There is a possibility that much of this impression of F1 being boring stems from the “good old days” point of view; that things are never as good as they used to be. I am not so sure that the amount of overtaking in Formula One has really declined that much in the last 20 years, however, I think the regulation changes have, in general, been a success. 2009 was a fantastic season and 2010 is shaping up to be even better.

A number of changes for 2011 were announced in Geneva last week, one of which was clearly designed to increase overtaking. This moveable rear wing regulation has caused quite a bit of controversy with some drivers saying it will be dangerous and others saying it will kill defensive driving and reduce the skill required to pass.

After the Canadian Grand Prix there have also been calls for Pirelli, the tyre supplier for 2011, to provide tyres of a more extreme range of durability.

I am starting to wonder if enough is enough. Apart from Bahrain, this season has seen some fantastic racing at every Grand Prix, even traditionally boring circuits like Barcelona and Valencia. I am not convinced the rules need any further messing with.

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh expressed a similar view:

I think we have a great show, we should be careful not to spoil it, but we should always be thinking about how we create some entertainment. Both Lewis and Jenson have showed this year that you can overtake in F1 cars.

We like talking about improving the show. The show has been fantastic this year. We must not keep this obsession with improving the show.

Image: Red Bull

Related posts:

1. 2011
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I love the fact that every practice, qualifying and race session is available on the web and the red button. I do miss James Allen’s commentary, but on the whole, the BBC team is first rate. The 5 Live commentary for the practice sessions is also really good, especially Anthony Davidson (although I’d rather see him back on the track).

One of the things I look forward to each race weekend is the little video montages that the BBC put together. They are pure, bite-sized pieces of F1 goodness.

Just take a look at this one from Turkey commemorating 800 races for the Scuderia.

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On Sunday, the stewards declared that Schumcher’s opportunistic pass of Fernando Alonso after the safety car had pulled into the pits on the final lap was in breach of article 40.13 of the sporting regulations.

Section 40 deals with the rules for safety cars and here is what that particular rule says:

If the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed it will enter the pit lane at the end of the last lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking.

The confusion over the interpretation of that single sentence seems to come from the opening words: “If the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed”.

Here is what Mercedes felt happened:

MERCEDES GP PETRONAS were fully aware of article 40.13 which states that no overtaking is permitted if the race finishes under safety car conditions. However we believed that the combination of the race control messages ‘Safety Car in this lap’ and ‘Track Clear’ and the green flags and lights shown by the marshals after safety car line one indicated that the race was not finishing under the safety car and all drivers were free to race.

I can see how both sides could have come to different conclusions about this (although the ‘safety car in’ message and the green flags are pretty persuasive) but I’m a little disappointed Schumacher was penalised. I thought it was a gutsy move and a flash of the old Schumacher cunning that some have started to think has vanished.

I would also have hoped that Damon Hill’s influence might have swayed the decision in Michael’s favour. I don’t seriously think Hill would maliciously penalise Michael as some have stupidly suggested and I would have hoped the racer in Damon would have appreciated the move.

In fact Hill has voiced concern that the role of the driver on the stewards panel should not be to interpret the rules but merely to offer a driver’s opinion of any racing incident.

Mercedes seem to have accepted that Formula One can do without results being changed by a court after the race but they have scheduled it for discussion at the next Sporting Working Group and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the rule clarified to support the stewards decision.

My own view is this: unless a move is blatantly unsafe or against the rules then drivers should be given the benefit of the doubt and any overtaking should be encouraged.

Related posts:

1. Mercedes launch their new team (pictures)
2. Hamilton loses Oz points, Trulli gets his podium back!
3. McLaren given suspended sentence

Last week a report in the Times claimed Ferrari are using subliminal advertising in the ‘barcode’ design on their Formula One cars and drivers’ overalls.

Despite tobacco advertising being banned from the sport, Philip Morris have a contract with Ferrari until 2011. Ferrari also remain the only team to have a tobacco brand in their official name: Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.

Today Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo called it all a bunch of nonsense:

Frankly, I find this argument completely pointless and it is verging on the ridiculous to claim that the colour red or a graphic design which shows a bar code could induce people to smoke.

Now I’m not saying that when I look at a Ferrari I feel the sudden urge to light up, but the Marlboro red and white is so synonymous with Ferrari that I honestly almost see the Marlboro logo there.

I’m not saying Ferrari should be forced to paint over the barcode. I can’t see it actually encouraging any impressionable young people to smoke. And let’s not forget tobacco advertising gave us one of the greatest liveries in the history of the sport.

But let’s be honest. A tobacco company is not going to spend millions of dollars on sponsorship unless it thinks it is going to promote it’s brand. Ferrari is not a charity and Philip Morris is not stupid.

Every time someone reads the Scuderia’s official title or sees those oddly spaced white stripes, Marlboro will be getting their money’s worth.

Update: This reminded me of a great animation from Spanish paper, Marca. Watch how the Marlboro logo morphs into a barcode in 2007…

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1. Ferrari hints at a return to Le Mans
2. Ferrari unveil the F10
3. Ferrari call Max’s bluff

This comes after the news that the rotting zombie corpse that is the FIA/FOTA war has broken through the coffin of the WMSC agreement of last month, clawed its way up through the earth and is now stumbling lopsided down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, hungry for brains.

Today the FIA issued a press release after the teams met at the Nürburgring to try to agree on a final set of regulations for 2010.  It starts off positively with the following:

All changes have now been agreed subject only to the maintenance of the minimum weight at 620 kg and the signing of a legally binding agreement between all the teams competing in 2010 to reduce costs to the level of the early 1990s within two years, as promised by the FOTA representative in Paris on 24 June.

Great!  But wait!  What’s this next paragraph?

The eight FOTA teams were invited to attend the meeting to discuss their further proposals for 2010. Unfortunately no discussion was possible because FOTA walked out of the meeting.

WTF?  Seriously, WTF!?!

FOTA subsequently issued their version of events.

During the course of this meeting, the team managers were informed by Mr Charlie Whiting of the FIA that, contrary to previous agreements, the eight FOTA teams are not currently entered into the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship and have no voting rights in relation to the technical and sporting regulations thereof.

This is just bizarre.

So the FOTA teams are not entered into the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship?  Then what the hell was that list the FIA published on 24 June? This one here.  The one that says “The following teams have been accepted for the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship” and then goes on to list the 13 teams, including all FOTA teams.

I can’t say it any better than Joe.

Stop!! Who cares about this shit? What about the racing?

Image: Williams

Related posts:

1. FIA publishes list of entrants – shit hits fan
2. FOTA teams commit to 2010
3. FOTA teams to set up breakaway series in 2010

Last week, Keith Collantine at F1 Fanatic wrote a nice post about one of my favourite London buildings, the beautiful art-deco Michelin House on Fulham Road.

That building was the UK headquarters of Michelin from 1909 to 1985 before Sir Terence Conran bought it and turned it into the Bibendum Restaurant, named after the cigar-smoking, bicycle-riding, rubbery mascot of the Michelin Tyre Co.

But only a short walk away is another historic art-deco automotive building that Conran has converted into a restaurant; the Bluebird Garage on Kings Road.

When the garage was built in the early 1920′s, it was Europe’s largest motor car facility at some 50,000 sq ft.  As well as selling petrol and servicing automobiles, it also provided overnight accommodation for lady motorists and their chauffeurs in the two wings on either side of the main building.

The land speed record holder Sir Malcolm Campbell had a connection with the garage although it is hard to determine what it was exactly.  Some say the garage was where he built his famous ‘Blue Bird’ cars, others that he just sold cars there when he took over the Itala and Ballot concessions in London.

Campbell competed in Grand Prix racing, winning the 1927 and 1928 Boulogne Grands Prix but he is best known for breaking the world speed record on land and water several times in the 1920′s and 30′s.

His first land speed record was in 1924 when he piloted a V12 Sunbeam 350HP to 146.16 mph at Pendine Sands in Wales.  Between 1924 and 1935 he broke the land speed record nine times and on September 3 1935 he became the first person to drive a car over 300 mph when he hit 301.337 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Campbell drove four Blue Bird cars (his son Donald drove a jet-powered Bluebird in the 1950′s) culminating in the 1935 Campbell-Railton Blue Bird.  This car had a 36.7 litre supercharged Rolls-Royce R V12 engine producing 2,300hp.  The car was so powerful that double rear wheels had to be fitted to stop the wheels spinning.

Here’s a video of Campbell driving Blue Bird at Daytona Beach.

Below are some pictures of the Bluebird Garage.  The tennis balls are a Wimbledon thing.

Images: Conran & Partners, David Keen

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On the face of it, the FOTA-FIA war was about budget caps and two-tier regulations, but really it was about Max Mosley and his autocratic style of running the sport.  After Wednesday’s announcement, Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo called Mosley a ‘dictator’.

Max himself said:

As far as I’m concerned, the teams were always going to get rid of me in October; well, they still are.

Now the teams have their stable regulations and have got rid of Max, will FOTA turn its attention to his mate Bernie?

In March, there was a threat to boycott the season opening Australian Grand Prix over claims that the teams were owed tens of millions of dollars in unpaid fees by the commercial rights holder.  In the end the teams backed down, but there is no doubt that FOTA is stronger because of its recent victory and they may try to use the momentum to push through changes to the commercial side of the sport as well.

The teams have long been unhappy that they only receive 50% of the sport’s revenues and there have been questions over the wisdom of taking Formula One to half empty venues like Turkey over other older and better attended circuits.

Max will turn 70 next year and Bernie himself is 10 years older.  I can’t see Ecclestone offering his retirement any time soon and I don’t think the teams actually want to get rid of him but I wouldn’t be surprised if FOTA managed to wring a slightly more favourable deal out of him now.

Image: AP Photo/Gareth Watkins

Related posts:

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2. A weekend with Bernie
3. Bernie: Ferrari are idiots

The last few days have seen letters flying back and forth between FOTA and the FIA like paper planes.

On Tuesday the FIA published a lengthy essay on what it feels the dispute is really about, accusing the teams of an attempt to take over the commercial rights to Formula One and the regulatory function away from the FIA.

This prompted a letter from FOTA to Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone which sought to ‘compromise and bring an urgent conclusion to the protracted debate’.

Mosley replied with a letter of his own in which he essentially dismissed all the FOTA proposals.  Instead, he suggested that the teams sign up unconditionally after which they could get together to discuss any regulation changes that could be made.

Interestingly, the FIA have also published a summary of cost cap discussions that took place between the teams and the FIA in January of 2008.  In a meeting on 11 January it seems that practically all the teams felt that a budget cap would be ‘the fairest and most effective way of minimising the impact of the recession’ and ‘only Jean Todt (Ferrari) disagreed, stating that a cost cap was not achievable for his team.’

This document also has links to the minutes of this meeting where several team principals speak favourably of cost-capping.  For example:

Ross Brawn felt that the FIA and the teams’ albeit worthy attempts in the past to drastically cut costs had failed due to the fact that although technical constraints had been introduced to reduce expenditure, the teams had continued to spend in other ways. He therefore felt that it might be preferable to consider budget caps in some if not all areas of car development along with technical constraints as he felt that this was the only way to really control actual spend.

These minutes do seem to cast FOTA’s rejection of a budget cap in a new light.  Ferrari have always been against a cap but the other teams seem to have been broadly in favour of it, at least in some form.  It really looks, as many have noted, that this is more about Max Mosley’s governance of the FIA than cost caps.

The teams have until Friday to sign up unconditionally to the 2010 Formula One Championship and I’m still optimistic some kind of agreement can be reached.  I get the impression most of the FOTA teams would be willing to compromise.  Ferrari, however, have publicly stated that they won’t compete in 2010 unless the regulations are changed so who knows what they will do?

At least we don’t have to wait long to find out.

Related posts:

1. FIA introduce cost cap in 2010
2. Cost caps and rule changes
3. Ferrari’s secret agreements

When Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo first expressed his displeasure with the new regulations Max Mosley said “the sport could survive without Ferrari”,  an inflammatory statement that Bernie Ecclestone has been trying to smooth over ever since.

Could Formula One survive without Ferrari?  I suppose it could, in some form, but it wouldn’t be the same.  Ferrari are the only team to have competed in every Formula One Grand Prix in the Championship’s 60 year history and they are the most popular team, by far.

This is a warning shot, fired ahead of di Montezemolo’s meeting with Mosley set to take place later this week.  I hope that some kind of compromise can be reached, but whatever happens, it will have to happen soon.  The deadline for entries to the 2010 Championship is a little over two weeks away.

In their statement, Ferrari also made criticism of the way the sport is being run, specifically the way the FIA have attempted to force through rule changes without the consultation of the teams.  I have to agree.

Under the leadership of Max Mosley, the FIA has become an adversarial organisation that seems hostile to the very sport it is meant to support.  While Bernie Ecclestone is obsessed by the almighty dollar, Mosley seems obsessed by power.

If Mosley will not compromise and Ferrari were to leave Formula One, I’m sure other teams would follow them.  What would happen next is anyone’s guess but whatever it was, it is the fans that would be the losers.

What do you think?  Could F1 survive without Ferrari?

The Ferrari statement in full:

The Board of Directors examined developments related to recent decisions taken by the FIA during an extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council on 29 April 2009. Although this meeting was originally called only to examine a disciplinary matter, the decisions taken mean that, for the first time ever in Formula One, the 2010 season will see the introduction of two different sets of regulations based on arbitrary technical rules and economic parameters.

The Board considers that if this is the regulatory framework for Formula One in the future, then the reasons underlying Ferrari’s uninterrupted participation in the World Championship over the last 60 years – the only constructor to have taken part ever since its inception in 1950 – would come to a close.

The Board also expressed its disappointment about the methods adopted by the FIA in taking decisions of such a serious nature and its refusal to effectively reach an understanding with constructors and teams.

The rules of governance that have contributed to the development of Formula One over the last 25 years have been disregarded, as have the binding contractual obligations between Ferrari and the FIA itself regarding the stability of the regulations.

The same rules for all teams, stability of regulations, the continuity of the FOTA (Formula One Teams Association) endeavours to methodically and progressively reduce costs, and governance of Formula One are the priorities for the future.

If these indispensable principles are not respected and if the regulations adopted for 2010 will not change, then Ferrari does not intend to enter its cars in the next Formula One World Championship.

Ferrari trusts that its many fans worldwide will understand that this difficult decision is coherent with the Scuderia’s approach to motorsport and to Formula One in particular, always seeking to promote its sporting and technical values.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors was mandated to evaluate the most suitable ways and methods to protect the company’s interests.

Image: Ferrari

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1. Renault joins the boycott
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Any team that wishes to compete in the 2010 Championship must complete their application by the end of May and state whether they wish to compete under the cost cap or not.

While some of the smaller teams would be in favour of limiting budgets, the main area of concern for FOTA is that it would create a two-tier championship.  It is estimated that with the freedoms allowed under the cost cap, the cars of those teams that sign up could be two seconds per lap quicker than those of the uncapped teams.

Last week Toyota became the first team to declare they wouldn’t sign up for the 2010 Championship if there was a two-tier system in place but it was a comment by Toyota boss, and FOTA vice-chairman, John Howett that got me thinking.

The FIA own the “FIA Formula One World Championship” so presumably they can do what they want with it, right?  But are there procedures for changing the rules?  Regulations for the regulations, in effect?

This is what Howett said:

The regulations were announced but if you read the regulations, there is a proper process that should be followed and our understanding is that that hasn’t been done.

Article 1.1 of the 2009 F1 Sporting Regulations says:

All changes to the Formula One Technical and/or Sporting Regulations will be made in accordance with the procedures set out in Appendix 5.

and Apendix 5 states:

1. Changes to the Technical Regulations will be proposed by the Technical Working Group (TWG) consisting of one senior technical representative from each team and chaired by a representative of the FIA.

2. Changes to the Sporting Regulations will be proposed by the Sporting Working Group (SWG) consisting of one senior representative from each team and chaired by a representative of the FIA.

3. Decisions in the TWG and SWG will be taken by a simple majority vote. The FIA representative will not vote unless the teams’ representatives are equally divided, in which case he will exercise a casting vote.

I’m not really sure what this means.  Are the regulations valid for one year (and one year only) or do they carry on until a new set of rules replaces them?

If it is the case that there are “The Rules” which apply from their date of effect then it looks like the FIA cannot just arbitrarily decide to change them without consulting the teams.  In fact it looks like all changes to the rules must come from either the TWG or the SWG.

Maybe I’m missing something.  You can read the full regulations here, and if anyone can give me a definitive answer I’d love to hear it.

I’m starting to like the idea of a budget cap with increased technical freedom but the teams are always saying that one of the best ways to reduce costs is to stop messing with the rules.

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2. FIA introduce cost cap in 2010
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