Radio Ga-Ga

If anybody tells you there's nothing good on radio anymore, they're talking rubbish, because they've clearly not heard any of the F1 team radio conversations, and are really missing out on something as a result.

Obviously I'm not talking about Schumi's transmissions (sadly I can only recall hearing him after the event, thanking pretty much everyone who lives near Maranello in gooey Oscars-style speeches: I'd much rather hear his in-race machinations and strategising). No, as ever, it's the inadvertent stuff that's really revealing.

In Turkey team radio taught us that Christijan Albers doesn't actually understand the qualifying system that he competes in; asking the crew how many go through to Round Two and should he stay in the car (they probably cut off the bit where he asked what circuit he was at and which team he was in...)

But it's not just newbies like Albers that hand out listening pleasure to fans in front of their tellies, there are some mighty (and mightily unexpected) drivers embarrassing themselves over the airwaves.

Renault team radio transmissions for instance are just pure comedy gold. You have to wonder if it's some deliberate unsettling tactic the way they keep humiliating Giancarlo Fisichella by always broadcasting clips of him being told he's nowhere near fast enough, to basically get a grip, and why can't he drive as well as other people do.

Granted, over the past couple of years Fisi has had no problems humiliating himself perfectly well without the aid of his pit crew, but you have to admire the verve with which they've thrown themselves at the job; falling only the slightest bit short of actually shouting "Fisi... You're crap... repeat, you're crap... Over..."

One of the funniest guys on team radio is actually World Champion Fernando Alonso, praised to the skies by commentators for being so perfectly balanced and rational. Yet he's the man who shrieks things like "Did you see what he did?????" and "But I can go faster than him!!!!!", sounding for all the world like South Park's Eric Cartman throwing a wobbly.

He's also the man who at the 2005 Canadian GP radioed in complaining that his car didn't seem to have the right balance; presumably unaware that this is one outcome of having driven it into a wall.

Possibly the most revealing bit of radio was at last year's Turkish GP where Raikkonen swept to victory, fully expecting Montoya to help cushion his points against Alonso. The message from the pits that JPM had goofed, letting Nando through was followed by a silence so huge that it threatened to drown out the engine.

Raikkonen is a man of few words (and mostly incomprehensible at that). But, as his title challenge ebbed further away, no words at all said everything.