Be Excellent To Each Other

Ach, Rosberg is very good I think - it'll certainly be interesting to see him in potentially a decent car. Heidfeld is someone I don't know about really - I couldn't even name the team he raced for last season.

What aspect would be illegal?

"I want these two because they are German".
Premiership football wasn't allowed to impose a "x% of players must be English" rule.

So if Button feels he is being forced out, he could perhaps take them to court. That would be interesting, to say the least. After all, it's easily argued that he's better suited for the job

BMW.

Rosberg, I felt, should've been doing alot more at the beginning of the season when the williams was certainly one of the best cars. Hard to judge him against Nakajima, though.

Absolutely no idea, but I suspect not as F1 seems to be a law unto itself. Plus, there are only 20 odd teams so places for drivers are far more limited than the 20 odd players or more each of the 40 teams in the premiership can have.

That's assuming he has a contract in place already and I suspect he probably doesn't.

There's a difference between a rule and a desire.

Button has, by all accounts, priced himself out of the running at Brawn.

There's been little to stop two drivers of the same nationality from driving in the same team as before.

Sure, that's fine. But Mercedes saying "we only want German drivers" sounds all manner of wrong to me. What if they said "We only want a German pit crew", and then "only German strategists".

Super aguri said "We want only japanese drivers" Look how well that worked out
USF1 started with the desire to only run US personnel. That failed.
Both Renault and Ligier have at times wanted only french. Didn't work.
Ferrari are in the process of re-italianising the team. It is yet to be seen how well that'll work, but the last couple of seasons have tended to the thought that it's not exactly working.

I don't think Button is being forced out though, more he isn't being actively encouraged to stay.

Also, I have a feeling that F1 drivers aren't employees (unlike the pit crew who would be). So any EU employment legislation wouldn't apply to them. Picking drivers based on Nationality is nothing new though, I think Williams always used to try and keep one Brit on the books. Could be interesting if we went to effectively national teams though, which would render the struggling A1GP even more redundant.

As I suspected, he's out of contract, so he isn't being forced anywhere other than into any seat he can get. McLaren would be an interesting place as he's a very different driver (and I suspect not as good all round) as Hamilton. However, the sponsorship opps for a British team with two British champions in it will be pretty good I suspect.

It was interesting what Button said: He'd only be interested in McLaren if he could get the car development to suit him (presumably as he needs a quite particular car). I'll see if I can find the quote.

Given the amount of work that's already been done...

We'd send in the British Army and show them a thing or two, that's fucking what

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Daimler?

Hang on - under EU law shouldn't they have to allow a certain number of Germans? OH NOES!

Yes, otherwise he'll get to made to look really shit by Hamilton which will kill his career as quickly as it was resurrected last year.

A Burberry check McLaren sponsored by Pot Noodle, White Ace cider and McDonald's driven by kids called Jenson and Lewis. Yeah, works for me.

Button has signed with McLaren

And Raikkonen has gone rallying as he couldn't get McLaren to agree to his wage demands. Still, the €20m settlement Ferrari are allegedly paying him not to drive next year should keep him in meatballs and pickled fish.

Mr Grim... (snr) was at Valencia this weekend, where Ferrari were showing off Alonso. They put him and Massa in the back of a new California and Luca di Montezemolo (Ferrari president) drove them around the track, waving at everybody.
Luca was too busy waving and drove into a gravel trap.

Aha: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4gSRCW7-RM

Yes. Yes he did.

Edit: Damn you 5!

Edit: Also, . The knob.

I saw this yesterday or the day before - apparently he claimed he was trying to get closer to the fans, but it's still a stupid thing to think you can drive a supercar across a gravel trap.

F1 2009 is out for the Wii soon. Anyone getting this or are you waiting until next year for the 360/PS3 version?

Considering how boring most of the F1 games of the last few years have been - the PS3 version was crap - and the lack of steering wheel support that I know of for the Wii means I almost certainly won't be buying this. Might grab it off goozex in the new year for a laugh, but I'll sit tight and wait for Codemasters 360 version to land next year. It has, it must be said, received quite favourable reviews though.

I don't have a Wii or for that matter a desire to play another Codemasters arcade racer but this time with F1-shaped cars.

The firm who were putting on the GP at Donington have gone into administration.

And they've managed to leave the circuit in an unusable state, as work had already begun.

Rumour mill churn. Apparently Mercedes are talking to Schumi.

British Grand Prix on the same day as the world cup final?

We won't be in it, so why does it matter?

Silverstone is confirmed for the next 17 years, in case you didn't hear.

Reduced audience. Less money. Annoyed DavPaz.

Someone's going to be in the WC final. And I know which one I'd rather be watching.

And in all likelihood it'll be screened much later than 1pm GMT time I would have thought.

You all need to stop being calm and rational. Do you want me to start punning again? Do ya?

The new Silverstone track layout for Moto GP looks interesting, completely getting rid of Abbey. Apparently they are applying to also use it for Formula One. I'm guessing this must be virtually approved, as the new hairpin massively increases the potential spectator space by going infield behind the paddock, which is surely the only way they could get extra income to pay Bernies price.

Grand Prix's have happened on the same day as the World Cup Final before. Move along, nothing to see here.

I've never been in a Grand Prix, but it's not stopped me watching them before.

Linky?

I find Silverstone soo boring though.... mostly I find it boring to watch it's not so bad to race on.

You're right. Something like the Valencia street circuit is much better.

Possible changes to the scoring.

Proportionally, it does little but allow 9th and 10th to score. 2nd is still 80% of the points of 1st. 3rd is still 60% of the points of 1st.

Also, why 6-5-3-2-1 rather than 6-4-3-2-1? That makes no sense at all.

Schumey is back in the game, folks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 427552.stm

Excellent. Schumie in a less than perfect car is excellent fun

edit: Excellent

why does every sport game is fifa/cricket/whatever year+1 and f1 always year that has just been finished..
why no f1 2010?

Unless Mercedes have really started dicking about, he'll be in a Brawn that isn't a hatchet job to make the deadline, so it should be at least as perfect as any other on the grid.

Because it's much easier to predict last season than the next one. Rules changes for next year, and similar uncertainties (Not knowing what the cars are like until January, etc) make a 2010 game hard to do. Madden 10, for instance, has a small amount of roster uncertainty, but that's about it.

Aren't the rules for 2010 essentially unchanged, apart from no refuelling? Sure, there'll've been lots of development from all sides, but I'd be surprised if Brawn came out uncompetitive.

We'll just have to wait and see.

That was mainly in reply to Romanista, on why F1 tends to release games midway through/at the end of a season.