Sidepodcast

You may have heard we visited the Shell lab and Ferrari garages during Friday Free Practice at Silverstone. We might have mentioned it once or twice.

After talking to the very nice and incredibly smart people at Shell, they convinced us that V-Power is worth a second look. Mr C has tried superior fuels before and was already aware of the potential benefits – a cleaner engine, and better performance. I was not, and disappointed everyone by suggesting my local supermarket fuel was just as good.

With this in mind, we thought it a great opportunity to officially debut Sidepodscience with the Shell V-Power Challenge.

The Aim

• To establish whether V-Power makes such a difference it can be felt by someone not scientific like me.
• To compare V-Power with BP Ultimate – a rival fuel of similar description.

The Challenge

I have run my car down of supermarket fuel and will fill up with V-Power. After two weeks I will report back on whether any difference could be felt.

Mr C will be moving from BP Regular to BP Ultimate to see if there is any difference. He will then switch to V-Power to determine any difference between the two (supposedly) equal fuel types.

Finally

It is worth noting that V-Power (and Ultimate) costs a couple of pence more per litre than regular fuel does, which would work out as a few pounds extra for a full tank.

We have it on good authority from multiple sources that the more expensive fuel is better for your engine. Even if the difference couldn’t be felt, that doesn’t mean it isn’t keeping the insides clean and saving you a couple of hundred quid at the garage.

I think that sums up what we’re going to be doing and why. We’ll report back here in two weeks with our findings. Meanwhile, let us know if you have any experience of fuels and the difference between them, or if you have any more scientific notes to add.

If you’ve not managed to catch an episode of the Parade Lap this year, you’re missing out. It’s a show unlike any other we do. Alex takes the reigns, it feels more like a radio show than a podcast, and it goes out live on a Sunday, one hour before the BBC’s race coverage starts.

Last week’s show was extra special, as we managed a live link-up with Scott who was hiding out behind the grandstands on Silverstone’s main straight.

We could detail the complexities involved in setting up such a scenario, but I think Alex summed it up best in this comment, where he points out:

My favourite part of the show was that:

• We were on a live link to Silverstone talking to Scott.
• And I was sitting on a second live link.
• And I read a question from the comments from Lukeh about Heidfeld’s beard.
• And Scott knowing the community so well had already asked Heidfeld about the beard and could answer.

Something about the interconnectedness of it all was pretty mind-blowing.

Here’s a snippet of the audio in question:

Two Skype links, one iPhone, a live streaming server and a question about a beard!

We’ve suffered from so many technical gremlins during live broadcasts in the past, that it’s remarkable an event like this could ever happen in the first place. I’m sure the BBC aren’t exactly shaking in their boots at our achievements, but we’re pretty chuffed it all came to together when we needed it to.

A huge thank you has to go out to everybody who took part on Sunday. It cannot be done without you.

Back in 2007, Christine and I attended our first ever Grand Prix. We went to the British GP at Silverstone, and it’s fair to say we weren’t very prepared. We stayed on site for the full three days, courtesy of Honda, but had no internet connectivity for the duration.

Although Sidepodcast had only been going for a couple of months, it meant we couldn’t keep the site up-to-date in our absence, and we couldn’t track any breaking news stories either. Predictably, because it’s Silverstone, a major story broke on the Friday (on this occasion it was news of Nick Fry’s meeting with Stepney / Coughlan), and having no other means of finding out what the heck was going on, we resorting to quizzing Maurice Hamilton for info instead.

_{2007 Honda Scooters}

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There hasn’t been much to smile about in the world of F1 lately, but one of things we like to do, that never seems to get boring, is come up with fun titles for blog posts. Frequently it’s a collaborative process, and we always aim to squeeze in some thinly veiled musical reference when the opportunity presents.

If you listened to this week’s Aside with Joe, you’ll recall a section of the show where Joe talks about his process of coming up with a good headline.

Unfortunately, during the recording, a skype drop-out ruined the premise of one fabulous anecdote, but rather than lose it forever, we’ve included it below. To fill in the words that Skype stole, the subject of the headline is the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix where McLaren drivers Senna and Prost managed to tangle while battling for the lead:

There’s more where that came from too. As mentioned in the show, Grand Prix+ regularly features some of the best F1 headlines going and given our penchant for musical references this cover will likely rank as my favourite for a while:

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Singapore was quite the spectacle in 2008. The first F1 night race was intriguing, and the organisers had plenty of other music and festivities going on to keep the crowds amused.

This year, they have lost the novelty of having the “first ever” although they still keep the crown of “only”. By the time we get to Singapore, the championship will likely be all but over, and so it is to the music I turn my attention.

For 2009, the Singapore Grand Prix will include eight free concerts scattered around the circuit, with musical acts from all over the globe. One particular band caught my eye – the Backstreet Boys will be headlining one of the gigs. My inner teenager is very excited about this news.

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In addition to providing the two of us admission to free practice at Silverstone yesterday, the lovely people from Shell supplied a pair of Kangaroo TV handsets for use during the day. If we hadn’t been given a set though, we’d surely have paid for one, because as we said way back in 2007 these things rock our world.

Watching a single corner of a race track, and squinting at the nearest jumbotron, doesn’t hold much appeal for us. We’re clearly the kind of people who need to know exactly what’s going on at a Grand Prix to really enjoy the experience. No doubt we would’ve hated turning up to pre-2006 races.

This year the handset features have improved (including bespoke Shell branded data on ours), especially now all teams are required to make radio transmissions available. By the end of Free Practice 2 I’d become somewhat addicted to following the in-garage audio, which includes considerably more detailed conversation than we’re used to hearing on television.

One particular chat, that was only partly covered by 5Live’s broadcast, was Jenson’s continual struggle to set his car up properly on a Friday. We know from previous outings this year, that our current championship leader has had to borrow a number of set-ups from team-mate Barrichello, when changes he’s tried haven’t worked out so well. Things didn’t appear to improve during Friday at Silverstone either.

During FP1, there was much strained conversation between Button and radio man Andrew Shovlin, and then during FP2 matters appeared to deteriorate further. Whatever changes had been discussed and implemented during the break between sessions weren’t working for Jenson and he requested they completely roll back to the mornings configuration. The response was surprising:

Yeah, we’ve heard this kind of thing from you before Jenson.

After a further debate, the number 22 car returned to the pits and twenty minutes worth of work was carried out. Finally out on the circuit again, and the next radio message went something like:

Changes rolled back. Track time is there. Up to you if you want to use it.

I may be reading too much into things but the inference appeared to be – you’ve now wasted this whole session, we’re back to where we started, hope you’re having fun.

Clearly the team rate the man for his driving ability but I do wonder if they’re getting more useful information from the other side of the garage? Rubens radio, incidentally, contained shorter bursts of direct information. He wants a softer front, or more stability at the rear.

I fully expected that data would be shared during the evenings debrief, Jenson would be more comfortable come FP3 and usual programming would resume by the end of qualifying. 6th place (his worst of the year) for the British GP wasn’t where anyone expected the man from Frome to finish up.

It’s difficult to say if there really are problems at Brawn GP. You would imagine that given their current dominant position all would be sweetness and light. Is Rubens that much better at setting up a chassis?

Additionally, it is quite hard to hear exactly what was said on the radio, with cars screaming past every couple of seconds. So the above should at least be considered a rough interpretation at best. Thankfully, live commenting trackside is a fantastic experience, and at least allowed most of the conversation to be transcribed as it happened.

Without a doubt, viewers at home should have more access to this new era of radio transparency. Teams are clearly going to great efforts to improve the show but to the majority of fans watching from their sofa, this work is going to waste.

The Formula One Teams’ Association has announced that it is setting up a breakaway championship. Eight of the current Formula One teams met up at the Renault factory in Enstone and concluded that enough was enough, it’s time to do things their own way.

A statement from FOTA read:

The teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 World Championship. These teams therefore have no alternative other than to commence the preparation for a new Championship which reflects the values of its participants and partners.

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We were lucky enough to visit Silverstone for the British Grand Prix for the last two years, but for 2009, we are sitting it out. Instead of camping in the damp and cold, we’ll be warm and dry in Sidepodcast Towers. Instead of being hunched over a Kangaroo TV, we’ll have multi-cam, live timing, many commentary options and of course, nachos. There are pros and cons to every situation.

As usual, there are two schedules to be discussed. We’ve got the BBC coverage, which dictates when the live threads will start, usually about half an hour before the Beeb begin. The second order of play takes a look at the podcast schedule, but don’t trust it because we never promise anything. All times are BST.

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Today could be a huge day for Formula One. One of those events that gets recorded in the history books for all time. Equally, it could be a day of few surprises, one that is merely another stage in the political war that has completely engulfed F1 recently.

It is very hard to predict what may happen on this second Friday in June. Supposedly, as avid followers of the sport, you might think we should have some kind of clue, but with so many meetings happening all over the place, and letters flying to and fro you’d be a fool to try and second guess who, if anyone, will win this particular battle.

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If you’ve been hanging out in the comments over the past 24 hours, you might have concluded that Sidepodcast quite likes the iPhone. A dearth of interesting Formula 1 news has meant we’ve been getting most of our kicks from technology updates planned by the people in Cupertino.

However, aside from announcements tenuously relating to plans we have for the future of Sidepodcast, there wasn’t much to tie the new iPhone back to Formula 1. That was until I read Will Buxton’s blog post this evening.

The man discusses the brand new, and more notably the official, F1 Timing Application available for purchase from the App Store. It’s a good one, too.

Actually, the first time we heard mention of this thing was during 5Live’s race broadcast on Sunday, when David Croft said both he and Anthony Davidson were using it to receive updates in the commentary box. Somehow we promptly forgot to look for it afterwards, but if it’s good enough to be used when you’re broadcasting live to the nation (and to the six fans who bothered to turn up in Turkey), it’s good enough for me.

But what do you get for your money?

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