Archive for Formula 1

Right before the crash… look at the throttle and brake position indicators

28 year old F1 driver Felipe Massa is currently in the AEK military hospital’s intensive care unit after an accident at the Hungarian Grand Prix left him with a fractured skull, a concussion and a cut on his forehead above his left eye.

Massa’s helmet was hit by an 800 gram (0.8kg) spring that came off Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn GP car right before Turn 4 on the track. Right after he was hit, he lost consciousness for about 2 seconds and in an F1 car at such high speeds that’s alot of distance to be covered. It was not enough for him to stop in time and he crashed into the Turn 4 tyre barrier.

He was sent to the AEK via a helicopter and underwent surgery immediately. His condition is serious and life-threatening but luckily stable. Ferrari described the outcome of the surgery as “positive”. Unfortunately this means he will miss the Hungarian race day as he has to stay in the ICU for observation.

Click here to read the rest of Massa crash puts him in serious but stable condition

The FIA have announced that a deal has been reached with the FOTA and the breakaway series will not happen, instead next year’s Formula One series will continue with a full grid consisting of the existing teams and three new players – Manor, Campos and US F1.

The deal involves the teams reducing championship competing costs down to early 1990s levels within 2 years, via internal cost cutting measures. Thing is, I’m not sure what 1990s levels are, anyone have any idea? It must be higher than the 40 million budget cap though, for the manufacturers to accept it. The manufacturer teams have also agreed to assist the new entries for 2010 by providing technical assistance.

The final bit is that FIA president Max Mosley will not stand for re-election in October this year. That must have been part of the agreement – they want Max out and Max is out. The Max and Bernie circus will end this October. FOTA appears to be in the stronger position now and next they will probably try to get the commercial rights holder to give them more share of the cash, something they have been complaining about for the longest time.

US GPE, which will be racing in next year’s Formula 1 World Championship has officially revealed its intention of having current Indy Car racer Danica Patrick on board the outfit.

The team’s sporting director, Peter Windsor said, “We’re getting near to the point where we start looking at drivers and Danica is on our list for sure, because she’s the best-placed American in the leading single-seater championship of the United States.”

He also added that, “There are some other great drivers out there, Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Jonathan Summerton…the list goes on. There are some really good guys and we’ve got to start focusing on that.”

27-year old Danica Patrick currently races for the Andretti Green Racing team and has thus far finished four times in the top five, after seven races of the current season. Last year she finished sixth in the championship standings and became the first female to win a major closed-course auto race in April at Twin Ring Motegi. The Charlotte-based US GPE will compete next year with Cosworth powerplants, and has yet to select which rule it will run with, with or without the budget cap.

Regarding the current situation between FOTA and the FIA, Windsor revealed, “We are open to the political instability. We’re building various iterations of the car based around the ways we think the regulations could go.”

Related Posts:
American USF1 drivers: Scott Speed and Danica Patrick?

8 of the current F1 teams that make up the Formula One Teams Association have announced that they (with the exception of FOTA members Williams and Force India) will leave F1 at the end of the current season. These 8 teams are: BMW Sauber, Brawn, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Renault, Toro Rosso, and Toyota.

Continue reading after the jump for the full story.

Click here to read the rest of 8 FOTA members announce new breakaway race series, RIP Formula 1?

The FIA has unveiled its 2010 team line-up, which ended up consisting of all existing teams and 3 new teams. The following is the team list:

1. AT&T Williams – Toyota
2. BMW Sauber F1 Team – BMW
3. Brawn GP Formula One Team – TBA
4. Campos Grand Prix – Cosworth
5. Force India F1 Team – Mercedes
6. Manor Grand Prix – Cosworth
7. Panasonic Toyota Racing – Toyota
8. Red Bull Racing – Renault
9. Renault F1 Team – Renault
10. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro – Ferrari
11. Scuderia Toro Rosso – TBA
12. Team US F1 – Cosworth
13. Vodafone McLaren Mercedes – Mercedes

I’m not really sure of how they pick which new teams to slot in, but there were more teams competing for the 3 free slots than those who made it. The teams which did not made it are Lola, Aston Martin (Prodrive), Team Superfund, Brabham, Litespeed and N. Technology. I wonder why Prodrive did not make it, would have been nice to see Aston Martin in F1. Litespeed also did not make it, despite calling itself “Team Lotus” to try to ride on the past heritage of Lotus involvement in F1.

The current teams that have been listed as confirmed are stil against the £40 million budget cap. Especially Ferrari, who issued this statement: “Ferrari submitted on 29 May 2009 an entry to the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship which is subject to certain conditions. As of today, these conditions have not been met.

“Notwithstanding this and despite Ferrari’s previous written notice to the FIA not to do so, the FIA has included Ferrari as a unconditional participant in next year’s Formula One World Championship. For the avoidance of any doubt, Ferrari reaffirms that it shall not take part in the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship under the regulations adopted by the FIA in violation of Ferrari’s rights under a written agreement with the FIA,” the Italians whose name have been pretty much synonymous with F1 added.

F3 team Litespeed will be participating in the Formula One along with a few other new teams like Campos Racing, Lola, Prodrive (future Aston Martin) and USGPE for the 2010 season. But get this – they will be calling themselves Team Lotus.

The team founded by ex-Lotus employees Nino Judge and Steve Kenchington wants to use the Lotus brand name to help the team secure a place on the grid. They say they’ve licensed it, but the real Lotus has come out with a statement today saying they have nothing to do with the team and may take action to protect its brand name. It could be that Litespeed is only still in negotiations to license the name and Lotus is not too happy about them going around announcing it without confirmation.

“Team Lotus” will use Cosworth engines and a chassis designed by a team led by former Toyota and Renault technical director Mike Gascoyne. They will be leasing the RTN factory in Hingham near the real Lotus.

The latest addition to the hot rumor pot is the possibility of Stuttgart-based auto maker Mercedes Benz pulling out of Formula 1 as the recent “lie-gate” scandal involving the McLaren Formula 1 team intensifies. Apparently, Daimler AG’s CEO, Dieter Zetsche has revealed to a German-based publication that, “If circumstances should change, perhaps because of an unreasonable punishment by the FIA, it is possible that we could consider our engagement,”.

In a couple of days, the World Motor Sport Council will meet and a decision will be issued out regarding the scandal that involves the McLaren outfit not being truthful regarding the yellow flag incident at the 2009 season opener in Melbourne, Australia.

The Woking-based outfit is expected to face severe penalties, and it does make sense for Mercedes to think about pulling out if it feels that the FIA’s decision is unreasonable. The premium brand is not only supplying its V8 powerplants to McLaren, but to two other teams as well, including the slower Force India and Brawn GP.

The FIA is supposed to be working on a new “World Engine” due in 2013 that can be used for 3 FIA categories – F1, F2 and WRC. Max Mosley described the engine as one single engine that could be aspirated and tuned differently for the different categories.

It could be turboed for F1, normally aspirated for F2 and perhaps lightly boosted for the WRC. He added that the project is only in its planning phase and in very early stages. FIA will consult the manufacturers on this matter. The engine will be standard but teams will be able to customise its peripheral areas, such as KERS and other forms of energy recovery such as from the brakes, brake heat and exhaust heat.

“Our basic objective is that the money spent in motorsport on research and development should be relevant and useful to the car industry rather than a highly specialized area which has no relevance to anything else,” says Max Mosley, referring to KERS and other peripherals.

With more and more standardization going into F1, the latest seems to be the engine itself, which takes a big variable and element of excitement out of the sport. There is already going to be a standard Cosworth engine that teams can pick from soon. What do you think guys, will a standard engine take the fun out of F1?

So it was a massively wet race, one that was made worse by the fact that it was an evening one – less light to cut through the heavy torrent. Jenson Button in his Brawn GP F1 car took the top spot again, with second place this time going to Nick Heidheld in his BMW. Barrichello who came in second the last race was in 5th place. F1 big names Ferrari and McLaren continues their woes with Kvalainen retiring on the first lap. Kubica also had to retire thanks to a mechanical problem.

Click for larger results table

The rain was so heavy that the race had to be red flagged, thanks to visibility which had dropped to near zero. The track had also become totally drenched with water. According to Button himself, “It wasn’t like it was a river out there, it was a lake!”. Hamilton said it was one of the most dangerous conditions he had ever had to race in, and all he could do was try to keep the car on track, don’t even begin to talk about actually racing yet.

Only half points were awarded to the point winners in this race.

Related Posts:
Jenson Button does it again, even with Malaysia’s monsoon rain!

Surprise, surprise, the flip flop disease has infected the FIA too. It announced that the new points system that bestows the driver championship to the driver with the most wins rather than points will likely be deferred to 2010.

However nothing is confirmed at this moment as the official statement had some “ifs” in it, and until those ifs are acknowledged by FIA and the announcement to revert to the previous points system in black and white, we’re still holding our breath!

This is the official statement: “On 17 March, the FIA World Motor Sport Council unanimously rejected FOTA’s proposed amendment to the points system for the Formula One Drivers’ Championship. The ‘winner takes all’ proposal made by the commercial rights holder (who had been told that the teams were in favour) was then approved. If, for any reason, the Formula One teams do not now agree with the new system, its implementation will be deferred until 2010.”

The Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) had earlier proposed that the points system be instead changed to a 12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1 points format from the existing 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. The FIA was insistent in a “winner takes it all” system.

This is probably not something that teams are used to – changes and uncertainty to the rules are still happening just one week before the first race weekend in Melbourne!