Wake-up State-Side Tifosi Ferrari Top Charts
Wakey, wakey Tifosi, turn off your Maranello alarm clock (imaged left) and roll out of your specially designed beds.
While you were dreaming Robin Leach type fantasies, and another Prancing Horse win, Kimi and Felipe put your favorites 1-2 at Fuji Japan during FP1. they were closely followed by Alonso and Lewis “Secret Agent Man” Hamilton.
The surprise of the session was Williams’ satellite-Toyota of Nico Rosberg who timed in fifth fastest and teammate Alexander Wurz at seventh.
And wait, there’s more. Jarno Trulli in the “real” Toyota timed in at eighth. Although it must be said Trulli has been flirting with 8-10th spots all year.
But the performance of the Satellite Williams team makes one wonder. Hummm… Fuji, owned by Toyota, holding it’s first GP in 30 years and their team is near the top of the speed charts. Why do I smell a very light load of fuel for the benefit of the home crowd?
Anyway, speed may not determine final qualifying results or race order. It may come down to choices made on when to use or not use rain tires.
Rain is forecast for both Saturday and Sunday. It should be wet, but not as bad as the 2004 Suzuka event when typhoon Ma-on forced organizers to postpone qualifying.
Here’s today’s F1 Headline of the Day: Lewis: McLaren favour me
And unsurprisingly the story contains today’s Quote of the Day courtesy of Lewis “Secret Agent Man” Hamilton:
And since what’s gone on in the last few weeks they’ve realised who the real people are in the team and who they really should back.
Whatever does Hamilton mean by “real people?” I never realized being a real humanoid entailed passing secret text messages via some kinda decoder ring or something.
Silly me. Guess I have to work on my “people qualities.”
Fuji Japan. F1, Formula One, FIA, Sports, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle
Perhaps Baby Louie should shut up and drive!
Considering the Toyota is running a Williams gear box because of their F1 constructor expertise, wouldn’t it just be simpler to merge the two teams?
After the longest & most expensive build up to an F1 entry Toyota in 7 seasons have achieved nothing.
Great idea of mine…….but it will never happen.
I saw this before dawn on another site and just chalked it up to no coffee yet. I’ve had coffee, I’ve worked, I’ve been to the gym…I’m still shaking my head. Is it in the FIA spec bottled water supplied to these guys?! Why can’t they just ALL shut up and do realize what their jobs are? This is the longest, most tedious year for drivers, owners, series who-do’s and governing bodies to just crap all over themselves. It’s like a really bad reality tv show where everyone knows the camera is on and this is their 15 seconds, so they have to perform. Where did it all go wrong? Race #1 and I was thinking, wow! We got racing…ashes to ashes indeed. To paraphrase, I used to be amused but now I’m trying really, really hard not to be disgusted. And I am really ready for this F1 season to be over. I never, ever thought I’d say that.
BTW, I fell asleep before quali last night but when I woke up to see Hamilton take pole, it was or had been raining on that track…I think…Could that have anything to do with some surprise performances (I hear Spyker had a good day, too)? Nico’s been coming on and as I wrote Williams off, this year I’ve thought they’ve been doing rather well for where they are. Pray for that damned monsoon…maybe Kubica can be the best man on the day, much like Olivier Panis, another underrated driver lingering around p6 for much of his career.
Ron Dennis has no idea the size of the monster he has cooked up in his F1 training lab. You can chalk it up to inexperience, unabashed enthusiasm, or whatever, but I find Louie’s descriptions of “we at Mclaren..”, as if it was his team, very disturbing. What driver of any ability will be going to McLaren and have to face that attitude?
I hope Fred gives him some serious driving lessons before season’s end. He Q’d .070 behind Louie the Loudmouth, so his car will be competitive. Unfortunately there is no one there capable of teaching him humility and consideration, least of all Fred and Ron, is there?
I didn’t take it as big-headedness on Lewis’ part, it sounded to me like he was taking the piss a bit and just trying to unsettle Alonso: “oh yeah, Alonso’s been claiming all season that I’m the golden boy, actually he’s right” kind of thing.
ok, i was NOT serious about an actual monsoon. is this going to be the first f1 race where the safety car takes the chequered?
btw, Julian, yeah we all got that point, the point Hamilton is missing is that drivers like Senna and Prost did the same thing in a much more subtle and knife up the sleeve sort of way. He really needs to loose the ingenue mode.
Boys, when a driver openly discusses that his teamate is no longer wanted, and he’s a rookie at that, it’s a sign that the inmate is running the asylum.
I can’t believe Ron is happy over those pronouncements but I don’t think there is much he can do, is there. But the kid should not be publicly making team policy decisions, should he?
There is something very disturbing about his entire demeanor that I find unsettling which takes away from his driving skills.
As for the slalom event today, I can’t believe I stayed up to watch a Mercedes sedan lead 19 laps. Say what you will about NASCAR, they at the least have the common sense to postpone a race when it’s necessary. They should have run the race on Monday.
His post race interview was so “aw shucks” I had to turn it off. He really comes across as a two faced weasel, so sweet when it’s to his advantage, and over the top when he thinks he can get away with it.
All top drivers need to be cut throat when necessary, it seems to me Lewis has taken it to a different level.