GP2 Hotlap at Istanbul

This event has now happened, but I thought I'd follow in the footsteps of the guy who was behind Checkpoint 10 - a great blog which is now longer updated. This is the sort of thing he used to do quite a lot:



Managed a 1:36.385 in the end, which is not far off the pace of the real-world cars, I think.

In the race (which was the day of this post), I managed pole position (!), only to lose it in the first corner :(. From thereon, I managed to take every place on the grid at some point. I eventually crawled back up to 7th!

Next race for me is Valencia. I'll post then!

New media, but terrible reliability? Count me out.

I am fascinated by the growth of so-called "social networking". It never fails to amaze me, its an incredibly infectious activity. Services like Twitter and Facebook just keep on growing.

Why is this? Why has this infallible medium caught on?

I think its because people are finally realising that the more traditional mediums of TV (and to an extent radio) are fast running out of ideas. They are lacking originality, focus and ideas. Sure, you occasionally get brilliance like "Ashes to Ashes", if you live in the UK, or perhaps "Lost" in the US (if you think Lost is brilliant, that is, and not just a load of made-up b******t!

And this worries me a lot, because traditional mediums of communications, such as the landline telephone, TV and radio, are all very....well....reliable.

The internet isn't. Its incredibly unreliable. Yet it is increasingly being relied upon as a means of communication.

Very soon, the total number of available internet addresses in the entire world will be used up. The total available number is around 4 billion. This is likely to be a small catastrophe. And this is estimated to happen in 2011. Thats a year away.

If we want to use the internet as the mainstream way of communication, it needs to be 10 times better than it is at the moment. Because I would rather watch my widescreen TV for motor-racing, than a Justin.tv stream, and I'm sure many of you agree with me here.

The internet has huge potential. But we have barely scratched the surface. Reliability must be the next step forward, as we simply can't have it both ways. We must invest, to make it worthwhile. Put it this way: I would rather have a reliable source of rubbish-ness coming to me from the TV, than unreliable, fuzzy, poor quality, excellence.

There's something to chew on.

Austin - the USGP - do these two phrases fit together?

Ladies and Gentleman, it has finally happened. The USGP is returning to the F1 calendar, come 2012.

And there appears to be a great deal of cynicism about it. Is this really justified?

Well, to be honest, actually yes it is. So far, new tracks haven't really delivered - the racing is, quite simply, just better at the traditional tracks. Certainly, the author of the Welsh Grand Prix Blog seems to think so. He's written 10 wholesome points on why the USGP at Austin simply won't happen.

And indeed, all of these points are correct. But does this mean we as motor racing fans want this Grand Prix to fail? For me, I can certainly say not.

Of all the locations in the world, I truly believe that a Grand Prix in America would be the best "new" location to visit. It has the fans, it has the money, and I would very much argue that it has the "right atmosphere" too (even if Bernie disagrees here, considering he said that fans at Indy were the "wrong kind of people" - bare-faced cheek that.

I would love to see a Grand Prix in Austin. Yet I would also like to see a Grand Prix on the moon. What both of these things have in common is they will either fail, or they'll never happen in the first place (though who knows with the moon?)

So, am I pleased about the USGP finally making a return to the F1 calendar? Yes, yes I am. But yet I am also equally depressed and skeptical about the whole thing.

How Big is the "Real Factor"?

News came out recently of TORA (an online racing association), gain full recognition from the MSA as a club. This means it is the first, and only such racing organisation to do so.

This is frankly incredible news for all sim-racers out there. It would finally seem that real-world motorsports bodies are starting to pay attention to the wealth of talent that is out there floating around in the form of electrons.

I say this, being an enthusiastic sim-racer myself. Laugh you may, but taking the mickey like that is exactly the thing I'm talking about - those kind of attitudes are finally starting to change.

I have always thought that new technology would eventually be recognised as being an integral part of society, and the fast growth of resources such as the internet has only proven my point.

The fact is that sim-racing is often highly realistic. Remember, we're not talking Race Driver GRID - we're talking serious, hardcore stuff here - sims like Forza, rFactor and iRacing. Indeed, iRacing is used by several real-world racers, such as Dale Earnhardt Jr. And its not just him, either. Drivers in the F1 world, such as Lewis Hamilton have admitted to indulging in such pastimes. Clearly, sim racing has had something to show for itself.

Indeed, this is a monumental step for the entire "sim" genre, and to an extent the mainstream videogaming community. I can now say with fair confidence that I can see a world where games become an integral part of mainstream culture.

Or perhaps they already have.

Consoles like the Wii (sorry!) and the Playstation or XBox have revolutionised the gaming world in general. 20 years ago, playing games was a little off the wall, a little nerdy, for want of a better term. And now things have changed on their head, and no-one has made any sort of comment about it! These things just gradually become integrated into our lives. This sort of thing fascinates me - this has just happened, without any kind of resistance.

This leads me onto my next point. How long do you think real-world racing will last now? With our primary fuel source fast running out, and the sport being seen as increasingly environmentally unfriendly, and its image fast degrading, how much longer will we see the BTCC around our favourite club tracks?

I ask, because I'm sometimes in that situation where I'm in an online race which is so exciting, so full of drama, and has so much overtaking, that I wonder:

Does the real thing still cut it?

The Future of Motor-Racing - the Delta Wing might just be it.

I know, I know - this is a bit of a weird topic to start a blog off with, but I think, a valid one.

I know also that a lot of people will hate me for saying that we need to recognise that Motor-racing should recognise its energy consumption issues, and that it is viewed by the general public as a boy-racer exotic hobby, and a symbol of excessive Capitalism.

Don't deny that - we all know that it can be mightily expensive, can be noisy, and occasionally, a little violent. And the only thing we can do to shrug off this badly-earned reputation is to move with the times.

Hard-core petrol-heads (gear-heads - whatever you want to call us) are often seen as a conservative bunch, as indeed many hardcore fans of anything often are. We complain about racing tracks being redone, and the cars being "not like they were before", and I do agree with much of this.

But at some point, we need to move on, and what better place to start than the fuel with which we power our fabulous pastime/hobby?

One day, sadly, the oil and the petrol will eventually run out. Motor-racing is often seen as the showcase of new technologies - the kinds of things that you eventually hope you'll see in a road car. Its why any manufacturer does racing - its a form of PR. And what better use for it than to advertise a new type of fuel?

Now, of course, I will get lots of abuse for even thinking that electricity will power tomorrows races, and this abuse will be badly misplaced, because I do not think for one minute mini-second, that electricity will be the fuel of the future.

I think the fuel of tomorrow, is hydrogen.

Why shouldn't it be? It's the most common substance known to man - everything else on this planet will be used up before the hydrogen is. You can't, for one moment, say that for the oil. Hydrogen is just as good, would be just as fast, and would allow us to once more pursue technological advancement in motor-sport, instead of going sidewards, like in F1 and IndyCar at the moment.

This isn't just about the fuel - its about the re-design of the racing car as we know it, too. Its why I'm hugely in favour of the IndyCar Delta design proposal for introduction in 2012.

And to be honest, if you care about the future of motor-racing, its why you should, too.

The Beginning of an Era

Welcome, Ladies and Gentleman to a new era in motor-racing commentary.

That, and other things not neccessarily related to motor-racing. This will provide you with an opinionated slant on things happening today in the motor-world. I'll try to cover many of the issues today, in as many series as possible, but I can make no guarantees. You'll also see the odd random topic that I've popped in because I feel like talking about it. That will usually come during the week.

Weekend posts will be pure motor-racing.

Another thing - this blog is linked (and part of) our sister site 4WheelSports - this is its official blog, if you like, with 4Wheels providing news and statistics.

Dylan Phillips (me) is also on Ten-Tenths, and I may link things between this and there with discussions on various topics. We'll see how it goes.

Enjoy it!