Sidepodcast

Daily F1 Blog is no longer, but don’t panic! Further updates can be found by visiting Sidepodcast.com. Plenty of audio, video and articles are released every week, and there’s a great community to be found in the comments.

If you want to follow the F1 news of the day in short bursts, visit F1Minute.com. A 60 second audio roundup of the headlines is released daily, plus the F1 Big Picture, and more news and features.

Felipe Massa is getting all cocky: “I have to say I’m really happy and optimistic. I’m ready for the first race.” But really, he has every reason to be. Ferrari have been consistently fast, and with Raikkonen in the other car, it’s looking good for the Reds.

Massa isn’t really getting above himself, by the way: “I’m not the kind of guy who likes to say, ‘Yeah I’m gonna win.’ I’m not like that. I’m going to keep working hard like I was always doing.”

In other team testing news, Red Bull Racing picked up the pace a little bit, leading some to believe that they may be hiding something, or at least misleading others with their times.

Renault were also a bit faster than normal. Honda were slow, as usual.

Heikki Kovalainen had one hell of a smash in Bahrain today, throwing his car into the barriers at Bahrain. He climbed out of the mess unscathed, but the same cannot be said of the car. Bits of debris scattered everywhere and the right side of the car was pretty much demolished. Given the new rule changes of only two cars per testing, this is no doubt going to put a bit of a downer on Renault’s progress.

Oh well.

Ferrari’s were both strong today, anyway, taking the top two spots.

It’s worth noting, that Ralf didn’t test today because he “hurt his back slightly when he spun his car over the kerbs.”

What a big girl’s blouse.

Of course, it’s all about Honda today.

I can’t add anything to the information that is already out there, so I’ll point you in those directions: Blog F1 has all the pictures, Sidepodcast forums [link removed] has all the details.

I can add my opinion on the subject though.

I don’t mind the picture. It’s fine. Why shouldn’t they have the Earth on their car?

It’s weird how it just stops halfway up the car though, leaving the back black. I’m not sure what they were going for there, presumably the curve of the Earth. It leaves the back looking a bit odd, out of perspective, or something.

I’m not sure about the idea of getting sponsors as you go along, and adding their names to the car as they cough up the dough. It seems an almost childish way of collecting sponsors, but they are promoting a good cause and that’s what sponsorship should be all about.

I’m all for thinking about the Earth, I really am, but I don’t know how much difference they’re going to be able to make.

It’s also worth noting that Jenson is still complaining about the lack of speed. Perhaps they should have gone for some go faster stripes instead of the entire earth.

Finally Torro Rosso have announced they are retaining Scott Speed’s services for 2007. As if we didn’t know that already.

For whatever reason, they have been stringing us along for the majority of the year, meaning that my previous entry list, and the Sidepodcast episode about the drivers was a little bit lacking. And now, annoyingly, they’ve announced what we suspected all along.

They didn’t even do it in a normal way, thinking it best to drop the word “speed” into their statement about testing over and over again. In case that didn’t drop the hint, they then confirmed that he’d be their next driver. I hesitated to write “second driver” then, but really, if it took my boss to confirm my position months after someone else, I’d be feeling pretty secondary.

Testing moves on to Bahrain, with both Ferrari drivers ending up fastest at the end of the day. Massa travelled over 80 laps, his team-mate doing half that and ending just two tenths behind. The pair were concentrating on some important electronics testing, but more crucially, neither suffered any problems whatsoever during their runs.

Button finally found some speed and ended up third, not far behind the Ferrari’s. Barrichello had a throttle problem, but after some set up and tyre testing, found himself in fifth. This is better form for the Japanese team but will it last?

Both Hondas were followed by McLarens, with Hamilton in fourth. The Renaults were slower than usual, although Fisichella was having a day off.

I was going to make a sarcastic comment about Webber causing a red flag, but considering it was only one of five throughout the day, that hardly seems fair.

Pretty much every member of every team is saying there’s no pressure on them and they hope they can do well next year.

Williams came out fastest in a day of testing!!! Too bad the only other team on track was Spyker.

Schumacher is still not coming back.

Alonso still wants three titles.

Roll on March.

In an interview with Autosport, the main F1 track designer Hermann TIlke has said that he thinks street circuits are the future of F1. He says that organisers really need to start bringing F1 to the people, and the people are in the towns.

“And for obvious reasons you can hardly build permanent racetracks in the middle of a town, so you then come logically to street circuits.”

Isn’t he just talking himself out of a job??

So, on Wednesday, David Coulthard was the fastest man in testing. This is fabulous news for the Brit who has not exactly been shining on previous days. I would have reported the incident sooner, but that pesky thing called life got in the way.

However, in the ensuing days the blog posts and web reports of the day you would think Coulthard was some kind of god. I read in one particular news story that it was definitely going to be the resurgence of Red Bull and they would be the ones to look out for next year.

First question: When were Red Bull ever good? If it’s to be a resurgence, they need to have achieved some high results previously.

Second question: Seriously?

I’m happy for Coulthard and everything, but really, it was just one day. It was the last day. The top four drivers were ridiculously close together. The top eleven were within a second of him.

It doesn’t really sound that incredible to to me.

More testing. To be perfectly honest, the testing is starting to get on my nerves. It’s always this time that I start getting impatient for the start of the season. It’s just over a month now, and that seems much too long.

Anyway, testing.

Monday saw McLaren at the top, with Alonso third, behind test driver de la Rosa. They were split by Kubica in the BMW Sauber – the reason Massa decided that BMW were the team to beat. Do you think he took into account the two red flags that Kubica caused during the day?

Ferrari had a bad day with major electrical issues that meant them retiring early, whilst Renault seemed to be falling down the timesheets more and more as each test passes.

However, today saw a reversal of fortunes, with Ferrari and Renault at the top of the scoreboard, pushing Alonso down to fourth fastest.

BMW Sauber were down in seventh and twelfth. Did you hear that Massa?