Episode 74 - You’re Not Supposed to be Here, I Haven’t Changed Alonso
- Length: 50:23
- Size: 44.9 MB
- File: episode74.mp3
- Enhanced: episode74.m4a
- Transcript: Coming soon
- Torrent: episode74.torrent
It’s no secret that Valencia wasn’t what we were hoping for, and yet it still seems to have created the talking point of the season.
Intro
I said it would never happen, but we go live once again.
Good Week / Bad Week
Good week for safety and for returning to the sporting action, but a bad week for thefts and for Force India’s morale.
Qualifying
Renault are still circling way too slowly for our liking, and it’s not as though they were taking in the scenery. Did Ferrari get to choose which end of the pitlane they were at? Also what is up with Valencian security, because there was litter and a man or two on the track. Oh, and Trulli was awesome.
The Race
It all comes down to Ferrari really, as they dominated for pit lane reasons. You can hear our thoughts on the subject, and then an interview with Alex Andronov where he shares his own ideas on the subject. We also do a quick Fantasy Racers update.
Feedback
What TV coverage is like in Australia, plus plenty of emails. Adam tells us to give Bruno Senna a chance, Piotr shares some pictures from his time at the Ferrari Gallery, Keith the Marshall lets us know his plans for the future, and Leah finds F1 fascinating for understandable reasons.
Housekeeping
Just a quick mention of the charts and graphs available on Google Docs.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:55 amme said:
a quick note to say we pulled the feature where we covered live commentators fantasy racers teams, as it didn’t work quite as well as we’d hoped.
with a bit more preparation i think could still work, but i’m not sure. does anyone think it’s a good idea, and should we pursue it in the future?
August 26th, 2008 at 8:29 amAlex Andronov said:
Thanks for the great opportunity. I really enjoyed myself.
I have written a very brief post about it here.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:49 amme said:
appreciated
also thanks again for jumping in the deep end with us. we’ve got to get you back on for a proper discussion soon, we might even prepare some actual questions too
August 26th, 2008 at 12:45 pmme said:
ferrari confirm suspicions about kimi’s engine, bitch about the sport in the process:
“Changing the engine on Kimi’s car would have seen the Finn start from far down the grid at a track where it appeared that overtaking was impossible, proving it’s not enough to bring Formula One to a street circuit in a fantastic location to produce spectacular racing.”
we suck, but the sport sucks more. nice.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:53 pmSteven Roy said:
I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or the other on this. It could be something that could be used as a hook to get more live commenters. If it was mentioned in one of the regular shows that live commenters could get their teams mentioned it may encourage a few to turn up but given the choice of the same live commenters getting mentioned all the time or you two picking random teams to mention I would rather have random teams and involve more people.
That was an unfeasibly long sentence to make a simple point. I hope it makes as much sense to anyone reading it as it made in my head when I wrote.
Most of the live commenters so far are people who are not exactly short of a mention on various shows and Scott and I have been hogging things a bit recently so not getting my team mentioned is not exactly a hardship. Maybe mystic Ollie could turn his powers to forecasting the scores for a couple of randomly selected teams. I can see a pre-season mystic Ollie show to let us know what is going to happen in the season ahead.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:00 pmme said:
hehe. i could do with a mystic ollie before each race weekend. couple him with alianora’s spreadsheet and we cannot fail.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pmme said:
earlier this year rubens tried to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, by making up more gp starts than he actually took part in. apparently bridgestone were trying the opposite this weekend:
“Although Valencia marked their 202nd Formula One race (the 1976 and 1977 Japanese Grands Prix plus every race since Melbourne 1997), Bridgestone wanted to raise a glass of champagne for their 200th event since their full-time entry.”
or to put it another way:
“Hockenheim wasn’t glamourous enough for us.”
http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/70065
August 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pmMystic Ollie said:
Look into my eyes. Not around my eyes, into my eyes…
August 26th, 2008 at 3:25 pmSteven Roy said:
I found this http://cde.cerosmedia.com/1M4899769b7bed3012.cde at GP Wizard. It is an online version of Haymarket’s IRL magazine. So if they can do that presumably they could do online F1 Racing.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:46 pmAlianora La Canta said:
Look into my eyes. Not around my eyes, into my eyes…
{Mystic Ollie - 2 comments ago}
You mean the two black pixels on the screen, or the eyes that are presumably at the other end of the internet connection?
August 26th, 2008 at 3:47 pmme said:
that is seriously impressive. it has several videos embedded within it.
the only problem i can see, is i’ve just read the whole magazine for free
August 26th, 2008 at 3:58 pmSteven Roy said:
Sounds like a good deal to me. Seriously though I am sure they could e-mail with some form of protection to prevent it being copied. They could send dongles out to subscribers along with whatever freebies are flavour of the month. How much can a USB dongle cost?
August 26th, 2008 at 4:33 pmSteven Roy said:
I guess the big problem with doing F1 Racing the same way is Ernie. He would want a forune for video clips. The man is a dinosaur and a greedy dinosaur at that.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:07 pmLe BOL said:
Hi there!
Terrible, terrible grand prix, a full-on siesta… And the cars all looked the same just like A1, the same tyres, drivers all have nearly the same level. I’m shocked. Bring back Michelin! I’d even accept Kumho or some lousy Korean tyre manufacturer…
Somehow Sidepodcast keeps finding its way into my dreams! You guys have psychic powers, I’m sure. This time I realised that Me was messing with my blog adding at least 5 new entries and then he sent me like 100 pages worth of notes and new material to use in the future, then I found myself on a plane with just one engine and eventually I think we were going to crash. I admit to comsuming a croissant with ham and cheese but for sure it doesn’t explain everything.
To quote the song: “how do you do what you do to me, I wish I knew; wish I knew how you do it to me I’d do it to you..”
cheers everyone, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, that is a new laptop…
August 26th, 2008 at 5:08 pmLe BOL said:
coNsuming
August 26th, 2008 at 5:12 pmme said:
he’s back
sorry about the notes, i’m not usually that verbose.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:21 pmLe BOL said:
Yeah, yeah, just wanted to add that Valencia is on my “top 3 list most boring GPs of the year”, it comes in 3rd place after Barcelona and Hungaroring…
August 26th, 2008 at 5:22 pmJordan Allen said:
Why do people people think that airplane needs a engine to land? Gravity does all the work….Now if you really want to have fun, become a glider pilot and when you take your friends up in the wild blue yonder, “say we are out of fuel…”
August 26th, 2008 at 6:03 pmAlianora La Canta said:
How much can a USB dongle cost? {Steven Roy - 7 comments ago}
£7.99 from Argos (which gets you 1GB, which is loads to put one month of content on), though given how many F1 Racings end up in circulation, I suspect Haymarket might just be able to get some sort of bulk purchase deal from a manufacturer if it went down that route. However, there would also be encryption issues to worry about, otherwise the special content would go the way of the PDF.
Somehow Sidepodcast keeps finding its way into my dreams! {Le BOL - 5 comments ago}
I had a dream about teaching a class and discovering one of the students wasn’t paying attention because they were watching a Live Streaming video. What I was doing teaching in the first place remains a mystery, as was how I didn’t notice anything odd when the student in question was the only one in class with an open laptop… (In case you were wondering, I had nothing at all to eat for about three hours prior to going to bed, so I can’t blame the food).
August 26th, 2008 at 6:17 pmme said:
that’ll be all the subliminal messaging doing it’s job then
August 26th, 2008 at 6:20 pmSteven Roy said:
Alianora,
I wasn’t thinking of a memory stick but dongle in the traditional sense which is a plug-in device that has to be in place before you can use a piece of software. It is common in industry to use this type of device with things like CAD software which can cost upwards of £50k per user. In some cases quite a few times that price. So to avoid companies buying one copy and copying it they sell a dongle with each copy and the software won’t operate without the dongle in place.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:21 pmSteven Roy said:
I thought the only subliminal messages were Red Bull, Michelin and YSL in big letters.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:21 pmme said:
confusing headline of the day for you:
“renault unveils the new renault symbol”
i thought - my god they’re changing “le hex”. turns out they have a new car called a symbol. gah.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:22 pmme said:
she’s wearing branded t-shirts too now? that was subliminal, i never noticed.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:23 pmme said:
how much does f1 racing cost in the US?
August 26th, 2008 at 6:28 pmSteven Roy said:
I did comment on it on it at the time but the comments were coming thick and fast so it wasn’t picked up.
No idea but I would guess maybe 50% more than it does here so about £6
August 26th, 2008 at 6:34 pmme said:
ahh, okay. haven’t re-watched or re-read as yet. it’s on my list this evening.
not quite in the realms of catia yet then
August 26th, 2008 at 6:37 pmSteven Roy said:
I think they can ge taway with a slightly less sophisticated dongle
August 26th, 2008 at 6:42 pmAlianora La Canta said:
how much does f1 racing cost in the US? {me - 2 comments ago}
It costs $72 for 6 issues from Amazon.com at the moment (they’re doing a special offer at the moment), so US readers are paying $12 per issue - or £6.53 for British viewers of the site.
Dongles aren’t especially expensive, it’s just that they’ve never taken off for consumer software because users don’t like having to plug in extra gizmos just to get software to work.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:45 pmAlianora La Canta said:
That price tag made me wonder - at £6.53 per issue, US subscribers are paying £3.20 an issue more than their British counterparts (who can get 6 issues for £20, or £3.33 per issue). Evidently the logistical side is pretty expensive…
August 26th, 2008 at 7:03 pmSteven Roy said:
Many years ago Ispent a while in Paris and the only place I could get Autosport was WH Smith’s on Place de la Concorde which is closer to London than I am now but it cost me double the cover price and arrived several days late.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:03 pmJordan Allen said:
Going over the Dewey decimal system at the school’s library would be my bet….
,em>
It was not a dream…. You were having a “past life” experience….
August 26th, 2008 at 10:44 pmAlex Andronov said:
The thick and fast comments are an interesting issue. Becuase it’s chat it almost feels like it would be a good idea to repost interesting ideas while it’s clear (from the video) that you are reading.
But I’ve refrained thus far. It seemed that you both didn’t really have time to go back. Which is also fair enough. You don’t want masses of dead airtime while you’re reading.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:46 pmAlex Andronov said:
I did have a thought about combining Christine’s fav. new thing of Google Docs and Me’s Saturday morning show.
Really what you need is people to be able to apply to be on the show and you can create a web form which fills in a google docs spreadsheet. Each new row is a new person giving an answer. So the order will help you.
That way you can queue people without having to refer back through all of the comments. That one minor hurdle will make things much easier I reckon.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:47 pmAlex Andronov said:
Sorry Sunday morning show.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:53 pmChristine said:
Cor, for a minute there I thought he’d come up with ANOTHER show!
August 26th, 2008 at 10:58 pmSteven Roy said:
Didn’t he mention the Saturday show. More opportunity for product placement
August 26th, 2008 at 11:34 pmme said:
i like that plan, good thinking.
there was a plan floating around, about doing a saturday evening show on non-race weekends, for people in alternate timezones, whilst allow uk residents to watch late and sleep in on sunday.
at the moment, i think that’s still marked “pending”.
also, the only other fan club i’ve ever belonged to is the renault fan club. so i might quickly run out of stuff to wave in front of the camera.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:47 amSteven Roy said:
I have just listened to the live show and it is quite incredible how together it sounds when I know what it was like when it was recorded. The other point is that when you sit through it live you get the impression that about 10% of the time is spent recording the bits that will be used for the show and the rest is spent on failed takes or generally hilarity or owls. It is very odd that the reality is that 50% of the time is spent recording bits that make the show.
The mirror on the Ferrari lollipop was to allow the driver to see the refuelling hose being removed
Sometimes I worry about the way my brain works. Despite having watched three free practise sessions and the race and then the live show yesterday something finally hit me while listening to Alex’s interview on the edited show. I was thinking about the track’s appearance as he was discussing all the moveable scenery when it finally hit me why the track looked so bare. There was almost no trackside advertising. I went and found a clip of Nico Rosberg completing a lap http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo0izrYmAxs and it confirmed my memories. Aside from bridges there is about 2% of the adverts you would normally expect to see.
I cannot figure out why this should be but as trackside ads are the province of Paddy McNally it is unlikely he decided not to cash in. The only thing I can think of and it is pure speculation is that the politicians from Valencia wanted the track to get all the publicity from its first race and bunged McNally a few quid to forego his rights. Given what it cost to build the track this cost would be minimal.
One thing I missed live was the request to name turn 8 at Turkey. The first thing that struck me was to revive a name from Zandvoort which used to hold the Dutch GP. There is still a shortened version of the track in use. Zandvoort had a long fast 180º corner which was famous for Gilles Villeneuve going round the outside of Alan Jones. Something not many people would have tried. The corner was called Tarzan which I always thought was a great name for a corner that reward bravery something that also applies to turn 8 at Turkey.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:06 amme said:
when i listened to the show, i thought “my god that bloke sounds like he’s done half the recording on his knees”.
someone (can’t for the life of me remember who), mentioned the america’s cup teams were up for putting their boats out on display around the dock, but the idea was shelved because they wore to much advertising. something very odd was going on there.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:35 amme said:
ah-ha, found it. t’was mr. gorman who said:
“According to a well-placed source close to the AC organisers, many of the sailing teams had wanted to open their bases for the Grand Prix weekend and get involved, but Formula One was not interested and was particularly keen that all sponsor logos were removed to prevent them competing for eye-space with Formula One’s own sponsors. Speaking as someone who has enjoyed both sports, it seems a great shame that such a short-sighted view has been taken of a unique chance to cross-fertilise and promote the two disciplines.”
http://timesonline.typepad.com/formula_one/2008/08/valencia-scrap.html
August 27th, 2008 at 2:00 amSteven Roy said:
Short-sighted stupidity. You have the choice of backdrops. America’s Cup yachts or industrial estate and car ferries? Not a dificult choice. I wonder what Bernie could have done if the teams had decided to take their yachts out to work on them.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:11 amSteven Roy said:
I posted a pic on drop.io of Christine’s subliminal YSL product placement. Very subtle
August 27th, 2008 at 3:31 amJordan Allen said:
There is something about Villeneuves and fast 180 degree corners isn’t there. I mean Schuie himself would not dsre pass the laughable Pedro Lamy in the soon to be lapped again Minardi at Turn 13 of Estoril, so Jacques passed them both on the outside in 1996!
If Suzuka could have 130R what is wrong with calling Turn 8 at Turkey 50L, beside one being the obtuse measurement and the other being the acute measurement of the same darned angle?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:07 amChristine said:
Not.My.Fault.
I got changed, then five minutes later, I turn round and he’s putting the duvet up saying: “We’re going live again.”
I joked with Alex pre-live that people would be able to see my pyjamas. It could so easily have been true! I need to keep a stash of unbranded clothes under my desk, it seems.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:54 amAlex Andronov said:
It really did make me realise how much Me had sprung it on you!
I’m really not sure that you guys have to worry about the advertising thing. Surely if they are products that you like then it’s okay to promote them?
The only reason they block them on commercial channels is because somebody might do or say something defamatory while wearing a branded product. The BBC didn’t block all those Nike and Puma logos from the Olympics!
August 27th, 2008 at 10:53 amFlibster said:
Plus, you may get freebies if you mention them.
I love the new Lotus Evora.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:20 amChristine said:
Valencia GP set for name change
“The rights to the Mediterranean Grand Prix title were owned by former F1 driver and current GP2 team owner Adrian Campos. But he confirmed to autosport.com that he gave the title, free of charge, to Bernie Ecclestone last week.”
Free of charge? That’s unheard of, isn’t it?
August 27th, 2008 at 11:32 amme said:
in return for what?
August 27th, 2008 at 11:51 amSteven Roy said:
130R is not the angle it is the radius of the curve. 130R is a left hander. Unless you are Allan McNish in which case it is pretty much straight with a spin.
Campos wanted the 12th F1 entry that went to Prodrive. Anyone considering betting on the next new team in F1 would be well advised to bet on Adrian Campos.
Christine,
I can’t see any problem with the brands being shown. I only picked up on it because you went to s much trouble not to show your Red Bull then two minutes later mentioned Michelin. Besides you have more chance of getting freebies if they think people are noticing the brands you show.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:54 amAlex Andronov said:
Maybe we should be saying things like, “Having seen that Michelin man on your podcast I am about to put in an order of 100 Michelin tyres”.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:55 amAlex Andronov said:
Ah. Right. That sounds pretty good.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:07 pmme said:
riiight.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pmJeremy said:
This one?
http://www.sniffpetrol.com/
August 27th, 2008 at 12:40 pmSteven Roy said:
I hope Lou doesn’t see what they said about Button.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:40 pmFlibster said:
Thats the one.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:48 pmFlibster said:
Has anyone else seen what the FIA have come up with since the Massa investigation?
Linky
I find the quote at the end very telling.
He wasn’t being investigated for any sporting advantage he received from that, he was being investigated for an unsafe release from the pit box.
So, being unsafe is fine now. As long as you don’t get a sporting advantage…
*sigh*
August 27th, 2008 at 12:55 pmme said:
do you think they’ve already engraved massa’s name on the wdc trophy?
August 27th, 2008 at 1:16 pmFlibster said:
In the ranks of unsafe drivers, Massa is certainly up there with de Crasharis and Sato and Ide.
Even my other haf *who doesn’t follow F1 other than what I put her through every couple of weeks* said that it looks like the FIA favour Ferrari and are trying to prevent McLaren from winning.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s the FIA who are trying to stop McLaren winning, but it’s at least someone with power inside the FIA. *no names mentioned to protect the guilty*
If Massa wins the drivers championship this year I will be slightly upset, he, doesn’t deserve it in my opinion. Raikkonen at least puts his hand up when he makes a mistake, same with Hamilton and many of the other drivers. It’s always someone elses fault for Massa.
Although, to be fair, there hasn’t been one driver in the top 4 this year who have stood out above the rest as the deserving champion. Hamilton and Raikkonen have both had brain farts during the year so far.
I’d love to see Massa prove me wrong, but I don’t think he will - it seems that when the car isn’t exactly how he likes, or more commonly he’s fighting from behind, he just seems to fall apart.
I do think they have already chosen what logo to put on the constructors trophy though.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:19 pmme said:
ahh, yes. that’s more likely.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:45 pmAlex Andronov said:
The anybody but McLaren Logo?
August 27th, 2008 at 2:03 pmme said:
or that, yes
August 27th, 2008 at 2:09 pmFlibster said:
Yup. The dancing donkey preferably.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:31 pmSteven Roy said:
& you are driving a Ferrari
August 27th, 2008 at 2:50 pmAlex Andronov said:
I’m pretty sure that the only people who would have been able to appeal this would have been Force India. But my guess is that they wouldn’t based on the engines in the back of the car.
Did they actually lodge a complaint against Ferrari when Kimi crashed into the back of Sutil?
August 27th, 2008 at 2:59 pmSteven Roy said:
No. Besides that was a simple racing incident and if you watch the video Kimi did a fabulous job to keep the car out of the wall after it snapped sideways. He did everything he could to avoid an accident but was very unlucky. Mike Gascoyne was interviewed shortly after the race and while he was decidedly displeased he didn’t apportion blame to Kimi.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:00 pmFlibster said:
Nope. I do hope they got a discount on the next batch of engines though.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:31 pmAlex Andronov said:
Stephen I agree that that was a pretty great piece of driving from Kimi to avoid the incident.
I was wondering because there is a clear conflict of interest in this case. It doesn’t seem that there is an independent body really judging these cases.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:37 pmSteven Roy said:
Alex,
The conflict of interest may be greater than you think. I wrote this http://www.f1-pitlane.com/content/ferrari-international-assistance in May in response to some comments I received on another site. It shows the level of Ferrari bias there is in the FIA. Now we have deMontezemolo in charge of FOTA and Donnelly pushing the stewards around it is way beyond a joke.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:58 pmFlibster said:
Didn’t Alan Donnelly have Ferrari as a client as well?
I know he still lists the FIA and FOM on his site.
Jean Toad is on the WMSC - he’s the CEO of Ferrari
Marco Piccinini is also on the WMSC and a board member at Ferrari
Thats all I can remember off the top of my head.
I do wonder what would have happened if Renault were found with McLaren documents that were about the Ferrari information, or even just Ferrari information directly.
Slap on the wrist and don’t do it again still?
But then you have to factor in that Flavio and Bernie are business partners….
Sorry…It appears that I’ve taken this waaaaaaaaaay off topic
August 27th, 2008 at 4:41 pmJordan Allen said:
Here is the question I would love to have answered by non-Hamilton fans….
Is the Massa/Sutil pitlane incident “unsafe” enough to equate Hamilton crashing into Kimi (who is waiting for a red light to change) and therefore should suffer from a 10 place grid penality next race?
Or is the Mass/Sutil pitlane incident “unsafe” enough to give Massa a 15 second, 25 second or a drive-thru penity, in which case, the race becomes a processional James Allen/Lewis Hamilton lovefest about now Hamilton gets another “Senna-sque” win?
Or does common sence and a couple of expereinces of watching NASCAR or Champcar/IRL races where thye have 30 frecking cars in the pit lane at the same time and actually race for posiition even under full course yellows prevail and you realise what a non-incident this truly was, unless you are a Hamilton fan who does not care how he wins races….
August 27th, 2008 at 4:41 pmSteven Roy said:
‘me’ did a piece on the subject of Donnelly in Jaanuary which covers Ferrari disappearing off his companies client list in the weeks before his appointment. http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/01/25/fia-revise-f1-stewards-process/
August 27th, 2008 at 4:46 pmSteven Roy said:
Jordan,
The reason the rule is in place is because cars have hit mechanics before. My only complaint is that the stewards decided that an offence had been committed and then invented a penalty which does not appear in the rules. The rules give four possible penalties but the stewards invented a fifth.
You can’t use NASCAR as an example because open wheel cars react totally differently in a collision and I am not prepared to accept any Indy car formula’s safety rules. Under F1 rules Gonzalo Rodriguez and Greg Moore would not be dead.
The Lewis/Kimi incident only occurred because Lewis didn’t see a red light and Ferrari released Kimi early to let him race Kubica in the pit lane. Had Ferrari held Kimi and Lewis done exactly the same thing Lewis should have been given a penalty for not stopping and Kimi would have picked up a good few points more than him.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:51 pmme said:
i agree. i don’t think alonso’s friday penalty was warranted unless some unseen-by-us rule change occurred during the three week break. same goes for the massa incident.
i’m all for making the pitlane safer. i don’t think it’s fair on teams or drivers to suddenly start cracking down on misdemeanors without prior warning. am wondering if this is in fact what JYS was alluding to earlier when he said:
“stewards are part-time amateurs who are not paid properly”
maybe they did screw up and maybe donnelly is trying his best to repair the damage?
August 27th, 2008 at 4:56 pmSteven Roy said:
I think this is a dig at Max for getting rid of Tony Scott-Andrews at the start of the season and coming up with the rule that no steward can be from the same country as any competing driver. Therefore the majority of stewards have to be from outside the major motor sport nations that can train their people properly and give them experience.
Conveniently it was people from these countries who voted for Max. Donnelly is that to ensure that Max’s will be done and is assisted by having inexperienced stewards he can push around. Exactly what most of expected in January.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:58 pmJordan Allen said:
Steven:
Do not chicken out on me. Do you prefer a Hamilton win or you telling me that smashing into the back of someone deserves the same penality as whatever Massa is convicted of doing?
August 27th, 2008 at 5:05 pmme said:
no-ones chickening out. you asked a leading (and rather unfair) question.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:09 pmme said:
this isn’t quite true, because there would have been space to the left of kubica. which was exactly where lewis was aiming.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:12 pmme said:
could one of them have pushed the button against donnelly’s wishes then? knowing that once the investigation warning was out there was no clean way of going back?
damn i wish there was more transparency.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:13 pmSteven Roy said:
I think in some ways the incidents are similar. The only reason there was not a crash on Sunday was because Massa realised there was going to be an accident and avoided it. Given the head protectors on the car and how useless the mirrors are it was purely luck that he was in a position to see Sutil. Had he not seen him and been unable to correct Ferrari’s mistake there would have been an accident like Lewis had with Kimi except it would not have been at the end of the pitlane and Massa could easily have bounced off into the safety car or the cameraman who had been kneeling in front of his car.
Had Felipe not seen Sutil and crashed into him then bounced into and killed the cameraman would that have been worth a penalty? If so you are giving penalties based on dumb luck. Ferrari released their driver into the path of another. That is against the rules. It is correct that they were penalised for it albeit the penalty was wrong.
It is easy to underplay this incident because Ferrari were in the last pit whereas most of the time they are in the first pit. Imagine a pitlane full of mechanics and Ferrari doing exactly the same with a car coming into the pits especially if that was a driver who was trying for a podium place.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:18 pmSteven Roy said:
I have no idea how the procedure for announcing a stewards investigation works. I also have no idea where the stewards or Alan Donnelly are during the race. I assume that the stewards are in a room in the race control building and that Max has Donnelly standing over them. I guess the only person who would have any chance of knowing this procedure is Alianora but I would guess that it is not documented.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:31 pmFlibster said:
I apologise if this is a little scattered - I’ve kind of written it as it’s appeared in my brain.
First off, I am not a Hamilton fan. But unlike many, I have nothing against the guy. The drivers I am fans of have all retired or died. Hell, the team I devoutly supported no longer exists as an entity in current F1. Lotus BTW.
I’m just happy that a Brit is actually doing well in something.
Secondly, I have nothing against Ferrari either. I may have little things against some members - Toad for instance, but the team itself is fine. 21 years was a damn long time for them to wait for a title.
I do not believe that Ferrari deserve any special treatment over any other team. Ferrari is just as important in F1 as Force India. The difference is only history.
Why was Raikkonen alongside Kubica in the first place? Racing in the pitlane? I pointed that out on a forum as being against the rules and was rubbished out of the thread.
The rule is clearly laid out. Massa should have got a drive through, stop and go, a time penalty after the race or a position drop at the next. In this case, they had more than enough time for either of the first 2 penalties to be applied - but chickened out as it would have handed the race to Hamilton.
If Massa had finished say, 10.4 seconds ahead of Hamilton I suspect we would have seen a 10 second penalty applied after the race.
The pitlane at Valencia is ridiculously narrow and Massa was barely in the pit lane. Most of his car was in the pit box areas. If there was another team in front of them he would have stood a good chance of running over pit crew or equipment.
The whole pitlane in Canada is pretty wide so 2 cars side by side wasn’t too bad. However - there is still only a one car width section that is the pitlane road.
I would still prefer to see stricter regulations in this area though. Just like on a main road, the person already on it has right of way over the person coming onto it.
Massa was the innocent party in this to be fair, his team let him out of the pitbox at the wrong time. Or rather he was the innocent party until he started moving across and forcing Sutil towards the wall. If Sutil hadn’t have moved over and they had collided or had hit the wall, would that have still been acceptable for a €10k fine after the race?
All they have really done is endorsed playing chicken in the pitlane - with a €10k entry fee to the game.
Add to all that Massa’s “It was Sutil’s fault” garbage in the press conference and he just looks stupid.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:40 pmAlex Andronov said:
I think the problem here is that you can’t start deciding whether to punish somebody based on if it’s entertaining or not it leads into all sorts of trouble.
This actually might lead us back to the cold fuel issue. That was difficult because people can’t be allowed to simply get away with things because they managed to hide it until after the race.
But essentially we have three problems. The rules are:
1) Too complicated
2) Too opaque
and
3) Inconsistently enforced.
It looked unsafe to me but I’m not the expert on the scene. It sounds like there wasn’t really an expert on the scene. But never-the-less if it was unsafe they should have used one of the punishments available.
It would have, in my opinion, been unfair to have taken the win from Massa as it was the team’s fault. But that isn’t the marshals call on the day. They have to apply the rules and if the rules are stupid they need to be changed in time for next time.
I am strongly against the grid penalties for the next race. They should be given actual penalties (not fines) like Black flag, Drive throughs, stop and goes, driver points removed, team points removed, time added. If an incident happens at the end of the race then drivers point and/or team points should be removed. And it should be decided before the podium.
But if I was in charge on the day I would have rued that the rules weren’t clearer and given one of the available punishments. It would have been unfairly strong but then the rules would be changed for next time. That’s the only way this can work - in my opinion.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:42 pmSteven Roy said:
I have just noticed something as a result of a discussion at F1 Insight. ‘Incidents’ come under article 16 of the 2008 F1 Sporting Regulations and the penalties for such are specified in article 16.3. Ferrari were found guilty of an offence under article 23.1i of the 2008 F1 Sporting Regulations which rather conveniently does not specify penalties.
The judgement can be found here
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/eur_08_document_411.gif
The regulations can be found here
http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/475632E46002BEDAC125744F004312F4/FILE/F1.SPORTING.REGULATIONS.19-05-2008.pdf
August 27th, 2008 at 5:55 pmAlex Andronov said:
23.1.i is “It is the responsibility of the competitor to release his car after a pit stop only when it is safe to do so.”
But, and this is clearly the get out they were using…
The explicit things that can cause them to get you are:
Now my guess is that the “illegitimately impeded” thing was raised first, which is why Ferrari was so keen to get that quashed. Because that was taken out it was allowed to be decided after the race.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:24 pmJordan Allen said:
Me:
I do not know if I am saking a loaded question. in Steven’s Roy’s own words.
Okay. The four possible penalities are:
1) Drive thru penality: Takes about 20 someodd seconds, as hamilton was 5 seconds behind Massa at teh end out the race, we can assume that Hamilton would be the winner by some 15 seconds.
2) 15 second time penality. End resuklt. Hamilton wiiner by 10 seconds.
3) 25 second time penailty. End result. Hamilton winner by 20 seconds.
okay so all those penalities give Hamilton the win.
4) 10 Place Drop at Spa. Well, we must remember that Massa was racing Hamilton at this point and the track was green. My own thouight is that no incident was created by Massa. It was obvious that Massa was trying to pass Sutil to get both a good outlap and tp place a backmarker betwen himslef and Hamilton. That’s what racers are supposed to do. No Harm, No fowl.
So, which one does he prefer?
I can see why the stewards investigated. What the should have done was dropped once they realized that nothing happened, and everything could be explained that makes racing sence to the popel concerned. Iffy, yes, but Massa had to get ahead of Sutil. If they wanted to play as safe as suggested, Ferrari would have to have waited until Sutil cleared pit lane, which would have Hamilton far to close for comfort.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:26 pmme said:
changing the subject, but renault have a blog post today requesting suggestions on how they can improve their site for next year.
the story appeared in their rss feed, so i clicked on the link with the intention of giving them both barrels over the mess they’ve made this year, and guess what?
nothing happened. the web site didn’t load and no page appeared.
brilliant!
dear ing renault f1 team, i have but one suggestion for you web site next year… fix it!
August 27th, 2008 at 6:27 pmAlex Andronov said:
August 27th, 2008 at 6:31 pmSteven Roy said:
e-mail them the links to your team website reviews. That should give them a clue what people think and who to copy.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:42 pmme said:
i’ve managed to find the survey:
http://surveyor.caradisiac.com/index.php?sid=59
feel free to add your 2p worth.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:57 pmStuart C said:
Evening all,
Greetings from delightful Berwick-Upon-Tweed, where my room has a view overlooking MacDonald’s car park (I got up from my chair just then to check where the apostrophe should go, but regrettably only the golden arches are visible from here).
Apropos your questions from yesterday (apropos? Sorry for coming over all Alan Partridge – I’ll dismantle the Corby Trouser Press in a minute) regarding the Indycar mag… Firstly, it’s a customer mag – paid for by the IRL and advertisers/partners – so it’s free to the customer. Hence no worries about sticking the whole caboodle up on the interweb.
One of the principal sticking points over putting content on the F1R site is the licencing deal: we can’t run ads.
In other news, an (unnamed) F1 team is conducting market research at the moment into how people get information from the internet. A chap is coming to interview me on Monday. So I can now say, “First, make sure your wretched web site works…”
August 27th, 2008 at 7:08 pmAlex Andronov said:
Personally I have a very narrow view
Sidepodcast
and
F1 Fanatic
And lots of great commentary from Clive too.
Sorry to everyone else on here, but I tend to wait for you to plug your articles and then go and read them.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:12 pmAlex Andronov said:
I hardly even bother with ITV or Autosport any more unless it’s tipped by one of the other posters.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:27 pmme said:
you wanna tell said (unnamed) f1 team, that in order to understand the internet they should try it out first. and then insist the conversation takes place via IM or Skype
out of interest, any idea what sort of things they’re looking for? i’m guessing that:
“traditionally people use an input device and screen”
or
“using a combination of words and pictures”
wouldn’t justify the journey?
August 27th, 2008 at 7:43 pmStuart C said:
Indeed. Well, initially they want to speak to F1 journalists about where they source information from on the web. Yes, I found this a slightly bizarre request, too.
However, one F1 team is currently engaging in a charm offensive with what we might call the ’second string’ websites (ie news sites with no access, such as Planet F1, Buspass, etc). These lucky folk were even granted a factory visit recently. The purpose is to seed positive news stories virally, since these sites tend to follow up one another’s stories without questioning the sources or validity.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:47 pmStuart C said:
Interesting thoughts, Alex. How have you arrived at your preferences? I’ve seen Clive’s site and it’s very interesting. T’other one you mention is a bit noisy.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:52 pmme said:
would that be the same team currently on a charm offensive with bloggers too?
(it’s not working on us btw)
August 27th, 2008 at 7:59 pmSteven Roy said:
Stuart,
If you haven’t seen the review (and comments) of team websites articles the first one is worth reading to give Renault information. It would be well worth sending them the link although by now they must know how bad it is.
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/06/13/this-is-how-the-teams-do-it-part-1/
In effect as a result of that article they got a whole load of people delivered to their site and the general opinion was the site was rubbish, it didn’t work and no-one is ever going back to it again.
The other 5 team site reviews are at http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/06/16/this-is-how-the-teams-do-it-part-2/
I started off using ITV, Autosport, grandprix.com and crash.net etc but I have gradually found myself switching to forums, blogs and sidepodcast. I still use the other sites but there is only so much genuine news to go round and most items of F1 news are in three or four simple paragraphs. The only way to understand what is going on is to read other people’s thoughts on the matter and piece all the little bits together that they have found.
I rarely go near a team site unless someone points me to something on it. The only exception was for the above reviews which resulted in me deciding not to visit most of them again for a very long time.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:01 pmme said:
same here.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:38 pmStuart C said:
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps!
Thanks, Steven, for all that. F1 fans seem to fall into two broad camps: those who make full and frequent use of the internet to get their F1 ‘fix’, and those who don’t. I hesitate to guess at the exact proportions but you would be amazed at how many people enjoy F1 but aren’t quite fanatical enough to spend a goodly proportion of their waking hours scouring the web for facts and opinions. Those who ‘do’ quickly find a peer group of like-minded people and some blogs flourish while others wither on the vine.
I have no idea of the traffic levels but a trawl of the comments on several of the independent blogs reveals that there’s a relatively small contingent who comment regularly (there could be hundreds or even thousands of lurkers, though, so this methodology is fundamentally inexact).
The teams are waking up to the web and some of them are issuing useful content. I know Bradley used to put a lot of effort into the Renault web presence and the post-race debriefs with the likes of Pat Symonds were excellent. Obviously it could be a bit annoying if you’d spent some time laying siege to Pat for an ‘exclusive’, only to find him repeating broadly similar material for all to hear long before your own material hit the streets (I’m reminded of the Monty Python sketch about the film director who complained that Hitchcock had his version of Rear Window in the cinemas “before mine came back from the chemist”) but such is life. Williams are trying to do the podcasting thing – how do you rate theirs?
But F1 bloggers – like the political bloggers – are getting noticed. Partly it’s down to Google. Thanks to the miracle of Google Alerts, The Powers That Be are able to keep an eye on what people think. This site and others have cropped up on my employers’ radar (which reminds me: I think I owe Doctor Vee a pint…).
August 27th, 2008 at 8:50 pmAlenyaa said:
Hey there Sidepodcast!
Thanks for another wonderful episode. Enjoyed listening to your views and scoops!
Just one remark i’d like to make though. The fine for the Massa/Sutil pit lane incident.
As you’ve said during the podcast, cars going side by side on their way towards the pit lane exit isn’t exactly unprecedented, and normally race control don’t even bother to fine or reprimand it, which is the right way to go if you ask me.
Now, seeing as the Valencia pit lane is narrower than average and therefor does make for potentially more dangerous, I think the fine and reprimand are a suiting penalty for this “first narrow pit lane offense”.
As Alex (I think it was him) suggested I do think heavier penalties for such incidents would be in place for incidents like these in the future.
Cheers!
August 27th, 2008 at 8:57 pmSteven Roy said:
I didn’t know Williams were podcasting. I will add that to my never ending list of things to check.
The thing I don’t get about Renault is that they put out a load of info three or four years ago about their web presence. They were setting up in second life and the like yet they can’t put up a simple website that doesn’t annoy people into leaving within a few minutes. Scanning some of the comments on the reviews the thing that struck me was that it wasn’t the content of their site that was the problem. It was unwanted loud music, pop ups and the fact that people struggled to get things to work. Add to that they decided for utterly unfathomable reasons to split it into two sites. The first rule of sales is not to make people like you it is to make them not dislike you. People take an instant dislike to that site so it doesn’t matter if they were giving away F1 cars no-one stayed around long enough to find out if there were any goodies to be had.
I spent some time working in Paris a lot of years ago and the French love a compromise. The site design has compromise written all over it. It lloks like different people wanted to do different things and instead of letting one person create his/her vision they took a little bit from everyone.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:08 pmStuart C said:
I spent some time working for the Japanese, so I see where you’re coming from…
August 27th, 2008 at 9:09 pmFlibster said:
I tend to get a lot of my info from friends in the sport first and then from there to the net.
Autosport is good for an occasional peek.
I do use totalf1.com for a general roundup. Check the headlines - if anything interests me than I look further.
As most of what I’m into at the moment is historic then the forix.com site and the f1.com site are both pretty useful.
I also enjoy the Red Bulletin - it’s not strictly accurate or even true but it’s always good for a laugh when at work - especially as I don’t have to pay for the toner or paper.
Team and driver sites are pretty much all adverts for their shop and their sponsors. Although McLarens at launch was pretty good with the full size press shots available to all.
Podcast wise, other than sidepodcast, I habitually listen to F1 Rejects - just for the comedy Aussie take on it. The Williams F1 podcast isn’t bad. Bit too pressreleasey for me. The Renault F1 one was alright last year - haven’t listened to it this year.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:11 pmScott Woodwiss said:
evening folks. just been reading on autosport about today’s monza testing. incredible that all 10 teams are seperated by just over a second. if that isn’t close, i don’t know what is. also, how close the fastest 3 were - less than half a hundredth seperating ferrari, mclaren and williams. pretty good.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:21 pmStuart C said:
Hello Flibster. Many thanks – I’d never heard of totalf1.com before.
Quite so. It used to be that you could wander around the circuit during a practice session and very quickly arrive at an impression of which technical packages were working (and which weren’t) and which drivers were quick (and ditto). Now it’s enormously difficult because the differences are so minute. Even Nelsinho has upped his game since France!
August 27th, 2008 at 9:22 pmme said:
i couldn’t really tell you in terms of actual figures either. we did briefly run a piece of software a while back called woopra.
it does live web stats, and what that told us was there were maybe 8 or 9 times as many people following a live commenting session as there are contributing. i guess lots of people find something like that useful, but either don’t feel confident enough to join in or have nothing add.
sadly we stopped using the software because it was flaky and caused browsers to hang in the middle of page loading.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:24 pmSteven Roy said:
The one thing this conversation shows is that in the time an unknown team’s personnel is going to take visiting Stuart they could have sat in front of a PC like Stuart has and gooten all this info a dozen times over by visiting different sites.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:28 pmme said:
i’m not sure we’re this best people to be criticising other peoples podcasts to be honest. but i will say i listen to the renault one, but not the williams one.
and i like both teams
August 27th, 2008 at 9:32 pmme said:
agreed alenyaa. now we have to wait and see where the fia go next, and see if any precedents have been set, or if the whole weekend was a one off.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:43 pmSteven Roy said:
Williams need to sort out their publicity machine. You are not going to believe this but on their site they are running a competition the prize for which is to take last year’s FW29 round Silverstone. They are going to let the winner drive an F1 car and I hadn’t even heard of the competition. How is that possible? In the massively unlikely event that I win the thing I would like to say thanks to Stuart for mentioning their podcast without which I wouldn’t be on their site even if it is about the best of the team sites.
http://www.williamsf1.com/news/view/581
August 27th, 2008 at 9:45 pmStuart C said:
Perhaps, but would this be a representative sample? I think it’s a bit dangerous to take the views of blog posters (by nature vociferous and opinionated) at face value without a counterbalancing look at the views of people who don’t post/comment (for whatever reason). Scientifically, I mean.
Well, at least we’ll get to see if the new concessionaires in our cafe can make coffee that doesn’t taste like it’s already been through the machine 20 times.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:49 pmme said:
more representative than asking one man over coffee? yes
or are you planning on running a magazine survey?
cannot argue with that
August 27th, 2008 at 9:50 pmme said:
if i hadn’t just clicked that link, you’re right i wouldn’t.
awesome, thank you.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pmSteven Roy said:
Tell Christine that she has no chance of getting this prize if I win it. I don’t care how much she begs.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pmStuart C said:
Unknown. But ING are doing a fan survey (like the FIA/AMD one the other year). I’ll let you know when it goes live.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:55 pmme said:
i don’t think we mention williams enough on the live show, do you?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:56 pmme said:
appreciate it.
any idea if they’re planning to spit on the results and do the exact opposite too?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:56 pmScott Woodwiss said:
by the way, just off topic, what’s the question count from people for my interview?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:59 pmChristine said:
Ooh, I’d forgotten. I think perhaps so did everyone else
August 27th, 2008 at 10:03 pmSteven Roy said:
Philips shavers are sponsoring the comp so think about product placement.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:04 pmme said:
ooh, i have a beard. brilliant.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:06 pmme said:
erm, that’s as far as i’ve got.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:08 pmScott Woodwiss said:
we knew that already
And you sometimes wear a cap, go to whsmiths for autosport magazine and has a cog. We’re getting closer, guys! 
August 27th, 2008 at 10:09 pmme said:
scott, have you any idea what the heck this last comment on youtube means:
http://uk.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=8L3MhSz0CVo&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3D8L3MhSz0CVo
norwich union??
August 27th, 2008 at 10:10 pmme said:
scott, what you need to do is pay lou for the picture she has of me…
August 27th, 2008 at 10:14 pmStuart C said:
YouTube commenters belong to a higher order of madness…
August 27th, 2008 at 10:17 pmScott Woodwiss said:
ah never mind about that, just my mate messing around. trying to get a job at norwich union but i’ve done 2 interviews and both came back negative. got another one next tuesday.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:19 pmme said:
ahh, ok. mind if i delete it? it doesn’t really add to the conversation.
good luck on tuesday btw.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:20 pmSteven Roy said:
I thought sidepodcast had given up on youtube
August 27th, 2008 at 10:22 pmme said:
in fairness to youtube. if the producers of videos keep a handle on the conversation, they can be quite reasonable. ours generally seemed ok in the time we used it.
it doesn’t help that youtube rewards producers for having so many comments mind you. hardly encourages moderation.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:23 pmme said:
we no longer add new videos. but we’re not taking existing shows down because some f1 sites have embedded them and that would make us no better than bernie.
it means people can still leave comments, which means we still have to moderate them.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:41 pmAlex Andronov said:
Interestingly these things work the same way for us as they do for the teams (you said you and the teams noticed things on google alerts - we do the same). I have a blog, and one of my posts was mentioned on F1 Fanatic. Then Keith was interviewed by Sidepodcast, then… Well then I read Clive, Stephen Roy, Doctor Vee, Ollie… etc. But in essence the largest criticism for the team sites that I can see is that while the blogs tend to interact together and pull people in the teams are expecting people to come.
My guess is that it’s less about inviting people to events once a year and more about regularly mentioning articles by the top bloggers. “As I was reading / listening on …” It’s a common courtesy on sites these days to not steal. To not try and seem loftier by not mentioning other sites. The key thing is to roll up your sleeves and admit the connections. By doing that you get far more people coming back to you.
It’s true that lots of people don’t do anything more than watch the races. But the people who were buying index issues of magazines a few years ago are the people who are feeling part of a community without you now. And it will be the casual purchasers of the magazines in a few years further. Or at least it will be if you don’t pay them the attention that they deserve.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:45 pmAlex Andronov said:
And just to say Stuart… The simple thing of you taking part in the community here goes a long way towards helping me feel good about your magazine
August 27th, 2008 at 10:56 pmme said:
as does offering bloggers pints
August 27th, 2008 at 10:57 pmAlex Andronov said:
I did almost say “helping me feel good about your organ” but I thought that might be misconstrued
August 27th, 2008 at 10:57 pmSteven Roy said:
Just posted my best time for the Williams comp on dropio. Not that I am trying to provoke a competitive response. I think I would class my time as slower than Ricardo Rosset so I am confident that I can take a lot of time out of it. Given that my fastest lap is 6 seconds better than the lap that followed it I think it is safe to say I am not giving away vital set up info
August 27th, 2008 at 10:57 pmAlex Andronov said:
That’s the real trick!
August 27th, 2008 at 11:16 pmme said:
my first lap was almost 2mins. gonna have to give shavers a lot of mentions on sunday.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:18 pmSteven Roy said:
I started off with the fast shaver then switched to the one with handling then thought sod it use the one that can go straight through the puddles.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:19 pmme said:
noted. gimmie 6mins
August 27th, 2008 at 11:21 pmOllie said:
@Alex: I’ve been enjoying a casual conversation on Identi.ca with “me” and was pointed over here. Just to post publicly on the site though, I totally agree with the following:
…And your comment immediately previous, as well.
In this day and age, where the Internet is encroaching on ‘traditional’ printed media, it needs ‘forward-thinking’ people to understand how best to achieve the balance between readers who want information from different mediums, even sources.
I haven’t followed this conversation all the way, but wanted to add this in to basically say, wise words, well said.
Edit: And the community aspect between us F1-bloggers astounds me every single day. It really does.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:24 pmme said:
it’s gonna be an expensive round SC!
August 27th, 2008 at 11:38 pmme said:
okay that didn’t work.
officially, i’m hopeless at this.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:52 pmme said:
talking of which, we’re going to have to do a post about this at some point, but christine and i are completely sold on the twitter replacement identi.ca.
if you’re into microblogging you might like to check it out. if you’ve been following us on twitter, we’re no longer there. sorry.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:23 amOllie said:
In catching up with this very interesting thread…
I take it all back, Alex. (Joke)
Without wanting to sound rude, arrogant or egotistical in any way, shape or form (for I hope this is not my usual style)…
From my experience, this is 100% accurate, if not more so than the numbers suggested. But anyone who even understands the basic where’s and why’s of the Internet will understand that pageviews do not equal engaged readers/users/purchasers of anything online.
At a pinch, I’ll accept that (based on slowly improving content). However, referring to previous comments about the Renault site, the information is useless if not presented properly. Cross-browser compatibility anyone? Poorly coded and innaccessible websites that actually break UK web-access legislation/law.
W3C International Policy Portal.
I’m not gonna say I follow this, before everybody jumps on my back. Partly because I do not yet understand it all (although I aspire to, one day), and mostly because I am not a multi-million dollar business. Unlike some…
And to pick myself back up from I was… poorly laid out websites that look like something Little Timmy designed in pre-school with his crayon set. Broken links, flash that doesn’t work properly, stupid effects that just annoy every usuer but one. And regarding Autosport, frickin’ adverts that hide half the poorly written content in the first place. (My ultimate pet peeve.)
Maybe I’m being too harsh, but there are standards, and my impression is that the creators of the team’s websites are called Little Timmy. I do (just about) agree with the content though, and Renault should be praised for trying a variety of different ways to get information across to their fans and increase their web-presence. As should others. But Renault’s interraction thing this year was just attrocious. I visited, attempted to sign up, wasn’t sure if I’d been successful and it went even further downhill from there.
“If you’re gonna do something, do it right.”
Please understand, I actually enjoyed your comment Stuart, and I hope you don’t think I have taken anything out on you. I certainly don’t mean to sound rude, not to someone who makes such an effort as yourself, to involve yourself in an online community when no doubt, you have enough to do as it is. What irks me something rotten is when a company who have a turnover of god-knows-what cannot get something as simple as a website right. And to then think that once it’s created, there is no need to involve themselves with those who they are trying to attract in the first place.
I write this comment in the hope that Little Timmy from each of the teams reads it and understands that within the Internet there is a huge possibility to market themselves in an effective, intelligent and accessible manner that will further attract themselve new fans and ‘purchasers’. And not just of themselves, but of Formula One as a whole.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:36 amOllie said:
Heh, missed the opportunity to edit out my typos; I got involved once again in Identi.ca. Blast you social web! And talking of the social aspects of the Internet…
August 28th, 2008 at 12:47 amme said:
appreciate you doing that, thanks.
it was autosport.com that pushed me down the ad-blocking route. and now i doubt they get any money when i view their pages. so i’m with you there, everything in moderation.
i’ve got to be honest with you. as good intentioned as these laws were meant to be, accessibility on the web is hopelessly thought out and hopelessly implemented (and by that i mean the people who wrote the standards and the browser developers who implemented them).
the rules are far too complicated, mostly contradictory and thus only hurt those they were designed to help. we try to transcribe everything we do, but beyond that we’ve got to wait until technology catches up with reality.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:15 amOllie said:
I agree. I truly do. But go back 3 or 4 years and it was a completely different story. Very few standards, rarely practiced and even littler thought put into them. (I’m allowed to say littler ‘cos I am
)
Without really wanting to get into a debate about standards at 1am… without people pushing to improve this area of the Internet and adopting, analysing and progressing this, my website is not being read by as many people as possible. And I want my website to be read by as many people as possible.
To be honest, I probably go as far as you with standards (and I appreciate yours are more complex being a predominantly audio based service). But at the end of the day, I have a budget of £10/month which pays my hosting fees. But with common sense I can produce a site that is more accessible than a company with a budget of, well, I hate to think. I believe my articles are better presented to a wider audience than some of the team’s sites. And I’m a nobody. Sidepodcast can include itself in this as well, as can many, many others. I firmly believe that we F1-bloggers often put the MSM (teams included) to utter shame. And without the inside knowledge, that is damn impressive.
My ultimate point being: Formula One teams and drivers have the ability to produce amazing content and present it to their audience superbly. Alas, I honestly don’t think they care. And they’re missing out big time. But as the post I’m writing right now will eventually say; it’s their loss and our gain.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:26 amme said:
as sidepodcast’s 3rd ever commentor, you’re somebody to us.
i hope you include bernie in that post
August 28th, 2008 at 1:37 amOllie said:
Oh my, do I actually want to click that link? I sent out an email to Steven Roy from the Steven Roy Show earlier, thanking him for his quality contributions to BlogF1 and pointed out that his first comment fell on the very exact day of BlogF1’s second birthday. I wonder if he clicked that link as well…?
Edit: Okay, that was cool. I remember being the first commenter on the old Sidepodcast forum as well. But the now I feel very old all of a sudden.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:39 amme said:
your opening gambit included the phrase:
“Schumacher: A very fast but sadly-tainted genius.”
need i say more?
August 28th, 2008 at 1:46 amOllie said:
Quite.Possibly? Depends on your viewpoint, I guess.I actually remember and often quote in real life Christine’s follow-up:
I usually skip the whole “hatred” part. I’m too much of a diplomat sometimes.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:53 amme said:
i don’t deny it (although perhaps “hate” is a bit strong). if he hadn’t retired, i doubt we’d be doing this now. although having said that, for the first time ever he made me laugh last sunday.
mostly i think because he got over himself and finally spoke to brundle on the grid (that was another reason for disliking him).
August 28th, 2008 at 2:00 amScott said:
Alejandro Agag, Campos’ business partner, is the managing director of QPR. It’s a small world, eh?
August 28th, 2008 at 2:01 amme said:
suspiciously so.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:09 amSteven Roy said:
I should have known that. I wonder if Adrian knows he has made this deal or whether it was all arranged at the wekend’s match.
Oliie,
I have had way more than enough arguments about Schumacher over the years to get drawn into another one. Let’s say my view broadly is similar to yours although I think Stuart Codling’s comment on Jabby Crombac’s comment on Schumacher summed him up nicely. It is amazing what Crombac could express with just one word.
Now unlike you lot I have to go to bed. & remember it is not a real shave unless it is with a Philips shaver
August 28th, 2008 at 7:05 amAlex Andronov said:
I do read your personal blog Ollie if that helps!
August 28th, 2008 at 8:36 amChristine said:
Did you ever think that was a sentence you’d write?
August 28th, 2008 at 8:56 amAlex Andronov said:
Ferrari got clean away with their dangerous release of Philipe Massa’s car. Despite there only being a whisker’s breadth between the cars Ferrari were only fined. Many had predicted they would have their points cut. It was in the opinion of many a very close shave.
I personally would like to say I haven’t seen a shave as close as that without a Philips Shaver.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:00 amAlex Andronov said:
At what point did Christine stop being Chris? Was it just to stop people thinking me was Chris?
August 28th, 2008 at 9:06 amAlex Andronov said:
This is bizarre listening to the first sidepodcast episode…
It’s about Kimi struggling to qualify well, and drivers heading off with the fuel hose still attached.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:09 amChristine said:
No, no, no, no! Don’t listen to the first episodes. I’ll die of embarrassment.
Re the name. I always wanted to be called Chris. I had my way for about two episodes, before ‘me’ convinced me to use Christine. And it turns out he was right because I much prefer it.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:10 amStuart C said:
Morning all,
Very interesting stuff overnight.
Well, some far-sighted soul (not me) arranged for our stand at the ASI to be right by the bar. After a hard day of yattering into a microphone the vocal chords must be soothed.
Bloggers certainly operate without many of the constraints of the traditional media. The response to the spanking story earlier in the year was a case in point: a veritable orgy of comment (pardon the phraseology) while us mainstream types were interrupting our lawyers’ breakfasts with niggling-but-important dialogue such as “Is it really him? Will we breach any statutes by following it up?”
Ads tend to work on click-throughs, though, which is why most of the independent news sites follow up on any old noise. No new content = fewer views = less money coming in.
Campos and Agag made an awful lot of money a few years ago by snapping up the rights to the Spanish F1 TV coverage for a pittance when there was no interest in it – just before a young chap called Alonso, managed by a fellow named Campos, got his F1 break via a chap named Briatore (also ‘involved’ in QPR!), thereby making those TV rights worth substantially more valuable than they had been… Funny old world.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:14 amAlex Andronov said:
Funnily enough I think “me” has changed the most.
His voice even sounds different. Are you sure you didn’t swap him mid season like with the Stig?
I think Christine suits you better too.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:16 amAlex Andronov said:
What are the chances of that happening eh?
August 28th, 2008 at 9:17 amChristine said:
I think perhaps it’s because I used to make him read stuff out loud. He works best when not constrained to lifting the written word off the page.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:27 amAlex Andronov said:
Ah that makes sense. Sometimes he seems to get bored in the middle of his own sentences
I promise to stop listening now. It’s Me’s fault anyway he provided the link!
You both sound much more natural these days which is a very good thing
August 28th, 2008 at 9:48 amme said:
that doesn’t surprise me.
before we started, christine was already doing a little audio work and i knew she had a pretty good voice. i on the other hand was never meant to be in charge of a microphone.
18 months on, and still can’t read out loud