Formula One World Championship

Haha I always watch Match of the Day on the weekends for the highlights, but I rarely ever watch a full match live. Plus I don't support any team in particular, I just egg on the underdogs and hope to see some world class goals

You're a Chelsea man aren't you Tony? Looks like they're creeping away from the competition, aren't they 7 points ahead of Man City in 2nd? I do like Jose Mourinho, he has a good sense of humour.

Did you see all that commotion with the Leicester City boss and the Crystal Palace player? That was slightly uncomfortable and at the same time kinda confusing to watch!

Haha yeah, it's my fault really I keep going off topic! It's starting to remind me of my old skool Sheep Shack on the old Ronronmx forums though.... Jarid and Falcon know what I'm talking about

Scottie has gone a bit quiet now testing is over mind!

Nice of you to join us Tim! I think off-track Vettel seems like a good guy, but when he's in race mode he comes across as the next best German we all know as greedy little Schumi!

Tony, Bernie always reminds me of Gollum from Lord of the Rings... He'd make a good stunt double!

Check your emails Tony

Found this link for the unrideables 2, but the player won't load on my phone at the mo but hopefully it works on the pc:

unrideables 2

Oh yeah and my parents still call my Suzuki a scrambler as they grew up watching scramble races back in the 70s!

Damn! Just sent you another reply... or two... it asked me to sign in when I hit send and I had no confirmation so if your inbox gets rammed I apologise in advance haha!

F1: Moments in time - Unusual testing liveries

As striking as Red Bull’s ‘camouflage’ livery was at Jerez, it is by no means the first time a team has opted to run a unique colour scheme during winter testing. We look back through the archives at some of the most unusual and memorable liveries to have appeared over recent years...

McLaren go back to their roots, 1997

Bruce McLaren originally painted his racing cars in white and green, but it’s the bright orange that adorned his eponymous cars in the late Sixties and early Seventies that became synonymous with the team. McLaren have reverted back to the colour twice during testing in recent years, in 1997 (pictured) and again in 2006.

BAR’s sponsor-free debut, 1999

Driven by Jacques Villeneuve, BAR’s first ever car - the aptly named BAR 01 - appeared in pre-season testing in 1999 with this sponsor-free blue, black and silver livery. However, at the first race in Melbourne the colour scheme had been completely revised.

Williams’ ‘go faster’ stripes, 1999

Williams have run interim liveries several times in testing, most recently last season when they used a navy blue car throughout pre-season. But this stripy effort, which was run at Spielberg in 1999 during a test with incoming engine partner BMW, was arguably the best of the lot. For those wondering, ace touring car racer Jorg Muller is the man in the cockpit.

Renault’s nod to the past, 2002

Renault’s pale blue and yellow colour scheme became one of the most iconic on the grid in the 2000s, thanks largely to the man behind the wheel in this picture - Fernando Alonso. But before that came this rather simple test livery from 2002 which featured just a splash of the famous yellow hue raced by Renault in the late Seventies and early Eighties.

Red Bull take inspiration from drinks can, 2004

When Red Bull began testing in late 2004, having completed a takeover of Jaguar Racing, they did so with a car livery that took direct inspiration from one of the drinks giants’ iconic cans. However, by the time David Coulthard (pictured) and Christian Klien lined up on the grid in Australia the following year, the team had adopted the predominantly dark blue colour scheme that’s still used today.

Honda keep it simple, 2007

Honda weren’t the first team to adopt an all-black livery in testing, but this early 2007 effort makes this list simply for the contrast that was provided by the colourful (and some would say garish) ‘earth livery’ that replaced it. Maybe they should have stuck with the black…

Spyker’s eye-popping orange number, 2007

Having acquired Midland, new owners Spyker were keen to make a splash in testing, and swiftly adopted a bright orange colour scheme in deference to their Dutch roots. Ultimately the team decided to change to a different shade of the colour after finding that the original hue was so bright that it often appeared red in photos and on TV.

Force India debut in burgundy, 2008

Following Vijay Mallya’s acquisition of Spyker ahead of the 2008 season, Force India tested with this rather smart burgundy, white and gold livery. However, the colour scheme didn’t last long - by the beginning of the season the sidepods were adorned with an orange/red hue.

Red Bull’s camouflage look, 2015

In recent years we’ve become accustomed to sportscar manufacturers running with ‘dazzle camouflage’ liveries during early development, but Red Bull are the first F1 team to adopt the same approach. The complex black and white colour scheme, which apes the look used by allied naval ships during the first and second world wars, makes it extremely difficult to see certain details on the car, though you can be sure that Red Bull’s rivals will be doing their best to see through the disguise!

Haha no worries pal, I'll send you a fresh one. Third time lucky!

He's looking pretty suave isn't he, except in all his instagram photos he's wearing a smart hat.. Could he be losing his hair in the aftermath of his breakup?!

Here are some stories you won't read elsewhere in the motorsport press...

And It Rhymes With Honda...
McLaren's Ron Dennis has been answering media questions about his lack of a title sponsor for the car. Last season the team ran without one, however Ron was adamant that he was not going to cut his prices for the sake of a deal. "We don't want to put big brand names on at low levels of money,” said Ron, “however I am pleased to announce that from 2015 onwards, the team will be known as Wonga Pay Day Loans McLaren-Honda”.

“Take One, Action!… I Said Action!…”
On Monday of this week McLaren completed a filming day of the troubled new McLaren-Honda MP4-30. Jenson Button was allowed to do 100k in the car for ‘filming purposes’. Thus in one filming day the team managed to rack up more mileage than they did on the first two test days at Jerez. However to make sure that the footage was an authentic behind-the-scenes look at the team, they filmed engineers kicking the car, screaming “what the ****’s happened now?” and Jenson shouting “I thought you said that was fixed!”

The New Ferrari Concept
F1 fans have been very excited by stunning new pictures of the Ferrari F1 concept car. The conceptual artwork shows what an F1 car of the future could look like if the rules were changed for 2017. “The car looks very nice,” said one tifosa, “but we prefer the concept of winning a race this year.”

Force India
Force India have denied delaying the launch of the VMJ 08 because they wanted ‘to copy the best bits off everybody else’s cars from jerez’. Team boss Bob Fernley said that they would test with the VMJ07 this week and hopefully have the VMJ08 running on the final few days. And if they didn’t have the VMJ08 ready by Melbourne, they’d go and ask the other teams if they could run their 2014 car…

Jenson To Get Ginger Beard
And finally, Jenson Button is to get a beard. Despite overwhelming video and photographic evidence to the contrary, for the last three seasons Jenson hasn’t had one… in the McLaren animation, ‘Tooned’. Jenson appears alongside Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez and Kevin Magnussen without his trademark ginger straggle. Now it seems with the arrival of the heavily bearded Fernando Alonso at the team, beards are in. Asked what he thought of his belated beardedness, Jenson said, “I have no opinion about it. Anyway, most people who look at Tooned think it’s Ian Botham driving the car..."

BBC Sport

The former Marussia team, now known as Manor, have named Englishman Will Stevens as their first race driver for the new season.

Manor, who went out of business as Marussia in October but have now come out of administration, say they intend to take part in the first race.

A statement said that the car they will use is "an advanced state of build".

But they did not say whether they were referring to a brand new car or a modified version of last year's model.

Yeah I know what you mean Tony, and considering two left at once that was a huge difference in the grid. I'll be surprised if 'Manor' do make it to round one mind, unless they modify the 2014 car I can't see them achieving a lot in a new build in such a short amount of time.

Something definitely weird going on with Fernando... why is he still in the hospital if he's ok?! What did his doctors statement reveal? Anything new?

You don't mean this do you:

http://sniffpetrol.com/2015/02/24/alonso-doc-delivers-bad-news/#.VO38cy…

Haha! I thought you were serious until I saw it, very good! Did you see the one about a freeze on facial hair as well

Man I don't even want to think about that, but there is definitely something going on behind the scenes. I mean, there are rumours that he won't even be at the grid in Melbourne... WTF is going on??