Sniff Petrol

Yes, Mr Jim Bamber - motorsport lampooning legend and the other member of the Sniff Petrol / Jim Bamber mutual appreciation society - has sent us a spare cartoon which is too sweary to appear in Autosport. Happily, Sniff Petrol really likes swearing and has not such qualms about running it. Cheers Jim.  

With two races already out of the way in the 2008 F1 season, Lewis Hamilton’s hopes of securing his first driver’s championship already seem to be slipping away after his disappointing performances in Australia and Malaysia proved that the young star from Hertfordshire has renewed focus and could already have the ’08 title sewn up.

Hamilton’s winning form of last season seemed appears to have deserted him, especially in Malaysia where he surely watched his chances of securing that elusive championship victory slip away, whilst in Australia his decisive win aptly demonstrated that the Hertfordshire driver’s abilities are stronger than ever and that it’s undoubtedly only a matter of when, and not if, he wins the ultimate F1 prize.

Formula 1 experts are struggling to understand just how the McLaren driver seems to have lost his once-impressive ability and many are still reeling at how his driving seems to have become more confident and unbeatable this season, without question meaning that his championship dreams are over when he wins it in a matter of months, maybe even days.

One thing is for sure. Lewis Hamilton really needs to up his game and relax knowing he’s the best driver in Malaysia because he will be against strong competition in a class of his own with that 2008 world title now out of reach in his pocket and impossible to achieve in the bag. Meanwhile, for rival drivers there seems to be only one message: It’s yours for the taking as you give up and go home!

© Lazy F1 punditry

There was almost no shock whatsoever in Formula 1 this week with news that the FIA is to investigate Renault for spying. According to a man who was speaking next to the FIA building, ‘Following a tip off from an anonymous source in the Modena region of Italy we are looking in to claims that Renault Formula 1 have contravened the rules of the sport and may be docked points both for utilising illegally acquired data and for competing in a car that wasn’t red’. The speakersman refused to give any more details has he had to rush off ‘to give Jean Todt a back massage’.

However, some F1 insiders have already hinted that Renault may not be the last team to become embroiled in an embarrassing and ultimately costly McLaren-style scandal. High ranking sources are suggesting that it is only a matter of days until every other F1 team is called up on spying charges, except Ferrari who have of course never cheated at anything. Already, in the paddock (the special off season one that all teams assemble in when there’s no racing so as to allow sentences like this) rumours are circulating that Williams may have been using data from BMW, that BMW may have been using data from Toyota, that Toyota may have been using data from Torro Rosso, that Torro Rosso may have been using data from Super Aguri, that Super Aguri may have been using data from Spyker, that Spyker may have been using data from Red Bull, that Red Bull may have been using data from Honda and that Honda may have been using data from the 1991 Leyton House team, but upside down so that none of it worked properly.

If these rumours are proved to be true the FIA may be forced to minimise the damage to F1 by bringing this whole affair to a sharp and definite conclusion, a view shared by one senior junior. ‘One way of doing this would be simply to say that all teams are forbidden from scoring points until 2025, except Ferrari’ he admitted. ‘Frankly, it would be a lot more straightforward than the original way they were going to use to get that rule introduced’.

Following his recent proclamation that 2007 was Jenson Button’s best year yet, Honda’s Nick Fry has this week gone even more mental with an announcement that murder victims get the better end of the deal.

“Ironically, for me, the victim is the real winner” an inanely grinning Fry said yesterday. “It’s a no brainer, really. Their cost of living goes way down and their dreams of living a long life are ‘recalibrated’.”

“As an added bonus, their carbon footprint drops to zero – forever!”, the inexplicably-still-employed buffoon continued. “That’s got to be a good thing,” he added, crossing out the name on his office door and replacing it with a picture of the earth, like a complete div.

Fry claims that the murderers, if caught, are the real losers: “Put it this way: getting banged up in Pentonville on a ten-stretch isn’t anyone’s idea of fun, is it? Okay you might get a good bum raping, just like our drivers this season. But ironically, for me, the chance of rehabilitation and a long, healthy, happy life after prison seems like the worst end of the murderer/murdered deal.”

Fry’s latest reason-defying statements are not the first time the Honda CEO has emerged jabbering from some sort of tear in the fabric of conventional logic. Previous leaps into a world that makes no fucking sense have included, “This Japanese bloke seems good at techie stuff. Willis, get your coat, you’re fired,” and of course the legendary, “Hi, is that Super Aguri? I want you to take our race winning 2006 car, it’s actually completely shit and we’ve got something much better for 2007…” 

(Thanks to Banger)

After months of disappointment punctuated by the odd adequate performance, like swimming through liquid effluent to find a bag of plain crisps, Toyota F1 bosses have finally lost patience with Ralf Schumacher and today announced that he is to be replaced… by a cactus.

‘We’ve simply had enough of Ralf being mediocre and then going backwards towards a field, so we decided to replace him with something more suitable’, said a Toyota spokespeakerman. ‘Once we heard a cactus was available, we moved quickly. We believe the driver changeover will be very smooth, especially since we’re used to having something prickly and uncommunicative in the car. And with a big spiky plant behind the wheel, at least one of our drivers will no longer be pointless. Arf arf! Sorry…’

This isn’t the first time a succulent has competed in top level motorsport. A phyllanthus drove in Indycar from 1985-87 whilst a tapinanthus ran as high as third in the 1992 Le Mans 24 Hour event before someone overwatered it.

With thanks to F-Stop Junkie

As McLaren celebrates the FIA’s decision not to issue a penalty for the team’s part in the F1 spying scandal, a new storm was brewing over the sport as Ferrari today issued fresh allegations of copying, this time against Honda.

‘There is growing evidence that Honda Racing’s current championship campaign is not wholly based on original material,’ said a statement from the Italian team. ‘Specifically, that they have been copying the Ferrari seasons 1991, 1992 and 1993’.

‘Honda’s performance this season is too familiar to be mere coincidence,’ said a Maranello insider. ‘The mediocre performance, the patchy reliability, the dispirited drivers, these are all things that have clearly been obtained from Ferrari’s period of being rubbish in the early ‘90s’.

However, Honda was quick to rebuff any allegations of copying. ‘Honda Racing denies any suggestion that it has knowingly copied data or strategy from Ferrari, either current or when they were shit,’ said a spokesman. ‘Throughout the entire F1 spying scandal we have been entirely open and honest about our involvement. Specifically, that our awful season is entirely modelled on the dismal efforts of Footwork during the 1995 championship. We are confident that this will become clear during the forthcoming Hungarian Grand Prix where we have asked Barrichello to get himself run over by the marshalling car’.

There were high spirits at McLaren this week as the FIA decided not to penalise the championship leading team for their claimed involvement in the recent Formula 1 spying controversy. ‘Scuderia McLaren is delighted with this decision,’ said an official statement from the team. ‘Jean Dennis and everyone at our factory in Wokiorano is confident that all allegations of copying can now be laid to rest and that we can continue our fight in what is one of the most exciting drivers’ and constructors’ titles in many years, including an emotional return to our home circuit on 9 September’.

However, title rivals Ferrari were less impressed with the FIA’s decision. ‘Ferrari is deeply disappointed with the outcome of today’s extraordinary meeting,’ said an official statement. ‘This decision sets a very serious precedent, namely that the FIA is now prepared to let other teams get away with cheating as well as us’.

Following Jenson Button’s shock announcement that he will quit F1 if the performance of his Honda does not improve within the next two years, further details are emerging of other decisive actions the dynamic British driver is prepared to take in order to get results.
F1 spies say that only this week the Brit ace was spotted issuing a similarly firm ultimatum in a London cinema. ‘Button was watching Die Hard 4.0 but he clearly wasn’t impressed,’ said one fellow movie goer. ‘I definitely heard him loudly saying in a politely quiet voice that if the film didn’t get better then he was flipping well going to wait until the end and then leave’.
Just hours earlier another motorsport fan reported seeing the West Country driver in a nearby restaurant expressing disappointment with the table he had been given. ‘Button wasn’t messing around,’ said one fellow diner. ‘He made it moderately clear that if he wasn’t given a better table he would eat his main course and some pudding and maybe a coffee and then bloody well think about leaving’.
However, it now seems that Button isn’t the only one issuing dire warnings for the future. Many British F1 fans, for example, have threatened to completely lose interest in Jenson Button within the next… oh.

There was good news for F1 fans this week as the BBC released details of a new motorsport sit-com to appear on our screens next month. Entitled Stepney & Son, the hilarious new comedy revolves around cantankerous scrap merchant Albert ‘Nigel’ Stepney and his zany attempts to get rid of enormous piles of F1 car components and CAD/CAM data that are cluttering up his Italian yard. In the first of this amusing new series, Stepney attempts to wash his smalls in the fuel tank of a Ferrari racing car, only to get caught after adding too much powder! There’s the promise of more merriment later in the series when Stepney tries to pass a whole pile of ‘scrap parts’ to a chap from Woking, before realising that he’s absent mindedly wrapped all the ‘unwanted’ components in top secret technical documents – with hilariously career ending consequences!  
Stepney & Son starts on BBC Three, just as soon as anyone can understand what the cocking hell is going on with all this F1 espionage stuff

There was confusion in Formula 1 this week following the appearance of a mysterious new British driver in last Sunday’s French Grand Prix. Calling himself “Jenson Button”, the previously unheard of racer managed to bag a remarkable eighth place at Magny-Cours, even though no one in the paddock could recall ever seeing him before.

‘His slightly rat-like face did look strangely familiar,’ admitted Maurice Ital of Every Other Sunday magazine. ‘But I’m sure we’ve never seen this British driver before. Not like that lovely Lewis Hamilton, for example.’

Another paddock insider was more sceptical about this mysterious Brit talent. ‘I think this might be an elaborate ruse,’ our source said. ‘I mean, just look at his name: “Jenson Button”. It just sounds so made up. It’s not a proper name like, say, Lewis Hamilton’.

F1 observers say that if “Jenson Button” does indeed turn out to be a real British driver with a made up name, this will make him the exact opposite of Anthony Davidson, who has a real name but doesn’t actually exist in any of the F1 coverage so far this year.