Bernie Ecclestone’s interview in the Times last weekend has brought a furious response from politicians and virtual silence from the F1 community. Most people in F1 don’t really want to get drawn into it, as they argue he shouldn’t have allowed himself to be in the first place. What most people don’t understand is why he did the interview. He didn’t appear to have a key message to sell, such as “I know the breakaway threat looked bad, but F1 is now in the best shape it’s ever been in, ” or something of that kind. There are suggestions that More…

There are a few interesting threads around today. The Times has an extraordinary interview with F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone where he explores the theme of ‘dictators’. Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo recently implied that FIA president Max Mosley was a dictator and Bernie sets out here to defend the breed as people who ‘get things done’. “Politicians are too worried about elections, ” he says. “We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, he was the only one who could control that country. Warming to his theme, Bernie tackles the sensitive More…

Here we go again; summer’s here, the temperatures are sky high, there’s a long three week gap between races and Max Mosley and FOTA have gone quiet. If a vacuum is created something will come along to fill it and in this case it is the Spanish sports paper AS claiming that Ferrari is set to announce its deal with Fernando Alonso at the Italian Grand Prix in September. According to AS, Monza is where important Ferrari announcements are made (true up to a point) and the traditional end of season Ferrari celebration has been booked in for November at More…

You’ve probably not heard of Liam Fairhurst but he was a mad keen F1 fan and he died this week. But there’s more to it than that. Liam was only 14 and he had been battling against cancer for four years. He thought he’d beaten it, but it turned out he hadn’t. Liam was remarkable because when he was being treated the first time he made friends with another child who subsequently died. Upset by the loss of his friend, Liam was determined to raise money for Clic Sargent, the children’s cancer charity, of which Eddie Jordan and I are More…

Mark Webber has come out with some perky quotes today about the second half of the season and his chances of having a run at championship leader Jenson Button. Mark is 28.5 points behind Button (wish we could get rid of the half point thing, but without another rained off race we won’t be able to) and only 3.5 points behind his team mate Sebastian Vettel with a maximum of 90 points still available from the nine remaining races. Webber needs to score an average of just over three points per race more than Button to beat him to the More…

The new Yas Marina Island circuit at Abu Dhabi is taking shape, ahead of its first Grand Prix on November 1st, the season finale. Today the organisers launched a video game which offers fans the chance to drive a virtual lap of the circuit. At Silverstone I sat down for a few minutes to chat with Richard Cregan, who is CEO of the project and responsible for bringing it in on time and to the highest F1 standards. We met in the new Ferrari motorhome, on the top floor. Aldar Properties, the company which is building the new track, has More…

In the parallel F1 world, away from FIA and FOTA, there have been a few interesting little developments lately. Donington got its planning permission, thanks to the resolution of the legal row between Simon Gillett and the landowners Wheatcroft and Son. Also the company which is selling the debentures, ISG, an offshoot of IMG, broke cover and commented for the first time in ages about Donington. It’s now a year since Gillett said that he would be announcing plans for a ‘fan powered debenture scheme’ to pay for the developments. In May this year he announced the plans. Debentures will More…

Ferrari and FOTA president Luca di Montezemolo has gone on the media offensive in the past 24 hours, putting out some messages, not in response to FIA president Max Mosley’s complaints about FOTA’s behaviour, but stating his own case. He calls for an end to ‘polemics’ in F1. There is no hint of apology in his statements, nor a response to Mosley’s claims that the breakaway could still be on. There is only a clear reaffirmation of the principles on which FOTA negotiated the deal on Wednesday. FOTA are very keen to show that they put the fans’ interests at More…

Max Mosley has fired off another letter to the members of the FIA World motor sport council, in the wake of negative comments from FOTA members over the deal struck on Wednesday. Mosley wrote to FOTA president Luca di Montezemolo yesterday demanding an apology for the ‘misleading’ statements he and other FOTA team bosses had made. No apology was made at the FOTA press conference, however Montezemolo did write back to Mosley yesterday saying that he had read Mosley’s comments with amazement and pointed out how his observations had been misunderstood. Montezemolo went on to reaffirm respect for all the More…

Okay, this is a bit left field but I like a bit of variety on the site so here is something completely different. In the old days, momentous events always used to be commemorated with poems and verse and it seems that the happenings of the last few weeks have inspired some of my readers to write poems. We’ve had several, but this one from Rudy Pyatt is actually pretty good so I thought, rather than let it sit in the comments section, it should get a more public airing. It is not exactly a call to arms for F1 More…

Looks like FOTA may have got the tone wrong with their triumphalism over the deal agreed on Wednesday to avert a breakaway in Formula 1. Max Mosley has reacted angrily to the tone of messages coming out of FOTA and about what he sees as misleading briefings to the media. Having cast his eye through the morning’s papers, some of which we reviewed here on JA on F1, he sent off an angry letter to FOTA prior to their meeting in Bologna, “Given your and FOTA’s deliberate attempt to mislead the media, I now consider my options open. At least More…

The FOTA teams met in Bologna today in triumphant mood to celebrate their success and look forward to shaping the F1 of the future. They are following the principles set out in the ‘Road Map’ they announced back in March; looking to reduce the costs dramatically, support the independent teams with cheap manufacturer engines and work with FIA and FOM to improve the show. The main points to come out today are that the rules for next season will be the same as this year, except that there will be no refuelling and KERS will be banned. There may be More…

News Digest by Lawrence Barretto It’s been 24 hours since yesterday’s landmark decision which saw all the FOTA teams agreeing in principle to the Concorde Agreement and ditching plans to leave the series. Now the debate has moved onto whether FIA President Max Mosley jumped or was pushed. While Mosley declared that he had always intended to step down as FIA President at the end of his term this October, it appears the media have seen it somewhat differently. “Mr Mosley had gone to Paris talking tough and making it clear that he might continue bossing one of the world’s More…

Speaking to the Italian media after today’s breakthrough agreement, FOTA and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo took quite a strong line on the man sitting on the opposite side of the negotiating table from him these last few months, “The satisfaction is that all of our requests have been accepted, ” said Montezemolo. “To us three things were most important; that F1 stay F1 and not become F3, that there is no dictator, but that there was a choice of rules, agreed and not imposed; and that whoever had a team was consulted and had a voice. Mosley has announced More…

The FIA has issued the entry list for next season’s F1 world championship and it features all of the existing teams and the three new ones who entered last week. Meanwhile more details of the deal which saved F1, brokered by Luca di Montezemolo, Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone, are staring to emerge. The crucial points are that the rules for next year will be the same as 2009, costs will be brought right down, but there will be no budget cap and the teams and manufacturers have committed to the sport until at least 2012. The FIA emerges from More…

Formula 1 looked into the abyss, didn’t like what it saw and has has stepped away from the brink today as a deal has been struck for the FOTA teams to commit to race in F1, ending the threat of a breakaway. The commitment from the manufacturers and teams appears to be only until 2012, not it would appear the 2014 commitment that Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley were looking for from the manufacturers. Details are still to emerge of the deal and what is entailed, but early indications are that Mosley has agreed not to stand again for office More…

The world motor sport council meeting is underway in Paris, where the FIA president Max Mosley will defend his handling of the crisis over 2010 entries and FOTA president Luca di Montezemolo will present FOTA’s case for why the FIA needs to accept the conditions the teams have placed on their entries. There were eight world council members at Silverstone on Sunday, the FIA’s David Ward was taking them round and they are reported to have been unimpressed with what they see as FOTA, backed by the manufacturers, attempting to muscle the FIA out of the picture. Max Mosley emphasised More…

Things in the F1 breakaway world are intensifying as we count down to yet another potentially decisive moment, the FIA world motor sport council meeting tomorrow morning in Paris. Against a backdrop of eight of the current F1 teams wishing to break away and signs of a lack on confidence from some of the proposed new teams, everyone is waiting to see whether there will be some kind of attempt to oust FIA president Max Mosley, or indeed any kind of attempt by the WMSC to get the FOTA teams to re-engage. If nothing is forthcoming then FOTA’s preparations for More…

I have posted before about Jenson Button and his openness this season. Despite his reputation as a bit of a playboy, he is very serious about his racing and always has been. Now he’s at the sharp end and very focussed, he analyses situations very clearly and is good enough to share them with us in the media, on and off the record. After the British Grand Prix he did his usual media debrief and I have picked out a few comments which enhance our understanding of his situation and how the season is unfolding for him. Silverstone wasn’t a More…

The noises coming out of the FOTA teams on Sunday evening were quite resolute. They are not swayed by the latest suggestions from Max Mosley of fresh dialogue and are pressing ahead with preparations for a breakaway series. Currently Flavio Briatore is making the running on this, given his strong reputation as a wheeler dealer, he is being positioned as the ‘new Bernie’ in the FOTA set up. He has been in touch with several recent F1 circuits, sounding them out, preparing the ground. Several circuits are under the control of the teams anyway, like Fuji (Toyota) and Mugello (Ferrari). More…

Sebastian Vettel put in a peerless performance today to win the British Grand Prix, his second victory of the season and the third of his brief career. He turns 22 next week. Red Bull Racing have made a big improvement to their car, but there is no doubt that the circuit and the conditions played to their strengths and Brawn’s weaknesses. The Brawn drivers were struggling, relatively speaking, Button had a tougher time than Barrichello, but it was interesting that none of the other cars was fast enough to beat the Brawn to the podium. The question then is, will More…

FIA president Max Mosley said today that he was ready to start negotiations with FOTA to try to get F1 back on track after the teams opted to start a breakaway series. “We are talking to people all the time,” he told BBC’s F1 programme. “It will all be back to normal, it’s just a question of when. We are very close. What divides us and the teams is minimal and really is something we could sit down and iron out very quickly.” Mosley was very active with the media in the run up to the race. He was clarifying More…

There is a fantastic atmosphere here at Silverstone today, with over 100,000 people looking forward to a great day’s racing. We had 85,000 here on Friday, which is more than most Grands Prix get on raceday. Bernie Ecclestone’s comments yesterday that we will be back at Silverstone next year if Donington isn’t ready have been well received by the F1 fraternity and the public and it has given some reassurance in a weekend of instability. The weather is not as warm as predicted, it’s currently only 15 degrees, which is not going to help Jenson Button very much. He needs More…

A bit of light relief from Silverstone this evening. I was passing the Force India motorhome when I spied a crowd inside all cheering. On closer inspection I found team boss Vijay Mallya with three darts in his hands taking on Bobby George, twice runner up in the Darts World Championships. The pair were warming up because tonight Force India are hosting a darts evening for the media and guests. I would imagine that this is an evening on which Radio 5 Live commentator David Croft will come into his own as the ‘seven sausage a day’ Croft is an More…

The fuel weights have been published for the British Grand Prix and Sebastian Vettel is in even better shape than he looked after qualifying. The Red Bull has taken a huge step forward this weekend and Vettel took the pole with four laps more fuel in the car than Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn. Vettel will stop on lap 23. For once the luck was with him too, because his Red Bull team mate Mark Webber had set the fastest time after the first runs in qualifying, but hit traffic on his decisive lap in the form of Kimi Raikkonen, so the More…

Sebastian Vettel took his third pole position of the 2009 season today with a stunning lap on his final qualifying run at Silverstone. He and Red Bull team mate Mark Webber had been trading fastest laps all weekend, indicating that the Red Bull is now clearly the fastest car in F1. What is impressive about the latest round of developments on this car is that it is now clearly faster in the high speed corners, but also in the low speed corners, like the complex here in Silverstone. Brawn did a good job in Turkey of improving their car in More…

The row between the FIA and FOTA entered a new phase this afternoon as the FIA put out a statement saying that they were preparing legal action, “The FIA’s lawyers have now examined the FOTA threat to begin a breakaway series. The actions of FOTA as a whole, and Ferrari in particular, amount to serious violations of law including wilful interference with contractual relations, direct breaches of Ferrari’s legal obligations and a grave violation of competition law. The FIA will be issuing legal proceedings without delay. “Preparations for the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship continue but publication of the More…

There is a lot of activity going on at Silverstone, following the announcement by FOTA that they are commencing preparations for a breakaway series. No-one on the FOTA side is saying how much preparation has already been done, but I gather that one of the team principals has been on the phone to several tracks which have recently hosted F1 events and are no longer hosting events, like Indianapolis, Montreal, Silverstone. Ferrari owns Mugello, while Imola is ready to host these cars again after a major refurbishment. The teams seem to feel that the logistics of putting a new series More…

Max Mosley arrived in the Silverstone paddock midway through this morning’s free practice session and went straight into Bernie Ecclestone’s motor home. The announcement by FOTA of a breakaway series is no surprise to him, indeed he will have been expecting this. He has a huge appetite for this fight and he knows what a huge undertaking it would be to start a new racing series. The FIA put out a brief reaction earlier today as follows: “The FIA is disappointed but not surprised by FOTA’s inability to reach a compromise in the best interests of the sport. It is More…

“If you are going to bark, you need to be prepared to bite.” This is what a member of one of the FOTA teams said to me yesterday afternoon, with respect to the threat of leaving Formula 1 and forming a breakaway series. Shortly after midnight FOTA made the announcement that many had feared was coming and which takes the sport into unchartered waters. The teams met at the Renault HQ near Oxford prior to making their announcement. They will have done so with a heavy heart but had to do it, really. It was put up or shut up More…

Hi James, Got this message today from one of my readers, Charlie. Put a smile on my face and hope it will do for you too. “James, Do you remember me taking your advice and putting £20 on Brawn to win the Championship? at 15-1? well I got this email from Paddypower this morning: …..With the British Grand Prix around the corner and Jenson Button and the Brawn team still thrashing allcomers, we’ve decided to accept reality and settle all bets on Jenson Button to win the World Drivers Championship and Brawn to win the World Constructors Championship as winners! More…

I want to write about something other than the FIA/FOTA war today. There will be plenty of that tomorrow. It has been well reported that Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have exchanged fortunes from last season to this. Button has gone from the back of the grid to the front and Lewis the opposite way. But there is a common factor in the success of both men and that is the Mercedes engine, which is made in Brixworth, about 20 minutes from Silverstone. Button visited the staff yesterday to say thank you for giving him an engine which has won More…

A tense day ahead at Silverstone for everybody. The teams have proposed that the deadline be moved back to July 1st to allow more time for discussion but that was rebuffed by FIA president Max Mosley yesterday. The FOTA teams sent a letter to Mosley with suggestions for a compromise to the issue of budget caps, and the method of financial control, “We detect… that a solution might be possible based on the FOTA resource restriction proposal but with measures introduced,” the letter said. “We would propose in this respect that we nominate a top firm of independent accountants who More…

It was Alfa Romeo who won the first ever F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone, Ferrari won the second. Will Sunday see the Scuderia claim victory in the final race there? Never say never, but they were not as competitive in Turkey as many had imagined they would be. However for Silverstone they have some upgrades for the car which were tested in a straight line aerodynamic test on Monday by Felipe Massa. The Brazilian was driving a new chassis, which has a lower centre of gravity and is slightly lighter than the previous one, like the chassis Raikkonen has been More…

There is a very exciting new piece of technology on the market for F1 fans. Soft Pauer, a company set up by former Honda F1 executive Otmar Szafnauer has launched the official Formula One Timing and Track Positioning Application for Apple iPhone OS 3.0. The application allows fans to track the progress of all the cars in real time on a dynamic track map. So when a car is losing time in the race, for example, you can see the icons of the other cars all bunching up behind it. The data is taken directly from the official timing feeds More…

I have a feeling that the end is in sight in the battle between the FIA and FOTA. I’ve spent the day on the phone to many of the interested parties and read the statements issued by the FIA. It looks like Friday will be put-up or shut-up day. The first statement this morning was about the negotiations over how budget restrictions are controlled and this stated that the negotiations were now over, the budget cap stays. Later on the FIA put out a long document recounting the history, as they see it, of this process and of FOTA’s conduct More…

Another day, another statement. This one, from the FIA, again suggesting that the wheels are coming off the negotiating process between the FIA and the team’s body (FOTA) and that it is FOTA’s fault. As I posted yesterday in the Ross Brawn story, the teams want to talk about ‘resource restriction’ which they control, rather than ‘budget caps’, which an outside agency controls on behalf of the FIA. The teams feel that it is a fundamental right of a competitor to manage its own business autonomously. They are also concerned about how it would work if there was a disciplinary More…

Ross Brawn took part in a teleconference today ahead of the weekend’s British Grand Prix. It’s been a stunning first half of the season for Brawn, with six wins from seven races and 16 trophies in the cabinet. Jenson Button is on target to win the world championship. If things carry on as they have so far, then Jenson could be in a position to clinch the title in Japan. Many people, including Ross, thought that Red Bull in particular would be hard to contain in Turkey and he was delighted with the way his team attacked the main weakness More…

We are currently waiting for the FOTA dossier, which was promised last week, detailing all the ways in which F1 is going wrong under the current FIA administration. It now sounds like we might get two dossiers, the other from the FIA itself detailing its dealings with FOTA and what it describes as ‘hardliners’, looking to scupper the process. It’s strange because you hear from both sides that there is a detailed process of meetings going on behind the scenes and yet above the surface the mudslinging is in full flow. The FIA issued a statement on Monday morning saying More…

I was lucky enough to be at Silverstone last Wednesday, to spend the day with McLaren, driving the 650 bhp Mercedes SLR and being driven in it by the reigning world champion. This was part of the Lewis Hamilton British media rehabilitation exercise, particularly targetted at the Fleet Street guys after things got a bit out of control post the Melbourne-lying-to-stewards business. Hamilton got pretty wound up by some of the coverage and initially tried a route of non co-operation, but then recently the team has changed tack and this day at Silverstone was a way of hitting the reset More…

It’s been an intense day of statements and announcements. In all cases reading between the lines has been necessary. After the FIA’s announcement of the entries for 2010 this morning came Ferrari’s swift, calm but strong reaction, then FOTA’s threat to issue a dossier listing all the things that are wrong with the way F1 is run. FOTA sources refuse to say on what day this dossier will be issued. The day ended with the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) suggesting, again between the lines, that not only would it apply pressure on the FIA to look at the conduct More…

A ping on the inbox on this most extraordinary of afternoons and a statement from FOTA appears. This one is interesting because it suggests that they plan ‘regrettably’ to publish a dossier of reasons why the current FIA plans for Formula 1 are bad for the sport, in their opinion and why the whole thing is proving a turn-off for fans. “In response to the erroneous statement made today by FIA, the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) wishes to underline that the entries of all its members – excluding the temporarily suspended Force India and Williams – have been submitted More…

“With the financial reforms to lower the barrier to entry to realistic levels it is good to see such a strong market for new teams, ” said the FIA this afternoon in a second official statement, following on from the announcement that F1 will have three new teams on the grid next season. “This exercise has demonstrated that the only reason there have been vacancies on the F1 grid for many years was the excessive cost of participation. ” This is what the FIA has maintained all along was it’s main motivation for introducing dramatic cost reductions and even the More…

The entry list for 2010 published today has aroused a reaction of disappointment and defiance from Ferrari. The Scuderia issued a strongly worded statement soon after the FIA announcement. This indicates that they knew what was coming. “Ferrari shall not take part in the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship until the conditions of its entry are satisfied,” said the opening line. It went on, “Ferrari submitted on 29 May 2009 an entry to the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship which is subject to certain conditions. As of today, these conditions have not been met. “Despite Ferrari’s previous written More…

After all the talk, the speculation and the drama, the FIA published the 2010 entry list shortly after 10am today. The key point is that the FIA has gone ahead and listed all five of the teams who signed up in 2005 as unconditionally entered into the world championship, including Ferrari, which it has placed top of the list. This is likely to provoke a strong reaction from Italy, after comments from team boss Stefano Domenicali earlier this week. Williams and Force India had already entered, but the two Red Bull teams join Ferrari on the list despite being part More…

Little more than an hour to go, as I write this, before the entry list is published for the 2010 F1 world championship. It has been described as being one of the most momentous days in F1 history by some and as an imminent armageddon by others. But I think all parties are aware that there is a bigger picture here. F1 is a business that is attempting to change its model, but is undergoing a crisis about how to achieve that. The timetable for this has been set by the FIA, who made the deadlines. The eight teams from More…

There are two contrasting quotes in the press today. The first comes from Bernie Ecclestone, highlighting what he brings to F1 and why it is the show that it is, while the president of Renault, Carlos Ghosn, has come out and said that the teams should, “take back control of Formula 1″ Bernie was speaking to the Daily Express and said, “It costs a lot of money to set up a series. “Right now, we supply the venues at no cost to the teams, they roll up with all their sponsors’ names and money and race in front of a More…

Before the Turkey weekend I flagged up that I was interested in Toyota’s performance after their alarming slump in Monaco and to some extent, Spain. Well Jarno Trulli had a great weekend, qualifying 5th and racing strongly against Nico Rosberg to finish fourth. Toyota are looking pretty good in third place in the championship, although you can see them possibly dropping one place to fourth when Ferrari get motoring in the second half of the season. What was hugely encouraging for Toyota in Istanbul, though, was that they kept the Ferraris behind them all weekend, despite the massive gains the More…

Details of the 2009 motorsport business forums have been announced. There will be three events this year, the traditional event in Monaco in December, the Middle East event in the days before the Abu Dhabi GP in October and a US event in Orlando in December. The forums have evolved over the past five years into the leading event for discussion and debate on the major issues around the world of motorsport business. The wide ranging programme covers every area of commercial activity in the sport from sponsorship acquisition and exploitation to championship management. I have been asked to host More…

Two days to go until the entries are announced for the 2010 F1 world championship and the situation is finely balanced. The FIA has said that there is ‘no question’ of the Concorde Agreement being signed by Friday and Max Mosley has urged the FOTA teams to make their entries unconditional (there are strings attached currently) in order to change the system from within. The idea would be that once they had all signed up to be budget capped next year, they could then agree a new set of rules which was more in line with FOTA’s suggestions. But it More…

Toyota, the world’s largest car company, has become the first team to start selling real parts of its F1 cars online. A complete rear wing is €2,000 a plain front wing a snip at €800. Apparently the parts have all been used at some time on the F1 cars either in racing or testing and come with a certificate of authenticity. The parts are on sale on Toyota’s official website at http://www.toyota-f1-shop.com If things don’t get resolved in the next few days between the teams and the FIA over next year’s championship then there could a lot more of this More…

Following on from my earlier post, Frank Williams said some very interesting things on Saturday afternoon, so here they are in more detail. He covers the current 2010 entry crisis, explains Max Mosley’s motivation, looks at the problem of engine supply if there is a split and talks about possibly housing one of the new teams on his site. What is the situation with FOTA, you are suspended, will you go back? “We are out of FOTA, expelled. Normally when you are expelled, you don’t go back to school or not that one, anyway. In or out, that’s fine. If More…

“Williams needs a budget cap. Hopefully it will bring the others down to us.” This was the view of Sir Frank Williams on Saturday afternoon, discussing the ongoing crisis over the 2010 rules. Frank has signed up for the FIA championship next season. After years of almost bankrupting itself to stay competitive in F1, the Williams team welcomes the budget cap as an opportunity to take a financial breather, make the team profitable again and shape it up for a possible sale down the line. Frank is also attracted by the idea of housing one of the new teams on More…

The drivers working for the eight remaining FOTA teams got embroiled in the 2010 entry crisis today when they met with team principals and agreed to stand solid with them in opposing the 2010 rules package. Afterwards, rumours began to circulate that a repeat of Indianapolis 2005 might take place where the drivers would do the formation lap only and then park the cars, leaving only the Williams and Force India cars to race. Much as Nico Rosberg, looking for his first win and Vijay Mallya, looking for Force India’s first points, would have loved it, there was no substance More…

Jenson Button won the Turkish Grand Prix today, by 6.7 seconds over the Red Bull duo of Mark Webber and pole sitter Sebastian Vettel. It was Button’s sixth win from seven starts and sets him up now for the world championship and an emotional homecoming to Silverstone in two weeks time. “You have built me a monster of a car,” he told the team over the radio afterwards. He later added, “The car felt the best it has felt all year.” It was a dominant performance by Button, who started second on the grid, but passed Vettel on the opening More…

Formula 3 team Litespeed has announced that it’s F1 team name, if it’s 2010 entry is accepted by the FIA this week, will be Lotus. Last week we had a team using the Brabham name and there are rumours that March is going to be recycled. If it carries on like this we’re all going to have to start growing mutton chop sideburns again. Litespeed is owned by two ex Lotus engineers and they have persuaded David Hunt, who owns the rights to the name, to let them use it. Lotus won the world championship with Jim Clark, Graham Hill, More…

The fuel loads have been published by the FIA and, as expected the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel is a shade lighter than Jenson Button’s Brawn. Vettel will stop on lap 15, two laps before Button. Button has the tactical advantage for the race because his team will be able to watch what Vettel does at his first stop and will then have around 2 minutes to calculate what strategy to employ for Button at his first stop to give him the best chance of winning the race. Button will have to watch out for Webber, who is on the More…

Sebastian Vettel was fastest in all three qualifying sessions today at Istanbul and picked up his second pole position of the season for Red Bull. Pole position changed hands three times in the final moments of a terrific session. First Mark Webber grabbed it, then Jenson Button went faster, but Vettel got the lap which mattered. Jenson Button again had a quiet build up, with various set up issues to be resolved in practice, but delievered a big lap at the end to start alongside Vettel on the front row. But the early indications are that the Brawn may have More…

We’ve had a great response to the post about what the teams mean to F1, some great thoughts. Picking up on Max Mosley’s analogy of F1 as being like a restaurant we had this very well considered contribution from Bradley, “The restaurant at Le Mans is open for 24 Hours and remains great, no matter who the diners are. “Ferrari ate there for a while and left, so did Mercedes, BMW, Toyota and others, then they left too. And the race stayed great. “I’d suggest that, as long as there are diners coming to the restaurant, it doesn’t matter who More…

I wrote a piece on the ITV F1 website yesterday looking at the prospects for the FOTA teams to start their own breakaway series, which they are being encouraged to do by FIA president Max Mosley. I mentioned that Max always makes the point that the FIA owns F1 and if teams don’t like it they can go and race elsewhere. The teams of course believe that they are the show. Mosley compares the role of teams in F1 to patrons in a restaurant; they may eat there every day and spend a great deal of money doing so, but More…

It has been a see-saw saga and it’s not over yet, but the chances of Donington hosting the British Grand Prix Prix next year received a positive boost today when it was announced that the legal dispute between the promoter, Simon Gillett and the landowners, Wheatcroft and Son, was resolved. This dispute threatened to wreck the planning application without which the event would be a non-starter. A statement posted on Donington’s website reads as follows: “Wheatcroft and Son Limited, and circuit leaseholder, Donington Ventures Leisure Limited (DVLL), confirmed that they have reached an agreement which they hope will move a More…

There have been some interesting suggestions in your comments as to the line up we may see on the grid next year, some of you clearly have some time on your hands to theorise and put drivers in cars. I’m not going to do that, but I am going to think about what the F1 grid might look like in terms of teams next year and take a snapshot of where we are with this delicate situation. The starting point is the teams who are legally obliged to take part next year. Williams acknowledges that it is one and Force More…

McLaren may have topped the times this afternoon in Istanbul, but Ross Brawn, who has been quite vocal in the run up to this weekend’s race, told La Gazzetta dello Sport that he thinks the steps Ferrari has brought to its car will be enough for them to give Brawn a real run for their money this weekend, “I think so, ” he said. “They have improved so much and on top of that they have KERS, which on this track is probably worth an advantage of 2 to 3 tenths of a second. It took them a while to More…

Jenson Button sat down with the media this afternoon and as usual gave a well-considered analysis of where he stands relative to the opposition. Jenson is clearly thinking a lot about all aspects of the rival teams, as is normal, but what is good is that he is prepared to share his thoughts with the media in a considered way. “I think that the Red Bulls should work quite well here,” he said. “The car that they had in Barcelona, if they brought that here they would be competitive. We’ll have to see if their diffuser makes a difference on More…

I’m very grateful to readers for all their interesting comments. We have a very high level of debate going on here. We’ve had 86 comments already on the FOTA story and plenty on the new teams story as well. It seems to be really energising people and getting them thinking. There seems to be a really interesting divide between people who cannot imagine F1 changing from what it is now with the teams we have now and people, perhaps with longer memories, who kind of hanker after the uncomplicated, bare knuckle F1 of the old days, which may or ay More…

I’ve just been sent a press release from a German company, which owns the remnants of the Super Aguri team and also the Brabham brand. They have announced that they have entered next year’s world championship as Brabham. This is a very strong deja vu for me. I started my professional career in Formula 1 in 1990 with the Brabham team. I was the team’s press officer for two seasons. Our drivers in 1990 were David Brabham and Stefano Modena, the team principal was Herbie Blash (now on the FIA race direction team with Charlie Whiting) and it was owned More…

FIA president Max Mosley has broken his silence on the conditional entry the nine FOTA teams made last Friday to the 2010 world championship. Speaking to Swiss paper Motorsport Aktuell, Mosley made it quite clear that he is not going to entertain FOTA’s demands that the budget cap idea be abandoned, that the 2009 rules be carried over for next year and that the new Concorde Agreement be signed by June 12th, the date on which the successful entries will be announced. “You cannot sign an agreement which was specified so late, before June 12th.” he said. Clearly not willing More…

This weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul should see the convergence of several teams at the top, making it a fiercely contested race. Let me explain what I mean by that. Brawn has been at the peak since the season started, the team to beat, while Red Bull were very close in the early races, but only added their definitive double diffuser aero package to the car for Monaco, where it didn’t really have a chance to show it’s value. Their car has always been good on high speed corners, so in Istanbul they should fly. They have had the More…

I posted yesterday on Toyota and how they appear to have been going backwards in the last two races, wondering what they would be like in Turkey this weekend. In my mail box this morning is a Q&A with Toyota boss John Howett explaining a little more about what’s gone wrong and what their chances are for Istanbul. So I thought I would run an excerpt from it, to round out the picture. What are the team’s chances for the Turkish Grand Prix? “I believe we have a very good chance in Turkey. We are third in the Constructors’ Championship More…

One of the teams I will be keeping a very close eye on this weekend is Toyota. When I went to the pre-season test at Barcelona, Toyota was one of the teams you would say was in the best shape. Jarno Trulli could barely contain his delight that he had what appeared to be a very good car, after several frustrating years. And so it proved in the first four races, where the team averaged 6.6 points per race, putting them a strong third in the championship. But since then they have really struggled and have blanked twice, in Spain More…

I’ve been fascinated by the coverage of the FOTA teams’ entry for next year’s world championship in the last couple of days. On Friday morning I was saying that something was going to come out of FOTA which was quite different from the convergence position with the FIA that was being widely reported. And so it proved. Then when the FOTA statement was made most commentators seemed to see it as Ferrari and the other eight teams signing up after all, which it was some way from being. Ferrari obviously felt quite frustrated with this and so they issued one More…

The nine remaining teams in the Formula One Teams Association submitted a conditional entry for the 2010 world championship before the deadline at midnight last night. Along with that single entry for all nine of them, they have submitted a document with proposals for cost reduction to the FIA, which Toyota’s John Howett describes as ‘comprehensive’. There has been a mixed reaction to this. Some media are saying that Ferrari and the other teams have signed up for 2010, others are highlighting the conditional nature of the entry and the two main conditions which they want to see fulfilled before More…

After all the brinkmanship, the tough talking and the threats, the Formula 1 teams should today, barring any last minute upset, submit entries by midnight for the 2010 world championship. Ferrari will still be a Formula 1 team and life will carry on. A statement is expected today from the Formula One Teams Association with their position ahead of the deadline, although team sources could not confirm at what time this might be published. Intriguingly, it has been suggested to me, however, that this statement will not be along the lines of what has been speculated in the media since More…

There has been quite a bit of chatter in the last couple of days about Jenson Button’s future, in light of comments made by Brawn GP’s Nick Fry on the subject. “Jenson’s been with us a long time, and we’ve had failures and we’ve had successes,” said Fry. “My objective, and our objective, is to have him for the rest of his career, and nothing’s changed on that front. It’s mutual that he would like to stay with the team, and after five race wins, we should be able to get something together.” After five wins from six races and More…

At a meeting of FOTA teams in London today it was decided to suspend the membership of the Williams team, after they broke ranks and submitted an entry to the 2010 world championship. “Fota’s decision, although regrettable, is understandable,” said team boss Frank Williams. “As a company whose only business is F1 with obligations to our partners and employees entering was unquestionable. In addition we are legally obliged under our contract with FOM and the FIA to participate in the world championship until the end of 2012.” Williams acknowledged that the suspension of the team is temporary, pending ongoing negotiations More…

I posted here on Sunday morning that I had heard Williams were going to break ranks with the other Formula 1 teams and put in an entry for the 2010 season this week and they have done that. I’ve been thinking about this, about why they have done it, what it will do to FOTA unity and where it leaves the other teams. Williams have become the team closest to the FIA in recent times. In part this is down to a personal relationship between Williams CEO Adam Parr and Max Mosley. Both trained as barristers and I think they More…

Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix saw confirmation that Ferrari are back in business. Kimi Raikkonen qualified within hundredths of a second of Jenson Button with only two laps less fuel on board and in the race the Scuderia got its first double points haul of the season, with Raikkonen third and Felipe Massa fourth. On top of that, Massa set the fastest race lap, with 1min 15.154, four hundredths of a second faster than Jenson Button’s fastest lap in the Brawn and two tenths faster than the Red Bull of Mark Webber. It is tempting to say that Ferrari has now More…

This morning in Monaco there was plenty of activity around the ongoing discussions about the 2010 F1 rules and plenty of chat about what was going to happen next. It seems to be becoming widely believed that Toyota will use this situation to make its exit from Formula 1. They were thinking about it towards the end of 2008, but there seems to be general belief among the other teams that they will go at the end of this year. BMW, which is having its worst season by far in F1, is also said to be reviewing it’s participation. FIA More…

Jenson Button did another first class job to win the Monaco Grand Prix from pole position today. He was followed home by Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Raikkonen, who gave Ferrari their first podium of the season. Barrichello got the jump on Raikkonen at the start, which was crucial for the outcome of the race as it kept the Ferraris from challenging at the end of the first stint when their tyres were superior. Both Brawns started on the supersoft tyre, the least attractive of the two tyres this weekend. This was quite a bold move, but it paid off for More…

It’s race day in Monaco. The weather has been fantastic all weekend and it’s perfect again for the Grand Prix. The crowds coming in today on the train were much greater than yesterday. Tens of thousands pouring into the Principality. There are still plenty of grandstand seats left, though at Tabac, St Devote, Swimming Pool, Chicane. Not surprising really as they are between €400 and €450 each! The most affordable place to watch from is the Rocks area looking down on the Nogues corner which leads onto the pit straight. It’s €70 to sit up there, but you are sitting More…

Monaco is always a tough race to predict because of the 50% chance of a safety car. For this reason a lot of teams split their strategies, putting one car on quite a light fuel load and the other on a heavier one. That way, if a safety car comes out early and wrecks the lighter cars’s race, the heavier car has a chance. Last year Sebastian Vettel went from 18th on the grid to finish fifth, thanks to safety cars and Lewis Hamilton could do something similar if fate intervenes. Jenson Button did a sublime job today, with a More…

Take nothing away from Jenson Button, that was a mighty lap this afternoon to take pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix, but Sebastian Vettel is left once again thinking about what might have been. The German, who is the Brawn drivers’ closest rival in the drivers’ championship, felt that he had the car today to challenge for pole position, but when it mattered he came upon Kazuki Nakajima on a hot lap, which wasn’t so hot and he lost vital time. Like so many occasions this season, Vettel has been thwarted, but F1 is all about making things happen More…

There is a fantastic interview with Fernando Alonso in the Gazzetta dello Sport today, in which he gently moves closer to talking about Ferrari and his possible move there. According to Pino Allievi, the number one writer on the paper, Alonso has moved to a house on the border between Switzerland and Italy, near Lugano. He spoke about the affection he has for Italy and Italians: “As a Spaniard I feel more at ease with Italians,” he said. “We have a lot of shared culture and character. We have identical feelings.” As for Ferrari he started talking about the team, More…

Although nothing concrete came out of yesterday’s meetings it seems progress was made and there is something still to talk about. Everyone seems to have calmed down and there was no more talk of Ferrari leaving the sport following the meetings. The boss of the Monaco Grand Prix, Michel Boeri, however did have something to say on the subject: “What would the Monaco Grand Prix be without Ferrari? A catastrophe. Like the Cannes Film Festival without the stars.” Picking up more details of how things are moving, it seems that the teams are pushing to have a more gradual reduction More…

Three hours waiting in the Ferrari motorhome this evening, for a press conference which was all set up for a 5pm start, but then that slipped as the meeting between the teams, the FIA and FOM rolled on. In the end we were told that the meeting was ‘constructive’ but inconclusive so there will be more meetings in the next couple of days. This means that there is some hope. There have clearly been some concessions on both sides. The teams and the FIA stood on the brink and stared into the abyss and Bernie Ecclestone worked hard to make More…

While we wait for the grands fromages to have their meetings and decide what kind of spectacle we are going to see next year and beyond in Formula 1, I thought a brief colour post might be in order. For the first time in years I’m not staying in Monaco this year. I’m in Villefranche, which is 20 minutes west by train. They have a fantastic train service here with double decker trains whizzing you along the coastline. Monaco railway station is a 10 minute walk from the paddock and the media centre. On my way in I passed a More…

This is going to be a big day. The F1 team owners meet this morning to discuss their next move in the escalating row over the 2010 budget cap rules. By the end of today, the teams will really have to make their minds up whether they are going to put an entry in before the deadline of May 29th. At the moment, there is every indication that Ferrari are determined to stick to their guns and if nothing changes they will not put an entry in for 2010. They are backed up by other manufacturers including Renault and Toyota. More…

I caught up with Fernando Alonso this afternoon at his press briefing in the Renault motorhome. He’s one of the few drivers to do this session on the first day of practice. I was interested to hear how good it felt to be back on the streets here, brushing the barriers, feeling that unique adrenalin rush of Monaco. His answer surprised me a little, “Not feeling good because being close to the barriers is not something you enjoy too much it’s a bit stressful. It’s always nice to be at Monaco and you get a different feeling, but it’s very More…

I wasn’t surprised to hear Jenson Button saying that racing is dominating his life at the moment. Button is like many drivers who have found themselves in with a chance of winning the world title. Presented with an unexpected opportunity to fulfill his lifetime’s ambition, Button is finding that he can think of little else between races. “I’m probably a right boring bastard at the moment, I really am,” he said. Jenson has always had a relaxed air about him in person and in the years when things were not going so well, he found it easy to switch off More…

Two weeks ago Felipe Massa’s hopes of a podium in Spain were wrecked by a strange situation with the refuelling of his Ferrari, which meant that the team believed he was running out of fuel and was telling him to slow down in the closing stages of the race. He lost places to Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. When we spoke to him after the race he and the team had not worked out the reason, but yesterday he explained what happened, “What happened to my car especially in the last race was something that I never saw More…

This is going to be one of those weekends, where the buzz is constant and the drama level high. The strange statement on the Ferrari website denigrating the teams hoping to enter F1 seems to have garnered the most reaction, certainly a lot of the media are focussed on it. But in the wider sphere, the reaction has been interesting to the news from Paris that Ferrari’s injunction has failed. This is one of those moments when you need to apply a bit of perspective and calm appraisal, rather than run screaming. We’ve had some great comments on this site More…

On the official Ferrari website there is an extraordinary piece, posted today, which has a major dig at the calibre of teams lining up to join Formula 1 next season under the new budget cap rules. The tone is very disparaging. Under the headline “Formula 1 or GP3?” the following piece appears, “Maranello, 20th May – They couldn’t almost believe their eyes, the men at women (sic) working at Ferrari, when they read the papers this morning and found the names of the teams, declaring that they have the intention to race in Formula 1 in the next year. Looking More…

Ferrari has lost its legal challenge against the FIA in the Paris courts. The team had been laying the ground for the legal challenge for a while and had set great store by the outcome. Now the legal route is closed to them, they will have to try to persuade as many teams as they can to stick with them and not put in an entry for the 2010 championship by next week’s deadline of May 29th. The dreaded word ‘breakaway’ will be on the agenda. Although Ferrari felt they had a strong case in Paris, the FIA were more More…

I’ve been enjoying working with the leading F1 photographer Darren Heath this season. He has a fantastic eye and always gets an original view on a Grand Prix weekend. We are experimenting with ways we can work together on content and this is a Flickr slideshow with my captions. For maximum impact, expand it to full screen and click on “Show info” to get the captions. (You will need the latest Flash plug-in installed and your browsers might prefer to go directly to the JAF1 Flickr pages) [vodpod id=Groupvideo.2529187&w=425&h=350&fv=offsite%3Dtrue%26offsite%3Dtrue%26amp%3Blang%3Den-us%26amp%3Bpage_show_url%3D%252Fphotos%252Fjaf1%252Fsets%252F72157618183455056%252Fshow%252F%26amp%3Bpage_show_back_url%3D%252Fphotos%252Fjaf1%252Fsets%252F72157618183455056%252F%26amp%3Bset_id%3D72157618183455056%26amp%3Bjump_to%3D]

For the first time in his career, Jenson Button goes to Monaco as the favourite to win the race. “To go to Monaco with the lead in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships is fantastic but we saw in Barcelona that the performance margins at the front are extremely close. There will be a lot of competitive cars fighting it out this weekend, ” he said. He has won four of the first five races and even though there have been signs lately that the Red Bull car is more than a match for the Brawn, at a tight circuit More…

FIA president Max Mosley has said that he expects perhaps half the current F1 field not to lodge an entry by the deadline of May 29th. This deadline is now less than two weeks away. Tomorrow the Ferrari injunction against the FIA over the process by which it drew up the 2010 rules package will be heard at the High Court in Paris. If the injunction succeeds it opens the way to a full legal challenge of the way the rules for next season were drawn up. “I think that we will probably get anywhere between three and six teams More…

You will have seen some of the interviews Lewis Hamilton did this week, on Reuters, in the Times and on the BBC. The Times one caught my eye because it was an open expression of regret that Formula 1 has become a job and that he does not enjoy the political environment around him. Hamilton has slotted into the space left vacant by Michael Schumacher in Formula 1, clearly massively talented, unloved by his fellow drivers and always seeming to find himself tangled up in controversies. Senna occupied that space before Schumacher. The Times interview reveals the state of mind More…

The meeting between the F1 teams and FIA president Max Mosley and commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone failed to reach any conclusions today, but Ferrari has followed through on the threat of mounting a legal challenge. An injuction has been filed with the courts in France, where the FIA headquarters are situated, and will be heard on Tuesday. If it fails then the negotiations can move swiftly towards finding agreement on a £40 million budget cap and from there setting the details of what is included (engines, drivers, specific research programmes?) and the process for checking the accounts. It sounds More…

Good week for: Jenson Button – Four wins from five, only four points dropped. He’s running out of people to challenge him for the title. Ferrari – Took a huge step closer to the front with the updated car in Spain and decided to got for it and take a stand on 2010 rules. Let’s hope it doesn’t end in tears. Kleenex – Jenson Button’s mother, Simone, attended the Spanish GP and revealed that that she cries every time he wins. Oversized handluggage – Brawn has now won 11 trophies in the first five races Bad week for: Rubens Barrichello More…

Ferrari F1 memorabilia including engines, a motorhome used between 2001 and 2005 and wind tunnel models are some of the items under the hammer at an auction due to take place at Ferrari HQ in Maranello this Sunday, 17th May. The event is called Leggenda e Passione. The auction is likely to see a new record for a Ferrari as a 1957 250 Testa Rossa goes under the hammer. The record currently stands at £5.9 million. It’s an exciting time of year for car lovers to be in Italy. The classic Mille Miglia set off on 13th May and runs More…