Number of the Beast

Hello there, F1 Minute now has a blog. It’s become apparent over the last year or so that we’re missing a place to talk about behind the scenes stuff for F1 Minute – a place for admin, if you will. Sidepodcast sometimes features F1 Minute items, including the introduction of the Big Picture, and an anniversary or two.

It’s clear that Sidepodcast wouldn’t want to feature the latest milestone – episode 666! Traditionally a number representing all things devilish, and an episode all about Flav. Enough said.

With that in mind, here is F1 Minute’s brand new blog. It’ll be an occasional thing, only when there’s something worth saying that doesn’t fit into the podcast itself. I have quite an opener for you.

Over Christmas, we’ve been working on the idea of F1 Minute video. Similar to the minute’s worth of audio content you get every day, the video brings an added visual element to proceedings. We’re running a bit behind, because creating brand new video shows is not easy, but the first show is up and available for you to view now.

It’s really just a concept at the moment, but we are working on more videos as we like creating new stuff. There’s a dedicated feed available, and we have submitted it to iTunes, although Apple are a law unto themselves when they decide to approve feeds and put them in the store.

As ever, feedback is very much appreciated, and we’ll keep you updated with our plans as we go along.

25-Dec-09: Merry Christmas from F1 Minute

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It is the 25th December 2009, this is F1 Minute – Merry Christmas.

It has been quite the off season – the news hasn’t stopped, but finally, I think we’re in the clear. F1 Minute is ready to take it’s Christmas break but before we go, it’s time to sum up the year we’ve had.

Including this very show, we’ve completed 299 F1 Minute’s this year. That is 299 minutes of news about races, drivers, ex-drivers, politics, scandals, champions, breakaways, elections, testing, demonstrations, appeals, presidents, and much, much more.

2009 hasn’t been an easy year by any stretch of the imagination – there has been no point where we haven’t thought: “I’d really just like to concentrate on the racing now.” But, it’s been packed with news, both good and bad, and that is what we’re here for. Let’s hope 2010 has more of the same, only with the good outweighing the bad this time.

All that leaves me to say is thank you for listening, commenting and subscribing, happy holidays and I will be back in the new year with more from F1 Minute.

25-Dec-08: Merry Christmas to F1 Minute Listeners

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Today is the 25th December 2008 and this is the 365th episode of F1 Minute. That means you can now listen to one episode of F1 Minute every day for a year… except Leap Years, like this one.

Anyway, there is little in the way of Formula 1 news today, apparently it’s some kind of holiday. That being the case, I’d like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and hope you are having a good festive season. Thank you to everyone who listens to F1 Minute, has the player installed on their own sites, and has left comments on F1Minute.com. It’s been a good year for the minute, and we have some exciting plans for 2009 as well. There are already additional features on the site, if you haven’t visited for a while, check out F1Minute.com for quotes, snippets and links and of course, the daily show.

There’s unlikely to be any major F1 developments over the next few days, so F1 Minute will take a short break and will return on the 1st January. Merry Christmas once again, and I’ll see you in the New Year.

Quotes Roundup – Week Ending 30th Nov

The very best from the mouths of those in the know.

Toro Rosso Buyout

In which Dietrich Mateschitz regains full control…

• “Dietrich’s interest will focus on Red Bull Racing, therefore the support for STR will become smaller and prevent the team from improving further from sixth. I don’t want to decline, that is not in my nature.”Gerhard Berger
• “I am very grateful to Gerhard for his huge input. Together we turned Toro Rosso into a team that qualified on a regular basis in the top 10 and collected world championship points.” Dietrich Mateschitz
• “I will be out of STR, but the split with STR and Dietrich is completely amicable and there was no rift between us.” Gerhard Berger

The Medal Proposal

Bernie says it will be introduced in 2009…

• “All the teams are happy. The whole reason for this was that I was fed up with people talking about no overtaking. The reason there’s no overtaking is nothing to do with the circuit or the people involved, it’s to do with the drivers not needing to overtake.” Bernie Ecclestone
• “The points are necessary. I was one of the team principals in the team principals’ meetings who advocated that the points should go down to eighth place, because one point to a team down there is as important as a win is to the likes of McLaren and Ferrari, and we must never forget that.” Eddie Jordan
• “There are a lot of people who have ridiculed this suggestion, and honestly I have to admit at first that I thought the stress of divorce had got to him. But I think he actually has a point. Like him, I think the winner of the most races in a season should automatically be the world champion.” Jos Verstappen

Circuits Planning Ahead

Although many are pulling out of the calendar, some are thinking to the future…

• “This will be the first public transport Grand Prix. We are not bringing cars here. We are looking to use public transport from all the major conurbations, the airport and the Parkway station.” Simon Gillett, chief executive of Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd
• “With Bahrain at the start of the year and Abu Dhabi at the season finale there are many projects on which we can work together to attract more spectators, corporate clients and sponsors to both the region’s races.” Zayed Alzayani, Bahrain circuit boss
• “We think Formula One is a very good product, a very good event for Shanghai city so at least from our company’s point of view we want to continue promoting and building the event. Research shows there are more and more race fans in China, so I don’t think we will say no to the Formula One Grand Prix.” General Manager of Event Management at Shanghai

F1 Minute – Intro

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Hello everybody, I’m Christine and this is your F1 minute from Sidepodcast. A new weekday show capturing the top headlines in the F1 world, and bundling them up in a nice 60 second package. You don’t need to trawl through pages and pages of news sites, just tune in to F1 minute to hear everything you need to know. Expect important stories, driver quotes, all the latest rumours, and of course, championship updates.

I’m not a fool, I know that there isn’t F1 news every single day, especially not in the off season, which is rapidly heading towards us. I won’t let you down though, on slow news days, you’ll find me bringing you bite size snippets of history, Formula1 statistics and figures, and maybe even driver birthday specials. Anything is possible – the F1 world is our oyster.

For more details on this podcast, go to f1minute.com, where you’ll find show information, transcripts and links.