"Bernie Ecclestone offers prosecutors $100m bribe to avoid bribery charges"

From Newsthump:

Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone has offered German prosecutors $100m in order to make his bribery charges go away.

The 83-year-old billionaire went on trial in April, charged with bribery, but those charges might now go away if he can line the correct German pockets with the right amount of money...

Film Review: Rush

Many years ago, I was into F1 Grand Prix racing and got involved in crowd marshalling. And my memory of that is getting a headache because I forgot to put my earplugs in when marshalling next to the track as all those loud F1 cars came past.

Along with many other things, it's something that the film Rush gets really right - the sound of the cars. It also has two leads that do a very good job of playing Niki Lauda and James Hunt (Daniel Bruhl really gets Lauda right). The period detail is spot on. The racing sequences are brilliant - close-up racing shots, beautiful scenery shots - I could watch it again just for how great the film looks.

And while it does play up the rivalry more than what was really there, and Lauda's robot like manner, it does tell a really good story about rivalry and in the case of Niki Lauda, how far he was prepared to go to get back in a racing car to win.

It's available on Amazon Instant as well as Blu-Ray and DVD and I thoroughly recommend it. I don't think you even need to be an F1 fan.

"Schumacher has 'conscious moments' - agent"

From the BBC:

F1 champion Michael Schumacher is showing "moments of consciousness" after months in a coma, his agent has said.

Sabine Kehm said in a statement to the media that he was "making progress", adding that they remain "confident". Doctors in France have been working to bring the seven-time champion out of a medically induced coma...

An ICU nurse reported that during his brief period of consciousness, the seven-times world champion had grasped his bed's remote control, deliberately collided with the bed next to him and then manoeuvred himself into the doorway, preventing former world champion Damon Hill from leaving the room.

"Lewis Hamilton's poor performance is getting boring for fans, says Sebastian Vettel"

From The Daily Mirror:

The German racing driver compared Hamilton's disappointing drives to that of long-time also-rans David Coulthard, Johnnie Herbert and Eddie Irvine.

The consistent loss of form of former World Champions such as Kimi Raikonnen, Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button is turning Formula 1 into a snoozefest for fans, according to the likeable young German.

The German romped to his fourth successive victory in a Wacky Races of a Korean Grand Prix to move to the brink of a fourth successive title. The Red Bull racer chalked up his sixth win in eight races and eighth of the year, even if it was not by the 30-second margin of the last round in Singapore.

He also moves 77 points clear of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who is at least putting up a fight.

“I feel for the British fans because I remember watching when Damon Hill threw away Championship after Championship,” said Vettel. “I remember watching the start, going to sleep, then waking up when it ended because I already knew what would happen.

"Hill's car would fail, he'd make an unforced error and hit a tyre wall or Schumacher would shunt him off in the last lap of the 1994 Australian Grand Prix.

"Which was pretty shitty of him, even I as a German would admit that."

"Rush"

From imdb.com and Wiki:

Set against the sexy, glamorous golden age of Formula 1 progressive rock in the 1970s, the film is based on the true story of a great musical rivalry between handsome English playboy guitarist James Hunt (Allex Lifeson), and his methodical, brilliant opponent, Austrian bass player Niki Lauda (Geddy Lee).

The story follows their distinctly different personal styles on and off the sixteen-track, their loves and the astonishing 1976 season in which both retreated to the United Kingdom to record "A Farewell to Kings" at Rockfield Studios in Wales.

They are willing to risk everything to become world champion in a sport with no margin for error: if you introduce synthesizers, lengthy songs reminiscent of miniature concept albums and highly dynamic playing featuring complex time signature changes, you die.

Following mixed reviews, their album “2112” crashes badly at the Nürburgring in 1976 and Lauda loses his hearing in one ear. Hunt sacks his entire pit crew after they mistakently tune his engine in the key of F but finally becomes World Champion when the rain-soaked Japanese Grand Prix has to be abandoned because of fans running on to the track shouting “Wally!” during the quiet bits.

The JPS-Lotus team's druumer Mario Andretti (Neil Peart) makes a late cameo appearance during the closing credits, explaining that he has just finished packing up his 83-piece drum kit and loading it into the truck.

Women in F1

I thought I'd write a little something about Stirling Moss' comments about women drivers in F1:-

Moss, 83, told BBC Radio 5 live: "I think they have the strength, but I don't know if they've got the mental aptitude to race hard, wheel-to-wheel."
But F1 hopeful Susie Wolff, 30, responded: "I completely disagree with him. It makes me cringe hearing that."
Italian Lella Lombardi was the most prolific female F1 driver, starting 12 races in the 1970s and scoring half a point.

Just to explain Lella Lombardi's achievement: she came 6th, in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix, in a dreadful race where 5 spectators died, where the race was stopped before half distance, and with a total of 7 finishers, just ahead of a rookie in his first race in an F1 car. And that's it for the sum total of points for women in F1. Ever.

Susie Wolff, is someone who has raced for 7 seasons in touring cars in Germany and got a grand total of 4 points in that time. That is to say, finished 7th in 2 races out of around 100. She isn't an "F1 hopeful" on that track record. If she disagrees with him, perhaps she should produce some evidence to counter it.

Of course, what Moss did was to look at the facts, consider what wasn't causing it, and arrived at a conclusion based on what was left. It's just not a conclusion that fits with the feminist line, which means it's heretical. I'm not sure I entirely agree with his conclusion - I suspect it's that men are generally less risk averse than women, but unlike his critics, he has at least engaged with the facts.

The world's most expensive car crash?

From The Metro:

US businessman Christopher Cox was involved in the world's most expensive car crash when the Ferrari 250 GTO he was driving collided with another vehicle.

???

I'd like to nominate the opening lap of the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, probably there are even more legendary car crashes than that.

Frank Williams doesn't do irony

Unsurprisingly, quite a few sports men have come out in favour of the First Past The Post voting system, the logic being that most races work on the basis of 'first past the post'.

Fair enough, but this is probably one of the worst analogies they could have chosen. In a single race, the aim is to see who's fastest, and whoever is 'first past the post' wins. I sorely doubt whether people campaigning for the Alternative Vote system have any problems with that.

But let's turn to Formula One genius Sir Frank Williams. If Formula One were truly 'first past the post' system then they would only need to have one race each year, and the car/driver combination which wins that race would the World Champion, end of.

Actually, a Formula One season is in fact far more similar to the AV system. In 2010 (for example) there were nineteen races, and points are awarded as follows: winning car/driver 25 points, second 18 points all the way down to the tenth car/driver who gets 1 point.

At the end of the season, whichever driver got the most points is the Driver's Champion and whichever team (= two cars/drivers) gets the most points is the Constructors' Champion. So in theory, a driver could become Champion without winning a single race if he managed to finish second or third in nearly every race and two other drivers shared the first places and otherwise placed badly.
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The Daily Mail article (see first link) also embeds the hopelessly confused No2AV video, the main bits of which are two parties forming a coalition and promptly burning their manifestos - isn't that a bit like the result we just had under FPTP? Seeing as No2AV is largely funded by the same people who fund the Conservative Party, are they not admitting how hopelessly unprincipled they are?

Jenson Button wins F1 World Drivers' Championship!!

That fifth place in Brazil just now clinched it. Unless of course 'they' retrospectively knock off a couple of points to make sure the championship isn't decided until the final race, as is traditional.


Yippee, well done Jenson etc.

FakeCharities - Tory-style (2)

We're all familiar with Labour's model of the fakecharity, i.e. set up and fund registered charities to 'campaign' for stuff that they wanted to do anyway and/or sub-contract government functions to favoured recipients.

The Tories have learned a thing or two, so to get away from the old model whereby they are openly in the pocket of 'industry lobby groups' or 'trade associations', they are now collaborating with righteous sounding organisations like the Public Health Commission or the Sustainable Consumption Institute. The latter was brought to my attention by David Phipps over at IndHome, who did an admirable job of fisking one of Call-Me-Dave's more moronic speeches, well worth a read, but let's dig a bit deeper.

As I explained a couple of months ago, the former is a food industry lobby group, and a bit of clicking tells us that the latter is a joint-venture between willing grant recipients at Oxford University and Tesco supermarkets, who want to dress themselves up as an 'environmentally friendly' business.

But then again, Labour are just as guilty of making concessions to particular businesses in exchange for money, starting with the Bernie Ecclestone donation, but other tips of that particular iceberg are their symbiotic relationship with Sainsbury's supermarkets, Lakshmi Mittal, Hinduja Brothers, Northern Rock and peddlers of 'sustainable energy', for example (there are dozens of others, but you get the general idea).

So I'm having another one of those Animal Farm moments: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

The only question which we might be able to answer is "What are we going to call these organisations?" They're not really fakecharities in the accepted sense but they're not quite industry lobby groups either. If anybody can think of a term that encapsulates the horror, please leave a comment!

Jeremy Clarkson on Formula One

From today's soaraway Sun:

... allow me to let you in to a little secret. All Formula One drivers are pretty much identical. Occasionally you get one — like Ayrton Senna — who’s 0.1 per cent better than the rest, but mostly they all have the same ability. I mean it. Some are in the sport because their dads paid. Some are there because their dads like to be on television. Some are there through luck and some through persistence. It doesn’t matter though. When it comes to driving, they are all the same...

What matters is the car... And so we arrive at the main reason why Formula One has been turned on its head this year. When Michael Schumacher started winning world championships, he was driving for a team that employed someone called Ross Brawn. When he moved to Ferrari and started winning world championships there, the team employed — Ross Brawn.

And in all that time, only one other team ever consistently mounted a serious threat. That would be McLaren using a car designed by someone called Adrian Newey. This year, of course, two new teams have risen to the top. Brawn, run by Ross Brawn and Red Bull, using a car designed by Adrian Newey.

He might be exaggerating slightly - and mentioning Ayrton Senna but not the evil genius Michael Schumacher is downright churlish - but the facts seem to stack up. Maybe the whole thing is down to Ross Brawn - who doesn't just design the car but make split-second decisions on tyre, fuel and pit-stop strategies as well - and Adrian Newey.

The Curse Of Jonah Is Lifted!

Guido Fawkes has documented The Curse Of Jonah in some detail, which appeared to be true. I had assumed, for example, that the success of Team GB at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was in part due to The Goblin King's refusal to attend the opening ceremony.

Just before the final Formula One Grand Prix race this afternoon, ITV broadcast a brief congratulatory message from The Goblin King, at which my heart sank. Presumably they didn't broadcast this in Brazil, because, I am happy to announce, Lewis Hamilton has just managed to win the World Championship.*

* As long as he is not subjected to a post-race penalty, as happened to him after the Belgian GP two months ago. Fingers crossed!

"Reverse F1 grids - Williams boss"

This idea is not new, and it might not 'work', but surely it's worth a try, just for one season or so?

Rugby, football, motor racing

I cheerfully admit that I might have a gene missing or something, but I just could not care less about 'sport', as defined. I am vaguely pleased when an English team wins something, but that's about it.

That means I am just as cheerful (or at least no more miserable) today as I was a week-and-a-bit ago. Sure, Russian football fans, South African rugby fans and Finnish Formula 1 fans might be a lot happier than they otherwise would have been, but how does this compare to the total disappointment of fans all the other countries, teams and drivers who didn't win?

Sport is a negative sum game, and reduces the sum total of human happiness, is all.