The final five races of the 2012 season will likely stage a head-to-head contest between Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, with the protagonists each pushing to add a prestigious third crown to their tallies. Mathematically, however, there are plenty of contenders still in the running, including Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg and even the beleaguered Romain Grosjean and Felipe Massa. But Bild newspaper confidently predicts German Vettel "will be world champion" after he won so dominantly from pole at Suzuka, […]

Ron Howard’s action-drama about the battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt for the 1976 Formula 1 world championship will be released in September next year. Rush is now in post-production after being shot on location over a three-month span in the U.K., Germany and Austria. The film is expected to be a success not only due to its storyline, but also because of the impressive team behind it. Howard is a two-time Oscar winner for A Beautiful Mind (Best Director and Best Picture), and […]

Toto Wolff has rubbished suggestions Williams might soon replace Bruno Senna with the team's rising reserve driver Valtteri Bottas. Finnish commentator Mika Salo last weekend said that, following an interview with Sir Frank Williams, he sensed the team was thinking about ousting Senna in favour of 22-year-old Finn Bottas "this season". "That story is bullshit," Wolff, who is not only a 15 per cent Williams shareholder but also Bottas' manager, told Austria's Sportwoche. The reports, however, sounded credible, given Brazilian Senna's recent struggle at the […]

Lotus is the "biggest surprise" of the 2012 season so far, Red Bull's team owner Dietrich Mateschitz has admitted. In an interview with Austria's Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper, the billionaire mogul was mildly critical of the "lottery" that is this year's championship, with Pirelli's unpredictable tyres setting the scene. "That is going to continue," Mateschitz said. "Then it will gradually turn into a duel between McLaren and Red Bull Racing," he predicted. "Mercedes are still not able to keep doing in the race what they are […]

If not for Robert Kubica's predicament, Felipe Massa would have lost his Ferrari seat by now. That is the view of F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone. He told Austria's Der Spiegel that Kubica, still recovering from horror injuries sustained in a rally crash in February last year, would have replace the struggling Brazilian Massa. "I think, for them (Ferrari), it's a question of alternatives," said Ecclestone. "Who, of those available to them, are better than Massa? "I am very confident that Robert Kubica would be […]

Team test driver Gary Paffett has admitted McLaren is hoping Lewis Hamilton has "sorted himself out" after a tumultuous 2011. F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone told Austria's Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper that the fact Jenson Button beat the 2008 world champion was the "biggest surprise" of last year's world championship. Fellow Briton Paffett admits 2011 "was a hard year in lots of respects" for Hamilton. "Lewis wasn't himself on track or off track," the 30-year-old told the Sun. "He had various problems with his personal life […]

Valencia and Barcelona - F1's two Spanish race hosts - are now in "informal contact" about alternating a single annual date on future calendars. According to the Spanish-language news agencies EP and EFE, it was the Valencian government's vice-president Jose Ciscar who made the comment last Friday. A day earlier, the president Alberto Fabra confirmed he had a meeting in London last week with F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, asking to keep the Spanish port city on the calendar but with "different conditions". Ciscar said […]

Bernie Ecclestone sounds fully committed to Formula 1's highly controversial return to Bahrain in April. The 2011 pre-season test and race were cancelled due to unrest within the island Kingdom, and some insist those troubles are not yet over. But the event's return this year has been definitively scheduled, and F1 chief executive Ecclestone sounds committed. "Lots of people are talking badly about that part of the world," he told Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper, whilst attending the Kitzbuhel downhill skiing event in Austria. "But Bahrain is […]

If he was in charge at Lotus, Gerhard Berger would not have signed Kimi Raikkonen for 2012. Former ten-time winner Berger, the former BMW motor sport director and Toro Rosso co-owner, admitted that the 2007 world champion's comeback is "good for Formula 1". But "If he is able to reach the top again I would say is 50-50," he told the Austrian broadcaster ORF. "I do not think the best," said the former Ferrari and McLaren driver, "if he decides to stop, does a bit […]

Kimi Raikkonen enjoys driving anything that moves fast. This has been a known fact for some time now. The stories about boat competitions in gorilla suits and snowmobile races under the pseudonym ‘James Hunt’ made big headlines during his first stint in Formula 1. The two-year long sabbatical from the rigid world of F1 allowed him to try out whatever he felt like trying, with the small difference that now, he entered events under his own name. In addition to his participation in the World […]

While taking part in the Swatch Snow Mobile race in Austria, Kimi Raikkonen lost control of his 75-horsepower snowmobile while approaching a corner too quickly and fell off, according to reports from Austrian website Sport10.at. The Swatch Snow Mobile Race is a five-day event held in the popular ski resort of Saalbach-Hinterglemm in Austria. The 2007 Formula 1 world champion is reported to have fallen on the first run in the event, injuring his left wrist. Raikkonen was immediately attended to by two paramedics but […]

The international press suspects Red Bull imposed team orders during the season ending Brazilian grand prix. The team has already strongly denied the claims, but publications like Spain's Marca suspect Sebastian Vettel pulled over for Mark Webber because of a "phantom problem" with his gearbox. "Webber gets the loyalty prize," said Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport. Agreed Corriere della Sera: "Vettel gave Webber the gift of the last crumbs after a huge feast and saved him a trip to the psychologist." Spain's Diario Sport added: […]