Newbie to this site

Just retired after 23 years with the Forest Service, wildland fire fire engine operator. So I've got some free time, well maybe. So I'm getting back into model building, have around 30 to start with. Starting with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, custom & show rods, drag raceing and a few classic such as '55-'56-'57 nomads.

Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/954374.aspx

Paul Frere Patrick Friesacher Joe Fry Hiroshi Fushida Beppe Gabbiani

It's F1 guys... but not as we know it!

As I write this blog, we have just jetted off from the runway into the dark Turkish sky, I've set my watch back two hours to UK time and I'm thinking of rejecting the sausage and mash for a G&T and a few hours' much-needed kip.

As I look out of the window and the lights of our latest destination disappear in the haze far below us, and the music on my phone keeping me awake, I always get a little philosophical about what has gone on over the past few hours.

It sounds silly to say it, but at the time, despite being at the centre of it, there is so much going on that it's only now, a few hours later, that I can actually draw breath and appreciate what we've seen.

Sebastian Vettel celebrates winning the Turkish Grand Prix

While Schumacher struggles to turn back time, Vettel continues to show he is the sport's shining light. Photo: Getty

One of the things that usually hits me after a race is how transient this sport is, perhaps all sport. It is no exaggeration to say that just seconds after, or perhaps even during Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso's podium celebrations, the mindset of the sport had already moved on.

We on the BBC have the luxury of re-living replay after HD replay and picking up on the minutiae of the race, from a dodgy pit stop to a collision at 200mph, slowed down so David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan can analyse it in detail.

For the teams and drivers though, it is suddenly about the next race.

Right now, if you went to that track, the security checkpoints, advertising hoardings, glamour and glitz will already be gone. Vettel will have his memories, and the record books will forever show he took the flag, but that's it. It's over that quickly, time waits for no one, and I just hope that while he's at the top he takes the time to savour it.

Michael Schumacher is perhaps the prime example that taking on time itself, gambling with your legacy, is a high stakes game.

In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.


I was really sad to hear Schumacher say he's no longer enjoying Formula 1 after this race. People often say we're biased against Michael, but that's simply incorrect. He has given the sport so much, rewritten the record books, made us reassess what success actually is, and I am certainly not qualified to judge his personal decision to come back. But when the fun and the results are lacking, I feel for him, as what else is there?

I also felt for his former team-mate, Felipe Massa. I've just been chatting to his race engineer Rob Smedley. He's a really good lad and I like him even more after his 'Boro team helped Norwich to Premier League promotion (did you spot my reference to it in the show?).

Smedley was telling me that of Massa's four stops, something went wrong on three of them, slowing him down and releasing him into traffic. That meant battling cars to regain position - and it happened three times!

Sadly for all the teams and drivers, the new-style F1 leaves very little margin for error. It's so close on track, and with up to four stops per race, the smallest margin will have the biggest effect on the race.

Smedely was also saying how exhausted he was. Lotus reserve driver Karun Chandhock agreed. He was commentating for 5 live while Anthony Davidson won another sportscar trophy - well done, Ant - and Chandhok said he, too, was shattered.

I loved the race. It gives us masses to discuss post-race; Lewis Hamilton couldn't even recall how many time he'd pitted, and he only had his race to think about!

For my money it gives us better on-track action, longer, less-predictable racing and gets people excited about the sport. We're lucky, in the same way Twenty20 cricket has revolutionised that sport, I expect F1 will benefit to a similar degree.

As for the moveable rear wing - or DRS - system, remember, governing body the FIA can tweak it until it's perfect.

The FIA is coming from a position that overtaking had become too hard and it is aiming for DRS to make overtaking possible - but not too easy.

In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.


The feeling seems to be that in Australia its wasn't powerful enough, in Malaysia and China it was just about right, but that in Turkey it was too powerful. It's a learning process, as the top people in F1 have always said it would be.

Personally, I had great fun this weekend.

At the end if last year, we sadly waved goodbye to producer Sunil Patel, who was the master of our VTs - or pre-cut films - last season. That role has been taken on by Tim Boyd - or Boydy, as he is known. In BBC Sport there seems to be a rule that we take a surname and add a Y on the end. It doesn't work with mine, though!

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to Boydy and his team, particularly for the effort that went into the Williams front wing piece that we transmitted on Saturday.

In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.


That is the kind off access that brings you guys closer to the sport, breeds greater understanding. But it is also the kind off access that is incredibly hard to get so it's great to see the teams opening up to us. In the long run it benefits everyone.

Also, please do keep your ideas coming in to this blog, my Twitter and on e-mail, as we do read and act upon your thoughts.

It's great to get your response to our programmes, too. Sometimes with all the travel and prep you can get into a bubble where you don't get a true appreciation of people watching our output, as you're never at home to watch it!

However, the weekend before Turkey, I went to watch Lewis Hamilton's brother Nic, who was racing a Clio at Thruxton, and I was blown away. Not only was it great to see grassroots motorsport in this country and what a strong, loyal, knowledgeable following it has, but it also gave me a chance to meet stacks of people not lucky enough to make it to a grand prix, and who follow the racing totally via our output.

We on the BBC team have been delighted with viewing figures being higher than ever this year but, trust me, we're always looking for ways to make it better.

Anyway, have a great couple of weeks. Next up it's Barcelona. Four races in, no big incident at the start, no rain, no safety cars, yet racing so hectic and dramatic that it's hard to keep up.

It's F1 guys... but not as we know it!

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/2011/05/its_f1_guys_but_not_as_we_know.html

Bill Schindler JeanLouis Schlesser Jo Schlesser Bernd Schneider Rudolf Schoeller

Rubens Barrichello - classic F1 2011

Rubens Barrichello is the latest driver to choose his five favourite all-time grands prix for our new-look classic Formula 1 series.

For those unfamiliar with the format, BBC Sport has asked all the F1 drivers to reveal their five favourite races and we are serialising their choices before every race this season to whet your appetites for the action to come. Highlights will be shown on this website and the red button on BBC television in the UK.

So far, we have had world champion Sebastian Vettel, F1 legend Michael Schumacher and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi. Ahead of this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix, we have the most experienced F1 driver in history.

Barrichello's selection of races cover his life both before and during his F1 career. He has chosen three grands prix from his childhood, and two from his time in F1.

He gave his choices in chronological order, and his first is a particularly fascinating one.

It is an event that wraps up in one pretty much all the many aspects that make the sport such a compelling spectacle for millions of fans around the world - from the thrills of the world's greatest drivers battling for supremacy in the fastest cars, to the tragedy that inevitably occasionally visits an activity from which danger can never be fully removed.

The race in question is the 1978 Italian Grand Prix. It is notorious for a terrible crash at the start which eventually claimed the life of the legendary Ronnie Peterson, but also featured a thrilling fight for the lead between world champion elect Mario Andretti of Lotus (Peterson's team-mate) and Ferrari's Gilles Villeneuve. Brabham's Niki Lauda, who finished third on the road, was classified as the winner after Andretti and Villeneuve, first and second across the line, were penalised a minute for jumping the start.

This is Barrichello's reason for choosing that race: "The one that I remember from a very long time ago is the very first one I saw in Monza where Ronnie Peterson died in a big accident in 1978. It was the very first race that I saw on television, it's a very sad one but a classic one for me."

In chronological order, his other choices are as follows, in his own words:

1983 US Grand Prix, Long Beach

"It was the race when Keke Rosberg did a 360º spin and he kept on going for Williams. In my head it was just phenomenal."

1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, Estoril

"When Ayrton Senna won his first race in Portugal in 1985, it was also special for me. First of all because I had him as a mentor but also because he was just so fantastic in the way he drove every time he got into the car.

"Though he was to go on to win three championships, that day in Portugal he hadn't won a Formula 1 race before. It was so wet and everyone was crashing out, stopping and so on but Senna held on from pole to lead the race and it was so nice when he hung on to win in the Lotus.

2000 German Grand Prix, Hockenheim

"I love to watch my race in Hockenheim in 2000 when I took my first grand prix victory from the back of the grid.

"I had a problem with my car, it wasn't ready for qualifying, and then 20 minutes into the session it started to rain and I ended up qualifying back in 18th for Ferrari. I just wanted Saturday to go and for Sunday to come. I was sad because Hockenheim's a good race track and I knew I had a good chance of a podium.

"But I started the race just wishing the weekend to go and then all of a sudden on Sunday, I was overtaking, overtaking and overtaking. I saw my chance to win the race - and I did."

2008 British Grand Prix, Silverstone

"The other one that I love to watch is the British Grand Prix in the wet at Silverstone. We Brazilians do like the rain - and I've had a lot of practice in the wet in the Brazil right from my karting days.

"That race at Silverstone, I was soaked inside the car. When the Honda guys asked me what tyres I wanted, I said 'wet tyres'. Then they told me that others were going out on the intermediates and I said: 'They must be crazy because it's raining really heavily.' But that's how I got up (the order) during the race.

"I was a lap behind Lewis Hamilton's McLaren. He went on to win the race, but I took that back and I was going on. It felt so great to drive a car that was not that good but with better tyres than the others. I was able to overtake the others and finish on the podium."

With each driver, we choose one of their races to highlight and for Barrichello we have picked Monza 1978. That's because we have not shown it before, whereas all his other choices have featured in classic F1 over the last two years.

Usually, we would show the entire 'Grand Prix' highlights programme that was broadcast on the evening of the race. In this case, however, we have had to edit it because we felt some of the coverage of Peterson's crash was inappropriate.

As a result, the video starts with commentator Murray Walker summing up the events at the first start before reconvening for the second one.

The long highlights are embedded below. Underneath them are both short and long highlights of last year's Turkish Grand Prix, to further whet your appetites for this weekend's race.

In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.


WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2010 TURKISH GRAND PRIX WATCH LONG HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2010 TURKISH GRAND PRIX

I'm sure you'll remember it was one of the most thrilling races of 2010. Red Bull team-mates Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber crashed while disputing the lead. That left McLaren team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button up front and they had their own little tussle, passing and re-passing before they were told to ease off, Hamilton going on to win.

We will be showing short highlights from the 1983 US Grand Prix West 1983, Portugal 1985, Germany 2000 and Great Britain 2008 as well as long highlights from Turkey 2010 on the red button on BBC digital television in the UK.

Satellite and cable viewers will be able to watch them from 1500 BST on Wednesday 4 May until 12 noon Saturday 7 May.

They will be on Freeview from 0940-1150 BST on Friday 6 May and 1010-1050 BST on Saturday 7 May. The shorter window on Saturday means there will only be time for US West 1983, Portugal 1985, Germany 2000 and Great Britain 2008.

We hope you enjoy them.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/05/rubens_barrichello_-_classic_f.html

Josef Peters Ronnie Peterson Vitaly Petrov* Alfredo Piàn Francois Picard

Turkish Grand Prix Preview

It would seem that while most assumed that the Formula 1 world would go into a slumber given the three week break between the last race in and this weekend?s , there are some teams who didn’t get the memo and have been busy ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/jc60HHH2RRA/turkish-grand-prix-preview

Bernard Collomb Alberto Colombo Erik Comas Franco Comotti George Connor