Archive for the ‘Motorsport’ Category

Last month’s Sniff Petrol, published before the start of the new Formula 1 season, contained an annotated photograph mocking the Brawn F1 team for their lack of sponsors and suggesting that their chances of success were slim. Sniff Petrol is delighted to accept that this was an utterly shit-poor piece of analysis and that Brawn are thus far completely ace. We have therefore amended the annotated picture and hope that this will stop all the people who have been e-mailing in with messages that read along the lines of ‘Huh huh huh! You must feel really stupid now!’. Yes. Yes we do. Go Jenson.

The unveiling of the contenders for 2009 F1 season has led to disappointment amongst many motor racing fans with some questioning why they have to look like sort of crap F3000 cars from a few years ago. Now Sniff Petrol can exclusively reveal the reason behind this – F1 is in fact going to become a sort of F3000-style lower formula, playing second fiddle to brand new top line race series being hatched in secret by the sport’s governing body.

Sniff Petrol spoke to a man with this ear to the ground outside FIA headquarters in Paris; ‘Oh God, I’ve just put my head in a dog turd,’ he said. ‘Jesus, there’s actual shit in my ear. Errr, errr, errr…’ he added mysteriously.

Meanwhile, other spies close to those at the top of motor sport say the new series is intended to make racing more popular and in line with the trends of the day. ‘We’ve realised that Formula 1 is basically a bit too complicated and nerdy, especially for today’s increasingly stupid Heat magazine reading generation,’ said one source. ‘You never see Frank Williams coming out of a nightclub in London’s West End with two mystery blondes on his arm and this just won’t do. That’s why in future F1 will be secondary to our new pinnacle of motor sport formula which will feature entries from Team Beckham, Scuderia Katona and Jordan. The fake knockered model, rather than the fake haired Irish bloke.’

Mindful of the concern that such well known tabloid favourites have no actual experience of setting up and running a high level race team the FIA has already decided the new top formula will feature no actual cars. ‘Cars are too geeky,’ said one insider from inside something. ‘Instead, this exciting new race series will visit some of the most glamourous locations in the world, such as Monte Carlo, Melbourne and Barcelona, and at each place the teams will simply have to go out for the night and compete to see who can appear in the following day’s newspapers caught stumbling out of a club at 3am. It’s not only a lot cheaper than actual racing, it’s also perfectly atuned to our lucrative target audience of grunting thickos who pore over gossip magazines but have no idea of, say, the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.’

FIA spies say that, whilst plans for the new race series are well advanced, there is still some controversy over its name. ‘Clearly F1 is called that because it used to be the very top,’ said one mole. ‘That means we’re a bit stuck on numbers. At the moment we’re probably just going to call it F-Bling, although there is some worry that this sounds like it was invented by a retarded child. Funnily enough, it was actually thought of by a hyperactively troublesome small person. You know him. Bernard something or other…’

The Brazilian Grand Prix was one of the most exciting climaxes to an F1 season ever seen and in the end it came down to a battle between just two men. Those men were Anthony Hamilton and Luiz Antonio Massa, and after 71 laps only one of them could be victorious in what has been an epic season-long fight for more TV time.

Victory was his and he was able to celebrate with abandon as he knew that at last he was, without doubt, on television.

Following the 25 second penalty given to Lewis Hamilton for allegedly gaining track advantage over Kimi Raikkonen in the Belgian Grand Prix, the fat, super-rich old men who control Formula 1 have denied any sinister bias against the British McLaren driver.

“There really is no agenda here,” said one FIA steward yesterday. “It was plain to see that the darkie unfairly passed the blond haired, blue eyed chap. In doing so the genetically pure driver clearly had a place stolen from him by that other one, which should come as no surprise knowing their sort”.

“I must reiterate that this does not mean the FIA has some sort of problem with fuzzy-wuzzies,” he added. “We welcome our more rhythmic brethren in Formula 1, although obviously we’d prefer it if they didn’t come into the club lounge unless it’s to serve drinks. And even then you’d probably best keep an eye on your wallet if you know what I mean”.

“I hope this completely clears up any confusion about the incident involving the, you know, one of them, and the mighty gentleman of the master race,” our source concluded. “The ruling after Spa was nothing to do with ethnicity. It was simply good old fashioned transparent corruption and bias in favour of Ferrari as usual… oh damn…”

Following unfortunate misunderstandings in the Grands Prix at Valencia and Spa, the FIA has revised the Red Car Rule for Formula 1. These amendments will be applied with immediate effect:

1) Overtaking a Ferrari is not permitted under any circumstances.
2) In the pit lane, a Ferrari always has precedence over other cars.
3) Any driver finishing less than 25 seconds ahead of a Ferrari will be penalized 25 seconds.*
4) If neither Ferrari finishes in first place, the stewards reserve the right to declare the result null and void (or to adjust it as necessary).
5) Only Ferrari drivers are permitted to use anything other than ‘designated’ parts of a circuit.
6) If forced off the ‘designated’ part of the track by a Ferrari, the guilty driver should immediately crash his car and return to the pits
6) Any driver or team appealing against any FIA decision in favour of Ferrari may be subject to a fine and/or the deduction of points.
*Subject to post-race adjustment by the stewards.

The FIA today issued the following statement in response to allegations in the UK media.

“It has come to our attention that the private activities of the FIA and Ferrari at Spa have been filmed and distributed to the general public over the last weekend, together with false statements that the events depicted had a ‘sporting’ theme”.

“The activities depicted were a private matter between the participants, all of whom were consenting adults. Suggestions that one of the ‘victims’, a Mr L. Hamilton, was a child are completely untrue.  He is a consenting adult who just looks underage and he was financially rewarded for his subservient part in the role-playing of the dominant participants”.

“Parades of Ferrari automobiles are perfectly legal when conducted in private by consenting adults, even when they include role-play. We regard the media tactics to be most intrusive. Some even used helicopters to film the private activities of the participants. The FIA utterly refutes any suggestion by the media that what took place at Spa was meant to be a ‘sporting event’ and will pursue a case for libel against those who have made such scurrilous allegations.”

There were growing fears in F1 this week that Jenson Button is turning into a hot air balloon. Sources close to the probably-still-good-if-only-he-wasn’t-in-a-turd-of-a-car driver say they are becoming increasingly concerned that the young racer’s head now appears to be made almost entirely of brightly coloured canvas.

‘We really are a bit worried about Jenson’s balloonishness,’ said one Honda Racing insider. ‘Only the other day I was talking to him in the motorhome and I noticed that his entire head appeared to be deflating. Next thing I knew, he gave a little tug on a bit of his beard under his chin, there was a sort of roaring sound and suddenly his head was back to normal, except that it was bright yellow and all bulbous at the top like a cartoon exclamation mark’.

Many members of the Honda team are also concerned that the driver British people liked before Hamilton came along may find his performance is affected by the extraordinary characteristics of his newly inflatable head. ‘I was walking through the paddock with Jenson the other day,’ admitted one senior engineer. ‘Suddenly there was a strong gust of wind and he started drifting off in completely the wrong direction. I dread to think what would have happened if there had been some power lines in the way. Now we’re seriously considering some sort of ballast system to avoid a situation where, just before an important race, Jenson is blown out to sea’.

However, some of those close to the West Country driver are trying to put a more positive slant on the fact that his head has basically turned into a hot air balloon for no readily apparent reason. ‘I think there is great opportunity here,’ said one anonymous team spokerman. ‘For example, Jenson’s new balloon head could be sold as extra advertising space. Plus, if anyone says that despite being way off the pace he still seems quite big headed he can literally confound that criticism by simply letting a bit of the air out of it’.

Seasoned F1 journalist Maurice Ital of Every Other Sunday magazine was also quick to point out that this isn’t the first strange and balloonish incident in Formula 1. ‘People should remember that, just like Button’s head, a few years ago Juan Pablo Montoya’s entire body appeared to have become insanely inflated,’ he notes. ‘Although that later turned out to be because he’d scoffed a massive amount of pies’.