The shape of things to come?

Vettel dominated the first day at Jerez by a whooping 1.3s over the 2nd fastest Felipe. I wonder if Adrian Newey finally struck gold again after many "almost-there" cars?

On a separate note, pequeño Nelshiño propped up the timesheets yet again, further supporting the feeling that the aesthetically-challenged Renault is a dog. A good day for Fisi, though, who placed the new Force India ahead of McMerc, which bodes well for the likable Bollywood team.

• 1 S. Vettel - 01:19.055
• 2 F. Massa - 01:20.330
• 3 K. Kobayashi - 01:20.699
• 4 N. Rosberg - 01:21.171
• 5 R. Kubica - 01:21.292
• 6 G. Fisichella - 01:21.584
• 7 P. de la Rosa - 01:21.831
• 8 N. Piquet jr. - 01:22.011
  

Renault promote French youth

...by handing a box of crayons to kids from the French kindergarten and letting them design the livery for their newest challenger! (with a little help from those delusional "green" chaps at Bridgestone)

Vijay Mallya's Indian Rockers are back!

And the car they brought along for the ride is not too bad looking, both performance-wise and aesthetically. Or is it just that compared to the Renault every car looks like a Miura?

And I thought the FIA were serious...

...when they said they'd remove all aerodynamic appendages from the cars. And here we get Williams with not the already de rigueur turning vanes ahead of sidepods, but also with a twist on McMerc's viking horns. Seriously FIA - can't you just add this to the rulebook: "no shit sticking out of the car that's not suspension or the front/rear wing"?

Honda's back! (but I remain to be convinced it's trully saved)

At first glance this seems like amazing news - the Team Formerly Known as Honda is back from the dead. But look deeper and cracks begin to appear. The outfit will be "funded by a combination of sponsors and F1 commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone", which means one thing: no big manufacturer/millionaire is backing the team. Now, unless Grandpa Bernie wants to revisit his glory days as Brabham team owner, this just screams "shoestring budget" to me. And, in a delightful sense of ironic symmetry, this is exactly what Honda's B-team Super Aguri was at the beginning of only the last season. And we all know how far they got...


Still, on the bright side, the grid will be bigger (for now, at least), young Bruno Senna will probably get a shot at F1 and Force India will no longer qualify last in every event.

Blog coming back for 2009

We're not dead, just hibernating :) Coming back soon!

First pictures from Interlagos

Red Bull know Coulthard well, and so they got two nosecones ready just in case he wants to give some other driver a goodbye "nudge"

"All smile for the camera!" - pick the odd one out in this picture

The little man that wanted to be king - Massa has a lot to learn when it comes to looking confident

Preliminary weather report for Brazil

According to the weather.com 10-day forecast, the uber-preliminary forecast for the weekend is for scattered thunderstorms and a 60% chance of rain all three days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Now, as a Hamilton fan obviously this isn't bad news, but at the same time rain always increases the "anything can happen" factor. And with Lewis holding a 7-point lead heading into the weekend, I don't want "anything" to happen. But of course even if some horrible fate were to befall Lewis and leave him scoreless, Massa would still have to score 8 points for the championship, and I wouldn't bank on that happening in an all-wet weekend.

Jordan advises Lewis to "take Massa's wheel off" if pushed

Just a couple of days ago a rumor surfaced that Eddie Jordan may join the BBC's coverage next year, and already the rock n' rolling ex-team principal is causing controversy with his most recent comment. In an interview Eddie suggests that Massa may attempt a "professional foul" like he did in Japan, and if that happens, he believes "Lewis has to turn his wheel into Massa to ensure he does not finish the race either – he has to take his wheel off".

Now, that is an incendiary comment if I ever saw one. It is true that in the last 20 years we have seen plenty of what Eddie calls "professional fouls" in the title deciding races, most notably successful ones from Prost, Senna and Schumi in 1989, 1990 and 1994, respectively, and an unsuccessful one from Schumi in 1997. In the latter case, the manouver earned Schumi the image of Dick Dastardly of F1, and an exclusion from that year's championship. However, for someone like Eddie to come out and say outloud that Lewis should "do a Schumi" on Massa is a little bit much - he is an insider to the sport and comments like this just put F1 in a bad light. It is bad enough that there are conspiracy theories flying around - the sport does not need for (ex) top brass to openly endorse such behavior among the drivers.

And then there is the simple question whether Eddie is actually right in saying that Massa committed a professional foul when he hit Lewis in Fuji. In my opinion Massa did not intentionally hit Lewis in the same way that Prost, Senna and Schumi did to their title rivals. All he did was to attempt an overly ambitious / stupid move on Lewis that just happened not to totally backfire on him. So pretty much like Lewis' overly ambitious / stupid breaking manouver on Kimi into turn one, which just happened to backfire on Lewis. But than again, Lewis zealots are probably blaming god for being on Ferrari's side and punishing Lewis so that the championship battle could continue until Brazil :)

One more post about the BBC team...

Came across this interesting piece about the FIA having a serious problem with Martin Brundle and his various criticisms of their handling of various incidents. And they are suing him now? Seriously, this is what it has come to? Leave it to the FIA to always find new ways to embarrass themselves. As if picking favorites amongst the teams just wasn't enough, now they are engaging in witch-hunts against those who criticize their judgment on air. As the original author from the Daily Times wrote, "Mosley's father would have been proud." Ouch.

My own nominee for the BBC team...

Tamara Ecclestone!

Though on second hand she might distract the audience from other issues, such as racing...

Eddie Jordan to join the BBC team? Yes, please!

PF1 is now claiming that none other than Eddie Jordan might join Brundle and Coulthard next year at the BBC. Say what you will about rockin' Eddie, but I always liked his outspoken and no-bullshit approach to F1, and I feel he'd be great to listen too. Here's hoping...

In other news, James Allen, the gaffe-prone "pundit" from ITV started his F1 blog - you can check it out here. If this does not scream "I am out of the job and need to find a new occupation for myself", I don't know what does...

(source: PF1)

BBC lineup for next year final?

A recent article on PlanetF1 suggests that the BBC has finalized its lineup for next year, and it includes Martin Brundle. This is great news for anyone who is planning to follow the British coverage (I certainly prefer it to the US one) - Brundle really is in a league of his own when it comes to having a "feel" for the race weekend.

Unfortunately, PF1 also suggests that the BBC team will include Ol' Greybeard aka David "Whiner" Coulthard. Good for him, but I am not sure it's that great for the rest of us, but I guess if he contains his natural instinct to complain about everything than he may have interesting insights into the current F1 field.

As for the rest of the BBC team, I have never heard the names Jonathan Legard, Lee McKenzie and Jake Humphrey. Anyone knows who they are?

(source: PF1)

Did BMW's meisterplan cost them a shot at the title?

Up until now, Dr. Theissen's masterplan for BMW had been working flawlessly - in 2006 they became a regular points contender, in 2007 they were regularly fighting for the podiums and this year they achieved their goal of first pole and win. In true Germanic ordnung must sein fashion BMW then shifted their focus to 2009, hoping to get a head start on the competition. Sounds reasonable, right? It sure does, until you consider what might have been had they devoted more resources to developing the 2008 car.

Hindsight is a tricky thing - it's always easy to look back and pass judgment on whether certain decisions were the right ones. Earlier this season, no one could have predicted that Ferrari and McMerc would only mount half-baked championship challenges plagued by poor reliability, driver mistakes and FIA interference. But that is exactly what happened and due to these circumstances Robert Kubica wound up just 12 points behind championship leader Hamilton with two rounds to go. This situation makes me wonder whether BMW did they right thing concentrating on 2009 after mid-season?

To be fair to BMW, they did continue to develop the F1.08 after that win in Canada, but their effort was somewhat half-hearted and did not give the team the boost they were looking for. Had Dr. Mario been more of a risk-taker, he should have devoted more of the research budget making the F1.08 quicker still. Instead, the BMW slid back into the clutches of first Toyota and Toro Rosso, and then Renault. What's more, I speculate that BMW could have even gotten more money from Munich just for 2008 had the good doctor made a convincing case to the board. I have no doubt in my mind that with a quicker car Kubica would have at the very least taken the fight to Massa and Lewis, and then who knows what would have happened?

The real answer, of course, is that we'll never know. All I hope for is that by sticking to ze meisterplan and focusing on the F1.09 BMW will be able to win the championships next year, or else they will be kicking themselves for throwing out a great opportunity this year. Looking in hindsight, of course :)

UPDATE: Dr. Mario came out just yesterday saying that the F1.09 is "on schedule", which bodes well for the meisterplan :)

Alonso-Hamilton postrace handshake?

Been a little bit busy so haven't had time to gather and post my thoughts on the Chinese GP (not that I have all that many on such an uneventful race), but one thing that struck me as kind of odd was Alonso coming up to shake hands with Hamilton as he walked into the weighing room. Not that I think Fernando is that horrible of a guy or anything, but I was just surprised to see him eager to congratulate his (seemingly) bitter rival.

Haven't found video of it, but it is just after Hamilton hugs his brother and the 2 women standing next to him, then walks into the weighing room. Both Alonso & Hamilton still have their helmets on, and although I was pretty sure it was Fernando I still had to check this helmet guide just to make sure!

Again, I'm probably making a bigger deal out of this than it is, but it just struck me as kind of odd - "I'm doing everything in my power to make sure you lose the championship because I flat-out don't like you, but hey nice driving today, buddy!"