F1 Digest - Germany GP
- Length: 10:54
- Size: 10.1 MB
- File: digest40.mp3
- Transcript: digest40.pdf
- Torrent: digest40.torrent
The German Grand Prix had everything, strategy decisions, incidents, tyre issues, and plenty of overtaking. Listen to today’s F1 Digest to catch up with everything that happened.
The Race
Hamilton continued to show serious form, that’s two races in a row where he has outclassed everyone else. The run of unusual podiums continues though, with a Renault making an unexpected appearance.
Conclusions
Whenever the safety car comes out, it always causes controversy, although today perhaps more so than others. Confusion reigned supreme when some drivers pitted and others didn’t, and one in particular has the penalty to prove it.
July 20th, 2008 at 7:09 pmSteven Roy said:
You are working way too hard to get a show out that quickly. Great stuff though.
July 20th, 2008 at 7:12 pmRich said:
I thought Lewis was a bit unwise to mention the Kovy race track etiquette - people will think team orders exist. Fernando was miffed - not congratulating Junior for getting eight points for the team. SULK SULK SULK. Just how many incidents has DC been involved with this year - I am sure when he announced his retirement every on congratulated him as the moving black hole on the race track will finally disappear. Well done Christine for such a super-fast production of German GP digest!
July 20th, 2008 at 7:12 pmme said:
i heard much cussing of ferrari, due to the late arrival of their post race thoughts
July 20th, 2008 at 7:22 pmlou said:
Great weekend coverage Christine as always
That was very quick.
At least you can rest this evening and watch top gear 
July 20th, 2008 at 7:36 pmme said:
eh? one more podcast coming before midnight
at least that’s the plan.
July 20th, 2008 at 7:40 pmlou said:
I forgot about the sunday/monday show.
I look forward to the show then 
July 20th, 2008 at 7:43 pmCorey said:
I don’t know how you guys do it but its good. Are any of you surprised that Alonso didn’t congratulate his teammate because I certainly am not.
This has got to be the quote of the weekend
good one Rich
July 20th, 2008 at 7:47 pmLe BOL said:
One of the finest examples of Ronspeak.
“Heikki’s time will come. In difficult circumstances he raced tremendously well today - his overtaking manoeuvre on Robert Kubica was just sensational - and once again he showed a winner’s grit and determination. It’s a joy to have two drivers who are not only super-competitive but also super-cooperative.”
July 20th, 2008 at 8:24 pmLe BOL said:
http://www.motorsport.com/photos/popup.asp?N=148&I=f1/2008/ger/f1-2008-ger-xp-1091.jpg&FS=F1&SN=1_93.108.118.76:49352&S=F1
Wow!
July 20th, 2008 at 8:41 pmme said:
i have something to say about that, but, erm, lou’s probably reading
July 20th, 2008 at 8:54 pmRich said:
Although people have spoken of Bruno Senna and piloting an F1 car next year, today he was beaten by his team mate Karun Chandhok in GP2 - how about him for a STR drive next year? He did test drive an F1 Red Bull Racing. Of course being Indian I wonder if Force India might be interested in his services?
July 20th, 2008 at 9:00 pmAnson Williams said:
Great digest, I missed the race and you summed it up nicely.
BTW I think you made some maths errors with the Constructors points.
Pos Team Points (You said)
1 Ferrari 105 (114?)
2 BMW Sauber 89 (96?)
3 McLaren-Mercedes 86 (100?)
4 Toyota 25
5 Red Bull-Renault 24
6 Renault 23 (31?)
7 Williams-Toyota 16
8 Honda 14
9 STR-Ferrari 8
10 Force India-Ferrari 0
11 Super Aguri-Honda 0
July 20th, 2008 at 9:12 pmlou said:
I was watching top gear. No no please do elaborate, don’t let my bias for the man prevent you from saying your thoughts
I will just say one thing. Ray bans certainly got publicity from it. When Louise was interviewing Jenson he was speaking very light heartedly about them. Let’s be honest how else would he be noticed this weekend 
July 20th, 2008 at 9:14 pmRich said:
I was going to make rude comments about those sun-glasses!
July 20th, 2008 at 9:15 pmSteven Roy said:
I can’t believe Clarkson did enough damage to his neck in a road car to need to be taken away in an ambulance.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:15 pmGaulty said:
Oh the sunday/monday/tuesday/wednesday show
Uploading the pod now.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:16 pmRich said:
I was going to comment when I realised that ME had made a mistake in saying Macca had overtaken BMW Sauber. It is only a matter of time - the next circuit should suit Macca - I think!
July 20th, 2008 at 9:20 pmme said:
shoot really? apologies anson and all, will check and fix. thanks for the heads up.
i edited me comment, but it were too late, soz.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:20 pmScott said:
I was just checking for an update on Glock using Google News, and it would appear that it now provides you with a quote that’s supposedly relevant to your search. It gave me:
“Every time I’ve been to Hockenheim I have had really good races and I’ve won a few times.”
July 20th, 2008 at 9:21 pmJordan Allen said:
Button might be able to gain a hundredth a lap if he were to shave….
Hey! Jordan F1 is in third place in Fantasy Racers! I am finally back were I started as the third team to join up after “Sidepodcast Racers” and “Longitudinal Inertia” I wonder were they are now…..
July 20th, 2008 at 9:26 pmme said:
apparently slight confusion here because we checked the figures at the point f1.com were updating their stats and the figure got calculated twice. doh!
fix being recorded now, should be up very shortly. let’s keep it amongst ourselves eh?
July 20th, 2008 at 9:29 pmme said:
here’s the thing. for the second year running the car’s livery isn’t great. the overalls are somewhat suspect, does he have to make things any worse?
July 20th, 2008 at 9:34 pmlou said:
But the beard is nice
I heard an interesting fact the other day… not sure if it’s true. No driver with a beard has ever won the World Championship…
July 20th, 2008 at 9:38 pmChristine said:
Fixed now. Apologies, and thanks for letting us know.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:39 pmlou said:
aw the livery is ok. I still prefer Red bull’s but it’s better than last year. It’s… erm.. different
yeah the overalls are bad :)it’s a once off….a joke… I hope 
July 20th, 2008 at 9:39 pmme said:
and thanks for watching our backs
July 20th, 2008 at 9:49 pmSteven Roy said:
Drivers with beards have won races but not a championship. A few drivers with beards promised to shave them off if they won a race. John Watson shaved his off after he won Penske’s only GP win in Austria in 75/76 ish.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:53 pmSteven Roy said:
http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/hall_of_fame/
formula1.com have pictures of all the champions and facial hair is absent apart from the moustaches of Graham Hill, Rosberg and Mansell and off course the lamb chops on the side of the faces of JYS and Fittipaldi.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pmSteven Roy said:
How can you have Moto GP without Suzi Perry?
July 20th, 2008 at 9:58 pmLynch said:
Too right! My day is ruined!
July 20th, 2008 at 10:00 pmlou said:
ah so it is true
thanks.
yeah Jenson did, i think…
July 20th, 2008 at 10:25 pmRich said:
While the race was fun today - the commenting was quite subdued - less than 800!
I do want to comment on the Safety car and whether there was confusion. Certainly the live timings was producing some very strange results - that was confusing. I do not understand why people felt McLaren’s strategy was strange - I thought at the time it was brilliant.
Here are the facts - Lewis was a comfortable 1 to 1.5 secs faster than anyone else, Lewis is heavy on tires and the soft compound might not last until the end of the race so another pit stop might be necessary and if they brought both cars in they would stuff Kovy’s race. Any damage control analysis would say leave Lewis out. Had they brought Lewis in Kovy would be unlikely to have got any points although Lewis’ win would be secure. Kovy being co-operative allowed the team to score better today. I say well done Macca it was a good day.
Again with BMW-Sauber - Nick had a very long first stint so the SC was at the wrong window so they only pulled Robert in and prevented damaging their other driver’s race. If BMW Sauber were really clever they should have put Nick on a one stop strategy like Junior’s after his qualifying fiasco - with that they would have been in with a shout of winning - remember at his fastest with a clear track Nick put the fastest lap times up!
As far as I can see Brawn messed up Honda’s strategy - but well done Renault - that was a really good strategy - and frankly Junior drove brilliantly today!
July 20th, 2008 at 10:32 pmScott said:
The reason is that there are very strict FIA regulations governing grooming standards of world championis. Ask Loeb.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:34 pmRich said:
Mario is waxing about the KERS for next year - see the following…
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2008/7/8086.html
They are opting for using an electric system described as follows…
I think this explains why they have slipped back this year - realistically in the last three races they have been little if any better than Red Bull, Toyota or Renault.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:38 pmlou said:
lol
July 20th, 2008 at 11:05 pmLe BOL said:
He looks like Johnny Rotten in 1978! I think it’s not that bad, it’s a very striking image. You need to cheer up if you’re in Button’s shoes. Irvine did the same thing when he dyed his hair blond in 2000, coincidentally in Hockenheim.
http://www.grandprix.com/jpeg/phc/pger08/sun/alonso1-lg.jpg
A parody on Fittipaldi?
July 20th, 2008 at 11:13 pmme said:
i thinks maybe your expectations have been raised sir. for a relatively quiet race, that was more than respectable in my book.
norbert on the podium himself called it a “mistake”, watch here:
http://axisofoversteer.blo…h-about-massa.html
July 20th, 2008 at 11:32 pmlou said:
I have just been reading Sunday’s Red bulletin and it looks like the GP2 drivers like poker too. Link - page 3, top left.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:35 pmme said:
am i to assume that the girl in question is no longer part of the coverage?
July 20th, 2008 at 11:40 pmScott said:
Steven and Lynch can always watch The Gadget Show, tomorrow.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:43 pmScott said:
One of my comments has just been eaten by the moderation monster. No idea why - it didn’t contain a link or aught.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:45 pmChristine said:
Found it for you
July 20th, 2008 at 11:51 pmScott said:
Cheers Christine.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:56 pmlou said:
ooo i like the gagdet show
oh my comment is in moderation……..
July 20th, 2008 at 11:58 pmme said:
sorry bout that scott, it was kinda deliberate.
because lynch’s comments keep going into spam it’s hard to find ‘em. so we’ve started sending any comment with the word “lynch” in them into the moderation queue, and then we get a big red flag popup so we know it’s there.
in theory it also means lynch can edit the comment it as if it had appeared. i’ve no idea how long it’ll take to convince akismet that he’s a good chap really, but until we can, any time the word “lynch” appears your comment goes into the mod queue.
hope that clears it up a bit.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:59 pmlou said:
that would explain why mine has gone into moderation then…. ah that was stupid… now this one is in moderation
July 21st, 2008 at 12:02 amme said:
hehehehehe
i have a lot of red flags right now!
July 21st, 2008 at 12:06 amlou said:
ahaha
yeah sorry about my stupidity with that last comment really wasn’t thinking.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:30 amScott said:
Thanks for the explanation ‘me’. Much appreciated. We were having terrible spam problems at F1Break, which I’ve finally managed to get under control.
Is your anti-spam system DNSBL-based, then? The first one I implemented for F1Break was, but it was letting far too much stuff through.
F1Break is a relatively inactive blog, but gets a ridiculous amount of spam. It must be a nightmare for you guys, who no doubt receive significantly more. Even though we’ve now got the spam problem under control, I can’t just let it all sit there, otherwise the database will suffer. So it has to be purged regularly, but it takes me a while to go through the comments/trackbacks . I’m terrified of deleting genuine stuff.
We now have a new anti-spam system that uses Bayesian probability, and it works great. Although we really should have a contacts page, so people can alert us if their comment goes into moderation. But it needs to be easily accessible, so I’ll have to work a navigation bar into the layout.
I seem to be spending a lot of time doing this kind of thing, rather than actually writing posts.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:35 amRich said:
The video does confirm that - I am a bit upset* because by implication it means Macca are sacrificing Kovy to advance Lewis’ championship and a joke of the equal driver status they always claim**. Is this more a case of Macca lies? I would like Steven Roy and Alianora as they are huge supporters of Ron and his team to comment on this.
*Make that very upset - I kinda wished this had not been pointed out as I was trying to like the team.
**I would not mind if they came out openly and said we have number one and number drivers - its the deceit if true that is worrying.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:38 amScott said:
I’ve just done exactly the same thing by quoting the unmentionable name. Doh!
I know it’s somewhat geeky, but I have to confess that I’m a fan too.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:42 amSteven Roy said:
Because they thought staying out was the right strategy for Lewis because he was at the front with a lot of pace it does not mean they thought it was right for Kovi with his pace in his position. Personally I think they got both strategies spot on because Lewis would not have lasted 28 laps on the softer tyre even if the soft tyre for this race was one of the harder compounds.
Ron has always said that once one driver has a clear lead in the championship he will be supported at the expense of his team mate.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:46 amme said:
we just use the wordpress plugin akismet:
http://akismet.com/
no idea how it works, but it’s pretty good.
it’s manageable, but when a good comment goes into spam, as opposed to moderation, finding it can be a pain.
it’s a bit of a time killer, but nothing like as bad as having a forum. even with a small number of users that would take up my whole day, just keeping it clean.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:50 amlou said:
That’s a good piont, i haven’t spotted much just recently.
Kudos Scott. 
I’m working on that
I really would love to help… but i don’t have the faintest clue about what to do. you could teach me if it would help.
It’s easy to do isn’t it
July 21st, 2008 at 12:58 amScott said:
We’ve no distinction between spam and moderation, so a genuine comment can get hidden amongst hundreds of spam comments.
Personally I’ve never found forums to be that bad, although I think it’s largely dependent on the software used - phpBB can be a nightmare. Spam is the least of your worries there, as it’s pretty easy to hack (although I don’t know whether that’s still true with v3).
July 21st, 2008 at 1:03 amme said:
what CMS are you using?
yeah, it was phpBB
July 21st, 2008 at 1:03 amRich said:
But you hear Norbert saying that it was a mistake I have put the video into Drop.io with the GP highlights! Personally I thought the strategy was spot on!
Does this mean statistically has no chance - in which case Kovy could come back or because Lewis has twice the points they are now supporting him!
That is what I understood as well - basically I think people are looking for issues - and I have no time for Norbert so I can put it down to a stupid comment.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:18 amScott said:
Cheers.
I’m pretty confident 99% of spam will be kept out now. We’ve a bigger risk of a genuine comment getting eaten than we do of any spam getting through now.
I’ll get in touch. You may regret that offer, though. :p It’s pretty easy, but not very exciting work.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:20 amlou said:
July 21st, 2008 at 1:22 amScott said:
We’re using Dotclear.
One of my hosts actually goes as far as strongly advising his customers not to install it. I think popularity is its downfall. As so many people use phpBB, it’s beneficial for spammers and hackers to spend a lot of time finding ways through its defences.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:32 amme said:
cool. never heard of it tbh. is it any good?
July 21st, 2008 at 1:51 amScott said:
http://www.dotclear.net/
Yeah, I really like it. The standard installation is quite lightweight, not at all bloated, and is very easy to extend. We use version 1.2.8, rather than the recently released v2, as that has very high server requirements.
It might not be to everyone’s taste, though. When I first started to use it, there was a limited English language section on the website, which they were planning to extend. That’s now been removed, but this doesn’t really bother me, as the developers’ native language doesn’t make any difference to the coding (and there is an English translation of the backend).
July 21st, 2008 at 2:59 amme said:
sounds good, your site seems to load faster than wordpress too
July 21st, 2008 at 11:10 amLynch said:
Oh I see it doesnt want to accept my own name?!
So if I say “Lynch” as in “I want to send a Lynch Mob After Max” …then that should be blocked?!
July 21st, 2008 at 6:40 pmme said:
hmmm, that didn’t work at all!
apparently you’re going into spam even before the moderation queue can grab it. this is odd.
back to the drawing board again. apologies, i’ll have to google this some more.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:38 pmLynch said:
It might be cos I am on the Uni network and it goes through some weird proxy stuff… but it never used to do this?!
July 21st, 2008 at 8:51 pmme said:
i would guess the uni ip could have been blacklisted by akismet recently. i need to figure out a whitelist to ensure your ip always gets through.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:49 amAlianora La Canta said:
i have something to say about that, but, erm, lou’s probably reading {me - 56 comments ago}
That particular pair looks exactly like a pair Fisi wore at Monza in 2005, so it doesn’t even have fashion in its favour. Though given the way the fashion world appears to work, they’d probably be classed as “retro ’60s” in five years’ time - maybe Jenson is simply making an investment in the future…
he was beaten by his team mate Karun Chandhok in GP2 - how about him for a STR drive next year? He did test drive an F1 Red Bull Racing. Of course being Indian I wonder if Force India might be interested in his services? {Rich - 54 comments ago}
I think Buemi and Senna have priority for the STR seat, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Force India made him a tester in the next two years.
I was just checking for an update on Glock using Google News, and it would appear that it now provides you with a quote that’s supposedly relevant to your search. It gave me:
“Every time I’ve been to Hockenheim I have had really good races and I’ve won a few times.” {Steven Roy - 46 comments ago}
That proves Glock must have had the TARDIS before Estoril got hold of it - I haven’t seen him win anywhere yet…
The video does confirm that - I am a bit upset {Rich - 21 comments ago}
Which bit was this about? I got the pure FOM feed at that point (as opposed to the ITV you were probably watching and I normally would be), and they weren’t very interested in talking to Norbert. Maybe they should have been…
In any case, I thought the “mistake” Norbert was referring to was not bringing Hamilton in during the Safety Car period, which would have negated the requirement to pass Kovalainen, Massa and Piquet Jr. at the end of the race. That was certainly apology-worthy because McLaren nearly lost Lewis the race because of it.
Heikki drove like a beaten man for a lot of the day (though he did do some overtaking earlier on). The way he dealt with Hamilton was strange - either there was a strategy call involved or he thought Lewis was going to go past anyway. The fact that Lewis probably would have passed him regardless is irrelevant - the attitude alone would be worrying. And of course if there was a strategy call involved, McLaren deserve a rebuke. Unless it was all Heikki’s idea (which has happened before with other drivers in other teams, but not to my knowledge with Heikki).
Spam is the least of your worries there [in phpBB fora], as it’s pretty easy to hack {Scott - 16 comments ago}
I second that. I co-admin a forum based on that structure, which nearly folded last year when some idiot decided to hack into it. Luckily the situation proved to be fixable with technical assistance.
Mind you, my blog is in phpBB and doesn’t have that much of a spam problem because the spam bin works well.