Sunday, September 26

Formula Lost

Jacques Villeneuve is my favourite race car driver.

Ever since, about a year ago, Jacques Villeneuve left Formula One racing, I've been checking TSN's Formula One racing page, hoping to someday see the headline that "Jacks is Back". Well, I was pleased to see that headline about a week or two ago, annoucing he's signed with Sauber-Petronas for the next two year. I wasn't so pleased that it was Sauber, a middling team at best, that he signed with. I was hoping it would be Renault. That displeasure was somewhat lessened though, when, the next day, it was announced that Jacques would finish out this year (3 more races) with Renault, starting with this weekend's race in China. (does that mean he was this >< close to signing a longer deal with Renault? If so, then boo hoo.) Still, be happy he'll be back, and enjoy the Renault racing this year.



So, despite that practically all interest and excitement in the season was long ago sucked up by Ferrari's dominance, I was looking forward to this race. Mostly just to see how JV would do. Trouble is, the time difference. I wasn't going to stay up until 3am to watch a race (last time I did that was when JV was challenging for World Driving Champion in '97). No problem, though. In the TV Guide, TSN was shown as repeating the broadcast at 9am Sunday morning (the usual time for Formula One racing on TSN). While it'd be nice to sleep in, I sacrificed that for the opportunity to watch the re-broadcast.



I got up at 8:30, made some coffee, surfed the internet for a bit (making sure not to visit any site where I thought the race's outcome would be shown). At 9, I turned on TSN, and there it was: Champ Car Series racing from Las Vegas, re-broadcast from last night. No Formula One. Bummer.



So, I go on the internet, contemplate searching for a bittorrent link to the race, decide that's just foolish, and ended up searching for the race results. By the sound of it, I didn't miss much of a race. And JV finished 11th. Ho hum.



3 comments:

al o'neill said...

I think Jacques has really not benefitted from the new one-lap qualifying format. His strenth was always in actual wheel-to-wheel racing moreso than pulling out series of perfect laps a la Schu. Not really compatible with today's F1 style. I would like to see him try Le Mans / ALMS (winning le mans would make him the only driver ever to win the Indy 500, the Champ Car championchip, the F1 world championchip and Le Mans. He should team up with Mario Andretti and let him drive enough laps so he could share the honours as well if they won..) Instead he seems to want to hang on to an F1 career. ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz....

frankie said...

My sister ran into your buddy Graham and he told her that you guys were doing a christmas show--is that true?

gaurav said...

I'm one of the unfortunate few who could not afford speed, let alone cable connection to watch yesterdays australian F1 race- i saw you mentioned something about finding a bittorrent link to the race. I cant find it- and ive been avioding the race results in the hope that i could ownload the link and re-live the race.
Could you PLEASEEEEEE HELPPPP me out. You'd be a lifesaver. Thanks in advance.
From one fan to another! God bless F1!