Sidepodcast

• Length: 5:00 
• Size: 4.7 MB 
• File: forgotten5.mp3 
• Transcript: forgotten5.pdf 
• Torrent: forgotten5.torrent 

You’re listening to Forgotten F1 Teams, a mini series from Sidepodcast chronicling the rise and fall of some of those teams you might not have heard of. We’ve already covered four teams this series, and now it’s time for our fifth: Onyx.

The team began life as Onyx Race Engineering, at the tail end of 1978. Founders Mike Earle and Greg Field had plenty of experience between them, having competed in F3, F2, F5000, and Formula 1. In fact, the pair had teamed up to build the Lec F1 team in the 70s, but that had come to an end after a Silverstone accident, and Onyx was their next challenge.

The new team entered F2 for a couple of years, finding a competitive driver in Riccardo Paletti. In 1982, Paletti moved to F1 with Osella, but Onyx wanetd him back for their own F1 entry the next year. Paletti was killed, however, at the Canadian GP, and the lack of plans meant the team began to flounder. Greg Field sold his half of the team but even that didn’t seem enough to secure their future. Finally, things began to look up when the March F2 team was outsourced, and Onyx picked up the contract.

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• Length: 4:56 
• Size: 4.6 MB 
• File: people14.mp3 
• Transcript: people14.pdf 
• Torrent: people14.torrent 

This is the last in the second series of F1 People, seven short shows brought to you by Sidepodcast. We’ve looked at a few important names from the world of Formula 1 this series, and now it’s time for our final VIP. Today we’ll look at Juan Manuel Fangio.

Juan Manuel Fangio was born on the 24th June 1911 in Argentina, although his parents were Italian. He completed his military service and opened a garage to begin racing in Argentina during his 20s, and he became National Champion in 1940 and 41. The government then funded his career move to Europe, where he joined Formula 1. Fangio entered the sport aged 37, and although this was a time pre-world championships, where the emphasis was less on youth and fitness, Fangio was still sometimes the oldest driver taking part. His first race was in 1948, at the French Grand Prix, in which he retired, and that was his only race that year. The next year he won five out of seven races, and thus went into 1950 as a clear favourite to win the brand new Formula One World Driver’s Championship.

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• Length: 3:59 
• Size: 3.7 MB 
• File: people13.mp3 
• Transcript: people13.pdf 
• Torrent: people13.torrent 

Welcome to the penultimate episode of F1 People, a second series of seven short shows dedicated to profiling the important names in Formula 1. So far this series we’ve looked at both drivers, commentators, and the brains behind the car. Today we return to the latter subject, with Adrian Newey.

Adrian Newey was born on December 26th 1958 in Stratford-Upon-Avon, in the UK. He did not enjoy school, but worked hard enough to attend the University of Southampton. He gained a First Class honours degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the age of 22. His final thesis was on ground effects. Newey immediately joined the Fittipaldi Formula 1 team straight out of university and began working in motorsport. In 1981, he joined March and began to design the cars. His first was the March GTP sports car that won the GTP title two years in a row. Then he moved to March’s Indycar team, and worked on the 1984 car. Another successfully designed car took seven victories in its first year, and the title for the next two. Newey worked as both a designer and a race engineer, becoming close friends with his title winning driver Bobby Rahal.

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• Length: 3:59 
• Size: 3.7 MB 
• File: people12.mp3 
• Transcript: people12.pdf 
• Torrent: people12.torrent 

Welcome to the fifth entry in a series of short shows brought to you by Sidepodcast, called F1 People. So far this series we’ve looked at Colin Chapman and Murray Walker, now it’s time to look at Jean Alesi.

Giovanni Alesi was born on June 11th, 1964 to Italian parents in France. His early racing career was in rallying, which he preferred to the single seater style series, but he worked his way to take part in the Renault 5 championship. He took part in French Formula 3, winning a title, and International F3000, again taking the title. His Formula 1 debut was in 1989 at the French Grand Prix with the Tyrrel-Cosworth team. He finished fourth, after running second for a portion of the race, and he decided to drive in both the Formula 1 and F3000 series in the same year. He was successful and claimed another F3000 title.

The next year, 1990, he took up F1 full time, still with Tyrrell. At the US GP that year, he made his name, by leading the race in an underperforming car, and battling with Senna along the way. Eventually, he had to concede the lead to Senna but his popularity soared. Several teams wanted his services and by mid-season, Tyrrell, Williams and Ferrari all claimed that they had signed Alesi for their own for the following season. Williams had also signed Nigel Mansell, and Alesi decided his best bet was to go with Ferrari. They were the dominant force at the time, and teamed with Alain Prost, Alesi assumed he would be learning from the best in the best team. It was also a popular decision with Italian’s, given Alesi’s heritage.

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• Length: 3:51 
• Size: 3.6 MB 
• File: people11.mp3 
• Transcript: people11.pdf 
• Torrent: people11.torrent 

Welcome to Sidepodcast, this is the fourth episode in our latest mini-series F1 People, a series featuring seven important people in the world of Formula 1. So far we’ve looked at Colin Chapman, Niki Lauda, and Murray Walker. Today we’re focusing on Eddie Irvine.

Edmund Irvine Jr was born on the 10th November 1965 in County Down, Northern Ireland. His family were involved in motor racing, which got Irvine interested from a young age. He began in Formula Ford, and spent several years in the mid-field, with the occasional lucky podium. In his fourth year, he signed with a better team and started winning championships, meaning he was noticed by the WSR Formula Three team. He outperformed a car that couldn’t win by finishing on the podium 8 times.
Irvine worked through F3000 and the Japanese Formula Nippon series, and as he progressed, he was noticed. Eventually, F1 came calling, with a debut in 1993 for Jordan at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Having finally found his way into Formula 1, Irvine was determined to make the most of it. Despite being in a car that was often at the back of the grid, he would regularly try and push forward at the start, perhaps a little too hard. He started making a name for himself as a wild driver, one who could often cause early exits from races for both himself and the drivers around him. Some collisions actually led to him being banned for multiple races.

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• Length: 3:53 
• Size: 3.6 MB 
• File: people9.mp3 
• Transcript: people9.pdf 
• Torrent: people9.torrent 

This is the second episode of the second series of F1 People, a set of shows from Sidepodcast that chronicle the lives of the important people involved in the sport we love. Yesterday we looked at Colin Chapman, and today we’re going to focus on Niki Lauda.

Andreas Nikolaus Lauda was born on 22nd February 1949 in Vienna, Austria. His family were not impressed with his desires to become a racing driver, but despite their disapproval, he took up the career. He started in the very low Formulas, and moved up the ranks to racing Porsche sports cars. Then his career hit a plateau, and to move onwards, Lauda took out a sizeable bank loan to buy an F2 drive with the then-new March team. He drove for them for one year in 1971, was promoted to F1 in 1972, and drove in both formulas that year. Lauda’s skills were heralded by the March team, but they were not very successful at that time within F1. Lauda took out yet another bank loan to get into BRM the next year. Unfortunately, this was another team struggling, but when team mate Clay Regazzoni transferred to Ferrari, he spoke highly enough of Lauda that the red team signed him up as well.

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We’ve reached the final five websites in our mammoth task of reviewing all the drivers and their web real estate. Check out the first three parts before enjoying this last set of reviews.

Rubens Barrichello

Wow, I didn’t think websites were allowed to have scrolling information anymore. That must violate some kind of human right somewhere. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of background info on there, and a column from the man himself (at the time of writing, it was still post-Turkey). There was also some audio, although I couldn’t tell you what they were saying.

There’s something very peculiar going on with the rendering of this site. Each time I navigate to a new page, there’s a not-so-subtle bounce effect that happens before the layout settles down. Once or twice isn’t so bad, but it becomes tiresome quickly. It’s fine on Safari, but Firefox has issues.

Aside from that, I have a desire to stretch the layout and make it wider. There’s too much wasted space each side of the main column. The background image is nice without ever being distracting, but the separate shop makes a poor attempt at trying to match the main site’s look and feel.

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This is part three of our driver websites review, looking at the good, the bad and the pointless. Check out the first two parts here, and here, and then we can get started with the next five. As ever, I’m approaching it from the fan viewpoint, checking on navigation and content, whilst the geeky one posts his usability and technical thoughts in italics.

Jarno Trulli

The homepage isn’t exactly pretty, but there’s nothing overtly horrible about it either. There are some good photos on the site, and the Toyota video feature is there as well. There’s also information about the kart that he has helped developed – which I knew nothing about! I do like that the background image is selected at random on each load.

Wow, that really is some awful music Jarno’s playing there. The audio is doubly annoying on this site because it crushes any video you try and watch. It’s easy to turn off, but who thought it was a good idea in the first place?

The rest of the site is okay, despite being flash only. The news section appears to be just a long list of Toyota press releases and there are far too many colours present on the homepage, giving the place a claustrophobic feel. The videos on the media page are unfeasibly small too, surrounded as they are by so much blank space.

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This is the second part of a project that sounded quite simple when we took it on. Check out all twenty driver websites, see what they’re like, review and rate them. Turns out it was a mammoth task and this is only part two. If you haven’t already, visit Part 1 to read our thoughts on the first five driver sites and then prepare to be amazed by our next five. As before, I’ll be writing from the perspective a fan, looking at content and information, whilst the italics will be from the geek about geeky stuff. Let’s go.

Nelson Piquet

For such a confident young man, the website is actually quite understated. I do like the graphic at the top that runs through the series and the cars he has driven in, finishing with his current Renault role. There’s lots of interactivity, however, with video, audio, and even a game! You control the Renault F1 car around Interlagos, and let’s just say even Piquet could do a better job than me. But still very fun.

Take any thoughts or criticisms you may have of this site and put them to one side for a moment. Nelson offers us an F1 game to play, and if this thing doesn’t have you addicted till the small hours, something is quite probably wrong with you. I can already see a mini Sidepodcast competition in the offing.

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During the Monaco weekend, discussion in the comments fell to drivers and their websites, specifically a comparison between Jenson B and Nico R and their relative dot coms. We decided it’d be an interesting idea to look at all the drivers websites and compare them, and now seems to be as good a time as any (because I am fighting having to talk about Max for as long as possible).

So, for clarification, I will be approaching the website as a fan, seeing what information is out there, and the geeky one will look at, well, the geeky stuff. So, let’s start.

Kimi Raikkonen

It’s always good to be confronted with a great picture to start with, and Kimi’s site opens with the Ferrari facing you head on. It’s clean and navigation is simple, there’s the usual biography and press releases, but it’s all very easy on the eye. There aren’t many wallpapers, which makes the multimedia page a bit over the top, but there’s a shop, a forum, and info on the official fan club, so plenty of places for fans to interact.

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