Our man on the inside of F1 brings you the latest snippets of news and information in the run-up to the Japanese Grand Prix…
With Sebastian Vettel frankly boring the pants off anyone hoping to see a tightly contested F1 World Championship, the media have been scouting around for other stories in the hiatus between the Singapore and Japanese Grands Prix, and with drivers scattering to the four corners of the globe this week, there’s plenty of odd stuff to talk about.
McLaren
McLaren
Lewis the understudy
While Lewis Hamilton isn’t saying much on his public spat with Felipe Massa, he has found time to praise his team-mate. Malaysian newspaper The Star has Hamilton admitting Jenson Button has done a better job than him this year. Hamilton was speaking at an event in Bangalore, where 40,000 turned out to watch him drive his 2008 Championship-winning car. Given that ‘team-mate’ is just another way of saying ‘deadliest rival’, getting any driver to say nice things about the guy in the other car is pretty rare. No doubt the media will find some way of presenting it as a sign of despair rather than an honest, off-the-cuff and pretty magnanimous remark.
Korea goes Pop
Metallica are headlining this year’s F1 tour next month in India, but they’re going to face some competition in the popularity stakes when it comes to pitlane walkabouts. According to the Chosun Ilbo, Korean Grand Prix organisers have announced a mega K-Pop concert featuring 15 of Korea’s hottest music acts, including the decorous Girls’ Generation. The mechanics might not have all their records, but judging by the pictures we don’t think they’ll struggle to find someone to show them how a socket-wrench works. The K-Pop concert will take place on Saturday evening and be free for anyone with an F1 ticket.
RPM > BPM
Meanwhile, sticking with music, Autosport is reporting that DJ Squire has gone to the top of the Spanish iTunes download chart with his debut album, just five days after its release. This isn’t just Autosport taking a sabbatical to find itself and understand what sort of website it really wants to be, in his spare time DJ Squire likes to drive Formula One cars, usually under the assumed name of J Alguersuari.
Getty Images
Getty Images
Kamui pays tribute
Finally, and again with a musical note, Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi is paying his respects to those affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami last March by inviting a girls’ choir from the region devastated to be his guests at Suzuka. The Japanese driver was away from home when the earthquake hit and rarely gets back home – he has, however, as reported by Melbourne’s The Age, said that he’s amazed at the strength of the recovery.
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