Cheating Bastards are what makes Formula 1 so fun

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Sad sad sad. What you saw was Michael Schumacher at Monaco on Saturday, just after setting fastest lap during qualifying. For a while, the official line was, the Ferrari's back end 'slipped out,' forcing Michael on an errant line and having to stop in the middle of the track so as to not hit the barriers. What happened next is somewhat vague, but reportedly his car either stalled, or he chose not to reverse, in order to avoid a collision with following cars taking that blind turn.

Unfortunately, the following cars included the Renault of Fernando Alonso, who was on a lap that probably would have beaten Michael's. But the final session of qualifying was almost over, and when the yellow flags came out due to the track obstruction, neither Alonso nor anyone else could do a better lap.

The Monaco Grand Prix is the oldest track on the schedule. It is basically a street race on medieval European-width roads with the cars that do 800HP, 4G, and 180MPH. Passing is simply impossible for humans. Since the race is basically a fast parade interrupted by pit stop drama, qualifying is where the actual race happens.

Because of how important qualifying results and grid position is, just about nobody believes Schumacher or Ferrari. For a seven-time World Champion to make a mistake like that is suspicious enough. But you can actually see in the video that the engine didn't stall, he shut it off!

Half an hour ago he just got stripped of his pole position, so he starts from last place.

All this makes me quite happy.

For one, Ferrari got penalized. As petty as that sounds, it should be disclaimed by all the times Ferrari have gotten special treatment from the FIA in the past decade. In my view, I associate them with most of the reasons why F1 isnt a more well known, and better sport. That's a different post though.

But I'll admit somewhat contradictory to this, I'm also happy because they did cheat. Not because they got caught, but because they tried to literally cheat their way to victory and lie to the world about it with half a straight face.

I watch F1 almost purely for that aspect, people doing whatever they can to win. Some of the funnier stories on Pulp Racing (see link to right) go on in this vein.

Cheating is part of the F1 heritage, and always makes for the best stories. Mostly they take the form of stories of genius engineers like Colin Chapman (who started Lotus) and Gordon Murray (who designed the McLaren F1 supercar) taking advantage of every loophole they could find in the regulations, and coming up with things like ground effect aerodynamics, turbines that literally suck air from under the chassis for downforce, and double chassis with sprung cockpits (This enabled cars to get literally as close to the ground as possible. The sprung cockpit was so the drivers didn't vibrate their teeth to pieces). And all of this was back in the 70's.

Basically, the craziest shit happens when people cheat. Cheating is fun, to do and to watch. I'm talking about the sort of cheating where nobody gets hurt, except other teams. But they have such absurdly high budgets that it's hard to feel sorry for them. They should have thought of it earlier.

So I say to Ferrari, haha suckers, you're awesome.

Nothing Much Going On

Sometimes I wish newspapers would use that as a top headline, maybe perhaps in bold and large font like they do when somebody loses a huge war. My life would somehow seem more complete on that day. What the hell is a complete life anyway? Maybe I'll save that rant for another day.

Formula 1 is at the Nurburgring this weekend. That is in Germany, near Toyota F1's Cologne headquarters. The 'Ring's special F1 track has the special distinction of being the most boring track for drivers on the schedule. But more and more I'm beginning to think F1 is about noise, fast cars, and money. For instance, I'm never going to be able to drive on that track in a 2006-spec F1 car, so why do I care how fun it is to drive on? I wonder where passing is on that list

I got an email from Nicole, who was a friend a long time ago. But I think I got too 'deep' in my response, and now I think Nicole will continue her habit of taking years between trying to contact me. I just think it's common courtesy that if someone just wants to write me a superficial hello email, they should type "THIS IS A SUPERFICIAL HELLO EMAIL" in the subject line.

I can't understand why people send Superficial Hello Emails anyway. Maybe they just want me to know they are doing fine, that they are not dead or whoring themselves on the street for crack or paying down a life debt in the yakuza or whatever. I guess that's fine, but honestly, I think I would rather prefer an email from the latter.

So Goodbye Nicole, it's like I just recently never knew you all over again.

In better news, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is probably the single most entertaining anime I've seen in years. It is currently airing. I think I will write about its awesomeness in my next post.