Force India's New Campaign

Today we at the Lighter Side of Formula 1 received a photo of Force India's new advertisement featuring Giancarlo Fisichella that will be sure to raise eyebrows--and possibly other things. Special thanks go out to Dazed1 for the snap.

Kimi's message to Lewis

We here at The Lighter Side of Formula 1, were shocked to learn that Ron Dennis has promised to give Lewis Hamilton one of only 5 existing McLaren LM cars if he can win the Driver's and Constructor's championships.

When Kimi was asked to comment about this, he responded, "Mmmmmbly stole from Ferrari mmmbly I'll fix it mmmbly."

Kimi then handed us an artist's rendition he had prepared.

Lewis Hamilton's Autobiography

Today, we spoke with McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton about his recently released autobiography titled "Lewis Hamilton: How I Became the World's Greatest Driver (almost)". Here is what Hamilton had to say.

"I'm very excited to have an autobiography on the shelves. Some people say that I'm far too young to already have an autobiography, but I know that people have been eagerly awaiting the chance to read about someone as great as myself." said Lewis.

Lewis continued, "What people don't know is that I actually am a superb writer. I may have invented the alphabet and paper, but I'll have to ask Ron if we stole that from Ferrari."

"Let's face it, even if I crapped on a piece of paper, I know I can at least sell a few copies to the ITV-F1 team.", Hamilton mused.

We here at the Lighter Side of Formula 1 have read the book, and have to say it was a decent read (almost). It was entertaining up until, like Lewis' 2007 season, it goes in the crapper during the last chapter. Lewis seemingly decides to declare this love for Ron Dennis, but goes on to reveal that he just can not seem to close the deal.

There have also been rumors of coffee table book of Ron Dennis' black and white portraits of Hamilton being released this Fall.

Massa - "I Lost the Car"

Felipe Massa on Sunday did not take the blame for his retirement from the Malaysian grand prix.

The pole sitter, who had fallen behind his teammate and grand prix winner Vodka Boy, through the first pit stops at Sepang, mysteriously spun into the gravel around mid-distance.

"I'm not sure what happened, I heard a strange voice over my pit to car radio, but it was at a much lower volume than normal conversations with the team. It sounded like Jean (Todt) speaking to Stefano (Domenicali), and it said something like, ok time to activate the Vettel program. Then there was strange twitch in the rear, and I don't know, I just lost the car completely." he was quoted as explaining to the British broadcaster ITV.

Massa's second retirement of 2008 means that while eleven drivers have scored points in the opening two races, the 26-year-old is now fourteen points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton.

Playing the blame game

None of the six Ferrari-engined F1 cars made it to the checkered flag last weekend at Melbourne. Both Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa ended the day with engine failures and now the technical staff at the Scuderia have begun their investigations into the cause of the double DNF.

Ferrari's official comment on the situation: "This kind of thing can happen when you are working with one procedure that you do not know so well. Now we know that there is a conflict we can make sure it does not happen again,"

Speculation has it that the MES supplied ECU, co-developed by arch-nemesis McLaren International was the cause of the failures. Further examination into the cockpit of Melbourne winner Lewis Hamilton's race car found a possible link between McLaren and the Ferrari engine failures.


McLaren refused to comment on the allegations...

Kovi's big secret

Why did Heikki's car crap out on him after he made the stunning move over Fred?

See for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izYIXA5-s4Q


Note to Heikki: Next time save the fist pumping for when you get out of the car...

Head planning regular podium visits in 2008

After their fourth-place finish in last year’s constructors’ championship, Williams’ engineering director Patrick Head believes his team can go from strength to strength this season with regular top-three race finishes, providing his top secret plan of pitlane domination works accordingly.

Lead driver Nico Rosberg, starting his third campaign with the team, will be joined by Japanese kamikazi pilot Kazuki Nakajima and it’s a youthful combination that Head thinks might bring Williams serious results.

“The driver line up will not be as experienced as might be expected for a team competing for a championship,” he said. “However, we intend to be regular podium visitors in 2008 with Nico and as long as Kazuki continues to knock people over in the pitlane. We've re calibrated his targeting mechanism in his car to aim for mechanics in other teams, which I strongly believe will be added bonus to Nico's driving”

The new FW30 has looked impressive in testing, prompting media speculation that Williams could be the leading team behind Ferrari and McLaren this year. However, Head insisted that this can only be judged after the opening race in Australia.

“It is too early to say where we will be in the pecking order,” he said. “It looks as if Ferrari and McSpies have made strong progress from 2007, BMW have a car that seems quick with their added mini gun and Renault have made progress, I am sure some of which is coming from their secret bio fuel made of parrot shit.

“Red Bull are beginning to look stronger and Toro Rosso are making the best of a car that they are familiar with, they certainly cannot be dismissed. We have certainly made progress, but we will not see where we stand until after the season starts.”

Williams scored one podium finish last year, a third place for Alex Wurz at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

No podiums for Renault?

"We are very far, very far," Renault driver Fernando Alonso was quoted as saying by AS newspaper. "I think it's looking like at the end of last year: two Ferraris, two McLarens and two BMWs, and if everything goes like that, you can almost only fight for seventh place."

According to Fred, things are looking grim for the parrot-liveried team, andt he expects them to continue on with the form showed throughout 2007: "Thinking about the podium would be too optimistic right now," He went on to speculate the qualifying performance of Le Parrot Deux: "In our current shape it will be hard to make it into Q3,"

Meanwhile, team principal Flavor Flav has dismissed speculation that the Renault are lagging behind in vehicle development, saying "There's no reason to worry, all we need is some -0.6s magic fairy dust from our always reliable 'magic fairy'."

Reducing the deficit

Recent testing form shown at Bahrain International Circuit by Scuderia Ferrari has gotten everybody in the paddock digging deep for ideas to claw back the performance deficit ahead of the season opener in Melbourne.

Speculation has it that Kimi Raikkonen's pace was aided by a special Driver Hydration System (DHS) pioneered by the Finn. Our spy photographers caught a glimpse of the Iceman using his DHS in Bahrain:


Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato attempted to replicate the results with his own Sake-based personal hydration system with disasterous results. The Japanese driver was inebriated for the majority of the small team's first test of the season, severely setting back the development program of the 2008 challenger. As a result, team principal Suzuki Aguri has decided to call off the official car launch which was due to be unveiled on February 18th.


Meanwhile BMW Sauber has chosen to exploit a loophole in the technical regulations to reduce the performance deficit. Dr. Mario Thiessen was able to provide us with some minor details regarding the innovative solution to winning races: "We found that the FIA has not imposed any restrictions on use of weapons in Formula 1, so our strategy is that if we can't overtake them we'll just destroy them."

Super Aguri Brothers?

There has been a lot of talk in recent days about an Indian bid to buy Super Aguri F1, with the name of Andaleeb Sehgal, the boss of A1 Team India, being mentioned. There has also been much talk about the bid being backed by the steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, who is now a shareholder in Queens Park Rangers soccer team alongside Bernie Ecclestone, Flavio Briatore and Alejandro Agag.

Our sources, however, say that the bid is largely talk and that there are two others that are more likely to happen. One of these involves video game super hero Mario from the Super Mario franchise, who owns Super Mario Kart team based in Nintendo, Japan. From what we hear, however, Mario is not about to let his passion for racing blur his vision and understands that buying into Super Aguri, with the need to turn it into a constructor within two years, is not going to be an investment that can be justified from a financial point of view - unless Mario uses the team to promote some other product such as his franchise line of video games.

A deal now needs to be struck very quickly if Super Aguri is going to be in a position to guarantee its involvement in 2008.

We have also heard stories that Super Aguri has some more problems with Kingfisher Curries Team (aka Force India). Super Aguri seems to have owed some money to Kingfisher Curries (it is not clear why) and although this was due in October, it was not paid. The Kingfisher Curries team thus got a summary judgement before Christmas, the court ordering that the payment be made on December 29. Until the money is paid, therefore, Kingfisher Curries has first claim to an unknown percentage of Super Aguri shares.