The hardest Button to button #f1

The real block on the driver market this season was not, as was widely suggested at one point, Ferrari’s delay in announcing their signing of Alonso: it was the negotiation between Daimler (ie Mercedes-Benz) and McLaren over the terms on which their partnership would end and Mercedes could buy Brawn. Until that was settled, the question of whether Button, Raikkonen or Heidfeld would take the two vacant race seats, one at McLaren, one at Brawn, could not be sorted.

The outcome is in fact still unclear, but the hot rumour currently seems to be that Brawn – or Mercedes, as they will be – will opt for an all-German line-up of Rosberg and Heidfeld, leaving McLaren with an all-English, all-World Champion line-up of Button and Hamilton. Is this wise?

There is potential for this to be a real lose-lose for all parties. While Mercedes might like the idea of an all-German line-up, a driver pairing of the same nationality tends to make sponsors’ lives harder and play less well commercially outside the territory that originated the men in question. For that reason alone I’m surprised to see such an outcome apparently looming; worse still, an England-Germany championship rivalry will be manna from heaven for The Sun, and I really fear for what distasteful guff they are likely to come out with over the course of a season.

But there are racing-related reasons for scepticism as well. From Brawn’s perspective, Rosberg and Heidfeld is surely not as strong a driver line-up as a Rosberg-Button one would have been? Both drivers are well-respected, but neither has yet been able to prove themselves a world-beater; Heidfeld in particular was out-paced by Kubica last year when they were in a car that could challenge for the title. Nor will the team get the nice garages at the end of the pit lane. That said, it could be a line-up that will settle down nicely and provide a platform for a title push by Rosberg.

The McLaren half of the equation looks much dodgier, however. While it would be surprising to see a repeat of the Alonso-Hamilton or Prost-Senna situations, there could still be tensions. The team is built around Hamilton, so how will Jenson play it? He had to win a set of mind-games with Villeneuve when he joined BAR… but then again, Villeneuve was overtly confrontational; Hamilton fils et pere are more subtle, and will more likely just keep Button marginalised by a soft use of their existing relationships at the team. What exactly will Button be able to do about that? Quite possibly nothing, which will place him at a psychological advantage, to compound the very real risk that Hamilton will be plain quicker than him.

Such a scenario could be uncomfotable for McLaren, but perhaps ultimately advantageous. If Hamilton guns for the title and Button can only trail in behind him mopping up points the only loser will be Button’s reputation. Indeed, history strongly suggests, as I’ve said here many times, that a new driver joining an established driver in a team will always be out-paced by the old hand for at least half a season – whether they can actually be quicker or not will not become clear until the second half of the season. Or to put it another way, unless Button races at a surprisingly high level, he cannot reasonably expect to be able to defend his title next year in a McLaren.

There is a danger for McLaren, however: for warnings from the past, they should be looking not to 2007 or 1988, but to 2000, when the team’s policy of not having a preference for either driver cost them the title. Coulthard was stronger in the middle of the season  and was the main challenger to Schumcaher at one point, taking points of Hakkinen; but at either end of the season, Hakkinen was the dominant of the pair. They took points off each other and Ferrari came through the middle to win. See also Vettel and Webber this year, Raikkonen and Massa last year (and in 2007, when Raikkonen only just squeaked through), Raikkonen and Montoya in 2005, Montoya and Ralf in 2003. Having two equally matched drivers and no team orders is a good way to lose titles.

Still, amid all this talk of British drivers, everyone seems to be forgetting to ask whether Anthony Davidson will get a well-deserved race seat; if one of the new teams decides to hire him, it will surely be a more sound decision than any of those apparently taken in Mercedesland recently.

USF1 and Them

Now, I’ll cheerfully admit to being an armchair F1 pundit. I don’t claim any special insight at all; rather, I follow the TV coverage and select online sources, and like to think I’m among the better-informed of the BBC’s viewers – nothing more, nothing less. I blog about it because commenting and speculating on F1 is one of its pleasures.

But one significant story has threatened to slip under my radar. For some time, the prospect of a USF1 team under the aegis of long-standing F1 journalist (his is the voice you usually hear in the post-race press conferences) and also ex-employee of Williams and Ferrari, has been in the offing. At the time of the contest for the new places on the grid, it appeared to be the best-established bidder apart from Dave Richards’ perennially ill-fated Prodrive effort. Its selection for 2010 was unsurprising.

But rumours have been circulating for some time that the team is making poor progress. It has trumpeted its novel location – America, plus a European base in Spain – and its supposedly cheap method of meeting in coffee shops and other non-business venues for conferences. And Windsor knows his F1 onions: this has reportedly been his dream for years; and he is joined in the endeavour by Ken Anderson, the technical boss who moved both Jordan and Stewart up the grid in the late 1990s.

So, where is the bad press coming from? Curiously, it has chiefly reached me via the Twitter account of Fake Max Mosley, one of the now too-numerous-to-follow Twitter clan of Fake F1 personalities. Fake Max is easily one of the most amusing, being wonderfully droll and sardonic and, frankly, worryingly plausible. Whoever runs the account also seems to be at least slightly well-connected – I’d be very interested to know who it is.

I’m sure there have been other more mainstream journalistic reports of the USF1 story, but this one caught my eye: it cites Ross Brawn, no less, expressing surprise at the American team’s lack of progress in crash testing so far. Another source quotes the chance of the team being ready to race as ‘zero’ and it is also reported that Windsor apparently wants to keep open the option of selling his entry to someone else.

My more regular F1 news sources have not yet reported this story (as far as I have seen – and I read them fairly thoroughly). It may be a bit speculative for the ’straight’ news websites of the BBC and ITV (full marks to them for keeping their excellent F1 website running), but established journalists and bloggers Joe Saward and James Allen haven’t addressed the story either. And understandably so: as both men’s blogs make plain, the F1 world is small and the world of F1 journalists smaller still. They undoubtedly both know Windsor well, and will not unreasonably be hesitant to piss on his chips in public.

To be fair, the team are adamant that things are progressing as they should, and unless and until there is an announcement to the contrary it’s impossible to gainsay that with confidence. But if it does go wrong for them, it will surely take a lot of explaining.

Let’s face it: F1 will be worse off without the manufacturers

As always, pundits and observers are hailing a the season of Formula 1 just gone as a classic, and the best for many years. It has certainly been an interesting one: the remarkable closeness of the field and development race over the season led to every team bar Toro Rosso being at the front of the field on merit at some point or other, while Jenson Button’s ascent to the championship was a truly great story.

But in truth the racing has usually been dull, certainly compared to 2008 when a boring race was a rarity. The nature of the year has been that it’s been hard to predict which teams will be strong at which circuits; the corollary of this has been that at most weekends only one or two cars have been challenging for the win, with the rest some way behind and a lack of genuine racing for the lead.

Where it has been a vintage year has been in the off-track intrigue. The rise of FOTA, the threatened breakaway and the eventual exit of Max Mosley would have made it remarkable enough on its own, but the hounding of McLaren and Hamilton at the start of the year, the rebirth of Honda as Brawn, the saga of Schumacher, Badoer and Fisichella in the second Ferrari, the exposure of the Singapore race-fix and the banishment of Flav and Pat were all fascinating spectacles. However much their disruptive effect might have been deplored at the time, they were what made the season so fascinating.

The trouble with – or the great benefit of – off-track action, however, is that it doesn’t respect the end of the season. I omitted the saga of the departing manufacturers from my list, as that is what I want to talk about most. Honda’s exit was anomalous in some ways: as a manufacturer, they had been making all the right decisions up to that point, bringing in a top engineer and manager to re-shape the team. How stupid they must now feel, knowing that for the same amount of money as they paid to offload their team, they could have had their brand all over the championship-winning car.

Toyota and BMW, by contrast, were manufacturers whose exits were admissions of disastrous error. Toyota’s lack of racing ethos led it to what was probably the least efficient use of money in Formula 1’s history, with huge amounts spent and no race wins. BMW’s mistakes were not so serial, but their decision not to go all-out for the championship last year when they had the chance has been proved thoroughly wrong; their gamble on getting the new regulations right and their insistence on KERS being used – when all other teams were willing to drop it – compounded the wretchedness of the error.

But with all bar three (possibly two, if Renault clear off) of the manufacturers gone, and three new private teams due to turn up on the grid next season, Formula 1 will have changed far more fundamentally than was achieved by the new rules this season. The resulting formula is likely to be much less close than this year, and potentially even less exciting.

Let’s look at the teams. McLaren, Red Bull, Brawn and Ferrari should all be at or near the front, but behind them…? Renault, Toro Rosso, Force India, Williams – who knows what sort of pace they might have, ditto the new teams? New F1 outfits are, after all, not renowned for making fast and reliable cars in their first years. We could have a lot of cars that are there purely to make a noise.

The closeness of the racing this year has been largely down to the presence of the manufacturers: for the first time in many years, perhaps ever, there was not an F1 team on the grid that was poorly funded or under-equipped. Sure, some had more money than others, but the manufacturer teams were well-resourced as ever, Williams had perfected the art of the tight F1 ship, the Red Bull teams were well-funded and had decent current-spec engines from Ferrari and Renault despite being nominally private, and Mercedes was providing close support to Brawn and Force India.

So, while Eddie “The Mouth” Jordan (bless him) and others might go on about how F1 had managed will without the manufacturers before and will do so perfectly well again, let’s remember what that F1 looked like. The gaps from the front to the back of the grid were much bigger, and there were numerous teams unlikely to score points all season. The numbers of blatant pay drivers was higher too – while some drivers relied on patronage and commercial deals in 2009, would an Enrique Bernoldi or Jos Verstappen have got a seat on that grid? Unlikely, surely.

Of course, there are good reasons for wariness around the manufacturers, as the indispensable Joe Saward, among others, has pointed out. They come and go as they please, and may threaten the stability of particular teams, and even the sport in general, as they do so: Honda, BMW and Toyota have all harmed a lot of people’s careers, and the latter two’s involvement in FOTA was not negligible – a set of exclusively privateer teams would no doubt have felt less confident about proposing a breakaway series.

The biggest item on the charge sheet against the manufacturers is of course that they drive up costs. Williams, Jordan, Benetton, Arrows, Tyrrell and Prost were all sent either down the grid or out of the sport as the manufacturers moved in at the start of the decade, or even in the late ’90s – some of them later hooking up with manufacturers to save themselves. But there lies the great irony: the commitment to spending restrictions has finally been made, after a decade of working up to it, and at exactly the point when F1 has found a way to live with the manufacturers, and produce a good show at the same time, the manufacturers go and clear off!

So I seem to be alone in this, but I can’t help but feeling next year’s F1 is likely to be less interesting. F1 is not about to collapse or die by any means, but it may be in for an awkward period of re-adjustment. The off-track shenanigans of this year certainly can’t be topped; fewer teams and drivers seem likely to be challenging for poles and wins; and a higher number of teams trundling round at the back risks undermining F1’s claim to be the pinnacle of motorsport.

Then again, anyone who tries to predict anything in F1 – at least, anyone writing from an armchair perspective like me – will probably be wrong, so I’m happy to wait and see. After all, the situation with Alonso and Massa at Ferrari looks tasty; there are machinations in the driver market to come (will Robert Kubica be unlucky enough to have two successive teams pull out on him? Whither Raikkonen, Kovaleinen, Glock?); we may yet see Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton duking it out for the world title; and at least three impossible things I’ve not even thought of are bound to happen. I’ve long said F1 isn’t often exciting, but it’s always interesting; that seems likely to be the case for some time.

Immaculate Machine at the Wilmington Arms @immaculatemach

Brooke Gallupe

I was pleased to hear Immaculate Machine would be back in the UK again, but felt a little nervous as the gig drew nearer. Since I’d last seen them, they’d changed from a breathless and at times manic bassless three-piece to a five-piece with a more conventional line-up and an apparently less crazy drummer.

The resulting album, High On Jackson Hill, contained a lot of good songs, but felt transitional somehow, as if the band was caught half-way between its old sound and a not-yet-formed new one that forsook the energy of old for something more reflective.

To make life even more tricky for the band, vocalist and keyboardist Kathryn Calder, one of the remaining original members, has had to absent herself from touring after the terrible news of her mum’s diagnosis with motor neurone disease; although Lynn Calder very sadly died earlier this year, Kathryn was not with the band this evening. Indeed, the touring line-up looked very different from the line-up advertised on the band’s web presences, two boys apparently replaced by two girls.

So, amid confusion that appeared to verge on turmoil, could the band deliver the goods live? It turned out they very much could: we got a storming set that revealed the strengths of the album, verging on ‘70s rock territory at times with  muscular renditions of many of the songs. Material from the old line-up was also thrown in, although almost entirely from the more restrained 2007 album Fables, with only one cut from earlier – a very enjoyable stab at No Such Thing As The Future.

Perhaps in this incarnation the music is more straightforward: without Luke Kozlowski on drums, the energy is perhaps more controlled, and without Kathryn the medlodies less versatile, but there’s no getting away from the basic facts: these are good tunes well played, and thoughtful lyrics well sung. Props in particular to the new guitarist whose name I can’t find out with any certainty online; whoever she was, she succeeded in replicating many of Kathryn’s keyboard lines on guitar (her style seemed to favour playing the lower strings, which made for a good contrast with lead singer/guitarist Brooke Gallupe’s style on the higher strings), and vocals as well.

Mystery guitarist and mystery keyboardist

The only sour points were the relatively sparse attendance, considering this is the band’s fourth foray into the UK at the very least, and they’ve got four (possibly five) albums available, and also the over-running of two  mediocre support acts which meant we were denied and encore by the venue’s curfew. Hopefully the band’s slot at this year’s In The City will garner them some more support from the industry in the UK. As an aside, I reviewed their Brixton Windmill show in 2006 in Artocker; I wonder if this might still be their only live review in the national music press here – probably not, but it could well have been their first.

Meanwhile, what else might the future hold for Immaculate Machine? The touring line-up seems to have gelled extremely well (are there any good bootlegs of this tour knocking around…?), and it would be nice to hear an album that harnesses some of its brutal energy. Quite where Kathryn would fit in should she return is hard to see; then again, her Myspace currently hosts some really lovely-sounding solo material, so an album from her would be extremely welcome as well. Whatever way it falls, there seems sure to be more good music to come from this band, and I look forward to seeing them again soon.

Talk Talk “customer service”

Part of me doesn’t like using this blog to whinge, but I don’t have much else open to me. Word of mouth can count for a lot, so this is my small effort at seizing redress from Talk Talk.

I’m about to move flat, and it’s taken them two weeks to respond after I submitted my move details to them online; I had to chase them by phone, and they claimed not to have received the information, although the email I received from them just now clearly shows they did. They claimed they were unable to contact me – they don’t say when they tried, but I’ve no unexplained missed calls on any phone, so I’ve no idea when that was.

I’d already decided to move away from Talk Talk when my 18-month contract expires: while the broadband service is cheap and pretty reliable, the customer service I received over another matter was rotten. And so it continues: because I’m moving address, they’re going to lock me into a new 18-month contract; apparently they can restart the clock, even though I’m not allowed to leave early without penalty.

I thought I’d better post this now, as apparently I could be without broadband for up to 14 days when I move. I know it’s a bit petty to have a moan like this, but what else can you do?

Things I’ll miss about West London

When I first moved to London at the very end of 2004, work took me to its West – first of all Ealing, later Chiswick. Next week I’m moving to Crouch End in North London, which might be every bit as distressingly middle class as Chiswick, but feels a bit less suburban than the leafy West. I’m not sure if I’ve come to know West London especialy well; the list of what I’ll miss about it turns out to be a slightly odd read…

Shepherd’s Bush
Although where I live at the moment is in many ways remote from central London, it’s very well connected: you can get to most places from it pretty straightforwardly, even if it takes a long time. It’s only a short bus ride away from Shepherd’s Bush, however, which means that gigs at the Empire and recordings at BBC Television Centre have been within pleasingly easy reach (in fairness, the Hammersmith Apollo is convenient too, but I think I’ve only been about twice).

West London Trades Unions Club I may well come back here fairly regularly, as I only visit it once a month anyway, for the Off The Page writing group. The building itself has a rather nice bar downstairs, with internet access and real ale, and although the toilets have seen better days it’s overall a rather nice facility. There are newspaper clippings on the walls of the building’s opening by Ken Livingstone in his GLC days, upstairs in the theatre space.

Turnham Green The Green itself is famously (ish) nearer to Chiswick Park Tube station than Turnham Green itself, and the open space and church make it arguably the nicest stretch of the Chiswick High Road, although it contains undoubtedly its least interesting selection of shops. That said, they do include one of the post-Fopp record stores than have sprung up using the old racks and so on from the branch of Fopp that used to serve the area… but curiously not actually in the same building.

London Overground My closest station isn’t on the Tube at all, but is South Acton, now part of the Overground network – specifically, on the North London line that arcs from Richmond, up through Camden and into Stratford. Typically, the improvements to the network are coming on-stream just as I move away from it, with some rather snazzy new trains replacing the creaking old units I’ve been crammed into for the last few years. Crouch Hill station is in fact on a different part of the Overground network, but with even less frequent services, apparently, and no new trains (yet). Still on a transport tip, the London Transport Museum Depot is the only tourist attraction in walking distance of where I currently live.

The Swan A gastropub, but a nice one. Closest thing I’ve had to a local.

Heathrow Airport? When I lived in Ealing, the flightpath was neatly positioned to give me enough noise to drown out the telly at some points. From my front room now, I can see the planes go past at some times of day, but not particularly hear them. I still get caught out by A380s – I always think they’re flying really low, but in fact they’re just really big. Despite over four years working next to the airport, that’s about as far as my aircraft recognition skills have got.

The Cunnington Street Mosaic The whole of the back of this house is decorated in a garish mosaic, as is the owners’ pick-up truck. Click through to the Flickr page for a fuller explanation, but I must have walked past it several hundred times and still missed a lot of the details on this section on the back wall in particular.

It’s a short list, and perhaps an unkind one. There are lots of other notable things about this part of London, but they are ones I’ve never had much involvement with. Ealing film studios (I’ve walked past them), Kew Bridge Steam Museum (never did visit it), Brentford football club (went to a gig in their bar once). Eden Studios was just round the corner from my current flat – I must remember to try and find its exact location before I move… The BBC’s Windmill Road storage facility was located just round the corner from where I used to live in South Ealing, but I don’t think I ever saw it – it must be situated back from the road, or just inconspicuously signposted (indeed, West London is littered with BBC heritage, including TVC, the formerly BBC-owned Ealing studios, the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, formerly the BBC Television Theatre, the “Acton Hilton” rehearsal rooms…). I’m sure there’s more to list… but I won’t.

That about wraps it up for West London, I think. I can’t claim any special kinship of sense of belonging to the area… But I’ve got used to it and come to feel comfortable round here, which is something. Confusingly, several of the bus routes through Crouch End have the prefix “W”, which I’m sure will remind me of West London post codes for years to come.

Dramatic day at the office?

I’m not sure this proves very much, but I was surprised to have a conversation the other evening – at the BAFTA premiere event for this, in fact – in which it proved a bit controversial. It’s this: most TV drama is workplace drama.

This isn’t simply about the setting or format: the cops ‘n’ docs shows are superficially all workplace dramas, after all. But the definition goes much wider than that.

There is, after all, a limited number of ways in which conflict can be generated; and no conflict means no drama (conventionally speaking, anyway). Sex, romance and other aspects of personal relations are a massive source; material self interest is another; and the demands of a job or vocation are also a huge source.

So, where the conflict comes from is key. Soaps are not workplace dramas: the characters interact by virtue of inhabiting the same precinct, and conflict arises from that interaction on its own. But beyond soaps, I reckon you can call a lot of things workplace drama: the conflict arises from the need to do the job.

I’m going to go into my DVD collection at random and get a few titles now. OK, here’s what came out.

The Sopranos is a workplace drama: the conflict arises from Tony trying to be a successful mob boss and successful family man at the same time (neatly here, there is clearly demonstrable internal and external conflict along these lines as, for instance, Tony at first tries to keep his profession secret from his daughter, and also unburdens himself to his therapist).

This Life is about a set of 20something lawyers… but it’s not workplace drama. It’s the classic houseshare drama – the conflict arises from the characters’ personal relationships, and work considerations occasionally intrude on them, not the other way round. Similarly, No Angels, despite being touted as starring “naughty Northern nurses” it is really about a group of friends who share a house, and happen to work together as nurses – its creator Toby Whithouse explicitly defended it in such terms against criticism from the Royal College of Nursing. Another Whithouse Creation, Being Human, is also really a houseshare drama, and was first conceived as such – the characters were housemates long before they were supernatural beings.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: classic workplace drama. The conflict comes from Buffy’s vocation; take that away, and you’ve not got a show.

Cracker: like Casualty, this is a riff on “physician, heal thyself”; accordingly, it’s a workplace drama – the healing vocation is central to generating the conflict.

Shameless: you could argue that the characters are essentially engaged in scrounging and scamming, and the conflict arises from it, therefore it’s a workplace drama. But that would really be stretching it; it’s a family drama, much like Only Fools and Horses (the dodgy dealing usually generates the comedy, but not so often the substance of the plots other than the frothiest).

Blackpool: conflict arises from Ripley’s business ambitions – clearly a workplace drama.

Class Act: the characters are pretty dedicated to scamming as a way of preserving their lifestyles, so this probably is a workplace drama.

Taking a few non-randomly chosen examples (OK, I’ll admit the Sopranos and This Life choices weren’t really random – the others were, though): Grange Hill is clearly a workplace drama, as the conflict arises from school life – they don’t get paid for it, but going to school is what the kids do dans la vie (the French idiom is probably much more useful and descriptive, actually!). Byker Grove, by contrast, is not one: the kids know each other via the Grove, and are very seldom seen at school. The Wire is obviously a workplace drama – not just for the cops, but for the drug dealers. Star Trek is a workplace drama (Doctor Who isn’t – I can’t honestly argue saving the universe is somehow the Doctor’s vocation).

Does it matter? Perhaps it’s a useful way for the writer to think about what sort of show they’re writing without getting dragged into rigid cop/doc/scifi/etc. genre categorisation, while still keeping things accessible for a reader. Perhaps also it provides a focus on what matters to the characters. Or perhaps it’s just stating the obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_Act_(TV_series)

Off the pot

Few sports can deliver such interest and excitement outside their arena of competition as Formula 1 does. Last week, the possibility of BMW quitting the sport or Michael Schumacher racing again would have seemed about as likely as… well, about as likely as McLaren taking a dominant race victory. But all of those things – and, shockingly, F1’s most serious accident for a long time, perhaps since 1995 – have taken place since them.

Today’s developments have made my last F1 blog post hopelessly outdated. Schumacher is putting his life and his reputation at risk… but neither very seriously, probably. It’s great news for Hamilton, Vettel and other new drivers from 2007 onwards, who now have a chance they must never have expected to race against Schumacher; less good for Raikkonen, who will surely be toast in F1 if Schumacher can jump into the car with no testing and beat him. Less good for Nelson Piquet, too: with the possibility of Alonso moving to Ferrari gone, he can surely expect to be sacked.

But the BMW news is in some ways more interesting, as it’s less easy to understand. The need to sign a new Concorde Agreement probably put BMW’s board in an impossible situation: should they commit to F1 for another few years, with their momentum lost and a total lack of results, plus apparent political instability and arguably an image problem after the Mosley spanking scandal, or should they chuck away their investment? Neither option can have seemed very attractive, but the new Concorde Agreement effectively obliged them to go or get off the pot.

BMW’s F1 operation has always had a slightly funny character about it, ever since the Williams tie-up. Everyone today has been talking about their targets-driven philosophy: when Williams failed to meet targets the partnership was dissolved. This was in spite of circumstances: two of the three the years when the partnership should have started producing big results – 2002, 2003 and 2004 – were years of Ferrari red-wash; in the other, Williams had a genuine tilt at the title. Mercedes stuck with McLaren for the long-term, despite the latter struggling apparently even more than Williams in 2003 and 2004 with the chassis side. But BMW bailed.

Targets were order of the day in their new team too. They were met up until last year, when Mario Theissen opted to switch the focus to 2009 despite being in with a shout at the 2008 title. If the team could maintain its progress, it would be a clear front-runner by 2009, rather than a close third-place car as in 2008. But it was a colossal “if”: a new set or regulations was bound to make things unpredictable; and even leaving that aside, there is no guarantee that a new car will be fast just because last year’s was – BMW’s slump this year is not unlike Honda’s in 2007, after a strong 2006.

Yet Theissen ignored the tendency of motor racing not to run to script, and gambled it all on heavy development of the 2009 car and the new KERS system – retained only at his insistence against the other teams’ doubts – and lost everything. Theissen’s problem is that he almost certainly didn’t realise he was gambling at all. Nor did he probably realise quite how F1 historians will judge a man who had a chance at a world title and did not pursue it – despite his neat and logical demeanour, in motor racing that decision marks him out as a raving eccentric.

So, will the team survive? It seems quite likely. Peter Sauber might take it over again, though he is not a young man; it’s quite possible that BMW will do a Honda and provide the finance to keep it going for a year. Failing that, one of the failed entrants for the new grid slots, such as Lola or Prodrive, might be interested in some sort of hook-up.

But will it hang on to its drivers? My comment that the driver market looks rather big may be about to be proved wrong: if Renault walk away too (and it’s noteworthy that they have not joined Mercedes and Toyota in reaffirming their commitment), will all the old teams really be kept on the grid as well as all the new ones? We are a long way away from knowing what teams will be racing in 2010.

Missing Massa

The nastiness of Felipe Massa’s accident in qualifying last Saturday is only just becoming clear. The head injury is serious enough – twenty years ago it would most probably have been fatal, and further complications could yet occur – but it is now reported that his eye is damage, which could finish his career. It would be a deeply sad way for Massa to leave the sport, as he is probably one of the most liked and respected drivers on the grid, not just for his apparently effortless cheeriness, but for both the way in which he developed his driving from speedy but erratic to championship-challenging, and the sportsmanship he displayed when he ultimately lost out to Hamilton last year.

Still, life goes on: hopefully, for Felipe Massa, that means a long and happy future whether in or out of the cockpit; for Ferrari, it means they are a driver short. Who will get that seat has become something of a vexed question. The driver market has been near-static in the last year or so, with only David Coulthard and Sebastian Bourdais having left the sport, so there are no obvious drive-less drivers knocking around. Nor are there any obvious up-and-comers to pop in the car… not that Ferrari would be likely to do that.

Test drivers are normally the first port of call in situations like this. Marc Gene and Luca Badoer both had the odd season for Minardi, but both a decade or so ago. Gene filled in at Williams for a few races in the mid-2000s, but he’s not exactly race sharp. Badoer was passed over for the race drive when Michael Schumacher broke his leg in 1999; it’s hard to see him getting the nod now.

So, what are the other options? Well, this is classic F1 off-track intrigue. One theory speculates Michael Schumacher could be invited back. As far as I can see this is pure invention, but it’s a lovely idea: he’s not yet 40, and could surely have a creditable go at it. With Spa and Monza in the offing, slick tyres to play with and a Ferrari team apparently bouncing back, it might just be attractive to him… Then again, we’ve just been reminded that he would be putting his life at risk – is there really that much attraction to it that he would do such a thing? It’s a lovely idea, but it would be pretty astonishing if it were to happen.

The other hot theory is more complicated still. Fernando Alonso’s contract with Ferrari is spoken of as solid gold fact by many people better informed than I; add to that Renault’s suspension from the next race, and perhaps they could get him in the car half a season early, and either retain him alongside Raikkonen next year, or ditch Raikkonen if Massa is sufficiently well to race again…?

Now, Renault might have a thing or two to say about that, of course… But Renault is itself rumoured to be selling up to a Russian oligarch and getting out of F1. Would losing Alonso jeopardise that deal? It would certainly jeopardise some Alonso-dependent sponsorship… Then again, if Ferrari get their chequebook out, all those problems could be made to go away.

In this scenario, what would Renault do for drivers? Other things being equal, they’re about to sack Nelson Piquet and put Romain Grosjean in the car. Finding two new drivers would not be fun; having two drivers to the end of the season who have no experience of the car must seem even worse. Then again, would it be any worse than having the hapless Piquet? As Martin Brundle observed on Sunday, his job isn’t to go quicker than Alonso, but it is to be there when Alonso’s not in a position to score, and he simply hasn’t been able to do that. If Jaime Alguesuari (close enough!) can get on terms with his team-mate in an unfamiliar car, Renault can surely chance it on two newbies and expect at least one to be better than Nelsinho. The only justification for keeping Piquet is probably to avoid a legal dispute with him and his dad.

As an aside, neither Piquet nor Bourdais have necessarily ended their F1 careers, even if neither turns a wheel again all season: there are three new teams due to enter F1 next year, who will need drivers. They might be willing to consider slow but experienced-ish guys like Bourdais and Piquet; even Jacques Villeneuve is apparently hopeful of landing a seat!

So if we look around for drivers who are less recently departed from F1, the obvious names are Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson. Sato was in the frame for the Toro Rosso drive this year, while Davidson must surely be in with a shout of returning to F1 if his traditional lack of effective management has been solved. If I was running Ferrari, I’d have Ant on my list for if Fernando turns out not to be available.

And what of the current drivers? The great problem at the moment is that it’s not clear who is likely to be quick next year: will McLaren and Ferrari re-emerge? Will Brawn and Red Bull be able to stay at the front? Will Renault get sold, and if so will they be any bloody good? What will happen with the two under-hitting manufacturers BMW and Toyota, who could seemingly line up at the back or front of the grid, or anywhere in between? Can Williams hold it together? With all these questions, it’s hard to know whether Robert Kubica or Nico Rosberg would be wise to seek pastures new or not (if Kubica even can, contractually); Heidfeld’s stock seems to have dropped a bit so it’s not clear he could get a good seat elsewhere; Kovaleinen would surely be looking to hang on at McLaren as his first choice; Vettel and Webber are both tied up for next year… All told, it’s a big driver market with not that many drivers rattling round in it.

So, Alonso to Ferrari, Piquet and Grosjean at Renault looks the most likely of a set of not-very-likely looking scenarios at the moment. But anything could happen. Coulthard in a Ferrari? Well, I’d like to see it.

Mercury revved

Oops – I wrote this yesterday and then saved it as a draft instead of publishing it. Oh well. Read with irony…

I don’t normally care very much about the Mercury prize, but Elbow’s victory last year probably restored some credibility to it, and the speculation about the likely nominees, announced tomorrow, is interesting.

I would have no problem with Florence and the Machine receiving a nod – it’s an undeniably interesting and successful record. I can’t help but think her voice, while powerful, is unsubtle and many of the rich arrangements on the collection serve to prevent it sounding like an insistent honk. But still, Rabbit Heart is surely one of the most striking singles released all year, and the long player lives up to its promise.

Probably the record I’ve listened to more than any other in 2009 is Wall of Arms by The Maccabees, so I very much hope that gets acknowledged. Among other currently trendy artists, Jack Penate would not be an unworthy nominee either – both of those records are excellent albums that function as a whole from start to finish, and do interesting things with the sounds they use.

Elbow’s win has probably cooked the goose of their fellow epic and melancholy Mancs the Doves – I suppose a nomination might come their way, but they clearly can’t win.

Emmy the Great’s album would also be a welcome nominee. The Noisettes seem not to have gained the momentum I would have expected on the back of such a strong pop record – a nomination would be a well-deserved fillip for them. And Bat for Lashes seems an inevitability.

There has been some discussion of Madness’s Liberty of Norton Folgate earning them a nomination as this year’s “heritage artist”. I’ve only listened to it once, and while I’m sure it’s very good, and will grow on me, I’m sceptical of claims that it’s their greatest record ever. It perhaps risks over-shadowing the Pet Shop Boys’ Yes, which probably functions better as a pop record and should, if there’s any justice (which, of course, there isn’t – not generally, and seldom where the MErcury is concerned), be on the list.

What else? Oh yes – Camera Obscura. I like their My Maudlin Career album, but can’t quite get past the problem that it’s not as good as its predecessor Let’s Get Out Of This Country record. Still, it would be lovely to see it get recognised.

There are some conspicuous selections that have been tipped but plainly do not deserve a nomination. I have quite a bit of time for the Glasvegas album, for instance… but the best record of the last twelve months? Of course not. Jarvis Cocker’s deeply mediocre Further Complications has no place on the list either. And the Manics’ Journal for Plague Lovers, while a lovely idea, failed to excite my ears in the end. Could Morrissey be on there? Years of Refusal is a decent record, but surely shouldn’t be on the list.

It would be jolly nice to see Thomas Tantrum’s debut album get nominated, come to think of it – it rewarded a lot of listens last year, despite being superficially simply shouty and noisy.

And finally… wel, it would gladden my heart beyond measure if MJ Hibbett’s Regardez, Ecoutez et Repetez were to strike a blow for Proper Indie and make the nominees. I will be astonished if it does, but it’s a lovely thought…