Welcome to this year's Formula 1 TO European Grand Prix coming from the Nürburgring circuit in Germany. The weather is fine and it looks as if we're going to have a wonderful day's racing.
The jockeys are already lining up their birds in the starting boxes, all decked out in the teams' various liveries.
The jockeys and the birds are being checked by their technicians, just making sure the TOs and the protective gear is all in order.
There we can see Ferrari's Biped Boy ridden by Tony Baloni – nice helmet Tony! He’s wearing one of the new “Egghead” helmets in Ferrari red to match his body armour, saddle and bird’s paintwork. The armour, of course, is absolutely essential protection from the jostling and pecking of the opponents. He's having a marvellous season. Only last month he pipped McLaren's Swift Struthio ridden by Adam Madam at the post to win the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch.
And they're off.......
Good start by Biped Boy taking an early lead, Alfa Romeo's Feathered Friend coming up the inside as they round the corner and approach the first straight, Biped Boy gives him a quick peck and re-establishes his lead, but here comes BMW's Franz Josef Strauss ridden by Peter Mueller overtaking Biped Boy and ...look at him go!
And there they go round the chicane, always a bit of a bottleneck here, some rough jostling and pecking going on, let’s hope it doesn’t get out of hand as it did at Monaco last year. These sections can be dangerous with the TO's shifting at some 140 kilometres per hour. Franz Josef Strauss has taken a clear lead but Honda's Lucky Legs with the Lucky Strike paint job is moving up the field. He can't get past Biped Boy, he’s jostling and , and Ooooh! he's kicked him, he’s kicked Biped Boy” That'll be a penalty loop for him. No call for that at all.......