Hungary F1

The Hungarian F1 race proved there’s little as uncertain as certainty.

At the start, some would have said that Hamilton was certain to take off from pole position and leave everyone behind until he passed the line and collected a win.

A few seconds later, he was certain to have a fight on his hands and would retake the lead from Massa, the latter having less fuel and running lighter, so Hamilton just had to pass around fuelling time, if his performance didn’t allow him to do soon earlier.

Sometime later, it was certain that Hamilton was not only not going to catch and pass Massa, but was going to lose his championship lead as puncture sent him to the pits and back down he places, leaving Massa certain to collect maximum points, and maybe none at all for Hamilton.

Then Hamilton spoiled things by managing to get his puncture repaired quickly and get back on track in a position that meant he’d pick up some points and maybe not drop back so far from the lead - there goes that certainty we’d had all day.

Then Ferrari had to really spoil things by giving Massa a duff engine, leaving him stranded three laps from the finish, certain only to be picking up no points at all, after spending most of the race certain to pick up maximum points.

And while he didn’t make it to the podium, Hamilton thwarted the uncertainty bug by succumbing to its effect when he didn’t win, but then beating it by retaining his position at the top of the driver’s points table, thanks to the finishing positions of his challengers.

Three weeks and no testing until they come out to play - that’s certainly going to be interesting to see what happens in this next phase of the competition, and what surprises are pulled out of the various hats as we head on the downhill stretch of this season.

I don’t really care how it goes - well, I suppose I do have a preference - and would like to see Hamilton make to the top, and rub Alonso’s nose in the title after the rat ruined last year for everyone. I don’t know how folk react to this guy, but his body language always looks suspect to me, he seems to be head bowed and hiding all the time, and I would never trust him as far as I could throw him.

Germany F1

An intriguing twist to the driver’s championship, with what amounted to a resetting of the three top contenders at the halfway stage.

After the start, things settled down and it looked as if Ferrari were succumbing to a bad weekend with mediocre describing their best, and disappointing their next best. Unusual, and all the more so after their settings proved less than ideal in the wetness of the last race. Their next outing will show if this is a pattern, or if it’s just coincidence.

Relatively unusual, component failure ruined one driver’s day, fortunately that appears to be all that was ruined for him, but the incident provided an opprtunity for ITV’s commentators to shift into overdrive as they attempted to predict the outcome for McLaren and Hamilton.

Our guides moved from puzzlement to amazement as they tried to work out when he would pit, why he didn’t pit, how he had, or had not, lost the race as a result of pittting, or not pitting, and then decided those issues were all worthy of being forgotten, as they redicsovered the vocabulary needed to describe not one, but two overtaking maneuvres.

The maneuvres were fair, there was token defence, and I’m reminded of my earlier musings about the “old” days when schumacher and Senna were defending their championship chances, and when such maueuvres were not so keenly scrutinised by race officials, and rather than merely coming close, both challenger and defender might be found to spin out of the race.

They may not have scored any points, but by not finsihing , the leader guaranteed maintaining their lead, and the challenger got no closer.

Britain F1

When I started jotting down some thoughts about each of the F1 races I didn’t think any of my ramblings would be worth referring back to, but maybe I was wrong.

One of my early thoughts was triggered by what I saw as a degree of unpredictability in the forthcoming season. For me, at least, the first few results didn’t show any dominance, and halfway through the season it seems that everything is far from predictable, and we have four drivers with almost the same points tally. What they had after the last race means nothing, as does the current tally, as the only total that will eventually matter is the one arrived after the last race.

After the last race, I also mentioned something that seemed to be absent, and that was the ability that Schumacher had demonstrated, when he and his Ferrari could take an apparently poor start in bad conditions, and turn it into a crushing race victory. Well, I have to eat my words again, as Hamilton and McLaren took a 4th on the starting grid, and a race that went in and out of the rain, and converted those two potential race losers into a win that made the rest of the grid look as if they had stopped somewhere for a tea-break.

There’s no point in dismissing that as a one-off either. Developments and strategies change from race to race, as do track conditions and even the driver’s attitude - and the current attack on Hamilton by the scumbags of the press (who remembers that there once used to be a phrase “Gentlemen of the press” in the dim and distant past?) - which means that once a team sees something work, and work well, they’ll do whatever they can to capitalise on it.

At this stage, I still wouldn’t want to bet a penny of my own hard-earned on any given outcome.

Well, maybe that Ferrari will walk off with the constructor’s trophy, that’s probably reasonably safe.

Canada F1

Just noticed that these F1 thoughts are the only thing bringing me back here at the moment - that’s what happens when you get diverted elsewhere. Although it’s fair to say the the WP service/servers seem to have become very slow, and the media side has become all but useless since they revised it. Every time I try to upload and insert an image, the thing just stop dead after saving the image, and I have to go and find out the image address manually, and then insert it by hand, so it all just takes too long now.

There’s not a lot to say about Canada.

While one might anticipate anything but what was expected to happen to actually happen, with “that wall” playing a big part if anyone makes the slightest slip, the crashes that took the leaders out was one that very few might have predicted.

I do seem to be saying the same thing more often, and that’s that the current result is a bit of a break from the expected norm, and well get back to that norm next time out, but it looks as if I’m going to be saying it a few more times if things carry on after the present pattern. Or will things suddenly slot into the “expected” format all of a sudden, and we’ll see things go something more along (at least partially) predictable lines?

I don’t bet, so I’m not even going to try and answer that one, just keep watching, and see if there are any more surprises left in the box.

Monaco, F1

It’s all feely ever so slightly spooky this week, after my ramblings following Turkey’s race.

To recap, I’d ventured to compare McLaren and Hamilton with Ferrari and Schumacher, noting that the Ferrari combination seemed to be able to pull victory from defeat in a way that, in Turkey at least, the McLaren combination couldn’t emulate.

Of course, no sooner do I commit myself to such an observation, than I have it thrown back at me. Not only did Monaco see McLaren and Hamilton pull off such a victory (which, had it been Ferrari and Schumacher would have had endless streams of “Yet again, Ferrari and Schumacher have wiped the floor yada yada yada…” ) they really did snatch victory from the jaws of defeat as the winning strategy came after a slip in the wet that could easily have put both car and driver into retiral. They got very little praise, I think, for something that would have netter Ferrari endless stories in the pub about a great victory, and unlike criticism of Hamilton for slipping, Schumacher would have had tales of his “great skill” in minimising the damage to a mere blown tyre when the nasty wet road made his car slide away from under him - such the power of godliness.

Whether it’s down to this year’s rule changes, the teams, car design, or drivers, this year’s conclusion is anything but a foregone conclusion, and if we carry on as we are, things could be close all the way to the end, and hopefully not because some useless driver decides to do whatever he can to engineer a win for himself at everyone else’s expense.

Labour governments sneaks in secret taxes

Since I usually manage to avoid using words like scumbags, or making overtly political remarks like ’sneaky Labour government’, I’ll avoid the temptation to use them in this post and start a bad habit, and just direct readers to some articles in the Times Online, which give details of some taxes that the incumbent government and its nice minister have failed to announce in a loud, clear, and distinct voice, but which will be noticed by most who have an older, larger vehicle on the road.

Apparently you need not worry about the increased costs and lossed (depreciation) that has eroded the value of your vehicle, because you can dispose of it (ignoring the loss on the sale) and replace it with a nice, shiney new one that doesn’t suffer from the same costs.

Ah, the magical logic of politicians that don’t have to worry about any costs of living, like the peasants they ‘represent’, and act on behalf of…

Road-tax hike makes thousands of family cars almost worthless

Secret tax adds £200 to cost of running family cars

Threat of fuel protests returns as cost of petrol hits £5 a gallon

Jaguar TAT

So, Jaguar has finally shuffled out of yet another owner’s overcoat and gained a new master.

I didn’t really have any preconceived ideas about where this takeover would go, and the Indian car company Tata has produced some interesting vehicles since its beginnings in locomotives back in the mid 1940s, been tied in with Mercedes-Benz to move into trucks a few years later, and gone on to grow and gobble up a few other car companies, such as Daewoo, together with some other company ties to let it move into other vehicle market segments.

The finale of the current run of Channel Five’s motoring programme saw one of their (less noteworthy) reporters despatched to the Geneva Motor Show, and after he’d satisfied his childish desire to get some gratuitous shots of the bimbos draping the cars (and show that they knew nothing about them) he started to earn his over-sized pay-check by actually looking at some of the cars on display.

Significantly, he started with the lowest priced car at the show (I seem to recall he said he was going to cover the cost spectrum, but I think his one brain cell got worn out on the way to the most expensive, and the plan was forgotten, or just leaked away). This, not surprisingly, was the Tata Nano, which has been doing the rounds of all the news feeds, notable for its price tag - around £1,500 in UK terms - and the fact that the story always says “But that low price doesn’t really matter, as there are no plans to bring the car to Britain”.

It would appear that the reason is not because of UK legislation regarding car construction and use, but simply because the Nano would probably disintegrate on it way over here.

When the Fifth Gear reporter tried to poke and prod the Nano to see how well made it was, the Tata representative grabbed him and warned him not to touch the car. When he started to ask questions, he got not answers, and when he asked why he couldn’t touch the car (which you can do to most cars at car shows - even the likes of Porsche and Rolls Royce will let the scruff on their stands, under supervison) he got some crazy story about them having to spend all of the previous night repairing the car after someone touched it during the previous day.

When Ford owned Jaguar, the reviewers bemoaned the appearance of the odd knob, switch, button, or stalk from the Ford part bin. What might the future hold for them with their new owner, who has no luxury car parts bin whatsoever to dip into?

Like the Fifth Gear reporter said:

Take the A off TATA and what are you left with?

Smile, your on CCTV - and fined!

A little while ago, I was moved to write about Automated Guilty Verdicts, and was basically suggesting that there seemed to be an increasing dependence on cameras to be Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

This trend is continuing, and STV’s Tonight programme, due to be broadcast on Friday, March 28, 2008, features the next incarnation of this method of acquiring convictions against ‘Soft Targets’. The programme looks at the introduction next week of regulations which mean that councils will be able to issue parking tickets based solely on CCTV evidence. Jonathan Maitland meets the parking rebels who say the new laws will lead to innocent drivers being falsely accused of crimes they have not committed.

We’ll have to see the programme to understand the full implications, and the concerns being raised by the so-called ‘Parking Rebels’, however there is little doubt that the trivialisation of the process that leads to the issuing of a fine, by degrading the legal system to allow it to be issued solely on CCTV is a matter for concern to all.

While there’s no argument regarding the use of CCTV evidence to obtain a conviction, the crucial principle to date has been that the evidence it presents is reviewed in court, by those charged with deciding the verdict, and in the context of other evidence and circumstances. Viewing CCTV images that simply placed the accused at a scenes without further evidence to back up the context is highly suspect, and downright dangerous in terms of justice - but perhaps justice is not the ultimate aim, and like other camera systems, despite claims to the contrary, the real aim is just the usual filling of coffers.

You should be concerned about this, and a quick look at the many TV programmes that feature endless hours of CCTV content should be a warning that the quality of such imagery as evidence is often lacking, and subject to mis-interpretation without witnesses to back it up in context.

We have already seen private parking companies misuse photographic evidence (it may even have been the Tonight programme that revealed their dubious operating practices), where their operators would position themselves on roads/streets their companies were contracted to patrol, and take digital photographs of any vehicles that stopped on the road. They would then use those images to issue fines, with the threat of escalating charges if not paid immediately. The only trouble was that the operators were taking their ‘Evidence Photographs’ whenever a vehicle stopped, including the dropping of passengers, deliveries, or even just when the traffic stationary in the road. If your wheels stopped rotating, one of these operators would pop out of hiding, photographs the vehicle to catch the registration number, and trigger the issue of a fine. When challenged, the operators did point out that the streets carried signage to make it clear that fines would be issued to any vehicles that stopped, however, without stopping to get out and find the sign, and read the small print, driver’s had little chance of being aware of what was happening.

Will council CCTV parking fines be issued with similar relish?

Will this become Scotland’s ‘Top-Up’ for its declining Council Tax?

Will an operator be sitting at screen, noting the numbers (I presume they will not be using APNRS) of any vehicle not moving in the controlled area - without even having to be there and see why - and plugging them into the fine-issuing machine, confident that few will have the time or money available to challenge the charge?

Mercedes pips Toyota Prius

I’ve always considered the Toyota Prius little more than a marketing con. Not that that’s Toyota’s fault, more the idiot greenies that do little more than whine endlessly and generate hot air. In the the face of their griping, it’s little wonder that the car industry will promote any development that might shut them up. That said, the Prius is so bad as a ‘green solution’ that a quick hunt around the web shows a number of analyses of its real world performance that show it to be less than green in reality, when driven ‘normally’.

Note however, that I’m not knocking the Prius, I’m kicking the hype that has been attached to it, the technology it pioneered will get better as the supporting hardware develops, but I don’t think the poor car will ever recover from having been adopted by every overpaid American film star that wants to be photographed in one, to prove that they have ‘green credentials’, and will forget that they spew tonnes of CO2 as they jet around the world needlessly in their private planes.

As luxury car manufacturers, and therefore deadly enemy of the greenies, Mercedes may be spared the film star credibility treatment, however they have advanced the hybrid car concept by upgrading the technology to provide measurable improvement over the same car in their range when powered by a conventional engine.

The S 400 BlueHYBRID is powered by a 299 horsepower engine that enables it to sprint from 0 to 100 km per hour in 7.3 seconds.

It would consume on average 7.9 litres of gasoline per 100 km and emit 190 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, compared with 10.3 litre of gasoline and 247 grams of CO2 in a comparable conventional S-Class.

The car will be the world’s most economical luxury sedan, the company said, and the technology used is the result of 25 patents held by Daimler. Daimler said the main advantages of the newly developed lithium-ion battery were its very compact dimensions and far superior performance relative to conventional nickel-metal hybrid batteries such as those powering the Toyota Prius.

Expect to see the greenies rubbishing the technology, and playing the same old record of “WALK”.

More automated GUILTY verdicts

I still can’t work up any enthusiasm for the various uses that cameras, technology, and software are being increasingly combined in order to net what can only be called Soft Targets, and decree them GUILTY of whatever offence they are programmed to detect.

We have speed cameras (disguised as safety cameras), red light cameras, and now the hunt is underway for the car occupancy camera, able to count the number of live bodies in a car, and automatically issue fines to any cars with only one occupant in a designated car-sharing lane.

I have no issue with the capture and conviction of offenders, but there is seems to be an increasing zeal in the creation of systems which can have some sort of trigger point set, and anyone that trips it is assumed GUILTY of the corresponding offence, and issued with a Fixed Penalty. This is accompanied by simultaneous initiation of a legal process which will lead to the escalation of the offence, and penalty, if the Fixed Penalty is not cleared in the allotted time interval, and can eventually have the police on your doorstep with a warrant.

This means we have a system that says you are guilty if any one of these systems ’sees’ you, and you have been tried and convicted of whatever offence they are programmed to watch out for. If you wish to contest the penalty that has been served on you, YOU have to appeal, go to court, and spend time and money to prove your innocence. Not only that, there is a time limit in place, and if you don’t act fast enough, the opportunity will be lost, and those nice police officers will be knocking at your door with that warrant again.

I don’t want to get down to the nit-picking level of describing or arguing situations where the cameras get it wrong - sufficient to say that cases are dismissed, and circumstances are presented which nulify their guilty verdict.

There is also the crazy situation we have now where insurance companies have advised their clients, if stopped, NOT to pull forward and pass through a red traffic light to allow the police, ambulance, or fire service to pass, as they will trigger the camera and be issued with a fixed penalty that can only be cancelled by going to court, and that their appeal is unlikely to succeed.

Now that there are so many programmes following the police around as they try to do their job, I find it almost incredible that a camera can be set up to record potential driving offenders, and issue fines and guilty verdicts automatically, while at the same time a team of police officers that apprehend a individual carrying a bag of tools, and the proceeds of a burglary, cannot secure a conviction based on the evidence they have, and many of the the stories end with the poor victim claiming he just found them, or that he can’t actually be placed at the scene, and is released without charge.

How about a camera system linked to burglar alarm that takes a picture of the nearest person to a burglary, identifies them viasome face-matching software to known burglars, and then issues them with a fixed penalty? If they want to argue that it wasn’t them, then they can appeal against the the fine or conviction.

Better still, develop the camera so it is a bit smarter, and can read the target’s DNA, then all it will have to do is match it to someone on the forthcoming National DNA Database, and we can do away with the need to have any sort of human intervention in the process at all.