Patronise F1

Talking Points

- Supa Luca nuts are we

Pity poor Luca Badoer, who has managed to become the embodiment of the perfect anti-climax. The newest publication of Webster's dictionary will simply have his photo next to the word "bathos". And all because he was turned to in order to drive a car by the desperate Ferrari management after Michael Schumacher pulled the plug on his return. Badoer will arrive in Valencia to the most underwhelming fanfare since George W. Bush’s re-election party.

And, if Schumacher would have faced something of a no-win scenario, then Badoer is in an even more impossible position. Despite virtually no time in the car (save a two day corporate bimble earlier this week), if Badoer turns out to be as slow as he probably should be given the circumstances, it will simply produce plenty of "LOLCA BADOER!" forum posts across the land, whereas had Schumacher done something similar, the excuses and justifications for an out-of-practice driver struggling to get on the pace would have been endless.

So, what can Supa Luca hope to do in his first, and just possibly only, Ferrari drive of his career? Well, despite the huge difference in age and experience, his instructions should be the same as Jaime Alguersuari's were in Hungary. Stay out of trouble, don't make any obvious mistakes, and just get through the weekend. Should Badoer do that, he has every chance of finally breaking his pointless duck on the sport. Badoer is currently the record holder for the most GPs entered without scoring a point. But surely, surely, he must have a chance of a point or two in a Ferrari?

- That pesky championship

What with the drama of Massa's accident, the shock of Hamilton's win, and the subsequent soap opera over Schumacher's return, it has been quite easy to ignore the fact that there's a world championship still being fought out away from all of the headlines. Red Bull got a taste of what Brawn GP have been experiencing recently at the Hungaroring, getting soundly beaten by others having formerly been the form team, but the team largely put that down to the high downforce, technical track. The caffeinated ones were relatively awful at Monaco as well, let's not forget.

In all likelihood, Red Bull remain the most competitive package, and around a track nominally referred to as a "street circuit", but in reality having more in common with Montreal than Monaco, they should become the team to beat once again. And if that is the case, then attention will turn to whether Brawn GP have managed to solve their sudden lack of pace over the summer weeks, and if so, to what extent. Ross Brawn has said that their team's sudden drop-off in pace following Jenson Button's Massa-replacement-esque start to the season is down to a new part on the car not quite working as it should, but the team seem baffled as to which part and why.

While Button remains nominally the title favourite, a lead of 18.5 points over Mark Webber with 7 races to go still sounds imposing enough, with the Aussie eating into Button's points lead at a rate of knots, the team can only really afford another race or two in the doldrums of the midfield. Should they be able to do little to sort their problems this weekend, Button et al will have to rely on the Red Bull drivers continuing to take points off each other, and McLaren and Ferrari continuing their renaissance and taking points off everyone in order to limp towards the championship. Which isn't really impressive stuff at all.

- Bums on seats

All things considered, be it due to the "economic downturn", apathy from the fans or some sort of Scientology plot, it has not been a great year for Formula One in terms of spectator numbers. Malaysian GP organisers were reduced to flogging tickets for Friday and Saturday for pennies on the door, the Turkish Grand Prix devoted entire grandstands to massive advertising nonsense simply because there was nobody in them to obscure the view, and now there is the miserable life of a Valencia ticket tout.

Stories of how bad spectator numbers will be have fluctuated wildly as the rollercoaster summer break has unfolded. Initial figures from before the Hungarian Grand Prix had less than 30% of the tickets available snapped up, then faces slumped when Renault and Fernando Alonso were banned from their home race, lifted again when Schumacher announced his second coming, dropped lower than ever when he cried off with his neck issues, and most recently will have cautiously raised again following Renault's predictable reinstatement.

Despite the late re-entry of Spain's favourite son, and some other bloke in Renault's other car, it is still likely that Friday and Saturday at least will be somewhat empty. Though it would be a shame if Alonso's fans chose to sit at home on Saturday, given the chance of the reinstated hero blitzing his way to a front row start with around 300 yards-wroth of fuel in his car.

- The long game

Toyota, who have unsurprisingly been largely forgotten over recent races as they slid back down to their traditional anonymous midfield position, arrive at Valencia talking up their hopes for the rest of the season, which is largely because they have to. At the start of the season, the message from the Toyota powers that be was simple. Win a race this year and you get to stay in F1 for a while longer.

But now that first win seems further away than ever, despite the minor victories of the early season, which saw them monopolise the front row of the grid in Bahrain. The team is nominally the sixth-quickest team on the grid or thereabouts right now, and their chances of securing that first win they have craved since they entered the sport in 2002 with hope in their hearts and the same livery they still have now seem as far away as ever.

Toyota may have signed the new Concorde Agreement, to govern the sport from 2010 onwards, but that does not mean that their future in the sport is certain. And should that victory prove impossible for Jarno Trulli or Timo Glock to secure, BMW might not be the only manufacturer running away by the end of the year.

Track Facts

Valencia Street Circuit
Number of Laps: 57
Circuit Length: 5.419 km
Race Distance: 308.883 km
Lap Record: 1:38.708 (Felipe Massa - 2009)
2008 pole: Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
2008 winner: Felipe Massa (Ferrari)

Timetable

Friday 21st August
Free Practice 1 - 10:00 (Local Time) / 09.00 (BST)
Free Practice 2 - 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)

Saturday 22nd August
Free Practice 3 - 11.00 (Local Time) / 10.00 (BST)
Qualifying - 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)

Sunday 23rd August
Race - 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)

Race Revisited - 1997

What with there only having been one Valencia race, you may think we'd struggle here, but there have been loads of European Grands Prix at other circuits. And in terms of incident, has there ever been an F1 race so full of drama, so full of controversy, so full of the depressing scent of pragmatic win-at-all-costs attitudes pumping squarely in the face of sporting dignity than the climactic, community service-inducing, knockabout palarver that was the 1997 European GP at Jerez.

And that doesn't just refer to that incident on lap 48, which saw Michael Schumacher ruin his season and his reputation with one swing of his steering wheel, but to the other skullduggery that went on that day as well, the incidents that tends to pale into the background of the main event whenever the race is discussed.

Along with Schumie's driving, there was Williams swapping the order of their cars, and McLaren essentially forming a pact with Williams to stop Schumacher from taking the title, with the Silver Arrows spoiling the German's race early on and then being handed a 1-2 finish late on as a way of saying "thank you" by Villeneuve. Tactics just as dubious as anything Schumacher did, but somehow overlooked in the post-Jerez witch hunt against the pointy-chinned German. It was a surreal title decider in which, when you take a step back and look at it objectively, nobody really won.

Watch Schumacher ruin Villeneuve's sidepod here, watch Mika Hakkinen get handed his first ever GP win on a plate here, or watch ITV's Simon Taylor and Tony Jardine get hilariously self-righteous over Schumacher's actions here. "Look what I'm doing!" screams Jardine as he gratuitiously flings his Ferrari cap to the floor.

One Year Ago

Twelve months ago, the entertainment value provided by the European GP may go further to explaining this year's ticket sales than anything else. Around a circuit that at times only looked half-finished, the F1 boys provided a dire spectacle. Not that Felipe Massa did much complaining after the race, having sauntered to a fantastic win from pole position. His only sticky moment came during Ferrari's last round of pit stops. Firstly Massa was seemingly released into the path of Adrian Sutil, receiving nothing more than a post-race reprimanded and a €10,000 fine, which kicked off another joyous round of "FIArrari!!!" moaning. Then, Kimi Raikkonen was released too early from his pitbox by the nifty traffic-light system the Italian team used, and ran over one of his mechanics, before comically retiring a few laps later. But in terms of action, that was about it. Oh, wait, Nakas overtook someone towards the end. That was exciting.

Need a nap? Read about the narcoleptic fantasy that was the 2008 European GP here.

Lewis Hamilton - 3/1 (Stan James)
Sebastian Vettel - 7/2 (SportingBet)
Mark Webber - 11/2 (Betfred)
Jenson Button - 8/1 (Betfred)
Fernando Alonso - 12/1 (Betfred)

Patty's Tip - Some of the odds for this race look a bit ropey. Hamilton the favourite? Really? Alonso fifth favourite? Why? But then Alonso is also 12/1 for the pole position, and given the scene, Spanish driver, Spanish crowd, team with penchant for chronically compromising race strategy to nab a headline-grabbing grid slot, and it may well be worth a punt.

On Patronise

F1 is back after the break, and so is Patronise F1's "unrivalled" coverage. You can follow all the action from throughout the weekend with live textual coverage of the whole weekend, from Friday's pair of dawdling sessions, through to Saturday's tiresome practice hour, the all-important qualifying session and the ultra-dull spectacle of the race. We'll also have reports, opinion and, of course, Fifth Column. You'd literally have to be insane to contemplate reading missing it.