Formula 1 - Selection From Other F1 Blogs

March 28th, 2007

Formula 1 - Selection From Other F1 Blogs

While reading around I found 2 interesting posts:

1) Interview with Murray Walker:

The sport is looking towards radical change in the future to introduce environmentally-friendly technologies. Is this the right direction for F1?

“I get so sick of people talking about the bloody environment. I tend to go against the common belief about the environment. Everyone is saying that mankind is responsible for the deterioration in the environment. But my attitude is, we’ve had ice ages, heat ages and all that sort of thing and I’m not totally convinced that the world is going to die if we don’t ‘do something’ about it.

“As far as Formula One – and road cars - is concerned I get extremely irritated with people wittering on about it. A full season of Formula One and testing consumes less fuel than one Boeing 747 flying across the Atlantic. So, alright, let’s stop F1 – provided we also stop flying aeroplanes. Do you need to go to Dubai for a holiday and consume, say, 64 gallons of petrol yourself in the aeroplane? No, you don’t.

“If they stopped F1, it wouldn’t make any difference at all to the state of the environment. Even transport itself only accounts for 14% of CO2 emissions. I’m not saying that transport shouldn’t contribute to the solution, but what I am saying is that it gets disproportionate attention because it’s a convenient target.

Read full interview at F1fanatic.co.uk

2) The Tyre Marking Issue:

This being F1, of course, they managed to royally cock it up. The tires in Melbourne had a little bitty white dot that blended in with the white lettering when the tire rotated (which, as I understand, they are wont to do). Not sure who’s bright idea that was, but the rumor is that Bernie didn’t want to be perceived as stealing ideas from the lowly Champ Cars. Now they can’t decide what to do about it for Sepang. And even once they decide on a permanent solution, they can’t implement it before the Spanish Grand Prix. Yes, this is such a huuuuge ordeal that it will apparently take weeks to fix.