Month: March 2010

March 14, 2010
Max F1

F1 Race report – Farce 1 – Bahrain

Having just endured the first F1 race of the year, I am finding it a little difficult to express my disappointment.

First off let me mention the broadcast time. The race started at 5AM for me. In order to watch it live I would have needed to get out of bed at 04:30, give the clocks changed this weekend, that works out as 3:30AM. I am not usually at my best then. Until Bernie realizes that the world does not revolve around CET, I guess that this is about as good as it gets.

I started watching the race at around 6AM, skipping the build-up and only dropping from 32x to 1x during the warm-up lap.

Prior to the race there was much speculation that the first corner would be problematic, however apart from Mark Webber laying down a smoke screen that would have made Q-Branch proud, it was pretty much a none event.

Sadly that phrase springs to mind for the rest of the race too. The race quickly settled into a procession with no driver able to overtake without a significant car advantage.

But, lets rewind a little, some time ago the FIA (Ferrari International Assistance) announced that in 2010 there would be a ban on refueling as the majority of the ‘changes to position’ were brought about due to fuel stops and those with the best strategy computers generally rose to the surface. occasionally the logic broke, but in general the race became among the strategic teams.

The ban on in-race refueling has forced the cars to carry an entire race worth of fuel in their car from the start of the race to the flag. Add to this a narrower front tire and team-wide acceptance of the ‘double diffuser’ that emerged in 2009 and you have cars that start very heavy, then gradually get lighter and lighter as the race goes on, but also cars that have more rear-end grip (via the diffuser) and less front end mechanical grip (tires). You do not need an advanced degree in aerodynamics to figure out that the cars are going to be unbalanced and any instance of ‘dirty air’ will reduce the front end grip to, well, not much.

…..and the double diffuser produces a lot of dirty air.

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March 11, 2010
Max F1

F1 Bahrain Predictions

Friday predictions…..

This will be the first time that we will even see some of the cars on track and I expect that Friday will be far from ‘incident free’. The Campos HRT cars will be rubbish, they will be at least five seconds / lap off the pace, or slightly faster than the Virgin cars, maybe. Lotus will be faster, but not by a great deal. Up at the front the McLaren and RedBull cars will be leading the way, much to the annoyance of everyone that has not got a ‘stalling’ rear wing or Adrian Newey on the design team. Ferrari and Mercedes will be close, but the infighting will somehow detract. Yes this is race one and there will be a lot of tension in the team.

The shock of the session with be Kamakazi sticking in a blindingly fast lap and overtaking an ‘on the limit’ Schumacher around the outside of turn 19 and heading the timesheets for a few minutes. Sauber may well prove to be the best of the rest at times on Friday, again much to the annoyance of many.

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March 11, 2010
Max Life

Job Board Spam !

Spam, Spam, Spam

During my current job hunt I have signed up for a number of job board that promise the opportunity to search for interesting and applicable jobs. Every morning I look forward to seeing the latest job postings that my searches find and every morning, along with the searches, I get Spam.

Of the well known job boards,  Monster.com is easily the best, this is despite the rather confusing advertising offering me opportunities ranging from at-home degree studies to insurance and personal finance products. Monster has many very interesting opportunities, but because it is not the only board, I have signed up for many others.

Given that unemployment is a serious problem in the US at the moment, I would wager that a significant number of people are treading the same path towards employment at the moment. We, the unemployed, are all signed up for many e-mail alerts and many job boards.

We want to work, in many cases, we need to work as we have to keep a roof over our heads and pay our way. Which makes it all the more annoying to find that I keep getting spam e-mails.

My Spam experience started relatively lightly, with ‘offers’ to work in completely unrelated fields. I am a software product and project manager, not an insurance salesman (Farmers and State Farm, I am looking at you), every single day I get ‘selected by a senior recruiter’ to join the fast paced world of insurance sales and frankly I am a tad board with it. Nothing about my resume shouts ‘salesman’, everything shouts ‘software geek’, I called one of the numbers and after listening to an over excited, ultra enthusiastic man waffle on about how thrilling the experience of selling insurance is, I felt that I needed a nap and could probably not keep up without hourly doses of Red Bull.

The second type of spam is a little more difficult to quantify, this is the ‘baad speelin’ e-mail trying to get you to click on a link.

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March 9, 2010
Max Driving, Life

F1 Prediction

Every year I try to predict the F1 season, this year I think I will go public with those predictions.

Lets get the big predictions out of the way up-front.

The 2010 Championship will go down to the wire between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, these two are the only truly top flight contenders with experience of their respective teams. of the other contenders, Alonso and Schumacher are both new to their teams and will struggle at times when their expectations are not fully realized, Webber is not up to Vettel’s standards, nor is Massa and Button is really a rank outsider in a new team. So it will go down the wire to Hamilton and Vettel. Of the two it probably comes down to a combination of their experience and the team’s ability to give them the car to do the job. having flipped a coin I say Vettel will get it done, but not by very much.

2010 Champion – Sebastian Vettel

The team title is tough too, with fours top teams that all stand a decent chance, for once there are four teams in the hunt too, Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes. Again RedBull have the continuity advantage, Mclaren have two champions, Mercedes have Schumacher and Ferrari have Alonso and Massa. Personally I feel that Mercedes do not have the strength of team to win, sure Schumacher may win races, but Rosberg has not show enough himself to be consistently good enough in my view. The same goes for Massa. Which brings us to McLaren. Button is fast when everything is running his way, but as soon as something is wrong he stops trying and falls out of the points. Webber too is inconsistent and can be an accident magnet at time. Going out on a limb though I think that the constructors title can only have one of two possible homes, Red Bull or Ferrari. Assuming the Massa/Alonso relationship can be managed, Ferrari will do it, Massa needs to impress as it is contract time too, so…..

2010 Constructors – Ferrari

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March 2, 2010
Max Life

We Got the Parcel

My father sent me an e-mail earlier today to thank me for the parcel that I sent to him.

I sent it on Friday afternoon.

It is now Tuesday.

My father lives several thousand miles away, back in the UK.

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