A Brawn insider spills the beans

Very interesting piece on the Guardian site today, quoting a Brawn team ‘insider’ talking about how much faster the car is capable of going than we saw on Sunday.
It’s interesting because Ross will not like this very much at all. He didn’t get where he is today by giving anything away and this gives a [...]

Hamilton says 'Never give up'

Anyone who has read the recent biography I wrote on Michael Schumacher will know that one of his greatest qualities was that he never gave up.
It’s a vitally important quality in a sportsman; the game isn’t over until the final whistle, the chequered flag. It’s something I try to communicate to my own son, look [...]

3 minutes with…Felipe Massa

This is Felipe Massa looking back across the wreckage of his Sunday afternoon. With a little commentary from me at the end.
Why did you start the race on the soft tyres?
“Now it looks very simple, but before the race we were looking at all the numbers, looking at the grip that there was on Friday [...]

Flat out on the Straits

After an overnight flight from Melbourne I arrived at the hotel in Kuala Lumpur at 8am to find that my room isn’t ready. That’s okay, there is a pool for later, a decent restaurant and a pretty good wireless signal in the main cafe area, so here I am. It’s hot here, as you’d expect, [...]

Scenes around Melbourne the day after the race

I’m sitting in Melbourne airport in the departure lounge waiting for a 1am flight to Kuala Lumpur. I’m not alone, there are plenty of F1 people milling around, rather bleary eyed waiting for the plane. Ferrari are on the flight, along with some French and English journalists, a few photograpers and others. It’s an eight [...]

How Rubens' race was run

Rubens Barrichello had an unbelievable afternoon in Melbourne on Sunday, which deserves a closer look. He started and finished second, but in between it was far from plain sailing, with two collisions, both of which caused bodywork damage. It is one of those, ‘How did he get there?’ races, so I thought I’d go through [...]

Brawn march on at the double

I will never forget the feeling I had when I saw this Brawn car for the first time on the Monday morning in Barcelona on the 9th of March. It looked different, the detail on the car was so refined, and it went like stink.
Here was the most dominant F1 car we’ve seen since the [...]

Behind the scenes on Melbourne raceday

It was Ross Brawn himself who made the connection, when we were talking on Saturday morning about the last team to win on its F1 debut; Wolf in 1977.
“Yeah, I was working for them then,” he grinned.
Ross started out at Williams, but when Sir Frank got involved with Walter Wolf, Ross was seconded to go [...]

Pre race update

Great atmosphere in the pits and paddock as the clock runs down towards the start of the race.
There is a general acceptance that the Brawn cars are going to drive away at the front of the field. Their pace over long runs is even more impressive that their qualifying pace. Rubens did a great job [...]

Bernie signs new F1 music deal

F1’s commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone isn’t here in Australia, he’s back in London doing deals.
One which broke cover this weekend was a deal he’s been working on for ages with Universal Music group, the biggest recorded music outfit in the world. They own dozens of the labels you grew up with like Polydor, Decca [...]

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