Pedro de la Rosa in Force India car, signs of things to come ?

The winter testing has started and after months of speculations we finally got some live presenation of what the 2009 Formula 1 cars may look like. It does not look that good , and according to Christian Klien these are the worst looking F1 cars, ever …

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F1Wolf

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Canadian GP organizers ended talks with Bernie Ecclestone

As it is often case in Formula 1 the money and greed prevailed, the sport and fans are the loosers. Following the news coming out of Montreal on Sunday the chances that the Canadian GP may reappear on 2009 F1 calendar when its final version is released in December are now close to zero. Finding themselves far away from meeting demands from Bernie Ecclestone the organizers of the Canadian GP ended the talks aimed at keeping the Formula 1 race in Montreal.

Québec province’s Minister of Economic Development, Raymond Bachand:

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F1Wolf

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Magny Cours 2008

The decision of the Federation Francaise du Sport Automobile (FFSA) to cancel the 2009 French Grand Prix came as a surprise. At the same time however it was probably only a matter of time before someone came out cancelling a race. Rumours about some race organizers looking for a way out of 2009 calendar surfaced around the same time the Canadian GP was dropped. French GP did not feature on F1 calendar only 1 time, back in 1955, following the Le Mans events. There are several French regions and venues interested in staging the Formula 1 race (Disneyland being the front runner) but it looks dead certain now that there will be no Formula 1 race in France next year. What looked like 19 races season only 2 weeks ago is turning into 17 races one. Will FIA and FOM keep it at 17 or will they add another race in place of the French GP ?

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F1Wolf

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Will F1 return to Quebec ?

The decision by WMSC and FIA to omit the Canadian GP from 2009 Formula 1 calendar (without any explanation) caught me by suprise yesterday. Actually surprise is not strong enough word. I was truly shocked. I may be a bit biased here thanks to my visit to the Canadian GP this year. But the reason I decided to travel half way around the world to see that race was the fact that it simply has been one of the best races on the calendar for years. Now it looks like I may have witnessed the last one. Well, I am shocked but reading what others have to say be it on this site or on F1Wolf Club or anywhere else on the web it looks like I am not the only one whom FIA managed to shock.

What ads to the mystery of this sudden decision is the fact that even the organizers of the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal had no idea their race is in any sort of danger. The race was included in the provisional 2009 F1 calendar and unlike last year here was no “to be confirmed” tag attached to it. The official Candaian GP website at this moment bears no signs of any doubt about 2009 race. They are thanking fans for making 2008 race a success and even have a section devoted to 2009 ticket sales. The stunned organizers issued a press release yesterday:

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F1Wolf

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FIA today announced the 2009 Formula 1 calendar. Compared with the provisional calendar published a while ago there is one big change - the Canadian GP in Montreal is missing for the first time since 1987. There was no reason given (at least for now). This means that after inclusion of Abu Dhabi the 2009 Formula 1 calendar will have 18 races, same as this year. This also means there will be no Formula 1 races in North America next year. What will remain after dropping Canada is the summer break.

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F1Wolf

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There are no North American drivers on Formula 1 grid this year and it is hard to see anyone joining anytime soon. The United States GP has been omitted from calendar this year and at the moment does not feature on 2009 calendar either. Except for few sponsors the Canadian GP remains the only connection between North America and Formula 1. Here is a brief overview US and Canadian contribution to Formula 1:

1) First of all America created some chaos in F1 statistics . In the early days, between 1950 - 1960, the Indy 500 race was part of the world championship. European drivers usually did not take part in that race. Also the drivers and teams that raced at Indy did not take part in the European F1 races. The race was therefore pretty much irrelevant to the F1 World Championship. The Indy 500 winners from those years however feature in Formula 1 history charts.

2) Including the Indy 500 drivers mentioned above Canada and USA have supplied Formula 1 with 163 drivers. Three of them - Phil Hill, Mario Andretti (both USA) and Jacques Villeneuve won the F1 drivers titles.

3) The North American drivers claimed 50 race wins (11 of them are the Indy 500 wins), 54 pole positions (11 are Indy 500 poles), 53 fastest laps (again 11 of them are from the Indy 500 races) and 165 drivers made it to podium (here 36 came from Indy 500 as drivers could change in the cars those days). In total US drivers collected so far total of 998 points, Canadians 342 points.

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F1Wolf

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I finally managed to:
a) Get over my jet lag
b) Sort out the photos
c) Fix the crashed photogallery plugin or better installing a new one

You can view my Canadian GP photos - here is the link to the photogallery.

Enjoy !

F1Wolf

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The race start was little disappointing - all the cars made it and for the first 13 laps the race was rather uneventful. Lewis Hamilton pulled away from Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen. He looked like the man to beat. The only excitement came from Nelson Piquet overtaking every car that got in his way. But then Adrian Sutil spun off and safety car was out on track. Once the pitlane opened pretty much all the cars that were not on one stop strategy dived into pitlane. Raikkonen and Kubica jumped ahead of Hamilton after their pitstops but had to stop at the red light at the pitlane exit. Lewis Hamilton did not look up to check the light, he did not look ahead to check the cars in front him and hit the rear end of Raikkonen’s car. Nico Rosberg joined the party moments later and rammed into Hamilton. Kubica escaped unscathed but Hamilton and Raikkonen were out of the race…

Hamilton’s stupid mistake opened the door for BMW Sauber. It looked first the luck was on Heidfeld’s side. Once the race restarted he pulled away from the field helped by not that quick Barrichello in second place. After his pitstop he still returned ahead of his team mate but the “hint” on team radio about slowing down lighter Kubica made the trick. Kubica passed Heidfeld and never looked back. BMW drivers were definitely helped by misfortune of their main rivals but … they grabbed the opportunity and more importantly made no mistakes in a race that was all about not making any mistakes … Deserved 1-2 finish for BMW and clearly popular win for Kubica just about a year after his scary crash at the same track … Nick Heidfeld now remains the only driver without DNF this season … Did not make him to look too happy on the podium though …

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F1Wolf

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Following the troubles with the track on Saturday parts of the track were resurfaced the night before the race. And it was not only the hairpin but also the first chicane. I took these few photos less than an hour before the race start … Bizzare …

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F1Wolf

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BMW Sauber took full advantage of problems and some silly mistakes of their main rivals and scored impressive 1-2 finish in Canadian GP. Robert Kubica drove almost a perfect race and a year after horrifying crash in Montreal he scored the maiden Formula 1 win for himself and for the BMW Sauber team. Nick Heidfeld finished in strong second place ahead of David Coulthard. It was a also good day for Toyota with Glock in 4th and Trulli in 6th. Felipe Massa in my opinion drove the race of his life. Despite not much going right for him he salvaged 4 points from Canadian GP. Rubens Barrichello will be very happy with another point scoring race. Sebastian Vettel has proven that starting from pitlane does not rule out points finish.

Race to forget for McLaren … I have no idea what Hamilton was doing in the pitlane but it is going to haunt him for one more race with the 10 place grid penalty he and Rosberg were given for that mess …

Robert Kubica now leads the drivers championship four points ahead of Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton.

2008 Canadian F1 GP race result:

1. R. Kubica - BMW Sauber - 1:36:24.447
2. N. Heidfeld - BMW Sauber + 16.495
3. D. Coulthard - Red Bull + 23.352
4. T. Glock - Toyota + 42.627
5. F. Massa - Ferrari + 43.934
6. J. Trulli - Toyota + 47.775
7. R. Barrichello - Honda + 53.597
8. S. Vettel - Toro Rosso + 54.120

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F1Wolf

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