Karun Chandhok GP2 Monza 2008

Earlier this year, at the height of the Mosleygate came a surprising piece of news from FIA - plans to revive the Formula 2 series. Thanks to the timing of the announcement it was almost immediately considered to be just another shot fired in the Bernie vs. Max war. Thanks to the planned low budget (£195,000 per car) it was also almost immediately branded as impossible. Things have however moved ahead. Jonathan Palmer’s MotorSport Vision has been selected to run the series and the plans for 2009 season were announced last weekend including the 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship calendar (see the bottom of this post).

Many people are a bit confused with this Formula 2 thing especially when there already exists rather successful Formula 1 feeder series - GP2. So what are the differences between current GP2 series and the planned Formula 2 championship ?

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F1Wolf

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Sebastian Vettel Toro Rosso

When the FIA first announced the plans to freeze the engine development back in 2006 the first thing that came to my mind was - “How can that be ?” The logic of saving huge money by not having to spend millions only to gain few horsepowers more than the theguys in the next garage made some sense. But, if some engine was superior in 2006 that would mean the same engine being superior for the whole of 2007 … Hm … Well, somehow the teams managed to get their powerplants on sort of equal level, the 19,000 rpm limit probably also having something to do with that. But how about if someone has reliability issues ? Will they be for a year(s) stuck with engines that blow up in every race ? No, they wwould not. For this reason there was a provison made allowing manufacturers to change parts at the FIA’s discretion if it reduces costs or improves reliability (creating the future loophole).

Then however came end of the 2007 season and FIA announced that the engine freeze would last for 10 years. What ? The pinnacle of motorsport stuck with the same engines for the entire decade ? That did not make much sense to me and I think few believed this would seriously happen. It is not happening, the freeze has been to reduced to 5 years only. Now it looks that the freeze is not really a freeze …

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F1Wolf

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The FIA announced the winner of the Formula Two chassis and engine supplier tender - MotorSport Vision (MSV):

MotorSport Vision (MSV) has won the tender to supply chassis and engines for the new FIA Formula Two Championship, following a fax vote of the FIA World Motor Sport Council. As part of the winning tender it has been agreed that MSV will be the promoter of the Championship as well as the operating entity for all of the cars.
MSV has commissioned WilliamsF1 to design the car, which will incorporate a turbocharged 1.8 litre Audi engine and be built to Formula One-level safety standards. The first prototype car is on schedule for its testing debut in November 2008, with the Championship due to start in May 2009 and comprising 16 races over eight events. Performance levels will be between Formula Three and Formula One and the cost per competing driver will be less than €250,000.

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F1Wolf

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Mexican GP 1991

FIA vicepresident Jose Abed hopes Mexico will host a Formula One race from 2010. He says Bernie Ecclestone has been authorized to expand the calendar to 20 races and as a result there will be room for Mexico.

“The changes will be made by 2010 and, if it happens, we’ll need to work hard to have a proper track; still, we must wait for Bernie Ecclestone decision to include Mexico in Formula One since there are already 18 venues, and two more will accepted.”

Mexico may be “ready” but it looks like Mr. Abed has forgotten something.The 2009 Formula 1 calendar already has 19 races with Abu Dhabi being the newest F1 venue. And then, in 2010, South Korea and India are expected to host races and that means that instead of having 2 slots on the calendar to spare, FIA is already now short of one. If the room for Mexico becomes available it will not come from expanding the calendar. Some existing races will have to make that room (see more on that in this post)…

Mexico hosted F1 races between 1963-1970 and then again between 1986-1992. This very Jose Abed with his brother Julian were behind that 1986 return of F1 to Mexico. Four cities - Mexico City, Puebla, Cancun and Tijuana - are said to be interested in having the race should F1 decide to return to Mexico again.

Melbourne (Australian GP), Hungaroring (Hungarian GP) recently renewed their contracts with Ecclestone, Donnington (British GP) has been confirmed as new venue for British GP from 2010.

Photo: Williams/LAT

F1Wolf

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Flavio Briatore spoke with Gazzetta dello Sport. Quite a bit of the talk was about the current state of Formula 1. But he also said this:

“The problem is that us, Renault, have stuck to the letter of the current regulations on frozen engines, and we’ve been buggered: others didn’t do that and are far ahead, while we suffer. It’s not fair.”

Is he suggesting the others are cheating ? Or is he admitting that Renault engine guys simply haven’t bothered to exploit all the loopholes in the engine freeze rules ?

Does he know something we don’t or is he simply being pathetic ?

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F1Wolf

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I have been checking out the FIA website and I realized that the 2009 Sporting and Technical regulations have already been published. Both documents are quite long (43 and 63 pages) so it would take some time to spot all the changes Max and company made. After a quick read it is clear however that there are still some amendments to come. Not much is changing in the sporting side, all the major changes are in technical regulations:

Here is some very basic summary:

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F1Wolf

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The FIA published yesterday the provisional 2009 F1 calendar. The most important facts are that French GP is still on calendar, US GP will not return for 2009 and Abu Dhabi will make the debut.

The US GP missing again is a hot topic of the moment. But when looking at the 2009 calendar I am already wondering what other track(s) will we loose in 2010 …

The sudden appearance of Valencia and Singapore street tracks was kind of unexpected. None of these venues were talked about much prior to their inclusion in the 2008 calendar. The rumours appeared and in matter of weeks the races were confirmed. As a result, although we lost the US GP, the 2008 season features one more race than last year - 18 compared to 17 in 2007. With Abu Dhabi the 2009 season will have 19 races. That is 2 more than what is believed to be agreed on in the existing (expired) Concorde Agreement. Judging from recent opinions of some team principals it is hard to see more than 20 races on the F1 calendar - “My firm belief is the season should expand to not more than 20 Grand Prix.” (Ron Dennis), “Twenty is about the right number.” (Nick Fry), “Twenty is a big number, but it’s a sensible number.” (Christian Horner).

For 2010 season however 2 new races are lining up - India and Korea. That would require at least one existing F1 venue to loose the race. If US GP was to return, it would require 2 races to go. And that only and only if the F1 teams agree to race 20 times a year … What race(s) are we not going to see in 2010 ?

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F1Wolf

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Bernie Ecclestone is definitelly not happy Max Mosley still heads the FIA. They may be old friends (if there is such thing as friends in F1) but where money talks bullshit walks. And so Bernie has opened his mouth. I was not paying much attention to details of his interview with The Times. Frankly I got tired of the whole Mosley thingy. But when F1Wolf reader nieuwe sent me the article by email I could not resist and read the whole thing.

Here are few quotes, some already widely discussed all over the F1 blogs, some not that much:

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F1Wolf

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With all the attention focused on the June 3 Mosley vote the other FIA related news went almost unnoticed. According to Autosport it looks like FIA told the teams that the popular bridge wings mus be secured to the nose or a support must now be fitted to stop it from flexing (as seen on the above photo of Renault taken in Monaco GP). Renault seem to have fixed their wings in Monaco, McLaren, Toyota, Williams, Red Bull and Toro Rosso will have to follow the suit in Montreal.

Whether flexing of these wings have made any difference in performance that I do not know. But the flexing front wings have been obviously visible on TV and this was often mentioned also during some of the live blogs. FIA seems to have brought an end to it now as they did with flexing rear wings back in 2006.

Photos: Renault / LAT, Red Bull / GEPA

F1Wolf

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Max Mosley has won the vote of confidence at the FIA General Assembly meeting in Paris. Surprise or should have been expected ?

Statement from the FIA:

During the Extraordinary General Assembly held in Paris today, the FIA Member Clubs voted on a motion of confidence in the FIA President.The FIA membership voted as follows:For the motion: 103
Against the motion: 55
Abstentions: 7
Invalid votes 4

Mosley got the result he believed he would get. The vote shows the vast majority of the FIA member clubs does not feel Mosley’s private life has any effect on his work as FIA president. The future will show whether that is the case or not …

F1Wolf

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