Bit concerned that the teams are going to hear this from Mosley and think "uhoh.. we can't trust that route enough to depend on it".. and go their own way. I think this is make or break, now.

Here we go again...

Mosley rethinks future over FOTA claims
Formula 1's future has been thrown into turmoil once again, with FIA president Max Mosley saying he is now keeping his future options open because of what he has called 'deliberate attempts' by teams to mislead the media.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/76529

Closed, as requested by the OP

I'm happy with £80. I think it's a fair price, considering the function of the OS.

And there's no point in comparing Mac and Windows OS prices, Dustin, since the Windows OS price isn't subsidised.. unlike the ludicrous Mac hardware prices.

Off topic again.. but sod it

I'm waiting for double contractions to become the norm. One of the main uses of contractions is so that you can write spoken word in written text as it was spoken. But what we haven't seen take hold yet is "Shouldn't've". It IS in common spoken usage, but hasn't migrated to written form. Neither has "Should not've", and that's a regular contraction. Instead, the language is getting shagged by people thinking that the what's being said isn't "shouldn't've" but "shouldn't of".. which drives me freakin' nutz.

[edit] The reason "amn't" isn't accepted is because only crazy teens from Canadialand say stuff like that

Quote from 5haz :

You can't deny that they did throw their toys out of the pram, however they had every reason to do so.

I think if it was anything, it was more a case of FOTA deciding to get out of the FIA baby buggy, but my point is that FOTA weren't behaving like the babies that the cliché implies. They did what they had to do. FIA, though.. best left unsaid.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I can't imagine finding touring car racing interesting. I find it as dull as ditchwater. The only 'tiptop' series that are remotely interesting are the various Ginetta championships, and some club level series.

I'd be more inclined to watch touring cars if the BTCC hadn't obliterated its image by tolerating the atrocious Scott-Speed-like on-track behaviour that it has over the last few years. There are lots of reasons why NASCAR sucks, and Scott Speed just sits like a cherry on top of all those. I'm simply left with the indelible image of something like a cross between monster trucks and the WWF.. and that's all stuff I grew out of before I hit highschool.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

So basically Max goes and the teams can gather the toys and put them all back in a pram now, they threw the temper tantrum and got what they wanted in the end. Wasn’t it the case that Max was planning to step down at the end of his reign anyway?

I have to disagree with the spin you put on this. Between FIA and FOTA, FOTA have been consistently far more conciliatory.

Companies like Toyota, Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes and McLaren don't just *play* motor sports. The sport is an integral, integrated and fundamental component of their entire business. It is essential to their brand, inseparable and entirely mutually dependent.

You cannot, as Max did, simply order a company like Ferrari to immediately limit their expenditure in F1 to €40m or suffer a regulation-integrated technical disadvantage. The ramifications in regard to brand image and integrity - THE core business of Ferrari - would be so colossal as to be almost incalculable. Ferrari COULD NOT have bent to the will of the FIA without compromising itself. Ferrari and the rest of FOTA were absolutely right to point out that the FIA is a regulatory body in motor sports, NOT a business or financial controller for these manufacturers or their motor sports teams.

FOTA didn't throw their toys out of the pram by announcing their breakaway series. They were literally left with no choice, given Mosley's intransigence. They have FAR bigger considerations than just F1. For the sake of their brands, their stature and their car sales rooms, they were forced down that path.

I think it's important to recognise the importance of the decision that was made and that these are real businesses with hundreds of direct employees, thousands of indirect employees/contractors and hundreds of thousands of car workers around the world. What's more important than getting down to €40m spending, in THIS economic climate, is saving as many jobs as possible.

Nice abstract shot!

Quote from samjh :

Max has said he won't run for president as long as "the teams behave". Now, just what does that mean? What is the criteria for not behaving?

You REALLY don't trust Max, do you? I wonder why...

I don't trust him as far as I could throw a fit. He's not what you'd call a model of integrity.

[threads merged]

Quote from oli17 :

p.s. Sam H, is that the Severn Valley Railway? (I'm not so good with the geography :razz

Nahh.. small one, Keighley & Worth Valley.. Yorkshire

I'm gathering that the FIA is going to pass control of technical regulations to FOTA, and just retain sporting regulatory control. How that gets divided up I'm not sure, but I think it will mean that the teams will have greater control over the direction that the sport goes. Financial control too, where they'll be able to agree on ways to uniformly reduce costs across teams without compromising the status of the sport. We'll have to see what happens next.

Fixified.. it was wrong of me to image leech

Quote from james12s :

well we 'used' to have a historic narrow gauge railway in our town that used to sercive the paper mills that is the whole reason for this towns existance but because a piece of track was on land someone wanted for a housing development it was closed down a couple of month ago not long after one of the papermills(near my house)

and as you can probably tell, im not happy about it

That is a shame They should have built the houses around it, and made the narrow gauge into a feature! Could even have extended the line to make it a commuter line to the shops and back, for OAPs. Property developers have no vision outside of Disneyland

Quote from mrodgers :

Not a real photographer then. A real photographer has no respect for others and would state, "It's my right to take and display photos of anyone I care to..." .

http://www.sirimo.co.uk/2009/0 ... -photographers-rights-v2/

[edit] Copy attached..

Apart from the fact that you're using the US housing market to argue the UK housing market, you're still proven WRONG, Alan. It is an UPWARD trend, proven.

Here's the UK graph, ALSO adjusted for inflation. You will definitely note a SIGNIFICANT upward trend over time.


If you can't (and I rather expect that you REALLY can't) recognise that you've been entirely incorrect, Alan, then you'll just confirm everything I've come to believe about you.

Quote from Intrepid :

Only a complete idiot takes ONE example and take that's as gospel ignoring the bigger picture.

And only an imbecile assumes that someone else is only looking at one example, simply because he only GAVE one example.

My brother bought a house for £800K before the recent housing slump. He just sold it, mid-slump, for £1.2M. The housing market always rises. Only an idiot thinks it doesn't.

Quote from Intrepid :

Well when i see people not factoring huge influential factors why shouldn't I comment?

Value? eerr.. I am telling you if you don't factor in inflation of the monetary supply and Government intervention in regards to prices then whatever you say is flawed.

Yeah yeah, Alan. Your assumption that you know something we don't, like about inflation. Err.. we're in a recession, you twonk.. as if inflation was even a consideration, given other more directly relevent factors.. geez you can be really stupid.

Weren't you the one claiming to be a mechanical engineer because you had a bench-mounted vice grip!? From one extreme to the other, Alan. I think I'll wait until you find some common sense somewhere in the rational middle ground before paying much more attention to your input.

Quote from samjh :

Don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch. We've only heard Mosley's take. Wait until FOTA releases their statement.

Mosley has promised not to stand for re-election? I believe he has made that promise a few times before...

You're absolutely right, of course. What Max says and what is reality have frequently been quite different, of late. I've learned not to take what Max says too seriously. I wait for non-FIA statements, these days. It's a learned response.

Besides glib idiocy and mind-numbingly stupid suggestions, do you have anything of value to contribute to the discussion, Alan?

We're discussing the direction of the sport, its accessibility and the inherent problems associated with its current ownership and governance, and your response, which amounts to "if you don't like it then do it yourself", is simply moronic.

I lost count of the number of times I went to the York Railway Museum. A lot, shall we say Though I haven't been for about 30 years, now. There's no live steam (or there wasn't last time I was there.. dunno if it's changed) and the engines were scrubbed up and clean.

I'm a live steam fan, so while it's great to see the engines up close, it doesn't get my heart beating like it does when they're pounding past me, feet away

I don't think you can necessarily count on Silverstone retaining F1. It may host next year but the contract has gone to Donington. If Donington lost the contract that it's got because it isn't ready for next year, a significant portion of the responsibility for that can be placed on FIA and FOM for allowing the sport to be undermined so significantly over the last year or more, jeopardising investment over and above the credit crunch.

Quote from Mazz4200 :

Hmmm, have to admit i'm a little saddened by this.

Was really excited at the prospect of the FOTA breakaway championship. Now it seems as though it's gonna be the same old same old, with a few tweaks here and there.

Cest la vie

I know what you mean. The breakaway series meant more than just getting away from Max, it was about reducing ticket prices and making the sport more accessible. These are things that FOTA said they wanted to address, over and above simple sport governance and budget caps. We'll have to wait and see what the details of the deal are, and see if the punters get anything out of this while the teams get what they're asking for.

Yeah, I think I'm fairly lucky to be where I am

Just a couple of minutes from me is a preserved steam railway and if you know where to go, you can get pretty close to the action. I took these today

Taken during a recent visit to Mordor, Middle Earth...


An old hopper. Not sure what it contained, probably coal or grain I'd imagine. Halifax, West Yorks.