Astute followers of F1 will know that there was a race held this week in Korea. Astute followers of Fun with Cars will notice that there is not a Grand Prix Show discussing that race. We may be able to produce a show later this week, but our normal grand prix viewing was superseded by other obligations. As it happens, those are potentially interesting as well, so here’s a quick update on what the FwC guys have been up to.

Over this past weekend Robin and his brother were driving in the 24 Hours of LeMons race outside Chicago. I’d love to tell you more about how his team did and all, but with his busy schedule he hasn’t had a chance to fill me in yet. The guy works full time and is finishing his Masters degree, so we can cut him a break on scheduling.

The day before that on Friday, I was outside Mexico City in Puebla running data analysis sessions for participants of the Porsche Driving Experience Mexico. It’s a fun event to take part in, as I have worked with the crew for five years. I got to eat some delicious tacos and catch up with my Mexican friends. It’s cool to see how much of a star Checo Pérez has become in Mexico, after initially seeing him on a billboard last year. Maybe he’s not quite a household name, but among car enthusiasts he and his just-announced move to McLaren are certainly talking points. It reiterates for me how much enthusiasm there is for racing in Mexico and how future success for Checo could really be a big deal toward the return of a Mexican Grand Prix. If that happens, I’m going and I know a bunch of folks who’ll be there’d with me.

Anyway, it will be a few days until Robin will have a chance to watch the Korean GP, and I’ll be out of town again but we might try and do a show remotely. Either way, stay tuned here and on Facebook and Twitter and you’ll see what we come up with.

As we mentioned in the last podcast, Jim is currently out of town, well out of the country actually, and we are hence unable to make a podcast directly after the Italian Grand Prix. However, my more domesticated, less jet-setty self did watch the race and will push Jim to do the same as soon as he gets home so we can do a delayed podcast. However, I cannot make any promises, so we may have to wait until Singapore.

In general, it sounds as if our tweaked format largely went over well. Jim and I have more fun debating particular points of the race than giving the “news” of what happened in the race. Besides, most of you already have seen the race when listen to the podcast, so it was a waste of everyone’s time. That said, we’ve heard from “The Kilt” et al that Listener Feedback is indeed a fun part of the show and we will henceforth bring that segment back.

As of now, we haven’t heard much from you guys about alternative names to “The Grand Prix Show” so for the time being we will run with that. But if anyone experiences an epiphany, please share, as we have yet to set anything in stone. Jim and I have also kicked around some ideas for more videos and other things that fall under the “Fun With Cars” umbrella that we will definitely share once they are finished. Hopefully this expansion of scope will be something you guys enjoy. After all, I never thought I would turn to McLaren for my animation-based entertainment. Who knew?

As for Monza, great race! I definitely was gutted to see Button fall-out of second place, slightly less gutted to see Vettel dropout a little later on (still a Button fan) and then totally shocked to see Webber spin and then exit the race himself! Kudos to Hamilton for driving a flawless race and kudos to Alonso for engaging the crowd so effectively on the podium, he even became the cameraman for a minute!

So, what would you guys like to hear about? Vettels penalty for his block against Alonso? Kimi Raikkonen’s advance to third in the championship? Massa’s performance and team orders? Let us know and we’ll talk about it on the next show.

Cheers,
Robin

P.S. Thanks to everyone that recently purchased the limited-edition F1Show t-shirts! We are now down to 10 shirts left in the inventory. So these things are well and truly in limited quantity. If you’ve been considering buying one, now is the time!
– RW

A few of our most astute listeners have already noticed a couple of changes here at The F1 Show. And while you haven’t heard from us in the month of August so far, Jim and I have in fact been busy working on the show, mainly in a legal sense. A few weeks ago, we received a letter from Formula 1 US legal representation demanding that we cease and desist all use of “F1” in our name, logo, and website; as it might be confused with something officially affiliated with the real deal. Of course, Jim and I disagree with this claim and find it a bit silly to even waste the time dealing with our, to paraphrase Jeremy Clarkson, pokey little racing podcast. However, Jim and I equally feel uninterested and ill-prepared to defend our logo and use of the name in court. So we have acquiesced to their request and are changing the name and logo of the podcast and website.

As ever, Jim and I see this bump in the road as an opportunity to expand our car/racing geek empire and branch out beyond our Formula 1 racing news podcast and into the broader world of auto racing, our own amateur racing, and other car-geek related awesomeness. So in that spirit we are proud to officially announce our new name: Fun with Cars!

We believe the title, Fun with Cars, embodies all of our passions and interests into one succinct phrase. That’s not just a new name for the show, though. It’s bigger than that. Over time, Fun with Cars will be a destination for all of our auto and racing projects with videos, blogs, and podcasts. Some F1-related, some not, but all fun and all involving cars and racing. Future coverage will include our new racing team, WarnerLau Racing, which is currently building a 1992 Honda Prelude for 24 Hours of Lemons competition, an endurance racing series for old junkers with a maximum initial value of $500. Of course, the nucleus of this new venture remains our podcast, which we plan to continue uninterrupted as one part of the new site under the new, generic name, The Fun with Cars Grand Prix Show.

Everything is online at http://funwithcars.net but for a while the old web address will continue to work. Most all podcast subscribers will be moved to the new site automatically, but in case you’re not, please check that you are subscribed to http://funwithcars.net/podcast in your player. If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you will automatically be switched over. If not, you should follow us on Twitter or Facebook to keep up with everything we do!

So, please don’t be sad for us, but join in the excitement of the next chapter of our podcast, and really our online existence, Fun with Cars!

-Jim & Robin

Every once in a while Jim and I get an email that truly impresses us and makes us feel great about contributing to the F1 community with our humble podcast. This email we got from Josh is an excellent case in point. In fact, we were so impressed that we wanted to share with everyone. And as promised on the podcast, here is his email including all the pictures he sent us. Truly impressive! Josh, you’ve taken Taste of the Race to the next level. Our hats are off to you!

-Robin

TASTE OF THE RACE:

Jim and Robin,

My friends and I have been inspired by the idea you mentioned of doing a “taste of F1” and I thought the two of you would get a kick out of what we’ve been up to so far this season. It started with “burgers with the lot” for Australia and has only gone up in complexity from there. We don’t make any claim to extreme authenticity (and as dim-witted Americans like yourselves we feel entitled to do whatever we want and ignore what we don’t like), but we have been putting in a good effort, and it’s all been mostly homemade except for Malaysia. I’m sending this along as an email because my Facebook photo album can’t be shared with your show’s page.

Continue reading Taste of the Race →

Jim and I greatly enjoyed the 2012 British Grand Prix. The television coverage gave us a great summary of the race as a whole, allowed us to focus on, and see the details of, the most fiercely fought battles on track, and once it was all said and done, we got to see and hear Jackie Stewart interview the podium with wonderful clarity. But, of course, all of those experiences pale in comparison  to actually attending the Grand Prix at Silverstone. The ability to take in the smells, absorb the atmosphere, and immerse oneself in the chaos and energy of the crowd far surpasses the greatest TV coverage by leaps and bounds. Craig “The Kilt” Wilson got that experience and wanted to share. So take a minute and loose yourself in the real British Grand Prix! – Robin

Audio from the start:
Start

Three laps in:
Lap 3

Final lap:
Final lap

Awesome! Truly awesome.

-Robin

For anyone even remotely interested in motorsport the Festival of Speed is a MUST. Where else would you get to see F1 stars of past and present roaring round the Goodwood Hill Climb track in some of the sport’s most iconic cars? Throw in some jaw dropping supercars, superbikes, thought provoking concept cars, stunt bikes, the Moving Motorshow, a challenging rally stage, the Red Arrows display team and the Le Mans 24-hour winning Audi E-tron Quattro and it’s bound to be a weekend to remember.

Who needs Armco barriers when you have hay bales?

Continue reading An amazing weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2012 →

Click http://www.ustream.tv/user/f1show now to visit our Ustream channel. The show starts at 6PM Eastern!

As announced in our episode 099, the F1 Show will be hosting a live viewing party and discussion this Saturday, October 8th, during both the Australian V8 Supercars Bathurst 1000 and the Japanese Grand Prix from Suzuka!

Coverage starts at 6:00 PM Eastern Time (22:00 GMT) and goes well into the night. Check http://f1show.com for the live viewing link, and make sure you follow http://facebook.com/f1show and http://twitter.com/thef1show for real-time updates.

Let’s start with the undeniable truth. Red Bull Racing offers Mark Webber the best chance at continued success in F1, by far. By really really far. Consider his options: Let’s say Ferrari calls (unlikely) and offers a ride. Will he have equal opportunities as Fernando Alonso? Sure, and Jim and I will likely get a call from the BBC to replace Brundle and Coulthard and oh, by the way Robin, Perez feels terrible about his early thievery and secedes his Sauber seat. Webber clearly laments number two status, and would no doubt suffer as full Ferrari support heads in Alonso’s direction. Not to mention that the Scuderia insists Massa will stay for 2012.

What about McLaren? Two English world champions that get along famously as teammates and deliver excellent results from two opposite ends of the driving style-o-sphere make up the line up now. Where does Webber fit there? Besides, Button isn’t going anywhere as long as he races in F1 and Hamilton will stay until at least 2013.

And just like that we ruled out the current race winning cars.

The next set of contenders, Mercedes and Renault, are possible but are equally a solid step down in performance, without much promise to rise to championship contender status in the next 12 months. Realistically, both teams require huge gains in performance to compete for race wins, let alone championships. Additionally, Renault places all its hopes on Bobby K (assuming he can return for 2012) and seems pleased with Vitaly’s improvements. As for Mercedes, Nico Rosberg continues to perform and continues to be German, both assets that the Factory Merc team appreciates. Moreover, regardless of anything else, Michael Schumacher remains an icon still in control of his own fate. So I truly doubt either team will look in Webber’s direction.

After that we’re looking at Sauber and STR.

Again, Red Bull Racing remains Mark Webber’s best option for F1 racing. So what can Mark Webber do? His situation would frustrate any driver. To sit in the fastest car on the grid, only to endure subtle yet persistent favoritism of your teammate, must suck! I feel for Mark, very much so. Furthermore, at 34, Mark knows his F1 career is finite. While he now still drives at his peak, that won’t last forever. So he cannot fuss about “maintaining the gap” with what time remains to chase the dream of being World Champion, right?

Wrong.

Mark Webber’s place at Red Bull is akin to Mother Nature, it’s not for him, it’s not against him, it just is. As painful as it is for Webber, he must appreciate the opportunity Red Bull provides: a race winning car and a team that will let him win a championship if he can beat his teammate on their terms. Admittedly that is a very tall order considering that Vettel is monstrously quick. But Webber, when he’s at his best, is capable. His best chance for success is to take a Zen approach when favoritism rears its ugly head; shrug it off and try again. His occasional anger at the team may be justified, but it doesn’t help him towards his goal of winning. It isn’t far. But it is Mark Webber’s best chance to win the Formula 1 World Championship and I, for one, think he can do it.

-Robin Warner