F1 Round Up

OK so first things first. Congratulations to Brawn GP & Button. I’m not Jenson’s biggest fan; I think he whines just a little too much (But show me a race driver you couldn’t say that about) but he did deserve the championship. My real hero of the season is Ross Brawn, after Benetton and Ferrari he could have -like Michael Schumacher & Jean Todd- left the F1 paddock as a legend & become FIA president like JT or ...Whatever it is MS does these days. Instead he looked around the grid for one of the biggest challenges, finds it & jumps on ship with Honda…later that same year Honda gets the recession willies & leaves F1. Does (Soon to be) Sir Ross Brawn (You heard it here first) run away with them? NO! He buys them out & goes on to win the championship in his debut year….Now THAT is a legend!!

Drivers Championship:

Constructors Championship:

Now onto Williams; Not a bad year for a one driver team. Good riddance to Kazuki Nakajima, if it wasn’t for Toyota hanging him albatross like, around our necks I think we could have easily had 5^th place in the constructors this year. On the flip side, thank you very much Nico Rosberg, not only for this year but for the last 4 years. As much as I’d wish Nico would stay with us I realise he wants to win the Drivers Championship in the next two years and I doubt we could give him that...Maybe in the second year, with a lot of luck. Welcome to Rubens Barrichello & Nico Hulkenberg. Barrichello being the most experienced driver in F1 of all time & this year showing he still has the hunger to push for the title. Hulkenberg: a great up and coming driver who I saw owning A1GP a few years ago & I hear cleaned up the GP2 series this year.

Red Bull: Phew they gave Brawn a good run for their money. Maybe without the double diffusers, engine power, gearbox (or any other issue Mark Webber has been complaining about) who knows what could have happened. Considering Mark started the year with a broken legr I think he did bloody well, and sure Vettel made some mistakes that may have lost him the championship but this is only his third season in formula 1 so cut him some slack.

McLaren & Ferrari: A humbling year for both teams, bought on by last year’s epic battle & their respective wars with Max Mosley. Expect them back up the top next year.

Placings:

Just look at the difference between Rosberg & Nakajima!!

Renault, BMW & Toyota: Will Renault be on the grid next year? I’ll answer that February next year. We had a great fight with them this year & I think the whole Singapore 2008 thing was blown WAAAY out of proportion...I miss Pat Symonds. I wasn’t really surprised to see Toyota leave; they never really got the hang of F1 even while spending the most money. On the bright side Toyota will take Fuji Speedway away with them leaving Suzuka in its rightful place as the sole Japanese F1GP racetrack. I don’t know what BMW were thinking, 2006-2008 were going exactly to Dr Mario Theissen’s master plan... I’m not sure what exactly happened this year but I’m sure they could have easily turned things around for next year and been a top runner again.

Big congratulations to Force India, who beside Brawn should be the most proud of their season. Hope they keep it up for next year.

Grid:

So next year: Welcome to Lotus, Campos Meta, Team US and Manor. I hope you all make it to both the first & last grids for 2010. I’m reserving my judgement on the whole no refuelling thing for 2010, last time F1 did this back in 1993 I wasn’t following F1 that closely. I’m really disappointed F1 is letting KERS fall by the way side, I think it’s very short sighted of them especially after the vast amounts of money they invested into it this year.

Finally Jean Todd as the new President of the FIA. Firstly I think Mr Todd was the right choice between him & Ari Vatanen, Ari ran a very dirty, snide campaign. The problem being is the infamous saying of FIA standing for ‘Ferrari International Assistance’ which I have agreed with at times in the past. With Jean Todd being the ex head of Team Ferrari it is going to be very hard for these murmurs from becoming shouts. I’ll be following this with an open mind but also with open eyes.

Predictions:

11 win picks including 1 trifecta...Maybe I should get another hobby?

WOW I’ll be back in God’s own in less than 4 days now....Choice Bro!!!

A Bromantic outing

OK so with only a few weeks of North America to go I realized that I had yet to get to Canada’s coolest natural phenomena beside aurora borealis…Niagara Falls.

I was going to roll solo but when my flat mate Lex heard that there was wine  tasting involved he insisted that I needed a Canadian escort. So on Thursday I rung Moose Travel to book us on  the tour. Then at 9am Saturday 2 rather sandy  lads clambered onto the tour bus ready to pay for the tour, only to be informed that I had paid for the tours with a Canadian Credit Card I don’t own...Hazaah for free tours!

Firstly the Hamilton Skyway is quite impressive & kind of reminds me of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Then it was onto Niagara & the Maid of the Mist!

First of all was the American falls…Which everyone was poo pooing…So I was expecting something about the size of Huka falls back home…No they are A LOT bigger and very impressive, with Bridal veil Falls right next to  them. Then the boat headed the 100 or so meters up to the Canadian or Horseshoe falls. These are HUGE, especially when you are on a little boat right under them.

After drying off & meeting the only Mountie I’ve meet the entire year we went to have lunch, where I was introduced to burrito spring rolls…my 2 favourite cuisines fused into finger food…Happy Rodis.

Cliffton Hill: where the Canadians have washed the Carny folk to stop them smelling of cabbage & given them a street to take over permanently. I’m in love & will be back.

Then we headed down to the Niagara Whirlpool which our tour guide said was 1 of the largest in the world but by this time neither Alex nor I believed a word  he said as he had tried to tell us that ships could get from Lake Ontario to the Pacific; somehow doing what the Panama Cannel does at the narrowest part of the Americas at the widest part…And at the same time turning Canada into an island.

Now we had a quick jaunt down to Niagara on the Lake, most probably the sweetest Bed & Breakfast town ever…So Alex & I held hands & skipped around checking out theatres and the view of Toronto over the lake.

Finally it was onto the wine tasting where I tried ice wine for the first time. Now on the wine sweetness scale a dry wine is 0-1, a dessert wine is around a 5…Ice wine is 20! Crazy sweet.