2016 Abu Dhabi F1 Finale Prediction - Rosberg or Hamilton??

Well it has come down to the wire again for the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. who will have won the F1 crown by the time the fireworks come out??

The odds are clearly in Rosberg's favour. But this is his first chance to win a F1 World Championship and could potentially, given the fickle nature of F1, be his only chance. Will he buckle under the pressure and make a mistake? Judging from his form to date, I would make the bold assumption of saying yes.

He has successfully taken one race at a time as he has mentioned and that is fine whilst in the midst of a championship but this is the last and deciding race... Will he be mentally strong enough?? I have my doubts. As Hamilton has picked up in the past, Rosberg is a rich kid, the son of an F1 world champion, raised in Monaco... He therefore has clearly not had to fight as hard as Hamilton to get to where he is today - that cannot be denied. Therefore he may lack a level of mental toughness and resolve to do it on his own.

I may be doing Nico a disservice but this is how an independent 3rd party sees it. All the conjecture could be for nothing as reliability impacting either driver could determine the ultimate winner. Also, if Nico didn't drop it in the terrible wet conditions in Brazil maybe he has already shown he is mentally tough enough. We will see...

The Amazing Bluebirds

I came across this picture by Jack Vettriano and whilst impressive in its own right, it relates to an individual and the cars that achieved an even more impressive feat - breaking the world land speed record on a number of occasions. The individual is of course Sir Malcolm Campbell and the picture represents the birth of the first of the amazing Bluebirds.

The story goes that after watching a play one evening by the same name, Sir Malcolm was inspired to christen his own land speed vehicle Blue bird by painting it blue and subsequently achieved a number of land speed records in successive Bluebirds (detailed below).

The first thing that strikes you about these cars is the sheer size of them. They look mighty and imposing even today and so you can only imagine what the impact of sighting one of these behemoths back in the 20s and 30s would have been. They are also quite beautiful in their own way and capture the spirit of a pioneering period where man was seeking to continually push back the limits of what was considered possible. An exciting time for sure, particularly in Britain, where we were determinedly aiming to catch and overtake our European counterparts in terms of motor sporting accomplishment.

What follows is a summary of the amazing Bluebirds:

Sunbeam 350HP - Blue Bird

Napier-Campbell Blue Bird II

Napier-Campbell Blue Bird III

Campbell-Napier-Railton Blue Bird

Campbell-Railton Blue Bird

Ron Dennis deserves a Knighthood...!

Something that doesn't quite add up is why Ron Dennis has not become Sir Ron Dennis...? If I was the British man who has been the driving force behind the second most successful team in F1 behind only the 70 year old Ferrari, for the last 30+ years, I would have thought that, that alone might earn me a Knighthood. The fact that Mr Dennis has also headed up and overseen the growth of the increasingly successful McLaren Automotive over the last 10 years and expanded the expertise of the company into other industries such as Healthcare, through McLaren Applied Technologies, should guarantee to be awarded a Knighthood. The fact that his counterpart at Williams F1, Sir Frank Williams, has been Knighted, only serves to highlight the absence of the title before the name of the other.

So you have to ask why the man has not been honoured in such a way and can only guess as to the reasons. Mr Dennis, is a character that clearly has ruffled feathers in the past and appears to make people either like him or loathe him. I would guess it was one or more of the latter who have managed to block the man from being nominated for a Knighthood. It doesn't take the wildest imagination to guess the likely candidates when looking at Ron's run-ins over the years.

To compound it all, the recent events relating to Mr Dennis' fellow shareholders ousting him from running the F1 team and other parts of the McLaren group, I imagine is just rubbing salt in the wounds. Thankfully, he still holds a 25% shareholding in the McLaren Group and may be able to orchestrate a return to the helm of the Company he clearly loves and has built into the globally respected brand it is today. Others may not be so keen but I say good luck Ron.