RTE SportAt this point, a couple of championship series are underway, and a big one about to begin. The WRC is underway, and Miko Hirvonen drew first blood with a narrow win over Sebastian Loeb in the snow at the Swedish Rally. This championship is already off to a great start with the 2 major rivals from last year going at it. Their team mates finished 3rd and 4th, to leave Ford and Citroen neck and neck in the manufacturers battle after round 1. Good stuff. Petter Solberg in his new car finished a disappointing 9th. We can now look forward to Rally Mexico where Ken Block of Rally America fame will get to play with the big boys.
World Superbike got underway at Phillip Island, Australia. Brit Leon Haslam came first in the first race and second in the second on his Suzuki to lead the championship after the first round. Carlos Checa won the second race on the Ducati. the BMWs finished 9th (Corser) and 15th (Pitt), and then 7th (Corser) and 15th (Pitt). Moto GP still has a while to go until the first race in April, but Rossi has broken his own pole record at Sepang while in testing.
One gets underway this month, but the off-season circus continues. Schumacher says it is all coming back to him rapidly, but make no mistake who is top dog at Mercedes. Hamilton is trying to play nice with his new world champion teammate. Alonso claims the Ferrari is his best car ever, so look out. The Williams package seems surprisingly good. BMW Sauber is now owned again by Sauber, and is running a Ferrari engine, so it actually has nothing to do with BMW ! Virgin and Lotus owners have a bet going as to who will do better with the loser having to wear a female flight attendant outfit. Lastly,USF1 has now officially thrown in the towel, after a couple months of rumors to that effect. This is a sad day for US F1 fans and a real mess for Peter Windsor. I wonder if its too late to get his commenting job back ?
USF1 was a disaster, and it will make it almost impossible to try this again in the US anytime soon. Shame…
Boy, that Lotus livery looks good. With the Renault bumblebee, the Virgin black/red, and others, the cars at least look good. Too bad about USF1, it would have been good to have them on the grid, but if they were going to be an embarassment, this end might be better.
McManic
Dear Peter,
A great shame for all. You just can’t do F1 without some serious money behind you initially.
Cheers
Dear McManic,
The grid does look more colorful this year, I’m rooting for the new teams to do surprisingly well. Amen on the USF1 thing. Thanks for commenting.
Cheers