Mr Mist’s Blog

It’s reported that Captain Pickard, or, in real life, Patrick Stewart, is to be knighted in the New Year honours list. I can only agree, and say “make it so”. A very varied and talented actor, he is.

In other news, we are hearing more confirmation that Schumacher is close to an F1 return with the Mercedes team – though nothing yet from the man himself, or the team. I’m in two minds about this return. I wouldn’t want it to be a damp squib, because he left on a high, but nor would I relish the return to his utter dominance. A good scrap would be interesting.

Loads of peeps were trapped in the Channel Tunnel last night, after freezing temperatures on both sides of the tunnel contributed to a mass break-down of the trains. It appears that on-board staff had not been properly trained in what to do, which is not great. Think everyone is out now, but they were stuck for some time. Not great at all.

Lastly, WordPress 2.9 is out, with bucket loads of new functionality. If you run WordPress on your blog site, you should upgrade now. Make sure your host meets the new requirements first, though – the MySQL and PHP version requirements have increased to 4.1.2 and 4.3 respectively.

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Jenson Button has taken this year’s F1 World Championship finishing in 5th place (from 14th on the grid). Barrichello, who was his cloest rival, suffered a puncture in the closing stages of the Grand Prix, but would not have been able to take the championship to a final round due to Jenson’s finishing position.

The finish also granted the constructors’ championship to Brawn GP, in their first season of racing.

The race was not without incident, with crashes galour towards the start, and a dramatic looking moment when Kovalainen took off from the pits dragging a fuel hose behind him, which promptly sprayed fuel over the car of Kimi Raikkonen. Luckily everyone was ok.

Congratulations to all!

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News just in is that Flavio Briatore, boss of the Renault F1 team has resigned his position, with the team deciding not to contest Nelson Piquet Jr’s allegation that he was told to crash in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Frankly I’m amazed. This will be a big blow to the team, and doesn’t really help the current turbulent image of F1 racing. There are no details yet as to who exactly was in on the decision. Potentially I suppose with the team boss leaving the full details may not come to light. The official press release says that no further comment will be made until the FIA council on 21st September.

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Retired F1 legend Michael Schumacher looks set to return to behind the wheel of a Ferrari F1 car for the European Grand Prix as a stand-in for the injured Felipe Massa, who was knocked unconcious by a spring in Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying.

Schumacher will now undergo a preparation exercise (though no F1 car practice) to be ready for Valencia in a few weeks’ time. His return, I think, is likely to increase Button’s chances of taking the championship this season, as another contender for race wins will take points away from Vettel and Webber’s potential totals.

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Mark Webber overcame a drive-through penalty to win the German Grand Prix in style today, coming in ahead of his team-mate Vettel and Ferrari’s Massa. The Brawn team were again left behind by the Red Bulls. This was MarK Webber’s first GP victory, and his emotional scream at the end of the race showed how much it must have meant to him. Well done Mr Webber.

Meanwhile, Button is going to have to pull something out of the bag in the remaining races to maintain his ever-decreasing lead in the driver’s championship as others close in on him. Perhaps in the next few races the Brawn will come back on form again with higher temperatures. A back-on-form Hamilton struggled as he was stricken with a puncture on the first lap, after a good start.

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