perkonis

So here’s the Cliffs Notes version of the season for them so far…

In Monaco they were heavily criticized and investigated for allegedly using team orders to keep Hamilton behind Alonso. The stewards cleared them in this one, but the British press vilified them for compromising their golden boy, Hamilton.

Next, Ferrari fired Nigel Stepney and it was then discovered that he had passed some 780 pages of Ferrari technical documents to Mike Coughlan. Coughlan was, and still is I believe, an employee of McLaren. The FIA was gracious enough to invite all parties to a hearing of the World Motorsport Counsel. It was decided at that McLaren was guilty of being in possession of Ferrari intellectual property, but there was no evidence that they had used it. Therefore, there was no penalty issued to McLaren.

Oh, then there was the Hungaroring fiasco where Alonso sat in his pit box long enough to block Hamilton and prevent him from completing his last flying qualifying lap. The stewards again requested the company of the team and this time penalized Alonso by stripping him of his pole and placing him 6th on the grid. They also stripped McLaren of any Constructor points before they even lined up for the race. The team has an appeal scheduled for September 19.

McLaren decided to file an appeal to the WMSC counsel verdict that was to be heard on September 13. That changed yesterday when the FIA announced that they have new evidence in the case and once again requested the honor of the presence of the team. In the original hearing, the FIA stated that, should further evidence be found, they reserved the right to ban McLaren from the F1 championship for not only 2007, but 2008 as well. In that light, this latest invitation probably isn’t Max wanting to share high tea with Ron.

And just for good measure, the stewards of the Italian Grand Prix fined McLaren $50,000 for the use of an unapproved gearbox in the Hungarian Grand Prix. I guess they had run out of other ways to penalize them.

I really don’t think I would want to sit in on any kind of meeting at Paragon on Monday.

Since the team cars in F1 have to be painted substantially same (or however they phrase that in the regs), the best way to tell drivers apart is by the color of the camera above the air box. Since I can’t remember which driver has which color, I go with method 2 which involves their helmets. They could go back to putting great big numbers on the cars, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for that.

If you’re looking for a good list of drivers’ helmets, look here. There’s even a page here for the test drivers. Laugh if you will, but I think Montagny’s helmet is pretty cool.

I read this story earlier and this nonsense irritates me to no end. Bridgestone has to mark their option tires so that they are “visibly distinguishable when the car is on the track.” Sounds easy enough, right? They do the same thing in Champ Car. Make the whole sidewall red so everyone can see who is on the soft option tire. This is the kind of decision that I would expect to take all of about five minutes. Maybe ten if they can sneak in a smoke break.

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.

Should they paint a dot on the sidewall, or should they paint one of the grooves (which shouldn’t be there any way, but I digress) white? And there was testing involved too. Testing. For a dot on a tire. Yes, they actually decided to test a couple of ideas on “how to mark tires” on Wurz’s car today.

In case you missed that, Bridgestone was testing different kinds of markings on the tires. In fairness, Wurz was already testing so it’s not like they scheduled a test just for this. But still, they can’t decide on how to mark a tire without testing it. I’ve been following F1 for over thirty years and this kind of nonsense makes me want to quit this and watch lawnmower racing. Someone needs to get some attachments and tell everyone in the paddock how it’s going to be. “Hey, were going to paint the sidewalls neon pink and one of the grooves fluorescent green. Don’t like it? There’s the gate.”

I have a practical, if somewhat inelegant, solution: get me a pit pass, a flight to Malaysia, and a couple cans of Krylon in some color other than black, white, or grey. Something bright. Neon pink or fluorescent green will work. We can go with red if that’s too flamboyant. There you go. Problem fixed before Q1. This problem cannot possibly be as difficult as it’s being made out to be.