In a move that was widely predicted, Sam Michael and Jon Tomlinson, the Technical Director and the Chief Aerodynamicist respectively of the Williams F1 team have resigned from their positions. The resignations will come into effect at the end of the season. A few days ago, Sam Michael put his hand up and said that the buck stops at his door for the poor performance of the Williams F1 cars in the season so far. Michael had also said that he was ready to resign if the situation so demanded and he, true to his word has done just that. At that time some in the team including Rubens Barrichello had suggested that more than Sam Michael it was team Chairman Adam Parr who was responsible for this bad start to a situation. Now Adam Parr has said that he too offered to resign but this was not accepted by Frank Williams, Toto Wolff and Patrick Head, the bosses of the team. In an unexpected move Williams has hired Mike Coughlan the disgraced member of the McLaren Team who was banned for two years for his role in Stepney Gate when the McLaren Team was found guilty of espionage and stealing Ferrari’s intellectual property. McLaren was fined a handsome sum of 100 million pounds. It is being anticipated that at the end of the year when Michael steps down, Mike Coughlan will take over as Technical Director. Williams has justified its hiring by saying that Coughlan is genuinely contrite.
Yearly Archives: 2011
A few days ago we had reported that Chinese commercial vehicle manufacturer Beiqi Foton was considering entering the Indian market. Motoroids has reported that the company has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Maharashtra Government to set up a manufacturing facility, supposedly the first outside China, at Pune which hosts many automobile companies’ manufacturing units. The company is reported to start its operations with LCVs and MCVs and that the first of the products will hit the Indian market by 2013.
Just when we thought Hero Honda was moving towards slightly bigger changes in their “new” models (this optimism has everything to do with the CBZ Xtreme’s face lift), Hero Honda has gone back to its old ways. The new for 2011 Hero Honda Karizma ZMR features changes that even the most eagle eyed among Hero Honda fans will find difficult to identify. Changes are mainly in the form of making rear view mirrors body coloured. As it is the Karizma ZMR was a bike that only its designers could love and this insignificant face lift does not do anything in that department.
The square jawed and white haired Jay Leno is an American icon, for at least two reasons. First is that he has been hosting the Tonight Show for the NBC for nearly thirty years (and when NBC replaced him with Conan O’ Brien, the show lost a big audience forcing NBC to get Leno back. Leno is not just known for his whacky humour and his irreverent wise cracks but also for his collection of four wheeled and two wheeled automobiles which he has housed in a huge building. Leno has collected classics, hot rods, rat rods, racing cars new and old, two wheelers of almost every vintage and this has earned him a tremendous amount of admiration and respect among auto enthusiasts. Now, Leno has added the new Royal Enfield Bullet G5 with the new unit construction engine. Proud moment for the company since Leno the connoisseur does not put just any old thing in his collection.
Some websites are suggesting that the Punto and the Linea in India, made by India will receive a face lift to bring excitement back to the prospective customer. The introduction of the TJet engine in the Linea has not done what was expected of it, increase sales. Fiat is in a piquant position in India with sales not being where they should be despite having cars that offer both petrol and diesel engines and are sturdily built. Enough postmortem has been done on his including accusations being levelled at Tata Motors with whom Fiat shares dealers and space for its cars at the dealerships, that Tata dealers are not interested in pushing Fiat cars. There could be some truth in this because some of us have been to Tata dealers where the Fiat cars were not even on display. Keeping in view the situation, we think that a face lift will ultimately remain just that, without possibly impacting on sales, since the problem does not lie with the looks or with the engineering.
You can treat this as an extension of the rant against the Greens that was posted on these pages yesterday. Riot Engine is the brain child of auto enthusiasts and the “brain” bit is being used wisely here. While we are passionate about automobilia we are not blinded by it. We are fully aware that automobile engines run on fossil fuels and due to the inefficiency of the internal combustion engine there is environmental pollution. But when many people think and say that motorsport is a waste of money and precious resource (fossil fuels are likely to run out sometime) and adding to environmental pollution we beg to differ. This needs an explanation. If motorsport is a waste of money and fuel resource so are football and cricket.
This is not comparing chalk with cheese. Please take a look at just one tournament in cricket called the Indian Premier League. For nearly 60 days the tournament uses up huge quantities of electricity to provide lighting so that people can return from work and watch cricket matches in the evening for three hours like they would a movie. Now this is not our take on T20 cricket. This is what the disgraced Commissioner of the IPL, Lalit Modi said himself. This is happening in the summer when in the month of April farmers in the southern part of the country and most parts of India require additional power for their Rabi crop. Mr. Gill, our beloved sports minister said Formula1 racing and all other forms of motor racing were not a sport and that they fell into the category of entertainment. So what does IPL with its film star owned teams and expensive opening ceremonies and gyrating cheer leaders become? If we were to believe Mr. Modi, it is entertainment. This year the Cricket World Cup also saw its share of entertainment with things happening during and before the start of cricket matches. Most of the matches were played under flood lights. And what of the obscene amounts of money that are being paid to cricketers as salary? This happens not just in India but in all parts of the cricketing world such as Australia, England and the West Indies.
Enough of cricket, lets now see what football does. For nearly a year, the Barclay’s English Premier League alone has matches in hundreds of numbers, most again played in the evening under lights. You can hear on TV the singing of songs through out the match by the spectating public. Is this not contributing to pollution and is this not entertainment? Again like the English Premier League in England, you have a huge Spanish La Liga, the German Bundes Liga, the Italian Serie A, the Dutch, the Swedish, the Scottish, the Welsh, the Danish and innumerable other leagues in the South American continent, many of which use flood lights and burn up precious fuel reserves and contribute to environmental pollution since in most instances fossil fuels are used for electricity. We have not even talked about what the Americans do with their brand of football, grid iron, basket ball, ice hockey, ice skating (on rinks that are artificially created by using electricity), and tennis.
Now ask yourself do you require offices that run airconditioning through out the year, even in winter? Do you require centralized heating of houses and offices ? Do you require to sit in front of computers and play stupid games on Facebook or play internet based games? Do you require shopping malls that are centrally airconditioned? Do you require high rise buildings in the construction of which so much electricity is used? Let us face it, we are a civilization that believes in excesses and when we do this, why single out motorsport as an unnecessary luxury and a waste of fuel resource and a source of pollution and a waste of money and that which does not serve any purpose? Of what use are football, cricket, tennis, hockey and any other sport or game you can think of?
What is apalling is that motorsport managers and motor vehicle industry personnel feel they have to be politically correct and please everybody including the Greens and the time passing socialite glitterati who like to make stupid political statements by driving around in a Toyota Prius and brag that they are saving the environment. Car and bike companies want to sell their products and so will not want to alienate anyone, but in trying to be all things to all people they are likely to end up being nothing to anyone. This attitude makes motor sport almost a guilty pleasure. We say it need not be. So why don’t all motor sport fans and people passionate about automobiles just stand up and say they love the smell of the internal combustion engine burning petrol or diesel and that they also love watching those mad men risking life and limb to drive and ride spectacularly around? Come on now, let us say that we will ask for the stopping of motor sport and other automobile “excesses” when the world announces its intention to stop all other excesses. Till then let there be cars, bikes, rallies and races. Have fun, don’t feel guilty and stand up to that Green who tells you that you are against the environment.
Paul Bird Motorsport which runs the Kawasaki Factory effort in World Superbike racing has officially denied any involvement in the transport of the substances that were found in the team’s truck. The team has denied that any of the people on the truck knew of the existence of the substances. It says they were planted in the truck without the knowledge of any of the team personnel.
The last weekend in Portugal saw J-Lo (no, no not her) wading big time into Marco Simoncelli and calling him a dangerous rider who posed a threat to other riders. Casey Stoner almost got taken out by Super Sic and almost took Simoncelli out before Simoncelli put an end to this problem by crashing out unaided. This led to some more jibes by Lorenzo and Stoner but Simoncelli says he does not care for what these people have to say. Will he change his riding style? No way. So when is the next Grand Prix. May 14th right? Should be fun.
The one day post race test at Estoril has ended. Marco Simoncelli went super fast in the test and Valentino Rossi who started the day in with the tenth fastest time moved up to fifth fastest by the time the test ended. Nicky Hayden set the ninth fastest time. Both Rossi and Hayden were testing a modified chassis of the GP 11. Too much significance should not be attached to these timings and positions, since typically in a test different parameters are tested and not necessarily with an intention of setting the fastest time. Case in point being Dani Pedrosa the winner of the Grand Prix on Sunday setting only the tenth fastest time on Monday.
The Jaypee group promoted Buddh(a) International Circuit in Greater Noida could start hosting the Australian V8 car championships from next year on. The Australian V8 championship has been trying to have a more international presence with fly away races in other countries. China is already doing this and India is now on their radar. The negotiations are yet in a very incipient stage. The circuit was also touted as a venue for MotoGP championship from 2012 but all is deafeningly quiet on that front. It would be great to see Deutsche Touringwagen Masters (DTM) also coming to India since they to have an international presence. Things could get interesting.