Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Pustulent Portuguese Wikipedia enthusiast Wurke Esperiense looks forward to this weekend’s F1 action.

If you are visiting the Bahrain Grand Prix it’s worth remembering that banned items include alcohol, freedom of speech and anything that depicts Angela Lansbury.

Since Bahrain is a dry country, organisers have had to find an alternative to Champagne for the drivers on the podium. In Abu Dhabi they give out rose water whereas in Bahrain they use the carbonated tears of children whose fathers have been imprisoned without trial.

In 2012 a  group of protesters gathered outside the entrance to the track. The thing they were protesting about was the race itself which they claimed was ‘usually quite boring’. All involved were later arrested and killed.

The track itself is tough on brakes, tyres, cooling systems and anyone who dares to question its authority.

One person who sees no human rights issues whatsoever in Bahrain is triple world champion Sir Jackie Stewart. ‘Everything here is perfectly fine,’ he said, speaking from his 12 room suite inside one of the Bahraini royal family’s many, many palaces.

Last year’s Bahrain race was won by Sebastian Vettel, a feat he managed without betraying anyone. Third place was taken by Romain Grosjean before he decided to stop crashing into things and being fast.

The Red Bull pit wall, yesterday

The Red Bull soap opera of recent weeks is set to get even more interesting with news that the team has signed top-heavy acting stalwart Barbara Windsor as its new Director of Racing.

‘This is tremendously exciting news,’ said Ralf Gressingham, the British actor who plays Red Bull driver Mark Webber. ‘Babs is a national treasure and I can’t wait to see what she brings to role. Knowing her penchant for strong characters, there are sure to be some on-screen fireworks!’ he quipped.

The ongoing drama’s other British-born star, Tristram Duvall, who plays German racer Sebastian Vettel, is equally pleased to welcome the Cockney legend to the pit lane; ‘This is such a thrilling development,’ he gushed. ‘I think viewers have reacted in a really positive way to the darker side of Sebastian which was revealed in the last episode and it’s certainly changed his on-screen relationship with Mark so to bring Babs in now is going to make things wonderfully tense. I can’t say too much about her role at the moment but you can bet she’s going to really bang our heads together!’ he quipped.

‘Ms Windsor will be joining us very shortly and will make an explosive start when it emerges that she is not Adrian Newey’s real mother,’ a Red Bull source confirmed. ‘Duf… duf… duf dufduf dufadufa…’ he added enigmatically.

Unpaid Wikipedia enthusiast Wurke Esperiense stumbles through the key facts ahead of this weekend’s race in China

The Shanghai International Circuit is a typical Herman Tilke design with long straights, a tight hairpin and the successful eradication of almost all overtaking opportunities.

The track was completed in 2004. According to a 50,000 word statement released by the Chinese Central Bureau of Information at the time, ‘no farms were removed for its construction’ and everyone involved in building it was ‘contented and alive’.

The distinctive shapes above the pit straight are known locally as ‘hu wan wai’ which means ‘the sideways vaginas’. Not to be confused with Jacques Villenueve’s local nickname ‘hu wan wi’ which means ‘the sideways vagina’.

Uniquely, the ‘gravel’ in the gravel traps is actually the ground-up bones of people who have harboured anti-government thoughts.

Last year’s race won by Nico Rosberg unless you read local press in which case it was won by then-current President of the People’s Republic of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao.

Like most social media, Twitter is not accessible from China. Sadly, the Lotus team seems to have found a way.

McLaren’s problem clearly visible, yesterday

There were red faces in Woking this week as McLaren admitted that their disappointing start to the season was as a result of both their drivers being fitted the wrong way up.

‘It’s all a bit embarrassing actually,’ confessed shame-faced talking skeleton Martin Whitmarsh. ‘We thought something might be wrong when Jenson complained of extremely poor visibility in testing and we were definitely suspicious when Checo said he didn’t remember Australia being a night race but we just couldn’t put our finger on what was wrong. It was only when we noticed the engineers attempting to get more air into the air box by asking the drivers to open their legs wider that we started to get to the heart of our lack of pace.’

Once it was noticed that Button and Perez were racing with their heads on the pedals and their legs poking in the air, team sources say McLaren immediately initiated a full programme of finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics and complex computer simulations before finally concluding that yes, the drivers were indeed the wrong way up in the car.

‘We’ve learned a lot from this mistake,’ admitted one senior race engineer. ‘And although our drivers’ legs were playing havoc with the airflow and they couldn’t actually see where they were going, we take heart from knowing we were still faster than Williams, Caterham and Marussia.’

Sebastian Vettel last season, yesterday

For years a great many F1 fans have considered Sebastian Vettel to be a nice guy. After all, he has a broad smile, a cheeky manner and he is from Germany, the most jocular of all nations. At the Malaysian Grand Prix, however, race viewers discovered a new, darker side to the reigning world champion, one which was summed up in his chilling radio command, “Get him out of the way. He is too slow”. Now, for the first time, a former Red Bull team member has spoken exclusively to Sniff Petrol about the true extent evil that lurks inside the pointy fingered racer.

‘Oh yea, you think he’s a fun bloke because he likes old British sit-coms but that’s all just an act to cover how mean he really is,’ our anonymous snitch revealed. ‘Like this one time he asked me how I was and when I started to say I was fine thanks he just shouted “G…G…G…Granville!” and then pushed me into a pile of tyres.’

This, according to our mole, was just the tip of a very cruel and ruthless iceberg. ‘This other time he asked me to wipe his visor,’ our unnamed sneak explained. ‘Clearly he didn’t like the job I did because when I gave it back to him he barked “Don’t tell him Pike!” and then smashed me round the back of the head with a really big spanner.’

Our former Red Bullist says Vettel’s reign of terror continued for some months, reaching a crescendo in the canteen of the team’s Milton Keynes factory. ‘I was just sitting there eating my lunch when someone told me Sebastian wanted to speak to me about a set-up issue,’ our man confessed. ‘He came striding over, shouted “Rene! Ze flashing knobs!” and then poured hot soup down the back of my neck.’

A spokesman for the Red Bull team later denied that there was any truth in our insider’s allegations. ‘These stories are absurd and simply not true,’ they said in a phone conversation with Sniff Petrol. ‘I can assure you tha…wait! No! Sebastian, no!’ At this point there were muffled bangs, a sharp scream and the line went dead. The last thing to be heard was a German accent saying, ‘Ooh Betty, the cat’s done a whoopsie on the floor.’