I've spent most of Easter Sunday watching the 24 H Le Mans test. I've never tried watching one before, having only started watching sportscars properly last year. In 2010, for cost-cutting reasons, there was no test.

The session is the only time before Le Mans week that cars can be run at the Circuit de la Sarthe. It's also essential for newcomers and people/teams/cars which haven't been to Le Mans for 3 years to complete 10 laps in order to pre-qualify.  

The Lotus Evoras were unveiled in GTE-Pro at the test. They drew admiring looks with their sleek silver-and-black colour scheme but they were around 10 seconds off the pace. That said, they were also reliable. The only problem was a minor engine bodywork issue at the very end of the test. Given that 50% of the field didn't finish Le Mans last year, that could be very useful to Lotus. It was a respectable though not electric performance.

The new Aston Martin AMR-One was supposed to be doing its first Le Mans test following a performance in Paul Ricard that left something to be desired. It went badly. The #009 blew an engine within a handful of laps and the #007 lost its engine shortly after lunch... ...and Aston Martin had no spare engines. David Richards said that he didn't see the point of sending good engines after bad anyway at this stage, promised two cars for the Le Mans Series/International Le Mans Championship race at Spa (considered the unofficial dress rehearsal for the 24 H Le Mans). This performance was neither respectable nor electric, but the solutions could prove quite simple, so don't count Aston Martin out of the reckoning yet.

The hyped event that was genuinely electric was the Audi v Peugeot battle in LMP1 - especially the Audis. There's an unofficial principle that the organisers try to make the LMP1 cars lap Le Mans in more than 3 minutes 30 seconds. It's for safety reasons - although the LMP1 cars can and have got round somewhat faster in the past, it can be dangerous if something goes wrong at the sorts of speeds needed to generate the faster times. The Peugeots kept their cars below that magic invisible "barrier", probably through sandbagging. The Audis did not.

Sandbagging before Le Mans is common because the organisers are permitted to tweak regulations for performance balancing reasons. If Audi or Peugeot reveal their full strength prematurely and it turns out to be much more than their rival, they risk being pegged back in speed and then seeing their rival soundly beat them when the sandbagging stops. As such, Audi has to look at the 3 m 27 s its cars managed in both morning and afternoon sessions - 3 seconds quicker than Peugeot - with considerable worry. Going slowly is against any true racer's nature but sometimes in this series, caution is the wiser course.

Behind them, it was good to see the Pescarolos do well. Always at or near the non-Audi/Peugeot pace, the team which re-emerged from being sold off and rescued is continuing to perform well after its attrition-assisted win at Sebring.

The LMP2 category was hotly contested. The #41 Greaves car did well, with Alex Brundle particularly impressive considering that he is a rookie. The #26 Signatech also demonstrated some good speed in the afternoon. Several LMP2 teams did not attend the testing because they saw no need. It also doesn't help that there's currently a major dispute concerning how the performance balancing is being conducted in the LMP2 category between cost-capped and non-cost-capped cars. This is where I'm very glad that the F1 teams managed to prevent Max Mosley from imposing that system on F1.

The FLM  class doesn't run in Le Mans but three cars in that class - the #93 Genoa Racing, #99 JMB Racing and #91 Hope - appeared anyway. They got experience of the track and earned some money by providing running for drivers, particularly "gentlemen" (i.e. pay) rookies. The Genoa and JMB traded places at the top of the timesheet but times were not really their objective.

In GTE-Pro, the Ferrari 458s were generally fastest, but the #55 BMW occasionally shone at the top of the timesheets in the hands of Andy Priaulx and Augusto Farfus. Otherwise it was largely a battle between the #89 Hankook and #51 AF Corse, with occasional interruptions from the #59 Luxury Racing (when Jaime Melo was driving). Simonsen in the #89 Hankook carved the occasional fantastic lap and surely has to be favourite for qualifying, but the #51 tended to be a lot more consistent among all three of its drivers (Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander).

There was some interesting technical development going on in the GTE-Pro class. The #51 has had some carbon panels applied to part of each of the distinctive holes in the  458's bonnet. It's not clear how this has changed its performance, but they stayed on for most of the afternoon, so the team must be content. The #89 Hankook, by the way, has no such panels, so whatever benefit the panels provide is probably not pure speed.

GTE-Am was a quiet class today. There was no real battle, with the impressive performance coming from the #50 Larbre, which is a Corvette. 

As far as I'm aware, all the drivers who were attempting to qualify did so. However, live timing doesn't show any laps completed. 

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is looking very exciting at this point :) 

It's high time the engine/gearbox feature got brought back for 2011, now that people have started changing them.

Engines

1 engine (15):

Both Red Bulls - both Aus/Mal

Both Renaults - both Aus/Mal

Both Mercedes - both Aus/Mal

Both Williamses - both Aus/Mal

Both Force Indias - both Aus/Mal

Both Lotuses - both Aus/Mal

Both Hispanias - both Aus/Mal

Glock  - both Aus/Mal

2 engines (9):

Both McLarens - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Ferraris - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Saubers - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Toro Rossos -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

d'Ambrosio -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun 

Gearbox

Fresh gearbox (9):

Petrov (2), both Williamses (both 3), Pérez (2), Alguersuari (2), Trulli (2), both Hispanias (both 3) and d'Ambrosio (2).

Not-so-fresh gearbox (4):

Both Mercedes (both 2), Kovalainen (2) and Glock (2).

Quite unfresh gearbox (11):

Both Red Bulls (1), both McLarens (1), both Ferraris (1), Heidfeld (1), both Force Indias (1), Kobayashi (1) and Buemi (1).

Very unfresh gearbox (0):

Nobody, seeing as there's only been 2 races so far ;)

This blog entry was prompted by the Formula 1 Blog entry "Vox Certatus: Playing Favourites", which was about favourite teams and drivers and why we thought them so. Initially I took the question at face value, providing a somewhat lengthy response covering Force India, Hill, Fisichella and... ...Montoya. With stating why I disliked the latter, I inadvertantly kicked over a hornet's nest.

When next I visited, I cleared up a small misunderstanding concerning how I'd worded one particular phrase (or so I thought), but then the discussion drifted in a way I hadn't expected. F1 Kitteh asked me:

So you would rather have ‘scripted **’ than ‘verbal abrasiveness’? 

This is the question which I intend to answer here, since the "essay" proved too long for the comments section of Formula 1 Blog.

In my opinion, there are three kinds of verbal abrasiveness. One of them can be a good thing. Another is generally a somewhat bad thing, but can be very bad depending on the particular circumstances. The third one is always very harmful, and unlike the second one it harms everyone, not just the speaker.

To indicate these, here is my personal sliding scale of verbal abrasiveness and scripting, from best to worst:

Situational, justified verbal abrasiveness <- scripting/situational unjustified verbal abrasiveness <- persistent verbal abrasiveness

 
If someone is liable to be sharp-tongued only in specific situations and there appears to be good reason (e.g. they've just had a really stupid steward's decision against them), that would be better than any form of scripting.

An unjustified sharp-tongued incident tends to lead to biologically scripted behaviour, which is about as accurate as behaviour scripted by the powers-that-be (i.e. not very). This is why I rate behavioural and psuedopolitical scripting on the same level. I don't expect those involved to give the explanation for their behaviour as it is frequently obvious in context, but without some reason for being abrasive, one often finds that common sense and logic go out of the window alongside the politeness. I would consider Scott Speed as an example of someone who washed out of F1 partially because there was confusion over whether his situational abrasiveness was justified or not. I thought it was (from what I heard of it) but Franz Tost differed in opinion.

It's the people who are always abrasive, who cannot seem to go five minutes without denigrating someone or pointlessly attacking some slight, who are the least accurate and the most likely to drive me up the wall even reading their words. Most people like that end up putting off their sponsors and mechanics early in the junior formulae and therefore never get seen by the talent scouts, let alone anyone in F1.

Nonetheless, a few do drift into F1. Some people really like such people, possibly because they are so different to those around them or because they can identify better with them. Personally I cannot identify with them at all because I am accustomed to people who have a reasonable (though frequently imperfect) concept of keeping a civil tongue in their heads. People who don't get mad or dismissive at absolutely everything. And it's this which made me dislike Juan Pablo Montoya and Eddie Irvine. However good they may have been as drivers, as people they disappointed me and their ways of talking about others was the primary clue for me to come to this opinion.

(Incidentally, I prefer truthfulness - whether that's Mark Webber's brand of bold statements or Kamui Kobayashi's calmer candour - over any of the above).  

Ultimately, the limitations of particular drivers' attitudes, personalities and methods of thinking have a large influence on their enduring support base. Performance comes and goes but character tends to stay stable - most of the time. Different people tend to resonate with different drivers according to those characters, unless they are the sort of people who support based on performance (be that success or underdog status) or who support more abstract entities such as teams. Even then, teams have group cultures which invoke the general principles discussed here.

Speech is one of several doorways to the revelation of character. It's one of the more accessible ones to the general spectator, especially when spoken in places where journalists have taken the trouble to record the results. Look closely enough and the clues are all there.

Which drivers really think a given way v. those who are claiming it due to conditioning. 

Which drivers really respect - or even like - another v. those who pretend to respect another v. those who have dropped the pretence.

What each driver is hoping for in F1.

Which ones are likely to be around in a strong enough position to achieve those hopes.

Some signals in speech are more obvious indicators of character than others. A habit of persistently abrasive speech is pretty obvious. I just didn't realise it would be so controversial.

Script Frenzy Update:  20 pages of prose, which should become 40 pages of script when formatted. I feel confident about this challenge.

Would Mike Bourke please e-mail me at alianora DOT lacanta AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk with his address so that I can send him the prize he won last week?  

As indicated by the Terms and Conditions of the pre-season competition, winning the prize requires the receipt of a valid address somewhere on Earth. Please contact me as soon as possible (26 April at the latest) so that you can receive your annual :)

Script Frenzy Update: 18 pages. Got some script done while a thunderstorm prevented me from seeing part of the Paul Ricard race. Haven't yet separated it into scenes, which may turn it more pages upon editing. 

A while ago, I blogged about the creation of the FIA Women & Motor Sport Commission's formation. Since then, it's kept a fairly low profile, until a couple of days ago. Now it has created a shootout for 13-15 year-old female karters, the winner of which will get a paid place in the Karting Academy Trophy series. Also, 10 young karters have been selected to participate in the first running of the shootout, on April 27/28.

Entries are by invitation only, with a selection of National Sporting Authorities nominating which of their karters meeting the necessary criteria (apart from the gender and age restriction, competitors must have an international kart licence of some description) would be best suited to the opportunity. This is a good idea as the NSAs are likely to have enough distance from the ground not to be influenced by false rumours that happen to have started near nomination day.  

Interestingly, 8 of the 10 competitors are European. This may be a function of the short notice given and subsequent difficulty in securing visas. Hopefully in future this scheme will be expanded so that female karters in underrepresented parts of the world get the same opportunity. 

The format is similar to the shootout for the FIA Academy for under-23 circuit and rally racers - two days of competition with the winner receiving the prize. The difference is that instead of there being 10 winners from 20, there will be 1 winner from 10. The odds are much lower, but with such short notice it would have been difficult to arrange for multiple winners (simply reducing the shortlist to more representative odds would merely have robbed competitors of a good opportunity to show their skills and gain confidence).

The winner will get three paid races and a test in the KF3 category, with the additional promise that things not included in the prize (accident damage, fuel, service team and testing tyres) will be cheap. This has got to be helpful, but one cannot build a season around three races. Presumably this is aimed at people who have already managed to get into the "bottleneck zone" without losing the funding, support or motivation needed to continue. Those who have encountered the start of the "bottleneck" prior to turning 13 will not be able to "save" their participation through this scheme, no matter how talented they are.

It's a good first step. The problem of low female participation driving racing cars may be largely cultural, but the surrounding culture is more likely to alter if people can see women succeeding - if not in getting all the way to F1, at least in breaking the bottleneck between the 14-year-old karters and the 16-year-old junior formula racers.

Script Frenzy Update: I've started a script for Script Frenzy this year. I got off to a great start and have managed 16 pages of prose. I estimate this will equal 32 pages of script. Just as well because I'm unlikely to get much done tomorrow due to a swimming gala.