Just received an email from the FIA press department with some great research on how F1 history would have been rewritten if Bernie Ecclestone’s medals idea had been in place since the start of Formula 1 in 1950. The outcome of the world championship would have been different on 13 occasions.
Bernie thinks that the winner [...]
Archive for January, 2009
F1 Medals – changing history for the better?
Posted in Discussion, F1 News, tagged F1, Medals, Rules on January 30, 2009 | 46 Comments »
Some good news for F1 TV viewers
Posted in Discussion, Media, tagged F1, TV on January 29, 2009 | 28 Comments »
Yesterday I wrote about some things we will not be seeing on TV, today I’m posting on a couple of things which will be in the show, although I’m not sure about one of them.
Radio conversations between team and driver have been available for a few years, but the team had a button it needed [...]
A Grand Prix in Rome…seriously?
Posted in Discussion, F1 News, tagged F1, Italian Grand Prix on January 28, 2009 | 10 Comments »
Two thousand five hundred years after the Romans got their kicks from Chariot racing, there is a plan to bring their modern counterparts back to race there.
Plans are afoot for a second Grand Prix in Italy, on a street circuit in Rome. The man behind it is Maurizio Flammini, the founder of the World Superbike [...]
Insight into two important new rules
Posted in Discussion, F1 News, tagged Rules on January 27, 2009 | 9 Comments »
FIA race director Charlie Whiting today issued a question and answer briefing to F1 journalists with a couple of clarifications of new rules for 2009.
One concerns the eight engines the drivers may use during a season and when penalties may apply and the other regards the safety car.
The engine rule is the one I wrote [...]
Why Renault is right to be scared
Posted in Renault, tagged Renault on January 27, 2009 | 8 Comments »
There have been some worried noises coming out of Renault staff in recent weeks and delving around it’s not hard to see why. The staff have had to take a pay cut, they have acknowledged that there will be a round of redundancies and the title sponsor, Dutch banking and insurance group ING is laying [...]
What’s an F1 driver worth?
Posted in Discussion, Drivers, tagged Drivers, F1 on January 26, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Nick Heidfeld, ever the pragmatist, is quoted today saying that if drivers are to be asked to take a pay cut, so be it, ” We have to adjust ourselves just like everyone else.” Actually Nick is pretty good value at approximately £2.8 million per season. It’s the £30 odd million Raikkonen gets or the [...]
Drivers protest over licence fee hike
Posted in F1 News, tagged Drivers, Salaries on January 23, 2009 | 16 Comments »
It’s been a quiet day today, BMW are still hammering around in Valencia, but the teams who were all in Portugal are back at base shaking their heads over what a waste of time it was. There was basically only a brief window of a few hours without rain on one day to get any [...]
BMW gets a head start
Posted in BMW, F1 News, tagged BMW on January 22, 2009 | 2 Comments »
It’s only week one of the 2009 season, but already BMW has its nose in front. By choosing to go to Valencia this week, the expected challengers for the world title have managed to get some serious dry running in, 99 laps yesterday and 116 laps today.
Ferrari got over 100 laps in today on [...]
Where will the next F1 stars come from?
Posted in Discussion, Drivers, Features, tagged Drivers, talent on January 22, 2009 | 6 Comments »
How can our sport identify and nurture the best driving talents and bring them to F1? What is the best way to evaluate a young driver?
One of the eye catching lines Bernie Ecclestone came out with recently in an interview with my Financial Times colleague Christian Sylt was a dismissal of the revived Formula 2 [...]
Comment of the week…and some TV news
Posted in Discussion, Media, tagged Comment of the Week, TV on January 28, 2009 | 18 Comments »
As regulars here will know, I occasionally like to highlight a feedback comment and there’s one here from Rpaco, who clearly has worked in the car/racing industry at some point. His comment in response to my post yesterday about Charlie Whiting’s briefing really made me laugh.
“Well I trust that the new BBC team will keep [...]
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