According to Autosport website there is something cooking at McLaren, with the suggestion that former team principal Ron Dennis is to make some kind of an announcement about his future plans today (Thursday). There are  suggestions he could step back completely from his involvement with the Formula 1 team. He already relinquished the team principal role to Martin Whitmarsh on March 1st, but has stayed involved with at least a finger or two on the tiller and was present at the Australian Grand Prix, where the team was found to have ‘deliberately misled’ the stewards after the race. If it More…

The International Appeal Court has ruled that the diffusers used by Brawn, Toyota and Williams are legal. So now we have clarity and we move on. But bad feelings remain. The hearing yesterday certainly got nasty, it seems, as it dragged out into yesterday evening.

The Italian media is suggesting that Luca Baldisseri has been made the fall guy for the poor start to the season, particularly as far as the poor strategy decisions of the first two races. Corriere della Sera says that when Stefano Domenicali said on the Sunday night after Malaysia that ‘everyone has to take their share of responsibilty’ it was ‘Baldo’ he was thinking of. Corriere also says that Baldo ‘mentioned in his blog’ that morale was low. This got me looking for said blog. I’ve not turned it up yet, but if any of you can find it, please More…

Today in Paris the International Court of Appeal has been hearing the two sides of the debate into the legality of the so-called double decker diffusers, as used by Brawn, Toyota and Williams. It all got quite passionate as the lawyers for Ferrari and Renault in particular stated their cases. Andrew Ford for Renault said that the FIA had already established that a design which incorporated holes to improve the efficiency was illegal in F1, “It is not that Renault missed the boat, as Brawn have pointed out, it is because the FIA said it was illegal. It was at More…

Ferrari F1 team boss Stefano Domenicali said after Malaysia that its worst start to a championship since 1992 was ‘not acceptable’ and now we have the repercussions. The senior management has been restructured and the key move features Luca Baldisserri, who took over the track operations and strategic part of Ross Brawn’s role, when Ross left the team at the end of 2006. He loses that responsibility to Chris Dyer, formerly Michael Schumacher’s race engineer. Baldisseri meanwhile moves to a factory-based role in a new ‘working party’, headed by technical chief Aldo Costa, which has been established to improve the More…

It’s been a fairly quiet Easter as far as happenings in F1 are concerned. I guess Malaysia was such a momentous weekend, with the McLaren/stewards affair and the crazy race, it’s hardly surprising that the sport needed to take a breather. But tomorrow (Tuesday 14th) things will get intense again as the international appeal court makes its decision regarding the legality of the diffusers of Brawn, Williams and Toyota. This decision could well decide the outcome of the world championship, certainly that is the view of former world champions Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, who are on the wrong side More…

Here is something new, something I’ve been working on for a short while. I hope you like it. I’ve joined forces with Darren Heath, in my view the number one photographer in F1. He and I started in F1 around the same time, 20 years ago and have been mates ever since. This is an audio slideshow of the Malaysian GP, with Darren’s photos and my words. Enjoy and Happy Easter! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWOTDQLSgdM]

I’m grateful to one of my readers, doctorvee, for posting a very interesting comment here on the JA on F1 site. He highlights an interview which McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh gave to the BBC at the end of the Australian Grand Prix. “…there’s some debate about whether it’s a 3rd place at the moment given that Trulli fell off and re-passed under the Safety Car… [Ted Kravitz asks him to expand on this.] …At the end, under the Safety Car, Trulli fell off onto the grass and Lewis had no choice but to go past him. He was not on More…

I have no wish to start scaremongering, but looking at Bernie Ecclestone’s comments in the Express that he wouldn’t rule out a ban of a few races for McLaren, makes me look through the F1 calendar at the races ahead with some nervousness. The recent precedent was BAR, which received a ban over its fuel tank irregularities in May 2005. In that instance BAR was found guilty of ‘fraudulent conduct’ and the word ‘fraud’ was used again this week by Ecclestone in the McLaren case, “It is about stealing a point and a place but those are worth money so More…

I don’t know about you, but I need some light relief after all the heavy duty stuff about McLaren. Here’s a review of the week’s winners and losers.   Good Week for: Nick Heidfeld – Gambled on only one pit stop in Malaysia and got a podium. Though short, he now stands above his highly-rated team mate in points table Timo Glock – The gambler of Interlagos does it again, but this time it has no effect on the outcome of the championship. Glock shows he’s a canny racer. Brawn GP – We now know just how fast this car More…