Tax Exile wins in Tax Haven

Let’s start this week with a quiz:

What links Formula 1 to the book ‘Letters between 6 sisters’? Prize for the first person to email the answer.

So its 3 races since our last review, due to holidays (American, nice and relaxing) and visitors (Mum and Liz – Fun in the sun)

And it’s been the Ferrari show with Massa (A driver which no one has) getting a small advantage over the drunken Finn.

Barcelona

Didn’t see the race so limited comments, the good news is that dispute an attempt by ‘the sober Fin’ to become the new ‘Flying Finn’ after a few days R&R he is given the all clear.

1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari
2. MASSA Ferrari +3.2s
3. HAMILTON McLaren +4.2s
4. KUBICA BMW +5.7s
5. WEBBER Red Bull +35.9s
6. BUTTON Honda +53.0s
7. NAKAJIMA Williams +58.2s
8. TRULLI Toyota +59.4s
9. HEIDFELD BMW +1m03.1s
10. FISICHELLA Force India +1 lap
11. GLOCK Toyota +1 lap
12. COULTHARD Red Bull +1 lap
13. SATO Super Aguri +1 lap
R. ROSBERG Williams +25 laps
R. ALONSO Renault +32 laps
R. BARRICHELLO Honda +32 laps
R. KOVALAINEN McLaren +45 laps
R. DAVIDSON Super Aguri +58 laps
R. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +59 laps
R. PIQUET Renault +60 laps
R. VETTEL Toro Rosso +66 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +66 laps

Turkey

And no Super Aguri, it is a sham that a sport that is pushing to reduce the costs of running has caused a team to fold as it can’t use shared tubs in 09. This pathetic, closed shop dictate is likely to result in the demise of Torro Rosso as well. Bernie the Bolt ‘Super Rich’ Ecclestone has stated he would like to reduce the grid further. All of us that remember the races of the 80’s were we had 30+ cars fighting just to get into qualifying. Surely sport is there for we the fans, not for the betterment of business!

I recently read that Bernie had bought the rights for F1 for 100 years, how can you sell something for that long? The price was about $300m or about £175m or just £1.75m per year. Whilst the BBC fee for 5 years rights is undisclosed you can be sure it is more than £2m per year, and that is just one county, it is a crime that bureaucratic idiots can shape the sport for 3 generations!

The Result

1. MASSA Ferrari
2. HAMILTON McLaren +3.7s
3. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +4.2s
4. KUBICA BMW +21.6s
5. HEIDFELD BMW +38.7s
6. ALONSO Renault +53.7s
7. WEBBER Red Bull +64.2s
8. ROSBERG Williams +71.4s
9. COULTHARD Red Bull +75.2s
10. TRULLI Toyota +76.3s
11. BUTTON Honda +1 lap
12. KOVALAINEN McLaren +1 lap
13. GLOCK Toyota +1 lap
14. BARRICHELLO Honda +1 lap
15. PIQUET Renault +1 lap
16. SUTIL Force India +1 lap
17. VETTEL Toro Rosso +1 lap
R. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +34 laps
R. NAKAJIMA Williams +57 laps
R. FISICHELLA Force India +58 laps

The Land of the Yacht

So we arrive at Monaco, the principality home to the rich, the famous and the lucky!

This has been a Macca home banker, in the last 25 years the boys from Woking have won a staggering 14 races, with just 2 for Ferrari.

After free practise it looked like this could get ‘The boy from Switzerland’ back into the championship, so it was a surprise when we had yet another Ferrari lockout at the front, the first since 1969. But with rain forecast for the race, could it be that he was running heavy and maybe able on a different strategy.

Race Day

So it is wet, and like ski Sunday, we hoped for a few bits of action, but no it was a race of gently rolling into the barrier, a brushing of the Armco with the rear tires. What has formula 1 become when both Cuckoo boy and ‘Can you hear the drums’ are able to smack the barrier and keep running, if cars had been this strong in 1988 then Senna would have won the race, giving him a staggering 7 wins in a row, as it was the little professor took the win to make it 4 out of 5.

I am sure we all remember the race of 84 which in the pre safety car days the race was stopped by Clerk of the Course Jacky Ickx decided that conditions were too poor for the race to continue. The red flag to stop the race was shown at the end of the 32nd lap. Senna passed Prost's slowing McLaren at the finish line, but according to the rules, the positions counted are those from the previous lap 31, at which point Prost was still leading. The stoppage was controversial, as it benefitted Alain Prost with a Porsche-designed engine, and was made by Ickx, a Porsche employee in sports car racing. It has been remarked that had the race been allowed to continue until 75% of the laps, full points would have been awarded and Prost could have had 6 points from a 2nd place instead of 4.5 points from the win. Ironically Prost would lose the championship to Niki Lauda by half a point.

I said earlier that the Principality was the home to the lucky, two people in this race are proof to this, firstly Cuckoo boy only won due to a tactical change when pitting to change his tires after tagging a barrier. Then poor Adrian Sutil was taken out by the ‘Drunken Finn’ after he got a real ‘tank slapper’ on the exit from the tunnel. Not since JT cost toad of toad hall his job when losing control in the wet in Moscow has there been such a loss of control.

Quotes of the Day

‘He won’t want any Banzies before the end of the race’ and the classic
‘It looks like all the drivers have given their cars to their granny’s’
‘Kubica is nailing Heinfeld in the head’

The Result

1. HAMILTON McLaren
2. KUBICA BMW +3.0s
3. MASSA Ferrari +4.8s
4. WEBBER Red Bull +19.2s
5. VETTEL Toro Rosso +24.6s
6. BARRICHELLO Honda +28.4s
7. NAKAJIMA Williams +30.1s
8. KOVALAINEN McLaren +33.1s
9. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +33.7s
10. ALONSO Renault +1 lap
11. BUTTON Honda +1 lap
12. GLOCK Toyota +1 lap
13. TRULLI Toyota +1 lap
14. HEIDFELD BMW +4 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +9 laps
R . ROSBERG Williams +17 laps
R. PIQUET Renault +29 laps
R. FISICHELLA Force India +40 laps
R. COULTHARD Red Bull +69 laps
R. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +69 laps

Baggy Green and Gold (202)

A points finish for the Only Japanise in the village, good lap points from the drunken fin, and a few from French Seb before he took DC from behind gave the baggies a 4th place finish, were has the early season promise gone?

Driven to Distraction (231)

Steady points from all the distraction crew, but the drunken fins rear ending of more old Adrian, shows what could have been. 2nd for the race weekend.

Phonenicii (193)

Below average from all as the flaming ones finished last, last but one and retired. 5th for the weekend.

Storm in a Tea Cup (217)

Zoe has become the Fusecar Liz, yet another steady performance by the Tea boys gave 3rd for the weekend and retained a stronmg 2nd overall.

BloodNoir (149)

Surely she has lost the F1 Knees up Mother Brown cup already, a performance not helped by still having a Super Aguri driver in her team. Last and last

Mums the Best Formula (258)

A winning weekend for the grand dame (is that a corner?). A strong 2nd for the Cubic Cleaner and good distance from Nico the German and Jenson 'The Chocolate' Button. 1st on the weekend and now 3rd overall.

Next race Canada.