Dave's random mumblings…

Sebastian Vettel in the Red bull claimed pole and the rest of the top 10 was made up of the usual suspects with no huge surprises, but a left a few more questions.

• Biggest thing may be Schumacher being beaten once again by Rosberg. The difference between the two Mercedes drivers was rather consistent, about 0.3 seconds across the three qualifying sessions.
• Same story at McLaren, Hamilton was a consistent 0.3-0.4 seconds ahead of Button in all three parts of qualifying.
• Ferrari was 2^nd and 3^rd with Massa beating Alonso by 0.35 in the final session. Looking at times over the last two days these two are very, very close with Q3 being the biggest split between the two.

Unsurprisingly the three new teams occupying the last six positions and never made it out of the first qualifying session.

• For the first time the two Lotuses were not the fastest of the new-boys, that particular honour went to Timo Glock in the Virgin GP car. Having said that he was still more than 3.5 seconds from making it into Q2, which gives an idea of the huge gap in performance.
• Not surprising was the Hispania cars at the bottom of the time sheets. Chandhok was slowest, but considering the first time he’s driven the car was at the start of this qualifying session, being only 1.7 down on his teammate is a somewhat respectable performance from the inexperienced Indian driver.
• Williams and the three new teams share the same engine supplier, and Williams did OK qualifying 11^th and 13^th. That shows the engine is not the issue and that chassis development and experience is the major difference.

Yes this is only qualifying and no points were given out today. In my experience, every driver considers his own teammate as the most important opposition to keep track of; after all they are the only people on the grid with the same basic equipment. I’m trying to highlight what I see as the important battles this weekend and it’s shaping up to be as good as I hoped.

Schumacher has a bigger question mark over his comeback than ever after being consistently beaten by Rosberg over the last couple of days. Michael has picked up a couple of tenths of a second on Rosberg when compared to yesterday, but I don’t think too many people thought he would be in this position today.

First day in Bahrain is in the books, as they are going for time I’m guessing everyone is running with low fuel and the car is set up accordingly. A quick look down the times from the two Friday sessions show a few things:

• Michael is not in the groove, a little rusty or underestimated the level of competition as he was beat by Nico Rosberg in both sessions by close to half a second.
• The top four cars in the second session were all powered by Mercedes and were almost 0.4 faster then the best of the rest.
• Did not catch anything obvious, but Ferrari did not improve as much as the other top teams in the second session. Working on race setup perhaps?
• There is nothing between Hamilton and Button in qualifying trim with less than 0.2 separating them in either session.
• Nico Hulkenberg could be the one of the next pretenders to the title, fast and the consistent improvement he shoed in the preseason seems to have carried on through to today. He comes rather hyped and delivered two performances that beat his teammate Barachello by about a second each time.
• The Lotus’s are about 5 seconds off the pace, the two Virgin cars a further two seconds back and the Hispanias somewhere far off in the distance in what is really first shakedown run.
• Vettel looked good and Weber had some issues in the second session, but was comprehensively beaten in the earlier run.
• Sauber found a lot of speed between the first and second session.

Top teams look like the predicable group, Mercedes, McLaren Red Bull and Ferrari with Sauber and Williams close behind.

Last word goes to Michael – “It’s not a problem. It’s just that for one lap I saw that Nico was four-tenths up and that is a bit too much for my standards. I’ve got to raise my game a bit and I’m sure I’m able to.”

The preseason is over and the teams are arriving in Bahrain for the first race of the season, the waiting and teasing is almost over and we’ll get to see who has what for real.

Based on testing times it looks a little like the F1 world has returned to business as usual with McLaren and Ferrari a little ahead of the rest. The rest are led by Red Bull and Mercedes, with Sauber, Williams and Force India looking very competitive.

With the rule changes reading anything into pre-season testing times is probably more pointless than usual. Speeds with full fuel load and tire wear have become more important than the headline grabbing fast lap times.

The two biggest driver stories are clearly Schumacher’s return and how long the pairing at McLaren will play nicely together.

Love or hate him, Schumacher’s return to the grid can only been good. It’s a huge story in the most interesting off season in many years.

The cars will be starting with a comparatively huge fuel load, somewhere around twice as much as was carried at any point last year, somewhere around 165 or 170kg of fuel at the start. This means car set up will become much more of a compromise and conserving tyres and brakes become more important.

Like the drivers teams will have to adjust. Pitstops times and race strategy will change to become more reactive to what’s going on around them. Teams will be looking at the track 20 or 25 seconds behind their driver in order to get out and have a clear track to make best use of the fresh rubber. Unlike last year it will be possible to hold a driver out for a few more laps in order to get that elusive space.

I like the twist in the rules that the top 10 qualifiers start on the same tyres they qualified on. Go for a soft compound in qualifying, get a good grid place then be forced into pitting earlier than perhaps you’d like.

How will this differ when you compare wide open Singapore with the twists of Monaco?

As I’ve said, this could be a fascinating year with four world champions, really quick drivers like Vettel and Weber who want to join that club, and potentially 6 or 7 teams capable of competing at the sharp end.

Come Sunday evening we will know a lot more, we’ll find out who has been holding something back during testing and who flattered to deceive. This will be fun to watch.

I remember the ’88 Olympics from Calgary; being British hopes were never high for the winter games. Team GB had a little run of success in figure skating, the superlative performance of Jayne Torivll and Christopher Dean in Sarajevo followed on from the success of Robyn Cousins and John Curry in ‘76 and ’80 respectively.  However going into Calgary I recall no realistic medal hopes, which can lead to really good coverage of the marquee events.

Eddie Edwards provided some light relief and exposure for British winter sports, but as expected the British team returned from Calgary empty handed. Eddie Edwards took his ski jumping very seriously, but like the vast majority of British winter athletes at this time never had the money to do the job properly.

During some reading I discovered there was a fatal accident in Calgary, Jorg Oberhammer was the physician for the Austrian ski team and was preparing for the start of the giant slalom when he collided with another skier and was thrown under a tracked vehicle. This happened in front of Austrian world champion Pirmin Zurbriggen a few minutes before his run.

Every Sunday evening David vine presented Ski Sunday, I knew who Pirmin Zurbriggen was and that he was favorite to win the Super-G.

Under these incredible conditions Zurbriggen went on to take the bronze medal as real tragedy made it’s presence felt at the highest level.

That was 1988; today the death of Jorg Oberhammer is but a footnote to what was a very successful Olympics. Fast-forward twenty-two years to the Vancouver games and despite the outpouring of compassion and the questions raised, I doubt many outside Georgia will remember Nodar Kumaritashvili in a few years’ time.

At its best, sport is about people doing something transcendentally brilliant, something that is amazingly skilful, disciplined, verging on the breathtakingly beautiful and in so doing is capable bringing enormous joy to the people watching.

I love the Olympics, the idea of the finest in a set discipline doing it, not for a pay cheque on that day (though it helps big time with endorsements and cash for medal exists), but under the banner of their country and for personal glory for an audience measured in millions.

I’ve watched a decent portion of these Olympics, both on the TV and in person.

Whether it’s been a curler keeping the game alive with a perfect final stone, a speed skater in agony as she finishes her race, or an aerial skier landing a 4 twist jump, it’s been sublime to watch and makes it easy to ignore the inevitable criticism that surrounds an event of this scale.

The excitement in Vancouver was palatable, you could feel there was something special in the air. Last night we sat in a bar with Russians, Finnish, Swedes, Americans, British, Germans and of course Canadians, all concentrating on a hockey game. These have been a great games, Vancouver a fabulous host and I’ve had a blast.

For the last two weeks Vancouver has been shown off at it’s very best. I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time there, take in a couple of events and revel in the tremendous atmosphere created by something this big going so well.

There were problems early on, obviously the death of Nodar Kumaritashvil on the opening day will not be forgotten. However the luge track had been given the green light by everyone relevant and there are plenty of candidates to blame for the death of the Georgian slider, the organizers, to me, seem to be a far down the list. With a little hindsight it’s easy to say the track was too fast, but this is supposed to test the best in the world.

Then there was the minor failure of the Olympic caldron during the opening ceremony along with the usual transport issues that seem to plague every Olympics, perhaps every event of this scale. However I’m willing to wager the problems with getting around will be far worse in Delhi for the Commonwealth games in October.

There are still one or two questions to be answered as we head into the final few days. Most notably for the hosts is Mens Hockey, this is clearly the big one for most Canadians.

Team Canada and their NHL stars never hit the ice until the fourth day of the Olympics, for many Canadians that’s when the games really got underway. One newspaper columnist suggested that the country would trade everything else won as part of the “own the podium” campaign for the one gold that matters most.

After comprehensively out playing the Russians yesterday, Team Canada faces Slovakia for a place in the final on Sunday. If the Semi finals go to form they will play the USA for the gold in a rematch of the group game of only a few days ago.

While the “own the podium” campaign has not gone exaclty to plan,  as a Canadian citizen (thanks mum) I want nothing more than to see the men pick up gold. First there is the small matter of Slovakia…

There is another matter that has got a surprising amount of attention in some quaters, the recognition of Mukmuck. For those not in the know Mukmuk is a sidekick to the three main Vancouver 2010 mascots Quatchi, Miga and Sumi.

Quatchi and Miga outside the curling, where is Mukmuk?

Just for information Quatchi is a Sasquatch, Miga is a orca/bear crossbreed and Sumi is an animal guardian spirit.  All very worthy of mascot status and I’m sure they have shifted a lot of merchandise. Quatchi especially was very much in evidence in the HBC Olympic Store.

Mukmuk is a Vancouver Island Marmot, there are only a few hundred of these left in the wild. According to VANOC he is the “sidekick to the Vancouver 2010 mascots”.  His hobbies are “eating, burrowing, eating, making friends and eating” (seriously, it’s on the Vancouver 2010 site under mascots), and while these don’t seem to qualify him for much, I’m not seeing true endorsements of the other three either.

I’ve seen Mukmuk on the scoreboard at Canada place during Hockey and following the other mascots (pooper scooper perhaps another official task?) during the introductions on the video screens at the Olympic Stadium before the curling, but not on the side of the busses alongside the others.

So join the Vancouver Suns “Free the Mukmuk” campaign to get the little guy released from his cyber jail and let him be recognized as a true mascot and run free with the others.

I live 120 miles from one of the largest sporting events in the world and can see very little of it live because of broadcaster NBC’s policy.

They save the big events for their evening show running form 7:30 to 11ish to maximize viewers and advertising money. Before now this has not been a problem, I get the Canadian broadcaster CBC and their coverage of both winter and summer Olympics has typically been excellent. While not as good as the BBC, its far better then NBC’s jingoistic/sensationalistic coverage.

However CBC lost the rights to some Canadian channel that I don’t get, so I’m forced to watch NBC.

Clearly NBC overbid for the games a few years ago and this week has claimed it will loose something like $200 million covering the Vancouver Olympics. NBC is blaming a soft advertising marker, but ultimately the fault lies with the broadcaster. When the TV contract for the 2010 Winter/2012 Summer games was up for bid NBC paid about $2.2 billion for these two events. Its bid was substantially bigger than any of the other US companies and about $900 million more than runner up Fox bid for the two events.

For me the biggest issue with tape delay is the loss of the drama. For the woman’s downhill we got a 90 minute edited package shown 5 or 6 hours after the event finished. The growing tension as each racer leaves the start house, comparing the interval times and where the clock stops when the racer crosses the line is lost.

With the internet, new media and the resulting gush of information coming into my life I know all of this in real time. It’s far more difficult, indeed verging on the impossible for someone with half an interest in sports to avoid big results for a few hours untill NBC feels it’s best to share their coverage with us.

This tension is what makes live sport so compelling. It’s exciting because we don’t know what’s going to happen. Unfortunately NBC has yet to work it out, after 6 hours of tape delay, we know what’s going to happen, and for me that takes so much away.

There is some better news once you get away from what ever NBC has chosen to include in their main evening coverage. For example as the US was not involved and therefore NBC was not interested, MSNBC carried the Canada vs. Norway hockey blow out live. For many Canadians the start of men’s hockey is the real opening of the Olympics.

Clearly there has been a lot of criticism of NBC and their choices to not carry major events live. It got to the point that the local NBC affiliate KING-5 in Seattle published a note on their website essentially saying “don’t blame us for this, it’s NBC and we don’t have a say in it”.

I’m lucky I can buy tickets, get into the car and see all the curling, speed skating or hockey I want.