Patronise F1

And so, Formula One is done for yet another year, and Fifth Column celebrates by wringing the last bit of humour out of the season, before finally handing out the long-awaited awards in the finale of TUF1WCIAWCC 2011.

The HRT Locker - No Cash, No Hope

Colin: And that's the end of that.
Daniel: 11th place in the championship, boss. That's bonza, strewth, like.
Colin: Yes, that extra money will come in handy next year.
Tonio: Ah, so we're doing some development this time.
Colin: Well, probably not, no.
Daniel: Or wining and dining some new sponsers, strewth, mate, cobba?
Colin: Not exactly, no. We need the money for other things.
Tonio: Such as?
Colin: Getting a stairlift installed for when Pedro gets here. The last thing we want him to do is break a hip.

Not The F1 Newswire - The headline you probably won't read next week

Ferrari laugh off 'team order' speculation
The Ferrari team have denied that the reason Fernando Alonso's pace dropped off on his final stint in the Brazilian GP was simply because the team had ordered him to drop back to stop Felipe Massa from looking bad.

After Alonso seemed on course for a podium finish midway through the race, while Massa was dawdling around miles off the pace in front of his home crowd, Alonso dropped back over the final stages, losing third to Jenson Button and eventually finishing just 30 seconds ahead of Massa by the end.

The internet erupted in conspiracy theories after the race, suggesting that Ferrari had ordered Alonso to slow up in order to prevent him from humiliating Massa in front of the Brazilian masses.

But team boss Stefano Domenicali rubbished suggestions that there had been any effort made by the team to manipulate the result, saying: "Fernando's problems were all down to the medium tyres, we have struggled on these all year.

"There was no effort made to give Felipe a morale-boosting result. He hasn't had one for 36 months, and we're not about to start handing them out now."

He added: "Fernando was pushing as hard as he could, but unfortunately our car is not good enough this year. We are working as hard as we can to improve this for next year. Or the year after that, or possibly 2014. But definitely at some point this decade."

Jonathan Legard's Unofficial Review of the Brazilian GP

"Oh wow, what an end to the season of twenty-eleven in the Brazilian Grand Prix there! Action all the way through the field there, and it was Webber from Vettel from Button from Alonso. But where is Lewis Hamilton! Oh no, he's stopped at the side of the track! That's not gone well at all there!

"And so we've reached the end of twenty-eleven, and the teams will now be pushing on a charge there with their new cars there. As for me? I'll be back on the BBC from next year now Martin's charged all the way to Sky Sports. Hello again, everyone!"

Overtakingwatch - The Overtaking Warning System

The Fifth Column OWS is designed to prepare and warn you of the possibility that you may see one car passing another car on the track during a grand prix.

Current Status: MISSION COMPLETE

And so, the season is over, and the OWS can be retired. Another race, even at somewhere as exciting as Interlagos, that featured no overtaking shows that the OWS really has succeeded this year.

In Brazil, there was some minor concern when the risk of rain reared its head, but we soon saw that off, and with no water on the track and the DRS zone in the wrong place, overtaking didn't stand a chance of interrupting our latest F1 procession.

So rejoyce, and come out of your bunkers, because thanks to the OWS, there will be no more overtaking in Formula One, thank you very much.

The Unofficial F1 World Championship In Association With Celtic Crosses 2011

Review: And so that is that, the fifth season of TUF1WCIAWCC is over, and we can now crown our new champions in all the usual categories.

2011 TUF1WCIAWCC Overall Champion: Is Kamui Kobayashi, who made a late burst from nowhere to secure the title by half a cross from Felipe Massa. Krazy Koba follows in the footsteps of the likes of Nico Rosberg (2007), Robert Kubica (2008), Sebastien Buemi (2009) and Mark Webber/Fernando Alonso (2010) in scooping the prize, and his trophy - which this year is an artistic piece designed to look like an empty bottle of Tesco Value gin, is available for him to collect from Patty HQ when he is next in the area. Congratulations to him.

2011 TUF1WCIAWCC Rookie Champion: Goes to part-season entry Daniel Ricciardo, who dropped back down behind Australian rival Mark Webber in the final standings, but still finished well ahead of the other rookies, four crosses clear of the next men Pastor Maldonado, Paul di Resta and Pirelli.

2011 TUF1WCIAWCC Constructors Champion: Is a shared award between Red Bull and Hispania Racing. The latter of which don't technically exist any more, but who can get half of their trophy if they fancy anyway.

2011 TUF1WCIAWCC Inanimate Object of the Season: The final award goes to the slightly controversial inanimate object of DRS Wings, who secured some early crosses and then failed to be overtaken by the likes of Istanbul Park, The BBC or Jan Charouz over the rest of the season.

So congratulations to our winners, commiserations to our losers, and roll on TUF1WCIAWCC 2012!

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Write comment

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment