My Xmas present to each 2009 F1 driver

It was Rubbergoat’s choice of topic this week for “Thursday Thoughts” so he chose “What F1 Needs For Christmas?”

Here is my list of presents (if I could actually afford it) for each F1 driver that competed during 2009.

Jenson Button

A Braun Electric Razor so he complies with McLaren’s no facial fuzz policy – he needs to clean-up his appearance to “fit in” with the smart factory.

Sebastian Vettel

A Red Bull endorsed Australian floppy hat complete with bobbing corks since he has been practicising his Mark Webber impersonations to such good effect.

Rubens Barrichello

A fire-retardant treated under-shirt that on the one side says “Mr Happy” and on the other side says “blah blah blah blah” so he does not need to give verbal post-race press interviews during 2010 by just wearing this special “mood” FIA endorsed underwear.

Mark Webber

A video collection of DC Formula 1 starts that caused the most first lap carnage, he needs to perfect this art from the master of carbon fibre destruction.

Lewis Hamilton

A set of six wax dolls that each have an uncanny resemblance to Jenson Button complete with tufts of original ginger hair removed from the shaved “beard” of the world champion, a pack of extra long pins and “A Pictorial Guide to Voodoo Dolls” by Denise Alvarado.

Kimi Räikkönen

A Ferrari cap that actually fits his head!

Nico Rosberg

The following books to add to his library: Michael Schumacher: Driving Force; Michael Schumacher: The Edge of Greatness; Michael Schumacher: The Whole Story; Michael Schumacher: The Definitive Race-by-race Record of His Grand Prix Career; Michael Schumacher: The Greatest of All? so he has no excuse when he gets rammed off the the race track by his team mate or finds out that he has to give his team mate all his data but gets no data in return.

Jarno Trulli

A six-day course in Adobe Photoshop so he has photos that tell his side of the story to present to the FIA marshals.

Fernando Alonso

A pack of self-adhesive stickers that say “Please be kind to doors, we are not to blame that Felipe is faster than you” together with a Fridge magnet that has the same pacifist message.

Timo Glock

A signed copy by the 2008 World Champion of the book “Lewis Hamilton: A Dream Comes True” acknowledging past services rendered.

Felipe Massa

A year’s supply of extra-strong pain killers because either the racing or his team mate is going to give him a pain in the neck.

Heikki Kovalainen

He already has had his Xmas present, it is to drive in F1 next year courtesy of Lotus. So I will give him a hand-made Xmas card featuring Lewis Hamilton in the 2009 McLaren F1 car on the front and inside Lewis Hamilton wearing only a strategically placed Santa cap.

Nick Heidfeld

A Dinky Matchbox 1:43 scale 1955 Mercedes Gullwing Die Cast Car painted in silver in the original box – since it is to be as close as he is going to get to driving a Mercedes in 2010.

Robert Kubica

A collection of inflatable F1 cars in 2010 livery so he can practice hi-speed conjugation since he enjoyed his first experience with the Trulli Toyota early this season.

Giancarlo Fisichella

A scalextric set that can be built as a replica of the Spa circuit complete with a Red Ferrari and a Force India slot-car so this time he can repeatedly beat Kimi.

Sebastien Buemi

An original 1952 Mr. Potato Head boxed set to play with over the Xmas period.

Adrian Sutil

A wall-sized poster for his study of Kimi in a Ferrari F1 car that appears to be only inches away.

Kamui Kobayashi

A German to Swiss German dictionary together with pronounciation classes so he can be understood by his new employers.

Sebastien Bourdais

A pack of Kleenex tissues presented in an ornate plastic, gold-coloured Indian-made tissue box to wipe his glasses and his tears when he is fired yet again from a team.

Kazuki Nakajima

A letter of reference to present to Mr Kobayashi when he applies for vacancies for kitchen staff at the Sushi Bar owned by Kamui’s father.

Nelsinho Piquet

A dartboard in the shape and life-sized of Flavio Briatore wearing only his famous “thong” together with a set of darts in ING Renault team colours.

Vitantonio Liuzzi

A shiny metallic gold cap similar to the one worn by Force India’s team principal Vijay Mallya.

Romain Grosjean

A voucher for 20% off, redeemable at any cost-saver hair saloon.

Jaime Alguersuari

An insurance policy to cover all the carbon-fibre he is going to destroy in 2010 should he secure an F1 drive.

Luca Badoer

A remote-controlled, electric powered model Ferrari F60 car to play with as the company won’t let him drive a real one ever again.

Do you need a Rottweiler to keep the peace!

Max is gone as president of the FIA, the problem is that he has left his legacy in the form of the Todt. Since taking the presidency what has the Todt done for F1? Made some mutterings about bringing back the French GP. He seemed very quiet about Toyota leaving the sport. Possibly he was quietly celebrating as FOTA has been the bane of the FIA this past year. With Toyota leaving it was the last he would be seeing of John Howett Vice Chairman of FOTA. John was seen as the person most likely to succeed Luca di Montezemolo who has always intended to step down as Chairman of FOTA at the end of the year due to other commitments.

Another FOTA strongman was Flavio but the disgraced Renault F1 team boss has been banned from any association with FIA. BMW Sauber is another team who will be departing from FOTA following the company’s withdrawal from F1. There is a chance that they will be back in 2010 but their participation has still not been confirmed.

My drift here is although FOTA managed to get the FIA to agree to various terms in stand-offs during the year and in so doing appeared to have won some battles, I think the FIA might still win the war unless a really tough heavyweight is elected as the the FOTA chairman.

In Formula 1 when I think heavy I think of Norbert Haug the President in charge of all Mercedes-Benz motorsport. He will be transferred to a garage within the Mercedes GP (nee Brawn) pits. I think Norbert could do a good job but he has lot of other duties at the new team so I would select him as the new vice-president.

I have outlined the need for FOTA to have a tough chairperson. Luca was certainly Machiavellian enough to deal with Max, but I think the Todt needs to be put into his place very firmly before the FIA completely discredits the sport and losses more fans.

In looking at the team principals available I am simply am not convinced that most would be tough enough to deal with the Todt. Certainly Patrick Head might be a possibility yet Williams is beholden to the FIA in a number of ways including financial and in fact left the fold when issues got hot earlier this year.

In the end I decided that Mike Gascoyne of the new Lotus team might be the right person. His nickname is the Rottweiler, due to his tenacity and his straight talking. He was too much for Toyota management, hopefully he will keep the Todt in its place.

This post is in response to Sidepodcast’s Thursday Thoughts and its call for posts on New Presidents at FOTA.

Is Ross now on the Horn’s of a dilema?

My last article discussed McLaren’s options for driver choices and concluded that if Kimi was not going to accept any offer from Woking, there were a pair of tiny little hands that might be quite good. Those competent little hands are still available.

McLaren resolved its dilemma by hiring the World Champion Jenson Button for 6 Million pounds per year over three years. Many Jenson supporters have been disappointed by the news of the defection to the enemy. The press and even Sir Jackie Stewart have questioned the wisdom of the decision. I think it is a great opportunity for Jenson and wish him all the best at McLaren.

One person’s sport is another person’s work

Many people have naturally jumped to the conclusion that Jenson simply followed the cash cow. Certainly Brawn were mostly sending out a message that it would only go so far to secure his services (limit being about 4 million pounds). It is rumoured and likely to be true that they did raise this to 8 million when the wabenzi took control of their company.

I think an important point missed, is McLaren were giving Jenson a three-year contract. Both teams wanted to start the 2010 season with the Number 1 on their cars. Jenson and his negotiating party had used his salary cut from the heady Honda days as ammunition to gain public support fuelled by emmotional media headlines.

Given that the previous season he scored a massive 3 points, even if his salary was now only 3.1-3.5 million Jenson was still looking the most expensive driver on the grid in terms of cost per point at the start of the season. Sure during the season he amassed numerous points, wins and helped secure both championships and his salary was finally met with appropriate results. I say well done Jenson now you can move on and establish your reputation as a driver.

Jenson was not Mercedes long term option

I am sure Jenson was being only offered either a one or two year contract or for a longer contract at a lesser amount. Mercedes’ longer term vision is to get Sebastien Vettel having missed out on Schumacher scene they did not want to miss out second time round. He is still very young, very fast (especially in the wet) and mostly without an overtaking manoeuvre to his credit. When his current contract ends at Red Bull, if not earlier, he will be recruited. I think Jenson read this message as well and said so long and thanks for all the cash.

Ross will be given a free hand to run the team

Well firstly I doubt that Nico was Ross’s first choice – he was secured by Mercedes to either slot in at McLaren or at Brawn depending on progress with planned negotiations. Up until his cheating during the yellow flags incident at Japan I quite liked the guy. He is very marketable with his flaxen hair and has good communication skills. Intellectually he is no slouch (he was accepted in an engineering programme at Imperial Colleague) and has done enough to convince me he has the driving potential.

No one would deny Nico had less than at least a solid 2009 season. He scored consistently but failed to get onto the podium but scored all of the team’s points. Williams have always fought extremely hard to retain his services and Nico has shown loyalty to the team. Williams did release him this time with uncharacteristically little fight.

Is it just possibly he under-performed given their projected targets? Or is it now the team is going back to being more independent and is cash-strapped? I really like Kazuki, but he was a burden on a team wishing to score points. The final proof was Williams actually lost sixth place – ironically through Nick’s good performance in the last race. Sam Michael has also said Nick compared very well to Robert.

I think Williams had to trim costs so the option of Rubens and the new Nico mark II is a very smart one. Nico I is now Ross’s baby (or burden) and he has to build a team around this German starlet. I think Brawn are genuinely surprised that Jenson split because now they need a second seat kept warm for the arrival of Vettel. I am sure Ross has a free hand on this choice, if not the first choice. So lets review the options

A cheap Nick to replace an expensive Button

The press has latched onto Nick Heidfeld, he is German and obviously Mercedes wants an all German Team. For an international company this is the last thing their marketing department wants. Nick was put up as the second driver for both Mercedes-powered teams, because he a) will come in cheap(ish) and b) it is like a threat either sign this really good driver or you will end up with Nick. By reputation Nick is a “Journeyman” a competent driver at most and too modest for convincing PR duty. To Nick’s fans (including me) this is strange but we have to accept combined wisdom of the media and the F1 fraternity. Both Martin and Norbert have recognised that Nick is under-rated as a driver so I am sure Nick remains a fall back option for Ross.

Nostalgia Returns

Michael Schumacher has been linked to team up with Mercedes having gained a renewed appetite for F1 driving. I think we can discount this or his neck injury was a cover-up for other issues (like the Ferrari F60 was a complete swine to drive). I cannot see the sense in this choice. At most he might be be drafted in for testing and development purposes and I still consider that to be a long shot.

Does the Iceman cometh’

Kimi’s negotiation at McLaren became very public. It is McLaren or nothing, my terms and my freedom or nothing etc etc. no matter how much McLaren would have wanted Kimi he was making himself unattainable. Then, in an even more public way, Kimi announces he will not drive in 2011. Among Kimi’s fans this has been met with borderline hysteria. I am sure this has been an entirely calculated strategy by his manager and they are negotiating with Ross as I write this blog.

I have no idea how successful it will be because Kimi and his team have the third option and that is to get a Red Bull seat at some time in the near future. From a marketing point of view Kimi and Red Bull make perfect sense. Whether Ross takes the bait of Kimi will depend on Mercedes’ purses and the freedoms they will provide him. I am not sure that signing a mega million buck contract with the party animal antics of Kimi will go down terribly well with the struggling factory workers who’s jobs are on the line or lost.

Could it be Jarno, Heikki, or a Sutil?

It now has come down to one of the above. Trulli has another option that he has admitted to (and it will be with Lotus where at least his talent will be recognised). Mercedes and Brawn could take on Heikki as an act of charity but it also looks like you are inheriting another team’s reject. Ironically anyone signing Kimi is actually accepting another reject, but so much better packaged. Ferrari wanted to get rid of the guy at almost any cost (sure to get Fernando – but is he really worth so much?). Sutil would be cheap to buy but will push up the running costs on carbon fibre budget (though with Kimi not around it might almost be worth the risk).

The Ross Brawn Magic

For the second year in a row Ross is going to have to weave some magic. Were I Ross I would steer well clear of Kimi and work on getting Vettel as soon as possible. Draft in an interim driver to support Nico. If it be Nick, market both Nico and Nick as underdogs who have never had the chance to be in consistent race winning cars (and at the same time have a little stab at BMW). If either driver happens to reverse their record books by winning, claim all the credit and start a new fairytale, replacing a British setting with a German one.

McLaren, not Red Bull, on the horns of a dilema?

The driver market this time is not being held up by Fernando. It is Mr Iceman himself that is the cause this season after being kicked out of Ferrari one year earlier on his contract. I will come back to that.

What do McLaren need from their driver next year?

Although a large number of F1 fans would love to see Kimi race alongside Lewis, the team’s primary interests are the winning of championships and getting of sponsorships. Despite McLaren for a number of years being either the best or second best outfit, their trophy shelf of championships is rather meager compared to the red team. Their last constructor’s championship was won in 1998 and since then they have won only two drivers championships (1999 and 2008) in contrast to the red team who has lost count of the number of championships it has won. In 2007 McLaren had potentially the strongest driver pairing this century but it went terribly wrong and the team endured a punishment of almost biblical proportions.

With Lewis do McLaren have the best current F1 driver?

In Lewis McLaren have a star. In his three seasons he has delivered to the team 256 points and 11 victories which represents some 4.75 points per race. This is particularly surprising since Lewis, is a) still fairly new to F1 and b) still makes a significant number of unforced errors. In other words, with fewer mistakes that usually comes with more experience (excepting DC and Mark Webber), Lewis is set to become stronger still.

McLaren would be moronic to upset Lewis given his success, he has been their prodigy and has mostly produced the goods. While I can (and do) criticise some of his on track performance, he is clearly reponsive to his fans. His commitment to the team also cannot not be faulted.

This year was not a good one for the team as they struggled on track during the opening rounds, and the team got compromised with respect to its sporting honesty.

However, the under-performance of the McLaren MP4-24 has been greatly exaggerated. Lewis has also exploited this to somewhat over-emphasise his driving skills. All teams this season have shown significant highs and lows depending on the track, its configuration of fast and slow corners and ambient temperatures.

The McLaren MP4-24 under Lewis’ guidance was still the best at a number of circuits this year (Monaco, Hungary, Singapore and Abu Dhabi). Only four races into the season Lewis was still able to secure fifth grid position and fourth race position. Sure Silverston was a track the MP4-24 really did not like. Nevertheless in the last eight races Lewis got half of the poles and one-quarter of the victories.

In statistical terms Lewis/Macca is the best combo for the second half of the 2009 season. McLaren could have scored so many more points and Lewis could have run DeSeb close for bridesmaid honours were it not mistakes on both team and driver. Examples include the team losing 5 points in Australia (Liegate), an almost certain victory at Monaco (Lewis made a big mistake in qualifying), an almost certain fourth at Monza (5 more lost points) and of course the mechanical problems at Abu Dhabi which probably cost a victory.

For 2010, McLaren and Lewis must be the favourites at least for World Drivers Championship. What do they need to make it a double championship like back in 1998? The simply answer is a points winning-machine backing Lewis with his drive to the championship. Available to McLaren are, in terms of points per race, the third and fifth highest scoring drivers over the last three seasons (Kimi 4.28 and Nick 2.70).

It is very difficult to actually compare Kimi driving a Ferrari with Nick driving a BMW Sauber as clearly they are not the same car or have equal potential performance. Due to the dissimilarity between cars the only way is to compare each driver to their team mate for the same races that they have competed in. There is an assumption that as team mates they get equal treatment, which in the case of Ferrari and BMW Saubers seems to be a reasonable assumption if taken over a sufficient length of time. Given that Kimi is significantly higher paid you could argue that he at least started of as the clear number one driver.

Kimi versus Fellipe

To Kimi’s credit he won the World Driver’s Championship in 2007. However, it should not go unnoticed, that his win in the first race was with an illegal car and his last win of the season was gifted to him by his team mate so he could secure the championship. If we compare all the races they have been team mates over the last three years, on average Kimi has returned 4.20 points per race compared to Felipe with 4.85 points per race (which is rather surprisingly more than Lewis). In other words Kimi has score only 85% of the points his team mate has scored. In terms of victories Felipe has returned one more during the same period that they have both competed (9 vs 8 wins).

Nick versus Robert

Robert has a GP victory to his credit (and a pole position) and the only ones scored by the team during the last three year period (or ever). The victory was partly a product of race strategy, as Nick was leading Robert while heavy with fuel and yielded position to ensure the team got their well-deserved victory. During most of 2008 Robert was the better driver, however, during 2007 and 2009 Nick has been clearly the better driver with respect to the score board and despite some terrible luck at the end of 2009 year. In terms of points per race that both drivers have competed in, Nick has returned 2.75 points per race as opposed to Robert with a return of 1.9 points per race. In other words Robert has scored only 69% of the points his team mate has scored.

What Kimi wants and can offer the team

If rumours be true Kimi has had a pay-out from Ferrari of $25.5 million if he does not drive for another team and $15 million if he does drive for another team. Consequently Kimi not driving is earning as much as any other driver competing next year and a fair bit more than the world champion will be getting. It is also rumoured that McLaren have offered Kimi some $7.5 million. Salary demands are not the only agendas that Kimi is making. He is apparently insistent on being available for rather few PR events (12 during the year according to one source) and the right to compete in rallies when not competing in F1. Add to this Kimi’s displays of intolerance when out of the driving seat (e.g. like pushing over the well respected veteran press photographer Paul-Henri Cahier) and a reputation for heavy drinking, it is difficult to see how this image fits with the somewhat sanitized McLaren corporate profile.

Consequently in a team you have driver who will be earning more than the star of the team, doing less for their money in terms of media events and wants dispensation to compete in other sporting events. Personally I think to accept this is a recipe for discontent and to produce a repeat of the Lewis-Fernando relationship that the team paid so dearly for.

What Nick wants and can offer the team

I have absolutely no idea what Nick would want to put on the table as contract conditions. He is the only driver, who is on record to have said that in the weakening global economy F1 drivers should expected to be treated no differently to the rest of the industry. In other words, drivers can and should expect rather less income. I am fairly sure Nick could be signed on under much the same conditions that Heikki was employed on.

Nick is the most error-free driver currently on the race track and probably in the history of the sport (who can/will have 41 consecutive finishes?). Williams F1′s last pole position was gained by Nick and during 2008 he gained two fastest laps of the race. He is obviously not as slow as the press will lead you to believe. Nick is also known to be very good at car development and McLaren could be losing the services of Pedro de la Roso, so experience may come in handy. Nick also seems incredibly professional in a somewhat low-key fashion (even his partner Patricia Papen does not really have the model good looks that most F1 drivers aspire to). Possibly Nick simply comes over as too normal and just like the guy next door to be an F1 driver.

Who should it be for 2010?

The only way to make comparisons is to standardise driver performance. This is actually quite difficult and the best measure is how they related to their team mate. Kimi has under-performed compared to his team mate by 15%.

While Kimi has returned more fastest laps during the race than any other driver during the last three seasons, this rather suggests that he is inconsistent but does indeed have the equipment to win. In addition Kimi has put a significant number of demands which suggest that he should be given preferential treatment over McLaren’s current number one driver.

Finally Kimi has been pushed out of the Ferrari home. It seems they did not want him to such an extent that they were prepared to pay him his full contract to not drive in 2010. Can Fernando really be that good, or was it a chance to rid themselves of an uncommitted and under-performing driver?

The alternative choice is Nick, a driver who rarely makes mistakes and if given the equipment (and possibly some Jenson good fortunate) could shine the way the Brawn and Red Bull drivers did this year. Nick’s apparently quiet public appearance seems to ensure that he is most usually forgotten as an F1 driver.

Least we should forget when Nick and Kimi were team mates Nick scored 33% more points than Kimi. Nor should we forget that when Kimi was in the one of the fastest cars on the grid (McLaren) and Nick in one of the slowest (Jordan) a third of the way into the 2004 season Nick still had more points than Kimi.

For 2002 McLaren signed Kimi rather than Nick, despite having scored fewer points. Ironically Nick had been associated with McLaren and their then sponsors (West) for a number of years and so was easily assessed in terms of talent. Further in 1999 he was the McLaren test driver.

McLaren defended their decision by saying that Kimi had more room for improvement than Nick. Is there evidence that Kimi has more room for improvement and is more hungry for wins and committment to the team in 2010 than Nick? What Kimi wants in his contract suggests less commitment that you might reasonably expect given his salary demands. Is it coincidence that Kimi has put his house up for sale in Finland for $21.5 million and that he may have grown accustomed to a very lavish life style that second highest paid sportsperson gets in the world?

Have a look at this video of Nick driving the 1999 McLaren F1 car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and I think you will agree there is commitment and speed.

I hope that this time that McLaren give the other driver the chance to see what he can deliver have a look at these overtaking maneuvers.

Abu Dhabi from Build Up to Race Day

Excitement Builds Up

Billed as the first OFFICIAL* twilight F1 race in history and built with zillions of eco-unfriendly oil bucks. This was the spectacular Finale for the 2009 Formula One season.

Here are some exciting facts to wet your appetite about the circuit that I have gleamed from their fantastic website.

BASIC STATISTICS
Track Length (centre line): 5.555 Km
Track Length (ideal line): 5.491 Km
Track Width: 12 m – 16 m
Start / Finish Straight Width: 15 m

SPEED CALCULATION
Longest Acceleration Section: 1173 m
Estimated Top Speed (F1 in front of turn 8): 317 Km/h
Estimated Lap Time (F1): 1 min : 40 sec

PADDOCK AREA (paved) 40 000 m2
RUN OFF AREA (asphalt) 59 100 m2

PROJECT AREA: 161.9 Hectares

Wanting to be a spectator to the first day-night F1 race?

For those intending to be spectators the instruction attached to your race ticket are most spectacularly detailed (4351 words to be precise), but there is important stuff to leave at home other than the obvious AK47 that your normally carry around for personal protection and you have to re-assign your pet Rottweiler its guard-dog duties to guide-dog duties.

i. any alcohol, food, beverages, glass bottle or container, any metal flag or banner pole, any flag or banner pole longer than 1 metre, chairs, benches, stools, any cooler box or hamper or helium balloons;

ii. pets or animals (other than a guide dog used to assist a Patron with a disability);

iii. any item that could be used as a weapon or firearm (whether imitation or not);

iv. golf buggies, bicycles, scooters, skateboards and roller blades/skates, fireworks, laser pointers, frisbees, prams and strollers, musical instruments and/or amplification equipment including public address systems, distress signals, whistles, loud hailers, horn or bugle, electronic equipment or other broadcast equipment;

v. any other item for which a Patron does not, in the opinion of ADMM, have an ordinary and reasonable use and which may be used to damage or deface property, buildings or any part of the Circuit and surrounding areas, hinder, obstruct or interrupt the Race or adversely affect public safety, any goods or Tickets for the purpose of sale or commercial distribution, any dangerous goods and any other item prohibited by law.

Source: http://www.yasmarinacircuit.com/en/all-you-need-know.html

I guess this is to ensure that the UAE and FOM organisers provide all the entertainment and not the spectators and to protect various FOM approved commercial interests.

My unanswered letter of request to the organisers

Since I am not allowed to bring my own food I trust as the organizers you have food outlets that meet my strict dietary requirements for it to be prepared as Kashrut. Here is an abbreviated list of such requirements.

i) Only mammals that both chew their cud (ruminate) and have cloven hooves can be eaten (this excludes camels, rabbits and horses but I will consider giraffe meat).

ii) Only birds that do not eat other birds or bits of other vertebrate animals (carrion) can be considered. Only species of bird traditionally found in the Middle East can be prepared but this can be stretched to include the “Fowl of India”, which has to have been grain-feed. New World birds like Turkeys are forbidden. Finally birds that are feathered and able to immediate walk (precocial) can also only be considered so please no songbird pasties.

iii) Meat from the sea and rivers must have both fins and scales. Meat and milk may not be prepared together, this means served as in the same meal, served or cooked using the same utensils, or stored together.

iv) Mammals and bird meat must be slaughtered by a shochet with a shechita. The animals must be free of any disease or medical condition or defeat (either at birth of having developed latter). The slaughter must be done using a single continuous cutting action with a sharp knife that severs the jugular vein, carotid artery, esophagus or trachea and ensures the animal avoids unnecessary pain. As much blood as possible must be removed from the meat prior to further preparation and cooking.

v) All utensils used for preparing, cooking and serving may not have had contact with food not prepared to Kashrut standards and must be prepared by the hands of people who share my same religious belief and therefore who also only eat Kashrut-prepared food.

For further details please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashrut

My Race Summary

Some young German dude won when UK’s favourite champion retired. It could have gone wrong for this guy as a young Spanish dude accidentally drove into his pit spot just before he was pitting. Minor excitement included when a young Japanese dude overtook the “World Champion to be” driving a Toyota in only his second race with it. Lots of farewells, some official like BMW Sauber (with the cryptic Servus on their backsides meaning “bye” in Bavarian) and others unofficial (bye bye Romain Grosjean and keep in touch through Twitter and to Kazuki Nakajima there is a position going for kitchen staff at Kamui Kobayashi father’s sushi bar which he had originally reserved for his son).

I spent most of the time during the race installing the new KDE 4.3 NetBook Remix Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) based Operating System launched late last week on a Lenovo S10e netbook. It looks great with funky cover flows to navigate across your open windows. One problem is that they seem to have forgotten a bin to get rid of unused icons such as the Firefox Install Icon. The pre-loaded Konquorer web browser is utterly useless as it does not open Google Documents nor works with Sidepodcast Real-time Doohickey. Absurd your would have thought they would have tested their browser with this benchmark F1 website.

Conclusion

I was very disappointed with Abu Dhabi – if you compare it to Brazil or Japan. Sure it was not deciding any championship (other than who will be the first loser) but somehow I did not get the feeling of a passionate public watching an epic race. It seemed like little toy cars rotating around a rather large blob of an over-decorated Xmas tree which was being watched by a surveillance webcam automatically posting videos onto YouTube. Utterly soulless.

Joe’s Blog summarised it rather more eloquently as “Great Place Poor Race”

* I think many would consider the first race of the season held in Melbourne, Australia to be unofficially and un-intentionally the first twilight race in F1 history.

2010 who’s looking with both feet forward?

This is an analysis of the driver market as each team principal could be seeing it.

Ferrari – on the back foot

The team was completely unprepared for the mid-year loss of Felipe. It has certainly cost them a likely third-place in the championship. Replacing Kimi with Fernando is a slightly strange decision on first appearance.

Few would argue that Fernando is not overall the better racing package (Driving, Marketing, and appeal to the Tifosi). Too date Ferrari have had two good drivers, which when you even things up over the past three seasons, are not been too dissimilar in racing talent.

Neither driver appears to demand a number-one status, so Felipe helped Kimi secure his World Championship in 2007, and Kimi returned the favour in 2008 giving Felipe the chance to win in 2008.

The Alonso acquisition is also clearly linked to sponsorship but potentially could backfire on the team by destabilising it (trouble has accompanied his last two seasons). Fernando likes (and may even needs) to be centre and focus of the team.

Felipe is not going to accept playing second fiddle without a fight. In truth, I think Ferrari are not expecting Felipe to be immediately competitive on his return. The team will be by default returning to a single-driver-focussed team like in its glorious immediate post-millennium MS dominated period. Perfect for Fernando, and possible hell for Felipe.

I sincerely hope Felipe returns with even more fight in him to take on and more than occasionally beat Fernando to keep the team honest (I am not entirely optimistic though).

Kimi had a contract with Ferrari which would have taken considerable negotiation and payment to get out of. Read Kimi could and would demand a lot of money. I am speculating that Kimi had a very healthy financial packet (incentive) if he did not drive for another team or decided to try rallying.

The rallying option with Ferrari/Fiat could be really mutually attractive. Firstly, if Felipe fails to get back to competitive driving they could draft Kimi back to pair with Fernando (Kimi could therfore have a back-door to regain an F1 seat). Secondly I think Kimi could promote Fiat in its rally ambitions (a future Finnish World Rally Champion in the making).

That Ferrari could not draft MS back was a huge blow to their strategy in 2009 and I doubt that we will ever see him back in an F1 race seat (I also hope not to see this happen). For next year Ferrari having a returning (and hopefully recovered Felipe) teamed-up with temper-tantrum Fernando so I think will be on the back foot compared to Team McLaren.

Conclusion: Fernando and Felipe are the drivers with a remote chance of seeing Kimi Rallying in a Fiat.

McLaren – on the front foot

Quite obviously the team is built around Lewis. The second driver is very much a supporting role. The team will not want to necessarily repeat the mistakes of 2007 with signing two drivers each wanting number one status.

However, the second driver does need to score points as this has hurt their last two campaigns. McLaren have now almost the best package (competitive at a range of low and high downforce circuits). I think next year they will be immediately and massively competitive from the start.

This year they have run with the imposed extra weight of the KERS, this will have helped them design a car with the extra weight of fuel while still optimising their weight distribution (Ferrari will have the same advantage).

On paper Kimi is a good choice as he has little time for in-team feuds and will certainly be quicker than his Finnish country-man. Delve deeper and its not quite such a easy decision.

Firstly Kimi will demand a very large pay package (I am sure he has a clause with a lower settlement if he drives for another team to compensate for lost income). McLaren may not be in the position (or willing to) fork out so much. Kimi is not the most open with his data and information, and further does not really like all the public relations bit which is central to McLaren’s business plan.

Is Kimi really the right person to join Lewis in the Johnnie Walker driver pact to “never drink and drive”?.

On Kimi’s side there must be doubts, McLaren is a team designed around Lewis who is a naturally talented but error-prone driver. Will Kimi be in a position to beat his team mate? While I think Kimi could join McLaren, I think it is far from such a forgone conclusion that the press thinks.

Supposing McLaren do not take up Kimi what options are there? Of course they could keep Heikki, he is marketable and supportive so he is an option card if other negotiations fail.

There are a lot of drivers without confirmed seats, two of whom statistically have the highest chance of bringing the coveted “number 1″ status. I know everyone thinks Jenson is automatically going to win the championship (very good odds on that one being correct) but will he also sign for Brawn next year?

Jenson wants his previous large salary package restored which Brawn appear to be a little reluctant to provide. It has not been discussed but I bet Jenson has had discussions with McLaren. Sure it is unlikely he would go to the Woking factory, but he could still come in cheaper than Kimi and with a more-user friendly profile for the sponsors. Can you imagine Jenson pushing photographers over, or having reporters having to step over you because of a hang-over from last night’s party?

Since McLaren’s relationship with Mercedes appears to be at least slightly strained they could possibly run two Brits in the same team.

McLaren is likely to be a better seat than Brawn whose success this year was based on a considerable development time, past Honda capital investment and a fortuitous engine choice combined with other teams getting it seriously wrong at the start of the season.

We can discount Rubens at McLaren (the blah blah blah story) together with Nico (he is bespoke to Brawn due to Mercedes love affair of the golden boy).

So what is left that could arguably be better than Heikki? As I see it only Timo and Nick. I am going to discount Adrian (perfect pairing with Lewis in terms of driver compatibility) since he makes a mess of too many things from pit-stops to silly racing incidents.

Toyota have managed to un-sell Jarno so that his prospects next year are virtually nil and other drivers like Tonio and the kindergartens are too much of an unknown.

Of course Nick is the perfect second driver, he has had past connections with the team (still holds the Goodwood Festival of Speed record driving a McLaren F1 car in 1999), given a point-scoring car he will deliver consistently without threatening team harmony. For British tastes he is somewhat colourless in terms of marketing but being German he could help repair relations with Mercedes.

I rate Timo as possibly a faster than Nick but a less complete overall package for delivering points to back up Lewis’ championship aspirations. Timo being German has similar value to Nick with respect to appeasing Mercedes but has a slightly more colourful personality.

Conclusion: the most obvious choice is Kimi but delving deeper and doubts emerge about his compatibility. Both Nick and Timo should be considered if the decision not to renew Heikki’s contract is taken. If negotiations fail at the Brawn camp Jenson could be a surprise option.

Red Bull: both feet firmly planted on Terra Firma

We know Red Bull will run Sebastian and Mark. There was some rubbish reporting about Kimi joining the team at the expense of Mark. It became more ridiculous with the suggestion that Mark would move to Toro Rossa. Firstly, next year Toro Rosso’s umbilical cord will be cut and it will be an independent team. Secondly I cannot see Mark agreeing to such an arrangement.

Conclusion: An unchanged Team.

Brawn: Standing on one foot

Since Brawn and Mercedes have decided to hop into bed with each other they are only likely to have one available seat for their current two drivers who will likely fill the top two spots in the drivers championship.

Mercedes desire to have Nico fill the one seat is almost certain. The other seat is reserved for Jenson if he wishes it but on their terms. Brawn still hold the ace card, since this year it could be argued their cars early-season advantage helped both drivers.

If Jenson’s salary demands are higher than Brawn’s pockets, they have a back-up plan of using Rubens. If Brawn cannot pay for Jenson we can probably discount Kimi as an option for the team.

Conclusion: Brawn hold the ace card while Nico and Jenson are clearly obvious choices, Jenson could elect to find a better offer elsewhere and Rubens is plan B. They have no need to consider other drivers.

Toyota: no shoes for their feet?

Toyota has no options on either of its drivers. This clearly means they need to provide the parent company a very clear and fresh plan to be considered for funding next year.

Joe Saward says of Jarno that over one lap he is the bench-mark for maximum speed, but his consistency and race pace are concerns. While they were unsuccessful in their pursuit of Robert they remain hopeful for Kimi. I am not sure on what planet they live on?

Kimi is not a complete enough a driver to go to Toyota and build the team up for success like MS did at Ferrari. I am sure Toyota would pick-up the tabs for Kimi’s salary and fill the second seat with a Japanese hopeful.

Clearly Kimi and Robert were not the only options on Toyota’s shopping list. Although not stated I am sure both Brawn Drivers have had discussions. It is very likely that either one could bring the coveted number 1 status to the team.

One of the two Brawn drivers is also without a seat and at least one Brawn driver wants more financial benefit that the team may wish to pay for. Jenson would clearly be an attractive choice were his salary demands not met at Brawn. Rubens is really only attractive in the unlikely event of him winning the World Championship together with him being dumped by his team.

Conclusion: Toyota is the second most unlikely team to not reach the grid next year (after Sauber). They need a star driver (Kimi, Jenson or a “Number 1″) backed with probably a Japanese driver to sell themselves to the parent company. They will probably test Kamu in both remaining races as the second part of their strategy and Timo having a fractured vertebra.

Renault: At least one foot in one shoe

Although doubts over Renault’s participation have been now been resolved. Crashgate had the effect of making the team somewhat unsellable and in order to save face the parent company could not withdraw from F1 immediately.

With Robert confirming his seat in the team for at least one year they are in no hurry to fill the remaining seat. On the track Romain Grosjean has been similarly slow and crash-prone to Nelsinho who he replaced. Add the Briatore connection and his chances are nil for next year.

Were I Bob Bell I would bring Lucas di Grassi in for the final two races. Renault needs a complete new strategy (Bob Bell has said as much). I doubt that they will be winning anything next year, but if they can finish next year’s season with more points than this year (without the Alonso benefit) they will be progressing.

Robert is a young gun without the greatest set-up skills, so the obvious choice would be to draft in an experienced driver. Were I the team principal I would hire Nick before someone else does. It provides the most quantifiable known outcome for securing points.

Although both Timo and Adrian have also been linked to Renault they provide less assurance of scoring points (if not podiums). Something not discussed is Rubens at Renault (very very unlikely since I think he has better offers elsewhere), but just a consideration were he not to find an alternative drive.

Conclusion: Renault, is not going to be a team flush with money, so it needs to consolidate on its good choice of Robert with a more experienced driver to ensure it troubles the score board. Top of list has to be Nick with Timo.

Williams: Needing to find two replacement feet

Its fairly obvious that Nico is off to matrimony with Mercedes and been given a Brawn seat. With no Toyota engine contract, Kazuki is now not a necessary part of the wheeling and dealing. It is widely believed they will pick up Rubens.

I think there are other options. More importantly will Williams break rank and run a KERS car next year? Rubens might also have other options as well (e.g. Jenson wanting too much money so staying at Brawn, Toyota or Renault).

Personally, were I the team principal I would simply select the option that brought the most sponsorship from Rubens, Nick or Timo. Williams was the team that vetoed Sauber joining as 14th team since they wanted Sauber’s long-term sponsor Petronas (who clearly have little faith in the “Lotus” team).

Sam Michael has recently said of Nick “Against Kubica, Nick looks very good. To say that his career is over would be ridiculous”. He also went on to discuss the risks of using a rookie with so little time for testing. Despite this I think Nico Hülkenberg has a very good chance for a race seat. I think it is possible they are also eyeing Sauber’s other driver to accompany getting the sponsorship – just a thought. Nick brought to Williams rather more success with two podiums and a pole position than Mark in the same year.

Conclusion: Williams will probably replace one Nico with another. I will concede Rubens is the most likely, but I think they are still looking at Nick Heidfeld. Rubens is a bit old and and don’t forget Frank Williams was very critical of Ruben’s blah blah blah outburst.

Force India: Will inherit the same feet for their shoes?

Personally I am not expecting much change. Adrian is as good a driver as the team is likely to expect to get. Adrian’s propensity for mistakes and crashes will reduces his marketability elsewhere. I think Force India will honour Tonio’s loyalty to the team as the reserve driver, at least in the short term.

In the longer term they will obviously try and draft in Karun when he is ready, but not just yet. I think it is a team that could really go places next year and I hope they do.

Conclusion: A team unchanged from the end of 2009. Both Adrian and Tonio will know that the moment Karun looks ready their seat will not be safe.

Toro Rosso: Baby steps or the retirement park?

Red Bull’s junior team has rather been a graveyard for young talent (Christian, Scott, Tonio) and some older talent (le Sebastien). Next year is going to be tougher still with their independence from Red Bull.

Possibly now they are free from their sister team they will not need to run two kindergarten drivers. Were I the team boss, I would be filling Jarno Trulli’s email box. He is Italian, experienced and on the right day and on the right lap very fast. You at least have barometer in which to judge your young talent. I would then select which ever young talent came with the most sponsorship – possible Jaime (he is really not that bad!).

Conclusion: Toro Rosso will have new freedoms to explore a new wide world, but they cannot do it with their current naive driving talent. They need an experienced driver matched to a paying driver. Please apply here!

BMW Sauber: Both feet in the air

My team BMW Sauber with it’s now shadowy owners (QADBAK) is unlikely to be on the grid. I cannot see them having the opportunity to develop a car on the off-chance that another team will fail. They certainly cannot offer Nick any assurance of a drive for next year.

Other teams: the patter of tiny feet

The other teams I simply do not know enough. It seems reasonable for USF1 to hire Alex to help develop the car, beyond that I have no idea as they seem to have dropped the idea of recruiting an North America driver – surely JV will not return?.

Campos are rumoured to have Pedro (McLaren’s reserve driver) and Bruno (Senna) under consideration.

Manor racing will probably select Adam Carroll (Ireland’s A1GP driver) and either Anthony Davidson or Christien Klien.

The Malaysian “Lotus” team under the watchful eye of Mike Gascoyne could spring a surprise and hire Jarno.

I have realised that I have not really found poor little Heikki a seat. I would love to see him in another team so lets sow the seeds of wild speculation and say he will join a new outfit.

Conclusion

A lot depends on whether McLaren risk selecting Kimi, which Brawn driver wins the championship and whether Brawn will up their present offers to Jenson for a 2010 seat. I think the confirmations will only occur once the championship is won.

Was Rosberg robbed of winning F1′s first night race?

It seems Nico felt that he was the winner of the Formula 1’s first night race judging by a recent interview while visiting Peranakan Museum. Rosberg Junior’s exact words were…

“Actually, I won the race because the team who finished first cheated.”

“If we had protested, I could’ve won the race last year. But it’s too late now.”

He followed up with a definitely bitter tone…

“The only thing I don’t understand is that Piquet didn’t get anything. For me, he’s just as involved as the others because he is the one who actually did it and agreed to it.”

Nico is right, if the Renault cheating had been found out at the time he would have won his first GP and F1’s first night race. Does this actually make him the deserved winner of the inaugural night race?

Race Review

At the start of the race Nico was 10^th and only just ahead of his team-mate Kazuki and by lap 5 was 31 seconds behind race leader Felipe Massa. This is despite being quite light with fuel. It was not an impressive start to the race. Alonso pitted early since he had caught Kazuki who was circulating fairly slowly and this would damage their early pitstop strategy.

After Alonso completed his pitstop Piquet was given the order to crash (push Nelson = crash Nelson). The two Red Bull drivers pitted just before the pitlane was closed and Nico and Robert pitted while the pitlane was closed. Nico emerged from the pits well ahead of Alonso, but more significantly he had F1’s two mobile chicanes of 2008 season Truli and Fisichella between him and the rest of the pack.

Nico only took his drive-through penalty on lap 29 – more than 10 laps after his breach of the pitlane. Due to particularly Fisichella the rest of the pack including Alonso was some 24 seconds behind Rosberg. So when Nico rejoined he was just behind Alonso the eventual winner and ahead of Hamilton. At that time every one was behind Truli who was yet to make any pitstop. When Truli pitted Alonso took the lead ahead of Nico and Lewis, a situation held to the end of the race.

What outcome given Renault fixed the race?

Nico could only have won as benefit of another team cheating and being caught out. His favourable position was contributed to by being able to building a 24 second lead over the pack caught up behind Fisichella. In reality, even lightly fuelled, Nico was not going to be in position to even win points, let alone final on the top spot.

Felipe and the Ferrari got to grips with the track best throughout qualifying and the first part of the race. Felipe looked so good that it almost seemed to be another Massatrack like Turkey and Interlagos. In the mayhem that followed Piquet’s shunt the Ferrari pit crew stuffed his pitstop together with an unsafe release. Felipe did have a spin towards the end of the race and reported a slow puncture. Even had there not been the bungled pitstop this could have harmed his chance for victory. Similarly Kimi was also in a strong position but crashed towards the end of the race. I am of the opinion that actually Lewis Hamilton was the most likely victor had there not been a safety car and Nico would have finished out of the points.

Conclusion

It is very unfortunate the results of 2008 cannot be revoked. Neither Alonso nor Renault deserved this win and should be disqualified from the results. This also impacted on the final standings and Alonso would not have finished ahead of Nick. In all honesty, even if the results could be changed, I do not think a winner should be awarded. I find it disappointing that Nico could consider this to be a REAL win. Although people thought he drove well his good position was really luck of the circumstances (the deliberate crash, the Truli-Fisichella dual-train, and being allowed 11 laps before taking the penalty). This was a solid but not stellar race for the young Williams driver.

source: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/2008singaporegrandprixraceprogress_all.gif

Sorry guys. I had a little outing*

First we had Spy-gate, then Spank-gate followed in quick succession by Lie-gate and Crash-gate. All of these incidents reflect astonishing collapses of professionalism that makes it difficult for F1 to be considered a “Sport”. I will analyse crash-gate with my own personal (and probably wrong) interpretations.

The first time I saw (on TV) Nelsinho Piquet was the inaugural AIGP at Brands Hatch with two wins and fastest lap. It was a magical moment, the kid looked seriously good and the female South African commentators were most complementary of his good looks and youthful charm on the victory podium. If I remember correctly Emerson Fittapaldi was the team Brazil manager, but also seemed the perfect mentor to the rising star.

Nelsinho’s Biography

Nelsinho Piquet was born in Germany, but until the age of 8 was raised by his Dutch mother in Monaco. He then was sent to live with his father in Brazil with the intention to learn the language and his mother felt to get a better quality of life. He certainly enjoyed access to huge opportunity to go motor-racing. At 16 he finished 5th in the Brazilian F3 championship have completed only half of the season and followed this up the next season with the championship and four race victories.

In 2003, with his father’s own team, he contested the British F3 championship and finished third despite five wins and three further podiums. That year he also tested in a Williams BMW F1 car.

In 2004 he won six F3 races and became the then youngest British F3 champion (at 19 years and 2 months). The next year he contested the GP2 championship (also in his father’s team), with one victory and three additional podiums. That year he tested the BAR Honda F1 car.

In 2006 Nelsinho fought closely with Lewis Hamilton for the GP2 crown, but it was the British driver who won. In 2007 he was a test driver for the Renault F1 team and in December of that year announced to be the driver for 2008 alongside twice former world champion Fernando Alonso.

During most of 2008 the Renault R28 was not particularly competitive. In part this was that the team stuck to letter of the rule on engine development. Not withstanding the shortcomings of the car it was not a good season for the young driver with a high number of accidents and that he was the only driver out-qualified by his team mate throughout the season.

He did show maturity at the German GP to secure 2nd position, although a fortunate strategy and the safety car contributed to the result. His overtake of his teammate during the final stages of the earlier French GP was another highlight.

In 2009 his nightmare F1 career was terminated when he was sacked by the team in mid-season having not scored a single point all season. In summary a hugely talented youngster with plenty of opportunity rose very rapidly in the motor-racing fraternity only to be crushed in the ultimate test of Formula One.

Singapore 2008 – what happened?

This event was sponsored by IMG, the main sponsor of the Renault F1 team. It was the first night race and Renault F1 team had sorted out what they could do to their engine under the new “no change” rules ensuring their cars were more competitive. An unfamiliar circuit to every driver and the novel night race conditions seemed to suit Fernando Alonso and in practice he was showing that Renault R28 was a font runner.

Renault F1’s new found competitiveness was dashed during qualifying when Fernando had a fuel pump issue, which relegated him to 15th position just ahead of Nelsinho. At this point in the season, we had Renault in serious contention for success with a competitive car. The circuit is narrow with no real overtaking opportunity beyond the start. Thereafter, it would take a pit stop to overtake or a safety car to shuffle the results.

While Renault had in the past used a light fuel load in final qualifying to get a good grid position such as Spain for Alonso’s home GP, these should be considered as publicity stunts (showboating). Having not made the top 10 grid positions Renault were free to use whatever strategy they wanted, so a light-fuel strategy makes even less sense. If there had been a safety car just after the start – they could have saved fuel, but the so would everyone else and they would have had to pitted early and lost many track positions (and indeed after his fuel stop Alonso was last). Could Renault be gambling that a Safety car would be coming out somewhere between lap 12 and 17 as they appear to have fuelled Fernando for a maximum of 15 laps?

These circumstances get even more suspicious when Pat Symonds instructs Alonso to pit on lap 12. Was Fernando essentially losing too much time relative to the leaders that even with a safety car it could ruin their success? Leaked transcripts of the team-radio do suggest that Fernando was getting held up and losing time. Fernado’s race engineer appears to have questioned the premature pit stop but Fernando does stop on lap 12 while still fuelled for a couple more laps. They fuelled him for a long second stint and swap the super-soft tyres with longer running soft tyres.

On lap 14 Nelsinho crashes at turn 17 and a Safety Car is deployed. Other drivers who had used a light fuel to get good starting positions were forced to pit under the safety car and incurred a drive-through penalty. Once the pitlane is opened (lap 17) for refueling most of the pack pit. Race leader Felipe Massa had a disastrous pit stop ruining any prospects of points let alone a win.

Rosberg and Kubica served their penalty for violating the closed pit lane promoting Alonso into the lead. Alonso maintains his lead despite a late Safety Car incident following Adrian Sutil’s crash at the same spot as Nelsinho. Nelsinho’s accident happened in a window of opportunity of no more than two or three laps when it could be used to Alonso’s advantage. It was also on part of the circuit where there were no cranes so a Safety Car was assured.

Could a team ask a driver to deliberately change the results?

Deliberately crashing into another driver has been practiced by drivers in the past including Senna, Schumacher and Prost in attempting to secure a world championship, so it is not quite as preposterous as it might at first seem. Anyone who has watched NASCAR must realize some of the spins to bring out the safety car were pre-mediated and probably to impact on a competitor.

Causing an accident and curtailing a qualifying has occurred with Michael Schumacher “parking” his car in a feign accident when he had set a good qualifying time to prevent Fernando from setting a better time during the Monaco GP 2006.

Earlier this year the McLaren team deliberately lied about an incident which promoted Lewis Hamilton and got another team disqualified from the results. This is as much race-fixing as asking a driver to bin a car for the team.

So you might ask then ask is this not hugely unsafe to ask a driver to deliberately crash and bring a safety car out? Formula One is remarkable safe, drivers like Robert Kubica (Canada) and Timo Glock have had huge accidents with very little injury. To be honest Nelsinho had also had a lot of experience in testing the safety of the Renault F1 car with his record of crashes.

Consequently I think safety was not really a major concern to driver or team. Again leaked transcripts, suggest it was only the engineer that was having any real worries about Nelsinho immediately following the contact.

The freak accidents of Henry Surtees and Felipe Massa have at least resulted in safety being re-evaluated. Deliberately crashing is now more serious since any accident has a potential to trigger collateral damage to other drivers, marshals and even spectators.

How have (or should have) Renault F1 respond?

Slightly surprisingly ’s allegations have got leaked and widely circulated. On the surface the FIA have said it was unfortunate and FOTA has complained that this is unfair to the accused team. In honesty, I am really not sure it is such an issue. It makes it clear what the allegation is about.

I do, however, find the leaks around the interviews the FIA had with critical members of the Renault team appalling as this really can pre-judge the case.

In essence Flavio Briatore claimed there was no crash, no meeting and they have done nothing wrong. In contrast Pat would not answer difficult questions nor recall details. During the period of investigation into Renault F1’s possession of Intellectual Property of McLaren the entire Renault factory admitted guilt and suffered from an epidemic of the a highly infectious form of collective amnesia. Sadly for Pat this conditions has continued and he could well be in the terminal stages of the illness.

While Pat quietly suffers this malady, Flavio seems to have opted with fighting fire with fire and claims that he and Renault will pursue legal action for false accusation and blackmail. Of course this is not fully true since he can only report the incident, it is for authorities to actually proceed with a criminal  case based on evidence. He also went into personal details about Nelsinho’s lifestyle in an attempt to create a rift between Nelsinho and his father (another sort of outing?).

Interestingly, Renault announced it would not contest Nelsinho’s allegations and that both Flavio and Pat have now left the company. This has been interpreted as guilt of misconduct and I assume the team is wanting FIA to look on the incident with some leniency.

Many people have assumed that this means Renault F1 wish to continue in the sport. I rather see it as crisis management. Renault conducted their own investigation and concluded that they could not defend themselves.

With the resignations of Flavio and Pat they are not under FIA authority to be present at the meeting tomorrow. Clearly Renault want the two top guys to take full responsibility and don’t actually want them to testify. What this allows is for the FIA to punish the team without the severity that McLaren received when they deliberately lied to the FIA during spygate. This at least provides the most protection for the rest of the Renault F1 employees. More importantly it gives the parent company the option of selling or staying on.

How much guilt should Nelsinho shoulder?

People are over-reacting to the dangers of the situation and forgetting how Senna, Prost and Schumacher all crashed into competitors. That is not to say it was not serious nor cheating – it is. Formula 1 has always had large doses of cheating. Eddie Irvine concluded that…

“This is probably slightly on the wrong side of the cheating thing but in days past every team have done whatever they could to win – cheat, bend the rules, break the rules, sabotage opponents”

http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/extra/article.html?Irvine:_Big_over-reaction_to_crashgate&in_article_id=739569&in_page_id=52

Briatore and Symonds sent Nelsinho out at the Monaco’s 2008 wet race deliberately on the wrong tyres to see if this could be a strategy for Alonso. Although it was admitted that it was a long shot and Nelsinho did have a crash was this not similarly dangerous? It also did not stop Flavio publicly humiliating Nelsinho in the press after the race.

Nelsinho has been seriously mismanaged, even, dare I say it been sacrificed on Alonso’s Altar. Those that say an F1 driver should be tough enough to cope – I think a similar situation occurred with Bourdais – he left the Toro Rosso team with little in the way of results and immediately won his first Superleague race in cars that are the most similar to current F1 cars. Formula 1 drivers are fragile as they need huge confidence to do what they do successfully. This is one of the reasons Lewis Hamilton is so successful, huge self-belief and rarely if ever admits to a racing fault (including last week’s Monza outing).

I believe Briatore destroyed Nelsinho’s self belief. He was vulnerable, since he had not delivered the goods on the track so the best he could offer was to help the team in other ways and specifically his team mate. Formula 1 team’s exercise huge influence on their drivers, hence Lewis Hamilton lied to get another team disqualified, Piquet crashing on team orders to gift the race to his team mate.

Ex F1 driver Johnny Herbert who has experienced Briatore first-hand has indicated in no uncertain terms his unpleasant character. If you think I exaggerate just read the interview with Johnny Herbert.

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/comment/sport/formula-one/herbert-briatore-should-be-banned-for-life-$1328498.htm

Herbert shares my view, what Piquet did was undeniably wrong but we need to understand what sort of pressure he was under. You have a driver more frightened of his manager/boss than of crashing a car – that says a lot. Since Nelsinho was asked to crash to bring the team a favourable result (and the parent company does not want to contest this allegation) it would be impossible for Renault to bring any charges against Nelsinho.

Could Nelsinho have said no?

I am fairly sure had he said so he would have been replaced in the next race or certainly in the next season. My own experience is that people do not put their jobs on-line. I have had two past incidents with my own employers practicing unethical standards. In both cases the great majority of my colleagues remained quiet.

While many people have questioned Nelsinho receiving immunity as a whistle-blower. I take it these people would rather that all the cheating remains undiscovered? Protection of whistle-blowers is necessary to keep the industry clean, since otherwise no-one would ever admit to the cheating that is  pandemic in the industry.

The real villain is Flavio and this guy should be banned from F1 and not be allowed to managed any current or future racing driver. Being a team boss and at the same time a manager of a driver provides too much hold over the driver.

Finally if you think Alonso is completely innocent in all of this contrast the following quotes from the guy…

“Alonso explained that his early pitstop was his idea” “I did think about running a one-stop strategy,”

“but all that fuel weight would have been too punishing for the brakes because there are no long straights here to keep them cool. Instead I chose a short, aggressive first stint and just waited to see what would happen.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6837681.ece

Now compare what he said to the FIA during their interviews at Spa this year knowing there was controversial issues surrounding his race win.

“Alonso also said that he left strategy decisions to his engineers and that running a short first stint from outside the top ten was merely an attempt to do something different from the cars around him, which is consistent with Pat Symonds’ attitude to race strategy as he’s articulated it to me in the past.”

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2009/09/leaked-transcripts-put-alonso-in-the-clear-on-singapore-crash-plot/

So immediately after winning the Singapore GP he credited himself with the clever short first-stint fuel stop but when there is controversy he changes his tune to it being his engineers decisions. While Fernando has been summoned to the FIA meeting (as has Briatore) it is unlikely this inconsistency will be picked up but it is revealing.

Conclusion

Nelsinho’s “little outing” is set to reshape Formula 1. Not only has he outed Flavio Briatore, one of the biggest guys from F1 but it is likely the FIA will re-examine much of the structure of the Formula 1′s team management. Possibly this is a “good” outcome of the unhappy event. Personally, though Fernando should as a minimum have one less victory to his credit. I hope that the Renault F1 team do continue in the sport and are able to withstand whatever punishment is imposed by the FIA, since their problem was probably no more than a couple of bad apples which they have got rid of.

Nelsinho’s Formula 1 career is over, no matter what happens tomorrow, and I believe that much, but not all, of guilt lies with his team manager. While Nelsinho has called Briatore his “executioner” the little guy has done his share in the execution of his boss and for which the Formula 1 fraternity should be eternally grateful.

*These were the first words spoken by Nelsinho following his crash at Singapore GP 2008.

Teenage F1 stars: Will Jaime be one?

It is now old news that teenager Jaime Alguersuari this weekend is set to become the youngest ever driver to compete in an F1 race at the age of 19 years and 125 day. He is not the youngest ever driver of an F1 car, that honour belongs to Nico Rosberg who drove a Williams-BMW F1 for 38 laps at sweet seventeen. He is also not the youngest driver to participate in an F1 weekend, Sebastian Vettel when he drove in the Friday practice for the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix was just 19 years and 53 days. Currently the youngest driver to start in an F1 is New Zealander Mike Thackwell at 19 years and 182 days at the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix.

Other drivers who have driven in F1 when they were less than twenty include Ricardo Rodriguez (19 years, 208 days) at the 1961 Italian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso (19 years, 218 days) at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix, Esteban Tuero (19 years, 320 days) at the 1998 Australian Grand Prix, Chris Amon (19 years, 324 days) at the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix and Sebastian Vettel (19 years, 349 days) at the 2007 United States Grand Prix. Jenson Button started his F1 career at a relatively old 20 years and 53 days at the 2000 Australian Grand Prix.

For some starting so early was clearly not the right decision. Mike Thackwell in his first race was involved in an accident on the very first lap and the race was stopped as a consequence. Since he was not in a situation to restart the race he in the eyes of F1 regulations had not started the race. In this case Mexican Ricardo Rodriguez would be the youngest F1 driver to start a race. Sadly Mike Thackwell only attempted five F1 races and only qualified to start in two.

Argentinian Esteban Tuero’s career although stretching a full season was not much more successful. His entry was controversial since he did not fully qualify for a FIA super-licence. The F1 driver Martin Brundle said

As for Tuero, it would have been scary. I don’t like to see these guys out there with so little experience. Imagine it: even if he didn’t qualify, he’d be getting in the way during qualifying. And if he did qualify, then he’d definitely be being lapped plenty. He’d have really needed to have his wits about him. To be honest, it annoys me, people like that, with zilch credibility.

Nevertheless he was allowed to enter and qualified second last in his début race and during the season only made the top ten once at Imola. In the last race of the season (Japanese) he had an accident injuring a vertebra in his neck. He retired from F1 citing personal issues which probably reflected the extent of the injury to his neck.

Ricardo Rodriguez qualified second in his first F1 race driving a Ferrari. During the race he battled for the lead with the likes of Phil Hill and Richie Ginther, but a fuel pump failure sidelined his incredible F1 début. Ferrari did not give him a seat every race that year, but when they did he produced the results taking second at the Pau Grand Prix, fourth at the Belgian Grand Prix and sixth at the German Grand Prix. In the same year he also won the legendary Targa Florio. Ferrari elected not to enter the non-Championship 1962 Mexican Grand Prix so Ricardo signed to drive Rob Walker’s Lotus, but was tragically killed on the first day of practice. In his short career of six F1 starts no other teenage F1 driver has been more successful.

In contrast Fernando Alonso did not score any points in his first F1 season driving for Minardi, but in his first race he out-qualified teammate Tarso Marques by 2.6 seconds. In his fourth start he out-qualified both of the Benettons, he also repeated this achievement latter in the season. In his final race of that year he finished eleventh beating Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the Prost-Ferrari, Olivier Panis in the BAR-Honda, both Arrows and team mate Alex Yoong. In his career he became, at the time, the youngest F1 driver to start from pole (2003 Malaysian Grand Prix) to win a race (2003 Hungarian Grand Prix) and become World championship (2005) which he repeated in the next season.

Chris Amon is considered to be one of the unluckiest of all F1 drivers that survived their racing careers. He did not even get to start his first F1 race he entered. His experienced teammate Maurice Trintignant had problems with his Climax V8 powered Lola and so took over Amon’s car to race. The Lola proved unreliable, and he just missed points with seventh position in the French and German Grand Prix. Despite a long career and close to 100 starts Chris never won an F1 championship race. Mario Andretti once joked of Amon that

if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying

Sebastian Vettel started his first F1 race after qualifying seventh in the BMW Sauber for the 2007 USA Grand Prix replacing the injured Robert Kubica. In the race he finished eighth and in the points. He went onto to beat both Fernando’s records for youngest pole-sitter and F1 winner at Monza 2008. He also is the youngest F1 driver to win a Grand Prix in two consecutive teams. Judging by this season he could even become the youngest-ever world champion which is currently held by Lewis Hamilton. The other record Sebastian has is for the quickest driver to receive a penalty fine ($1000) just nine seconds into his career for pitlane speeding.

So what is in store for young Jaime? Unlike Ricardo or even Sebastian he is not starting in a competitive car, let alone one that can win a race. In the last few races the Toro Rosso have been the slowest team and indeed Bourdais, who he replaces qualified last in the last the Grand Prix. Consequently neither the team nor Jaime are setting very high targets. To make matters worse this season there has been a ban on mid-season track testing. The only glimmer of hope is that there is a significant up-grade to the car for the forthcoming race which includes the introduction of a double rear diffuser.

While I trust that Jaime’s F1 career will start more successful that some of the other teenagers, most people are predicting it to be fairly anonymous. Indeed James Allen goes further to say…

F1 is so competitive now that young drivers have little choice but to take the offer when it comes. Sometimes drivers are ready, like Vettel or Jenson Button or Kimi Raikkonen. This one doesn’t seem ready to me, but I look forward to being proved wrong.

Few will expect Jaime to qualify anything other than last and it will be a good start if he can just keep the car on the track and finish his first Grand Prix. Given his racing history, no experience of an F1 car and an uncompetitive team the learning curve is going to be steep. One can only hope his character is as big as the sponsorships that promoted him to an F1 career so rapidly. Good Luck Jaime you are going to need a lot to survive your first F1 season.

Reverse Order for Red Bulls 1-2 Victory

From never having won a GP until this year (excluding STR’s victory) Red Bull have scored a third 1-2 in a third of the races this season.  Well done Christian, Adrian and your team.  The only difference is the guy from down under came out on top this weekend. Only six months previously Webbo must have wonder what his chances were this season, in bed with a broken leg and not disclosing to the team he also had a broken shoulder.

This weekend Webber eventually got his first GP win and did so in a fairly commanding style despite being over-aggressive and hitting both Rubens and Lewis in his  “Demolitian Derby” start. His team mate Vettel never looked as “dialed in” this weekend but the Red Bull advantage over every other team today was very evident and he finished second.  Red Bull are in the hunt to chase down Brawn, and I for one think they can do it (I will make a blog on my reasons for this sometime)

Brawn must be worried, in practice they got their grid positions by being lighter on fuel than everyone else. This ultimately hampered their race and the strategy would only have worked if interrupted by rain or a safety car.  The problems though, were deeper the Brawns simply could not make the intermediate tyres work so most of the race had to be run on the softs which probably could not last the distance required of a two stop strategy.  More bad luck in the first pitstop for Rubens with a fuel rig problem saw him lose any chance of victory despite a stellar start to lead off the line.  Bringing Rubens in early for his last pit stop saw Jenson yet again beat him on the track if not on racing merit.  I did noticed the skilled way the Brawn team got Jenson ahead or Rubens.  That extra point could help win the championship.

Gradual improvement is the best way to describe team Ferrari.   Felipe having made a good start brought the Ferrari home to his first podium of the year. Kimi was again outclassed by his teammate and again seemed to have a magnetic attraction to Adrian’s car while the latter was in a strong position. Fortunately Kimi did not get a penalty, but why leave it until after the race to make the decision? Adrian was remarkably resigned to the situation and very professional in not putting any blame on Kimi.  To me it was a genuine racing incident and it might have been possible for Kimi to have avoided it but this is racing.

For Force India it is a case of so close and yet so far to scoring points – the cars are now genuinely in the mid-field and should be scoring points. I wonder if FIF1 should not do an STR trick and draft Luizzi rather than Fisi – Adrian is getting the better of his veteran team mate.

McLaren are improving especially with the new specs of the car Lewis drove.  Lewis and Kovy both made good starts (Lewis’ was superb), but for the incident on the first corner Lewis would probably have been on the podium. The light fuel load of Lewis’ car would have prevented victory today but the team should be encouraged by the HUGE progress. Kovy for me, yet again disappoints, a good start but seems to go backwards during the race – still one is one point (but if I were Macca I would be looking for another driver next season – particularly Timo).

Williams were rather anonymous in the race.  I did not see much of Nico but another very solid drive ensured more points for the team and more chance he wil stay with them. Kaz had problems at the start with an encounter of the Trulli kind and that finished his race.

I am perplexed by Fernando, spins on the warm-up and yet gets fastest lap of the race and scores some points – what are Renault’s problems?  PK having out-qualified his team mate for the first time ever had a rather poor race and is yet to bother the score board.  While there has been recent improvement in the young Brazilian, is it enough?  Will Renault decide to replace him for the next race or could they in a patriotic spirit grab the soon to be released LeSeb?  I think very unlikely but in the strange world of F1 I guess anything is possible.

I am biased, but I think Timo impressed starting last from the pitlane and finishing 9th in the Toyota (which generally struggled with low temperatures at a circuit not suited to their aerodynamics). Were it not for the KERS in the Macca I wonder if he would not have got past Kovy. His team mate had trouble at the start that finished any chances in the race and Toyota had a miserable day at their home circuit.

The other home team of BMW Saubers were again terrible – they should put Nick on a one-stop strategy like Timo to stand any chances of getting points. Kubica had a good start but otherwise a dreadful race with tyre issues.  Nick still beat his teamate in qualifying and in the race and yet the rumours still insist that he is for the chop.  If realised I say stupid team – Nick is a great driver but he needs a winning car.  If I had a wish I would put him in a Brawn with Jenson and design a car for their smooth driving styles.  Incidentally it seems he was close to moving to Honda last year – Nick Fry is apparently a bit of a fan of the quiet German.

Toro Rosso are the only team not to have a rear double diffuser.  If that was their only problem a cure is in sight with its introduction at Hungary.  It seems the stream of technical emails from the Red Bull factory has run out and the team is floundering.  Buemi is over-driving and making mistakes but still impresses more than his experienced team mate.  Surely there is nothing to lose now for Toro Rosso to put Jaime Alguersuari in the seat to get experience for next year. They are the slowest on the grid and my prediction is they will remain so for the rest of the season.

Finally my driver of the day (and indeed the weekend) had to be Webbo. Losers of the day (and weekend) were Brawn GP who are now not longer even second best – arguably Ferrari and Macca were equal and even Williams are close. The factory teams of BMW-Sauber, Renault and Toyota will have some more explaining to their board members. At least Renault customer engines are now winning which is some consolation.