Korea sure knows how to show a journalist a good time. Fly them all the way to Asia and put them up in a “love hotel”. Sadly, it’s not a love story after all, as some are complaining about used condoms under their beds and dildo vending machines.
The reason for this strange turn of events is a simple room shortage for the Korean Grand Prix, so in order to get traveling media and even some teams a good night sleep, they had to be put up in these brothels, sometimes referred to as “love hotels”.
"After a ten-hour flight to Seoul, a first class train journey to Mokpo and a quick taxi ride to our ’Love Hotel’, we’ve arrived. The accommodation is a bit bizarre and there are easily 30 of these ’Love Hotels’ in the area - the one down the road is called the Hotel Feel, but we steered clear of that. Ours, The Washington, is actually very nice. It’s still a ’Love Hotel’ but it’s clean, has a 42" TV and free Internet access,” said a photographer for Sutton Images.
The first ever Korean Grand Prix was already dicey, but this is sure to be an event that nobody will ever forget. Just don’t take home any souvenirs from the room.
The car that claimed two Grand Prix wins for legendary triple F1 Champion Ayrton Senna will make an appearance in The Macallan Lounge at this year’s MPH Prestige & Performance Motor Show.
Six of the type 99T chassis were manufactured by Team Lotus for the 1987 season for drivers Senna and teammate Satoru Nakajima. This particular car, however, was exclusively driven by Senna and earned him the top tier of the podium at both the Monaco and Detroit Grands Prix. He raced the car in 11 GPs taking a total of six podiums that season.
The 1.5 liter Honda turbo V6 engine produces a mind-boggling 1,000 horsepower. Acceleration (0-62mph) takes an astonishing 2.5 seconds with a top speed of 205mph. During race time, engines would be replaced at a maximum of 311 miles. Super soft qualifying tires lasted 12.5 miles and harder race tires lasted up to 199 miles. You didn’t actually drive this – more like clung on for dear life. It’s these cars and drivers from the turbo era that made F1 racing so exciting – much of which is gone nowadays.
Ayrton Senna will be forever remembered for his skill both behind the wheel and in the garage, and his sheer tenacity on the circuit. Take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and visit this mad machine at Top Gear Live being held at Earls Court from November 4th-7th and the NEC in Birmingham between November 11th-14th.
Ferrari needs to thank its lucky stars after a meeting with the FIA World Motor Sport Council today in Paris. The meeting was held to discuss whether Ferrari should face further punishments after team orders allowed Fernando Alonso to overtake Felipe Massa.
The team was already fined $100,000 for the incident, but no further sanctions would be imposed on the Italian race team. Did you expect anything less? Ferrari is obviously very important to Formula One and we never expected them to be forced to sit out a race, especially with Monza, a home race for the team, coming up next week.
Ferrari claimed that Massa decided to move over and allow Alonso by, even though the radio transmission, stating that Alonso was faster and if he understood the message was quite clear. Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley apologized to Massa after he lost the lead. We can’t image how that could have been taken as anything, but team orders.
It might not have been the prettiest race, but it sure was a dandy. Cars scrambled in the pits, wheels flew off of Mercedes cars, and million dollar drivers made key errors, but the overall 2010 Hungarian Grand Prix was pretty darn good.
At the end of the race, it wasn’t the winner we were talking about; it was the controversial move by Michael Schumacher that nearly ended his race and Rubens Barrichello’s. The two cars were dueling down the front-straight when Schmacher moved his Mercedes over in an attempt to block the Williams car, nearly putting Barrichello into the wall. “It was the most dangerous maneuver against me I have ever known,” said the Brazilian of an incident which earned the 41-year-old Mercedes a 10-place grid penalty at the next race on Aug 29.
After the race was completed, it was Mark Webber who was on the top of the podium and at the top of the points table. The Red Bull driver took advantage of a drive through penalty for Sebastian Vettel, which was assessed to him after he fell too far behind the safety car.
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Ferrari’s poor showing at this year’s F1 championship came to an end yesterday as Fernando Alonso controversially led a Ferrari one-two at the German Grand Prix. Apparently, Felipe Massa was given orders by his team to stand down for Alonso, who subsequently won the race.
After a post-race steward’s analysis, Ferrari was fined $100,000 for breaching F.I.A sporting regulations, which states in Rule 39.1: "Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited’. Despite the penalty, Ferrari insisted the incident was "a driver decision" and said no instructions were given to their drivers.
Rob Smedley, a Ferrari race engineer was overheard communicating to Massa over team radio: "Alonso is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?" It seemed Massa responded by letting Alonso through on Turn Six moments later. Following the move, Smedley added: "Good lad. Just stick with it now, sorry."
Massa took full advantage of the battle between Vettel and Alonso, taking lead at the start, however on lap 21 the Ferrari pair traded places on Turn Six before Massa regained the lead - resulting in Alonso saying on team radio: "This is ridiculous".
Asked to comment on the call afterward, Massa, who looked incensed at the podium and was denied a potential win one year to the day after he fractured his skull in the Hungarian GP, said: "I don’t need to say anything about that. He passed me." Alonso’s win took him to within range of Hamilton, 34 points adrift.
Hamilton, the 2008 world champion, was philosophical about his performance and stated that "the guys in front were phenomenally quick, and I was struggling a little bit with the balance throughout the race. Nevertheless we look forward; we scored some relatively decent points."
Meanwhile, the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher finished in sixth and ninth place respectively while Robert Kubica was seventh for Renault with his team-mate Vitaly Petrov completing the top 10.
