After wading through my previous rather heavy and controversial posts, I thought everyone deserved something a little more light-hearted today. Many of my commenters send me links to stories they found interesting and often they point out things missed by most of the blogs and sites. This morning my son, Mad (who designed and built this blog), has been sending on links from his friend, Lee, who also comments on my posts occasionally - and there are some odd little snippets amongst them. I decided it would be good to pass them on to my readers and so here are three, together with my thoughts on their stories - thanks, Lee.
Fernando Alonso
The first comes from Planet F1 and concerns Fernando Alonso's comments on the penalty dished out to Hamilton in the Fuji GP. It seems that 'Nando is happy to give his opinion, whether informed or not - and that rather puts other drivers' comments on competitors' penalties into perspective. They are not quite the unbiased experts we tend to assume.
Then we have an amusing little conspiracy theory from the BBC. This one is pretty imaginative, mainly because the writer gets most of his facts wrong. It is true that BMW was the other team specifically mentioned as having a flexi-floor in the controversy from early last year. What is not mentioned, however, is that about half the grid also had the tweak. If that is evidence of collusion between Ferrari and BMW, a lot of other teams must have been involved as well!
I presume that the reason the writer thinks that only BMW and Ferrari have had trouble heating their tyres this year is because Nick Heidfeld has had the problem. Kubica does not, however, it being more a matter of driving style that led to Nick's difficulties, rather than any similarity in design between the two teams' cars. There is one team that has had even worse problems in this area than Ferrari and that is Toyota. Somehow I doubt that this is the result of shared information between the two; it was not that long ago that Ferrari were quite annoyed at two employees of theirs who took secrets to the Japanese company.
In fact, the BMW F1.08 is a very different concept from the Ferrari F2008 and the idea of some sort of cosy relationship between the two teams is quite laughable. If BMW have made big strides in the competitiveness of their car since they bought the team, it is through planned development and not following the herd in their design philosophy.
Finally, there is a post on the McCabism blog that I hardly dare comment on. Most of what it has to say about Alan Donnelly I knew already, but the information regarding the judge in Donnelly's libel action is new to me. Funny the connections one can turn up when one really digs, isn't it?
But I am not going to say any more on this one, even though it confirms a thought I had on Mosley's libel case at the time the verdict was announced. I will let readers draw their own conclusions...