The ten remaining Formula 1 teams spent Wednesday to Friday testing at Paul Ricard, former home of the French Grand Prix. It was very much a test in two parts, with the teams testing high-downforce configurations for the Monaco Grand Prix, the next round of the championship, and low-downforce settings for the Canadian Grand Prix … Continue reading 2008 F1 testing round-up 12: Paul Ricard
Max Mosley has written to the presidents of the FIA motor sport clubs around the world in a new attempt to press his case and avoid a motion of no confidence in him at the Emergency General Meeting on June 3rd. Grandprix.com claims to have seen the letter and has published a portion, describing the … Continue reading Mosley makes lurid new claims in desperate bid to stay in power
Alan Henry’s done it, F1 Racing did it, and now The Times are naming their top 100 F1 drivers. I toyed with the idea of doing something similar here but these debates always end up the same: arguments about whether you can compare drivers from the ’50s with those from five decades later, why all … Continue reading Debate: The Bottom 10 F1 drivers
We learned last week that Codemasters had snatched the rights to produce the official Formula 1 game from Sony, and the first installment in the series will arrive next year. Codemasters have a clear choice in how to approach this. They can cynically exploit the F1 brand and just stick the official drivers and team … Continue reading Codemasters 2009 F1 game wish list
I sadly missed the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday because I was racing in the Czech Republic, so I’ve had to rely on race reports to get a full understanding of what happened. Of all the comment and intrigue from the weekend, the factor that has stood out the most to me, has been the … Continue reading The Ben Evans column: Technique
Max Mosley’s hopes of remaining FIA president have been dealt a new blow as it has emerged that he will be in delegating his duties as FIA president to someone else at next weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix . Monaco’s royal palace do not want him to meet Prince Albert and so FIA vice-president Marco Piccinini … Continue reading Monaco royalty snubs Mosley (Update: Mosley claims conspiracy against him)
Yesterday I considered what would happen to Formula 1 if the economic crisis caused teams to leave the sport. Before I wrote that reader Scott Newton had sent in his thoughts on how F1 could work with just a few manufacturers supplying all the chassis. My idea stems from the concern that customer cars will … Continue reading Formula 1 as a spec series
Regular readers will know of my displeasure with Sky’s practice of missing live Indy Car racing to bring NASCAR instead. And yet on their motoring blog is happy to knock ITV for the quality of their F1 coverage: Desperate to sponge the most revenue out of this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix, ITV put an ad … Continue reading Sense of irony failure as Sky slags off ITV motorsport coverage
Call it the credit crunch, call it the sub-prime crisis, whatever you call it, I call it trouble. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what the consequences of the developing global economic downturn will be for Formula 1. But it’s hard to imagine them being good. And to the pessimists it could look very bad indeed.
The debate over who is the most-hyped driver in Formula 1 is a short one. But who is the second most-hyped driver in F1 after Lewis Hamilton? Sebastian Vettel may be a candidate. He arrived in the sport at a rude young age last year and is apparently already being considered for a promotion to … Continue reading Sebastian Vettel: the driver debates
The news that Lewis Hamilton is courting a £10m sponsorship deal with Reebok is interesting not because of the amount of money involved, but because of what it says about his relationship with McLaren. When people started talking about the immense marketing potential of F1’s first successful mixed-race driver F1 fans were quick to note … Continue reading Lewis Hamilton is bigger than McLaren
Bernie Ecclestone has reiterated his desire to see the 2009 French Grand Prix held in Paris instead of its current venue Magny-Cours: We agreed that there would be a French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours in 2008 but not in 2009. Prime Minister Francois Fillon told me we would then see if we could have a … Continue reading No more Magny-Cours? Heard it before
The Turkish Grand Prix review video looks at how the teams’ engine development is limited by the engine freeze regulations and reveals just how expensive it is to stay at a hotel in Monaco for next week’s Grand Prix! Plus the usual round-up of post-race news.
A few choice morsels from the world of motor racing blogs including the A1 Grand Prix car based on the Ferrari F2004, the poor crowd at the Turkish Grand Prix and McLaren’s painfully bad PR. Plus a shameless plug for my interview with Sir Stirling Moss and more.
Giancarlo Fisichella reckons Sebastien Bourdais caused him to crash at the start of the Turkish Grand Prix. Fisichella said: I made a good start but then under braking Bourdais changed direction twice and I couldn’t brake in time and went into the back of the Williams Looking at the video it’s hard to agree with … Continue reading Video: Fisichella blames Bourdais for crash with Nakajima in Turkish GP
Something odd is going on with the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association at the moment. There have been stories going around since last year about some of its members being unhappy that certain drivers haven’t joined what is effectively the drivers’ union. The driver mentioned most often has been Lewis Hamilton, who over the weekend denied … Continue reading Has the FIA superlicence price hike caused a split within the GPDA?
Nik left an interesting comment in the Turkish Grand Prix Facts and Stats article about how much of an advantage the drivers who started on the clean side of the grid had at Istanbul: Hamilton (third) overtook Kovalainen (second) Kubica (fifth) overtook Raikkonen (fourth) and Kovalainen (second) Alonso (seventh) overtook Webber (sixth) and Raikkonen (fourth) … Continue reading Debate: Are some starting grids unfair?
This is the first picture of Ferrari’s A1 Grand Prix car for the 2008-09 season. View a high-resolution image of the 2008 Ferrari A1GP car According to the A1 organsiers the car is based on Ferrari’s 2004 machine, the F2004. The two certainly bear a close similarity (see below for image and press release).
I’ve had a rummage through the data and pulled out some interesting statistics and facts on the Turkish Grand Prix. Have I missed anything? Post your findings in the comments. Plus the full drivers’ and constructors’ championship tables after round five.
Felipe Massa remains the man to beat at Istanbul after his third win from pole position at the track in as many years.
