Sniff Petrol

According to BBC News online, he’s now out in Dubai working in an ice bar. Ironically not a job you could give to Kimi ‘The Ice Man’ Raikkonen. Not unless you wanted to come back to find all your stock had been guzzled.

Thanks to Rob A for this one.

This is what Jon Stewart would call ‘a moment of zen‘

STOP PRESS: The actual footage is here. You’ll have to spool forward to about the 2:30 mark. He’s quite the TV presenter isn’t he?

*ring ring*
JPM: Hello?
MANAGER: Hi!
JPM: If this is Dominos I don’t want excuses about not enough cheese to fulfil an order of that size. And you got 10 minutes left to deliver or it’s free.
MANAGER: J-P, it’s me, your manager. Listen, have I got something for you…
JPM: Free garlic bread?
MANAGER: No, listen baby, I got you one hell of a sponsorship deal. It’s for coffee.
JPM: Toffee? Great!
MANAGER: No, coffee baby, coffee. They wanna put your face on packs of the damn stuff down in Ecuador.
JPM: I don’t understand.
MANAGER: Jeez… you know coffee J-P. It’s the stuff that comes with your breakfast.
JPM: Extra bacon?
MANAGER: Listen, just be at the photo studio tomorrow. And try to look smugly camp…

Thanks to Derek Riethmeier (and his wife who actually secured this gem on a trip to Ecuador). Do keep the F1 driver promo horror stuff coming. We’ve actually got loads of it now so expect plenty more shameful awfulness very soon.

Uh-oh, this F1 driver promotional nightmare thing is gaining momentum and already we find that Giancarlo Fisichella phoning-in a dead eyed and slightly embarrassed appearance on some Italian no alcohol beer is but a mere blob of goz compared to the ocean of humiliation that is… THE MICHAEL SCHUMACHER ICE CREAMS

Christ alive, what was the shovel faced fool thinking here? Apart from, ‘when I next see Willi Weber I’m going to poke a lollipop stick up his arse’. Thanks to Piers Roache for this one. Do keep your F1 driver endorsement-based embarrassments coming.

Being an F1 driver isn’t all free sunglasses, expensive nightclubs and bumming supermodels on a big yacht. Oh dear no, there are many tedious promotional duties to take care about, usually ones that your manager forgot to mention until it was too late.

Hence this gem, spotted in an Italian supermarket, featuring a clearly not-that-arsed Giancarlo Fisichella doing a brilliant impression of man who neither knows nor cares what it is he’s plugging, whilst making a mental note to read contractual small print more carefully in future.

If you’ve got an example of a racing driver wearily promoting something whilst the look in their eyes says ‘There are 50,000 other things I would rather be doing that this, and one of them is talking to James Allen’ then please send ‘em in.

The other week we ran this story about Ferrari merchandising getting out of hand. Unfortunately, a few days ago Sniff Petrol ended up in the Rome branch of the Ferrari Store and discovered that the truth is far more horrific than any hastily Photoshopped fiction.

The model cars and framed pictures we can see the point of but who in the name of gilt edged buggery actually wants a pair of Ferrari jeans? In fact, any Ferrari branded clothing is pretty much unacceptable and serves only to tell the world that you quite patently DON’T own a Ferrari. Or that you DO own a Ferrari and are an abysmal bore with some fairly appalling personal status issues that should best be resolved by a painful course of electro-convulsive therapy.

Oh, but if only Prancing Horse polo shirts and Scudieria underpants were the full extent of the problem. Sadly, they’re not. Not whilst for the princely sum of 150 Euros Ferrari will sell you a replica Ferrari key. Yes, a REPLICA FUCKING KEY. Who on earth is signing off this shit and why haven’t they been sacked yet? Unless the hundred quid fake key is actually a trap to weed out the mentally ill and terminally stupid. Otherwise it’s simply a chronic and very sad indication of why Ferrari is now the car equivalent of Burberry. Only not as classy. Jay-sus.

With your help Sniff Petrol continues to monitor the zany post-F1 antics of seven time world champion Michael Schumacher. This week Mr Gareth Jones, TV legend, friend of this website and titular head of the excellent Gareth Jones On Speed Podcast (featuring added Sniff Petrol silliness), notes that the spade-faced race ace has now traveled back to circa the 11th century in order to be carved into a stone statue by the people of Easter Island. And who said retirement was boring? Anyway, Christ knows what he’ll get up to next but if you spot anything, do let us know.

The other week we ran this picture of Michael Schumacher, hard at work in a supermarket pie shop. Now Sniff Petrol reader Kevin McCauley, whose name is rather unusually a clickable link to his website, has discovered another photo of the ex-Ferrari driver busying himself in retirement, on this occasion by going back in time so he can appear in a haunting propaganda poster from 1914. Whatever next?

If you find further evidence of what the big chinned world champion is up to now he’s not in Formula 1, please do get in touch.

From BBC News Online