Grid Kids

No, that's not what I mean.

 

It was just over a week ago that I reported on the removal of Walk-On Girls from certain darts tournaments and how there was pressure on F1 to scrap their Grid Girls.

 

Then, a few days later, the BBC reported on F1 scrapping their Grid Girls.

 

Today, they announced what they will have to replace them - Grid Kids!  This is a very good idea - just not one that belongs to F1.

 

Formula E, being a bit more forward thinking, has been using them for a year.  Here is Oliver Turvey, no relation to Kevin, with a Grid Kid:

These are motorsport fans being given an amazing opportunity in the same way young football fans are who get to be child mascots walking out on to the pitch with their heroes.

Unfortunately, the BBC decided to open up these stories to comments and, for some reason, the BBC News website comments mostly attract the sort of person who believes the things The Mail and Sun tell them - the highest rated comments are always ignorant claptrap.  So, after reading some of them, I need cheering up - ah, Kevin's 'Ere:

Racing Home

Monaco-style Grands Prix events could be hosted on English roads under new laws coming into force on Monday.

So says the BBC.

Well that sounds good.

Apparently, a spokesman for London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: "In considering whether to support a Grand Prix in London, the mayor would need to see what the impacts are on air pollution."

Sounds too PC to me.

Certainly too PC for a GP.

He then went on to say that the mayor was in discussion with Formula E over whether a race involving environmentally friendly electric-powered cars could be held on London's streets.

Maybe the mayor doesn't know that Formula E races have already been held in London - albeit not on the roads.

The article is a bit confusing as it uses cycling as an example - "We had the Tour de France here, we had a Grand Depart in Yorkshire a couple of years ago and roads were closed as part of that event and thousands of people came to watch it."

OK.  But if that worked so well - what is so different about this coming Monday?

Anyway, in anticipation of Monday, I have devised my own GP circuit a walking distance from my house:

I believe that this will be particularly challenging for Lewis Hamilton and his chums because it contains a nice Monaco-style Bus-Stop chicane plus a hump-back bridge and a level crossing meaning that every quarter of an hour or so, the cars will have to wait for some trains to pass.

Bernie would be turning in his grave if he were dead.

Robot Cars/Car Wars/Robocar - take your pick.

Most of the motoring media has picked up on this story this week - but my favourite take on it is from Caradvice.com.au - although this picture has a lot to do with that:

C3PO looks terrified!

Forumla e is getting a support race.

And, being formula e, it's no ordinary support race - the cars will still be electric (of course) but they will also be missing drivers.  It is a race for autonomous cars.

The cars will be (hardware speaking) identical - which I think is a bit of a missed opportunity - but they can worry about that in the future.  The only difference will be the AI software - I'm wondering if that will mean that each race will pan out in the same way but I'm intrigued enough to want to know more.

Not worrying about driver-safety (or driver existence) will impact on the car design but hopefully crowd safety will still play a part.  Remote cut-out switches perhaps?

Post-race interviews will be held with software geeks but, speaking as a software geek, I don't mind that.

In fact, I look forward to getting a phone call from Nicole Scherzinger.

No-Lympic Games

Formula e could join the Olympics in 2020.  So says Autoguide.

No it couldn't.

And no it shouldn't.

Jean Todt, a man I have quite a bit of time for and current head of the FIA has suggested it.

I like formula e - I watched and enjoyed many of the races in this inaugural season.

I can't say I'm a fan of The Olympics but I did enjoy the London ones in 2012 despite the Mail wanting to put a downer on them.  Then again, if ever I'm not sure about something - I find out The Mail's view and safely know that the opposing view is the correct one.

The logistics of this suggestion make it a non-starter - would they all use the same car? would it be the car's nationality or the driver's that would get the medals?  Are these drivers athletes in the true Olympic tradition?  Would the orginal marathon in Ancient Greece have been as impressive if a Vauxhall Ampera was involved?

Actually, it probably would given how few and far between the charging points are.

Some Say... ...He Assaulted Goodwood’s Hill with a Mustang Shelby GT350R

I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for Ben Collins now.

He can't do anything without being referred to as "the former Stig from Top Gear."

This story from Car+Driver has him driving a Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R up the Goodwood Hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed which is on this weekend.  I look forward to the highlights show on ITV4.

Maybe one year I'll make the effort to get down there.  This year I made the effort to check out their Website.  I then got distracted by this story on it.  I love old Volvos - especially the ones I saw at Oulton Park competing in the British Touring Car Championships in the '90s.  So much so that I have a signed print (signed by driver Tim Harvey and also by the artist) of a drawing of them in action at Brands Hatch in my hall.

The picture is in my hall, Brands Hatch isn't.

Anyway, this is why I was drawn to that story:

It's a Volvo 240T Touring Car!  That I'd never heard of. But that is because it competed in the European Touring Car Championships in the '80s.

At this point I got distracted by the thought that I wish they were still competing - after all, back in 2012, I found this story about a new Volvo Touring Car.

So, a quick bit of  Internet research led me to the Scandinavian Touring Car Championships where Volvos have been very successful of late and they seem to have more manufacturers taking part too - including the likes of Dacia.

Now, the first Formula e race of the weekend has just started so I'll go and watch that.

Some say I get easily distracted...  ... ooh look, a duck.

E By Gum

The FIA Formula e championship kicked off this morning in Beijing.

It was on ITV4 so I watched it.  If it hadn't been on a Freeview channel I wouldn't have been that fussed but I'm glad I did - I have high hopes for it.

 

For those of you who don't know about Formula e, read this excellent piece on the subject.

 

Actually, don't.  That was written ages ago before anyone knew what it would evolve into - you'd do better checking out their official website.

 

Formula e is the all-electric alternative to Formula 1 - and based on the first race, could be more exciting than Formula 1.  I was wary that using street circuits as they do and having same-spec cars would mean overtaking was going to be difficult but the fact that they have to control the power in order to conserve battery-charge did lead to some very entertaining overtaking.

 

Swapping cars half-way through the race because the batteries wouldn't last is a bit strange and I'm sure that will die out once battery technology improves.

 

We also have the new innovation of "Fan Boost" (or #FanBoost if you're into Twitter) whereby fans vote for their favourite drivers and the top three vote-receivers get a power boost that they can use once in the race - but more about that shortly.

 

So...let's meet the teams...

 

First the ITV4 team who will be presenting the Season to us - 85.7% of whom I had not heard of before.

 

Firstly, we have Jennie Gow (who doesn't seem to be any relation to BTCC boss Alan Gow) but who does seem to be knowledgeable (and genuinely excited) about motorsport and seemed to ask the right questions.  Jennie is the main presenter based in the studio with race engineer Kyle Wilson-Clarke and F3 Driver Jann Mardenborough.  It was quite refeshing and interesting to have a race engineer in there with a different take on things.  Jann seemed a bit nervous and a bit young:

In fact, he even looks younger than Leonardo diCaprio if that is possible.  I'm sure his confidence will build up as the series goes on.

 

Former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley joined roving reporter Nicki Shields provided trackside insight with Jack Nicholls and Dario Franchitti doing the commentary.  Dario Franchitti being the 14.3% of the team that I was familiar with.

 

Now the actual teams.  There are a few familiar names from motorsport in there: Virgin, Renault, Senna, Prost, Piquet and Andretti to name but six.  Ten teams in total, running cars that look like this: 

• British based Amlin Aguri is led by Japanese ex-Formula 1 driver Suzuki Aguri who also founded F1 team Super Aguri.
• Andretti Autosport is led by Michael Andretti (part of the American Andretti motorsport dynasty).
• Audi Sport ABT is the team behind Audi's DTM cars.
• China Racing - not to be confused with...
• Dragon Racing who are from California.
• E.Dams Renault are sponsored by a Dutch Cheese Manufacturer. (No they aren't)
• Mahindra Racing - from the Indian motoring concern responsible for some Jeep look-a-likes that got imported to the UK.
• Trulli GP led by ex F1 racer Jarno Trulli.
• Venturi Grand Prix a joint effort between Venturi an American car company who have experience in electric vehicles and Leonardo diCaprio (serious electric car advocate) who has experience in looking very young.  He wasn't seen once during the coverage - I hope he was actually there.

• Finally (for alphabetic reasons) we have Virgin Racing - Richard Branson has moved over from F1. 

In terms of drivers, Alain Prost has employed his son Nico:

That is actually a picture of Alain but with their helmets on, the likeness is uncanny.

Amlin Aguri have one of the two female drivers in the series, Katherine Legge who also happens to be a Brit.

Mahindra have the charismatic ex-F1 duo of Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna.

 

 Jarno Trulli is driving his own car whilst giving his other seat up to Italian Michela Cerruti.

 The other Brit in the series is Sam Bird driving for Virgin.

We also have several other ex-F1 stars (or their sons) in there too.

 

I think the fan boost may be a waste of time though with most people voting for the team with the best PR (Mahindra) or for the ladies (women voting for women and men voting for people they fancy) or for the countries with the biggest populations for for their own (Brazil, USA)

 

As it happened Mahindra's Senna, Brazil's di Grassi & Katherine Legge got the fan boosts.

 

We never got to find out when the boosts were used in the race.  I reckon a better system would be to have the vote during the race to potentially nobble someone or to help someone challenging for the lead.

 

The race itself felt a lot shorter than most motorsport I watch - but that was quite good - all done and dusted within three hours of TV.  Some excitement, some overtaking, some crashes, and, most importantly, a very dramatic finish with Nico Prost, who has led from the start, about to be overtaken by Nick Heidfeld on the last corner so cutting across and taking him out in a spectacular crash and taking himself out in the process allowing di Grassi to take the win.

 

As is traditional in motorsport, both blamed the other.

 

Prost was wrong.

 

So will I be watching the next race on November 22nd?

 

By gum I will.

Electric Car Racing

Caught this story in Autoguide today about McLaren supplying "electric engines" to a new racing series called Formula E.

They aren't electric engines, they're "motors".

Formula E had completely passed me by. Autoguide had covered it briefly in August but I'd missed that somehow. It will be an FIA fully sanctioned race series but it doesn't start properly until 2014 so I suppose they have a bit of time to get the word out.

They do have a Website but there isn't much on it - just some twitterings and a couple of annoying videos. And the reason they are annoying is a reason why this sport may not catch on with spectators - the racing just sounds wrong.

Hopefully batteries will have improved by 2014 because the current (ha current - electric - geddit?) plan is that "there will be 10 teams and 20 drivers for the 42 cars, as two cars will be needed to complete a one-hour race because of battery life." Either that or have some very long extension cables - or use the Top Gear Dodgem Car solution.

Until then, we can make do with these electric McLarens which don't sound too different to what we'll have in 2014.