The view from my desk at Sepang

Pics/Ed Gorman/The Times. Click on images to see palm trees on the hill

Comments

[JP]

I have always wondered what an F1 Press Room looks like... and now I know! Thanks Ed!

[IDR]

Nice pics, Ed!

As always, very interesting to see the backstage of F1.

On the other hand, watching at the pics, it seems to me that you are located in different places. (desk_010, desk_001).

How does it work? I thought that you keep the same place for the whole weekend.

Last question, what is that big device near to your computer(left side)? (desk_010)

[J S]

Good desk photos, excellent we are on a roll now, do I see a mattress and pillows near the desk as well? Is this desk located in one of those big lorries or is it a building at the track. Keep informing us Ed, thank you.

[Anon (original)]

Wow! Very interesting. Had no idea about these press rooms. Incredible how futuristic Formula One is.

[Bojan]

Thank you for the pics Ed. My guess for the device beside your computer would be the portable TV set, I think it is called Kangaroo TV. Do I see the back of Mike Doodson on the first picture? The guy in a striped T-shirt (same picture) must be Miran A. - TV commentator and by far the loudest Slovenian ever. :-)

[Ed Gorman]

I only had one desk place. The pics are all taken from one seat but using zoom on one or two. As Bojan suggests the big device next to Byron Young's computer(not mine) is a Kangaroo TV set which some guys find useful but I don't generally get one. And yes, I guess that is the Slovenian guy in front of me...

[D]

^
Ed >

Word here is that all Hell’s about to break loose on the legal shenanigans front again. Lawyers are already rubbing their hands in glee and commissioning extensions to their villas in Tuscany

As I understand it, Paris-Match has got hold of some photographs of Mario Thiessen’s daughter going into a Munich photocopy shop with a copy of Renault F1’s recipe book in her handbag (she’s been having an affair with a disillusioned F1 sous-chef who got passed over for promotion because he isn’t French).

Renault is furious; it’s filed a formal complaint to the FIA and has asked its friends at Michelin for a team of Guide Rouge inspectors to investigate this further.

Norbert Haug offered to arbitrate by eating a full portion of everything on the menu of every team in the Paddock in one meal, but, to his dismay, this offer has been declined.

Norbert himself is in a spot of bother, anyway, With the dollar in free-fall, it seems that a Porsche man at Volkswagen went nosing around in the Wolfsburg vaults in search of some gold bars with swastikas on them that Ferdinand Senior had told him were stashed away there secretly by the Good Old Boys when things went pear-shaped in 1945 and he discovered a document giving Auto Union sole rights to use the term “Silver Arrow” that Adolf Hitler appears to have signed when he got drunk at the wedding of Max Mosley’s mum and dad.

VW was a bit wary about calling in the Polizei in view of the sensitivity of its provenance (and until it has had a good look round itself for any undeclared nuggets of the shiny stuff) so it sent in the Reinheitsgebot Investigation Department, armed with a search warrant signed by the mayor of Ingolstadt (whose wife works for Audi).

When they broke into Norbert’s office at M-B in Stuttgart last week they discovered 35 cases of Löwenbräu hidden in a secret compartment behind a life-sized picture of the amply-proportioned Alfred Neubauer wearing an unfortunate armband.

Called to account, Norbert has sent them a fax stating that this was his lunch. They were initially unconvinced by that excuse but Norbert then emailed them a photo of his silhouette and an engineer’s report stating that the structural integrity of Terminal Six could not be guaranteed if Norbert ventured above Ground Floor.

Mosley is worried about the whole affair. He doesn’t want people asking too many questions about what went on and who was present at the nuptials of his parents, in Berlin. Particularly since he’s announced an FIA crackdown on racialism.

So, (backed by Ferrari, who are getting worried again) he’s decided to divert public attention by referring the whole incident of the Renault recipe book to the FIA’s Star Chamber in the hope he can screw $100m out of BMW before excluding them from the Constructors Championship to give Ferrari a helping hand.

As “a cost-cutting measure” he has decreed that, from 2009, all culinary refreshment supplied by the teams will have to take the form of a standardised bacon butty, to be supplied under an exclusive contract awarded (without putting it out to tender) to a Panamanian-registered subsidiary of Formula One Management which has done a deal with MacDonalds and will be charging teams a modest $150 per butty.

MacDonalds toyed with the idea of calling these a Big Max but, in view of their meagre size and extortionate price has decided to christen them Little Bernies.

Bernie himself, though, is more preoccupied with matters closer to home after a plain brown envelope was shoved under his door containing photographs of Mrs. E sunbathing on the patio of their Gstaad pad, clad only in a pair of diamond-encrusted flip-flops, Armani sunglasses and a $1m Versace necklace made of gold-plated spaghetti hoops.

Significantly, a few days earlier, Bernie had had a row with Silvio Berlusconi who was insisting that he would only give Bernie’s daughter a job as a Formula One reporter if she would do it naked.

Apart from that, things are pretty quiet, here, really. What’s the QT on this at your end?

[IDR]

Quite funny, D!

Why don't you try to write a script of the new James Bond film?

May I suggest you the title:

"Too old to drive, too young to die"

And the actors:

The bad boss: Mr Max

The Killer: Mr Bernie

The bad guy who is killed by the bad boss due to his uncompetence: Mr Dennis.

The bad-at-the-end-good girl: Mrs. Kathryn-s

The good girl: Mrs Marie

M: Mr Briatore

Q: Mr Andy G

CIA College: Annon

James Bond: Well, there should be a lot of candidates but Ed can apply for: Is British, not in bad shape as we saw at the gym...

[D]

^
IDR >

Nice cast!

But I think somebody's already been there...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2FQ2r6CoY

[Anon (original)]

CIA College? Is that good or bad? In other words, who is CIA Colege?

Regards

[IDR]

Anon (Original),

The CIA Colleague (sorry! my English... well all of you know how bad is!)

is a good guy, that always gives a hand to James Bond. I don't remember his name, but you should find it easely.

[Kathryn S]

As I have been drafted into this farce, I'll add my two cents.

D, shame on you for going off subject after severely chastising others for the same offense.

IDR, I appreciate the mention, but know that I'm either a very, very bad girl or a very, very good girl...

[IDR]

I just said "bad-at-the-end-good girl".

To be "very" is not needed for that personage, just let Max, Bernie and Dennis for covering the "very role" in this "film".

[D]

^
K >

It all depends on how good you are at being a bad girl...

(Raunchily good, I hope!)

[Anon (original)]

I love these kinds of threads (along with the food threads) which allow for true friends to come and share a laugh. Its nice to se people like IDR and D ho have actually become friends over this blog. Thanks IDR for the role. =)

Reagrd everyone

[IDR]

Kathryn S,

Have you heard Mae West quote?

"When I want to be good, I'm very good, but when I become bad... I'm much better!"

[D]

^

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns20299.html

You see? You see?

The $150 MacDonalds "Little Bernie" is on its way.

And to think some of you doubted it. Shame on you.

Believe you me, if BMW get any quicker, they'll be up before Mad Max for a $100m fine, exclusion from the Championship and five hours in a Chelsea basement with five of his friends.

And then it will be down to the end of the pit-lane for them in 2009.

Oh yes. This one isn't going to go away.

[IDR]

Is somebody going to order a "Big Max"?

€5.000 is so much money for that kind of scrap.

Let me alone with my homemade Tagliatelle with Carabineros!!!!

Shame on you too. ;-)