Serial motorbike crasher Michael Schumacher was inexplicably entrusted with a Honda Fireblade and an empty Magny-Cours track yesterday. The Hannspree Ten Kate team let Schumi loose for a day of testing on Carlos Checa’s World Superbike Championship bike.
“Riding the world superbike has been a step up for me and it’s a lot more difficult,” said Schumacher. “My target for the test was to enjoy it, but at the same time to learn. I think with more time things could have been even better because the team have a lot of possibilities, and there are a wide range of changes to make. Perhaps may be in the future we can do something together and I can increase my experience.”
This Belgian beauty knows much more about F1 than your average WAG - she used to be F1 reporter for a French TV station, which is how she met and fell in love with the Big Chin, David Coulthard. The couple have been engaged for almost two years, and plan to marry “in the near future” (DC’s words).
When Coulthard and Minier appeared on a celebrity edition of classic TV show Mr & Mrs, DC revealed that they have “a great time” in the bedroom. Thanks for that information Dave. You really know how to make the rest of us feel better about ourselves.
Meet the Nissan BR23C - a concept car robot. The stocky biomimetric chap is the future of Nissan’s road cars. In a technique borrowed from nature, the ‘car’ uses lasers to detect objects around it and avoid collisions. Was that the sound of a car insurer shrieking?
Bees use a natural version of this technology. They are able to swerve to avoid any object that enters their 300 degree field of vision. The BR23C is currently been shown off at the CEATEC 2008 home electronics trade show in Japan, but Nissan are believed to want to bring the technology to a motor show near you very soon.
Gricrasher approves the look of this Audi R8-inspired power catamaran, provisionally named the R 8.8 BioCat. It’s a concept boat - look at the shiny digital water! - designed by Swedish company Vizualtech, at the request of a Dubai-based (where else?) raceboat team.
The tale of the tape? It’s 29ft long, boasts fancy gullwing doors, and it’ll do a hair-raising 110mph, which we imagine feels very fast indeed on water. The power source is either a modified biodiesel V10 engine or two smaller V8 engines with 320hp.
Nascar’s driver of the year blows his whole season in three races
In a recent poll in Sports Illustrated, Kyle Busch’s fellow Nascar pros voted him as the most talented driver on the circuit. Had the same drivers been polled on the more subjective issue of popularity, Busch would have finished bottom of the heap. He has earned a reputation as a sulky, surly, cocky asshat, albeit a sulky, surly, cocky asshat who has won more races this year than anyone else.
At the start of the Nascar Sprint Cup Chase (Nascar’s play-off system, essentially), Busch held a big lead over his rivals, thanks to a stellar regular season. Three disastrous races into the Chase, Busch finds himself more than 300 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson, with virtually no chance of winning the title.
Slip into a deep bath filled with bubbles of nostalgia…
Enjoy this terrific footage, shot on Super 8, of the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix. Watch out for a star turn by Graham Hill, possibly the most debonair sportsman in the history of debonair sportsmen.
FAVOURITE MOMENT: 2min 53sec into the video, check out the amazing level of track safety.
After the European Grand Prix in Valencia, where Ferrari were hit with a €10,000 fine for an unsafe pit-stop release of Felipe Massa, and Kimi Raikkonen ran over a mechanic after wrongly been given the green light by the team’s semi-automated pit system, Grid Crasher asked you whether it was time to bring back the lollipop man. You answered with a resounding maybe.
So following the Ferrari mechanics’ 100m fuel hose dash at Singapore, we are putting the question to you again. With two mechanics having now been flattened by cars getting the green light to go too soon, should Ferrari now be reviewing their strategy?
