Younger drivers: faster, more adventurous and impulsive, but less experience.

I think they’ve got a fighting chance. If Raikonnen is as off his game as he was for a lot of last season and Massa has lost his will to win then you may see Ferrari drop back in the field while I expect to see Renault move up the field with BMW.

Having breifly met both Heidfeld and Kubica (and Klien for that Matter), I’ve got to say that they’re all really nice blokes.

At Silverstone testing back in 06 I was hanging around the BMW paddock area, Rob walked from one of the trailers right past me so I stopped him and asked if he’d mind signing my BMW Sauber cap for me, at this stage he was only the 3rd driver so I guess he didn’t get that much attention. He obliged, said hello and stuff.. I asked him “so when will you be getting Jacques seat then?” Jokingly – as I never liked JV – he just laughed, smiled, and wondered off….

… the following year, I was again at F1 testing, again hanging around the paddock area, Nick was being interviewed by RTL in the fenced off team area, but I thought I’d hang around none the less.. sure enough when he was done with the camera crew he came over to see the fans, I still had the same cap that Kubica signed so I thought I’d get him to sign it too, there were quite a few people jostling to get his autograph (most of the just signature-hunting scum, not actually BMW or Heidfeld fans), I past him my cap and a marker, when some chav-F1-tourist pretty much grabbed his arm to get them to sign there copy of F1 Mag – he gave them the worst evil-stare, stepped back from the barrier so he could sign the cap neatly, then gave it back… … it’s the little things like that that you remember.

Klien at the time was with Red Bull, I shook his hand and said hello, he seemed like a bit of a ‘pretty boy’, and he didn’t really stop to chat, he’d just ventured out of the motorhome to get his mobile from his car (a Golf GTi)…

.. also met/shook hands with: Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Kimi Raikkonnen, Tonio Liuzzi, Christijan Albers, David Coulthard, Nick Fry, Christian Horner, Alex Wurz and Christiano Da Matta, I’ve also been knocked off my feet (nearly) by Alonsos Bodyguard and Juan Montoya himself has completely blanked me…

… the moral of this story is that paying £250 to go see the British Grand Prix is the BIGGEST MOST MASSIVE WASTE OF MONEY EVER…. pay £10 per day for testing, F1 on track all day, access to paddock area and pits at lunch time.. for 3 days.

… EXCEPT F1 has made the worst decision ever and banned testing. The one time the real F1 fans could get close to these guys!

And that’s my Formula 1 story.
The End

I hope this year is THE year, BMW was consistently developing over the last 3 years and if the F1.09 goes on the same curve of development BMW should be right there to win races and fight for the Championship, especially that it looks like they are the only team that have a good reliable KERS so far.

I think Kubica is as good as the top line (Alonso, Hamilton, Massa and Raikkonen) but he just needs to shutup and drive, he’s been so critical of the team and Dr.Theissen was very patient and humble with him. Hopefully he would do more driving than talking this year and show his best to take BMW to where it should be.

Here’s hoping for a good year, especially for Kubica.