Irish Smiles

This year continues to be a fantastic one for Irish sport in general. The international football team is looking somewhat capable of a decent go for World Cup qualification and in rugby, our Grand Slam triumph in the Six Nations has also being joined by Leinster making the Heineken Cup final, after coming through an all Irish semi-final.

Irish motorsport has also enjoyed what can only be described as its best year ever. Not since the days of Jordan Grand Prix have we had much to celebrate here. (And for those boffins not in the know, while Jordan was based in the UK, it ran under the Irish flag – hence the reason Amhrán na bhFiann was played when the stewards didn’t cock up the ceremony.

The year started with the Irish Rally as the opening round for the World Rally Championship. Granted, it doesn’t feel like the WRC has the same sort of lure as it used to, but it was a fantastic achievement nonetheless in the days where everyone is starting races anywhere except in Europe.

The icing on the cake came this weekend, with Adam Carroll winning the fourth A1GP series for Team Ireland. The victory is the first time an Irish national has taken an international motorsport title. Carroll took it in dominating fashion, with pole position and race victory in both the Sprint and the Feature.

It is a fantastic achievement that will hopefully put more emphasis on motorsport back in this country. Currently, it has handled very poorly and even when Formula One as shown on terrestrial television, the commentary was down there in the basement alongside that of James Allen.

Rally Ireland; F1 Transfers; Nascar Finale

What a historic weekend for Irish motorsport with our first ever World Rally Championship event.

It was a great success to boot! I would’ve loved to have gone out to the West to watch it. Alright, in fairness I would’ve loved to gone out and took part but we don’t always get what we want. I’ve always felt from years of travelling our back roads that we would make a great staging for a rally event and finally the dreams of many came to fruition. Of course, with someone as savvy as Eddie Jordan involved at the helm of an operation any plan can get done! Watching it on television as the next best thing and we got a fantastic event. It’s a shame that we appear to be only on the calendar bi-yearly though. That been said, given that most motorsport is heading towards Asia for new events it makes the achievements of the Rally Ireland team all the more impressive.

I have to give a massive amount of credit to Michael Lyster who headed up the RTE programming. While it didn’t show as much action as I would’ve liked, for a presenter who is usually associated with Gaelic and hurling here he did a brilliant job and at no time looked out of his depth when talking about motorsport. The same can’t be said for the droning of Peter Collins in the actual live commentary. One of those from the old RTE F1 commentary team that would give James Allen a run for his money in terms of poor ability to convey excitement in the sport. Oh the painful memories of having to watch an F1 race with them behind the mike.

In F1 news – McLaren’s appeal came to nought as many expected. At this stage to change the champion would have been nothing short of farcical. McLaren’s already tattered reputation took another couple of dings from it. They have spent weeks claiming that they were not appealing for the title but their lawyers were looking for the disqualification of the BMW and Williams. Wonderful PR disaster there for the team. At least it is all over now and that we can finally look forward to 2008!
Timo Glock has been confirmed as Toyota driver after the contracts board ruled on it. This will be Glock’s second stab at F1 after a brief stint with Jordan where he scored a point on his debut. After a stint in Champ Cars and GP2 will only make him stronger. At the very least he should keep Trulli on his toes! Today Briatore says that Alonso is 60% certain to be in a Renault. That must mean there is a 40% chance of a sabbatical given there is no currently free seats.

I have to admit I’m a bit surprised that some teams didn’t wait for him to make his call. I expected the market to revolve around him and that empty McLaren seat. It could be down to an early decision to join Renault which has only been delayed by the current spy allegations against the former world champions. With each passing day it looks like we have seen the last of Ralf Schumacher and Fisichella with only the Force India/Spyker seats open. Neither appears to have been invited to test for the team with a raft of younger drivers been given a shot in recent tests.

Over Stateside and Jimmie Johnson has successfully defended his Nextel Cup in the season final against team mate (and owner mind you) Jeff Gordon. I’m really hoping to have some way to watch NASCAR next season live and not have to resort to watching a flash page update every lap. Juan Montoya secured the Rookie of the Year award in the series. Montoya has come along way since his departure from F1 and say what you want about US racing, it is in no way easy to make the transition that he made. Next year will be another acid test for him. It’s one thing to win on a road coarse but if he wants to be taken seriously he’ll need to start racking up those oval wins.