F1-Blog

Controversy in the last moments of Qualifying for the Monaco GP.

Michael Schumacher 'parked' his car on the second to last corner causing yellow flags to be displayed, this in effect ended everyone who was on a lap at that point's chances of getting a good time.

The Renault team have gone to the stewards and it is believed they are going to ask for Schumacher's pole lap time to be scratched. It is also known that tams up and down the pit lane are under the same belief about Schumacher, believing he stalled the car where he did on purpose.

Valentino Rossi has announced that he will not be joining the F1 circus for the time being at least. It looks like he wants to win with the changes next year in MotoGP to 800cc.

This has basically guaranteed that Schumi will stay at Ferrari and probably be joined by Kimi.

The FIA have asked for all tenders for the 3 year supply of tyres from 2008 on. It looks to be a forgone conclusion that Bridgestone will get the nod, they are after all the only supplier in 2007.

The reason for the single supplier is to help reduce cost's for the teams, as a good proportion of testing is due to tyres.

Franck Montagny will gt to partner Takuma Sato again in the Super Aguri car in Monaco this weekend.

The Frenchman will get a chance to prove if he is permanent driver material for the seat, at least until the end of the season. The team has publicly stated however that they are looking to recruit the Englishman Anthony Davidson.

Bernie Ecclestone has signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday penned by five of the sport's major car makers.

The Grand Prix Manufacturers Association (GPMA) comprising Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Renault, Toyota and Honda have signed up to F1 through until the end of 2012. This stops the threat of a manufacturer backed breakaway series.

"The manufacturers all signed it in the end," Ecclestone told autosport.com. "There were a lot of negotiations and things came to a head in the end thanks to Alain Dassas (Renault F1 president). He, along with Professor Goeschel (BMW board member), was the driving force behind getting the deal. They effectively made it happen and saw in the end that the deal made sense. We've now signed our part and it is now just a question of sending it to the lawyers."

The agreement is said to assign the teams between 50 and 60 % of the sports total revenue. This will lower the requirements of the sponsorship deals an allow the smaller teams to become a little stronger.

Now the only other debates the teams have, is the controversial 2008 rules, including the silly Max Moseley proposed 3 year engine development freeze.

Aguri Suzuki has stated his intentions to bring Anthony Davidson across to the team next year. Davidson has been trying for a race seat for a few years now, and although highly rated and definitely a fast driver, has not been able to find one.

He has spent the last 4 years as the Honda/BAR test driver and raced 3 times as a stand in driver. The thing that keeps him as a test driver is his very impressive feedback to the engineers and his ability to setup the car.

Suzuki will however have to talk Honda into letting them have him, as his future is almost definitely in their hands.

Jean Totd has said that the Ferrari 2007 Drivers line-up will be announced at the Italian GP on September the 10th.

However this announcement has brought questions as to if Michael Schumacher will be driving for them as he claimed he would not make his mind up until the ed ofte season.

“You know, in a way, it’s a bit tiring to always have speculation and we know that once we will announce the drives, we will start on other speculation,” Todt said. "When we answer to those new speculations, we will no doubt have some other ones, so in a way, to concentrate on speculation at the moment on drivers is quite good because we don’t get on other matters.

We have a good harmony in the team.

Everybody knows that Michael is spoiled here, which he deserves, he’s like a spoiled kid in the team, together with Felipe.

They get on very well. You must see the photo on the podium in the last grand prix [at the Nurburgring]. You can see the harmony.

So I want Michael to be happy, I want Felipe to be happy.

Saying that, we need to make sure to secure that Ferrari is in a strong situation for the present and for the future.

That’s what we will do and together with Michael, when Michael feels comfortable with the announcement, we should announce it around Monza.”

Max Moseley has stated that the 3 year freeze on the engine technology in the F1 cars is still going to take place from 2008 onward.

The 11 teams currently in F1 held a meeting before the Spanish GP and agreed by an 8 to 3 vote that the freeze should be lifted. However ITV-F1 have seen a letter that states that Max will go ahead (again) with the plan whether the teams like it or not.

Where is Paul Stoddard when you need him, please Paul come and take over from Max, as he will ruin the sport.

Flavio has apparently tried urging the FIA to make the rules governing next years controlled tyres fair t all teams. Well yes he has a point, however why should the teams that made the switch over to Bridgestone this year, moving away from the dominant Michelin tyre just to get running time on the Bridgestones.

Why should teams like Williams and Toyota take the hit this year, to reap no advantage? Com on Flav you are losing your best driver, and unless you sign someone good (Juan Pablo?) your not really going to be in the running next year anyway.

A good day was had by the Spanish on Sunday. The fans where treated to a free breakfast at Barcelona so they could watch Danni Pedrosa win the Chinese MotoGP race, then there hero Fernando Alonso top's of an already good day by wining the F1 round at his home track.

The race had very few exiting points to it, but that did not worry the crowd watching Alonso beat Michael Schumacher. The Renault team proved they where the cream at Barcelona, and the much touted top spead of the Ferrari's did not even come into the picture.

Alonso led the race from start to finish in a faultless display of dominance. Michael had to make do with the second step of the podium, with Alosno's team mate Fisichella coming in third.

The highlights of the GP are rare but significant; Kimi Raekonen showed the ability of the new Mercedes/Ilmore engine to get off the line, making up a handful of places in a very brave move from the start. His team mate Juan Pablo Montoya beached his car and had to end his race, he blamed a failure in his traction control for the spin that caused the beaching. This is possible as it was his first race with the new engine as well, and Kimi's start proves that work has definitely gone on in the TC department. Kimi ended the race in 5th.

The Toyota's had a 'racing incident', as Ralph decided to take a lunge up the inside of Trulli destroying the  front aero package and his race prospects in the process. We are not sure if any damage was caused to the Trulli car, but he never seemed to be on the pace all day. Ralph had to retire later on had electronics issues that caused him to retire.

The Cosworth powered Williams cars proved very hum drum, they showed very little pace throughout the whole weekend.

The Honda boys had mixed results; Button had problems on Saturday in Qualifying that is yet to be explained. However, Barichelo put in a decent performance finishing 7th behind Jenson in 6th. Jenson was asked to turn his engine down to save it for Monaco (due to the 2 race engine rules).

Red bull / Toro Rosso did not show any form this weekend, the fact that the Ferrari engine in the car should give them similar levels of top end to the Ferrari's adds further wait to the rumors of the Ferrari 'moving wing' as the red bull cars got nowhere near them in the speed traps. David Couthards 200th grand prix will be one to forget with a bad weekend throughout.

BMW Sauber got one point from the weekend with Nick Heidfeld finishing in 8th place. The recently resurrected (performance wise) Jacques Villeneuve finished in a lowly 12th, however he was the last on the grid from start due to an engine change before the weekend even started.

The Toro Rosso team had it's first V10 engine casualty with Scot Speed's engine dying during the race, and Liuzzi's car suffering a hydraulics failure.

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