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The weeks are flying by.  The little guy is growing a pace and we are all getting used to being a new family.  Its great with the run up to Christmas, what better present could anyone want?

Also of interest to me is the motorsports scene.  F1 is due for a shake up next season with a number of new teams entering – the first time in many years.  Already they are bringing some fun to proceedings with Virgin’s Richard Branson and Lotus chief Tony Fernandes poking a bit of fun at each other:  http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/80599

Of importance to my work life post-MBA, it looks like F1 is also set to embrace the online world too.  Fingers-crossed as I would love to be a part of the coming revolution.

Its a big news week in the world of Formula 1 motor sport.

First BMW have declared their hand and are folding; 2009 will be their last season.

Felipe Massa is now happily on the road to recovery and the media is reporting that the doctors are very happy with progress.  He suffered a freak accident when a spring fell off a fellow car and hit his helmet.  Only a week after the sad loss of Henry Surtees to a similar freaky style accident, in his case a bouncing rear wheel from a competitor who had just crashed off, motor sports has really had another wake up call; you might say it is similar in stature to the Imola weekend in 1994 where Senna was killed.

Ok that is the doom and gloom.

The big news for sports fans is that, as a consequence of Massa’s situation, Michael Schumacher (aka the Stig!) will be racing for Ferrari in his place at Valencia in Spain in 24 days time.  This will be a fascinating situation.  Assuming it is not a let down because he is not fit, hasn’t driven this car, hasn’t driven an F1 car for well over a year and he hasn’t driven the track, it promises to be a fascinating weekend.  How will he work with Kimi? How will he approach the weekend? and the big question for me, How will he drive along side Hamilton!?

Hamilton joined F1 the year after Shumi retired. They have never been in a race together.  With it looking like Alonso will not be at Valencia because Renault didn’t quite get his wheel on properly at the last race, there should now be plenty of interest in the race for the Spanish organisers!

Lets hope Shumi is fit enough, qualifies in the top 10 and has a titanic battle with Hamilton – even if it is not for the lead!

I can’t wait!

The dissertation continues a pace. I am finding it an excellent experience and a tough slog at the same time.

The topic of my dissertation is looking at determining business feasibility (very interesting) combined with Motor Sport (extremely interesting!)  Through the company I am working with, I have been conducting primary research (i.e. new, not from a book research) with some successful and influential people in the Sport.

For example so far, a multiple Indycar and Indy 500 winner, a former F1 test driver and now successful team owner and an F1 team principal. Furthermore, I have interviewed a former England Rugby star and have other exciting meetings in the diary for the next few weeks.  What a different experience!

It is great to be involved and meeting these people, who have freely given their time (nearly 3 hours in one case) to help me with researching my project.  Having a chance to apply the MBA / business perspective is awesome.

The hard slog is when I am back at the desk, alone and needing to crunch through the information and pull together the report.  Like many, I am a people person so miss the energy of the class.

Through my dissertation research, I have been introduced to Mark Jenkins, Prof of Business Strategy at Cranfield. Follow his blog here.

The scene is now set for the summer months ahead.  The days of sitting in the lecture theatre are now a pleasant memory.  As I near the end of my last assignment, International Business on joint ventures in emerging markets, it is an exciting time ahead again.  Time to put all this theory into action!

My dissertation will be on developing and evaluating the reasonable prospects for a new venture.  The subject: Motorsports.

It was a brave step to take this route as I had a confirmed offer from a successful multinational company in the technology sector.  However, opportunities only come along so often and I decided to take this one.  More details will appear through the summer, as I can tell you about them.

The world of motorsports is in some turmoil. If you have missed it in the news, it is not because of the recession but because of political things.  The fighting is a shame because the F1 season is shaping up to be a classic.  Jenson Button is out in the lead but his rivals have caught up in terms of machinery.  Looks like we will have another good fight until the end; although not to the last corner of the last lap, please Jenson!

Wimbledon also started today.  Murray is through, having dropped one set. He has a very solid game and is more emotionally stable than Henman.  This doesn’t make it so on the edge of your seat, but great to see the Brit’s doing well in sports.

The chilli are looking good and we had our first home grown strawberry today!

Posts have been thin on the ground since the Ball as I took a little time out and unplugged.  Essays for Corporate finance and for Marketing were submitted last weekend, along with our final syndicate group work for Modelling.  Overall they went well even if the guidelines for them were a little hazy.

Entrepreneurial Finance becons now.  I am very intrigued by this module.  It is like no other on the course and has the reputation of being one of the best experiences yet.  The professor is flying in from UCLA and, judging by the pre-work and rumors of the week long format, promises to be something quite tough, quite challenging but extremely rewarding.

Oxford won the boat race convincingly on Sunday. There was a program on before discussing their mental preparation and I think that had a big influence; were Cambridge beaten before they even got in the boat?

The story of last weekend though, for racing and sports fans, was of course the fantastic story of Brawn GP.  The team that only a few weeks ago was facing closure with no backing, turns up in Australia, locks out the front row on the grid.  Then in the race, Jenson Button drove well to secure a long over due victory and Ruben’s (the man most thought had driven his last GP in Brazil 2008) sees good fortune shine and picked up second (after some adventures in the race.) 

What went less well reported was that the actual racing was really exciting.  Yes, even F1 !  The front wing on the new cars certainly make them look odd but it the aero changes have certainly made the difference – car have not run that close to each other for many years.

A great rags to riches story.  Richard Branson also timed his entry into F1 sponsorship perfectly – he is a lucky guy!  As is Lewis Hamilton – 3rd in the first race when the car looks a handful and when he started dead last.  Like Alonso and Schumacher before him, he never gives up and it pays off.  The mental toughness, like in the Oxford boat cannot be underestimated in sports success.  Fascinating. An exciting season is ahead…

Next week we have (another round of) exams and where I have four, others have only 2.

Revision however is going well so far, after a fairly shaky start to Corporate Finance, everything is now much clearer.

The MBA definately gives back the more you put into it and you are not spoon fed.  This has come as an annoyance and shock to some at first but really what can you expect.  There is an interesting dycotomy however, as they are paying significantly for something that they may not actually get in the end i.e. the MBA ticket.  It is therefore interesting to see the different reactions to that, especially when exams, projects and jobs are being discussed, as they are all really tough.

The Ball organisation is coming together too, with one of my friends leveraging his girlfriends expertise in such matters – it is going to be great.  Doing different things like this really brings out talents in people you may never have happend upon – the discovery of mastery negotiation skills in one friend, for example, has been truely impressive!

We are going to take advantage of the garden this summer so went out and got some garden stuff this morning.  The highlight being (I hope!) the grow your own chilli’s … check back for chill growing progress!

Good luck to all those who are racing this weekend and to those of us left who are revising.

It is a great day.  Not least because it is sunny again but I am really happy at the news that the organisation that once was Honda F1 will now exist as Brawn GP – another independant on the grid is great news.

The Mclaren F1 was and remains the benchmark for high performance road cars. Designed by Gordon Murray and built in Woking using a small highly trained team of automotive professionals working under the steely gaze of Ron Dennis, it subscribes to the Colin Chapman school of light weight, massive power and razor sharp handling. Not for the faint -hearted, Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson is famously scathing about the F1′s twitchiness, but that might just be sour grapes. His ex – colleague and fellow presenter Tiff Neeedel is a a much bigger fan of the F1, calling it ‘ a triumph of engineering skill that stands up in 2008 as much as it did it 1994.’

It is the Autosport Racing car show on at the moment in Birmingham.  Sadly funds and timing preclude me from going this year, the first time in ages, but following it on the web it was good to read another strong interview by Ron Dennis (McLaren CEO).  As he nears the end of his career it is fascinating to see how he chooses to spend the rest of his life and nice to hear he will be pursuing a path to genuinely help others.  Similar in many ways (but of course different in scale!) to Bill Gates.  The scientific approach to developing F1 is a good one, although there are better market sensing techniques that “market research surveys” – sometimes gut feel has its place too.

Read what he had to say here