The Red Bullog is now closed

I'm a huge fan of the motor racing series 'Formula 1'. I love fast cars and being a confirmed geek, I love the engineering aspect too. I worked in and around some of the manufacturers way back when and so was a bit surprised when I read that the Red Bull team were coming down a bit hard on one of their fan's blogs.

The Red Bullog had not been around for too long, and was obviously made by fans, in fact there was a disclaimer at the top of the now defunct blog, and in their opening spiel included the following;

The Red Bullog is a fan-based blog which aims to provide you with up-to-date news and views on the least po-faced Formula One team of recent times: Red Bull Racing.

As a fan of both the sport and the team, I hope to be able to provide you with the sort of articles I think you would like to read. From the rather serious world of F1 to the more satirical, irreverent news related stories. If it happens in Red Bull Racing land you can bet The Red Bullog will be covering it.

I was surprised, yesterday afternoon, to find out that the site was closing down. It wasn't for lack of funding or time or even a lack of enthusiasm, it was because Red Bull, the team that the blog was talking about, had sent the blogger a nasty letter telling him to toe the Red Bull line, or they'd sue.

I didn't realize what an impact this blog had on the F1 blogging community until later on in the afternoon when the blog 'BlogF1' wrote an article about it.

In retrospect I think that the main point that rankled me was the fact that 'the men in suits' had decided how the blog was to be depicted. No free speech here! I wonder if they have heard of the phrase 'any advertising is good advertising'?

kthanxbai!