F1 winter testing wrapped up last week in Barcelona, with Lewis Hamilton posting the fastest time at the final four-day test. Everyone always says it’s difficult to determine the relative pace of the teams based on testing times, but it seems pretty obvious that McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes are generally at the top with Williams and Sauber possibly up there as well.
The Formula 1 world has seen quite an active off-season since Sebastian Vettel won the final race of the year in Abu Dhabi. To quickly recap the highlights: Toyota decided to leave the sport; Fernando Alonso became a Ferrari driver; Mercedes purchased the title-winning Brawn team; 2009 World Champion Jenson Button jumped to McLaren alongside 2008 World Champion Lewis Hamilton; left without a drive, Kimi Raikkonen decided to try rallying in the WRC; the British GP moved back to Silverstone; BMW sold its F1 team back to Peter Sauber; new team Manor Grand Prix became Virgin Racing; the FIA changed the point-scoring system; 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher made his return to the sport as a driver for Mercedes GP; the Renault team wavered over returning to the sport but decided to stay with assistance from a venture capitalist; and the USF1 experience fizzled-out lamely without ever producing a car.
Of the four new teams for 2010, only Virgin and Lotus have successfully run their cars at the test sessions. Campos appears to be in a position to bring two cars to Bahrain next week, although they will be entirely untested. Stefan GP continues to circle overhead, hoping to be able to run the old Toyota chassis if (or more likely when) one of the teams fail to show up for the first race. As I mentioned before USF1 appears to have imploded, with no car, drivers, or sponsorship. A truly disappointing result for the American-based team. I had personally hoped it would have amounted to more than this.
In any case, the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship kicks off next week in Bahrain. This season is shaping up to be a real shootout, with at least four teams (and possibly more) able to challenge for victory. F1 for me is always a sign of Spring, and since we’ve had snow on the ground since November I can’t wait! Speed Channel (in HD) will be covering most of the races this season with the exception of four races on Fox in the summer. See this page for the updated start times of each session.
January 12, 2010 at 11:08 pm
· Filed under Television
Sara won’t stop quoting this Orbit commercial and I agree, it’s pretty funny. It’s also worth watching the homemade remakes on YouTube. Everyone really emphasizes that southern drawl. What the French toast!
I didn’t want to write anything about the Hawks until the season was over (I figured as soon as I mentioned they were playing great they would implode) but with Iowa’s win last night I can finally post something. The past year has not been smooth for the Hawks, starting with the preseason loss of Jewel Hampton to injury and Shonn Greene leaving early for the NFL. I clearly remember thinking to myself that this year would probably be a bit of a down year, but boy was I wrong. Game after game Iowa managed to make late rallies and squeak out the wins. Rick Stanzi was off and on like a light switch, but in the 4th quarter everyone on the team dug deep and never gave up.
Sara and I were at the Northwestern game where Stanzi hurt his ankle, and got to witness the Hawks snap their winning streak. We usually go to one game a season, just picked the wrong game I guess. Despite the losses, I couldn’t have been prouder of the way Iowa played all season. They showed tremendous heart, making smart plays with a tough defense and excellent coaching. The offense was sometimes a bit rough, but as long as they kept the score close at halftime I knew they would be able to finish strong and have a good shot at winning.
The Orange Bowl last night was just more of the same. I was really looking forward to the matchup of Georgia Tech’s offense vs. Iowa’s defense: “the unstoppable force meets the immovable object.” Iowa had an awesome game plan, and except for one long drive in the third quarter the Hawks suffocated Georgia Tech. The coaches really need to be commended for teaching these athletes to play smart and win as a team. It wasn’t flashy, and at times it was downright ugly, but it was still a great season for the Hawks. I can’t wait for next year.
December 15, 2009 at 11:14 pm
· Filed under General
After previously owning several film cameras, I purchased my first digital camera in 2003–a Canon S230. It has the classic Elph form factor with a 2x zoom and 3.2 megapixel CCD. The body is stainless steel, heavy and solid-feeling. It still uses a Compact Flash card for storage, and the LCD display is tiny, only 1.5.” Unfortunately, it didn’t have any manual controls and I eventually outgrew it and purchased a Canon EOS 20D. The S230 went to my brother who didn’t have a camera.
Fast forward to this year. I can never have too many digital cameras, so I asked my brother if he was still using the S230. He said no, because it was broken. Taking a look at the camera, it appeared that the image sensor had gone bad. I assumed that was normal with older cameras–Sara’s first digital camera, a Canon A75, also seemed to have the same problem. I tried surfing eBay, looking for parts to repair the CCD, but most of the cameras I found also had bad image sensors. Dead end.
Curious about how much it would cost to have Canon repair the camera, I did a bit more searching and found an article about issues with a bad batch of Sony CCDs installed on quite a few digital cameras from multiple manufacturers, including both the S230 and the A75. Following the link, I was able to confirm that this is a recognized service issue with Canon. Furthermore, Canon would repair the affected cameras for free!
I called about Sara’s A75 first, and they emailed me a pre-paid shipping label. I sent the camera to a Canon service center in Illinois, and after a little more than a week it was returned, cleaned and repaired. Awesome. I sent in the S230 next, and it was the same deal. Both cameras were fixed for $0, even shipping was paid for. I could not be more impressed with Canon’s customer service on this issue. If you have, or know of someone who has, a Canon digital camera on the affected list with a bad CCD, I would highly recommend the free fix. As for my S230, I plan on using it as my cycling camera since it’s small and pretty rugged, in case I crash and land on it or something.
F1 Fanatic has a nice feature about the recent history of BMW in Formula 1, condensing 10 years into 100 pictures. It’s a bit of a flashback for me, as I started following F1 in 2001 with Juan Pablo Montoya’s move from IndyCars to the BMW-Williams team. I remember waking up early on Sunday mornings to follow the live commentary on the internet, since I was living in the dorms at the time and the university TV didn’t have Speedvision. Upon moving to my first apartment–and finally getting cable installed–the first race I saw was the 2001 Italian Grand Prix, Montoya’s first F1 victory. After several years with Williams, Montoya moved to McLaren, and I was on vacation in Spain with Sara when I found out he had left the team (and the sport) for NASCAR.
In other F1 news, Toyota have decided to call it quits and face all the problems associated with pulling out of the sport with immediate effect. Their involvement in the sport could be characterized as unfulfilled potential delivered with poor financial efficiency, if you will. On the other end of the manufacturer spectrum, Mercedes has announced that it is taking over the Brawn team (winners of the 2009 title) as expected. McLaren–a long-time Mercedes partner–will still be involved with the manufacturer through a continued engine supply contract but will become more independent overall. The F1 driver market remains exceptionally unresolved given the time of the year; current world champion Jenson Button as well as many other top drivers have still not signed for drives in 2010.
Finally, Ferrari had their annual end of the year party for the fans in Valencia over the weekend. Several highlights: Felipe Massa getting behind the wheel of the F60 for the first time since his accident in Hungary, Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo beaching his Ferrari California in a gravel trap with Massa and Fernando Alonso in the back seat (see the video), and of course Alonso looking dandy in his first public appearance for Ferrari.
Jenson Button’s drive to fifth place yesterday in the Brazilian GP has locked up the 2009 F1 championshipwith one race remaining. Button, driving for Ross Brawn’s eponymous team, started the season with a bang by winning six of the first seven races. Results that followed were somewhat subdued, as other teams came to grips with the new regulations for 2009 and Rubens Barrichello found his form in the second Brawn. Through it all Button was able to maintain his points-scoring consistency and now sits 15 points ahead of his nearest rival with only ten points left up for grabs.
In addition to Jenson’s title the Brawn team was also able to celebrate clinching the constructors’ championship in only their first year of competition. The team had previously been known as the Honda factory squad, and following the Japanese manufacturer’s withdrawal from competition last winter there were serious concerns they would even make it to the grid this year. Thankfully for the sport, Brawn was able to pull everything together with a week to spare before the first race of the year in Australia, which they dominated.
By the way, spare a thought for Mark Webber who took a second career F1 victory with his win in Brazil. All the talk after the race has been about Button’s championship with little coverage of Webber’s faultless drive. Also showing well were Robert Kubica for BMW in second and outgoing champion Lewis Hamilton for McLaren completing the podium. The race was action-packed from the start, with several large crashes, aggressive on-track passing, and even a flash-fire brought about by spilled fuel in the pits (the “Iceman” Kimi Raikkonen drove straight through the fire and hardly took his foot off the throttle). The season reaches its conclusion in two weeks time at the brand new Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi.
