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My trip to the F1 Grand Prix Silverstone 2005

With the British Grand Prix on this weekend, I thought you might like to read my post from my trip to the 2005 GP. Click here to see it.

F1 Drivers face 1000% licence fee rise

The FIA has announced that the fees F1 drivers pay for their racing licenses will increase by up to 1000%. My wife said “Well someone’s got to pay for all Max Mosley’s prostitutes”!

Read about the licence fees here at the BBC Motorsport website.

Race in a real F1 race, as it’s run, from your sofa

I can’t see this happening for a few years, and I think there would be a subscription model that’s fairly expensive. But there’s the potential to play an F1 racing game against real F1 drivers, live, real-time, as the race is run, as if you were really there on track. Read about it here on the BBC motorsport website.

Now that’s what I call a racing simulator!

Hamilton has the wrong attitude

This BBC report says that Hamilton thinks the 10 grid-place penalty is harsh, and the rule is ‘silly’. He’s currently my favourite driver, but his attitude is beginning to wind me up.

You don’t crash in the pit lane, period. It’s the most dangerous part of the circuit, and you need to have respect for all the people who work there. On the track you’re only likely hurt yourself or another driver; and that’s the risk you accept when you go racing. On the track, you respect yellow flags for the safety of yourself and the marshalls. The pit lane is a permanent danger zone, and rules are in place to protect people there. There is no excuse for not observing pit-lane rules.

I accept that the red light was on at the end of the pit lane to stop cars exiting the pit into the train of cars following the safety car, but it’s still a pit lane rule. If you don’t adhere to that rule, the people in the pit lane are at risk.

Hamilton’s attitude is bordering on Michael Shumacher’s attitude; I’m number one and I’ll do what I want. As F1 uncensored said on Twitter, Hamilton lacks humility. I don’t agree with much of what F1 uncendored says (grin), but I agree on this point.

Come on Lewis, you’re losing the respect of the fans (and those who work in F1 I assume). Far better to say “I made a mistake, I’m sorry, and I’ve learned from it”.

Former Toyota boss Ove Andersson dies in vintage rally crash

_44739450_anderssonapcredit226Sad news. He had a head-on crash as he rounded a corner.

Read the BBC Motorsport report here.

Lewis and Rosberg get grid penalties – F1 | ITV Sport

As I expected, Lewis Hamilton is penalised after running into the back of Kimi Raikkonen as Raikkonen waited at the red light at the end of the pitlane at Sunday’s Canadia Grand Prix. Rosberg, who ran into the back of Hamilton is penalised too. The penalty is 10 grid places at the next F1 Grand Prix in France (2 weeks time). I had posted on Twitter within seconds of the accident that Hamilton should be penalised (and I’m a fan of his). Here’s the full story Lewis and Rosberg get grid penalties – F1 | ITV Sport.

In the previous race, Adrian Sutil had been running fourth when a mistake by Raikkonen caused him to run into to back of Sutil and put Sutil out of the race.   It’s ironinc that Hamilton put Raikkonen out of the race with the crash in Canada while Raikkonen was waiting at the red light for the cars following the safety car to pass; a safety car deployed after Adrian Sutil crashed.

Before the race, Ted Kravitz had interview Robert Kubica saying something like “From your position on the grid, you would hope for a win”, to which Kubica replied “I don’t think so”. He won though with a fantastic drive. He made a 24 second gap in eight laps to ensure he remained 1st after his pitstop. Amazing.

If you twitter, please follow me for quick updates.  www.twitter.com/ColinBowen.

Ferrari boss makes Mosley U-turn – typical duplicity

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Ferrari boss makes Mosley U-turn

Just some news after Mosley gets through his vote of confidence. Basically, the big companies with enough clout were honest enough to call for his resignation. The myriad small companies and organisations that would suffer if Mosley became upset with them, they all voted for him to stay. Since the minows have more clout than the big boys, Mosley wins.

So You Want to be an F1 Driver – Round 2

Just a very quick post to say that I competed on Round two last Thursday.  I’m not out of the competition, but I’m not in either; I’m on the ‘maybe’ list.  Depending on how many people went through on the day, and whether SoWorld organiser Tim Matthews takes pity on me, maybe I’ll go though.  As soon as I hear, I’ll let you know.  The good news is that my friend Kaz has gone through to Round 3.  I hope to see him there.
 
I had intended to go into more detail in a post on Thursday evening, but staying on to do the assault course a second time and a (soft) drink with Kaz after the event made it a late return to the Travelodge for me and I didn’t get a chance.  A long drive home followed by sickness (not me), tiredness (me), and mayhem at home the following day put me behind for the weekend.  If I get a chance to post more about the event at the weekend, I will.
 

I’m back!

For the last year, my number one priority has been my wife and new baby daughter.  Whatever time has been left has been put into work.  Seven weeks ago my wife returned to work from maternity leave, and four weeks ago my daughter started full time nursery.  She took a week to settle in and since then we have been getting into our new routine.  I’ve been working hard to get the non-urgent backlog at work under control, and almost everything is now ‘in the system’.  Needless to say, I haven’t had time to devote to this website, but I will be posting more frequently from now. 
I have been active on Twitter though.  Twitter is the current ‘big thing’ in the online world, and is best described as micro-blogging.  This website is a blog; I can post (add to the site) via the website itself or by email.  Twitter is a website where people post very short comments (called Tweets) which appear immediately on their page.  You can see me at www.twitter.com/ColinBowen.  If you sign up for free membership, you can ‘follow’ me so that you see my tweets on your own page.
One thing I have tried is doing live Twitter commentary on the F1 practice sessions.  I’ll also be announcing on Twitter when my posts go up on this site.
Anyway, the next couple of days are an important time for Bowen Racing.  More on that later.
It’s good to be back!

So You Want to be an F1 Driver – Round 1

I did my five laps on Tuesday.

For those that don’t know, this is a pseudo annual competition for wannabe racing drivers. It is televised after the event.

I missed the competition the first year, but I saw it on TV and have entered since then. First time, I only got through the first round. Last time got through to round 4.

Basically, the first competition’s first prize was a drive in an F1 car (albeit a 70’s one), and a contract with the management company who were looking after Jenson Button at the time.

I’ll be writing here about my progress in this year’s competition.

So, Round 1. There is a choice of tracks at which we have to post five laps. It’s either the fastest of the five, or the average of the five laps that is sent off to the competition promoter. They will then decide who goes on to round two.

I’m not saying which track I went to, or what my time was until after the date that the times have to be submitted. So, come back later to see how I got on.

You can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking on the orange icon, and you will be notified of updates to this site.

Wish me luck.