ChiefOfficers.Net

If there was any justice, there would have been three top steps on the podium in the 2021 Russian Grand Prix.

But that's not how it works.

It is becoming increasingly clear that my earlier argument that, if F1 is serious about providing the closest racing and the best spectacle, it really should abandon the massive shift in car design that is, now, only eight (or less) races away. The new qualifying format creates ample opportunity for the grid to be turned on its head and that helps but, as the race in Zandvoort showed, the fact that the lower budget teams have now had the chance to catch up with the big spenders has brought most of the pack into contention, as McLaren's historic first and second demonstrated in Monza.

We're used to weather at the mighty Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the Ardennes forest. Like many racing circuits, it has a micro-climate and, because of its trees, it is usual for moisture to hang around instead of burning off or blowing away.

But the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix was something else entirely.

It would be easy, after all the negativity from Red Bull and Verstappen to see the Dutchman's first corner crash at the Hungaroring as karma but nothing could be further from the truth; nor could any implication that it was caused by a Mercedes to further undermine his title challenge. The simple fact is that a near-inevitable chaotic start to the race nearly put out half-the field of which Verstaapen was one of the entirely innocent pins in a high-speed game of skittles.

This week the International Standards Agency launches ISO37002. It's much needed, dealing as it does with whistleblowing and compliance.

But as with all the ISO's management standards, it comes with a barrier to entry that limits its use.

It's time for a different model.

"Semantic Software Asia Pacific Limited (SSAP), an Australian research and development company based in Sydney, has released the first suite of its Semantic Computing Platform, Semantiro, described as a fundamental building block to achieving a complete cognitive environment."

That's what the company said in a press release so laden with buzzwords that we, honestly, have no idea what it's trying to tell us.

Australian regulators have other concerns and this morning ASIC obtained a Court Order to wind up the company and the appointment of provisional liquidators.

The reasons for the Order should be a warning for those buying mission-critical tech from unproven companies. Semantic was an artificial intelligence development company that based in North Sydney.

Repwarn.Rocks.

info@repwarn.rocks

The form says don't complete it for your own marketing. You didn't read it or you decided to ignore it anyway.

In two races, four penalties have been awarded against drivers who were on the inside of corners when an opponent made an ill-advised overtaking manoeuvre around the outside and, for his trouble, went off, alleging fault on the part of the driver who had been in front going into the corner.

So now it's clear: if you want to sabotage someone else's race, especially in the melée of the first lap, all you have to do is take a dive. Norris and Russell and, almost karma-like, Perez have all suffered penalties when someone else put themselves in harm's way and then complained about it.

When Hollywood "reimagines" classics, it usually does a terrible job.

But when Singapore-Malaysian company Neston started to reimagine the post-war prefab, the caravan and the converted garden shed, they ended up with something conceptually the same but different in almost every way.

"So far this year scammers have stolen more than AUD7.2 million from Australians by gaining access to home computers, an increase of 184 per cent compared to the same period last year." So says the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Contrary to the common "phishing e-mail" approach, many instances start with a phone call. And just to make it worse, they are targeting phones: you know, those things that contain your financial apps and are used as "tokens" or for SMS confirmations by your bank.

F1 is making a bad mistake. Recent racing shows exactly why.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it; let well alone, and such phrases come to mind.

The Styrian Grand Prix was very misleading. It looked processional, almost pedestrian. But it was far from that. Equally importantly, it wasn't a race of pit-stop strategies. Yes, there were some tyre management strategies employed - and if they demonstrated anything it was that, in general, it doesn't matter what tyres are used in which order and, equally, it isn't critical if drivers burn the tyres early in a stint or at the end. In fact, the only thing about tyres was whether they would determine a one or two stop race.

What really matters is that Red Bull and their soon-to-be-former engine supplier Honda have quietly gone about producing a car that is faster and handles better than the Mercedes. At the Red Bull Ring, Hamilton implied that his only hope for a win was that it would rain. It didn't.

Foster Wheeler Limited a UK registered subsidiary of a complex group, part of which is listed on the USA's NASDAQ and therefore falls within the jurisdiction of many US laws even though it is a Swiss domiciled subsidiary of a UK group. Amongst those is the Foreign Corrupt Payments Act or FCPA. This relates to payments by a person with a US footprint making corrupt payments to persons outside the USA. Foster Wheeler Energy Limited is also part of the same group and is also a UK registered company. That brings its actions squarely within the remit of the Serious Fraud Office, regardless of where those actions take place. Moreover, there are agreements with Ministério Público Federal (‘MPF’), the Comptroller General’s Office (‘CGU’) and the Solicitor General (‘AGU’) in Brazil.

We had an e-mail this morning from Google about our Adsense account. That was a rabbit hole we thought we'd escaped from. But they said they owed us money so we thought we'd claim it.

That's when it all started to go very, very badly wrong.

There's an old story of the boy who cried wolf: he told villagers that a wolf was coming so often that, when it was true, no one believed him. Mercedes have the opposite problem: they have been so dominant for so long that they could rely on Hamilton's genius and a rock-solid car to win race after race, championship after championship, break record after record.

Nothing in Formula One is easy but getting a great start and bolting out of reach, for so long Mercedes' stock in trade, has made it look simple. And they have been complacent.

It seems that they have failed to develop the thing that wins races when there are competitors: they don't know how to build winning strategies.