26/06/2014
NEWS STORY
A dearth of real news has inevitably led to some nonsensical reports in recent days... but don't ignore all of them.
It began when the Daily Fail claimed that Lewis Hamilton, who recently visited the Circuit do Catalunya for the Moto GP race, said he wanted to emulate John Surtees and win titles on two and four wheel.
"It would be cool to do that," said the Briton. Good luck with that Lewis.
To give the article added credence, we were told: "Surtees, who is now 80, added the Formula One title of 1966 to seven motorcycle world championships – an accomplishment that not only won him the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award but motor-sport immortality."
Lewis has been in the news again since, the Mercedes driver - currently battling for the title with his Mercedes teammate, having won half of the races held thus far this year, is being targeted by McLaren, currently sixth in the standings.
Then again, we are reliably informed that the Woking outfit is targeting Fernando Alonso, and we all know how that worked out before.
As if those that make up the rules - and we mean that in every sense - weren't doing enough damage - titanium skid plates and standing starts following red flag incidents - we are also told that after all this time, and countless hundreds of millions, Renault is considering selling its F1 Sport operation. Yeh right or the French equivalent.
Amongst all the nonsense however, there are some genuine scoops out there, and we are delighted to be able to reveal, courtesy of a well-placed source, that the F1 Strategy Group has come up with further ideas in terms of cost cutting.
As the sport further attempt to improve its 'green' credentials, it is being proposed that when a car returns to the pits, each team member will take it in turn to charge their mobile phone or lap top from the residual charge in the car's battery.
Ferrari will be banned from using flo-vis on Grand Prix weekend Fridays, a saving of around £587,000 each race.
All drivers will be restricted to only five different helmet designs per season.
All cars can only have a max of three logos and one paint colour - McLaren having introduced the idea a year early.
Team personnel are to bring their own packed lunches for race weekends and all tea-bags are to be used twice.
Our source claims that the Strategy Group is really struggling for further ideas so any other suggestions will be welcome... and probably accepted.