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Archive: sports-personality-of-the-year

Off-season bits and bobs

18 November 2008 17:13

Categories: News, Opinion

I’ve been a bit busy lately so I’ve been falling behind a bit on the posting front. I’ve not even got all of my 2008 season review posts out of the way, and before I knew it the 2009 season had begun in the form of testing at Barcelona! But there is plenty of time in the off-season for me to discuss these things. Here are just a handful of bits and bobs to bridge the gap until my next post here.

If you follow me on Twitter you may know that I have found myself bombarded with emails from PR companies who are trying to get me to include stuff in my blogs that I have absolutely no interest in. And sometimes the tone of the emails are slightly hectoring, which doesn’t exactly make me any more inclined to feature their “story”. Well, at long last, one of these pitches has actually appealed to me and I’ve decided to include it in this blog.

Unfortunately it requires me to embed some javascript and I don’t think WordPress lets you place javascript in the posts, so I’ve positioned it at the top of the sidebar for the time being. It is quite an amusing video though, showing that McLaren do have a sense of humour after all.

Okay, so it’s a Vodafone video rather than McLaren, but it comes just a couple of months after McLaren went viral with their humorous video previewing the Singapore Grand Prix. For a team with such a grey image, it’s good to see.

It looks like the BBC’s plans for next season are finally taking shape. David Coulthard’s involvement in next season’s coverage have been confirmed through a semi-official source. Yesterday Martin Brundle revealed for himself that he will be involved.

I have also heard that USP Content have retained the contract to produce coverage for BBC Radio 5 Live. That’s good news, because I think they’ve done a great job for the past few years. I often chose to listen to the Radio 5 Live commentary rather than James Allen, even enduring a two second delay between hearing something happen and seeing it (at least it meant I didn’t miss seeing something when it did happen!).

I’m looking forward to seeing what the television and radio teams can put together for next season. Personally, I’d love to hear Martin Brundle and David Coulthard making an appearance on the Chequered Flag podcast.

Rumour has it that the BBC will be announcing something to coincide with the Sports Personality of the Year award bash, where Lewis Hamilton is expected to win.

BMW have given us a taste of what 2009 will look like. I will probably post a more in-depth article about my thoughts on testing later on in the winter. But for the time being, all I will say is: yuk!

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McLaren unreliability not to blame for Hamilton’s problem

23 October 2007 12:53

Categories: Entertainment, Formula 1, Newspapers, Television

Over the past couple of days there have been rumours that McLaren’s explanation for the sudden loss of drive in Lewis Hamilton’s car is not true. Seemingly, Lewis Hamilton actually let his finger slip on the steering wheel. Apparently he hit the ‘start’ button, which forced Hamilton into rebooting the system, a process which took around 20 to 30 seconds.

McLaren are denying this, just like they denied the incident where Lewis Hamilton swore at his boss in Hungary. Similarly they fell on their own sword in China when Hamilton retired with shot tyres, even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Hamilton himself was pushing the tyres way too hard.

Pitpass appear to be standing by their source with careful wording, adding, “you would not believe who it was that told him about Hamilton’s ‘error’.”

Meanwhile, the peerless F1Fanatic blog has come up with the goods that suggest that Hamilton’s problems were all of his own making.

Firstly, a quote which rather gives the game away. This is from Eurosport.

My finger slipped on the steering wheel and I accidentally pressed the button used for the starting sequence. The car went into neutral and I had to reinitialize the system, that is, reload the gearbox management program.

(Update 25/10/2007: The journalist who originally broke the story says that the quote did not come directly from Lewis Hamilton, but stands by his report.)

Then, F1Fanatic dredged up a video that shows Lewis Hamilton pressing a button just as he slows down. The replay is in slow-motion, so it is a little bit difficult to tell what speed he is going at. But note how going into the corner he keeps up with the cars in front. As he goes through the corner his hand slips over a button second from the left on his steering wheel. Soon afterwards, cars start whizzing past him.


was it an error
Uploaded by mach411

Of course, the British mainstream media will completely ignore all of the evidence, preferring to believe that only bad luck and unreliable machinery robbed “our Lew” of the World Championship.

I can envisage Lewis Hamilton on the stage at Sports Personality of the Year. Sue Barker says, “And of course, if it wasn’t for that gearbox problem in the last race you would have been World Champion this year.” Hamilton smiles guiltily.

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