Monaco Grand Prix is a special event. If I ever doubted it I do not any more after going to see the race last year (my pictures are here). The special GP needs some special treatment also here, so I beging the Monaco GP countdown with some videos. Here is one, Ayrton Senna’s pole position lap in 1991:

To see more Monaco F1 videos visit the F1Wolf Club and feel free to ad your favourite Monaco F1 videos.

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The Formula 1 budget cap has been talked about for a while. Yesterday some details of the proposed cap were revealed. The budget cap is set to be introduced in Formula One from the start of 2009. Tony Purnell (FIA consultant) has written to all F1 teams with the figures the FIA would like to set. So here are the figures:

2009 - 175 million Euro (USD280 million)
2010 - 140 million Euro (USD224 million)
2011 - 110 million Euro (USD176 million)

At the first sight it looks like significant reduction in spending, especially when we think about Toyota’s current F1 budget in the area of USD500 - 600 million.

But … Force India wastly improved budget for 2008 season in “only” USD150 million or thereabouts. The budget cap proposed for 3 years from now is still way over this privateer team current budget and … now the fun part - the proposed budget cap is not about to cover:

- engine development
- marketing expenses
- driver salaries
- team principal salaries
- KERS development

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I know that all the teams are driven by the desire to get those few tenths that make the difference between F1 heroes and F1 zeros. But this is what happens when the teams continue fine tuning the ugly additions to their bodyworks, the ugly Dumbo wings get even uglier…

Yesterday I watched few videos from older Monaco races. Here is a clip from 1996, the famous wet race win for Olivier Panis in Ligier. How much nicer the cars were then, 12 years ago …

Even the new A1GP car looks better than the current F1 cars … The only light at the end of the tunnels is the fact, that what we see now is the end of the line for the current F1 cars and 2009 will put an end to these ugly winglets and wings and ears and all this. Season 2009 can’t come soon enough …

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This will be a very short post. I checked what is new at the F1Wolf Club and found a nice contribution to the discussion in the Singapore GP Fan Group - few videos from race simulator. If you want to see how the Singapore F1 lap will look, check the videos here, especially the last one !

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I know, it is too early to think about 2009 when are yet to go to Monaco in 2008. But some teams and drivers can’t wait to get things going, so here is the first overview.

First to Red Bull - Mark Webber is eager to stay with Red Bull. The talks between Webber and Red Bull have begun already according to Webber himself:

“We are talking now. I am free next year but I am massively keen to stay here, obviously.”

He is massively keen … Given his performances this year I would be surprised if Red Bull were not to retain him. No news on talks between Coulthard and Red Bull yet, but rumours of Sebastian Vettel replacing Coulthard from next year have appeared already. At the moment that is all they are, rumours …

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There are many ways these days for readers to socialize together. Not all of them work for everybody. I set up a Facebook Group but I do not find it too useful. One of the reasons is I still have not figured out what to do with it. I tried the Entrecard here, but dropped it after while from this site.Twitter has been much better. It drives some traffic to this site and also helps me to keep up to date with what other F1 bloggers are up to. One thing I did like however was The Bikers Place community created by Shaun. I borrowed the idea and created The F1Wolf Community - F1Wolf Club. I did not do much promotion yet. I needed some time to figure out the benefits for me and for the members. So what I think are the benefits ?

If you run a racing site or blog yourself you can use the F1Wolf Club to:
- shamelessly promote your sites
- have your latest posts featured on the main page

If you do not run any site yourself you can use the F1Wolf Club to:
- write what you want on your own page

And everybody can start a dicussion in the forum, set up a group, upload pictures, embed videos and probably much more that I haven’t figured out yet.

After first five days since the clumsy start the F1Wolf Club has already 15 members, few hundred photos, 2 groups and several videos. I expected that by this time I will still be only talking to myself so the start was not too bad .

To join, visit the F1Wolf Club. And do not forget to invite others !


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Felipe Massa’s Turkish GP win last weekend was his third in a row on the Istanbul track. I wrote in my previous post that this the first time this has happened since Michael Schumacher… Well I was not exactly right …

Michael Schumacher’s most recent hattrick of wins on the same track was his United States Grand Prix string of wins from 2003 to 2006. These were actually 4 race wins in a row. The hattrick came after the “great” win in 2005 …

There is however one more, even more recent hattrick - Kimi Raikkonen’s 3 Belgian Grand Prix wins in a row. Raikkonen won in Belgium in 2004, 2005 and in 2007. There was no Belgian Grand Prix in 2006.

Photo: Daimler Media

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First point to make about this race is - the race had flying start (see the picture above). Second - we actually had a race. There were cars that raced each other ! Third point to make about this race is a question - would Lewis Hamilton even start the race under 2005 rules that prevented tyre changes ?

Felipe Massa is becoming the King of Istanbul track. Three pole postitions in a row, three wins in a row. He is the first driver since Michael Schumacher to win three consecutive races at the same Formula 1 track … He had a perfect start and created nice gap between himself and Hamilton before even reaching Turn 1. He lost his lead later on in the race when Hamilton overtook him, but at that time Massa was already aware of Hamilton’s 3 stop strategy and did exactly defend hard. He reclaimed his lead after another round of pitstops and held it rather comfortably. Massa wnet on to win his 7th F1 race, 3th consecutive Turkish GP and second race this year. After 2 DNFs early on Massa made it to the podium 3 times in a row. He is now officially back in the hunt for the title.

It was not the best weekend for Massa’s team mate and the championship leader Kimi Raikkonen. His troubles started on Friday already and stuck with him for the rest of the weekend. He collided with Heikki Kovalainen at the start and damaged his front wing. He still however managed to record the fastest lap of the race and finish on podium. Nothing spectacular from the defending champion, pretty much a damage limitation weekend …

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Heikki Kovalainen messed up many predictions but there are still several very respectable scores this weekend. Ozzi decided to score 22 points yet again and yet again it was not enough to win a round . Steve Robertson holds on to the lead, but it is quite tight at the very top. I am slowly getting settled in top 10 .

2008 Prediction Game Round 5 Results:

25 - Klokan, daniel
24 - Queen Bee, Fisheye
23 - Rob The Flying Dutchman
22 - Steve Robertson, Ozzi, fantoci
21 - stew, F1Wolf, brabhamburger
20 - mcw3, shaun, gertjan
19 - igi, Arnel
18 - zblkhwk, Kaylen, Ben, fatfish , Ram
17 - nieuwe, xxMarinaxx
16 - deaddogsmoking, blazena, Rich
15 - kotenok, Arun
14 - Luis Miguel Sainz

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Felipe Massa made full advantage of his pole position and strange 3 pit stop strategy of Lewis Hamilton and won his 3rd Turkish Grand Prix in a row. Lewis Hamilton split 2 Ferraris and finished second ahead of championship leader Kimi Raikkonen. Solid race for Kubica and Heidfeld, points again for Webber, Alonso and Rosber. Sebastian Vettel finished a race finally …

2008 Turkish GP Race Result:

1. Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 1:26:49.451
2. Lewis Hamilton - McLaren + 3.779
3. Kimi Räikkönen - Ferrari + 4.271
4. Robert Kubica - BMW Sauber + 21.945
5. Nick Heidfeld - BMW Sauber + 38.741
6. Fernando Alonso - Renault + 53.724
7. Mark Webber - Red Bull + 1:04.229
8. Nico Rosberg - Williams + 1:11.406

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