Don’t place your bets yet! Late mail from the Shanghai International Circuit out at Jaiding, is that someone has painted the track with weirdo stuff that may cause chaos.
The F1 circus and reality show hasn’t been out to the Joading circuit since 2019. The winner that year was Hamo from Valerie Bottas, with Seb Vettel, Mad Max and Chuck Leclerc further back. Readers, some things never change, do they?
Anyway, after a long spell (in F1 terms) lying fallow, the comrades decided to paint and ‘‘adjust’’ the track. Twenty readers and one friend, call me Mr/Ms/Them Paranoia but given what’s been going inside the Celestial Paradise/the Sleeping Giant/the Red Dragon/Panda Nation causing us to spend $486bn with the Septics and $3bn with Rolls Royce in Soap Dodger land for two nuclear subs to be delivered in 3031 – or the year that Ferdy Alonso retires from F1 – do you smell a shu (rat)?
No conspiracy theories here – we report, you decide – but think about this: Zhou Guanyu is the first real Chinese F1 driver. He was born in Shanghai. At five Zhou took himself along to the inaugural F1 in China where he saw his hero, Ferdy Alonso, take fourth (Ferdy won the following year and again in 2013 and will be on track again tomorrow).
Zhou has his own grandstand with TeamZHOU. The 7000 seats sold out in five minutes. China’s CEO, former worker-peasant-soldier Xi Jinping joined the CCP exactly 50 years ago. The CEO and the Celestial Paradise could do with some good publicity. Don’t forget, this is the nation that invented the wheelbarrow, borehole drilling, the toothbrush and the umbrella. It’s not impossible to think they could have fixed the track to see the Shanghai-born Zhou win on his home track.
OK, talking of Ferrari you might remember last week we reported the sad story of reader 17 who bought a Ferrari Roma ($430k) in 2021 and “it constantly breaks down and Ferrari cannot find the fault”.
Feezer HQ obviously got the message and the CEO of Feezer North Shore (a diverse area of Sydney made up of rich and really rich people), Angelo Ruberto, took a personal interest.
Yup you guessed it. “The bad news: I’ve just started the car today for the first time since I’ve had it returned to me and the system is telling me I have multiple failures too numerous to mention. My dashboard is a Christmas tree,” reader 17 says.
But wait, of course there’s more: Reader 18 from Brisbane “bought a brand-new Ferrari Roma ($550k) arrived December 2021. It spent almost a third of its life with me in the workshop at Ferrari Brisbane (the Michelin Guide of this country, Rissole and Furphy’s Sh*t Towns of Australia, describes the Queensland capital as ‘a notorious cultural graveyard where high art is spray painting d..ks on walls and fine dining is choosing not to use the drive-through’) with constant, recurring technical issues.
“It was never 100 per cent in working order for the nearly two years I owned it. One stint, it spent 10 weeks at Ferrari being ‘fixed’ for the umpteenth time. Every time they said we’ve fixed the issue, but it recurred.
“Anyway long story short, Ferrari took no responsibility, would not replace it. Said they’d definitely ‘fixed’ it … by that stage I’d lost interest and it had been in their workshop for 10 weeks (no replacement car fyi), and it had let me down so many times, we decided to sell it.”
Turns out from a search of Feezer owner social and not so social media, this is a common global story for Ferrari Romas.
So, we went back to Fezzer Australasia communications manager Ryan Lewis who said: “Ferrari Australasia is committed to its clients, and an investigation into the situation has been carried out based on the feedback from the owner.
“Ferrari Australasia will support Ferrari Sydney to ensure the ongoing satisfaction of our client and continue to maintain the standard of service that has made Ferrari a leading brand worldwide.”
The Ryanster emailed us to say: “Small adjustment to the comment since the car is now back with the owner. We will of course ensure his concerns have been addressed.” The ‘small adjustment’ to the statement is “an investigation into the situation has been carried out”. Maybe this explains why Ferrari was 20 seconds behind Maxie in Japan. I’ve advised our readers to go to the ACCC.
OK, our buy of the week (very selfishly) is the 1985 Lancia Delta S4 Rally that RM Sotheby’s is selling next month in Monte Carlo. The Delta S4 was not only the best rally car of its time, it was one of the most advanced of its time. And it went quick. You would too if you had 360KW in your belly and you weighed 89kg. And you could pretend to the boss at home that is a family car.
It looks like a hatchback but it really is a supercar. This one is one of the few Delta S4s with WRC podium results. Somewhere around a mill would be good buying.
Chapter 28 of Women in Motorsport: 23-year-old Abby Wingett. Abby who is from what passes for a city, Melbourne, will be on the grid in a 1962 Elfin Formula Junior at historic Winton on May 25 and 26. The software engineering student competes every two to three weeks with the goal of completing 19 race meets this year.
She’s been racing since she was 16 and if you were looking to sponsor someone with serious talent, give her a call. Abby owns three race cars – two 1999 Hyundai Excels and a 1971 Mini Cooper. She works on these cars herself plus her daily drive, a Holden Commodore VE Ute.
jcp.com.au
