FanFormula: Week 17. Monaco.

So after a pretty dry Monaco.
Grace decided we needed a glam theme to the FanFormula video this week.
But me being the organised one, didn't actually think about anything glam until two minutes before the video was being made.

So in my state of panic. I found the only slightly glam thing in my wardrobe.
Yep. A feather boa.
Rock and roll.

So in this week's FanFormula I argue about the F.I.A consistency again, I get sadistic about Lewis Hamilton injuries and a feather boa + extreme English heat = PAIN.

This week's FanFormula questions.

Question One
In FP3 we saw Pastor Maldonado bump tyres with Sergio Perez and in response was awarded a ten place grid penalty. What was your view on the incident and the resulting penalty?

Question Two
Qualifying saw Sebastian Vettel not set a lap time and through this benefited from a choice of tyres in the race. Do you think this rule should be changed with penalties enforced if a driver/team do not set a time in Q3?

Question Three
A slow pit stop for Hamilton, being hit on the head by numbers falling off his pit board and a lack of communication regarding Seb's pace left Lewis Hamilton frustrated in the race. Do you think this will affect his upcoming contract renewal and what do you think his options would be aside from McLaren?

Bonus question
Do you think we should still be racing at Monaco when overtaking is clearly more important in modern F1?



If you want to get involved with FanFormula you can by going to the website at http://fanformula.weebly.com/

Or if you want to follow my F1 ramblings you can also follow me on Twitter @squiffany

EmBRACE your inner geek.

So eight years ago. I finally finished school.

Much to my relief.
For five years, I pretty much counted down the days that I could walk out the school gates and NEVER return.
Why?

Quite simply.
I was a geek. 

People at school didn't understand me.
They couldn't work out why I didn't wear skirts, why I spoke about Formula One and why I listened to Green Day's Dookie on loop. 

Some people at school didn't act geeky, but they just looked geeky. 

Glasses, braces (teeth and on trousers) and wild haircuts. 

It was a bad time to be a geek. 

But in the last couple of years something amazing happened.
Geek became cool. 

Formula One is one of those sports that has had its fair share of the geek community. 

In looks and in mind.

The mind because of the engineering/technical side.
And in looks, well just see for yourself. 

Pastor Maldonado

Though this is now an old picture because much to the amazement of twitter.
Pastor now only has the bottom brace on.
Yay to perfectly straight teeth. 

(Though this may qualify for the world's most creepy photo)

Does it matter that Pastor has braces, bad skin and a creepy photo face.
No. For two reasons.
One. Did anyone see his drive in Australia.
Two. Have you seen how stunning his girlfriend is?
Case closed my friend.  1-0 to the geeks. 

Daniel Ricciardo.

This is how Daniel Ricciardo looked last year.
Still good, but he obviously wanted to improve his smile.
Cut to the 2012 Australian GP.

And hello braces.

Now from moving from braces to glasses.

Now when I think of glasses in F1.
A couple of people spring to mind.
The first though has to be.

Sebastien Bourdais.

The Frenchmen didn't make much of impression in F1.
But he did make an impression with his eyes.
Most F1 drivers who wear specs, tend to take them off for racing and wear contacts.
Not Sebastien.
He bucked the trend and chose to wear his glasses when he drove.

For some people. Contacts just don't work.
They can get too irriatated by them or they can move causing discomfort.
At least with glasses. There is less risk of that happening. 

Several drivers in the last couple of years do wear contacts for racing. This includes: Robert Kubica, Timo Glock and Giancarlo Fisichella. 

Ralf Schumacher spoke in 2001 of wanting to wear glasses whilst racing, (A big news story in 2001. Slow F1 news week) but sadly I couldn't find any photo proof . 

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns05276.html

And this leads me very nicely to probably my favourite F1 geek.

Jacques Villeneuve. 

So what if he wears glasses, has unruly hair and wears overalls that are three sizes too big for him. 

Jacques is the best F1 geek I know.

And as we all know. Geeks need love too, so show your support to the geeky F1 community. 

Get your glasses on, mess up your hair and get your braces on...Your trousers.
Embrace your outer geek. With the already inner geek you already have.

Well because if you like F1. Then your inner geek is already sorted.

To hear more of my F1 ramblings you can also follow me on twitter @squiffany

Diary of a F1 weekend: Malaysia

So after an exciting Grand Prix weekend in Australia.
We hardly have time to blink before it's the turn of Malaysia and the start of another early morning race.

So expect blurred vision and tiredness throughout my weekend diary.

Thursday/Friday
2am

Hoorah. I am actually up ready for FP1 however it's fair to say I'm not feeling on top form.
I noticed that in the fly away races especially the back to back ones. My sleep patterns go completely awry.
Luckily I managed to stay awake for 45 minutes of FP1 before realising that I couldn't hang on.
So decided to go to bed and wake up instead for FP2.

Notes for FP1

• Karthikeyan gearbox decided to fail. 
• Hamilton should good pace to top the table
• Vettel showed that Red Bull didn't have the pace. 
• All the cars seemed to be close in terms of time. 
• #BOTTAS

Now instead of my alarm waking me up for FP2. It decided to let me sleep through.

So I missed all of FP2.
This is not the first time this has happened. Luckily I recorded FP2 for this very reason.

Notes for FP2

• More woe for Karthikeyan
• Vettel still struggling for pace in 10th
• Vergne and Ricciardo show their hand. Top ten placings for both. 
• Then Karthikeyan has some more woe thrown in. 
• Hamilton quickest again

Friday/Saturday

FP3.

Ahhh. So I missed all of FP3. 

This lately seems a F.F.F tradition. 

There is no excuse for this.

But of course I was up for Qualifying. (Because I'm good like that.)
And even though it was 5am and I had to go to Sheffield later in the day.
I managed to not sleep through it.
I think the pack of fig rolls I brought may of helped, along with the copious amounts of coffee.

Notes for Qualifying

• Bad starts for Heikki and Kimi with five place grid drops. 
• Massa still struggling for raw pace and dropping out in Q2
• Webber out qualifying Vettel again. 
• Schumacher qualifying in the top three.
• Hamilton and Button bagging a One-Two for Mclaren. 

Saturday/Sunday

Race day. 8am.

With my alarm clock actually waking me up. 

Even with the change of clocks. (Yes it gets lighter earlier but it meant a hour's less sleep. *Grumps*)

It was time to get my cup of coffee on the go, along with another pack of fig rolls. (I'm getting lardy because of this.)

Ready for another great race.

Now what I love about watching F1, is that comedy can come from nowhere.
Now I tweet has the race is on. So when 9 laps in the race the rain came down and the red flag came out.
So did best comedy moments.

All 50 minutes of non racing was filled with entertainment that consisted of Gazebo chat. 

Who had the best gazebo?

Who was doing the BBQ?

Why did HRT only have a Tesco carrier bag?

Then it turned into a scene from the Carry On films because we started perving on the wet drivers/team members. Ooo Matron. 

Then it came full circle back 2009 with a W.W.K.D.

Or the long version. 'What would Kimi do?'

We all secretly hoped he would get the ice cream back out. Sadly this was not to be. Even if Lotus did get the Ice Creams back out for him. 

Luckily the race did start back up again but under the safety car. 

When the safety car came back in. The fun could begin again.
And boy did it.
We had Button lose his front wing.
Then Vettel got a puncture. 

I may of had some micro naps between all of this going on.
But I managed to stay awake when the fight for the lead was between Ferrari and Sauber. (Words I didn't really expect to say this year.)

And even though Perez had a moment off track and couldn't catch Alonso back up.
It was worth me having Horner jiggly leg for.

It was pure racing at it's best.
F1 is definitely back and it has come back swinging. 

Notes for the race.

• Rain
• Red Flag
• Gazebo's are entertaining
• Grosjean failing in the race for the second week in a row. 
• Karthikeyan injuring several cars. 
• Pastor losing out on points on the last lap.
• Hamilton still not looking happy after another podium.
• Vettel coming up with a new insult system and raising a new finger. Twice.
• Button's brutal honesty
• The Perez and Alonso battle.

Today was a good day to be an F1 fan. 

Remember if you want to hear more of my F1 ramblings. You can also follow me on twitter @squiffany 

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.