage. 5 mins to go.

Engines fired.

Formation Lap

All drivers on hard tyres apart from Kimi, Lewis and Nick.

Grid. Tense yet? I am!

1.2.3.4.5.. Go!

Rubens leads, crash! Ferrari and McLaren. Kovalainen. Now Sutil and Trulli crash!
SAFETY CAR
Alonso hasn't come through. Trulli and Sutil out of their cars, a fight nearly breaks out!
oh FIRE in pitlane, fire in pitlane. Kovalainen pits and takes the fuel hose with him which spills fuel all over Raikkonen, it catches light briefly. Heikki stops and then rejoins. Not sure who got the hose off him. [it was Brawn apparently]

Replays:
Vettel taps Kovalainen into a spin forcing Fisichella wide.
Sutil and Trulli come together, Trulli tried going outside and ran out of road, he should have backed off.

RESTART

Barr, Web, Ros, Kub, Buemi, Naka, Koba, Gros, But, Alg, Vet, Heid, Fisi, Ham, Rai, Kov

Kubica passes Rosberg on the restart.
Button vs Grosjean! Jenson takes him at last, good racing.

Button is straight up to the back of Nakajima and passes him! He's now 7th, worth 2pts.
Hamilton passes.. someone.. lots of passing all over the field.

Trulli talking to Holly - he says they should ban Sutil for the next race, immediately! Crofty says he should look at a replay and I agree.

Kovalainen passes Grosjean

Action all the way, I haven't had time to mark a lap counter! This is lap 9 of 71.

L9 - Fastest lap from Webber. Button has got bottled up behind Kobayashi.

L11 - Things have settled a bit, I can get my breath back. Barrichello leads Webber by 1.8sec with Kubica 3rd and Rosberg 4th, Buemi 5th, Kobayashi then Button.

L14 - Laps tick by quickly here, only 1m14s.
Button radio: "Kobayashi is 2 laps longer"

L16 - Pitlane incident involving Kovalainen is under stewards' investigation
L17 - Stewards will investigate Trulli/Sutil incident after the race.
Holly reports from McLaren that Heikki was released early by the team (i.e. he didn't take off by himself).

L19 - Tweet from @OfficialBrawnGP: #F1 Third fastest lap in a row for RB.
L20 - Heidfeld is the first of the scheduled stoppers.
L21 - Barrichello pits from the lead, where will he come out.. he's behind Nakajima and ahead of Vettel for 9th - but Vettel passes him immediately.

L22 - Heidfeld has stopped by the side of the track. That long run of no-DNFs and now they are all coming at once. Teammate Kubica pits, he's out behind Vettel who has pulled a gap on the heavier Barrichello.

L24 - Button passes Kobayashi! Off-screen while we watched Rosberg pit.. We get a replay, sold him a dummy! Ducked right then left to fool Kamui, nice move.
L25 - Great stuff between Nakajima and Kobayashi, side by side!

L26 - Webber pits and he's ahead of Barrichello by some way, Rubens has a problem? Rubens' problem is he's back in traffic!

L27 - Rosberg is slowing, that's another top 5 car for Button not to worry about.
Holly: "No fuel went into Heidfeld's car at his stop, he pulled over because he'd run out."
Oops.

L29 - Button pits from 2nd place, Kovalainen also in from 8th.
Button is out between the Toro Rossos of Buemi and Alguersuari.

L30 - Kobayashi pits, so does Alguersuari.

Big crash from Nakajima at turn 4!

L32 - Ah bugger, looks like Kobayashi just moved over on Nakajima, took his wing off.. Kamui is good but he weaves a bit, that was completely his fault.

L33 - Button dives under Buemi at turn one, committed move, nicely done. Jenson is getting a lot of passing done today.

L35 - Holly update: Rosberg retired due to gearbox failure.

The track is still dirty where Nakajima went off. Mud everywhere.

L37 - Vettel pits from 2nd place. He's out behind Button for 7th. Took the hard tyre. Fisichella was also in, from 9th.

L40 - After the first stops, Webber leads by 6.3 over Kubica, who is 6.3 ahead of Barrichello and a closely-following Hamilton, then 13.1 to Raikkonen and 1.5 to Button and Vettel who are together.

L42 - Hamilton pits, he's off Barrichello's tail and out behind Liuzzi in 8th.

L43 - Raikkonen pits and is out in clear air.

L44 - Steven Roy in the Sidepodcast comments has noticed on the live timing screens the humidity graphs are going vertical - is rain approaching?

L45 - We can see dark clouds approaching.

Button radio - "Hamilton is fuelled to the end, we need 14.4s."
Jenson needs to stop again but Lewis pitted under the Safety Car.

L48 - Webber is pulling a lead on the field.

L50 - Barrichello pits from 2nd, he's in clear air ahead of Hamilton.

51 laps completed, 20 to go

L52 - Webber pits from the lead, he takes the softer tyre for the final stint.

L53 - Vettel took another set of hard tyres but may have enough fuel to make the end.. when will he use the soft tyres? Splash and dash or hoping for rain?

L55 - Button pits, and he's out alongside Kovalainen.... Heikki beats him!
L56 - Vettel pits for those softer tyres, and he beats Kovalainen and Button!

L57 - Order: Webber, Kubica, Barrichello, Hamilton, Vettel, Kovalainen, Button, Raikkonen, Buemi, Fisichella.

L59 - Raikkonen is catching Button.
L60 - Kovalainen pits! That releases Button into clear air.

Kubica is having an anonymous run to 2nd, we've barely seen him.

L61 - Hamilton passes Barrichello into the front straight! Lewis 3rd, Rubens 4th.

L63 - Noo!! Rubens has a puncture! It's all over. congratulations to Jenson Button who will win the title - and he put in a good drive for it too.

L65 - Rubens is now running 8th. Such a crap way for this to end - if he'd lost the title by finishing 3rd that's fine and that's the way it was going, but to lose it to a puncture... If Webber DNFs, that puncture would have made all the difference.

L67 - Button radio: "Chance of a few drops of rain near the end."
Replay of Kobayashi diving by Fisichella! Great move! Fisi does seem to go to sleep near the end of races.

L69 - Two laps to go. Kobayashi has impressed everyone with his drive today, and Kubica is having a great run too.

L70 - Final lap

L71 - Felipe Massa waves the chequered flag as Mark Webber wins!!
Jenson Button is the Champion!! BrawnGP are the Champions!!

Congrats to all concerned, a great effort.


Button on the radio: "We Are The Champions!"

Barrichello applauds his team-mate as they circulate the cool-down lap together.

Parc Ferme

Button and Barrichello congratulate, Hamilton comes over too.

Jenson is running around to different people to celebrate!

Podium
Advance Australia Fair for Webber
Austrian anthem for Red Bull
Trophies. It seems drivers have been presented with the logo of the Klingon Empire as a trophy? What we do know is that they have been recycled from local rubbish. No, really. I'm struggling to find a link but it was plastic reused and remoulded to make the trophies.

Champaaaagggneee!

BBC crew in the middle of the Brawn garage with Jenson, the only thing I've got from it is:
"Kobayashi is absolutely crazy!"

The world's media is surrounding the BBC interview, cameras and bodies everywhere. Scenes of all the mechanics and engineers celebrating with a beer (whoever got that one-race sponsorship deal on the sidepods of the cars for the Brazilian beer company was a GENIUS).

Sebastian Vettel isn't in a very good mood at all and reportedly isn't talking to anyone.

Meanwhile, lots of celebrating and interviews with all from the Brawn team. Yes they've been the focus of a lot of attention this year and it has been a little annoying at times, but let's just remind ourselves that this team almost ceased to exist last December. The turnaround in fortunes is astonishing so well done to them.


Race Result

	Driver	Gap	Pts
1	Webber	71 laps	10
2	Kubica	7.6sec	8
3	Hamilton	18.9sec	6
4	Vettel	19.6sec	5
5	Button	29.0sec	4
6	Räikkönen	33.3sec	3
7	Buemi	35.9sec	2
8	Barrichello	45.4sec	1
9	Kobayashi	63.3sec
10	Fisichella	70.6sec
11	Liuzzi	71.3sec
12	Kovalainen	73.4sec
13	Grosjean	1 lap
14	Alguersuari	1 lap
DNF	Nakajima	Accident
DNF	Rosberg	Gearbox
DNF	Heidfeld	Fuel
DNF	Sutil	Accident
DNF	Trulli	Accident
DNF	Alonso	Accident

Nice to see Mark pick up another win, shame nobody will remember it with the focus on the title win! Robert seemed to go completely unnoticed in the broadcast and yet finished second.
Vettel did manage to out-finish Button despite starting behind him, but it wasn't enough as both put in great drives. Despite the puncture Barrichello still picked up a point for 8th.
A good result for Buemi, too.


Drivers' Championship

	Driver	Prev	BR	Total
1	Button	85	4	89	C
2	Vettel	69	5	74
3	Barrichello	71	1	72
4	Webber	51.5	10	61.5
5	Hamilton	43	6	49
6	Räikkönen	45	3	48
7	Rosberg	34.5		34.5
8	Trulli	30.5		30.5
9	Alonso	26		26
10	Glock	24		24
11	Massa	22		22
12	Kovalainen	22		22
13	Kubica	9	8	17
14	Heidfeld	15		15
15	Fisichella	8		8
16	Sutil	5		5
17	Buemi	3	2	5
18	Bourdais	2		2

Congratulations to Jenson Button, the 2009 F1 World Champion!
Vettel's efforts see him overhaul Barrichello in the table, a valiant chase towards the end of the season but let down by poor reliability earlier in the year.
Webber manages to jump himself out of the clutches of the chasing duo of Hamilton and Raikkonen who cannot now beat him.
Kubica moves up a position and Buemi joins Sutil on 5 points.


Constructors' Championship

	Constructor	Prev	BR	Total
1	Brawn	156	5	161	C
2	Red Bull	120.5	15	135.5
3	McLaren	65	6	71
4	Ferrari	67	3	70
5	Toyota	54.5		54.5
6	Williams	34.5		34.5
7	BMW	24	8	32
8	Renault	26		26
9	Force India	13		13
10	Toro Rosso	5	2	7

Congratulations to BrawnGP, the 2009 F1 World Champions!
Red Bull's chase came strong in the end but the points lead built up earlier on was good enough for Brawn to hold on.
McLaren and Ferrari switch positions again in the fight for 3rd.
BMW jump Renault with a strong haul of points.
Toro Rosso put some more on the board too, I can't remember when the last-placed team scored as many points as this. Perhaps I'll check for the season round-up.


Next Event

Abu Dhabi. (Blogger deleted what I had here and I can't be bothered to fix)

Flag courtesy of 4 International Flags