Welcome To La Canta Magnifico Blog (LCMB)!

[  Mood: Welcome! ]
Welcome to La Canta Magnifico Blog. Here is an entry to help you navigate around the blog.

New entries and comments summary.
Blog archive
Site policy
RSS feed (Whole site)
LCMBP Podcast-only RSS feed
LCMB Wiki-only feed
Twitter-only feed
La Canta Magnifico Wiki - the companion wiki for collaborative F1 projects.
Frequently Asked Questions / FAQ

The category list for people wanting information on particular subjects.





For the convenience of real visitors and the anti-spam crew, could spambots please use the comments section of this entry rather than anywhere else on this blog?

Engine Statistics (Before Germany)

[  Mood: Confused ]
[  Currently: Reading F1 Racing (May 2008 edition) ]
Here are the engines for everyone - as far as I can tell. I say that because I still haven't encountered the Turkey technical report. As a result, I've only been able to verify engine usage for those drivers who've needed an engine change since Turkey - which isn't many drivers. For the others, I have posted their last known engine status (i.e. before Turkey). If they didn't change their engines in the Turkey weekend, they've still used the same number of engines as printed here, with the engine in use whichever one they used for the Monaco race.

Hamilton: 4 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China Friday; 3 - China Sat-Sun/Bahrain/Spain/Monaco/Turkey/Britain Fri 4 - Britain Sat-Sun)

Kovalainen: 4 (1 - Australia*; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain*/Monaco*/Turkey/Britain Fri 4 - Britain Sat-Sun*)

Raikkonen: 3 (1 - Australia*; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain*/Monaco)

Massa: 4 (1 - Australia*; 2 - Malaysia*/China*/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco Practises@; 4 - Monaco Quali-Race)

Kubica: 6 (1 - Australia*; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday; 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain Friday/Monaco Sat-Sun*/Turkey/Britain Fri; 4 - Spain Sat-Sun/Monaco Fri@; 5 - Britain Sat Prac 6 -Britain Quali-Sun)

Heidfeld: 3 (1 - Australia; 2 -
Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco)

Alonso: 5 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco/Turkey Fri 4 - Turkey Sat-Sun/Britain Fri 5 - Britain Sat-Sun)

Piquet Jr: 5 (1 - Australia*; 2 - Malaysia*/China*/Bahrain Fri 3 - Bahrain
Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco*/Turkey Fri 4 - Turkey Sat-Sun/Britain Fri 5 - Britain Sat-Sun)

Trulli: 4 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrian Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain Fri; 4 - Spain Sat-Sun*/Monaco)

Glock: 4 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain Fri; 4 - Spain Sat-Sun/Monaco)

Webber: 5 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Fri 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco/Turkey Fri 4 - Turkey Sat/Sun 5 - Britain)

Vettel: 4 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco Fri@ 4 - Monaco Sat-Sun*/Turkey/Britain Fri 5 - Britain Sat/Sun)

Bourdais: 3 (1 - Australia/Malaysia Friday; 2 - Malaysia Sat-Sun*/China/Bahrain/Spain Fri; 3 - Spain Sat-Sun*/Monaco)

Buemi: 3 (1 - Australia/Malaysia Friday; 2 Malaysia Sat-Sun*/China/Bahrain/Spain Fri; 3 - Spain Sat-Sun*/Monaco*)

Rosberg: 5 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain Fri; 4 - Spain Sat-Sun/Monaco/Turkey/Britain Fri 5 - Britain Sat/Sun)

Nakajima: 5 (1 - Australia*; 2 - Malaysia*/China*/Bahrain*/Spain Fri; 3 - Spain Sat-Sun/Monaco*/Turkey Fri 4 - Turkey Sat-Sun/Britain Fri 5 - Britain Sat-Sun)

Sutil: 5 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China*/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain@ 4 - Monaco/Turkey/Britain Fri-Sat 5 - Britain Sun)

Fisichella: 3 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco)

Button: 3 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco)

Barrichello: 3 (1 - Australia; 2 - Malaysia*/China/Bahrain Friday 3 - Bahrain Sat-Sun/Spain/Monaco)

The FIA Nut Campaign

[  Mood: Protest ]
I am not analysing today's developments concerning the FIA just yet; there's more important stuff to do.

It is very plain that the FIA has forgotten its obligations; towards their teams, their circuits, their series organisers and most of all to us. The fans and supposedly-primary-beneficiaries of their campaigning.

There has long been discontent on the internet and it's grown in the past year or so: open letters, protest groups and even "semi-official" fan organisations have appeared.

Still, the FIA shows no sign of paying attention to the people it is supposed to serve. They may barely mention the likes of you and me on their website, but nearly everyone at some point uses a road and a very large number of people watch motor sports. In fact, without us their would be neither roads nor motor sport and therefore nothing for the FIA to govern.

So our needs must be listened to and acted upon, yet repeatedly are not. Words haven't worked, so let's try actions.

Not violent actions - in the long run, violence generates nothing except more violence. What we need are peaceful acts of mass protest - distinctive and massive enough to be noticed.

As a start, we can send a message to the FIA - one that is more difficult to forget than a letter. This is where the nuts come in.

There was a successful campaign to keep TV show Jericho on air when thousands of Jericho fans sent 40,000 lbs of nuts to the headquarters of its broadcaster.

I think with all the people angry with the FIA, we can achieve something with this method too.

It is clear that unless Max Mosley leaves the FIA presidency, nothing will change concerning the FIA's neglect of people. It is time to demand that Max keep his promise of June 24 to step down from his post in October. It was agreed in good faith and only Max stands in the way of it happening.

Let's order lots of nuts and send them to the Place de la Concorde. If the option of a message is given by your preferred nut supplier, keep it simple - "Max out" should get the message across, as it is recognised enough for TV cameras at races to avoid showing banners so entitled already...

The address to send the nuts to is:

6 Place De La Concorde
75008
PARIS
FRANCE

I anticipate this will be a sustained campaign and it may take a while for results to be forthcoming. However, I will keep reminding people to participate and post further ideas.

Thank you in advance for helping unseat Max!

Earth In Danger?

[  Mood: Scared ]
[  Currently: Reading F1 Racing (June 2005 edition) ]
Between the FIA's blundering and Bernie making an apology that misses at least one of the flaws in the original statement, I've decided the next serious danger to Earth isn't climate change, a meteorite or even the 456 aliens (warning: may contain Torchwood spoilers).



It's the holes Bernie and Max are digging for themselves meeting in the centre of the Earth, thus removing sufficenct planetary structural integrity to cause whole populations to disappear...

Earth Calling Place de la Concorde

[  Mood: Red Card ]
[  Currently: Reading F1 Racing (March 2007 edition) ]
Over the past few months, there has been more and more steam coming out of my ears. This steam has come from the increasingly bizarre behaviour from members of the FIA. Now, however, I think the final straw may have snapped (possibly for the upteemth time).

Apparently, Cosworth engines were a prerequisite for being on the 2010 grid. This sounds worrying. It is claimed that multiple teams attempted to use manufacturer engines of various types (including one which based its bid around a Mercedes) but were later told by the FIA that Cosworth engines were essential to get onto the grid. This may well be to the exclusion of financial viability which is the excuse the FIA give for checking entries in the first place.

None of the new teams were informed of this condition until after the start of applications, and even then, there is no indication suggesting that any of them received the formal written communication that would have been necessary to make the condition legally viable. There is no indication that the current teams ever agreed to such a condition and it is not in Article 13 or Appendix 2 of the Sporting Regulations, which govern this situation. The nearest item to be found there is Article 13.2 d) that <i>an</i> engine must be stipulated on the entry form. However, not all established teams needed to confirm an engine supplier, which means the new teams should not have been required to declare an engine either - Cosworth or otherwise (unless they wanted to do so).

Technically speaking, applications opened on January 1st, but even when the opening date was moved to May 22nd, the Cosworth requirement was not indicated. Therefore, the FIA appears to have had a hidden condition generating commercial bias that was not imposed equally on all competitors.

The FIA's response, given by an FIA spokesman, is that it considers the availability of an independent engine to be a priority, since otherwise the grid would be at the mercy of the manufacturers. For manufacturers read FOTA.

The FIA hasn't given a credible version of why the three teams were selected (and &quot;having an independent engine&quot; is not a credible story), despite having done the selections three weeks ago. It had no hesitation giving its reasons when it selected Prodrive to be on the 2008 grid in 2006, so there is something suspicious about it being less forthcoming now.

Cosworth do not appear to have been briefed about any of this, even though it would appear to be to its advantage to have more teams on the grid. The FIA made a claim about the price being the same regardless of how many teams signed up in December, which Cosworth no longer appears to agree with either.

It seems that the FIA is putting its engine tender supplier in a very awkward situation. But its own situation is worse.

Put simply, every single entity that applied for the 2010 championship would be entitled to sue. FOTA can sue on the grounds of denial of commercial opportunity, commercial bias and inappropriate commercial involvement. Most of the teams could sue for Brawn and Red Bull being permitted to ignore Article 13.2 d) without prejudice to their applications. The first two (and the Article 13.2 issue) would be pursued in a French civil court, but the third would be of interest to the EU Monopolies Commission. The FIA got out of a 2000 case without punishment only because it agreed to the commercial and regulatory aspects of F1 to be completely and irrecoverably separated. If the FIA made engines a condition of entry, then it has clearly become involved in commerce, which could lead to it losing its powers over F1 if the Commission was suitably minded. At the very least, the senior members of the FIA would have a lot of hard questions to answer.

The new teams that were granted entry could sue because they were misled as to the conditions of entry, the unequal application of Article 13.2 d) and also because of the commercially-orientated breaches in the previous paragraph. The misleading conditions of entry would be a contractual issue in the French civil court.

The failed teams could sue on misleading conditions of entry, unequal application of Article 13 d) and damages arising from commercial bias.

If the new teams do not make it to 2010, CVC could also sue for commercial bias on the grounds that it had been damaged through the FIA's failure to abide by its published Sporting Regulations.

I do not concur with Pitpass' suggestion that GP2-winning teams should be asked in order of when they won, for that is an Ecclestone-run series and open to bias on his part. However, I would suggest that a better process is necessary - and that the FIA, having proven itself incapable of unbiased selection, should not be involved.

I would also like to send the following message:

&quot;Earth calling Place de la Concorde,

It is high time that you completely changed the way you do business. You have put the dignity of your institution into repeated and continual disrepute through actions that contradict your self-imposed mission. Learn to concentrate on helping road users to get around better and facilitating racers wanting to race instead of inappropriate cross-aptitudinal psuedopoliticking!

Earth out.&quot;