F1 budget talks hit dead end

Another day, another statement. This one, from the FIA, again suggesting that the wheels are coming off the negotiating process between the FIA and the team’s body (FOTA) and that it is FOTA’s fault.
As I posted yesterday in the Ross Brawn story, the teams want to talk about ‘resource restriction’ which they control, rather than [...]

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More on how Toyota turned it around

Before the Turkey weekend I flagged up that I was interested in Toyota’s performance after their alarming slump in Monaco and to some extent, Spain.

Well Jarno Trulli had a great weekend, qualifying 5th and racing strongly against Nico Rosberg to finish fourth. Toyota are looking pretty good in third place in the championship, although you [...]

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In case you didn’t get the message..

I’ve been fascinated by the coverage of the FOTA teams’ entry for next year’s world championship in the last couple of days.
On Friday morning I was saying that something was going to come out of FOTA which was quite different from the convergence position with the FIA that was being widely reported. And so [...]

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So are the nine teams in or out?

The nine remaining teams in the Formula One Teams Association submitted a conditional entry for the 2010 world championship before the deadline at midnight last night.
Along with that single entry for all nine of them, they have submitted a document with proposals for cost reduction to the FIA, which Toyota’s John Howett describes as ‘comprehensive’. [...]

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Counting down to midnight

After all the brinkmanship, the tough talking and the threats, the Formula 1 teams should today, barring any last minute upset, submit entries by midnight for the 2010 world championship. Ferrari will still be a Formula 1 team and life will carry on.
A statement is expected today from the Formula One Teams Association with their [...]

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Why Button would stay with Brawn

There has been quite a bit of chatter in the last couple of days about Jenson Button’s future, in light of comments made by Brawn GP’s Nick Fry on the subject.

“Jenson’s been with us a long time, and we’ve had failures and we’ve had successes,” said Fry. “My objective, and our objective, is to have [...]

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Why Williams had to look after itself

I posted here on Sunday morning that I had heard Williams were going to break ranks with the other Formula 1 teams and put in an entry for the 2010 season this week and they have done that.
I’ve been thinking about this, about why they have done it, what it will do to FOTA unity [...]

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Toyota on way out of F1, BMW reflecting?

This morning in Monaco there was plenty of activity around the ongoing discussions about the 2010 F1 rules and plenty of chat about what was going to happen next.
It seems to be becoming widely believed that Toyota will use this situation to make its exit from Formula 1. They were thinking about it towards the [...]

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Will F1 pull itself back from the brink today?

This is going to be a big day. The F1 team owners meet this morning to discuss their next move in the escalating row over the 2010 budget cap rules.
By the end of today, the teams will really have to make their minds up whether they are going to put an entry in before the [...]

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Alonso says driving Monaco is ’stressful’

I caught up with Fernando Alonso this afternoon at his press briefing in the Renault motorhome. He’s one of the few drivers to do this session on the first day of practice.
I was interested to hear how good it felt to be back on the streets here, brushing the barriers, feeling that unique adrenalin rush [...]

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