Here is an interesting “helicopter view” of the Singapore F1 track:

The Singapore’s Geo Mash Up Community website also has a ’drive through the race’ animation (requires Google Earth). The screenshot looks very interesting, but unfortunately I kept getting different error messages from Google Earth and could not get that one working. If some does, let me know!

I will be in Singapore this weekend and will try to bring some photos of the future F1 track. Stay tuned !

F1Wolf

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This year I went a bit photo crazy. Few F1 races, new Nikkon and result is over 2000 photos on my hard disk. You can see some of them in the Race Photos galleries here, some I selected and made available for download in high resolution. Then I found the Blurb website and realized that it is very easy today to turn photos into a book. And that is what I have done. I selected 120 photos from my 2007 Formula 1 collection and arranged them into a 50 pages hardcover book.

I did it mainly for myself and for friends but it is available for anybody who might be interested.

This book is printed to order, piece by piece, but still at reasonable cost for a hardcover (otherwise I would not have printed it ). The format is 10 x 8 inch (25 x 20 cm) and the book includes:

1) Photos of all the teams and drivers - always 4 small and one large photo - examples you can see attached. Only guy missing is Winkelhock. Sorry, I did not go to Nurburgring and missed his 5 minutes of fame.
2) Extra photos of the top 4 drivers - Raikkonen, Hamilton, Alonso and Massa
3) Cockpit close ups
4) Few “did not finish” cars
5) Photos of Barrichello’s colour changing helmet in 3 different colors
6) Photos of several drivers out of their cars
7) Few paddock and pit lane faces
8 ) Several photos from the pit lane
9) Few photos of cars after the race

Front cover features Kimi Raikkonen, back cover shows Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton
(more pictures inside the post)

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F1Wolf

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What has been rumoured has been confirmed. Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralf Schumacher will test with Force India next week.

What does this mean ?

a) Fisichella has very likely been shipped out of Renault
b) McLaren did not answer Ralf’s calls

Liuzzi and Klien have extra competition, it remains to be seen if Vijay Mallya is looking for some experience he may use during car development or for young aggressive drivers.

Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher, Liuzzi and Klien will also share the Force India cars with Franck Montagny, Roldan Rodriguez and Giedo van der Garde.

Adrian Sutil can continue his holidays

F1Wolf

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One top Czech expert on sexual and marital problems advises all the men to always “deny, deny, deny” if asked by wives about any other women. Telling the truth in these situations does not help at all, he says.

Looks like the Red Bull guys have been listening to him

First David Coulthard, on Monday:

“I cannot see Fernando Alonso joining Red Bull in 2008, and I am 100 percent certain that I will be racing for them next year. I was never worried about that, even when the rumours first surfaced about Alonso.”

Then Mark Webber, on Tuesday:

“I haven’t gone through my contract in that sort of detail but I’m pretty sure I’ll be driving there. David is obviously looking at it a bit more than I am.”

And finally Dietrich Mateschitz, the Red Bull owner, also on Tuesday:

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F1Wolf

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From time to time FIA comes with some super smart cost saving idea. One that they planned to sneak into the new Concorde Agreement were the customer cars. FIA sold this idea as a sure thing. It attracted 11 new Formula 1 wannabies. FIA selected Prodrive as the 12th Formula 1 team to join the current 11 from 2008 season. Here is a brief summary of what followed:

It looked like for the first time since the days of Prost and Arrows we may have full grid. Super Aguri and Toro Rosso seem to have also counted on the customer car era and did nothing to develop their own cars. Super Aguri team was not allowed to enter the F1 with an Honda clone in 2006, so they opted temporarily for the most modern eligible chassis available - four years old 2002 Arrows. In 2007 however they simply painted 2006 Honda car in Super Aguri colors and immediatelly jumped from the back of the grid to midfield.

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F1Wolf

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During the past month I published series of posts with the high resolution photos of all the teams and all the drivers (well almost, one driver is missing) of 2007 Formula 1 season for download.

For those who missed it, here are all the links:

Kimi Raikkonen
Lewis Hamilton
Fernando Alonso
Felipe Massa
Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica
Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen
Nico Rosberg, Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima
Mark Webber, David Coulthard
Jarno Trulli, Ralf Schumacher
Sebastian Vettel, Scott Speed, Vitantonio Liuzzi
Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello
Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson
Adrian Sutil, Christijan Albers, Sakon Yamamoto

Screensavers are also on the way. If you do not want to miss out, subscribe to F1 Wolf via RSS Feed or E-mail

F1Wolf

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With not much happening on the transfer market and no testing till next week it was team news and team rumours that made the headlines towards the end of last week and over the weekend.

The Alonso “no news” seems to be confirming my theory that nothing will happen until the Renault spy case is dealt with. We may still have few weeks before things start moving and drivers begin the final shuffle.

So, let’s get to Renault. With all the opinions being voiced there seems to be media pressure piling up for severe punishment for Renault. It looks like the only party that still says Renault should not be penalized is Flavio Briatore. There are warnings coming from all over the web that FIA and Mosley may face serious backlash should Renault get away lightly. It is widely expected that Renault will be at least fined and will have some or all points taken away (and as a result will become McLaren’s neighbours at the end of the pit lane next year). However as Renault already admitted to things that were never proven to McLaren in their case, some (like GrandPrix dot com) even suggest a possibilty of a ban.

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F1Wolf

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The regular visitors to F1Wolf may have realized several changes to the left side bar.

I removed the categories and archives sections. These were not used too much by the visitors and were taking too much space. So I got rid of them, at least for now.

Some new stuff arrived instead…

1) The Top Commentators
From now on if you comment a lot on this site, you will make it to the Top Commentators list. Those with links to their site will also automatically get the link back if they appear on the list. At the moment I am displaying only 5 commentators on the list, but I may extend it to 10 in the future. The list displays the rankings for last 30 days. Even if you do not link back to your site, like for example our Prediction Game competitor and esteemed commentator Klokan, you still can feel good seeing yourself on the list

2) F1 Minute Player
This great 1 minute sum up of day news in Formula 1 from people behind the Sidepodcast plays now on F1Wolf. Simply click on the Play button on the picture to listen to the latest broadcast, or scroll down and play previous shows. So if you are too busy to read all the bull that is written here, spare a minute and listen to F1 Minute.

The F1 Minute player is located right below the Top Commentators list.

3) Entrecard
I got introduced to this by Nate Whitehill, the person behind the design of this site.

What is Entrecard? Entrecard is 125×125 Internet business card. It is also an ad network that actually helps to get extra traffic. You can network with other bloggers when you leave them your card, and you can use credits that you earn networking to advertise your card, for free, on any blog in the network (including this one). This Entrecard seems to be working really well, I can say that after only 2 days using it. At the moment however there are not too many sport related sites with an Entrecard and at the time of the writing F1Wolf.com was the only F1 or racing site there. It would be great if more sport or racing sites go and grab the Entrecards. It costs nothing except the little space on the sidebar but it gives great exposure. And the more sport or racing sites are there, the more targeted the exposure will be. So go over to Entrecard, get yourself one, and once you have it, don’t forget to drop yours also here, at the bottom of the left sidebar

Oh, and the 2007 Race Calendar has been replaced with 2008 one

F1Wolf

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For motorbike racing fans here are some highlights from the 2007 Macau motorbike race. The video is silent for the first about 6 minutes, then the sound comes on. The whole video runs for over 20 minutes. Those who understand motorbike racing can appreciate how dangerous this Macau bike race is…

F1Wolf

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What many, me included, have suspected for long time has been confirmed. Prodrive will not make it to the grid for 2008 season. The customer car row, the delays in agreeing on the new Concorde agreement are obvious reasons. This is what Dave Richards had to say to German Auto Moto und Sport magazine:

“There was a dispute about our eligibility. In addition, the new Concorde agreement has been repeatedly delayed. We asked the FIA to be able to start mid-way through the season: our request was rejected. So for 2008 there is not a realistic chance of there being a Prodrive formula one team.

Secondly, we must wait for the new Concorde. Only then can we fully assess our options. Our ambition is still to be in formula one. But there was the risk of legal procedures because we wanted to use a customer car. As a result, our entire business plan was put into doubt. So we have chosen to re-group instead of simply race ahead blindly.”

Well, that’s it then for 24 cars 2008 grid….

However the speculations started almost immediately about another way to F1 for Prodrive.

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F1Wolf

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