f1buzz.net

Since taking over from ITV last year, the BBC’s Formula One coverage has just gotten better and better.

I love the fact that every practice, qualifying and race session is available on the web and the red button. I do miss James Allen’s commentary, but on the whole, the BBC team is first rate. The 5 Live commentary for the practice sessions is also really good, especially Anthony Davidson (although I’d rather see him back on the track).

One of the things I look forward to each race weekend is the little video montages that the BBC put together. They are pure, bite-sized pieces of F1 goodness.

Just take a look at this one from Turkey commemorating 800 races for the Scuderia.

Red Bull have announced that they will miss the first test and release their 2010 challenger on 10 February at Jerez.

Designer Adrian Newey said that because the RB6 is an evolutionary design following on from last year’s radical RB5 he didn’t feel they needed to be at the first test to “establish the basic concept of the car.”

Instead, the team will save their engines and tyres while they further research the car in the wind tunnel back at Milton Keynes.

For now, here’s some hot RB5 on ice action. They obviously can’t wait to get back to Montreal…

Video: Red Bull

After a long three week break the season continues with the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.  It is the home Grand Prix for fully one quarter of the drivers on the grid but realistically there is only one German with a chance of standing on the top step on Sunday.

Sebastian Vettel comes to the Nürburgring fresh from his victory at Silverstone and he will be hoping to maintain that momentum in front of his home crowd and further narrow the gap to Championship leader Jenson Button.  It will be Vettel’s first time around the Ring in an F1 car but he has raced (and won) there before in everything from karts to F3 and Renault World Series.

Timo Glock is another German yet to experience the Nürburgring in Formula One but, like Vettel, he has won there before in other classes.  After making it through to Q3 in Britain Glock just missed out on points in the race but he is hopeful of a strong finish in Germany:

I’ve had some good races so far and it has been nice to be battling at the front quite often. This weekend is another chance to do that and I can’t wait.

Despite having a famous Finnish father, Nico Rosberg is actually a German citizen.  He set the third fastest lap at Silverstone and ended the race in fifth which boosted him to seventh in the Drivers’ Championship and Williams to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship – ahead of McLaren.

Rosberg is obviously at home on the circuit.  In this video he talks us through a lap of the Ring – blindfolded.

Nick Heidfeld will be sporting a special helmet design for his home race but it will take more than a fresh coat of paint to turn the BMW Sauber F1.09 into a race winning machine.  Two years ago Heidfeld became the first driver in 30 years to pilot an F1 car around the old Nordschleife circuit, christened The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart.

Heidfeld is in real danger of being beaten by compatriot Adrian Sutil on Sunday.  Force India have been steadily improving all season and if Sutil hadn’t gone off in a big way in qualifying he may have finished in the points in the British Grand Prix.  There is a chance of rain on Sunday and if that happens then it is quite possible Adrian Sutil could score Force India’s first points.

To make your predictions in round 9 of the F1 Buzz prediction game (and be in with a chance to win some nice prizes), just leave a comment on this post with your driver predictions for the race in the following format:

Pole:
First:
Second:
Third:
Fastest lap:

Remember, the deadline for entries is start of qualifying on Saturday, that’s 12:00 GMT.

Good luck!

Image & video: Williams

Last week, Keith Collantine at F1 Fanatic wrote a nice post about one of my favourite London buildings, the beautiful art-deco Michelin House on Fulham Road.

That building was the UK headquarters of Michelin from 1909 to 1985 before Sir Terence Conran bought it and turned it into the Bibendum Restaurant, named after the cigar-smoking, bicycle-riding, rubbery mascot of the Michelin Tyre Co.

But only a short walk away is another historic art-deco automotive building that Conran has converted into a restaurant; the Bluebird Garage on Kings Road.

When the garage was built in the early 1920’s, it was Europe’s largest motor car facility at some 50,000 sq ft.  As well as selling petrol and servicing automobiles, it also provided overnight accommodation for lady motorists and their chauffeurs in the two wings on either side of the main building.

The land speed record holder Sir Malcolm Campbell had a connection with the garage although it is hard to determine what it was exactly.  Some say the garage was where he built his famous ‘Blue Bird’ cars, others that he just sold cars there when he took over the Itala and Ballot concessions in London.

Campbell competed in Grand Prix racing, winning the 1927 and 1928 Boulogne Grands Prix but he is best known for breaking the world speed record on land and water several times in the 1920’s and 30’s.

His first land speed record was in 1924 when he piloted a V12 Sunbeam 350HP to 146.16 mph at Pendine Sands in Wales.  Between 1924 and 1935 he broke the land speed record nine times and on September 3 1935 he became the first person to drive a car over 300 mph when he hit 301.337 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Campbell drove four Blue Bird cars (his son Donald drove a jet-powered Bluebird in the 1950’s) culminating in the 1935 Campbell-Railton Blue Bird.  This car had a 36.7 litre supercharged Rolls-Royce R V12 engine producing 2,300hp.  The car was so powerful that double rear wheels had to be fitted to stop the wheels spinning.

Here’s a video of Campbell driving Blue Bird at Daytona Beach.

Below are some pictures of the Bluebird Garage.  The tennis balls are a Wimbledon thing. 🙂

Images: Conran & Partners, David Keen

Tag Heuer have been running a competition where if you guess who will win a race between Steve McQueen and Lewis Hamilton you can win some really nice prizes.

First prize is a limited edition Tag Heuer Monaco watch.  Second prize is a (presumably replica) Lewis Hamilton helmet and third prize is a ‘private driving day in F1’, whatever that is.

The competition closed on 10th June and unfortunately I didn’t win. 🙁  But at least we now know who won ‘The Duel’.

We featured the teaser video in an earlier post about Formula One adverts, and now here is the final cut of Duel, ‘the cinematic road race between Steve McQueen and Lewis Hamilton’.

To be honest, you probably won’t be surprised who wins…