Better late than never

Hey all underSteer freaks. This is the much anticipated (well much anticipated by TEAM K anyway) review of the 2007 season. It's now feeling very 2008 with Ferrari being the first to launch their car this year to usurp the normal team to be first out of the blocks, Toyota, and rally starts in just over 2 weeks, so I thought it was now or never for a review of perhaps the best underSteer year yet, apart from the V8s.... But, come on, we all know the V8s are a joke.... Sure I only saw the first round, but it would have seemed very effin weird to me if Whincup had have won the title... It would have been like TEAM K winning the underSteer V8 title. Instead the deserved winners of V8 were Tander and 99.94. In MotoGP, we had Fine Cotton repeating his debut win, and has laid claim to being the bike specialist, and was also the only punter (I know of) that made it to 2 bike races in the year. He got to Valencia for the last race and his home video of him singing "I am the champion" on an empty Valencia hill was weird at best, and effin freaky at worst. WRC was won by Sennamental Favourite again, and he has laid claim to being the rally specialist, but has said he wants to dedicate his win to Gareth MacHale and Kris Meekes.

In the blue riband event, F1, it was a close battle between the rookie, Mumbo and Sennamental Favourite for most of the year, and there was a lot of others in with a chance of upsetting the apple cart, but in the end Sennamental Favourite joined Fine Cotton in being just the second punter to win 2 F1 titles. But the winner of the ultimate contest this year, the slagging event that is the comments with picks, was surely the potty mouth himself, Stealth Shiestenberger Racing, when some minor comment from Sennamental Favourite about Stealthy being stupid cos he said Heidfeld would win in '08, turned into a 2 month rampage from Stealthy directed at SmF until Wham! came in for a bit of flak for telling it how it is about the cheating Italian football (aka: soccer) team. We also had the debut report on YouTube, from Gladious, and wasn't that something to behold. Maybe next year there'll be a few more video reports or maybe not. And speaking of next year, underSteer might be integrated into facebook for next year (but will still be here too for non-facebookers), depending on how much free time I have in the next month or two and maybe a long overdue update to the look of the site will be done too, but unfortunately for those that asked for it... I can't see NASCAR or A1GP being added... If you have any other suggestions for categories to add, please let me know and I'll have a think about it.

Now it is time for some precitions for 2008....

underSteer TT champion: Adolf Warne - I can see him having a much better year in F1 and V8s and winning MotoGP again, so surely he is the punter to beat in the TT race.

F1 predicitons...
First driver to get replaced: Bourdais
World Champion: this is a tough one... surely it will be between the same contenders as this year, assuming each of their cars are good enough, but I reckon Felipe will win it in '08.
Race Winners: Massa, Räikkönen, Hamilton, Kovalainen
underSteer winner: Adolf Warne

MotoGP predections...
World Champion: Rossi to do it thanks to having the same tyres as Stoner
Race Winners: Rossi, Stoner, Pedrosa, Melandri, Hayden, Lorenzo
underSteer winner: as above, Adolf Warne

V8 predictions...
Champion: Lowndes
Bathurst winner: Tander and Skaife
Biggest dissapointment: Ingall - he'll get beaten by Paul Morris
underSteer winner: TEAM K

WRC predictions...
Champion: Loeb
Constructor's: Ford
Rally Winners: Loeb, Hirvonen, Latvala
underSteer winner: the new incarnation of 99.94

General predictions...
NRL Winner: anyone but St George... ok... Manly
AFL Winner: Geelong - now if you do a multi for (Geelong, Manly, Massa and Rossi, you'll get €532 for €1 invested, based on current bwin.com prices - GET ON IT)
US Election: Obama
World Snooker Championship: John Higgins
All Ireland Hurling Championship: Kilkenny
All Ireland Football Championship: Dublin
English Premier League: Man United
A League: Queensland Roar
Number of beers I'll sink at Big Day Out: 22 (that's including the drive down)

Finally, here's the results for the best punters at picking each driver in F1, and below it the TT results:

Albers / Winkelhock / Yamamoto: Mumbo (55)
Alonso: Mcwillari (159)
Barrichello: Formula Zero (91)
Button: Chewythewookie (58)
Coulthard: Wham! (52)
Davidson: Chewythewookie (66)
Fisichella: Big Red (97)
Hamilton: TEAM K (162)
Heidfeld: XXXX (143)
Kovalainen: The Doctor (111)
Kubica / Vettel: Fine Cotton (126)
Liuzzi: Schumi's back! (59)
Massa: MPR (127)
Räikkönen: Big Red (161)
Rosberg: Fry's Ferrari's (68)
Sato: The Webbernator (82)
Schumacher,R: Skidmarks (65)
Speed / Vettel: Maverick and The Big Red Car (62)
Sutil: The Chrome Arrow (63)
Trulli: The Crafty Butcher (78)
Webber: Chuckster (83)
Wurz / Nakajima: cos racing (83)

the full results in the TT race were:

1. 99.94 - 5311
2. Fine Cotton - 5208
3. Sennamental Favourite - 5201
4. TEAM K - 4840
5. The Doctor - 4834
6. cos racing - 4832
7. Maverick - 4739
8. All Fried Up - 4717
9. The Jackal - 4688
10. Fry's Ferrari's - 4600
11. Wham! - 4596
12. Grandes Kugeln Racing - 4492
13. The X Factor - 4430
14. The Blundy Bear - 4346
15. The Chrome Arrow - 4292
16. Jailgrog - 3299
17. MPR - 3023
18. Chuckster - 2887
19. Mumbo - 2800
20. Gert - 2788
21. WLF - 1664
22. The Webbernator - 1532
23. XXXX - 1530
24. Chewythewookie - 1514
25. Big Red - 1505
26. kirbz - 1496
27. ferrari - 1488
28. Formula Zero - 1484
29. Skidmarks - 1460
30. DNF - Dead Near Fence - 1457
31. Hamilton - 1451
32. Schumi's back! - 1446
33. The Crafty Butcher - 1423
34. Mcwillari - 1382
35. Stealth Shiestenberger Racing - 1376
36. To the Finnish - 1291
37. EatMyShorts - 1246
38. The Big Red Car - 1245
39. Race 2 the BAR - 1142

You can now create your team for 2008, and you should do that soon if you want to compete in WRC, all the other categories are still a couple of months away from starting. Good luck for 2008.