F1-Blog

  It looks like the sale of the Midland F1 team is getting closer.

An announcement that part of the consortium to buy them is none other that Dutch sportscar manufacturer Spyker is involved in the purchase of the team.

A statement from their website said “Spyker Cars NV and the M-Consortium confirm that currently negotiations are taking place with the owner of Midland F1 with respect to a possible acquisition by Spyker of the Midland F1 team,”

This is good news for the team, not only will the Spyker brand get better recognition on the international market.

It may also be good news in another way, the company has a good relationship with the VW group, as that is where they source the engines for there cars from (Audi). Even the Spyker C8 double 12R which competed at the Le Mans 24 hours used an Audi engine.

Could this be another possibility for the VAG group to enter into the F1 circus?

The controversy around the podium presentation at this weekends Turkish GP has started a lot of comentaries.

I will not delve deeper, politics is not really my bag, but for those wanting to know a little more, then pop along to GrandPrix.com's good article on it all. 

It looks like the 2007 calander has been trimmed down a little. Two Grand Prix's have gone AWOL, one in Germany and one in Italy.

The European GP and San Marino GP's have been axed, making the season now 17 races. The good news is that Belgium makes a welcome return.

Australia, March 18
Malaysia, April 08
Bahrain, April 15
Spain, May 13
Monaco, May 27
Canada, June 10
United States, June 17
France, July 01
United Kingdom, July 08
Germany, July 22
Hungary, August 05
Turkey, August 26
Italy, September 09
Belgium, September 16
China, September 30
Japan, October 07
Brazil, October 21

So Australia keeps the season opener, and Brazil again get's the closing race.

A good afternoon's racing for another first time winner, Filipe Massa.

"It's like a dream come true," he said. "I've worked so hard during my career for this moment. It's amazing. Looking back to everything I'd done in my life to get here, there are lots of emotions.

"I did a very good start and had a very good first lap. The car was well balanced during whole race.

"Every single part of the race the car was responding in a fantastic way and I could just keep the gap and not drive too aggressive."

The surprise however is not that Massa won, but how Michael Schumacher made a mistake and ended up third.

The problems started for Schumi Saturday in qualifying, he made a mistake on his first flying lap at the first corner, and had to put a banker lap in on his second and last run, forcing him to start behind the Brazilian.

This was then impacted early on in the race when a safety car was brought out when Tonio Liuzzi spun at corner 1, the teams all decided to pit, with the two Ferrari's lining up behind each other, this allowed Alonso to get out ahead of the seven times world champion.

The start of the race was an untidy affair as well, with Giancarlo Fisichella spining so to avoid Alonso at the first corner, and in the process taking out some of the field, Heidfeld and Fisi needed new nose cones, and Kimi Raikkonen was forced to retire after the incident due to damage caused to the car after a rear tyre deflated.

Alonso managed to gain enough space behind him to Schumacher, this allowed him to  come out ahead of the Ferrari after the pit stops, even though the Ferrari was carrying more fuel and ran longer, it was however close, and Michael was now right on the tail of the Spaniard.

Schumacher tried all he could to overtake the Renault, that seemed to be struggling in the slow corners with blistered rear tyres, however critically, Michael's aero package through the mighty turn 8 has not been good all weekend, and today was no different, all the time he made up in the first part of the lap, was lost in that one section of corners, and Michael could then not get close enough to Alonso to put a move on him.

Whilst this was going on, Filipe was holding his distance in front of the dueling pair, just in case his team leader managed to overtake Alonso, as if he did then there would obviously be some form of issue with his car that allowed Michael to overtake.

Luckily for him though, the Renault ace drove a great final few laps, holding of the Ferrari allowing Massa to take his first win.

Jenson drove what he described as a 'boring' race finishing fourth, the car just not pacey enough to keep up with the Renault and Ferrari's, Pedro de la Rossa finished in a great fifth place, after battling hard all race.

One of the best drives though was Giancarlo Fisichella, clawing back from the rear of the back to finish in 6th, with the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher coming in seventh, and Barrichelo finishing in the last points place.

The result gives Alonso the edge on the championship. He is now 12 point's ahead of Michael, with four races remaining.

It's going to be a great end to the season, especially with the next race at Ferrari's home track, and Ferrari announcing next years line-up.

It's going to be a cracking end to the season.

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Felipe Massa will take the start for the first time from the front of the grid.

The first row is an all Ferrari affair, with Ross Brawn admitting that Schumacher took the safe option after ruining his first high speed run with a mistake at the first corner.

Behind the Ferrari's are the two Renault's, showing perhaps that the short break we have had has given them time to claw back some of the mass damper performance they will loose.

The BMW of Heidfeld showed a decent pace, as did Ralph's Toyota (he starts 15'th after an engine change penalty), with the McLarens either looking slow, or heavy, tomorrow will tell.

Kubica again showed pace, and Webber showed he is a good driver by getting the slow looking Williams through to the last 10.

Session three times

1. MASSA Ferrari 1m26.907s
2. M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1m27.284s
3. ALONSO Renault 1m27.321s
4. FISICHELLA Renault 1m27.564s
5. HEIDFELD BMW 1m27.785s
6. BUTTON Honda 1m27.790s
7. RAIKKONEN McLaren 1m27.866s
8. KUBICA BMW 1m28.167s
9. WEBBER Williams 1m29.436s
10. KLIEN Red Bull
11. DE LA ROSA McLaren
12. TRULLI Toyota
13. BARRICHELLO Honda
14. ROSBERG Williams
15. R.SCHUMACHER Toyota*
16. COULTHARD Red Bull
17. SPEED Toro Rosso
18. LIUZZI Toro Rosso
19. MONTEIRO Midland
20. YAMAMOTO Super Aguri
21. SATO Super Aguri
22. ALBERS Midland*

* demoted 10 places for engine change

Honda are running with a new sponsor this weekend. Petrol Ofisi are sponsoring the team and the Grand Prix this weekend.

The Turkish fuel company are running a rebranded 3rd car on Friday, and there logo will appear on both of the race cars on Saturday and Sunday.

Nick Fry said “We are delighted that Petrol Ofisi, title sponsor of the race this weekend, will be able to share in this thrilling time for the team as we return to the racetrack fresh from Formula 1's three-week break and ready to tackle the remaining five races with renewed vigour.”

Massa is still hopeful of a drive in the race seat of Scuddera Ferrari. This however looks like it will hinge on the decision of Michael Schumacher, as it's almost set that Kimi will join the team.

If Michael decides to stay in his current seat alongside Kimi, then it seems that Massa's only chance of a seat in the Scarlet car is if he reprises his role as tester.

That may actually turn out to be a good decision, as he will almost certainly get upgraded to the driver role when Michael decides to call it a day.

Massa's contract is due for renewal at the end of the year, and there seems to be very little options available to him if he want's a competitive race seat.

However do the team internally think that Michael will make way for the new boys? Kimi and Massa racing at Ferrari would make a good combination, and the fact that Massa has certainly got better over the season would show it to be a good decision at the Italian team.

Ferrari is due to unveil it's 2007 driver lineup at it's home Grand Prix at Monza next month, so we will know for sure then.

Not only is their luck on the track taking a turn for the worst, but the FIA court appeal about the Mass Damper system has ruled that the decision that the German Grand Prix stewards made ruling it legal, has been overturned.

The FIA has won the appeal, and the Mass Damper system has been deemed to infringe article 3.15 of the Formula 1 Technical Regulations.

This means that the teams that were running it are no longer allowed to. Some of the teams do not see this as too much of an issue (like Ferrari who had started to use it). However it will affect Renault badly, at least in the short term.

The Renault team have been using it for around 18months, and this years chassis was tuned and designed to use the system.

Renault however would have been working on a solution for the problem, and we should see something on the car this weekend. However this new system whatever it is will not be as well known or tested as the Mass Damper.

Well not quite, but if the rumors are true then the team could be in new Dutch hands for the Turkish GP.

Will Colin Kolles maintain control of the team if it is sold? or will the new management want to clean out the old and bring in someone new?

Then to that end there are the rumors that Gascoyne has been speaking to the MF1 team, will that be his new role?

It seems there may be exciting times ahead for the MF1 team, let's hope it turns out well for them.

I have noticed a few people searching for the theme music to the ITV coverage of F1.

Well here we are, it’s ‘Lift Me Up’ by Moby.

Downloads for your phones : Midi , WMA (Windows Mobile) or MP3

I also have the BBC ‘Original’ F1 music, here in MP3  

If you like the song, then grab the album

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