2010 Formula 1 Season - Official Discussion Thread

[JoostLamers]

Lewis and Nicole are a couple again

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http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2864394/Loved-up-Lewis-and-Nicole-back-together.html

[hannibal_rising]

So Nando says this is the best car he has ever driven.. So that means it's his/their title to lose..

What about the Renault in 2005 & 2006 ?

that is past. he wants to be the center of attraction, hence he said that

The best strategy on Public Relationships: Say that where you are in that moment is the best place of the whole world....

[phil1993]

Lewis and Nicole are a couple again

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http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2864394/Loved-up-Lewis-and-Nicole-back-together.html

Oh God.

[phil1993]

Ferrari slam FIA & new teams

Ferrari has attacked the FIA's push to bring new teams into Formula 1, in the wake of the problems currently surrounding Team US F1 and Campos Meta.

With neither outfit yet having a car ready to run, and US F1 hoping to miss the first few races of the season, the sport is facing up to the fact that it will probably not have as full a grid as it had hoped to have for 2010.

And in a column published on Ferrari's official website on Tuesday, the team has openly attacked the FIA's policy of encouraging new teams - labelling it as a 'holy war' – and suggests the sport may have been better off looking after manufacturers like Toyota and BMW, who walked away.

"Of the thirteen teams who signed up, or were induced to sign up, for this year's Championship, to date only eleven of them have heeded the call, turning up on track, some later than others, and while some have managed just a few hundred kilometres, others have done more, but at a much reduced pace," the Ferrari column titled 'the Horse Whisperer' claimed.

"As for the twelfth team, Campos Meta, its shareholder and management structure has been transformed, according to rumours which have reached the Horse Whisperer through the paddock telegraph, with a sudden cash injection from a munificent white knight, well used to this sort of last minute rescue deal.

"However, the beneficiaries of this generosity might find the knight in question expects them to fulfil the role of loyal vassal. All this means, it is hard to imagine the Dallara-designed car showing its face at the Catalunya Circuit, with Sakhir a more likely venue to witness the return of the Senna name to a Formula 1 session.

"The thirteenth team, US F1, appears to have gone into hiding in Charlotte, North Carolina, to the dismay of those like the Argentinian, Lopez, who thought he had found his way into the Formula 1 paddock, (albeit with help from chairwoman Kirchner, according to the rumours) and now has to start all over again.

"Amazingly, they still have the impudence to claim that everything is hunky-dory under the starry stripy sky."

Ferrari also makes it clear it is unimpressed by the situation surrounding Stefan Grand Prix, which is still hoping to secure an entry for this year's championship.

"Next, we have the Serbian vultures," continued the column. "Firstly, they launched themselves into a quixotic legal battle with the FIA, then they picked the bones of Toyota on its death bed.

"Having got some people on board, around whom there was still a whiff of past scandals, they are now hovering around waiting to replace whoever is first to drop out of the game, possibly with backing from that very same knight in shining armour whom we mentioned earlier."

And Ferrari clearly lays the blame for the situation at the door of former FIA president Max Mosley, who clashed with the manufacturers last year in his bid to encourage new teams in.

"This [situation] is the legacy of the holy war waged by the former FIA president," he explained. "The cause in question was to allow smaller teams to get into Formula 1.

"This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship, a third is being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand – you can be sure it is not the hand of Adam Smith – and, as for the fourth, well, you would do better to call on Missing Persons to locate it.

"In the meantime, we have lost two constructors along the way, in the shape of BMW and Toyota, while at Renault, there's not much left other than the name. Was it all worth it?"

Ferrari's criticism of the new teams situation is not new, with the Italian outfit having claimed back in May last year that F1 would perhaps be better off rebranding itself as 'Formula GP3' if the grid became full of the new outfits who had originally lodged entries early last year.

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http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81651

[blizzard]

Lol, that´s outspoken

If these words are really from Ferrari than it´s harsh stuff.

But I mean especially USF1 disappointed us so much, didn´t they?

All that talking but no end-product.

Campos were the wrong choice by the FIA and everyone knew it, I mean it´s a huge difference whether you run a GP2 team or an F1 team.

Superfund or Prodrive might have been better.

[hannibal_rising]

Alonso happy to uncover 2007 'spygate'
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81650

Let me understand this. He was one of the people that had that Ferraris' information, and as it was knew then, he and De la Rosa had the intention of using it, instead of tell FIA they had that information... and now he say he was on the right side?
He helped the FIA when they were discovered only... he never had the intention previously.

Fernando, you are good driver, but you are not a nice person...

[phil1993]

I still never quite understand the seriousness of spygate. For one specific reason: The information was GIVEN to Coughlan by Nigel Stepney, then an employee of Ferrari. Yes, the fact that McLaren used the data was not good, but I don't believe they deserved such a hefty fine and a WCC DQ. They didn't steal it did they?

[hannibal_rising]

I still never quite understand the seriousness of spygate. For one specific reason: The information was GIVEN to Coughlan by Nigel Stepney, then an employee of Ferrari. Yes, the fact that McLaren used the data was not good, but I don't believe they deserved such a hefty fine and a WCC DQ. They didn't steal it did they?

That's the point. Seems that nobody remember that someone from Ferrari offered the information... Nobody ever asked why that happened.

[JoostLamers]

Such a heavy fine in comparison to the race fixing Renault team.. Absolutely ridiculous, once again the FIA showed they are biased

[blizzard]

I still never quite understand the seriousness of spygate. For one specific reason: The information was GIVEN to Coughlan by Nigel Stepney, then an employee of Ferrari. Yes, the fact that McLaren used the data was not good, but I don't believe they deserved such a hefty fine and a WCC DQ. They didn't steal it did they?

I think this is a classic case of using insider information. In that matter it isn´t necessary to "steal" the onformation, the pure fact that you were given insider information and you decided to use them is an infringement.

It´s derivated from the stock market I think. Let´s say iceman1 works for AT&T and he has some serious information that only an insider can have. He now approaches you phil and gives you the advice to set a depot up and buy AT&T shares for 50000 pounds. You follow his advice and do the transactions and benefit from it. Others who didn´t have the information couldn´t benefit. So it´s a classic case of insider-business which is unfair and therefore forbidden and penalized.

But hey it´s many years ago now. Let´s just forget about it. Both neither Ferrari nor McLaren are angels. Nobody in F1 is.
And I´m not claiming a case year pro or contra the FIA sentence, I´m just trying to explain why they might have made that decision.
Of course it´s not very fair in comparison with the Renault sentence, but we all know it. This world isn´t fair.

I think the more heavy names are involved the more drastic the sentence is.

An example for that is: Back in 2003 Rio Ferdinand missed a drugs test and got an 8 months ban for it. He didn´t even dope himself or something, he just missed the test and received an 8 months ban. Just because he was a very famous footballer playing for a very famous team.
2 other players missed a drugs test in England that year, but they played in the third division, so they only received a 1 month ban each.
In Italy several players were caught doping, but they got away lighetly...

[iceman1]

Well it seems that Alonso is Free, another Interview with him

Alonso : My Father Was Right

Spoiler:

Fernando Alonso: 'My father was right – Ferrari gives you a special feeling'Thw twice world champions is relishing a new lease of life at the most famous team in Formula One


At the end of another draining day Fernando Alonso has one last gauntlet to face. As the winter sun fades across an empty track at Jerez, an hour south of Seville, a ­chattering throng of men and women huddle outside the Ferrari garage. They are Italian and Spanish; and their fervour is uniform.

When the door finally opens, and the two-time world champion and new star of Ferrari emerges, they engulf him. Alonso has worked relentlessly all day, ­ completing 132 laps of testing in a car that has encouraged many bookmakers to install him as a narrow favourite to win this year's drivers' championship. Yet his walk to the Ferrari motorhome looks more taxing.

The 28-year-old smiles politely, stopping every few steps to accept an embrace from a Spanish supporter or to have his photograph taken alongside an entranced Italian fan, but his relief is obvious when he escapes. In an office tucked away at the back of Ferrari's gleaming enclave, Alonso shakes his head. He might have won ­successive titles for Renault – in 2005 and 2006 – and been subsequently embroiled in the "Spygate" and "Crashgate" ­controversies that scarred ­Formula One, but driving for Ferrari is an unusually intense experience.

"My father always told me this would happen," Alonso remembers. "He said, 'If you race for Ferrari then you can retire. Your life is complete.' So after I won my two championships for Renault I said, 'I'm happy now – my career is complete.' And he said, 'No, no, if you drive for Ferrari people will forget the championships. They will remember you as a Ferrari driver.' I said, 'OK, Papa, we'll see.' Now I think he was right. Ferrari gives you a special feeling."

A low-key day of testing offers only a fleeting snapshot of all that awaits Alonso when the new season starts two weeks on Sunday in Bahrain. At least he is suitably equipped to withstand the scrutiny, for he has galvanised a previously non-existent Spanish zeal for Formula One. His fame now prevents him from living in Spain but Alonso derives real pride from the fact that 36,400 fans watched him dominate a routine practice day at Valencia this month, outnumbering those who had attended last year's Turkish grand prix.

"It was a hard battle when I started," Alonso says. "There was nothing. When I raced at Minardi in my first year [2001] my family had to watch me on German TV. In Spain there were no TV rights for Formula One. Now I think the attention on me here will go up even more. But the biggest difficulty will be outside Spain. When I race in Australia or Korea or Japan I know it will be a big change for me because Ferrari fans are worldwide. It's very nice if you win but it's not so good if you lose. All this is part of being a Ferrari driver."

Alonso believes his bruising experience in 2007, when partnering an apparently favoured rookie in Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, will help him to adapt to ­Ferrari's pressurised environment. "2007 was very difficult but I learnt a lot personally. It was good for my career to take that step of joining them and growing up. I learnt how to work with a team and also to ­withstand the media pressure. The difficulties I had were coming from the team and the media. Now I am much more prepared for everything in Formula One – and in life as well.

"But at the time McLaren and Ferrari were fighting each other and it was very close. In the end I think we had the better car but we finished ­second and third [with Hamilton and Alonso both just one point behind Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen]. Unfortunately we did something wrong."

Bitter infighting cost McLaren the championship, while an engineer's appropriation of technical data from Ferrari almost brought down the entire company. "With the spy history I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Alonso says. "But I was very happy to help the FIA discover everything."

As a result McLaren were excluded from that season's constructors' championship and were fined a record $100m. And last year, even more damagingly, it was proved that Alonso's team-mate at Renault, Nelson Piquet Jr, had crashed his car deliberately at the 2008 Singapore grand prix. That blatant ­cheating forced the introduction of a safety car, and Alonso was the unwitting ­beneficiary as he went on to win the race.

Alonso's position was muddied further by the fact that Flavio Briatore, Renault's team principal, was his manager. Briatore has just won an appeal against his permanent expulsion from the sport but Alonso agrees that "it was a bad season for F1 last year". He adds: "Crashgate was not easy. Flavio is a friend. I have been working with him many years now. So for all the [legal] decisions that go well for him I am happy. But I don't know everything about his case."

Does he expect Briatore to return to the sport? Alonso looks down and shrugs. "I have no idea." Surely he was shocked that Briatore, Renault's chief engineer, Pat Symonds, and Piquet could resort to such squalid and dangerous tactics? "It is in the past," Alonso murmurs evasively.

But Felipe Massa, his new team-mate at Ferrari, remains mortified that the debacle cost him the 2008 drivers' title by a single point. Has he discussed the implications of Crashgate with Massa? "No," Alonso says. That answer is predictable – especially against a typically gossipy Formula One backdrop which implies that the relationship between Alonso and Massa is strained. "People are only writing these things because they know we are very strong. Felipe and I work for the team."

They have, however, had many fierce battles in the past. "I have the same with everybody else," he smiles. "After so many years of course I have battled with Felipe. It's the way it is – and we'll keep having these fights. But Michael Schumacher and [Nico] Rosberg will have fights at Mercedes. I am sure Lewis and Jenson Button will have fights. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel will have fights at Red Bull – in fact they were fighting last year already. But no one talks about this. They talk about it with Ferrari because we are in a good position."

Button, like Alonso, arrived at McLaren as the reigning world champion and it is easy to imagine tensions between him and Hamilton. "We'll see," Alonso says. "Obviously I don't know how McLaren is now but if he arrived in my time then, for sure, it would be very tough for him. But, hopefully, it's now better for Jenson because I learned a lot from that season and McLaren did as well."

The return of Schumacher will be as intriguing a sub-plot as the rivalries within McLaren and Ferrari. "I was very surprised when I first heard Michael was coming back. But our lives are so intense that when you are at home it's difficult to get used to a normal life. So if you get an opportunity to come back after three years maybe you can't say no. And it's true that since Michael left I haven't won any championships. So hopefully this is a good sign for me. Maybe there is some relationship between Michael and my success."

Alonso's good humour can be attributed to the fact that he believes his Ferrari is the best car he has ever driven – and that he has escaped a dispiriting situation at Renault where, last year, he finished a distant ninth in the championship. "I knew I was only fighting for seventh or eighth but it was important to learn from that. I have no doubt I am a better driver now."

He is also stimulated by his outside interest in creating a new Tour de France team with his friend Alberto Contador, who won the race in 2007 and 2009. "It's a project for me – a kind of dream I have because I love cycling. Creating a top team and being in a position to win the Tour de France will give me a nice feeling. But I know it is not easy to create a top team from zero. You need good riders, good staff, a lot of preparation and, most important, a lot of sponsors. So I don't think we are in the right moment to start a project like this, because of the world economy."

Would he wait until he has retired from Formula One before he attempts to fulfil his Tour fantasy? "No, it can happen at the same time. It is something Alberto and I can work on. As I said I'm very open. I know this year he is with Astana but from next year onwards, for sure, if there is an opportunity I will be very interested. I think he will be interested as well."

Did he train alongside the remorseless Contador in the winter? "He invited me to train with him a couple of times but I was always trying to have something else to do that day! I trained with the Olympic champion Samuel Sánchez, who is from my city [Ovideo], and with some of ­Alberto's team‑mates from Astana."

Before he can chase down a possible Tour triumph as a team director, Alonso looks ready for the most absorbing Formula One season in years. "I expect Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull to be big contenders. But we are very happy where we are at Ferrari."

Even some British bookmakers have made him favourite for the title, ahead of the last two world champions in Hamilton and Button. Would it be wise to put a bet on him? Alonso laughs and stretches out his hand. "Put the money on me now…"

[phil1993]

Sauber aren't on the latest FIA entry list

[iceman1]

Looking at their Official website it looks like they're going with the BMW theme this season.

[phil1993]

Yes, but they're not on the entry list

Spoke to official sources who're still hopeful of a 26-car grid at the first race. Presumably that would be the Grand Prix of Narnia…

[sdutt]

Yes, but they're not on the entry list

Spoke to official sources who're still hopeful of a 26-car grid at the first race. Presumably that would be the Grand Prix of Narnia…

now whats going on? it is frustrating seeing the politics going on these days