The Formula One 1999 season is getting hotter and hotter by the day. With so much action happening on the tracks, can the Internet be far behind? Let's visit some really fast sites on F1 this month. Have you strapped up?
Why is that authority is always so boring? They are perpetually dry and full of themselves, making new rules and changing them whenever they want to. So it's no surprise then that www.fia.com, the official website of Federation Internationale De L:Automobile is laid out using straight lines, has hardly any pictures of racing and has plenty of white space to fill - perhaps it was designed by a bureaucrat. I am being harsh. Actually, you have an F1 update, on the preparations made by different teams for the Canadian GP and a schedule of press coiderences.
But there is an international sporting calendar of events right from F1 to GT to rallies, drag racing and even electrosolar car racing.
Exactly the opposite of the FIA site is the va-va-voom web edition of F1 Racing magazine. Quickly go to WWW.itv.f1.com to see what is probably the best ever F1 website from the best-selling magazine on F1. The site is loaded with news, information, features, events, polls, images and what have you. In fact their immense collection of photographs of F1 events makes you want to change the wallpaper of your PC everyday. Besides this, there are exclusive wallpapers and video images of ell/Ferrari. You have the dope you require on races and teams. presented in superb style - really, boith the magazine and the website make an unbeatable combination.
Don't miss this site. A site you can give a miss is www.damonhill.co.uk, which is the official site of Damon Hill, the star of Jordan Honda. It's designed to look like the diary of the oldest driver on the F1 circuit, but hasn't been updated since his performance at Suzuka in November 1998. In'Internet terms, that is prehistoric. In fact, the site of his fan club, www.damonhill.com is fresh, and had the details on the recent Spanish GP. Remember, what I was telling you about officialdom?
In the same eponymous vein, I tried out www.mikahakkinen.com,www.jacq ues villeneuve.com, michaelschumacher.de and various other permutations. Yes, I agree that you can always get information about these fast men from their constructor's sites, but what's the
World Wide Web for? Anyway, some opportunistic compaiiv called Register.com had already taken these sites.
Unlike the smart-alec Register.com is the more altruistic company, British American Tobacco. The reason is that at www.british americanracing.com,
they have given you a superb glossary of the A to Z of F1 racing, right from A-1 ring to Zolder, a place in northwestern Belgium where Gilles Villeneuve killed himself on practive driving his scarlet 'Ferrari. The BAR team may be getting their act together to mak6 their mark in F1 racing, but the website has more than overtaken them.
Beautifully designed with loads of stuff on what BAR is all about, this site has the potential of getting more hits if BAR gets some Lucky Strikes (Ha, ha!). And bein privileged media people can get some high-resolution images hing, which you see etimes in Splash & Dash.
The images in black and grey is what www.mcaren.co.uk is full of. This is also a site worth visiting, and riot just for McLaren Mercedes' track record alone. Everything you want to know about. the 1999 season, driver profiles, images, articles on McLaren can be found at this site. Pride of place obviously is occupied by their victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, with quickly downloading pictures and details of the race. At the 'Interactive' link, you can send free postcards, download screensavers, games, audio (interviews, and not the sound of their great engines, sadly) and video images.
Oh, but if you want video images but don't have Shockwave Plugin, then www.fordracing.net can't be exploited to its full potential. Unlike some other websites, thankfully Ford has provided an alternative if you don't want the free, Flash 3 download. Even then, this qite is very good-looking, with a preponderance of blue. Even the fonts they have used is the Ford Focus New Edge font. Biographies of Barichello and Herbert and technical specifications of the Ford Cosworth V10 CR 1 power plant have been given. No, you obviously don't get the top-secret blip ratitig. After seeing all the other sites. I was disappointed that there was just one wallpaper to download. There's stuff on Ford's performance on the rally circuit too.
There's one thing common to all these sites, and that is they are fast. If they are all about fast cars, they better be, right? Happy quick 4 surfing, then!
