F1 Driver Rankings - End 2012

So another season of F1 has passed. This was my 15th, it also marked the first year, however, that I did not watch a race the whole way through. As a kind of protest against the Bahrain Grand Prix I suffered through the fairly poor BBC highlight show instead of watching the race live. Bit of a crap protest as I still watched... but I didn't enjoy it.

Rating the races

F1 this season is reaching a record 20 tracks in 19 countries. The racing so far this year has been unpredictable and exciting but there are some tracks that I feel do not do the sport justice with their layouts. In this post I will be ranking the tracks used in this year's world championship, my criteria will be how enjoyable I find them to watch/play in games and how good the racing usually is at the circuit.

1. Canadian GP
   

Ranking F1 - after seven races

It is time for the return of my F1 rankings. These are my first since the end of the 2011 season. What a start we have seen to 2012, seven races and seven different winners. I have been impressed by five of those winners' campaigns so far. You can probably work out the five from the rankings.

1 Fernando Alonso +1

2 Lewis Hamilton +4

3 Sebastien Vettel -2

4 Nico Rosberg /

5 Romain Grosjean NE

Karting at Lydd

A problem encountered from not organising karting events a month in advance comes in getting people to go along. Despite booking little over a week in advance I was able to get a slot at Lydd kart circuit in the south of Kent about 50 minutes from Canterbury.

I had thought I would have seven chums along with me but on the day with the rain beating down that number dwindled to four. Those who did not attend missed out. The circuit is fantastic and you learn a lot more about control from driving in the wet than you do in the dry with the grip levels similar (but less predictable) to those you might expect at an indoor track.

Sporting events of 2011

After declaring 2010 too bad for sport and thus palming off this list to me my father has returned to give judgement on 2011.

Top 5 sportsmen of 2011
Drew Brees for breaking Dan Marino's yardage record.
Jenson Button for coming ahead of everyone except Sebastian Vettel
Dai Greene for winning the world 400m Hurdles and for being Welsh
Nathan Cleverly for being Britain's only remaining boxing World Champion (and for being Welsh)
Mark Cavendish for winning Sports Personality

Losers of the Year
Carlos Tevez - Perhaps it was too cold to play?

F1 Driver Rankings - season end - 2011

So for the first time since race 5 of the season we have an F1 driver ranking post. While my feelings towards F1 were tempered slightly by the domination of king Vettel and the introduction of DRS it was still generally a good season. Possibly not up there with the last couple but fairly strong. How were the drivers though? Well Hamilton certainly struggled with his style not suiting a DRS / Pirelli tyre world. He made silly mistakes aplenty and looked like a rookie. This is the first season he has been outperformed by a teammate and that saw him slip. Heikki Kovaleinen continues his rise through the rankings. He has worked very well with a teammate not seeming to contribute much and moved Lotus near to the midfield. He deserve a high spot.

Shameless Plug

I contributed several of my Britbowl match reports to latest Inside American Football issue, which is now available.

Had a great first season writing for the league and hope that it continues next year.

Check out some of my articles

Come to Britbowl

I'm not usually one to just copy and paste a press release, but hey, I already edited it once...

The kickoff times for BritBowl XXV (25) – the official championship weekend for the BAFA (British American Football Association) National Leagues – have been unveiled ahead of the season-ending showdown later this month.

BritBowl XXV (25) will see eight finals take place over the course of two hard-hitting, action-packed days at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre on Saturday September 24 and Sunday September 25. Here is the line-up for BritBowl XXV weekend:

Bafanl week 18 fixtures

South Wales Warriors @ Bournemouth Bobcats - Division 2 West
London Warriors @ Coventry Jets - Premiership

Cambridgeshire Cats @ Leicester Falcons - Division 1 Central
Manchester Titans @ Doncaster Mustangs - Division 1 North
Colchester Gladiators @ Ipswich Cardinals - Division 1 South
East Kent Mavericks @ Sussex Thunder - Division 1 South
Lincolnshire Bombers @ Chester Romans - Division 2 Central
Lancashire Wolverines @ Sheffield Predators - Division 2 Central
Milton Keynes Pathfinders @ Bedfordshire Blue Raiders - Division 2 East
Kent Exiles @ Watford Cheetahs - Division 2 East

Bafanl week 17 review

With the new bafanl website having issues at the moment. I felt I would publish this week's review on my site and the old bafacl site.

One of the weekends biggest results saw Glasgow knock the Clyde Valley Blackhawks from the playoff picture and in doing so they completed a double over the Blackhawks that should now see Glasgow finishing third in Division 2 North. The Tigers made the most of home turf to put in a great 30-6 result. Over in Shropshire, Revolution finalised their qualification with a convincing 49-6 win against Staffordshire. Meanwhile Essex won their closing game of the season against Maidstone to stay 8th in Division 2 and also gain a playoff position despite the two teams ahead having not yet reached that milestone.