Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Hooray, Jarno Trulli!

Congratulations, Jarno Trulli, for being fastest at Barcelona today! Now don't you feel better about the upcoming season? I thought so. :)


P.S. This isn't a current photo. It's just the silliest one I could find. :)

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Who's Ross Brawn?

I've had a lot on my mind for the past few weeks, but haven't been able to write much. So let's catch up! First things first, just for kicks, let's meet Ross Brawn!

Ross Brawn is a "motorsport engineer" (i.e. designs fancy race cars!). He used to be Technical Director at Ferrari. His other job at Ferrari, I have found, was being generally jovial and allowing Michael Schumacher to hang off of him not unlike an untrained marmoset. Some examples:


















... and again...

















... and yet again (they're totally BFFs, how sweet!)...


Anyways, Ross Brawn took a sabbatical last season. In this case, the phrase "taking a sabbatical" means that he needed a whole season to decide how to say:

I guess that since we're talking about Honda, now is a good time to meet them too. Some of you have kindly pointed out that when I did my first EVF1 post about teams, I had nothing to say about them. As I still really have nothing of note to say about them, we can think of it this way:

Honda has ex-Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn as their new team principal (fancy way to say "someone who makes important decisions and gets to wear a jumpsuit like the drivers' for no good reason").

Honda also has ex-Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello, who was #2 to Michael Schumacher under the technical direction of Ross Brawn.

From these facts, we can conclude that Honda is where Ferrari sends its rejected ex-employees to die (!).

Everyone was so worried that without Ross Brawn, Ferrari would be toast (what a laugh!). I'm interested, however, to see what Brawn plans of doing with Honda, where there's obviously quite a bit to do. I think it'd be great if he could give them a really nice car in the future. I feel kind of bad for Jensen Button and Rubens Barrichello. Neither of them are bad drivers, and I just think it'd be pleasant if one or both of them could get a win and be all smiley for a bit. That's the one thing that I've really taken away from all of my reading is what a good car can do for a driver. Obviously being a skilled driver is important, but having something decent to drive makes quite a difference. I mean, Barrichello won nine races at Ferrari with his highest championship finish being 2nd and lowest 8th, yet he didn't manage to score a single point with Honda this season and finished 20th! Behold the difference between Ferrari (awesome cars!!) and Honda (enhh...). :(



Wednesday, February 20, 2008

This makes me want Barbies again..


Why did they not have this when I was growing up!? I want it so bad, but I refuse to pay $699.00 for it on eBay. Sigh..

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Only Time I May Say This: Busch Series > F1

Vitantonio Liuzzi said that when Torro Rosso booted him last season he got offers from a team in the Busch series to drive for them. OMG, that would've been awesome! At least for me, because frankly I am not all that interested in all these open-wheel drivers who have been going to NASCAR lately, but Liuzzi I probably would have watched. I wish he would have gotten the drive at Force India instead of the testing position. Aside from his (slightly) irrational anger against Gerhard Berger, he seems like a great guy. And I guess we have the same bad habit, Nutella and bread. Well, we'll see what he'll do after next season. I heard he also got offers to test for Champ Car (but who knows what's going on with that at the moment), but also an offer from Peugeot to race in Le Mans. That could be kinda cool.

Note: If you're wondering where you may have heard of Vitantonio Liuzzi (and you are not Mark) it was on my blog. He's the guy in the bullfighting scene with the mailing envelope, remember? Additionally, I went back and watched that video again and he just stops when that guy shows up! I mean, he's in the middle of fighting a bull (which is actually a car, but let's not quibble over Red Bull's inane details) and he sees him and is just like, "Oh, let me turn away from this bull-car (which is presumably still pissed off and dangerous!) and dramatically extinguish my torch in this bucket of water." Does Red Bull not understand how dangerous that is?! Someone could have been gored or lost a leg!

Also: I know that you are probably thinking, "OMG, look at that mullet, Vitantonio Liuzzi is totally just an Italian hick." But I promise, he got a haircut and now he looks really good. See?

Monday, February 11, 2008

Update on EVF1 and Some Kimi Raikkonen FACTS

So I said I would have that next post up this weekend. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. I'm more optimistic about getting it up this week, but no promises. :( Caribou has me working a ton this week (next week I have 28.00 hours, which I find to be excessive) and there's homework to contend with too. However, to appease you, I wrote up three fun facts about Kimi Raikkonen to tide you over.

FACT: Kimi Raikkonen's favorite foods are chicken, pasta, and reindeer meat.

FACT: Kimi Raikkonen has no mentor: he "motivates [himself] alone."

FACT: Kimi Raikkonen cites A Knight's Tale as one of his favorite movies(another good reason to add it to Netflix!).

FACT: Kimi Raikkonen prefers oversteer.

FACT: Kimi Raikkonen's three things to take on a desert island: "Lots of food, girlfriend, helicopter."

FACT: Kimi Raikkonen's wedding present was a doberman.

FACT: "Kimi Raikkonen" is synonymous with "victory".

Bonus smiley picture:
















Bonus baby picture:

















Bonus "Kimi Raikkonen-dressed-like-a-gorilla" picture (seriously, that's him):









Bonus captioned picture:









Bonus "OMG, I-seriously-cringe-&-die-a-little-whenever-I-see-this-picture" picture:


Sunday, February 10, 2008

Hooray Kimi Raikkonen AND Felipe Massa!

Joint hooray post for the Ferrari team on setting a new track record at Bahrain in testing today!
Kimi Raikkonen Today:  1:30:015!
Felipe Massa Today:  1:30:190!
Michael Schumacher's Old Record:  1:30:252

Hooray! 

Note: Please enjoy this picture of the squiggly Bahrain track, k thx.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Eyebrows

As many of you may have noticed, I am no good at looking good. I can't fix my hair nice or put on makeup. I can barely dress myself. And I am really bad at plucking my eyebrows. Really, really bad. Seriously, folks, I just plucked away roughly a quarter of my eyebrow and now I think it is noticeably shorter than the other one. Argh..

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Hooray, Kimi Raikkonen!

Yay for Kimi Raikkonen, who had a fastest lap of 1:30:595 at testing in Bahrain. According to Autosport, that's over two seconds faster than pole position at that track last season! Hooray!

Monday, February 4, 2008

The Silly Red Bull/Toro Rosso Commercial

This is the silly commercial I mentioned in my first EVF1 post. Even though you never get to see Scott Speed do the ballerina jump (drat!) it's an entertaining 4:28.

Two things I learned from this video:

1) Apparently Red Bull versus Toro Rosso is like Scotland versus Bulgaria (how, I don't know, and why Bulgaria?).
2) The obvious place to store a gigantic mailing envelope is down the front of your pants a la Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Emily's Version of F1 (Part 1): To Begin, Teams and Tracks

I promised awhile back that I would do a round of explanatory posts on F1 so that those members of my readership who are not avid F1 fans would have some idea about who and what the hell I was talking about. Here is the first part of what may be a lengthy explanation. On a cautionary note, these are just my perceptions. I really doubt that anyone cares, but to be safe I guess I have to say that they may be slightly inaccurate and/or downright ridiculous. If you want to read a more technical/accurate description, feel free to visit www.formula1.com. Or Wiki "Formula 1" because that page is good too.

TO BEGIN

Formula 1 is a racing series. It's popular in Europe. It dates back to the 1950s, so it is moderately old. If you are in your thirties and are still racing in F1, you are considered moderately to very, very old. The cars are open-wheeled single seaters, meaning that 1) they don't have things covering up the wheels, so they kind of stick off the sides, and 2) they only seat one person.









The series falls under the governance of the FIA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile) which is presided over by president Max Mosley. He's kind of blunt and long-winded; also kinda old.

TEAMS

Right now there are eleven teams in F1. Right now they are named the following. Sometimes they switch names when they switch ownership. This makes things mildly confusing and sometimes the names are funny. Here I have listed the teams in general order of press importance:

Ferrari: Ferrari is my favorite team. I believe that they are now the oldest team in the sport. They are all-around amazing: fast, resourceful, and their Executive Director/CEO/ex-team principal Jean Todt is trying his darnedest to get Michelle Yeoh to accept his marriage proposal (I really hope she stops denying him and says yes). Ferrari was also #1 on the Financial Times' list of the 100 Best Workplaces in Europe in 2007. More importantly they have Kimi Raikkonen (below left) and Felipe Massa (below right), probably better known to you guys as the guys who live on my fridge.












McLaren:
McLaren is becoming best known for two things, 1) new British driver Lewis Hamilton and 2) their involvement in last season's dramatic spy scandal in which they used designs wrongfully appropriated from Ferrari. Tsk.

Renault
: Announcers say this funny when they are British: they say Ren-ault.

BMW-Sauber:
BMW are the nice guys around the track. They really don't ever offend anyone! What gentlemen.

Toro Rosso:
In my opinion Toro Rosso is a little more important than Red Bull because they have two Sebastiens, Vettel and Bourdais. The latter wears badass glasses under his helmet. I also like Toro Rosso because in the past they have made silly commercials. Try to find the one from last season where Scott Speed does that weird ballerina jump on set somewhere in some cathedral-type thing in Bulgaria which is for some reason full of hay (I know, WTF, right?).

Red Bull
: They also do silly things, like parking an F1 car on the street illegally, just so they could have it get booted and therefore provide something for wide-eyed old Italian ladies to poke and stare at.

Williams
: Wiliams is nice. They have a pretty new blue car this season and they also have Kazuki Nakajima from Japan. He's a wonderful rookie who does things like drive really fast... but unfortunately then does things like hit his pit crew and crash the new car into walls (he's still pretty awesome). They also have Nico Rosberg. He's noble, so I like him.

Force India
: They used to be Spyker (see? silly name) but then the team was sold to an Indian billionaire, hence the name change. He made his new drivers wear weird looking leather Indian-style tunics and jodhpurs to the launch of the new car, lol.

Toyota: Toyota is exciting because they have German Timo Glock for their second driver this year and I think he has a really cool name. I'm putting Toyota above Honda because Toyota has a cooler combined set of drivers' names than Honda does: Jarno Trulli/Timo Glock trumps Jenson Button/Rubens Barrichello.

Honda

Super Aguri:
No one ever really talks about Super Aguri. Whenever I think about them, I think "super girly." But they are nice team and, like BMW, are generally unoffensive.

TRACKS

The current F1 schedule has eighteen tracks. They are as follows:

1) Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne)*
2) Malaysian Grand Prix (Kuala Lumpur)
3) Bahrain Grand Prix (Bahrain)
4) Gran Premio de Espana (Catalunya)*
5) Turkish Grand Prix (Istanbul)
6) Grand Prix de Monaco (Monte Carlo)
7) Grand Prix du Canada (Montreal)
8) Grand Prix de France (Magny-Cours
9) British Grand Prix (Silverstone)
10) Grosser Preis von Deutschland (Hockenheim)
11) Magyar Nagydij (Budapest)
12) Grand Prix of Europe (Valencia)*
13) Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps)
14) Gran Premio d'Italia (Monza)
15) Singapore Grand Prix (Singapore)
16) Japanese Grand Prix (Fuji Speedway)
17) Chinese Grand Prix (Shanghai)
18) Gran Premio di Brasil (Sao Paulo)

These tracks are squiggly. After careful examination, I think that Malaysia (pictured left) is the squiggliest and Monza (below left) is the least squiggly. I really wish that it looked cooler. Seriously, if I were designing that track I would have made it in the shape of Italy. Logical, non?





Michael Schumacher holds the track record on seven of these tracks. So if you like reading Michael Schumacher's name over and over again, this is the sport for you!

*These races may not be around much longer. Australia may disappear after 2010 if they can't make nice and agree upon a night race (to fit into the European TV slots) with Bernie Ecclestone (CEO of F1 management and F1 Administration, but more about him later. All you really need to know right now is that he can make important decisions and looks kind of like a cross between Garrison Keillor and a baby eagle). It's possible that the races in Spain will be dropped if the RFEA (kind of the Spanish branch of the FIA) can't control the blatant racism (>:-( not cool, mean Spanish fans!) towards Lewis Hamilton (McLaren driver, he is really skinny and kind of looks like he is twelve. He also knows karate, so watch out [no lie!]). I would love to tell you that story right now, but really it's a long one and I can't bring in that many characters at the moment.

(Garrison Keillor + Baby Eagle = Bernie Ecclestone)

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Too Many Lolcats!!!

I don't know if you guys have heard about Lolcats. You probably have. Anyways, I think they are amazing. I laugh so hard. Why, you ask? Because I am a huge dork. Check these ones out! Lawl.






























Okay, and the ultimate Lolcat I found today:

Monies

I took all my change to the bank and now I have ~$120! I can buy my jacket!

Friday, February 1, 2008

Suspended?!

Sever is suspended for three days for "bringing a knife to school." OMG, he just forgot to take his jackknife out of his pocket! So he's out of school for a while, which I think is totally ridiculous. I can never imagine my brother attempting to stab someone with a Swiss Army knife. It's purely laughable. My brother is a great guy. He's a smart, rational person. He is a total sweetheart and I love him dearly. I know that his heart is always in the right place, even though his head may not be at this point in his life. Apparently they called some kid into the office who could be trusted to rat out kids. And unfortunately he has some personal beef with my brother. I guess it is also unfortunate that they found some "contraband" (pot) in Sever's locker. However, I guess his suspension is good in a way because now he's free to come visit me on Monday if my dad can make it down here!