Rubens Barrichello - is the end of his long F1 career near ?

The 2009 grid is filling up. BMW Sauber announcement last week they would continue with Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld in 2009 means that half of the current teams has confirmed both their drivers for next season. Ferrari, McLaren, BMW Sauber and Williams will enter 2009 season with unchanged race drivers line ups. The only confirmed change so far is Sebastian Vettel replacing retiring David Coulthard in Red Bull. And although there has been no official confirmation from Toyota yet, the fact that Kazuki Nakajima remains with Williams for another season may be a clear indication that both Glock and Trulli will stay on (as widely expected anyway).

So, 6 teams and 12 seats are but there are still 8 question marks left:

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F1Wolf

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Fernando Alonso Japanese GP 2008

Against all the odds Fernando Alonso won his second race in row after the title contenders got it all wrong. Alonso now has as many wins as Kimi Raikkonen this year … Robert Kubica finished second, Kimi Raikkonen returned to the podium in third place. Kubica keeps himself in the title fight but Kimi is now officially out. Nelson Piquet seems to serious about keeping his Renault F1 drive after finishing 4th. Felipe Massa claimed one point for 8th (pending stewards investigation for the Massa vs Bourdais incident). Lewis Hamilton just aboyt outlapped himself on the last lap and scored zero. As it stands 6 points separate Hamilton and Massa. The drive through penalties for Hamilton and Massa will however probably be the main talking points of this race (videos of the incidents involving Massa and Hamilton at the bottom of this post) …

Update: Sebastien Bourdais was given 25 seconds penalty for his out-of-the-pitlane tussle with Felipe Massa. As a result Bourdais dropped to 10th place, Massa was elevated to 7th and Mark Webber to 8th, Heidfeld to 9th. The gap between Massa and Hamilton is now only 5 points … Yet another talking point …

2008 Japanese F1 GP Result:

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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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Kazuki Nakajima, Williams

We entered the last month of 2008 Formula 1 season and after a short period of silence the drivers market there seems to be a lot happening on drivers market.

Williams team confirmed yesterday their 2009 drivers line up will remain the same as this year - Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima. Rosberg’s drive has been confirmed for a while already, Nakajima being the Toyota boy doing a decent rookie job was expected to continue. No real surprises here.

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Fernando Alonso - 2008 Singapore GP Winner

It was a great weekend in Singapore and the whole experience deserves a special post (coming soon ). This review however will focus on the race only.

Following his technical problems in second the part of qualifying Fernando Alonso had to start from lowly P15. It had to be great disappointment after very promising performances in free practice sessions and Q1. His post qualifying words sounded like he will only be there on Sunday to get over with the race:

“The race is lost. You can’t overtake here and I’m starting from 15th, so I will be going out just to lap the track, but it’s over already. If there are 10 or 12 retirements and there are safety cars… but there are no miracles. We have to do a better job on Saturday, especially on tracks like this where you can’t overtake. We said all weekend that starting from eighth or ninth would be a problem, so starting from 15th it’s all over.”

But then Sunday came and he looked very relaxed on the grid. When the commentator on the track asked him about his feelings before the race that seemed to be ruined before it even started, Alonso’s replied with a smile on his face - “who knows, perhaps there will be a safety car and we will get lucky” (this is not the exact quote). He had no idea …

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Last Sunday Reanult took their F1 cars to the streets of Ukrainian capital Kiev. Estimated 60,000 people turned out to watch the Formula 1 cars for the first time ever in Ukraine. Renault’s test drivers Sakond Yamamoto and Romain Grosjean were behind the wheel. Check out the high resolution photogallery (inside this post) !

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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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Fernando Alonso

Is that possible ? If the words in F1 paddock and speculations are to be believed it is not only possible but dead certain.

Word in Monaco paddock back in May was that Fernando Alonso inked a deal with Ferrari that would see the double world champion racing in the red car from 2010. Whom would he replace was not said that time. Just for the record, Felipe Massa will still be under contract with Ferrari in 2010, Kimi Raikkonen will not, unless he signs some extension.

The speculations that emerged shortly after the Belgian GP claim that Fernando Alonso just signed three years deal with BMW Sauber and would partner his buddy Robert Kubica from 2009. (There were almost immediately also speculations sending Nick Heidfeld to Renault but that is another story). Official announcement is to come after Monza race.

So, it is BMW Sauber in 2009 and then both BMW Sauber and Ferrari from 2010 for Fernando Alonso. Who would have predicted that .

Photo: Renault/LAT

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However unlikely it might have looked few weeks ago there may be some (not much but some) Honda logic behind Alonso to Honda move. But as it has become Fernando’s habit, he keeps sending out very conflicting signals or whatever he says is twisted and edited by the media. As a result his mind is very difficult to read. On Monday it looked like the Honda move is very possible, after but then I read his latest comments to Cadena Ser radio on Renault and their chances in 2009:

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The shark fins spread like a virus. Only Williams and BMW Sauber haven’t tried them yet. McLaren are the only team who tested them but does not run them in the races. All the other seven Formula 1 teams are sporting this rather weird looking structure.

The shark fin fashion was brought to us by Red Bull Racing, probably courtesy of their design guru Adrian Newey. The aero benefits are not very clear. Some teams running the fin say it helps to clean up the air flow over the rear wing, some others say it helps the balance of the car, some say it does not bring as much benefit as some other not that visible updates. One thing most people agree on however is that the fin shaped engine cover provides nice advertising space. Let’s have a look at the fins and how the ad space is used by the teams (you can enlarge the photos by clicking on the thumbnail):

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