Formula One – On and Off track week 32

Formula One has gone fishing – an ‘On and Off track’ holiday special Formula One has gone fishing, for the teams’ employees this means no e-mails, faxes, phone calls, text messages, meetings, working groups or other obligatory duties, and no journalists asking difficult or inconvenient questions. The mandatory two-week summer break was originally intended to cut the costs in Formula One, all teams have to close their factory for two weeks, and this year the Formula One calendar has helped to extend the summer break with another two weeks until the Grand Prix of Belgium on August 29. While the employees will be enjoying their well-deserved summer break, some teams would rather have used those two weeks to work on the car. Like Mercedes, Williams and Sauber, McLaren closed the doors of their base in Woking on Sunday at midnight after the Hungarian Grand Prix, but team principal Martin Whitmarsh would rather be working: “I would love not to have a shutdown and be ploughing on. It still seems odd to me to have a shutdown but it’s probably good for people. We’ll come back energized and fighting, ambitious and optimistic and inventive and we’ll do what’s necessary to make sure we can come back at these other teams.” Lewis Hamilton is worried his team will not be able to catch up with Red Bull and Ferrari as a result of the summer break. “Everything shuts down, they are in a good position where they have a good car already. They will come back and the car is still the same, whereas we would love to improve our car,” the 2008 champion said. He will be spending some time with his girlfriend Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger, but for privacy reasons refused to reveal his holiday destination. According to the German Auto Bild magazine Hamilton will certainly not go to Australia, although Melbourne authorities have ‘invited’ him to attend a hearing on August 24 after being officially charged of ‘intentionally losing control of a vehicle’ after he had performed a few donuts and burn-outs on the public roads of Melbourne during the weekend of the Australian Grand Prix. Jenson Button is somebody who likes active holidays, he participated in the London Triathlon for the second time last weekend. The yearly event attracts about 13,000 participants from all over the world. Button started in the Olympic Distance, group age 30-34,…

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Posted by admin 11 August 2010

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