Sidepodcast

• File: episode68.m4a
• Length: 48:14
• Size: 44.3 MB
• Transcript: Coming soon

A few days late, due to us both attending various days of the Silverstone test. Of course, that means this show is packed full of the gossip from the track.

Intro

Apologies for being slightly late, but there’s plenty to talk about.

Good Week / Bad Week

Good week for Raikkonen’s engine and BMW demonstrations, but a bad week for BMW and the FIA.

News and Views

We quickly run through the World Council findings at their Paris meeting last week, including the calendar, entry fees and Formula 2.

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The pictures we’ve been posting over the three days of testing are all very well and good, but we’ve missed out two of the most important.

Bourdais

He was emerging from the Toro Rosso garage and heading towards the motorhome. I know I said I wasn’t bothered about him anymore, but he seemed to be the nicest man ever.

A crowd gathered around him and blocked his path across the paddock. He stopped, he signed and signed, kept on giving out those autographs and muttering greetings to the surrounding fans, and didn’t stop until everyone had gone. When his way was finally clear, someone approached him with a microphone and asked him if he could spare a couple of seconds. He nodded, but said they had to walk and talk, and he indicated for the person to join him in the motor home.

Why didn’t we think of that?

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I hope a picture paints a thousand words, because I have much to say but I’m just too tired. Here’s a few more shots from the first day of Silverstone testing.

Nelson Piquet

Up close and personal with Nelshino. The guy was in a surprisingly good mood until his engine went ‘pop’ on the main straight around 3 o’clock and that was after he had a slow start to the morning session.

When sitting in the pits the helmet visor can be used much like a pair of sunglasses, obscuring the drivers eyes as he waits patiently for the mechanics to go about their business. It was nice of him to open the lid for a brief moment before he set off for another run.

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The news about Fernando’s “official fan” has been circulating a while, but I’ve only just got round to looking into it a bit further. It’s quite telling that when I mentioned it to the other half of Sidepodcast recently, he said he thought it was a joke.

So, what’s it all about then?

Bright Eyes

23-year-old Spaniard Álvaro Ademà has been selected as Alonso’s official fan. There’s no real word on how the selection process worked, and I must have missed the call for applications, otherwise I would at least have tried to learn Spanish. However, the lucky fan has secured what could be the best job in the world, following Alonso on the remainder of the season and earning 3,000 Euros a month along the way. The whole idea is an ING thing, although I can’t really find much about it from their point of view either. However, it’s all above board, and Ademà will be blogging his experiences for the rest of the year.

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It’s been ages since I felt the need to grab a screenshot from the f1.com live timing screens, but Friday free practice two was just such an occasion.

The day had got off to a bit of a slow start with all teams opting to sit in their garages for the first 25 minutes of session one, and it looked like all of last week’s testing had conspired to make this Friday a dull day.

However, during the break before practice two, I get the impression that a number of teams figured they didn’t have as much information as they needed, because from the off it was action all the way through the second session.

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The girl never stops, she really doesn’t. As Ollie pointed out on this weeks show, Christine has written a guest post for BlogF1 today.

The post is part of a series that compares team mates from the top four teams. Christine was challenged to look at the relationship between Alonso and Piquet Jnr, and yesterday Clive made a fine fist of tackling the BMW boys.

It’s worth five minutes of your time to give them a both read and do check back to see who’s guest blogging on Monday and Tuesday.

• File: Episode53.m4a
• Length: 34:29
• Size: 31.7 MB
• Transcript: episode53.pdf

Last week we looked at the drivers taking to the grid, these week we look closer at the 2008 contenders - the teams, how they’ve changed and how they will fare.

Intro

A quick update on the status of my bad luck - this week is better but I have proof that last week was the worst ever.

Good Week / Bad Week

Bernie Ecclestone gets someone onside, Super Aguri can’t find anyone, Fuji are looking to stay in the sport, and which one is Pinocchio Schumacher?

News and Views

Alonso has his main sponsor following him around, so does that means he’s a pay driver? We’re worried about the state of mind of Toyota drivers, they seem unable to stick to an opinion. And we briefly recap a very wet testing session, and discover we’re looking forward to the return of a previously disliked figure.

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With all these launches, press releases and interviews with drivers, it’s easy to get caught up in the world of “we’re going to be brilliant this year.”

Everyone is so supremely confident, positive and upbeat about the upcoming season; you’d think we’d gate crashed on a private pat-on-the-back party. Here are three statements you are probably sick of:

• We want to challenge for the wins
• Both our drivers are the bee’s knees
• We’re happy with the progress we’ve made over the winter

If they sound familiar, it’s because they’ve been trotted out at practically every press conference since the start of the year, and I for one am starting to get bored.

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During this week’s show we discussed the pending launch of official social networking sites from F1 teams Honda and Renault.

In the end, little came of earthdreams.info, but as our discussion was mostly based on speculation we can’t really blame the team for that. It may still happen, but at the moment it doesn’t look as though there will be much social dreaming from Honda in the short term.

Fan Site

Renault on the other hand did manage to launch their site. I couldn’t access it until today, a full two days after its promised debut, but I’m in now and that’s all that matters.

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• File: Episode49.m4a
• Length: 17:01
• Size: 15.8 MB
• Transcript: Episode49.pdf

An episode brought to you by the power of over-the-counter drugs, we’re both ill but determined to cover the topics of the week.

Intro

Is it man-flu if I caught it off him?

Good Week / Bad Week

One team has a good week of testing, whilst another has a bad week, and Fernando Alonso has both.

News and Views

We share two excellent comments on the new stewarding rules, and discuss what we’ve seen in magazines recently (including some recognisable faces in Autosport a couple of weeks ago)! Also the Kimi Raikkonen official podcast, if you can call it that, and how Honda and Renault are making the most of the internet before the season even starts.

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