F1 Fanatic round-up: 9/3/2010
8 Mar 2010
We’re only three days away from our first F1 action of the year. Here’s the Tuesday round-up:
Links
Malaysia expects bumper F1 crowd (Mail & Guardian)
“Ticket sales dropped sharply last year amid the global economic crisis, attracting only 80,000 spectators compared to about 120,000 in 2008.
But the local economy is rebounding and Schumacher’s return after three years of retirement has set the stage for one of the most anticipated title duels in Formula One, Mokhzani Mahathir, chairman of organiser Sepang International Circuit said on Monday. The return of the Lotus brand after 16 years, backed by the Malaysian government and businessmen, adds to the excitement of the new season, Mokhzani said. In addition, national oil company Petronas has also become the title sponsor of Schumacher’s Mercedes GP team.
‘We hope to achieve more than 100 000 [spectators] this year. With Lotus, Mercedes and the return of Schumacher, we are seeing renewed interest in F1,’ Mokhzani said.”
Formula One 2010 supplement (The Guardian)
The Guardian’s popular annual looks ahead to the season in online form.
Stirling Moss official website
I was very sorry to hear yesterday that Sir Stirling Moss was injured falling down a lift shaft. I’mglad to hear he’s recovering.
While looking into what had happened I came across his official website which I can’t believe I’ve never seen before. It’s a smart, functional little design which puts many currentt F1 drivers’ Flash-ridden monstrosities to shame.
Comment of the day
Scribe is our most frequent commenter at the moment with well over 200 comments posted in the last 30 days. Are you one of our top commenters? Find out here.
Here’s Scribe’s take on the infamous Senna-Prost collision at Suzuka in 1990:
What Senna did to Prost was outrageous, unethical, dangerous, frankly stupid, stubborn, unbelievable, magnificent and something that will be remembered for ever.
Scribe
Site updates
As you cannot fail to have seen the 2010 F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship launched yesterday with loads more prizes than last year.
Entries for round one close when free practice 3 begins at 8am on Saturday morning (UK time).
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Alpinestar! Hope you have a good one.
On this day in F1
One year ago today Brawn made their first appearance in a test session with other cars and it started to become clear that the team which had only made it onto the grid at the last minute had a very quick car.
Jenson Button drove the car on that first day. In his book “My championship year” he describes his first laps in the car:
After two laps, I had the biggest smile on my face. The car was beautiful to drive. Wow! I thought, ‘What have we done? We’ve built a car that is exceptional.’
Jenson Button
The team ended the test with Rubens Barrichello setting the fastest time, 0.8s quicker than any other car.