After a truly horrible week (more of which later), I'm feeling human enough to write a little bit. I'm all excited about the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend. My beloved Brawn boys have had some fairly ugly modifications to their car, but, frankly it's not a beauty contest - all I really care about is that it makes it go faster.
What's done for the Brawns, and allowed those pesky Red Bulls to get their claws into the championship, has been a combination of cold weather and circuits which don't require huge amounts of braking. Consequently, they couldn't get enough heat into their tyres which gave them less grip.
It has been lovely to hear tales of 38 degree heat from the Hungaroring - just what Dr Brawn ordered. However, BBC best anchor man in whole entire universe Jake Humphrey told us on Twitter this morning that it's gone all cold and blustery. When he says cold, though, it's still 6 degrees hotter than Silverstone at its warmest and that was only 9 am. Also, Red Bull might have been doing rain dances, but they'd have found it difficult to straighten out the track. There's loads of slow corners and it absolutely is not going to rain, so our boys will be fine.
I'm also not going to dwell on the fact that it was the McLarens and the Williams which did best out of the practice sessions yesterday. The Brawns finished midfield, but they often do on a Friday and they would have been carrying race fuel, so I'm not worried. I'm sure one of them, and I actually do hope it'll be Rubens, will deliver that killer lap in the dying stages of Q3. I really want to see Rubens win this weekend, although obviously I won't complain if Jenson does.
In the worst kept secret ever, Toro Rosso fired Sebastien Bourdais after the last Grand Prix and replaced him with 19 year old Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari. I think that they were utterly mean to do so the race before they brought in upgrades to the car. Ok, so he hadn't won any points this season, but, let's face it, his team mate had won a whole 2. I wonder if this is also a bit of succession planning for the Spanish market, whose F1 fans are all about Alonso, to give them someone else to back when Fernando retires.
While I think Toro Rosso were well out of order in the way they treated Bourdais, none of this is Alguersuari's fault, have you got that, Felipe Massa who shares management with Bourdais? You can call Franz Tost, team principal of Toro Rosso anything you want, and I have, but leave Jaime alone.
Jaime himself had never driven an F1 car in anything other than a straight line until he went out in practice yesterday. Of course he came 20th out of 20 in both sessions and it must have been hard for him with the added pressure of all the expectation on him. Most people on their first day in a new job are finding out where the toilets are and where to put their coffee mug. This teenager had to drive a car he'd never driven before at 200 mph in front of the world's press. The media have given him quite a build up - let's hope they give him some time to settle in before they rip him to shreds.
I am kind of looking forward to finding out how the BBC boys, and EJ in particular, will cope with what looks like an unpronouncable name but is in fact quite easy. Repeat after me Ch(as in Scottish loch)imey Alg-wer-swari, making sure you roll your r's nicely. The 5 Live lot made a bit of a balls of it yesterday before deciding just to call him Jamie, as he had given them permision to do. Jaime, you are being too nice to them. It will not kill them to do you the courtesy of saying your name right.
Now that Bourdais has gone, there has been intense speculation about the future of Nelson Piquet Jr at Renault. There have been mutterings about his failure to perform and by the sounds of it there was a bit of a stushie between Nelson's dad and manager, the former 3 times world champion, and Flavio Briatore. That must have been quite an explosive sight. Young Nelson has been utterly brilliant in the way he's interacted with fans and come across on television. He seems like a well balanced, very pleasant guy and he does not deserve to be crapped on by Flav. He got some backing yesterday from commentator Maurice Hamilton in response to a question submitted via Twitter by Yours Truly who thought it would be better if he stayed at Renault. At least he should have the advantage of having an equivalent car to Alonso and he's shone at the Hungaroring earlier in his career.
We also welcome two new BBC F1 twitterers this weekend. Sarah Holt has been the best so far with lots of useful information while Andrew Benson who won me over with his analogy that a Todt FIA presidency with Max Boo Hiss Mosley in the Senate would be like the Medvedev Putin situation in Russia.
Anyway, am off to get ready for the final practice session and to look out the Official Hiding Behind pillow for Qualifying later.
