Eddie Jordan thinks that Michael Schumacher will drive for the Mercedes Grand Prix team in 2010.
Jordan says that “there’s no downside” for Michael Schumacher.
I have to agree with Joe Saward on this one — can’t see it happening.
Luca Badoer has come out and said that all the negative press he received for his poor drives in Valencia and Spa contributed to Ferrari replacing him with Giancarlo Fisichella.
“The media played a fundamental role in the decision to replace me.”
By reporting on your woeful performances, yes. F1 has always been a piranha club — if you’re not quick enough, you’re out. The list of drivers who don’t make the cut is huge — this season we’ve had Nelson Piquet and Sebastian Bourdais shown the door for poor performances.
Badoer goes on to say that, had Ferrari given him one more race, he’d have been on the pace.
“Maranello had faith in me. I only have one regret – from the third grand prix I would have done better.”
I remember hearing something similar after Valencia. Maranello obviously lost that faith.
(As an aside, I’m pleased that Fisichella will finally get to drive a Ferrari in F1. It’s long been his dream and the deal he’s got — racing for the final five races, then test & reserve driver next year — sounds great. Seeing him in the Ferrari kit brings back memories of seeing Alesi in the Jordan in 2001. It just felt right, you know? Anyway. Forza Fisi.)
There are three new teams in the list:
Surprisingly David ‘Dave’ Richards and his Prodrive/Aston Martin marque didn’t get a look in. I have to admit to being surprised by that omission — last time around the FIA granted Prodrive the last slot on the grid from a long list of entries. Maybe Max & the FIA saw something in the three new teams’ proposals that Prodrive didn’t have in theirs.
Ferrari & the Red Bull teams have been granted entries despite attaching conditions to those entries. This is all due to the fact that those teams supposedly signed an agreement with the FIA some years ago committing them to the F1 Championship for a number of years (one assumes that includes the 2010 season then). Ferrari are saying the FIA have breached those conditions; the FIA are saying Ferrari must race unconditionally or not at all.
The other teams that entered the championship conditionally are being warned that they risk being declined a spot if they don’t lift the conditions on their entry by this time next week (Friday 19th June). Whether Brawn, McLaren, Renault, BMW Sauber and Toyota will do that remains to be seen.
For sure, another interesting week ahead.
The FIA announced today a raft of cost-cutting measures intended to save the teams in excess of 30% of their 2008 budgets for 2009.
Highlights include doubling engine life, a complete ban on in-season testing, compulsory factory closures (six weeks per year) and possible changes to the qualifying format.
For 2010 there are more changes afoot: the much-mooted €5 million engine (on offer to independents), a standard transmission, some homogenization of certain car elements (as yet to be defined), a ban on tyre warmers and refueling and a possible reduction in race distance.
The cost-cutting debate has been raging in F1 for years — remember Stoddy getting all narked at the big teams for not giving him affordable engines when they allegedly said they would back in 2003? — but this is the first positive step that’s been taken.
Did it take a big team pulling out of F1 to make everyone sit up and take notice?
Modern-day F1 is laden with manufacturers. They are in F1 for business and marketing reasons alone — the ‘sport’ has absolutely nothing to do with it. If you think it does, that shows how good their marketing is.
So if/when a major manufacturer decides that the bang for buck ratio isn’t right they’ll be off. Nostalgia and heritage count for nothing in the board room. Think Ford circa 2004, Honda circa 2008.
It’s been confirmed then: the Honda F1 team have confirmed their immediate withdrawal from F1.
Honda CEO Takeo Fukui confirmed the news today:
“Honda must protect its core business activities and secure the long term as widespread uncertainties in the economies around the globe continue to mount…A recovery is expected to take some time.
“Under these circumstances, Honda has taken swift and flexible measures to counter this sudden and expansive weakening of the marketplace in all business areas.
“However, in recognition of the need to optimize the allocation of management resources, including investment regarding the future, we have decided to withdraw from Formula One participation.”
It looks like they had little choice: cuts in road vehicle production, plans to shed 1000 jobs in the UK…
Honda Racing’s CEO Nick Fry is hopeful that the team can be sold so that they can be on the grid in Melbourne next March, with ‘three credible offers’ seemingly already on the table. And Fry and Ross Brawn (team principle) are ‘committed’ to saving the team.
Difficult times indeed.
Autosport are running a story on Honda’s purported exit from F1, due to be announced on Friday.
Wow. After just one season Ross Brawn finds himself without a team to be principle of and Jenson Button is actively looking for a drive to remain in F1 (remember, most of the seats are now taken for 2009).
If it’s true, of course.
UPDATE: The BBC have more. I bet Eddie and Stoddy are interested if they can get the team for a quid!
Well, we’ve finally landed in Chicago and lots of exciting things are happening.
First off is the crazy new that Bernie wants to award medals rather than points. “The whole point will be, when they get to Melbourne for the first race, the guys will want to leave there with a gold medal” said the wee one. Not sure I agree with that.
On a more fantastic note, Martin Brundle has confirmed that he will be working with the BBC next year. And not a mention of James ‘The Cock’ Allen — fantastic.
The new-for-2009 rules make for some pig ugly cars. Christian Klien agrees. Reminds me of the cars of the early 90s — remember Damon Hill’s Brabham that looked like it was held together with fishing line?
In other news, de la Rosa is testing for Force India (presumably as part of that team’s recent technical deal with McLaren) and Sato just topped the testing times. After months out of the cockpit. In a Toro Rosso.
Right, back to me Starbucks.
Super Aguri withdraw from Formula One:
Super Aguri have withdrawn from the Formula One world championship with immediate effect, the team announced on Tuesday.
After weeks of speculation about their future following the collapse of a proposed takeover by the Magma Group, a last-minute rescue package by German automotive company Weigl Group was not good enough to keep them racing.
Team principal Aguri Suzuki is understood to have met with the Honda board in Japan on Tuesday, but the outcome of that meeting was that the team will no longer be racing.
A sad day.
So, following ITV’s ‘commercial decision’ to terminate their F1 coverage contract at the end of 2008, the BBC have acquired the rights for the next five years.
So what are the BBC planning?
Well, apparently the ink is still drying on the contract so we don’t yet know the details, but Dominic Coles, BBC Sport Director of Sports Rights told Autosport:
“Fans will be able to enjoy uninterrupted, state of the art and innovative coverage from BBC Sport, across all of our TV, radio and new media platforms…”
Hopefully some of their plans include the following.
Just my little wishlist, you understand.
File under “didn’t see that coming” — Formula 1 is to return to the BBC from 2009 onwards.
With the advent of slick tyres and a ranch of other changes, next year could be very exciting.
Note to BBC: please do hire Martin Brundle from ITV.
Please do not hire James Allen, Louise Goodman, Lenny’s brother Ted or Steve Ryder. You know, that turncoat what did defect. Ta.
A few days ago, I noted that Alonso’s threatening of his team boss was a grave misjudgement on Alonso’s part. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about McLaren (and, in particular, Ron Dennis) would know before they started that it was a futile and ultimately pointless effort by Alonso.
It now seems that Alonso and Dennis are no longer on speaking terms; indeed, they haven’t been since the Hungary debacle (when Alonso was found guilty of impeding team mate Hamilton during final qualifying, thereby ensuring Hamilton couldn’t get another lap in and leaving Alonso free to run to pole position) back in August.
Historically, when a team boss and driver are no longer speaking it doesn’t bode well for the relationship. Think of Prost and Alesi in 2001.
So where does that leave the Alonso/McLaren relationship? Can they continue after this? I think it highly unlikely. The facts, as they have recently emerged, are:
The last point is also true of Pedro de la Rosa, McLaren’s test driver. I wouldn’t be surprised if, as a result, de la Rosa was shown the door.
Also questionable is how much effort the team are now prepared to put into engineering Alonso to a championship: he’s already proved he thinks he’s above the team, we’ve had revelations that he’s offered money (out of his own pocket) to his mechanics to ensure he beats Hamilton, so surely he can’t expect any preferential treatment now?
It all smacks somewhat of an insecure driver who has been rattled by a rookie.
So all this leaves the burning question: will Alonso be sitting in a McLaren next year?
My guess is that he won’t. He’ll either go back to Renault (who have failed to maintain their competitiveness since Alonso departed) or he’ll sign for Ferrari.
How better to poke Ron Dennis in the eye one last time?
These are likely to be added to throughout the day…
So, the F1 spy scandal has reached a conclusion: for McLaren, a somewhat expensive one. For Ferrari, it’s still too soft.
This all follows new evidence that came to light implicating that McLaren did indeed use sensitive Ferrari data to their advantage. The evidence was submitted in the form of emails between de la Rosa (McLaren’s tester) and Alonso referencing sensitive Ferrari data that came from Mike Coughlan (via Nigel Stepney at Ferrari).
How this evidence came to light is more interesting: Alonso is alleged to have threatened Ron Dennis that, unless Ron made Alonso team leader, he’d show the emails to the FIA. (At the time, Ron claims he knew nothing of the emails and, given his widely publicised integrity, you’d be inclined to believe him.)
Ron then phoned the FIA to inform them of the emails, the FIA then asked the drivers for their full co-operation and the emails were disclosed. The rest is history.
Now, this is all based on rumour and conjecture: nobody is confirming the claims but, interestingly, nobody is exactly denying them either. The best we’ve had is from Alonso’s manager, Luis Garcia Abad:
When asked about the stories of Alonso threatening to reveal the email exchange to the FIA, Abad said: “It’s not true, and it’s not possible. The facts say it is not true because it happened in a different way.”
It’d be interesting to hear what those facts are and how it did happen. If your driver is accused of something as heinous as this, surely you’d issue a swift and thorough rejection?
Ron Dennis won’t confirm what was said between himself and Alonso, but he does say they spoke and that Alonso was “pretty upset by many things”:
“Fernando arrived, pretty upset by many things. I’m not going to give you the detail,” said Dennis.
“In a conversation that took place he said ‘I have something in my e-mail system which is from one of your engineers’.”
If Alonso really did threaten his team boss, then he seriously misjudged Ron Dennis. Anyone with an iota of knowledge about the history of McLaren knows that Ron doesn’t favour drivers: there has never been a ‘no 1′ McLaren driver.
You also have to question Alonso’s motivation: is he really that rattled by Hamilton that he’s prepared to blackmail his own team boss? And, according to one British paper today, prepared to offer his mechanics £650 each to help him beat Hamilton?
Now, Alonso is a double world champion. No mean feat, especially when you remember he beat a certain M Schumacher twice to get those titles. To become a world champion requires certain levels of tenacity, selfishness and ruthlessness.
But these are generally aimed at your competitors, not your own team. If the rumours are true, Alonso has seriously misjudged the situation and, more tellingly, his own standing with McLaren.
He did it: Hamilton’s on pole for tomorrow’s British GP.
Given the pace of the Ferrari throughout practice and Alonso’s during qualifying, this surprised me.
Good stuff. Ruined only slightly, as ever, by James ‘The Cock’ Allen attempting to feign excitement.
Elsewhere:
Now be off with you. Go do Facebook or something.
German TV channel RTL have made a computer reconstruction of Robert Kubica’s crash in Montreal the other weekend.
(The link is a Quicktime movie).
The video highlights the various safety devices working during the high-speed accident.
Here’s the actual accident:
Nigel Stepney has told the Sunday Times that he’s done nothing wrong and the allegations levelled at him are part of a “dirty tricks campaign”.
Lest we forget, Ferrari have lodged “an official complaint about his behaviour” to the relevant Italian authorities.
This story confused and surprised me when I first read it (Stepney’s been with the Scuderia since 1992) but it now seems inevitable that the relationship between Ferrari and Stepney is beyond repair. Unless the ‘dirty tricks’ quip relates to another team? Who knows.
The prospect of turning around Honda’s dire season must seem ever more attractive…
UPDATE: Ferrari have dismissed Nigel Stepney.
Red Bull launched their 2007 challenger today, and Adrian Newey is hopeful of a good year.
I agree with Adrian — it does most certainly look ‘McLaren-esque’. But whilst I broadly agree that three years of stable regulations are bound to produce similar cars up and down the grid, when he says that this design is ‘evolutionary’ I disagree.
Compare the 2006 RB2 to the new 2007 RB3.
Alright, looks aren’t everything — there’s a hell of a lot of engineering under the skin that we can’t see that may have been carried over. But it’s clear that the aerodynamics are radically different, the sculpting around the rear of the car is much tighter, the nose, front wing, rear wing, engine cover…
A good test would be to strip the two cars of their livery and sit them side by side. Then we’d see how re/evolutionary the design is.
It’d be also interesting to put an MP4-21 next to it.
Having said that, I think Red Bull are going to go very well this year.
The FIA have released the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship entry list.
There’s a bit to take in — new sponsorship deals for McLaren (Vodafone), Renault (ING) and Williams (AT&T); a few rookies in top teams (Hamilton, Kovalainen) and the positioning of the drivers within teams. For example, I find it interesting to see Massa as no. 5 and Raikkonen as no.6 at Ferrari.
Looking down the list, it appears that teams give the first number to their longest serving driver (true of Renault, Ferrari, Honda, BMW, Red Bull, Williams, Spyker and Super Aguri).
In fact, only Honda and Toyota are the only teams with an unchanged lineup (OK, so BMW ran Kubica from Germany onwards last year, but they started with Villeneuve. Spyker haven’t confirmed their second seat yet, so it could go to Monteiro — which would also add them to this list).
I’m just looking forward to seeing how the respective graphics departments have done with the new colour schemes (McLaren = grey/black — Vodafone = red | Renault = yellow — ING = orange). An unenviable task!
The Design Museum is currently running an F1 exhibition called Formula One — The Great Design Race. I visited it yesterday and can wholeheartedly recommend it.
Yes, there are classic and modern F1 cars on show but for me the real gem of the exhibition was the on-board video footage through the ages–they’ve got on-board footage of Fangio, Senna and Stewart at great tracks such as Monaco and the old Nurburgring. What amazed me was the amount of slide Fangio and Stewart had to cope with: compared to modern-day F1, those cars slid around a lot!
The Nurburgring piece is truly amazing: it’s the first footage of the old 14.2 mile circuit I’ve ever seen and it was just amazing: cars skimming past trees and fields at 170 mph plus, the car leaping over crests, sliding all over the place, stark camber changes–it really is a great piece of footage.
If you’re in London and fancy a view, it runs until 29th October and costs only £7.
So, who goes where for 2007? Based on rumblings going around the sport, I will stick my neck out with the following predictions.
‘Flavor Flav’ Briatore will stay on as team principal for one more season, before deciding that shagging supermodels and creosoting himself is a much better way of spending his time. Gary Fisichella will be partnered by Jacques Fucking Villeneuve and the team will fail to score a single point all season, ending the careers of Fisichella and Fucking Villeneuve. Renault will consider rebadging themselves ‘Nissan Formula’ for 2008 and beyond to match their on-track aspirations.
Ron Dennis will spend most of 2007 realigning his strategical importance and developing governance strategies, whilst Fred Alonso will take pole for his first race with Team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Bridgestone V6 Johnny Walker SAP Mobil squad. His team-mate will be Gil de Ferran, who will be bought out of his Honda ’sporting director’ contract for £3.99. Lewis Hamilton will take on Gary Paffet in McLaren’s annual ‘Montoya Memorial Pie Eating Contest’, but he will ultimately lose.
Mike Schumacher will announce his retirement at the end of 2006 and take the helm as team boss in 2007. He’ll then hire Keith Raikkonnen as his no. 1 and coax Mike Hakkinen out of retirement as his no. 2, thereby creating a Finnish superteam and a host of ‘Finnish/finish’ marketing campaigns. One Ferrari driver will finish (geddit?) on the podium at every single race.
Ranulph Schumacher and James Trulli are retained for 2007, and nobody knows why.
Alex Vertz and Nick Rozberg will score enough points to secure fourth in the constructors for Williams, who will decide that their current ‘WilliamsF1′ logo is utter, utter shite and have it re-designed by a semi-decent company for 2007. Team Willy will go on to be a roaring success.
Jason Button and Ruth Barrichello will drive the Honda as hard as they can, but all they’ll get is a few podiums. Nick Fry will be exposed as the spiel-spewing android he truly is, and Matt Bishop will twat him in the teeth. Fry will cry and then explode.
Drivers Crazy Dave Coulthard and Mark Bloody Webber will win two races each, with Red Bull taking the constructor’s title. Adrian Oldey will grow a beard because Derek Mateschitz will ask him to. For sure, beards are just crazy.
Super Mario The-ssen will finally shave off that ridiculous moustache and get some proper glasses. Peter Sauber will have almost stopped laughing at the amount of hard cash he got for his team and will sport even bigger cigars. His bald spot will be tested relentlessly in Sauber’s wind tunnel, which incidentally is called “Sheba” after Peter’s dog’s best mate from way back.
Eddie ‘Fackin’ Jordan will buy back his F1 team for the nominal fee of £1. Whilst respraying the tubs back to glorious yellow, he’ll phone Rob Schneider and say “what the fack have ye done to me team y’cunt ya?!? Rhino?!? Who the cunt are they?!? I just signed O2 as my title sponsor, suck on those eggs you brute.” Rob Schneider will go back to selling steel and not being around much.
Antonio Banderas will be partnered by Damon Hill in 2007, who is allowed to keep his grey locks and beard via a neat tie-in marketing deal with Just for Men. The campaign will compare the length of time it takes to wash one’s grey out with the length of time one can stare at STR’s garish livery. Gerry Burger will remain as team principal and will hire Jean Alesi as his PR guru.
Elsewhere, David Richards will decide that he’s had enough of that fucking annoying semi-beard and will either fucking shave or grow a proper fucking beard. Oh and he’ll persuade Ron Dennis to let him have two old MP4/3 chassis for the 2008 season.
Juan Pablo Montoya has announced that he’s leaving F1 at the end of the season to race in the American Nascar series. This is serious news.
Montoya has the credentials to justify his presence in F1: 7 wins, 30 podiums, 13 pole positions and 3rd place finishes in the F1 World Championship (in 2002 and 2003). On paper, this looks like a man who belongs in F1. The fact he’s leaving can only be for one of two reasons: he’s either become disillusioned with the whole F1 circus, or he was left without a competitive seat in 2007 — it’s no secret that Montoya’s McLaren contract expires at the end of 2006, and some might argue that he’s the wrong side of 30 to be getting another shot with a top team.
Montoya and McLaren haven’t gelled, for whatever reason. The McLaren MP4-21 is an understeering beast, a trait JPM dispises, and whilst Raikkonen made the best of the MP4-21 last season on his way to winning 7 races, Montoya managed just three wins and 72 fewer points than Kimi.
So earlier in the year when contracts for 2007 and beyond were being discussed, many thought Montoya was heading out of McLaren (to be replaced by Alonso) perhaps ending up at Red Bull or Toyota. Montoya himself said nothing of his contractual situation, save that he ‘had numerous options’ to stay in F1.
I doubt that many people thought he would actually leave F1 though. Sure, there was speculation that he may hook up with Chip Ganassi (with whom he won his Indy 500 and CART titles) in IndyCar, and Nigel Roebuck hinted in his weekly column a week or so ago that NASCAR might appeal to JPM, but few actually thought a driver of Montoya’s calibre would be allowed to slip out of F1 without a competitive drive.
When asked by Autosport “What was the final straw in leaving Formula One and how did you justify taking a pay cut?” Montoya responded thus:
“I don’t think you’re going to be happy getting more money and being miserable all day. When I called Chip I said, ‘Chip you know what. I want to come back racing, and I think the best place to do racing is here (NASCAR).
“It’s not how many millions you’re making or how much money you’re making. It’s a matter of three years down the line are you going to be excited about what you’re doing or not. I think three years from now when I look at my career I’m going to be happier here.”
Which seems to explain why Montoya is going to NASCAR: he’s bored with F1. It’s a total travesty that someone of Montoya’s calibre should be allowed to leave in this fashion when a driver such as Ralf Schumacher is paid $stupid for crashing, moaning a lot and generally not being very good.
