There have been some interesting developments behind the scenes in F1 in the last week, all related to the fact that there is currently no agreement in place binding in the teams, governing body and commercial rights holder, known as the Concorde Agreement. A meeting was held in Maranello, with a select group of top teams and Ecclestone while the FIA’s Charlie Whiting convened a meeting of the Technical Working Group and Sporting Working Group in London. But in the current regulatory vacuum, the outcome was that Whiting would forward the recommendations of the Groups directly to the World Motor More…
Welcome to the JA on F1 podcast for November, brought to you by UBS. This month we have something a bit special. We went to Paris to quiz FIA president Jean Todt on the key subjects of the moment in F1 – the new higher team entry fees, 2014 engines and whether Bernie Ecclestone will have more of a say in making the F1 rules in future, “I will never allow things which are under our responsibility to be dealt with by anyone else,” he says forthrightly. And we have a behind-the-scenes special with the Williams F1 team. Bruno Senna More…
Tomorrow in Paris at the headquarters of the FIA, a very important meeting takes place with Jean Todt hosting the F1 teams and Bernie Ecclestone the F1 commercial rights holder. On the agenda will be the new eight year Concorde Agreement due to start in January 2013, a new FIA regulated cost control mechanism (Resource Restriction Agreement) relating to both chassis and engines, and the subject of spreading the costs of the 2014 engines across the full eight years, so the development costs are not front loaded and too expensive for teams. The idea of tomorrow’s meeting is to move More…
Although he feels that Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley have done a very good job in the past, getting Formula 1 to the point where it is today, as one of the world’s leading sports series, FIA president Jean Todt says he must focus the FIA’s efforts on what F1 needs to be in the future. And, 15 months into his first term as president, he doesn’t rule out running for a second term of office. On Friday I went to FIA headquarters in Paris where Todt gave a rare interview to the Financial Times. My FT colleague Roger Blitz More…
The FIA will not be appointing an F1 Commissioner, Jean Todt said today. At the time of his election as FIA president in Autumn 2009, the Frenchman promised the introduction of a commissioner to represent the FIA at Grands Prix and oversee F1 on a day to day basis. This led to speculation as to who the ideal candidate to fill this powerful new role might be, with various names bandied about, including Gerhard Berger. But 15 months into his tenure as president Todt has decided that an F1 commissioner is not needed, “I had a superficial understanding about the More…
FIA president Jean Todt has hit the media trail in a limited way over the past couple of weeks – particularly in Italy – and has put some interesting ideas out there. Among other things he stated that any new circuit hoping to get an FIA licence will be assessed as much for spectacle as safety. He has even suggested that circuits should be ranked by entertainment value. Todt has not had a high media profile since taking on the job a year ago, particularly on Formula 1, but lately has come out with some more comments. Speaking to La More…
Three months into his tenure as FIA president, a period in which he has kept a low profile and got on with work behind the scenes to restructure the FIA and put new policies in place, Jean Todt has broken cover and started to talk about his agenda for office and the things he wants to get done. He said that he took on the unpaid role of FIA president because of his “passion” for the motoring and motor sport. Yesterday at a small gathering of media in Paris he spoke about controlling costs, the possibility of new team “no-shows’ More…
Claudio Berro, the former press officer from Ferrari has joined the new Lotus F1 team as sporting director. Berro is one of new FIA president Jean Todt’s closest allies in motorsport, having worked with the Frenchman at Peugeot and Ferrari. More recently he ran the Maserati programme and the Speedcar programme. He is a very well organised and genial individual. Todt has a lot of respect for his abilities. Although primarily an organiser, Todt gave him the vitally important role of head of communications early in his tenure at Ferrari and Berro managed to stop the leaks and get control More…
FIA presidential hopeful Jean Todt has sent out a statement to the membership of the FIA clubs today underlining his policy ideas and attacking his rival Ari Vatanen for using dirty tricks and personal attacks in his campaign. With the election now just over a week away, the tone and meaning of Todt’s message is interesting. His point is that he has sought all along to conduct a dignified campaign, whereas he feels Vatanen has been very negative about the FIA, what it stands for today and has gone around belittling what it has achieved in order to stand out More…
This weekend has seen a PR blitz by Jean Todt as the campaign to be elected FIA president enters the final stages. The election is less than a month away and Todt has made his first visit to the F1 paddock since announcing his candidacy. Outgoing FIA president Max Mosley has already publicly endorsed him and this week belittled his rival Ari Vatanen. Also this week Bernie Ecclestone came out strongly in support of Todt. This is no surprise; it was Ecclestone who persuaded Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo to hire Todt back in 1993 when he was at Peugeot. More…
Autosport is carrying a story this evening with some amazing revelations about a meeting which took place between Renault’s Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet Jr at Singapore last year. Renault stand accused of deliberately causing Piquet to crash, just after Alonso’s early first pit stop, in order to give Alonso the chance to win the race, as the rest of the field would pit under the ensuing safety car. The first ever night race, the Singapore Grand Prix was sponsored by Renault’s title sponsor, ING, making it a perfect day for them. Autosport’s Jon Noble quotes ‘sources’, in More…
Fernando Alonso
Kimi Räikkönen
Felipe Massa
Sebastian Vettel
Mark Webber Nico Rosberg
Paul di Resta Jenson Button
Sergio Perez Daniel Ricciardo Sebastian Vettel Kimi Räikkönen Fernando Alonso Lewis Hamilton Felipe Massa Mark Webber
Romain Grosjean Paul di Resta Nico Rosberg Jenson Button Sergio Perez Daniel Ricciardo Adrian Sutil Nico Hulkenberg Jean-Eric Vergne Esteban Gutierrez Valtteri Bottas
Pastor Maldonado Jules Bianchi Charles Pic
Giedo van der Garde Max Chilton
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