Japan.  The Land of the Rising Sun.  Also The Land of My Favorite F1 Circuit.  Let's take a look at the wonderful Suzuka, home of the 2014 Grand Prix of Japan:

The only figure-8 course on the calendar, Suzuka is close to being the perfect blend of fast and slow, the technical and the flat out.  All of it attended by the fanatically rabid F1 fans of Japan, Taki Inoue's opinion notwithstanding.  We can generally count on some weather showing up, as well... they weren't called the Great Suzuka Boat Races for nothing, after all.  This year, though, we get an extra-special dose of weather: volcanoes!  Mt Ontake, Japan's second tallest mountain, erupted this past Saturday, killing at least 30 and spewing ash high into the atmosphere.  At last check, it's still doing so.  Flights into and around Japan have been affected.  Suzuka is less than 200km from the volcano, so it's hardly a stretch to imagine ash making it to the track... does one use Inters or full Wets for lava?

In less serious news, our friends in the Legendary Announce Team will be providing coverage on NBCSN all weekend, and the times are even close to being watchable by a human being!  Let's take a look:

FRIDAY
12mid - 130am: Practice 2 live
SATURDAY
12mid - 130am: Quals live
1130pm - 2am: 2014 Grand Prix of Japan live.

Yes, that's right, coverage of the race begins Saturday night!  I'll surely be staying up to watch all of these... I've gotten used to 2am bedtimes again... so who knows, there might be some liveblogging going on, too.  We'll see!

See ya then!

UPDATE:  If the volcano bit wasn't enough, there's a typhoon!  Typhoon Phanfone is predicted to skirt the eastern coast of Japan over the next six days or so, passing by Suzuka/Nagoya sometime Saturday night or Sunday morning, roughly speaking.  When it does, it's predicted to be somewhere in the vicinity of a Category 4, dropping to a Cat 2 by Sunday night.

Maybe there won't BE a Grand Prix of Japan this year...

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Real quick one here, since I'm posting this only a few hours before the race itself begins:

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It held such promise.  The first ever F1 night race running through the city streets of Singapore?  There's no way that combination could go wrong.  Except that it did.  Here's the track map for the 2014 Grand Prix of Singapore:

To be blunt, this is a brutal circuit.  The nigh-on constant right-angle turns are a unfortunate byproduct of modern city streets... you just don't see that many curves in a city.  As a result, however, the Marina Bay Street Circuit is something of a stop-and-go affair with corners that are hard to pass on.  While it's true that the worst turn on the circuit (and perhaps all of F1), the Singapore Sling, was reprofiled to prevent the constant Kerbal Space Program-like launches off the curbs, the rest of the track is terribly bumpy.  Throw in walls that appear to be made of a F1-Car-Attractant material, high heat and humidity levels that make it seem more like you're breathing water than air, and all-in-all you've got a circuit that nobody likes much.

Still, the cars look absolutely bitchin' under the lights.

Our friends in the Legendary Announce Team will be providing their usual level of coverage... here's the schedule:
FRIDAY
Practice 2: 830a - 10a live on NBCSN
SATURDAY
Quals: 8a - 930a live on CNBC
SUNDAY
2014 Grand Prix of Singapore: 630a - 9a live on NBCSN

Of course, the F1Update! team will be here, doing whatever it is they do.  See you then!

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Over at Reddit today, someone posted a picture of one of the ways the 2014 Grand Prix of Japan is being promoted.  It generally met with disgust, but a few of us were honestly thrilled.  Here's the picture tweeted by Taki Inoue, the reigning clown prince of the F1 world.

Inoue was less than happy with these, going so far as to state in his tweet that "this is the way Japan understands F1."  I think Mr Inoue knows better. Though to be fair, the Japanese people did support him when he was a driver, so maybe not.

More and bigger pictures below... you KNOW you want to click "more."

more...

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Hoo-haa.  I don't think anybody is going to be surprised by the results, so here's the grid for the 2014 Grand Prix of Italy:

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Some Formula 1 circuits are like a needle-sharp rapier, requiring nigh-on superhuman levels of technique and skill to handle in a way that endangers your opponent more than yourself.  Some others are as graceful as the best swordsmen in history, full of strength hidden beneath talent honed by years of practice.  Some tracks seem to follow the way of the archer, still and quiet until they launch their deadly arrow with precision and accuracy.

And then there's Monza, home of the Italian Grand Prix.

Monza is the screaming Viking berserker, swinging a huge battleaxe and leaving a huge swath of pain and defeat in its wake.  It is a heavy mace crushing a helmet under its momentum.  It is three rolls of quarters in a sock applied liberally to the back of someone's head.  What I am saying is that Monza is not subtle.  Monza does not need to be subtle.  Monza is speed and nothing but.  Before the three Variantes (aka "chicanes") were added, Monza may as well have been a NASCAR circuit seen through a European lens, though don't ever say that to a European F1 fan... they hate any comparison to NASCAR, or any possibility that anything American could ever come close to their beloved Series.

And after what the circuit did in the offseason, it's even closer to NASCAR, for they paved over the kittylitter outside of Parabolica.  There are no longer any potential consequences for running overspeed on the fastest circuit in Formula 1.  And fast it will be; the teams are predicting they'll be hitting nigh on 225mph just before they brake for the Variante del Rettifilo this year.  This pronouncement brought the stupidest headline ever to one F1 website: "High speeds expected at Monza."  Next on Eyewitness News, water is wet, the sky is blue, and fire bad. 

This need for speed comes with a price, of course: it's death to engines and tires both.  Mechanically, a car spends a huge chunk of the lap with the gas pedal bolted to the floor, which puts a huge strain on the noisy bit behind the driver.  The tires suffer as well, since Biassono and Parabolica are balls-to-the-wall high-speed curves, Serraglio practically an afterthought when it comes to braking, and the remaining turns are dealt with by braking late, hard, and as little as possible.

As I said, Monza is not subtle.  What subtlety there is will be divulged to us via the dulcet tones of the Legendary Announce Team.  Here's the broadcast schedule:
FRIDAY
Practice 2: 7a - 830a
SATURDAY
Quals: 7a - 830a
SUNDAY
2014 Grand Prix of Italy: 630a - 9a

All are live and on NBCSN this week for a change.  Of course, the F1U! team will be watching the proceedings with a gimlet eye.  Join us, won't you?

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