Free Republic

'Beaver’ gets all the blame British driver pins Grand Prix loss on wrong rodent Randy Boswell CanWest News Service Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Davidson blamed the wrong rodent for ruining his race when it wandered into the path of his car. It turns out a poor groundhog got in the way of the car. What, exactly, was that buck-toothed blur? The final, unfortunate act in the life of an unwitting Canadian rodent has grabbed headlines around the world after British Formula One driver Anthony Davidson blamed a "beaver" for wandering into the path of his car and ruining his race...

Two-second penalties for both Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher set up a thrilling qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday afternoon. With the two key championship contenders eliminated before the top-ten shootout, the honours for pole position fell right at the very end to McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen, whose last-gasp lap of 1m 19.599s came just as Felipe Massa looked to have bagged the first Formula One pole of his career. Also, Hungarian Grand Prix stewards have cancelled American Scott Speed’s three fastest qualifying times as punishment for impeding another driver during Saturday’s session. The move means the Toro...

Kimi Raikkonen repeated his 2005 qualifying position for McLaren at Hockenheim on Saturday afternoon to beat Michael Schumacher. But with Felipe Massa third, Ferrari look very threatening despite too much oversteer in the final session, and everything will depend on fuel loads on Sunday.On paper, Ferrari look set for a strong run tomorrow, and as in Indianapolis, Fernando Alonso has a lot to do to safeguard his championship lead.

Michael Schumacher took his 68th pole position here in Magny-Cours this afternoon, underlying that his success in Indianapolis was not just due to any Michelin conservatism but also Bridgestone’s improved performance. The former champion looked strong all day and lapped his Ferrari in 1m 15.493s to seal the issue just as arch-rival Fernando Alonso posted 1m 15.785s for Renault and Michelin. It was not quite the result that the partisan crowd had expected, and it will be fascinating to see on Sunday which of them has the greater fuel load.

F1 Grand Prix is on American soil. Don't miss the race LIVE in its entirety from Indianapolis Motor Speedway! SUNDAY: 12:30pm ET on SPEED Channel!

Barcelona is a circuit that every Formula One team knows well as they complete thousands of kilometres there in testing throughout the season. The mix of high-speed corners, a very long straight and an abrasive track surface, makes the Circuit de Catalunya a uniquely ‘complete’ circuit. Finding the right set-up compromise is always a tricky business at the Spanish Grand Prix. World champion Fernando Alonso was the fastest race driver in Friday afternoon’s second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya. In front of a huge home crowd, the Spaniard finished third in his Renault, behind Honda’s and Red Bull’s...

State Sen. Karl Kruger (below), recipient of verbal beatdown from Rep. Anthony Weiner (top). Anthony Weiner's mother is probably reaching for the soap right now. In a moment that went far beyond the usual frank dialogue among politicians, the Brooklyn congressman publicly laced into a fellow Democrat - using language that would make a sailor blush. "Do you have a f------ problem with me?" the 2005 mayoral candidate said to state Sen. Carl Kruger at an annual Mill Basin fund-raiser Thursday night, witnesses said.Weiner, thought to be an early mayoral 2009 favorite, also called the Brooklyn senator a "p---y,"...

IT is looming as the sports fan's ultimate dilemma: the Grand Prix revving up or the footy kicking off? For the first time, two of Victoria's glamour events will collide this weekend in a major sporting feast. Melbourne will live up to its status as the nation's sporting capital when the two major events go head to head. The AFL season begins tonight when West Coast hosts St Kilda at Subiaco Oval, while the first day of high octane action rings around Albert Park. Tomorrow night Richmond clashes with the Western Bulldogs at Telstra Dome, hours after the world's fastest...

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher said that Ferrari was ready for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday. Giancarlo Fisichella has pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix, with Jenson Button alongside him and the Williams of Nico Rosberg and Mark Webber behind them on the grid.

Michael Schumacher equalled the late Ayrton Senna’s record for pole positions when he took his 65th here in Bahrain this afternoon during Formula One racing’s first knockout qualifying session. Fellow Ferrari racer Felipe Massa will start alongside him, with Honda’s Jenson Button and Renault world champion Fernando Alonso on row two.

Budapest — Kimi Raikkonen blew away the field Sunday at the Hungarian Grand Prix, winning by 35.5 seconds for his fourth victory of the season. Pole-sitter Michael Schumacher finished a distant second, with his brother, Ralf Schumacher, taking third. Raikkonen's sixth career victory gave him 61 points this season, second to Formula One points leader Fernando Alonso. Alonso finished out of the points, but still holds a commanding lead with 87 points.

This weekend's French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours is being targeted by a group of donkey-riding protestors, determined to drive Formula One out of the country. The protest sees an anti-consumerism group mount their fourth annual attempt at "the suppression of the French Grand Prix of Formula One" by riding a donkey convey from Lyon to Magny-Cours. As practice got underway at the track on Friday, reports were already coming in of traffic congestion 12 kilometres from Magny-Cours as the donkey protest takes its toll. The group plan to march on the circuit on race day, raising fears of serious traffic...

French tyre company Michelin has offered to refund the 120,000 spectators who bought tickets for the US Grand Prix two weeks ago. The tyre company made the offer on the eve of an FIA disciplinary meetingin Paris which will hear why the seven Michelin-shod teams refused to race over safety concerns. All seven teams face charges of bringing the sport into disrepute and could face a range of penalties including suspended bans, fines or even loss of Championship points. A Michelin statement read: "Michelin deeply regrets that the public was deprived of an exciting race and therefore wishes to be...

The world can learn from the way sport is organised in the US As an exercise in shooting yourself in the foot, the debacle at the US Grand Prix last Sunday takes some beating. Americans are notoriously uninterested in the sports the rest of the world plays and generally need to be bribed, bought and flattered into watching anything other than their beloved national pastimes. Since the heady days of Mario Andretti’s ascendancy, Formula One has been on a precipitous decline in the United States, hastened in the past decade by the stunning success of NASCAR, which now has a...

       ~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ Modern Times: The Vent  Welcome to the FReeper Canteen! It's great to have you with all of us!! We're going to start a new feature on Tuesdays. We're not sure if we'll run this every Tuesday or every other Tuesday. However, we'd like to open the floor to hot topics of the day. None of which are political. Unless something is absolutely appalling or in need of your reaction!!          The Vent     Main Topic: US Grand Prix Debacle! Who is to blame? What You Need...

Thanks for playing, now get the hell out. This was the message sent loudly and clearly Sunday by the slightly less than 100,000 fans that had traveled from all over the most powerful country in the world to see what is supposed to be the greatest auto racing series on the planet. Take your giant transport planes and your Kevlar-coated motorcoaches and your big fancy remote control cars and go drive them elsewhere. Formula One racing has always been a hard sell in the United States, despite the fact that facilities elsewhere can't seem to build enough grandstands to contain...

Danica Patrick has surged onto the open-wheel racing world, but that might not be sitting well with the old-school boss of Formula One racing. Formula One is getting its most high-profile United States presence with the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend, but Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone doesn't seem to be too crazy about Patrick joining her male competitors on the track, despite her recent Indy 500 success. "She did a good job, didn't she? Super. Didn't think she'd be able to make it like that," Ecclestone told a gathering of reporters about Patrick's Indy 500...

Many Formula One fans were outraged by the withdrawal of all but six cars before the start of the United States Grand Prix on Sunday. The other 14 cars, representing the seven teams that use Michelin tires, pulled off the track after the warmup lap because of safety concerns and a failure to reach a compromise that would have allowed them to compete. Many people left the race and demanded ticket refunds. "I came all the way from South America, from Bolivia, to watch this thing. But for me, this is the last time that I go to Formula One,"...

INDIANAPOLIS - The United States Grand Prix started with just six cars in the race after 14 others refused to participate Sunday out of safety concerns with their Michelin tires. All 20 cars lined up on the starting grid and completed the warmup lap. Then, the 14 cars that use Michelin tires, pulled back into their pits and parked. It left just six cars on the track, including the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, to start the race. The six remaining cars all use Bridgestone tires. The bewildered crowd at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was left pointing and gawking...

The Indy crowd is now booing every Michelin tired car as they sit in their paddocks as the six Bridgestone cars race on. The crowd of over 100,000 people just got ripped off royally. What a sad day for F1!