F1-Blog

I know I should steer clear, and not have my say about the McLaren appeal against BMW/Williams. But hey I want to so I will….

Yes I don’t think the championship winner should be changed, Kimi won, with Lewis second, and that result should stand. However I can also see why McLaren did appeal, they have been beaten up all year over rules, and then see teams getting away with an infringement, so I can see their point of view.

Nigel Tozzi (Ferrari Lawyer) had this to say

"It could be said McLaren are shameless hypocrites devoid of any integrity, or maybe what their representatives have said should be taken at face value.”

Well, Ferrari have not been angels this year on this exact point, so I would not go slinging mud.

“If what they want is clarity, then by all means let them have that, but do not allow them to have the world championship this way."

As I have said, the fairest result would be a dq for the cars that had transcended the rules, but no promotion for the cars behind them.

“It would be a serious injustice to Mr Raikkonen should the world title be taken away from him, a fact recognized by Mr Hamilton and Mr (Fernando) Alonso.”

Agree

“It would be highly damaging for the sport if the title were to be won this way.”

Certainly Agree

“The fans would probably feel it had been achieved by (grubby maneuvering by the lawyers) rather than by skill on the track.”

Yup, and your one of those lawyers…

Let’s hope that a sensible decision is made by the court of appeals.

Bob Bell (Renault’s Technical Director) has complained about the new FIA sanctioned ‘Standard Electronics Unit’.

He is stated as saying

"The system has lower performance," Bell insisted. "Its capacity, complexity and functions are not on the same level."

Now Bob, is that not the point of the new system? It’s designed to stop the hidden ‘clever’ code that is tending to be hidden in the current electronics on the cars.

He has also complained that McLaren have an advantage in using the system, this is because the system is a development effort between Microsoft and McLaren (MES - Microsoft McLaren Electronic Systems). Yes I can see his point on this, however I am sure McLaren’s system from 2007 would have been a fair chunk more complicated than the one in the standard system. There however will be similarities between the standard one and the one McLaren know and love.

That being said, so far all the drivers that have driven cars with the system in are very complimentary to it, and saying how much they are enjoying F1 without the nanny.

Let’s hope it improves the show, as in theory drivers are more likely now to make mistakes when under pressure.

Besides the Fernando to Ferrari piece we ran earlier, there are also some other significant staff moves to note.

Ferrari have replaced Juan Todt at the head of the F1 team by Stefano Domenicali, who will take over the running of the team from January. This shows that Todt is obviously under an increased load with managing the Ferrari group, and can no longer manage running the team as well.

The other, more positive move is Ross Brawn, he has joined the Honda team, and I am sure will make a difference almost immediately.

Nick Fry had this to say about the appointment

"In terms of job responsibilities. Ross is team principal and is organizationally in charge of the team," Fry said. "I will take charge of the commercial side, the marketing, sponsorship and the legal side."

With Ross having this to say about his new team

"What I have done is get an assessment of the people who own the team and I was convinced that they have the commitment and the resources. I am very impressed with what I have seen so far. The facilities are not the reason we should not succeed. Honda is much closer to success than Ferrari was when I joined 10 years ago."

So it seems even outside of the driver movements, this years ‘Silly Season’ is going to be interesting

If Nicky is correct in the comments then it seems that Fernando may have signed for Ferrari in 2008!

If this is correct it’s going to throw a whole spanner in the works of the driver market in F1.

Lets see who has got this scoop!
Its now 21.30 hours GMT on Monday the 13th of Nov 07.
It has happened Fernando Alonso has signed for Ferrari to drive in 2008.
This will be announced officially in the next 48 hours.
So you heard it here first

So then, has Fernando signed for Ferrari? who’s car will he drive (Massa is the best bet), and if so, where will Massa go? he has just signed an extension after all.

Have Ferrari perhaps got approval to run 3 cars now that it’s guaranteed that ProDrive will not take their place on the grid?

Only time will tell, but thanks to Nicky for the scoop…. Like he says, you heard it here first.

It seems that the Renault team may be the team to get the sting in the tail of the 2007 season.

The Renault team have been called in front of the FIA, allegedly having breached the Article 151c ruling.

Yes that’s the same article that cost McLaren the constructors title, and 100million dollars in the Stepneygate schenanigens.

So what’s Renault been cheating with? Well it seems that Phil Mackereth moved between McLaren and Renault, and with him went 3 dvd’s of technical details of the McLaren 2007 car (and hence the Ferrari 2007).

It will be interesting to see if the punishment (if there is one) that the Renault teams get is similar or the same as the McLaren one. If not it would almost certainly mean the end of Max Moseley, and probably many others in the upper echelon of the FIA.

Ok, so we know now that Fernando (as expected) will not be at McLaren next year. So where will he go?

Well it’s no secret that Flavio would like him to return to Renault, openly stating as much, however Fernando has said that Renault is not his first choice.

Ferrari have got their driver lineup sorted for the foreseeable future, so that’s out, and leaves some of the teams that are not considered front runners.

Toyota obviously have a slot, but it’s known that they are wooing Timo Glock to replace Ralf, however that too does not look good, with BMW blocking Timo’s move to the Japanese team.

Other teams that would be willing to have the Spaniard (and be able to pay his large wage) are Red Bull, Williams and Toyota.

Let’s have a look at these options. Red Bull have a completed driver lineup, with Mark Webber and David Coulthard both with signatures on their contracts, if the team were to secure the Spaniards services, it’s likely that the driver under pressure would be David. There is another issue with the Red Bull team though, Fernando does not like to be beaten by his team mate (as his year at McLaren has shown), and I believe that Mark would be a tough team mate to beat, he is quick and knows the car well. However saying that, the team have all the things Fernando would need, a ‘genius’ designer, money and decent management, so never say never.

Williams could put a bid together as well, they are capable of raising funds, and history has shown that they never stay down for long. The team has started to show pace as they get used to the Toyota lump in the back of the car, and if Alonso moved here it would allow a straight driver swap, with Nico Rosberg going to McLaren. The only difficult bit with this team would be them raising the funding to pay for Alonso, but Frank has never struggled to raise sponsorship, so that should not be an issue, as I am sure there are a fair few Spanish companies that would love to join the team that Fernando races for.

The last of the choices is Toyota, the big issue here is performance. Would Fernando want to join a team that is still struggling to make their money work. The team has the largest budget on the grid though, so he could probably bring the team forward in performance. The team has been criticised for it’s management structure, saying the committee way of leading a team does not work, and until now at least that has been the case (Honda struggle with this as well). However Toyota are not used to loosing for too long, and the committee ways have won them a glut of titles in other formula’s over the years (WRC the highest profile), so they will get their act together sooner or later.

The other interesting driver question is who will join Lewis at McLaren? Obvious candidates (as Hamilton has stated) are Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen and Adrian Sutil. All are class drivers, and deserving of a top drive, it would be rare for McLaren to have two young drivers in the cars, but perhaps it’s time for McLaren to take a few risks, after all, if the MP4-23 is a fast car (and it would seem to be a good bet) then they already know that Lewis is capable of challenging for the title race.

So who will lock Fernando’s signature to paper? only time will tell, but it’s going to be an interesting ’silly season’

It seems that the FIA have proposed a 10 year freeze on engine designs to start from 2008.

Now I can see the point in trying to make the sport ‘greener’ and ‘cheaper’, however this is F1.

If a large manufacturer has 500million to spend in a season, HE IS GOING TO, most of the smaller teams will benefit from engine advancements, as they run manufacturers engines anyhow, so where is the problem?

The system works fine in other sports like MotoGP, where teams run engines and even chassis from factory manufacturers, these satellite teams get as much help from the factory teams as the factory teams do themselves, so why not introduce a similar system where the satellite teams are only at worst one pace behind the factory teams, and in some cases in MotoGP they are actually used as development bikes, having the advancements in engine/clutch/exhaust technology first, allowing the factory teams to run safe, while still garnering intelligence on the new parts?

Teams like the Honda backed ones help the Honda brand in a marketing and advertising way by running the bikes.

I know that the debate about satellite F1 teams keeps running around, with it looking like Pro-Drive not making it to the grid in 2008.

F1 should be the pinnacle of the car motorsport world, just like the MotoGP bikes are to Biking.

And while I’m on the subject, let’s bring back the tyre wars……

Max Mosley has spouted again, it’s not enough to put down one of the finest names in F1 history (Stewart), he has now said that Lewis Hamilton’s success is bad for the sport, wtf?

Yes I too am a little sick of the over importance the British press has heaped on Hamilton’s shoulders, but this?

"If he does the same thing next season as he’s done this season, it will certainly have a big effect," he told the BBC’.

"It will start to be negative because we’ll get the Schumacher effect where people start writing to me saying can’t you do something to slow him down."

He says this after one of the best seasons of F1 in years?

Max is so used to getting his own way, that he thinks he can call Jackie Stewart a ‘half wit’ and get away with it, now this? English papers are now dubbing him ‘Mad Max’, and to be honest, I don’t think there too far from the mark.

Come on Max, Step down, you have had your time, let someone who has not started to loose their marbles take over. Then perhaps the FIArarri can get back on track, and manage the sport properly.

I t seems that the young Brit Lewis Hamilton has signed a $10 Million deal with gaming Giant Electronic Arts (EA Sports).

This has lead to speculation that if the EA brand has invested so heavily in an F1 heavyweight for marketing of a game, then they are also in talks to purchase the F1 right’s, currently held by Sony.

If this is true, it’s excellent news in one way, and not so good in another. It would mean that the F1 games would be multi platform (XBox 360, PS3 at least) and people who are not on the Sony platform would again be able to play F1 games.

However it’s possibly not all good news, the current F1 game available on the PS3 is decidedly arcade’y and very easy. If EA bring the F1 franchise in house, then perhaps they are also looking to purchase the Sony Liverpool Studio’s (the current developers of F1), and if so the game would stay in it’s arcade form. It is possible though that the game would be taken over by one of EA’s plethora of in house development studio’s and get the treatment it deserves, and with a little luck, we could get back to something resembling Geoff Crammond’s greats (F1GP 1/2/3/4 from MicroProse).

Here’s hoping, as I can see the value of dumb’ing the F1 game to a level where it can be picked up by many, but us F1 fans would like something more, something that mirror’s the trials and tribulations of the F1 world a little more closely.

Hey we may even get a management part to the game, that would be fun, we can go through Stepneygate for ourselves…..