Notorious

Another year, another GT3 RS and another plethora of Car of the Year crownings. It’s undeniably one of the finest sports cars to ever be produced, but there’s a sense of inevitability and monotony about any group test where it’s a protagonist.

It was a good victory for F1 when Vettel took the title last Sunday afternoon. The likable young German had shown his inexperience during the mid portion of the season, but equally had a rotten run of luck with reliability. With his 10 poles and awesome race speed over 2010, he’s a worthy champion.

I recently had the chance to join good friend Jason for one of the photography courses he hosts at the Brooklands Motor Museum, near Weybridge in Surrey. The course is designed to give would-be professional snappers tips on camera angles, zoom, lighting and capturing a car in one of those evocative poses that we admire so much in our favourite mags.

I made the idiotic mistake of waking at 06:45 on Sunday morning, so grabbed a Twinings and whacked the GP on. Like most of you, I was delighted to see the rain pouring from the leaden Korean sky and thought we were in for one the best races of the season.

The plan was simple. Photographer Jason was to collect me and fellow petrolhomie Al in his new Megane RS 250 and then drive to Dieppe in France, the home of Renaultsport HQ. Simple enough and a good day out… you would think.

The 2011 ‘silly season’ kicked off some 5 weeks ago when it was discovered that Kimi Raikkonen’s management had contacted Renault enquiring about their line-up for next year. Sadly there was no interest from the Finn, just a media frenzy borne out of a simple discussion between camps with no substantive story behind it. I was mightily disappointed.

Another round done, another dreary street race and another fine example of F1’s current status as techno showpiece first, thrilling sport second.

From the very beginning of the broadcast tyre management, pit strategy and other ‘racing’ buzzwords were thrown around by the triumvirate of BBC presenters who all – as they’re employed to do – proclaimed the climax of the season to be ‘one the most exciting ever!’ You can’t argue that it’s going to be close, but I reject the term exciting.

I recently had the opportunity to poke around the new Mini Countryman and, my word, what a ridiculous car. For starters it’s a fat old hector, not just for a Mini, but for any quasi-4x4. And secondly, this particular example cost over £30,000 which will get you a nice 997 Carrera S with not many miles on the clock. I have to ask, who would buy one?