That’s a real chock of course. The last dutch driver (no family, in case you are wondering) left the paddock. With tears in my eyes I’m writing this. Well sort of.

The official reason they give is that one of the sponsors did not pay the team. Although in general that is a good reason to de-activate the contract, they would not have done it if Albers was competing around spot 10 on the grid.

And to be honest, if I was his sponsor I would not been to happy with the deception of two weeks ago. You are not supposed to drive with the fuel tank still attached. Although mistakes happen, this is a big one. Also because nobody told me I could sponsor the fuel hose. Having a sponsor sticker there would have given much air-time ;-)

Anyway, I can imagen that a sponsor is reluctant to transfer money to Spyker. Although I’m happy with a dutch team in the formula 1, I expected that they would grow and pick up the competion. But it is not the case, they hide behind some ‘upgrade’ of the car in Turkey. Well, that’s simply too late. It indicates you are running behind six months. Don’t forget that the other teams are developing as well, so if you bring out an update half way throgh the year that will put you in competition with the cars from the beginning of the year, you are lost.

This year a commercial broadcaster decided to air the Champcars. I must say I’m enjoying that, although it is broadcast one week after the fact. That’s like a cake after eating to much, you can’t really be excited. Doornbos is racing for the top position in the overall standing and is doing great. And he’s a nice guy. Time to go to the tracks again when the Champcars are in Zolder and Assen. Maybe it is a good reason to buy a sattelite dish to be able to see the races live. Are there opensource/linux sattelite dishes/receivers/decoder/things?