Formula 1 - Monaco Grand Prix 2011

This has to be the only on-track roundabout in Formula 1

After a surprisingly eventful race, Sebastien Vettel has lucked into his first Monaco GP victory. He did his usual trick of running away from the big scary grid in the first part of the race as hell started to break loose behind him, with Michael Schumacher going into Anti-Stall on the grid (a system that intervenes if it detects that the driver is about to stall the engine and cuts the throttle) before tackling 9th-place Lewis Hamilton going into the very tight first corner and taking those little black extensions off the bottom of his rear wing. A mere four corners later, he overtook Hamilton on the tightest, slowest corner of any race track in the world, the ~30mph Grande Hotel hairpin. This was a skilful move, one that Hamilton would later try to copy when stuck behind Felipe Massa, but leave too late and end up driving into his left rear corner all the way round the hairpin - a fairly long wheelbase on these cars means that the turning circle is a little large for such a manoeuvre if you leave it too late. Later in the race, after Schumacher made the gutsy move, Hamilton made an even gutsier one by throwing his McLaren down the inside of turn 1 and giving the Septuple World Champion a hair's width between the Brit and a looming tyre wall. Impressive driving from both opportunist Hamilton and wise old Schumacher, who managed to avoid any contact on either side of his Mercedes-Benz.

Mark Webber's start wasn't smooth sailing either, because not only did he fail to get past Jenson Button in the first corner, he was once again passed up the inside by a surging Fernando Alonso, who snatched 3rd from him in so doing. The day didn't improve for him either, with Red Bull showing a rare sign of weakness in the pits. Vettel's tyres took too long to come out of the garage, delaying Webber's immediately following stop even further when he subsequently had to wait for his own set of tyres. The Australian's race would become a long-run battle with Kamui Kobayashi, who maintained a highly impressive 4th place for most of the race, before Webber took back the place two laps from the end. Still, 5th place is a career best for the plucky Japanese driver, whose Mexican team mate Sergio Pérez suffered a highly severe crash in qualifying, losing the back end over a bump on the tunnel exit and sliding sideways at high speed into a (cushioned) divider at the infamous Harbour Chicane. He suffered a bruised thigh and light concussion and was deemed unfit to start the race today by the FIA Doctor. He is looking good to recover in time for Canada in two weeks though, which is good news.

Harbour Chicane. And some girls.

It all seemed to be falling into place for Jenson Button. The Red Bulls had botched two pit stops (one for each driver), he was 14 seconds ahead of Vettel and pulling away, at one point tallying the 10,000th leading lap for a McLaren just before pitting in and dropping to 2nd place. Then his team mate threw a spanner in the works. After trying it on at the tight hairpin, Lewis Hamilton overtook Felipe Massa once and for all in the tunnel on the same lap, wherein Massa was forced onto the dirty area of the track just at the kink where the long right-hander tightens, sliding him straight into the wall and causing the Brazilian's first Monaco retirement since 2002. On the same lap, Michael Schumacher's car decided it would rather be sipping champagne on a yacht, as it ground to a steaming halt just in front of the pits at Rasscasse, meaning his best post-comeback qualifying position of 4th place wouldn't amount to anything.

This brought out the Safety Car and of course, bunched the field up, closing the gaps right up between Button, Vettel and Alonso. Button kept putting the pressure on, but at this point he still hadn't used both types of dry tyre compounds, each time using the red-striped Super Soft tyres (available for the first time this season) in the pits. This forced him onto a 3-stop strategy, meaning he had to pit in one more time for a yellow set of regular Soft tyres, dropping him down to 3rd place. Who knows, maybe if Hamilton and Massa hadn't battled in the tunnel, Vettel's tyres wouldn't have had time to cool down behind the Safety Car and he could've had to pit again, putting Button (and maybe even Alonso) in front of him. Alas, he never had to pit again after his first stop at lap 16 of 78 and made those yellow tyres last longer than anyone had seen this season, although the teams did expect this track to be relatively light on tyre wear, and indeed it was, hence the decision to use Soft and Super Soft compounds rather than the usual Soft and Hard, so that's an important contributing factor as well.

Button spent the rest of his race hunting down 2nd place Alonso, who enjoyed a few laps of just focussing on attacking Vettel on a track that will never truly lend itself to overtaking (that doesn't stop it being a classic though), before having to deal with an attacking McLaren on younger tyres behind him. This was shaping up to be a brilliant chase: Three recent World Champions (well, Alonso's WDCs were 5 & 6 years ago) all looking to add a Monaco win to their CV, with Vettel hoping to win here for the first time in his F1 career. If they kept wearing him down, his tyres would "fall off the cliff", i.e. quickly lose the majority of their gripping abilities all of a sudden, due to Pirelli designing them to do just that. Then he would either have to pit or be forced to hold his lead on degraded tyres that would surely cause a mistake and perhaps send him into the barriers, or wide enough at the Harbour Chicane that he perhaps cuts across it and has to yield, or wide enough into Rasscasse or the first corner to be overtaken by one or both of them. As the tension rose, it seemed like only a matter of time...

...and then Lady Luck threw him another rope.

It was at this point, at lap 70, that the three leaders had caught up with traffic. In amongst it all was a frustrated Lewis Hamilton, who already had a drive-through penalty for hitting Massa in the Grande Hotel hairpin. He was scything through the other backmarkers just ahead of the leaders, overtaking Vitaly Petrov at Tabac (left hander after the Harbour Chicane). Still ahead of Hamilton was Adrian Sutil, who slid wide and hit the outside barrier, pulling the tyre off his right rear wheel. As he started limping to the pits, he cut the chicane - validly, as he could no longer drive at race pace and had to get out of the way - and ended up just ahead of Hamilton, who slowed on the exit as he sighted a route round the stricken Force India. This lead to Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari hitting the McLaren's rear wheel and ripping his front wing off. Avoiding this collision immediately behind this pair was Alguersuari's team mate Sebastien Buemi and Petrov. As Buemi avoided smacking into his team mate, he ended up colliding into the side of Petrov as the two of  them smashed into the wall, with the Lotus-Renault driver bearing the brunt of the impact as he hit the wall at quite a steep angle. This didn't just bring out the safety car with 8 laps to go. Because Petrov wasn't getting out of the car, the ambulance was called, and the race was eventually Red Flagged on lap 72, meaning the drivers had to line up behind the safety car on the grid and wait for the race to either be restarted or cancelled. We later found out that Vitaly felt a lot of pain, including in his lower back, and briefly could not feel his legs. It was better that medical staff extracted him from the car, which they duly did, already having practiced the day before with Sergio Pérez.

As the drivers sat there on the grid, their cars were allowed to be worked on by teams. This included changing tyres, although who had tyres this late-on worth changing into, I don't know. It did give the McLaren team time to replace the broken endplates on Lewis Hamilton's rear wing, the right of which had been broken off its lower support by Alguersuari. The drivers had time to cool off and rest their tired selves after about 65 laps of hard graft, getting right up close to the barriers that characterise the Monaco circuit without hitting them, finding those rare opportunities to overtake, spending only 10 seconds of each lap not steering, and the rest of the time behind the Safety Car, trying to keep tyre and brake temperatures up. As the BBC commentators mentioned, this also gave the adrenaline in their bodies time to fade away, which could take the edge off their driving and perhaps make it just feel like hard work if and when they got going again...

Clearly Button & Alonso enjoyed the race a little too much and needed to
cover their, ahem, gear sticks. Vettel has no such insecurities...

Get going again they did, as the AMG SLS Safety Car fired up its 6.2 litre, 563bhp V8 and lead 18 F1 cars out of 23 starters (each with 2.4 litre, ~750bhp V8s) around for one warm-up lap before peeling off and letting them get on with it. Vettel bunched up the field and then shot off as he ran away from trouble once more. The gap between them which had previously been mere tenths of a second became 1.5 seconds or so, effectively ending the chase, as it takes a lot longer than 5 or 6 laps to close down 1.5 seconds and pass the car ahead, especially at Monaco. As a result, Vettel could stop worrying about tyre wear and just bring it home. There was still something for us TV-watchers though, as Hamilton was in the wars again going into turn 1 of the restart, colliding with Williams rookie Pastor Maldonado, who had been doing very well in 6th place, during an attempted overtake. The Venezuelan was spun sideways into a tyre wall on the corner exit.

Hamilton claims - as he did with Massa - that the defending driver "turned in on him" and that it wasn't his fault. All the same, he was penalised after the race by having 20 seconds added to his race time, although this didn't change his position, as 7th place Adrian Sutil was lapped during the race, and Hamilton wasn't. Lucky in a way, but it only dampened his spirits further as he gave a moody interview after the race, claiming that he always get penalised: "I've been called into the Steward's Office five times in six races. It's an absolute fricking joke ... I always get the penalty". Strong words - and not the strongest he used, either - but it's fair to say that he was very frustrated after losing the chance to set a decent qualifying lap and then being demoted to 9th before starting a race with a botched pit stop and a drive-through. While some of what he said's understandable, some of it was in the heat of the moment and something he'll regret saying (jokingly playing the race card immediately springs to mind, even if he didn't mean it).

None of this affected Vettel, Alonso and Button, who get to take home a trophy the same shape as the famous street circuit. Now they get some time off to party in Monte Carlo - home to many F1 drivers past and present - before joining their teams in America's Hat for the return of the Canadian Grand Prix at Montréal. This will be the first circuit to have not one, but two DRS zones. How will that affect the racing? Can it help the McLarens or the Ferraris knock Vettel off his pedestal? Find out on the weekend of the 10-12th June!

Points tables follow (click to enlarge). As always, I do not claim ownership of the above images. Maybe one day I'll buy a ticket to Silverstone and take my own pictures...

Read More

F1 versus X1 - What's The Difference?

Sponsor decals leave subtle hints about what game they're in

*Note - To take these pictures, I needed to do a 2-Player race. Unfortunately, the game didn't let me use the Ferrari F10 Formula 1 car, so I have used the Polyphony Formula GranTurismo instead. Its body is based on a 2004 F1 car (possibly a Renault), but it has a 3500cc V12 producing ~900bhp. It is also a Standard model, whereas the Red Bull X2010 is a Premium model, meaning higher detail and surface quality.

To fill the void between the Turkish and Spanish Grands Prix, I've decided to compare F1 with limits to F1 without. Gran Turismo 5 is a wondrous place. You can race the never-raced Jaguar XJ13 against a Ford Mk.IV GT40 and a Ferrari 330 P3, drive a Lamborghini Miura Prototype, go rallying in a Lotus Evora, you can even take a picture of a dog sitting down. It has everything, including the fastest race car possible in 2010: The Red Bull X1 (I know it's been renamed X2010, but I prefer X1, so I'm sticking to it).

But aside from the presence of headlights, what's the difference between this "fastest car in the world, with a very high top speed as well" and a traditional Formula 1 car? The short answer is Quite A Lot. The long answer is, well...

It Has a Fan

This car really sucks. No no, in a good way.

Legendary car designer and mastermind of the world-beating McLaren F1 supercar, Gordon Murray once implemented a fan system on a Brabham BT46B for the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix. Taken from the pioneering Chaparral 2J CanAm car of 1970, the idea is that a fan mounted on the back would suck air up through holes in the floor and force it out the back, generating incredible amounts of downforce at almost any speed (as long as Ground Effect was maintained, which it was). Niki Lauda raced the car to a comfortable victory in that race. Actually, "comfortable" isn't the word, as the car's ability to turn on a dime at very high speed put a large amount of lateral force on the driver, making the car very tiring to drive for a long period of time. In any case, its sheer dominance meant that it and all "fan cars" were immediately banned. However, the X1 Prototype is a car designed without legal limitations, so it has a fan attached, which - along with other aerodynamic elements, of course - helps it to produce over 8 Lateral G's in a fast enough corner, roughly twice what a modern F1 car can do. This means that it can go round corners much, much faster. For example, the tight, 1st-gear hairpin at Suzuka (just after going under the bridge) can be taken in an F1 car at around 40mph. The X1 can take it at around 80mph. The replays of this thing look like they're on fast forward!

You can demonstrate the system to yourself by sitting on grass/dirt and seeing dust being forced out the back.

It Has Covered Wheels

As you've no doubt noticed by now, there is a lot more bodywork on the X1 than on any F1 car. Surely it's faster without it, because F1 cars always have exposed wheels? Actually, no. Formula 1 is merely the fastest open-wheeled race series, and open-wheel cars must have their wheels, er, open. Alas, exposed spinning wheels create horrible amounts of drag, and left to their own devices the very first thing a Formula 1 aerodynamicist would do if the rules allowed is to cover the wheels as much as they can (previously they have made efforts to guide the air around them with winglets, fins and other aero devices, but they're now banned so they can overtake each other). This significantly reduces drag around the wheels by providing a much smoother air flow around them. Covering the wheels completely wouldn't do anything to speed up pit stops though, so how Group C racers and prototypes of the '80s/90s coped, I don't know. The front wheels have removable covers, but the rear ones appear to be sealed in with rivets/screws. Maybe they never wear out? Maybe the designers just wanted to put a GT logo there instead of a centre locking cap for a wheel jack to latch onto or some kind of flap. Who knows? I'm sure it's not terribly important...

Racing drivers don't appear to be into eye contact much... 

The front wheel modules in the above picture do not rotate with the wheel, partly because they are holding the comparatively minimal front wing and possibly an aerodynamically-shaped structural element in place. As may be apparent, they don't just guide air around the wheels, but at the end, they also begin to shape the air flow towards the side pod and air intake (just under S. Vettel's name in the pic), while still having a smooth and straight outer edge.

It Has More Power
A lot more power, in fact. A modern F1 engine is a 2.4 litre, naturally aspirated V8 producing ~750bhp. The X1 has a 3.0 litre, Twin-Turbocharged V6 (turbo power has been banned in F1 since 1989), which produces a stupendous 1504PS, or 1483bhp. That's about twice as much. It also makes 527lb/ft of torque. These figures, along with the immediate downforce provided by the fan (downforce aids traction by pushing the car down) and racing slick tyres means that the 545kg X1 can go from 0-60mph in just 1.4 seconds. Yes, that's one-point-four seconds. The next 60mph takes another 1.4 seconds, and 200mph - which is approaching the limit of an F1 car these days - will casually pass you by just 6.1 seconds after you set off. Does this astonishing acceleration ever stop? Yes. Depending on the downforce setup, the top speed is anywhere from a Veyron-Vanquishing 280mph up to an amazing 300mph (with low downforce). In some situations, such as a long slipstream on an oval circuit, or perhaps with a perfect setup, you can even go beyond 300mph. I got in a long slipstream at Indianapolis once and reached 310mph, at which point I was right on the 16,000rpm red line in 7th gear. Once I moved out to overtake, however, the top speed dropped off a little, which is only natural.

By contrast, an F1 car's top speed is 190-210mph, depending on gear ratios/downforce. 0-60: ~2.5s, 0-100: ~5s

It Has a Low-Drag Body
As I mentioned earlier when explaining the covered wheels, the X1's body is designed to minimise aerodynamic drag. In case you don't know, "drag" is used to describe the friction of the air against the car. As a car pushes against the air, the air pushes back an equal amount (Newton's 3rd Law). While a big rear spoiler creates downforce by the air pushing the wing downwards - and/or creating a low-pressure area underneath the car/body piece - and aiding grip, it also creates drag, which, in a manner of speaking, "drags" the car backwards (although, of course, the car perseveres with engine power). It's for this reason that low downforce (or even no spoiler at all) leads to a higher top speed, as the car can slip through the air more easily. Part of the reason the X1 can potentially hit 300mph is that it has a much lower Drag Coefficient than an open-wheeled F1 car.

Helpfully, the Red Bull X1 also has tail lights, so you can better tell what the car in front's doing in a race

Much like Formula 1 cars prior to the 2009 rules overhaul, the Formula GranTurismo pictured has winglets and heat chimneys (which, oddly, have no opening, making them more like fins than anything), as well as air guides just before the rear wing to move them around the rear wheels. The X1, however, has almost nothing on its top body, just a tiny roll hoop, a few louvres to vent out heat from the engine bay (and over the tyres for similar reasons, and to cool the rear brakes) and exhaust pipes that exit through the top, well before the diffuser and fan system, to keep it out of the way. Behind the rear wheels, downward-pointing fins on the outer edges guide the air off the car as smoothly as possible, while leaving an opening for water and other debris to come off the tyres without getting into anything important. It also has a longer, wider diffuser than the small, largely hidden diffuser under the F-GT's rear wing. The X1's rear wing is simple in structure, as most of the downforce is generated by that central fan, but the adjustability of the rear wing helps fine tune the car for each track (the same goes for the front wing, although that also controls airflow into the front section of the car and into the underside where the fan can get to it).

In the pursuit of minimum drag, the driver is also covered by a glass canopy, again something that chief designer Adrian Newey couldn't do to the Red Bull RB7 that's currently atop the F1 leaderboard. Rather than being added on to an F1 car shape, it is part of the original shape of an original car, so it doesn't look out of place, just part of the car that's see-through. It also lifts up and forward on an electrically operated hinge to allow entry and exit. Y'know, if the driver wasn't a computer-rendered element of the car that just reacts to controller inputs. The mirrors are also inboard, and you can just see the housings, behind the steering wheel (from the driver's perspective), where the black dashboard thing splits off in a 'Y' shape. Well, either they're mirrors or screens, but I can't see any rear-facing cameras...

So that's essentially the difference. The body, the fan and the immense power. Those things add up to make a ridiculously fast car. But what's the true difference in speed? Well, the Ferrari F10 can lap the TopGear track in 59 seconds or so. The Red Bull X1 can do it in 40 seconds. The F10 can lap the Le Mans circuit (with no chicanes) in around 3 minutes, the X1 can do it in 2 minutes. Monza, Suzuka, Grand Valley Speedway, the Nürburgring F1 circuit, Fuji Speedway, unless the track is really long, it can most likely lap it in just over or just under a minute. The 12.95-mile Nordschleife? Less than three and a half minutes, according to YouTube. No videos of it loosing ground effect and taking off mid-corner, mostly due to yet another banned F1 technology - Active Ride Height. It does what it says on the tin, making sure the X1 is always at optimum height for the fan system to work and keeping the car flat and level in corners.

What's the best thing about this car, though? That it's completely and utterly possible. Red Bull Racing have made a full-sized model to show off how brilliant Adrian Newey is at designing stuff, but other than that the X2010 Prototype doesn't exist outside of your PS3. Not because humankind cannot build a 300mph fan car, but because there's no financial interest in building a completely bespoke and potentially-harmful-to-drive one-off that they can't sell to anyone because it isn't road legal. A one-make series is a long shot, too. It's a shame really, but still, now we know what a 2010 Formula 1 race could've been like: shorter.

Through that arch you can see the rear axle and the end of the right front wheel module. Air is channelled through here.

Now you know, you should start playing GT5 so you can unlock it be either reaching B-Spec Level 35 or getting a medal in each of the three parts of the Sebastien Vettel X2010 Challenge... and experience the terror. It is so much faster than any other car in the game, you need to completely readjust your brain and just try to keep up with it. Delicate throttle control is the key to a golden lap time, as well as quick steering. Persevere! Win! Click on another article here after you do!

.

Read More

Formula 1 - Turkish Grand Prix 2011

2011 Formula 1 Podium Design Proposal. National sponsors affect background race by race

For the third time in four races, Sebastien Vettel has won from pole position. In the one race thus far that he didn't win, he came 2nd... from pole position. Is anyone else getting a little fed up with this guy? Sure, he seems like a great guy out of the car - quite fun and good-humoured for a German - but his dominance in the early part of the season, coupled with what would've been a more dominant 2010 with better reliability, is really starting to bug me somewhat. He just runs away in 1st place at the start of the race and stays there. The only time he didn't win (in China three weeks ago) was when he was overtaken at the first corner and put on the back foot. He later regained the lead, only for Lewis Hamilton to catch him on fresher option tyres as his clever tyre strategy made a win for the Brit inevitable in the closing stages. Vettel's faster than anyone else over a flying lap, most likely because the fastest car on the grid was designed around him, as being the reigning World Champion solidifies your status as No.1 in the team quite effectively, but his weakness is overtaking people. What kind of weakness is that in an F1 World Champion?! Is it mainly down to the car that he's on top? It certainly seems so at times, and did last year as well. He needs to be dethroned once and for all, be it by a McLaren, a Ferrari, a Lotus-Renault (hey, don't rule them out) or even his own team mate Mark Webber, who I would have preferred to win the championship last year out of the two Red Bulls. Alas, a disastrous finale at Yas Marina meant it wasn't to be...

The short run to turn 1 meant few position changes at the start.

Anyway, the race. By and large, it called for a four-stop strategy, something that was rare in the recent Bridgestone era. The McLarens - Red Bull's closest challengers - got off to a shaky start, with 4th place Hamilton running wide early in lap 1 and dropping down to 6th, just behind team mate Jenson Button. Nico Rosberg had got his Mercedes MGP-W02 up into 3rd in qualifying and overtook Webber in the first corner, making a promising race weekend for Ross Brawn's struggling team, alas, the DRS activation line was placed a little too early on the long backstraight, which caused a few drivers to overtake him in the final complex over the first few laps, causing disappointment for the German. Further disappointment came for Mercedes GP when Michael Schumacher defended poorly from Vitaly Petrov in turn 12 and ran into him, breaking his front wing and forcing him in the pits from 8th place on lap 2. His race became a quest for points, as he swiftly dropped to 22nd place. Sadly for him his quest failed, as he ended up finishing in 12th position, two places out of the points.

Over the next few laps, the two McLaren drivers were wheel-to-wheel, evoking memories of last year's race when they jostled for position at a late stage. They must have swapped places about 3 or 4 times during this phase. After falling back in lap 1, Hamilton went to "Plan B", which turned out to be the better one, as his Plan B was a four-stop pit strategy. Button's three-stop strategy meant that he ultimately lost this battle, finishing in 6th place despite leading the race in lap 12. Hamilton ended up finishing where he started, in 4th. Getting in the mix was Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, who battled with Hamilton when his tyres were wearing thin. In the pits, they went in together with Massa in front, but Hamilton's stop was faster. Ferrari countered, it seemed, by releasing Massa just when the McLaren driver was going past their pit box, in a last ditch attempt to get him out in front. The two nearly collided, and because Hamilton's wheels were in front of the Brazillan's (plus he technically had right of way), the Brit left the pits ahead. Massa was not entirely out of McLaren's hair, however, as he wound up doing battle with Jenson Button later on, in the middle of the race. He stayed ahead for several laps before making a mistake in turn 12 and having to pit again. He finished in an unfortunate 11th place.

Kamui Kobayashi ahead of Michael Schumacher.

Meanwhile, at the sharp end, Vettel did his usual trick of fleeing from trouble in his Red Bull RB7, leaving Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber to fight for second. Alonso was quicker in the third stint (both drivers did four stops), but Webber retook 2nd place on lap 51 out of 58 in the usual overtaking place, the turn 12-14 left-right-left complex at the end of the lap. This lead to Red Bull Racing's first one-two finish of the season so far, and a result that could also have happened last year, had they not squabbled for the lead going into turn 12 and hit eachother.

McLaren weren't the only team having a civil war, either. Lotus-Renault GP let its two drivers fight it out as well (that's the black Lotus team that's actually Lotus Cars and not the old Lotus F1 team, rather than Team Lotus, the old Lotus F1 team, which isn't really Lotus, but whom just bought Caterham, who make a car that actually used to be a Lotus but isn't any more). At one point Vitaly Petrov even shut out his German team mate Nick Heidfeld in turn 13, almost forcing him in the pits! Heidfeld got his own back though, by finishing in 7th, just ahead of the Russian driver in 8th.

Elsewhere in the grid, there was a huge amount of overtaking, thanks in part to that large DRS zone. Japanese madman Kamui Kobayashi started last after failing to set a qualifying time (the stewards allowed him to start the race because his practice laps were comfortably within 107% of the pole position lap time) and promptly made up fourteen places, five of them in the first lap, to finish in 10th position and get a single World Championship point. His Mexican team mate Sergio Pérez lost his front wing in the manic first lap, but made his way back up the grid to finish 13th. Sebastien Buemi also put in a strong performance and finished 9th, after starting in 16th place.

What else happened? I can't even remember. That's the long and short of it though. In a fortnight's time, the F1 circus is off to Circuit de Cataluña in Barcelona, Spain. This is a track that typically demands a good car in order to win and the teams usually bring major upgrade packages to this race. Three guesses who's getting pole position there then...

The full results and points table is here:

Race images are from F1Fanatic.co.uk and are not mine

Read More

So Apparently Osama Bin Laden Is Dead?

Dethroned at last. Who will be the next champion?

FINALLY, something to stop news channels rambling on about the Royal Sodding Wedding...

In the last 24 hours, president Barack Obama announced that a team of American soldiers (apparently it's very important to note that the whole team were American...) found Osama Bin Laden's hiding place in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The 10-year round of Hide And Seek is over, but unfortunately Bin Laden has decided that the gun-ho Americans cheated by killing him, so he's not playing any more. Sore loser...

Now that everyone knows about his death, there are immediate fears of revenge attacks - it seems that Al Qaeda take Hide and Seek very seriously - after the chief terrorist was shot in the head and promptly buried at sea. Apparently, the US helicopter broke down, so he was carried away on foot. Meanwhile, riotous celebrations have swept the western world, particularly at Ground Zero, where the twin towers used to be. Like many, I wouldn't mind running Bin Laden's body through a Bacon Slicer, and I hope his corpse is uncovered by bottom-feeders in the sea and ripped apart by sharks. Well, there is enough blood on his hands to attract them...

Sure it may not end the war on terror all on its own, but it's still satisfying as someone who isn't in favour of randomly killing hundreds of innocent people just for having a different religion for me to say in honesty "Bin Laden is Dead".

Because this is technically a car blog, I leave you with Jackie Stewart powersliding away from an explosion. Why this of all images? BECAUSE RACECAR, and there need be no further explanation than that!

Perhaps the most awesome racing car picture on The Internet

Muscle Car Monday to follow. Hopefully...

Read More