So to this week and something just a little different. Cars that fly, a common enough concept in science-fiction books and even featured in the cartoon TV series called “The Jetsons” in 1962. However, the auto bizz was already thinking about flying cars in 1935 when the U.S. Bureau of Commerce’s Experimental Division Section awarded a contract to a manufacturer to build one. The car had a single propeller and rotor blades for flight. The gear could be folded back over the fuselage to accommodate ground movement. Two passengers could sit side by side, and there was a small baggage storage area behind the seats. For road use, the 90 bhp engine was connected to the tail wheel by a shaft that was put in gear when the propeller was disengaged. Testing began in 1936 and continued until the company dissolved in the mid-1960s. The question is then, what was the name of this flying car?

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The video replay buttons all over the world have been doing overtime with the opening seconds of last fortnight’s Australian GP in Melbourne being reviewed - endlessly. The protagonists, Ralf Schumacher in the Williams BMW and Rubens Barichello in the Ferrari have been reported by the media as blaming each other. How remarkable! Of course they’d blame each other. Two of the most highly paid parking valets in the world would not say “I did it wrong,” now would they?

In the blue corner was Schumi Junior who said, “Rubens changed direction twice too much. It is down to his decision where he brakes, but he weaved too much and that’s what caused the accident. He closed the door on me once and then he did it again and from the replay it looks very much as if he is braking. He tried to defend his position without thinking what he was doing and I tried to overtake him. It is another racing incident. He tried to defend his position and I tried to overtake. That’s racing.”

But of course, that’s not the way Rooby Baby saw it in the red corner. “I think it is a racing accident. If I wasn’t there he wouldn’t have made corner, it’s as simple as that. Even if he thinks that I moved too many times, I moved to the left only a centimetre or two. It is silly. We were going to be first and second. I would have kept my place and he would have gained a position. It’s silly.”

Since these two chaps are paid astronomical sums to drive in motorsport’s top category, you would have imagined that they would have realized by now that you don’t win races on the first corner - you only lose races on the first corner.

I agree with Ruben’s statement “It’s silly.” But I would say they were both as silly as each other. I believe that the Ferrari driver did move too much, “weaving and blocking” I would call it, and if Rubens thinks it was only “a centimetre or two,” then they must have very large centimetres in Brazil! And as for Ralfie, the red car in front of him must have produced the well known motor racing condition known as the “red mist”. When he hit the rear of the Ferrari, the Williams BMW was on full noise and there could have been doubt as to whether he would have made it around the first corner. Incident - or accident? Whatever, it was avoidable.

The other impressions brought from the F1 circus’ visit down under was just how good is Michael Schumacher? For all the Montoya fans, I’m sorry, but Mrs. Schumacher’s big boy isn’t ready to lie down yet. Schumi drove a near faultless race and deserved his win. What else? Well young Kimi Raikkonen did a sterling job and showed that he has inherited all of fellow Finn Mika Hakkinen’s joviality and wise-cracking wit and 17 million Australians have at long last got someone to barrack for in Mark Webber. The Malaysians have a long way to go with their boy, I fear, but maybe his wallet is so heavy that it is slowing him down. We shall see.