Great podcast. For the future please bring the following guys:

Mario Andretti
Alain Prost

Also, can you devote some time to the subject of Villeneuve and Pironi. I have read differing accounts by two F1 journalist….

Kind Regards…….

Glad to see everyone’s getting more relaxed as time goes on. But if Mr Roebuck ever travels by Lauda Air, I suggest he packs his own parachute underneath his string vest.

Are there prizes for guessing what the strange clicking noises were in the background? My bet is just the one frame of snooker, that was never actually played out to the finish.

I hope Sir Stirling wasn’t listening when you were discussing a point for fastest lap, as I’m sure that must stil rankle.

As for the predictive abilities of the group as a whole – well, all I can say is, abandon the lottery syndicate now chaps.

Questions for the next podcast? I’m sure we all know the one that is going to take up half the allotted time, don’t we?

If I may suggest a theme for a forthcoming podcast, how about tyres? First of all, who do you think will replace Bridgestone? Could that become a real problem – I mean is there a risk of no company coming forward –, or are there candidates in the wings already? And wouldn’t you like to see more than one supplier, as in the past? I know the arguments against (fewer variables in the equation), but, up to a point, I would argue that the more variables the merrier. Certainly I don’t think anyone wants F1 to go to just one chassis and engine supplier, do we, which would seem to be the logical conclusion to the argument against variables? So, why tyres?

As for guests, you must obviously be limited to a large extent by geographical accessibility, but if I had my wishes granted:

Chris Amon (my childhood hero); I’d like to hear his take on modern racing, but also remembrances of things past:
Mario Andretti, who, apart from anything else, must be great to listen to;
Dan Gurney, who can surely tell good tales of what it was like to move from the front-engined era in the late fifties, to the great Le Mans Ford MkIVs, to his own gorgeous Eagle Weslake in the late sixties;
Jackie Stewart – not my favourite driver at the time (Amon was, as I said), but certainly worth listening to.
Jacky Ickx?
David Coulthard (just because I remember reading a couple of classic cars tests he wrote for Autosport a long time ago, and he seemed very interesting and articulate; or were his articles ghosted?)

And someone from an older era, another hero of mine, Tony Brooks, a modest man in the best sense of the word, but by all accounts one of the fastest drivers in an age gorgeous cars, romantic circuits and daredevil pilots.

Of course, any of the above would also be good for your Lunch with … feature (I’m writing as a very recent re-subscriber after a decades-long hiatus, so you may have interviewed them recently already).

Happy Christmas
Frederico Pinheiro de Melo
Lisbon

PS: by the way, you were wondering whether you pronounced Mario Carneiro Neto’s name right. The way to pronounce the Portuguese diphtong ei is simply to drop the aitch from hey: ‘ey. For some reason, Brits often seem to switch the letters (Mario Carniero, Rio de Janiero). No big deal, just thought you might like to know.

You have done for F1

We learn by what is printed in magazines. If we’re young or just don’t know it’s very easy to be led astray by a Mac driver using an incorrect image hastily plucked from an image library. An example that springs to mind was a small piece in Practical Classics saying that the Alfa 164 was the first front wheel drive Alfa. If you were a child, or teenager reading that why would you think any different?

This would seem an opportunity to mention the photo at the top of page 39 of the current issue. The spine has reduced the width of Prost’s Williams like some sort of ill considered FIA regulation change.

Please explain

I went to the BTCC meet at Silverstone on a pretty miserable bank holiday weekend this year and was simply *staggered* that my girlfriend and I could simply stroll into the paddock (and even onto the pitlane when there was a break in the action)

The races were rather uneventful (by touring car standards) but we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves because we both enjoy watching motor racing. Simple as. And all for £20! – bargain.

That said, despite being a lifelong fan I have never attended a Grand Prix for a variety of reasons – some financial. Now that the tickets are on sale we shall probably be returning to Silverstone. I fully expect that we will have an absolutely awesome day but I wonder if we will really be getting value for money.

Regarding the recent activities of Jenson Button: one thing that you guys didn’t seem to touch on in the podcast was that maybe Jenson didn’t feel that Brawn thought all that much of him. As gentlemen more informed than I you will correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t one of Ross Brawn’s first acts as Honda team manager to attempt to secure the services of Fernando Alonso? I imagine with an open chequebook and opportunities to pick his team mate – which at that stage would emphatically ended Button’s career as a top flight driver. Maybe his head was simply turned by McLaren courting him.

Thanks for keeping these going – always greatly appreciated.

Jenson’s switch is actually a very interesting subject., with lot’s of mythic dimensions.

First for me are Nick Fry’s diatribes against Button in the recent press that can’t just be sour grapes. These criticisms must have surfaced during the season, and would have been very hurtful to Jenson. Add to that the abominably horrid cars Fry put under Jenson’s butt during the Honda regime, and you’re left with the uncomfortable conclusion that Jenson simply wasn’t appreciated or understood by Fry.

In fact, Fry’s highly emotional response suggests that he blew the negotiations completely. That he thought he had Jenson in the bag, that years of horrid cars were now forgiven. Ross is likely questioning his right hand.

If you are a F1 driver right now, you’d want Ross Brawn as your team leader, no question. And yet Button was in the perfect position to capitalize on that. You have to wonder what Jenson knows? Does Ross Brawn REALLY want to work for Norbert Haug? Yes. he may have access to huge resources (as well as a huge boss), but when someone is second guessing your every decision, and the cars don’t have your name on them anymore …

And how much did Ross tell Jenson? “They want German drivers.” “They don’t think you won championship decisively”. “They don’t think you’re that good a driver (thanks Nick)”. “Schumacher is going to be your team mate, you don’t have a chance.” “I’m here for one year, then off to Scotland to play golf.”

The most pregnant aspect is the timing. The MINUTE Mercedes is announced as the owner, Jenson is gone. He suffered horribly under the corporate mismanagement of the Japanese, why give the Germans a chance to prove they’re worse?

A mystery for some people seems to be why Button would forego the familiarity of a team he knows so well. Perhaps that’s the point, he knows them too well. They had the best car on the grid at the beginning of the season, but managed to go seriously backwards. Ross is awesome, but these guys built the USED DOG FOOD HONDA SPECIAL … twice. But for a miracle, these guys had already ended Button’s F1 career.

Remember, Jenson knows much more about this team than Ross does. So now that you’ve got German management in charge of English knuckleheads, the danger of corporate clumsiness corrupting the process is an obvious risk. If Mercedes does poorly this year, you’ll know Jenson is much smarter than anyone ever imagined.

McLaren, on the other hand, is putting some really bad seasons behind them. This year’s car was a shockingly bad, yet they rallied and turned it into one of the best cars on the grid, the exact opposite of Brawn. At the end, the Brawn was no match for the McLaren. Credit Jenson for hanging on against the odds.

McLaren is an English team, and they welcome English drivers. Although Lewis is a spectacular young driver (not unlike Jenson was), Jenson does not make mistakes, and Lewis does. Further, McLaren chewed up and spit out Alonso AND Montoya. I’ve never seen this mentioned, but there seems to be an ethnic bias at McLaren. Whatever chaos that Montoya and Alonso brought down upon themselves, it will almost certainly not befall Jenson.

In fact, if Lewis is “less congenial” than he appears on TV, the team may rally around Jenson, who is a “what you see is what you get” kind of guy, with his youthful extravagances and arrogances behind him

In the end, we know that after years of ghastly cars, where anybodiy’s skills could have been muted to extinction, Jenson got a sniff of something good and, after three minutes of testing, crushed the entire field with it. His more experienced team mate was left scrambling. Jenson rightly believes Nick Fry doesn’t get it. If Jenson is so bad, how come Rubens couldn’t beat Vettel with the “superior” car? The answer is that the car was merely competitive for most of the season.

Button has always been a very, very ggod driver, beating team mates like Jacques Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher. And his lightning fast resppnse to a good car demonstrate an unsatisfied hunger, which further explains his move to McLaren.

Jenson also can only write his ticket now. A year of less than stellar performance, and the ticket is gone. It doesn’t matter whether the car or the team was at fault. And what’s more logical than going to McLaren? Get a good car, beat the whelp, and you’re vindicated forever! Besides, McLaren wants him. So good on Jens for taking on Lewis.

Given all that, Lewis’ advantage in the team is such that , if Button even gets close, his talents will never be questioned again. If he beats him, there will be egg more than a few faces.

So even if he doesn’t beat Lewis, I expect Button’s switch will appear very smart a year form now,. And he probably didn’t have anything like a real choice.

And as a Raikkonen fan, I hope Rob’s project does come trough.

And seing someone mentioned Red Bull, what do you guys think about their chances for the championship next year? They have two top tier drivers, Newey’s brilliance, and the experience of mounting a championship challenge, and they’ve kept off the headlines unlike Brawn/Merc. Of course I’m not going to write off Mclaren and Ferrari, but there are going to be changes next year, and we all know how good Newey is under those circumstances. And Webber or Vettel being crowned WDC seems far less silly than Button being champion sounded a year ago when nothing was clear.

Firstly PeteH Britain is not a nation

Secondly as much as i dislike Berni,did he not give them millions to upgrade facilities for the F1 fans,then they built a new club house at Silverstone?

Off course there is not much journalist who really likes Kimi, and it is understandable to a degree, he makes the journalist job more difficult. But the fans loves Kimi and he has many fans, it is just perhaps something that the journalist will never really understand. The more people criticize him the more his fans will properly support him, as it often seems like he is very misunderstood and criticized a bit unfairly at times.

Thanks again for taking the time out, and nice work with the podcast!

Another great great guest would be Sir Stirling, and of course Dan Gurney, especially with his new book coming out soon. Dan Gurney, now that would be a treat.