In a couple of weeks from now I will be in Monaco, for the annual Motor Sports Business Forum. Last year I was a speaker, this year I’m going one better and I’m chairing the conference. It’s a busy week for international motorsport and there are many events going on; the World Motor Sport Council meets on Friday morning for the first time with Jean Todt as president. There is a circuit holders’ meetings and other meetings, all culminating in the FIA Presentation Gala on Friday night, at which Jenson Button will collect his World Champion’s trophy and Ross Brawn More…

Kimi Raikkonen has a blank space in his diary – it’s called 2010. He has not totally ruled out F1, as his manager Steve Robertson left the door open this morning in an interview with Autosport’s Jon Noble over in Macau, that he could re-examine the possibility of racing with the new Mercedes team, if they were interested in having him. “This is Formula 1,” said Robertson. “If they can offer, or convince us, that they can provide Kimi an opportunity that Kimi is happy with, and that we are happy with, and he feels he can win races and More…

Jenson Button has done what he threatened to do; quit the team he won the championship with and launched a new adventure with McLaren. Button has a three year contract to race alongside Lewis Hamilton in an all British “World Champions” superteam. Everyone at the Brawn team in Brackley will be disappointed by this and there will be lots of question marks about loyalty and “feeling valued” swimming around on both sides. But at the end of the day Button has gone because Brawn and Mercedes were prepared to let him – and that says quite a lot. The timing More…

Kimi Raikkonen will not be racing in F1 next season, his manager Steve Robertson has confirmed. He is calling it a year off and time will tell if he ever races an F1 car again. “The options in F1 were with McLaren next season or not at all,” Robertson said, “Kimi and McLaren were unable to reach an agreement, so he will not drive at the F1 level – at least not next year. “A gap year means nothing for Kimi. He is more interested in fighting for wins and the world championship. F1 will miss Kimi. He worked hard More…

With all the talk of how well Jenson Button might match up to Lewis Hamilton in equal cars and whether Kimi Raikkonen is too talented to drop out of F1, I thought this would be a good moment to invite you to vote for your top five drivers of 2009. Choose the five drivers who you think did the best job in 2009. Do Vettel’s mistakes put him below Button? Did Alonso punch above his weight in a poor car? Does Raikkonen’s second half of the season make up for the first? How do you rate Webber’s and Barrichello’s performances? More…

Manor GP has pulled off a great coup by signing up Timo Glock, as we foreshadowed here last week. He becomes the second driver to be named by one of the four new teams. Lotus has signed a driver but has yet to announce his identity or whether he is a race or reserve driver. Glock has had some impressive drives in the last couple of seasons, with podium finishes in Bahrain and Singapore this year and at Hungary last year. He ended the season on a bit of downbeat note with injuries and illnesses and a monstrous accident at More…

There are a number of drivers in play in the current unfolding situation between McLaren and Brawn. There are three seats as yet unconfirmed and four drivers to fill them. Attention for the moment is focussed on Jenson Button, with some commentators predicting that he will imminently sign a three year £6 million contract with McLaren, leaving the team he has been with in various guises for seven years. Nico Rosberg is involved, but his position is clear; he has already signed a contract with Brawn, which was taken over yesterday by Mercedes and will become its works team next More…

Tomorrow’s papers in the UK will be full of stories about how Mercedes’ takeover of Brawn means that the team will have an all German driver line-up, while Jenson Button is being pushed towards an all-English line up of Button and Lewis Hamilton. Indeed the Guardian is reporting this evening that Button is on the point of signing a £6m a year contract for three years. As the piece is written by Alan Henry, who knows what colour the toilet paper is in Woking from one day to the next, this news needs to be taken seriously. So is that More…

The legendary Silver Arrows works Mercedes Benz F1 team will return to Formula 1 racing next year for the first time in 55 years. Mercedes Benz is buying 75.1% of the Brawn team. Mercedes CEO Dr Dieter Zetsche and Mercedes motorsport chief Norbert Haug announced this morning that the team will be rebranded as the Mercedes team from next season onwards and the colour scheme will change to the Silver Arrows livery. The move allows Mercedes to have its own brand to the fore, rather than subservient to the McLaren brand, for a fraction of the cost of what they More…

I’ve just been invited to take part in a conference call later this morning with Dr Dieter Zetsche, the CEO of Daimler which owns Mercedes Benz and Norbert Haug the head of Mercedes Benz motor sport. The subject of the call is to discuss the future of Mercedes’ engagement in Formula 1. Discussions have been ongoing for Mercedes to buy a controlling interest in Brawn GP and to leave McLaren at the end of the existing contract at the end of 2011. McLaren has been seeking to extend its engine supply arrangement to the end of 2012, the final year More…