FanFormula. Week 7. Melbourne.

So in this week's FanFormula, instead of saying words wrong. I get complete whole facts wrong. Hoorah.
(See if you can spot which ones I bugger up.)
I also get a little bit too excited and also may have ended up having a small rant to myself.

So cock up's and rants.
Just another typical FanFormula video then. :)

So on to this week's questions which of course were about Melbourne.

Question One.
Williams have appeared to have come back strong with a great battle with Maldonado but what did you make of the midfield teams today battling between the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes?

Question Two
What do you make of the move that lets back markers unlap themselves under the safety car, does it just prolong the safety car or is it fairer on those that would be out of place due to lapped cars?

Question Three
If you watched via Sky what is your overall opinion on their team and the coverage?

If you watched via BBC how did you find watching the highlight show rather then race coverage? Did it lack the excitement knowing that the race was already over?

Bonus Question
What was your favourite moment of the weekend?



Don't forget if you want to see this week's full FanFormula or to join in yourself. Then you can see all the info you need at  http://fanformula.weebly.com/

And if you want to hear more ramblings about the Grosjean Giraffe or why I think Alonso's eyebrows look slimmer. You can also follow me on twitter @squiffany

Diary of a F1 weekend. Australia.

So after nearly five months.
F1 is back and I am one happy bunny about it.
Now most people who read this blog, check out my ramblings on twitter or worse (sadly for them) know me in person. Will know that I love Australia.
So to say this is one of my favourite races would not be an understatement.

However it might be one of my favourite races. It however is not the best in terms of time.
I may be an insomniac but getting up at 2am, 4.30am and 5am are not winners. Fact.

So on to the time/day confusing diary entries.

Thursday/Friday.
1am.

So some backstory...
Earlier in the day. Thanks to upgrading to Sky HD, Sky said thank you to us by sending me and my flatmate Paise £50 in Marks and Spencers vouchers, which got spent on a ton of food and alcohol that me and my friend would never be able to afford. Winner.

This led to later on in the night. Me, Paise and our friend Jennie. Drinking quite a bit of this said alcohol and eating cake in honour of the 1st birthday of F.F.F.


So by the time FP1 started I was pretty away with the fairies. At one point the room started spinning and a lot of FP1 was a bit of a blur.
From what I remember.
It rained a lot and Massa did nothing to help his career.

I managed to stay awake between the gap from FP1 to FP2, which is a rarity.
By this point though I was verging from feeling merry to feeling rough.
So from memory.
It was raining and Kamui nearly tank slapped it right at the end.

Friday/Saturday.
5am
Now feeling a lot less drunk and hungover.
I could finally concentrate on qualifying.
I didn't watch FP3 but I caught up with it in the gap between waking up and Qualifying.
It's luckily I didn't watch it because all the action was right at the end with both Schumacher and Vettel spinning into the gravel trap.

So on to qualifying.
I love that Raikkonen missed qualifying into Q2 because he was changing his helmet. My favourite F1 excuse now...ever.
Alonso out qualified Massa even whilst stuck in the gravel trap. Massa must now be clinging on to that seat by a mere thread.
But my favourite thing about Aussie qualifying had to be the beautiful giraffe himself Romain Grosjean taking third place. I did do a massive cheer for that.



Then pretty much has soon as qualifying wrapped up. I was off to work and I won't lie it was challenging on the amount of sleep I had. Eeep.

Saturday/Sunday.
4.30am
So after a lovely mother's day meal and a little bit of sleep.
I was up bright and early, ready for the race.
Now for some reason Sky decided to start the build up a whole hour and a half before the race, which normally I would of loved.
But at half past four in the morning. It really wasn't needed. Sleep was.

So in summary my favourite/upsets of the race.

• Seeing both Grosjean and Hulkenberg out on the first lap. Gutting. Hopefully we will see more from them in Malaysia
• The Sauber's fighting for the points, especially Perez from right at the back of the grid. 
• Webber finally breaking his bogey track record by bettering his best 5th place with a well deserved 4th. (Even if he did bugger up the start again)
• Maldonado crashing from 6th place on the last lap, which would have gave Williams some badly needed points. 
• Hamilton sulking over 3rd. I know it's upsetting losing but try to at least look happy on the podium instead of looking like a mardy five year old. 
• Button winning. Full stop. 

And so concludes the first diary entry of the year.

So if you survived that barrage of words, you can also follow me on twitter @squiffany.

FanFormula: Week 4. Globe trotting and tiredness.

In this week's FanFormula video. I was pretty exhausted.
I had stayed up all night to watch the Oscars, which in the UK is broadcast at about 1am.

So it gave me good practice for Australia.
It sadly however didn't make me look good on video.
Sorry for that.
Next time I will sack my Make Up artist. (Oh that's me)

Back to the point. This week's FanFormula questions concentrated on Globe trotting.

Question One.
Which Grand Prix weekend do you most look forward to and why?

Question Two
If you could go to any Grand Prix where would you choose and why?
(Also are you going to any GP's this year?)

Question Three
What is your favourite corner out of all the F1 circuits?

Bonus Question
Out of all the countries that do not have race currently or planned (Eg Russia) where would you like to see a GP being held?



Don't forget if you want to see more FanFormula video's or want to submit one yourself then you can go to http://fanformula.weebly.com/

Also if you want to hear more of my ramblings about American TV, the weather or general F1 nerdy-ness then you can also follow me on twitter @squiffany

Race Report: Australia

Hey bloggers.

Hope you are having a lovely day.

Just a quick race report for the Australian GP.

Now for race reports I want to make them as short as possible, mainly so you don't get bored but also so you get all the facts in more bitesize pieces so the race report will be a breakdown of what happened and when.

Other then me writing tons and losing you after two lines.

This is how most race reports will look.

(Only they will be posted more quickly then this one :))

The Podium

1. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)

2 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
3. Vitaly Petrov (Renualt)

Retirements

Lap 9: Pastor Maldonado (Willams) Transmission Failure

Lap 19: Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) Puncture damage
Lap 19: Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus) Water Leak
Lap 22: Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) Accident damage

Lap 48: Rubens Barrichello (Williams) Transmission

Incidents/crashes/Disqualifications

• Michael Schumacher and Jaime Alguersuari having a mini crash on the first lap
• Sergio Perez managing to only pit once when everyone else did two or three stops
• Jenson Button getting a drive through penalty for cutting the corner when fighting with Felipe Massa
• Rubens Barrichello and Nico Rosberg having an incident on lap 22.
• Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi getting disqualified for there rear wing being too short.
• Paul Di Resta (A British driver) ending up with points as a result of the saubers being disqualified.

Overtake move of the race.

Jenson Button using the DRS button to get past Massa.
(That button will most likely come into effect more in Malaysia)

Man of the Race

For me it's a joint honour.

Both Vitaly Petrov and Sergio Perez deserve it.

Petrov proved to his team and the world that Renault need him and that he is just has good in the car has the absent Robert Kubica

Sergio on his debut race, managed to only stop once on tyres that fade quickly and he didn't put a foot wrong, even though his points were taken off him due to an infringement. I think we will see more to come of this young driver

Loser of the race

Rubens Barrichello.

For a man with 19 years experience in F1. Barrichello made some massive schoolboy errors, especially with overtaking. I hope this is just a blip in an otherwise maturing F1 driver.

My thoughts

Now every F1 fan expects a thriller of an opening race, especially after the dullness of Bahrain last year.

Now Australia is a great track but the race was OK but not memorable.

However this race I think is going to lead a fantastic season of F1.

The race was mainly though a tale of two halves
The rookies shone (Perez and Di Resta). The oldies seemed to forget there marbles (Schumacher and Barrichello)

Some teams amazed (Sauber) and some fell into a heap (HRT and Mercedes)

and above all Red Bull dominated and the rest of the pack have to catch up.

I have a suspicion that it will though.

:):)

Championship lead.

1. Vettel 25

2. Hamilton 18
3. Petrov 15

Team standings.

1. Red Bull 35

2. McLaren 26

3. Ferrari 18

Any comments?

Then write below or you can comment on my twitter page @squiffany

Diary of an F1 weekend: Australia.

Hey bloggers.

Hope you had a lovely weekend, especially because the F1 season was finally back :)

Here to share with you is my Female Formula Fun Diary of an F1 weekend.

Warning: I'm actually pretty dull....

25th March 2011

It's 12.38am and I am scribbling this on a piece of paper in pretty much pitch black conditions. It's only an hour till Free practice one and I'm pretty excited.

It's been nearly six long months since an F1 car turned a wheel and it seems like six months too long.

I have work at 11am today and for the past few days I have been suffering with fatigue. I just haven't been 100% in weeks. So coping with a different time zone race is going to be even harder then usual.

I'm expecting not to even get the chance to watch some of free practice, I will probably be getting some ZZZ's instead.

1.32am

Karun Chandhok has lost it and ended up in the barriers. We are less then 2 minutes into the start of practice.

It's gonna be one of those seasons.

3.05am

Managed to stay awake for the whole of FP1. I set my alarm for FP2 at 5am but know it's probably going to be too much for me to do. With work and being a bit poorly it's not looking good.

4.55am

Alarm goes off.
I turn it off. Refresh laptop page. Then fall back to sleep.

9am

Awake for work. I knew that I would miss FP2 but managed to read the standings and decide to watch it on Iplayer after work.

26th March 2011

12am

I'm in bed ready for work and GP in the morning. I'm in early 9 till 2, which means that I have to get up at 6.30am anyway so with qualifying starting at 6am it's not so hard to get up.

I decided to miss FP3 mainly so I don't oversleep for work and so I feel more refreshed for quali.

5.50am

I get up and make myself a strong cup of coffee and some toast and sneak downstairs to put on BBC One.

7.30am

I am getting dressed whilst watching the Qualifying, which I can reassure you is a skill.

Gutted that Heidfeld was out in Quali One.

As most of you know I am a fan of Occasionally Quick Nick.

Sadly not quick at the moment, down in a lowly 18th.

The HRT boys failed to qualify for the race at all, this surprised no-one... except for HRT.

9am

By the time I leave for work Qualifying has finished.

Barrichello (The most experienced driver no less) makes a rookie error and ends up down the tail end of the grid along with OQN.

Sutil use of DRS (Or drag reduction system for newbies: Basically it reduces drag and makes the cars faster) nearly costs him a car. He spins but luckily manages to keep the car on the track.

The rookies all pretty much end up in the midfield.

Petrov surprises everyone by being 6th on the grid...Then everyone started comparing how much better Kubica would of done if he was there and in the car. (A post on this coming up later in the week)

Then it was really between the Red Bulls and Mclarens for pole.

Vettel smashed it.

Getting pole by over 8 tenths over Lewis Hamilton.

It looks like Vettel really is going to be the one to beat this year.

27th March

It's 5.55am and I am off work meaning I can get up for the grand prix and I don't have anything to do for the rest of the day.

I get up, with my blanket for warmth. Plus a dog ( My dog always sits with me on grand prix day...mainly hogging the blanket) and make myself some coffee and some nutella on toast and sit down ready for the pre race build up.

Wearing my lucky Aussie T-shirt with no make up on.

I do love the race build up. Mainly for these top gear style moments like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoKD1yw3tn8

7.00am

The Australian race begins.

(Race report to follow)

9.00am

Race has finished and it's time to switch to the forum (The extra wind down for the BBC F1 coverage.)
It's time for me to go back to bed for a few more hours.

The race may not been the most exciting but it did produce the best comedy moment ever in Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard. After commenting on how curtains had been put up around the paddock to stop punters seeing the cars.

EJ- Look here's Red bull

There's no big banner up there, no cloak..

DC- There's also no cars there.

EJ- That's a good point

DC- I thought I would just point out that small detail

....Oh but hold on there is a small fold down chair.

Sometimes F1 is priceless even if ain't always an exciting affair.