French Grand Prix

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French Grand Prix

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Robbed lock, stock and barrel from an egroup. Looks like someone else has an auto-sarcasm mode which kicked in :D

"I found this amusing press release on the Autosport web site.

Red Bull Racing don't seem to be very fond of France, if to judge by the
team's French Grand Prix Preview, released today.

Whereas the team, like most other Formula One outfits, normally issue a
press release with quotes from the drivers and key team personnel,
previewing the upcoming Grand Prix, this time the Red Bull press office
skipped the quotes and settled for an amusing tirade of insults on the venue
of the upcoming event - Magny Cours.

Obviously, this all has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Red
Bull drink is officially banned in France since last year.



The Full Press Release From Red Bull Racing

According to American writer Mark Twain, "France has usually been governed
by prostitutes," which is a bit unfair, when everyone knows France has been
governed by Asterix the Gaul, his son Charles De Gaulle, Sacha Distel,
Brigitte Bardot, that actor with a big nose and singer Johnny Halliday. Ah!
La Belle France. The return to Europe for what will be the bulk of the
season sees us in the country that can claim to have invented grand prix
racing around a century ago.

Unfortunately, the area around the Magny Cours circuit does not seem to have changed much over those hundred years and the social scene at this event is about the dullest of the year. It is a great place if you like to look at
cows and of course, being French cows, they are very chic, with lovely long
eyelashes and a tan skin colour.

Apart from the drivers, who get to hang out in a modern hotel outside the
circuit gates, everyone else is scattered around the local countryside,
staying in accommodation that the travel agents describe as picturesque.
"Picturesque" is evidently French for "broken plumbing and dangerous
electricity." However, the run down old chateaux do showcase what France
does best, namely food and drink and sipping a cold drink in a landscaped
garden is a pleasant way to end the day, after the usual round of bars and
restaurants in North America.

The nearest town to the circuit is Nevers and if you pronounce it the
English way, it perfectly describes how many times people want to come back
here. For years, the F1 community was spoilt, as the French Grand Prix used
to be held down on the Riviera at the Paul Ricard circuit, which provided
plenty of beach time, once the working day was over. The French therefore
have never been forgiven for moving the race to an industrial estate in the
middle of the countryside, in an attempt to make it a technology hot spot. A
referendum in the paddock about the circuit would produce the same result as
the recent French vote on accepting the European constitution.

There is nothing much wrong with the circuit itself, which boasts the
smoothest track surface of the season, offers excellent safety for the
drivers and has a spacious and immaculate paddock. The French round of the
World Championship often has trouble getting a good crowd as most of the
population has escaped to the coast for "les vacances," and the race date
clashes with the Wimbledon tennis finals weekend and the first week of the
Tour de France cycle race. This year the grand prix will also lack a local
hero, as for the first time in many years there is not a single French
driver on the F1 grid, although Olivier Panis is being given a run in the
third Toyota during Friday practice.

Finally, for those of you planning to travel to Magny Cours for this race,
here are some useful tourism tips:

Nearest Airport - Paris
Nearest decent nightclub - Paris
Sightseeing - Arc de Triomphe in Paris (Do not bother with the Eiffel Tower
until they have removed the scaffolding.)"
 
Didn't believe it until I went on their site and saw:

Accommodation is hard to come by down in this bucolic corner of France, but the Red Bull Racing crew got a real surprise when they found their lodgings for this weekend: they’re staying in Log Cabins around a lake! To say it’s basic is a bit like saying Michael Schumacher can drive a bit. There’s no restaurant on site and most of the other residents are mosquitoes.

On Thursday afternoon, the PR girls were beginning to panic about how the drivers might react when they turn up and find it’s not so much a Bootiful Hotel but more of a Boot Camp. We will bring you news of how Tony “The Mullet” Liuzzi, who is back on third driver duty this weekend, reacts. It should be interesting given that he found last weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed a bit remote for his liking, begging to be allowed to go back to London for his dinner in the middle of the event!

Before the United States Grand Prix, we told you that Indy would be the first race for the new version of the Cosworth V10 engine, but as things turned out, the latest power unit will actually make its debut here. And having not completed the last race for obvious reasons, the team can count on having saved plenty of mileage which they can now safely use in free practice here over the next two days. The cars also benefit from a new aerodynamic update.

Red Bull Racing is involved in a variety of fun events this weekend, so be sure to log on every day to see what we are up to, on and off the race track.
 
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