Inside Track - Valencia
- Length: 05:22
- Size: 62.1 MB
- File: track12.m4v
- Transcript: track12.pdf
- Torrent: track12.torrent
- Share:
For the second time this year F1 goes street racing and this time it’s through the twists and turns around the port of Valencia.
The city offers a unique backdrop for Formula 1, and notably features a specially created swing bridge allowing F1 cars to cross Valencia’s canal. In total, 25 corners make up this magnificent circuit and this is one episode of Inside Track you won’t want to miss.
It’s also Formula One’s annual summer break, so Christine takes a look at the state of the championship, some recent engine rumours and a look at why McLaren might have an advantage over their rivals when it comes to tyres and logistics as the racing returns to Spain once more.
Special thanks to Allianz SE, Toyota Motorsports GmbH, Renault SA, Daimler, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and RTV GmbH for the use of their video footage.
August 14th, 2008 at 3:38 amme said:
before anyone asks… no we haven’t got the wrong thursday
August 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pmAlianora La Canta said:
Were you just bored, then?
August 14th, 2008 at 2:22 pmJordan Allen said:
I figure it was just a “make work” project for Christine. Either that or it rained on their day off, which is just about the same thing.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pmAlianora La Canta said:
Talking about being bored, I’m waiting for my AS-Level Spanish result (Edexcel claim they’ve sent me a confirmation e-mail for online access to my result, but I’m still waiting for it). So I’m kinda re-checking the F1 sites to try and keep myself amused until I can find out how bad my foreign language skills really are.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:34 pmLynch said:
Edexcel are a pile of c**p… I am glad I am done with Exam Boards! Yeah! No more exams EVER for me!
..Oh, good luck for the result!
August 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pmme said:
not likely
seeing as it’s a new track, we (mostly i) got way too excited by all the corners and figured it might be something worth seeing sooner rather than later.
also, unusually, we have an excessive amount of video footage relating to valencia which meant we could plan the show a lot earlier.
this might be the earliest we’ve ever released a race preview, makes for a nice change.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:52 pmme said:
nice one lynch.
seconded. are you confident?
August 14th, 2008 at 3:31 pmlou said:
Brilliant video guys! I’m very excited!
Valencia looks great! 
Good Luck Alianora!!
I have a week until I get my results and I’m already nervous….
August 14th, 2008 at 3:38 pmme said:
yeah, me too
i know it’s a street circuit, and that he’s constrained by things like buildings, but hats off to tilke, the layout just looks awesome.
what day do you find out?
August 14th, 2008 at 3:45 pmlou said:
Since the drivers wont have had any practise does that mean that in the friday practise sessions we are gonna see more action on track?
Next Thursday (21st)
August 14th, 2008 at 3:49 pmme said:
well they’ll be nervous about anything breaking, so probably cautious at first, but yeah i would guess all three practice sessions will be busy.
long range weather says it’ll be sunny on friday.
perfect timing
good luck to you too.
August 14th, 2008 at 3:56 pmlou said:
yay!
Thank you
August 14th, 2008 at 8:02 pmme said:
couple of things:
my vuze application sprang into life a moment ago… there are currently 6 people downloading this valencia video via p2p torrent clients. it feels exactly like when we first started out…
“10 whole people have downloaded the show in the past 48hrs, that’s like double-figures!”
also, a blatant and shameless plug for today’s f1 minute, just because i love this tagline:
http://www.f1minute.com/…webber-says-red-bull-are-aiming-for-fourth/
that’s nothing like when we first started out. i have a sneaky suspicion she’s been doing this too long.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:10 pmAlex Andronov said:
Ah yes. My promise from the other day (re: torrents) hasn’t come through… sorry about that. My girlfriend hard turned off my computer during a backup and… well… it didn’t like it… so I’ve been having RAID problems ever since… So I was being careful. I am back up and running though tonight… So I may be downloading a few things
August 14th, 2008 at 8:21 pmme said:
you wanna tell her, that’s a whole load of arse
August 14th, 2008 at 8:26 pmDan Brunell said:
I was watching some of the races that have taken place so far at Valencia city and it dawned on me; this course reminds me a lot of a former F1 track; the Long Beach street circuit in California.
Great sunny settings, fast street circuit, and a great atmosphere. Not only that, the two races had almost the same birth as the city fathers of Long Beach brought F1 in against the will of many in the town. However, after seeing how well it worked and the crowds it brought in, those worries were casted aside. It was just starting to get really good; then Bernie screwed it up by poisoning the well with the organizers in 1984. Hope Bernie doesn’t treat Valencia the same way.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:40 pmAlex Andronov said:
hahahaha
August 14th, 2008 at 9:11 pmme said:
remember, he got himself into heaps of political trouble before agreeing the race and no doubt if the socialist party ever gain power (and there’s another election due in 2012), there will be trouble in valencia town.
best enjoy it while we can, eh?
August 14th, 2008 at 10:32 pmDave Monks said:
Brilliant video. I was chuffed to see it out so early. I am getting very excited. I have even taken the official Formula1.com Grand Prix of Europe poster as my background image at work. I never use the official ones, but this race is just too exciting.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:16 pmAlex Andronov said:
I wonder if there is a good way to subscribe to sidepodcast torrents on Vuze? I mean I’d very much like to do my bit on sharing the bandwith but I might not remember to download it that way every time… Any thoughts?
August 14th, 2008 at 11:34 pmme said:
that’s a damn good point. i literally have no idea, but i googled this:
http://azureus.sourceforge.net... [link edited]
that’s as much as i know as of now, more to follow soon…
August 14th, 2008 at 11:35 pmJoe said:
Can that only be downloaded with Vuze? I can’t get it with uTorrent anyway, the file is JNLP or something like that as opposed to a normal .torrent file which can be downloaded with any client. Just a heads up if you weren’t aware.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:43 pmme said:
good point. by the look of it, the plugin makes vuze aware of rss files. another quick google returned this page though:
http://www.utorrent.com/rsstutorial.php
which might mean uTorrent is by default better than vuze when it comes to rss files. hmmm, gonna be a long night
August 15th, 2008 at 12:33 amJoe said:
Oh god, what the hell is Bernie at:
http://formula-1.updatesport.com/news/article/1218702176/formula_one/F1headlines/Ecclestone-proposes-GP3/view.html
That could mean 3 feeder series’. GP2, F2, and then a vastly unoriginal name, GP3. Well done Bernie, out-did yourself there mate. ¬_¬
August 15th, 2008 at 12:45 amDan Brunell said:
I think this is another one of those Bernie (GP3) versus Max (F2) battles. Frankly, I wish they would stop throwing stones and meet at dawn with two pistols. Stop using motorsports as your own personal battleground.
August 15th, 2008 at 12:56 amme said:
ok, here be your torrent rss feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/sidepodcast/torrent
currently only contains one item (this valencia preview video). but the rest will be added in asap and new ones appended as they become available.
there’s a couple of rss plugins available for azureus, and rss feed scanner appears to be the best:
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/p…in=rssfeed
although even that is pretty darn complicated. will try and experiment with other torrent clients tomorrow, to see if they make life any easier.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:00 amme said:
agree 100%. how long are they going to keep this up for?
August 15th, 2008 at 7:41 amAlex Andronov said:
I think it’s working on Vuze now… I am subscribed - I think
Thanks Me!
August 15th, 2008 at 9:27 amScott Woodwiss said:
It’s only a matter of time before we get a feeder series war.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:51 amStuart C said:
And we’ve got Superleague Formula madness, too…
August 15th, 2008 at 11:05 amScott said:
Excellent stuff. Works fine as a channel in Miro:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/miro-sidepodcast
August 15th, 2008 at 11:10 amAlianora La Canta said:
No more exams EVER for me! {Lynch - 26 comments ago}
I think I’ll be having at least two more exams next year (for Text Processing next year - with OCR, which is a sensible exam board in my experience
) and at least one batch of exams the year after that (for A2 Spanish - which will be with Edexcel 
), so I will be getting the thrill of exams for quite a while longer. In case you’re wondering, I’m one of those strange people who actually likes exams…
seeing as it’s a new track, we (mostly i) got way too excited by all the corners and figured it might be something worth seeing sooner rather than later. {me - 25 comments ago}
Now that’s a good excuse for being early with the race preview
seconded. are you confident? {me - 24 comments ago}
I’m confident to a degree. The actual exams for Spanish went better for me than any of the practise exams, so I’m almost certain I passed. Realistically, I can only expect a D or E because my treatment of certain parts of Spanish grammar is pretty inconsistent, so if I get a C I’ll be delighted. An A or B would lead to me floating at approximately ceiling level for the rest of the day.
Good Luck Alianora!!
I have a week until I get my results and I’m already nervous…. {lou - 23 comments ago}
Good luck to you too. Hope you get the results you deserve. And you deserve to do really well - if you wrote your English assignments like you write your blog posts, you should be getting an A at least
what day do you find out? {me - 22 comments ago}
GCSE results are dished out en masse next Thursday, so unless lou has decided to receive her results via the post (like I am with my AS result), she’ll know about this time next week. This is as distinct from, say, OCR Text Processing, where the results are issued as and when they are calculated. This meant I got my Text Processing results (distinction for both exams by the way) last week despite doing the final exam for it two weeks after my last AS Spanish exam.
The other thing to say is that the GCSE results are completely unaffected by the controversy over SATS - the boards involved are completely different.
long range weather says it’ll be sunny on friday. {me - 20}
That’s a good thing. The last thing drivers learning a new layout need is for it to be raining as well!
That could mean 3 feeder series’. GP2, F2, and then a vastly unoriginal name, GP3. {Joe - 7 comments ago)
I think GP3 is supposed to feed into GP2 rather than F1. It’s really a challenge to F3, now that the F2 has been completely discredited. F2 is a non-entity that the FIA still thinks is viable (a bit like Max Mosely really).
Mind you, a certain amount of this is inevitable if the gulf between the top feeder series and the series to be fed to is so wide that no team and few drivers can hope to jump it. The extra creative energy of team owners and talent of drivers has to go somewhere…
Frankly, I wish they would stop throwing stones and meet at dawn with two pistols. {Dan Burnell - 6 comments ago}
It would probably help - though I’d prefer it if they both just retired in an orderly but swift manner and enjoyed a happy retirement (Max on the beach with a book like he suggested, Bernie perhaps making a few million a year as a negotiations resolver).
It’s only a matter of time before we get a feeder series war. {Scott Woodwiss - 2 comments ago}
I think we already have one…
And we’ve got Superleague Formula madness, too… {Stuart C - previous comment}
To be honest, I’m not too worried about that. I think it’ll end us like A1GP - a decent enrichment formula for drivers who want more races than the F/GP sequence can provide, but not a path which intends to develop drivers for F1 on its own. In the feeder series war, it’s a neutral series rather than an active combatant.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:22 amme said:
no kidding? wow, haven’t used miro in a while but am gonna have to check it out now. good stuff
August 15th, 2008 at 12:04 pmme said:
scott, cheers for the heads-up re: miro. that’s by far the most user friendly bittorrent client i’ve seen and the new feed downloaded a treat just like you said.
i likes it so much i’ve added a download link to the sidebar
August 15th, 2008 at 12:16 pmSteven Roy said:
Congrats on your text processing distintions Alianora.
August 15th, 2008 at 12:21 pmAlianora La Canta said:
Thank you, Steven
. Next stop: Level 3 Text Processing (I did Level 2 this year because my teacher refused to believe I could possibly jump from no text processing qualification at all to level 3 in a single year…)
August 15th, 2008 at 12:54 pmStuart Codling said:
Perhaps they need to recruit some Swiss drivers, then!
August 15th, 2008 at 1:33 pmlou said:
Seconded
Congratulations Alianora 
Thank you
I’m not great at English (as my constant spelling mistakes on here prove) but I enjoy it, and I try my hardest 
I’m going into school to collect them early on Thursday morning :s
August 15th, 2008 at 2:27 pmz-buamgartner said:
Me too
Good luck to everyone!!
August 15th, 2008 at 3:49 pmBecken said:
Christine and ME,
I downloaded the video but there is a problem with it. I cannot watch it online too…
August 15th, 2008 at 4:31 pmme said:
hmm, looks good from here. sorry becken, i’m guessing you’ve not had issues with other videos in the past?
here’s an alternate download link, just in case it helps:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/episodes/media/insidetrack/track12.m4v
or, maybe try the following page:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/f1-europe-preview-2008
pls yell if you need more info.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:43 pmScott Woodwiss said:
You might want to check the Letters section in this month’s F1 Racing. Might see a familiar name somewhere in there
August 15th, 2008 at 5:46 pmJordan Allen said:
“Stuart Codling”, perhaps?
August 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pmme said:
August 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pmBecken said:
ME,
Thanks a lot for the support, mate!!!! The show was great, as always!
“…’m guessing you’ve not had issues with other videos in the past?…”
No, no… actually, that was the first time!
August 15th, 2008 at 5:52 pmme said:
no probs, glad it worked.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:58 pmDan Brunell said:
Jeeze. I’ve lost count how many open wheel series there are now in Europe. That doesn’t include all the touring car, Le Mans Series, and rallying. Getting a little over saturated me think. I wish they could bring some of that to the states. All we have is a major touring car series (NASCAR), a crappy open wheel leauge (IRL) and the vastly under-rated American Le Mans Series.
I feel old right now.
August 15th, 2008 at 6:19 pmStuart C said:
Sorry we couldn’t ping the bag your way, Scott, but given that the centrepiece of the issue was a Kimi interview that’s taken several months to tee up we thought it might be interpreted as ungracious to award star letter status to a missive giving him a kicking…
In other news, I was reading an interesting column about sports commentary in the New Statesman just now, and as luck would have it they’ve posted it on their site.
http://www.newstatesman.com/sport/2008/08/sports-commentating-british
August 15th, 2008 at 6:25 pmScott Woodwiss said:
hey for one i had no idea it was a ferrari special, but mainly i’m just happy i got my e-mail in there! whether it was star letter or not doesn’t bother me
August 15th, 2008 at 7:01 pmme said:
in the closing paragraph emma suggests that:
“…in the fast-moving culture of blogging, the views of professional commentators are going to be challenged as never before.”
i’d argue that in the fast-moving culture of blogging everything is challenged like never before, and that’s what makes today’s world all the more interesting.
however, james allen successfully proved that criticism bloggers from doesn’t make the blindest bit of difference if the production company and broadcaster aren’t listening (or simply don’t care).
whether or not said production company / broadcaster have a long term future with that approach remains to be seen (and watching all3media go cap-in-hand to the bbc would suggest they may not). either way, i think the girl’s overstating the power of the individual when sports broadcasting rights are distributed such that either consumers like it or lump it.
what may change everything though, and this is something we’re seeing more of during race weekends, is internet streaming.
on occasions this year we’ve been able to tune into speed tv’s feed / commentary team, and as technology develops this may well become a viable solution for more and more people (although presumably an inherently illegal one). when the pictures are all the same, it’ll be the voice that makes the difference.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:22 pmLadySnowcat said:
Ungracious… certainly…
But somehow I don’t think the Kimster would actually give a …..
(But Stuart… peeps who have caught your discussions here just may have talked of favouritism if you had “pinged it to Scott….and that would have been a lot more damaging….)
I enjoyed the interview by the way (no surprise there I guess) and having the theme of Ferrari, whether you support them or not, did give the mag a little more cohesion than has sometimes been the case recently…
One thing though… there seems to be more space taken by the headlines or banners than by the text, than used to be the case…. or do I just read quicker?….
PS Memo to self to check for letters questioning Lewis’s brilliance sometime….
August 15th, 2008 at 10:35 pmDan Brunell said:
Sorry, long comment…
Not to give everyone more homework to read, but ESPN had an interesting article of how despite big losses at US automakers, they are rock solid behind their support of NASCAR. It is worth the read but here are some interesting quotes:
- “White recently took Yuki Funo, the president and CEO of Toyota Motor Sales, on a tour of the motorsports industry in the Charlotte, N.C., area.
‘”After two days he said, ”I get this. This is good business. You have my word we will be here for more than 100 years,’”‘ White said.
Unlike other forms of motorsports with which White has been involved, he doesn’t feel the pressure to sell the importance of NASCAR to top management.
He recalled how in 2000 he and others at Toyota involved in open-wheel racing “seriously had to question whether our jobs would be around in three or four years.”‘
- “John Middlebrook, the vice president for Global sales and marketing for General Motors, said earlier in the year that “the last racing we would drop would be NASCAR, [because it's] still the best return for us.”
Les Unger, the national motorsports marketing manager for Toyota, agreed.
“You still want to generate maximum exposure for the expenditures you make,” he said. “And NASCAR ranks pretty high in that.”"
A few points that I draw on from this:
1: NASCAR does such a better job working with the manufactures than F1 by not only working with them, but also make sure they are getting a return on their investment in the sport. When is the last time Bernie gave two cents whether anyone else was happy in the sport other than himself?
2: I can see why the American auto makers wouldn’t want into Formula One. I know for a fact that running a manufacture NASCAR program for multiple teams are at a fraction of the cost of running a single Formula One team while getting more exposure to your primary market.
The Toyota case in NASCAR is fascinating. With their recent success in the series, I bet if they had a choice to go with either NASCAR or Formula One; they would go with NASCAR. Despite the recession, North America is still their largest export market.
3: Make fun of NASCAR all you want for being a bunch of hillbillies who run around in circles; but the France Family and NASCAR in general have made a motors sport class that pleases the fans, sponsors, and manufactures. They have destroyed the competition of Champ Car, IRL, and everyone else. They make a product that has a mass appeal; is well run with everyone involved focused in making it work. You never hear from management. There is never a major scandal, problems are dealt with swiftly in a professional manner. They willing to evolve and change with the times. Frankly it is embarrassing how much better run NASCAR is than Formula One.
August 16th, 2008 at 12:04 amJoe said:
Hey guys, sorry to be off-topic but here’s something I was thinking.
I want to do a video which is the top crashes of this decade in F1. That may sound a bit…….not great at first, but something like this video is what I’m thinking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WwINx4uYiw
The reason I’m posting about it here, is because I’d love a few of you guys to help, think of it as a project. If anyone’s interested, let me know.
August 16th, 2008 at 8:50 amStuart C said:
Glad you liked the Kimi interview. We got a venerable Finnish journalist (who often goes for a drink or two with the Kimster) to do it because we thought we’d get more out of Kimi that way.
As to the layout, the answer is yes and no. We’ve gone for bigger and often more typographical headlines, but the overall word count per feature remains the same. Allow me to explain…
When we redesigned the magazine, we went out to the local newsagent and spent a couple of hundred quid on buying other magazines – all sorts of magazines – and looked through them to identfiy feature treaments we liked and disliked. We cut out the pages we liked and stuck them on the wall of “the secret room”. This is standard practice when you’re redesigning a magazine – you don’t just look at the competition, you look at everything.
In its previous guise, our magazine would have (for a six-page feature) a picture-led opening spread with a short headline and perhaps a small opening leg of body text. The next four pages would be roughly 50/50 text/pictures. What we wanted to achieve in the redesign was a flexible template wherein we could have some pages dominated by pictures and other pages dominated by text – kind of like Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. That’s why the text now has more breaks in it and the interviews are more in a Q&A format – it enables you to have a page of text in three columns with just a small square picture in the middle.
If we get a coherent and non-idiotic one sometime, it’s in!
Agreed on all point, Dan. NASCAR is a very efficient money-making machine for all the stakeholders.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:40 amStuart C said:
I should clarify this!
Any submissions more sensible than “YoU put Hammy oN the CoVer alL the TIME you SUCK HaMmY SUX HammY CHOKED laSt YEAR ROFLOL!” gratefully accepted…
August 16th, 2008 at 12:11 pmAlianora La Canta said:
You mean somebody actually clicked the “Submit” button after typing F1 Racing’s e-mail address and the mis-spelled, badly-capitalised and out-of-date missive Stuart C used as an example* in the previous comment?
* - OK, possibly not an exact example, but I’ve seen very similar messages on fora before. I just can’t believe someone would expect such a message to be read, let alone considered good enough to be printed…
August 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pmChristine said:
Stuart, just wanted to say, the Parade pic of Massa is stunning.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:33 pmScott Woodwiss said:
on the subject of the pitpass article on a 2012 olympic grand prix - couldn’t they run the A1GP cars to give a level playing field?
August 16th, 2008 at 5:41 pmLadySnowcat said:
That’s an excellent and interesting insight Stuart, for which many thanks…
It also explains why I don’t find the styles used in the new design generally as cohesive as before and therefore why having a Ferrari theme this time helpful….
Now there’s a thought…. I shall let my more literary friends know…
Although I rather liked the Kimster’s approach on the subject of Lewis myself….
Thanks Stuart….
August 16th, 2008 at 5:58 pmme said:
agreed. appreciated.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:22 pmlou said:
‘Me’/ Christine, I just wanted to ask something about the live show tomorrow (it is tomorrow, right?). What time (approx) are you planning on doing the show? In the afternoon?
I want to make sure I don’t miss it
August 16th, 2008 at 6:33 pmme said:
ahh yeah, meant to do a post actually. i think, about 3pm tomorrow afternoon.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:41 pmlou said:
August 17th, 2008 at 12:38 pmAlianora La Canta said:
Perhaps they need to recruit some Swiss drivers, then! {Stuart Codling - 26 comments ago}
If they can prise any Swiss football teams from their purses (I suppose Lichtenstein would do at a pinch since it’s also a neutral country, but I don’t know if they even have any football teams rich enough to consider it)…
on the subject of the pitpass article on a 2012 olympic grand prix - couldn’t they run the A1GP cars to give a level playing field? {Scott Woodwiss - 6 comments ago}
They could - but I suspect the real (unspoken) stumbling block is that any sport which costs thousands of pounds a time to practise for is probably not going to have a sufficiently wide pool of amateurs or people the IOC could pretend were amateurs (they get enough flak from people from the tennis players)…