F1-Blog

Ferrari still with car issues?

Just watching the Live coverage of the test session 1, and it looks like Kimi has again been forced to leave his car out on track, and walk back to the pits.

Have Ferrari still got the same issues as they did in Australia? it is another hot session in Malaysia. Kimi seemed to loose drive, as the onboard shots had him trying to change up, with the engine then not wanting to rev, and eventually shutting itself down, forcing Kimi to coast.

Also David Coulthard will not be taking any more part in this session, after missing the apex at a chicane entry, he ran over the second part of the corners grass inside, he then hit what must have been a kerb sticking out of the grass, and had the front end of his Red Bull collapse on him. Lots of work for the Red Bull Mechanics if he wants to be out in session 2.

DC’s off caused the session to be Red Flagged so that the track could be cleaned, and the car moved.

Australia Result

And it’s a result for Lewis Hamilton, and McLaren.

Lewis drove a start to finish winning race, however the news is the Ferrari cars.

None of the Ferrari powered cars managed to finish the race, with two engine failures (Kimi and Bordause).

It was also nice to see the BMW and Williams on the podium, Heidfeld took the second spot, and Rosberg took a much deserved third spot.

The race was incident packed, with 3 safety cars out, Kovalinen got caught out in his second stop with the Safety Car that Timo Glock’s big accident brought out, having to stop under the safety car, and join the end of the snake along with Alonso.

David Coulthard had a big accident with Massa into turn one ending Red Bulls day. Rubens was running well in the lone Honda (Button had an incident on the opening lap), with his car running out of fuel, he had to come in to refuel while the safety car was out and the pit lane was closed giving him a 10 second penalty, he then looked to go back out onto the track through red pit lights. So it’s unknown at the moment if he managed to score points or not.

Fernando Alonso

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.

Customer cars under fire

Spyker GP have launched arbitration proceedings against the two ‘customer’ chassis teams.

The Dutch (English) team have said that they believe that the Super Aguri SA07 is a clone of the Honda RA106 (from last year). They have also said that the Scuderia Toro Rosso STR2 is a repackaged version of the Red Bull RB3 designed by Adrian Newey.

They say that because of this both teams are in violation of the 2007 sporting regulations.

This is not the first time that Spyker have complained about the two teams. They complained to the stewards at the Australian GP after qualifying, the stewards however threw the complaint out on procedural grounds.

The case will now go to the Swiss court that judges Concorde Agreement cases. Both of the teams involved say that they comply to the Concorde Agreement, as they own the intellectual property for the chassis they are using.

If Spyker actually get this through, the probable outcome would be that the teams would not be eligible for constructor points, this would not affect the drivers points however.

Red Bull not so Rosy?

Anton Stipinovich has been announced as leaving the Red Bull fold. Anton has been working as the head of development at the team since the beginning of 2005.

The reasons for his departure have not been announced, however it may be that the public facing ‘fun place to work’ image the team shows may not be true.

It may be that he has been pressured out of the team after the arrival of there ’superstar’ designer Adrian Newey, however the two have worked in the same team before and not had issues.

It is probable that Anton may move to Williams, and perhaps take over the running of the test team from Dickie Stanford, as it’s rumored that he wants to step back from the active testing team manager position he now holds.