Tag Archives: ferrari

The first Formula One Russian Grand Prix was really great!

The track is very fast, whatever the nay-sayers claim about it being boring and needing more challenging turns. The grandstand is huge, the paddock is well designed and the logistics really work. The teams said the organization was superb and everything went off without a hitch. The people behind this deserve a lot of respect – if properly motivated, people can achieve great things :)

http://instagram.com/p/uGfnwXOiVl/

Read on: A monochrome podium…

Passion, speed, and the revving of motors…

Well, that’s at least what you’d expect from Formula-1. But watching a Grand Prix live?… I have to tell you that, frankly, there’s little point.

The racing cars shoot past so fast you can easily miss them if you blink at the wrong moment. It makes more sense to watch it all on the box – there you get the advantage of multi-camera filming of the action non-stop. But then of course you can watch the telly anywhere on the planet. It’s much better when you have the best of both worlds: to watch the race on a TV placed a few meters from the racetrack.

You watch the TV, go and check the reality, come back to the TV, and continue back and forth like that. That way you get involved in what’s going on. Coolest of all though is watching the race from the garage, where the support teams sit and the pit stops get done in no time at all (again – no blinking!).

But you can watch a Grand Prix from the garage in one of just two cases.

The first is if you’re one of those who change the tires in three seconds; that is, you’re a very niche bio-robot who’s spent most of his adult life training for those occasional three seconds. These pit stop tech teams usually sit on foldable chairs and watch the race on TVs waiting for commands from the manager. Anyway, that’s the first option.

The second option: watching the race – on the TV – from the same garage, but as one of the lucky few bystanders allowed to stand against the wall of the garage (out of the way of the folks in the overalls). But 90 minutes stood by a wall watching the TV… also not so great.

Ultimately, best of all is when you can mix it all up a bit: combining the whoosh-reality on the track with the detailed story on TV, and also walking about the garages, around the pit stop area, being by the starting grid for the start, and also being by the podium for the champions’ champagne blow-out. Yes, that’s the way to do it. For sure :). And yes, I guess I have been lucky.

One thing you can’t do without is an experienced F1 buff to explain to the debutantes what’s actually happening on the track. Why and how is this car going faster? How does a super-speedy pit stop get performed?

Sooo. There we were, right next to the race, by the TV, under the wing of an expert: all set…

Now we can turn on the speed passion!

Read on: F1 on the road and in the sea…

Two mega-cars from Scuderia (a Challenge and a GT3) + a completely empty Aragon race track in Alcaniz, Spain + a fog thicker than school-dinner semolina = tragedy.

You drive in an exquisite bit of motorsport kit, but the pedal stays a good way off the metal. Visibility is down to silly meters, and you’re trying to get some decent speed up. Rather, you’d want to. But you’re not as silly as those meters… So, like I say… a tragedy.

Read on: visibility superciliously silly…

Ciao all!

Herewith, the two next – Italian – installments from my recent Trans-Europe Express-2013.

Installment No. 1: Location, location, location.

We dropped in on one of our partners in Rome, whose office is handily situated in a building right in the city center. The panoramic view from up top was just incredible – as you can probably guess. Got me thinking how on earth the guy ever gets any work done. Hmmm, I guess you can’t just keep staring at the view for days… but I found out you can for hours! My conclusion: if the rooftop terraces here weren’t covered with those pesky Roman pigeons I’d give the place a perfect 10.

AC and a Xerox

Read on: Felipe Massa gets an engine…

Formula 1 invaded Austin recently, occupying the territory for a whole two days until it made its retreat on the third. All the roads downtown were closed and turned into huge walkways for the thousands of soldiers F1 fans that came from afar. Not only were the roads closed but all the restaurants were as good as closed too – too full to take any diners who hadn’t booked weeks in advance. We passed the city’s Ugly Coyote bar and it was really getting wild in there – with punters dancing on the bar and other such boozy boogieness.

Alas, the energy and (over)drive downtown in the evenings didn’t quite spread to the racing track during the day – that is, for Ferrari. No changes to who’s leading, and the same non-red drivers up on the podium wasting the champagne. Grumble.

Scuderia have all their hopes pinned on their new mega-super racing car that’ll be used next season, which, combined with the world’s best drivers, is expected to tear up the competition. So we wait for next year. Patiently. Grrr!

A few pix from the event:

Read on: I’m off to Ugly Coyote…

How time flies. Though we sponsor Ferrari’s F1 team, I haven’t made it to a single Grand Prix race this year – and it’s November already! 2013? Where did that go?…

Anyway, better late than never – here we are, at the 17^th 2013 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

Sooo, Abu Dhabi… what can I say? One word – a surname – sums it up best: Vettel. This man is just…irrepressible. An exceptionally skillful driver. A skillfully exceptional car. They must add Red Bull to the gas or something… But no – the real secret weapon car-wise is this unassuming fella. Jeeez, what a fearsome combo… these two on energy drinks. So fearsome of late that the red meat isn’t letting anyone else have a look in. Black horses in yellow fields included.

Alonso for the umpteenth time already started from somewhere in the middle, but then incredibly forced his way through to up near the front. This time he was fifth to pass the checkered flag. His leaving the second pitstop – have a watch on YouTube; clearly more than a little vexed was he…

Qualifying – the view from the garage

Read on: fitting-up, start, fight!…

The coolest car in Moscow…

… was totally smashed at the weekend not far from the Kremlin after Kamui Kobayashi’s unfortunate spill at Moscow City Racing. Somebody has even coined a new term – “Kobaycrashy” :)

More: Moscow City Racing -The Aftermath…

Shalom folks!

Last week I found myself in Israel, where a big fuss was being made over an event we were taking active part in: the Jerusalem Formula – Peace Road Show. In LOUD attendance were Scuderia Ferrari and Marussia F-1 racing cars, and also GT Ferrari Challenge, Le Mans prototype and DTM Audi cars. What a din that lot made!

Around 120,000 motorsport fans turned up to see the spectacle over two days. I imagine the labyrinth of streets in the Old City had mostly emptied while the racing was going on… but I didn’t see that so can’t confirm. This is what I saw:

More: the coolest ever opening of a new KL office…

Phew. A three-week US tour behind us. It’s been tough. It’s been stamina hammering. But it’s been fun. Shame to be leaving really, but commitments elsewhere beckon. We do leave with a ton of strong impressions and good memories though – and loads of pics. In all we managed to cram a heck of a lot into the allotted time, but made sure we enjoyed ourselves too – stopping to smell the roses and see the sights when we could. Now for the same old “suitcase – taxi – airport…”. Where we’re off to next I’ll tell you later on. But it sure looks like we’re in for a total change of landscape.

Our last day, in New York, turned out to be a pleasantly sassy, super-fly summation: a peachy press conference attended by folks from all over the world – including star participant Fernando Alonso! He’s playing the lead role in the new clip for our Safeguarding Me campaign (if you only knew how we had to guard his special “tomita” (the little Japanese talisman in the vid) during shooting!). Have a look for yourself:

More: Super Fly finale on the 40th floor…

Well, what can I say? The race track was constructed very… interestingly, as I’ve mentioned; however, the first race was kinda boring. So let me simply share some visuals with you…

More: The visuals …