Super Aguri confirmed their 2008 drivers line up just in time to make the final chapter of the 2008 F1 Team Mates series. So at least early on in the season we will again see both Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson racing for the freshly sold team.

Takuma Sato - Japan
Born: 28 January 1977
In F1 since 2002 - Jordan, 2003 - 2005 BAR Honda, 2006 - 2008 Super Aguri
Best Result: 8th (2004)
Career wins: 0
Pole positions: 0
Podium Finishes: 1

Sato is the reason this team exists and so it is no surprise Super Aguri keeps him for another season. Unless he decides to leave himself I can’t imagine him not racing for Super Aguri, as long as it remains Super Aguri. He had rather good season last year. He scored the first points for the tiny Japanese team. His overtaking maneuvre on Fernando Alonso in Canada was one of the highlights of the 2007 season. Sato did perform some interesting racing stunts during his F1 career even with traction control and other electronics. It will be interesting to watch him without the driver aids especially with so little winter testing.

Anthony Davidson - Great Britain
Born:18 April 1979
In F1 since 2002 - Minardi, 2005 - BAR Honda (1 race), 2007 - 2008 Super Aguri (he tested for BAR and Honda from 2001 to 2006)
Best result: 23th (2007)
Career wins: 0
Pole positions: 0
Podium finishes: 0
Best race finish: 11th

After several years as Honda test driver Anthony Davidson finally graduated to F1 racing seat last year. His F1 race debut came in 2002 for Minardi, when he took over from not exactly quick Alex Yoong for 2 races. His next chance came when Sato called in sick in Sepang in 2005 but Davidson’s race lasted only for about 2 laps. While a test driver he was always quick during the Friday free practice sessions back in the days when team could run 3 drivers on Friday, regularly topping the time sheets. He did not do too bad in his first full racing season. He had few decent qualfying sessions. He even had a good chance to score some points in the mad race in Canada until his car hit some small animal crossing the track. Last year his goal were some points, this year his only realistic target will be beating Sato.

F1Wolf’s prediction for Super Aguri drivers in 2008:
Sato and Davidson will be pretty evenly matched and no team orders will be tying them up while fighting for 21st and 22nd place. Sato’s stats will be a bit better at the end of the season, but none of these drivers will score points in 2008. This all of course only in case Sato and Davidson remain with the team for the entire season.

2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Ferrari
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - McLaren
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - BMW Sauber
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Renault
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Williams
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Red Bull
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Toyota
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Honda
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Toro Rosso
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Force India

F1Wolf

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The waiting is over. Super Aguri team announced today they concluded acquisition talks with the Magma Group. At the same time the team confirmed Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson as their race drivers for the 2008 season.

Aguri Suzuki, team principal:

“I am pleased to announce our new partner and drivers finally at this late stage. I am looking forward to a successful and long lasting collaboration with Magma Group. About Drivers, as I have wanted them to continue their work in our team, I was not worried at all about our drivers for 2008. It will be a big advantage for us that we can continue working with them this year. For Anthony, as this season will be his second as a racing driver, I am expecting him to achieve some points. For Takuma, I would like him to repeat the excellent work he did last season. It will be an interesting season and we will try our best to help them achieve these goals.”

Well, securing the finances is one thing, but scoring points with only 3 days of winter testing may only happen in their dreams… But hey, they are still around and that counts at the moment.

F1Wolf

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I believe that by now Max Mosley is not the only person with serious doubts about the future of the smallest team on the Formula 1 grid. These are the latest words of Aguri Suzuki, the team owner:

“Super Aguri will not take part in testing in Barcelona this week because of elements out of our control. We plan however to particpate in tests from next week on the Catalunya circuit with two cars.”

It has been only a week ago that Super Aguri postponed their car launch planned for today. However team boss Aguri Suzuki and technical director Mark Preston were to be at the circuit to answer media questions. This is apparently not going to happen today…

There was a bit of good news last week for the team when they finally made it to the test track, although with one car only. Both Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson felt confident they would secure their race seat cotract with the team. Moreover Sato sounded quite sure the team will weather their current financial troubles. That feel good mood did not last for long …

There has been a lot of Superi Aguri rumours in the news - the rumours of team sale to Alejandro Agag, the plans from Indian consortium Spice Group to invest (or purchase the team) and place Narain Karthikeyan into the cockpit. Most recently Russian investment was mentioned in connection with Super Aguri. Nothing however have worked out yet and does not look like it is going to anytime soon …

The time is running out for Super Aguri and if no new money comes buy soon, the team’s future will solely depend on the mercy from Honda, Nick Fry late in January:

The intent for 2008 is that Aguri will be on the grid but clearly what Ross (Brawn) and I need to do, and are doing, is ensure that doesn’t detract from our primary job. At this stage, the intent is that they will be on the grid with Honda engines and support. Exactly how much of that support comes from here is being worked on at the moment.

The last thing the troubled Honda team now needs is a distraction and diversion of resources towards Super Aguri. I am afraid that unless there is some development benefit (more test mileage) from having baby B team on the grid, Honda may want to pull the plug on Super Aguri sooner than later. They do not need 2 teams at the back of the grid …

Let’s see how this develops further. The plans (to show up at the next test and run 2 cars) are just the plans, as was the car launch, as was the appearance of Suzuki and Preston for the media. Once the “elements out of our control” enter the picture, the future is rarely bright and rarely orange. Arrows could talk …

F1Wolf

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After raking up some mileage for Honda back in 2007 part of this winter, not exactly perfect test in Jerez in Januray and then missing out on several previous F1 tests, the financially troubled Super Aguri finally made it to the track again. Takuma Sato did 90 laps in Jerez yesterday in SA07B interim car and the team seems to be satisfied with the way the test went. The SA07B was less than 3 tenths slower than Barrichello’s new Honda RA108.

On the same day however the team also announced postponing their new car launch (originally planned for February 19, 2008). Instead the team boss Aguri Suzuki and technical director Mark Preston will be at the circuit to answer media questions. Their new car is still due to run for the first time in Barcelona next week but withoit the official launch. That means no confirmation on the drivers line up, no new livery yet. It looks like we may have to wait perhaps until he season opener in Australia to see how the Super Aguri new car, the SA08, will look like and who will be driving it.

Now this may mean bad news (no deal in sight) or good news (ongoing talks looking good) for the team. One thing is obvious - no sponsorship or investment deals have been finalized yet.

F1Wolf

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It was crazy enough idea 2 or so years back when Superi Aguri got conceived in order to keep Taku Sato in F1. I am a fan of Sato and I am glad he is still around and his move on Alonso last year was awesome. But still, the idea to create a multimillion dollar company for the sake of keeping one driver in F1 does sound crazy, right ?

This madness has proven to be contaigeous ! It has spread to India and another consortium around the Spice Group has openly admitted that the only purpose of their possible purchase of or investment to Super Aguri is to provide a race drive for Narain Karthikeyan …

Neha Rastogi, spokesman for the Spice Group:

“The discussions right now are centred on commercial feasibility. But our main mission is to support Indian drivers and give Narain the opportunity to drive in F1 again. So you can say the deal is contingent on this condition.”

People, please get real … Throw your money into F1 if that is what makes you feel good. But please choose the drivers based their skills …

F1Wolf

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The teams keep rolling out their new cars and the F1 drivers are coming up with their 2008 helmet design. Here they are:

Raikkonen, Massa

Hamilton, Kovalainen

Heidfeld, Kubica

Alonso, Piquet

Rosberg, Nakajima

Webber, Coulthard

Glock, Trulli

Barrichello, Button

Bourdais, Vettel

Sutil, Fisichella

Sato, Davidson

Fernando Alonso seems to be getting away from McLaren days and returning to Renault even with his helmet design. Jarno Trulli reduced the shiny silver surface with more red colour over it. Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica keep the designs very close to their 2007 styles.

Kimi Raikkonen’s new 2008 helmet (click here) is very similar to his 2007 one, but the white front has been replaced with some sort of “tribal” drawing. Anyone knows what it means ?

Lewis Hamilton keeps his yellow helmet pretty much unchanged. Heikki Kovalainen had to make changes to accomodate new sponsors the result is Alonso 2007 like helmet. Bourdais keeps his Champ Car yellow and blue with the addition of Red Bull brand.

Both Honda and Red Bull drivers keep the same designs as in 2007. Sutil’s helmet does not look too different from his 2007 one as well. Fisichella is another guy sticking with his traditional colours.

Please check back for updates to this post with more on 2008 F1 driver helmets. It happened before that drivers used different design for the winter testing and came up with brand new one when the season started, so these may not yet be the definite 2008 helmets.

If you come across good pictures of new 2008 F1 driver helmets that are not yet displayed here, let me know. I will add them here !

To see what the drivers were wearing in 2007, check here

F1Wolf

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The German magazine AutoBild reports that Aguri Suzuki has sold 50% stake in the Super Aguri F1 team to Spanish billionaire Alejandro Agag. The GP2 team owner Agag has been linked with purchase of Super Aguri shares for quite some time.

Super Aguri run into financial difficulties after their sponsor SS United defaulted on the sponsorship payments during the 2007 season. They managed to secure few smaller sponsors before the 2007 Japanese GP at Fuji but still had to rely on massive support from Honda to keep on going.

The entry of Alejandro Agag into the Super Aguri would definitelly be good news for the Japanese team. Whether it is also good news for Super Aguri drivers Sato and Davidson is a different story. Sato is probably safe but not so Anthony Davidson. Super Aguri repeatedly stated they would prefer both their 2007 drivers to continue, but haven’t confirmed them yet mainly because of the uncertainties about team’s future. Now when Agag may be on board I would not be surprised if his own favourite (whoever it may be) enters the picture.

What puzzles me a bit is that why would a deal like this be done before the customer car arbitration is over and the issue what cars can and can’t race in 2008 is settled. Fifty percent stake in F1 team does not come cheap. Why would someone splash out the cash before knowing if the team actualy has a legitimate car to race with ? Or do Agag and Suzuki already know something we don’t ?

Update: Audetto, Managing Director of Super Aguri has denied the sale report:

“We have had no recent dialogue or an ongoing relationship with Agag.”

F1Wolf

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After some period of silence few Super Aguri rumours surfaced last week.

First there was a suggestion in Swiss paper Blick that Luca Filippi is in the running for the second race seat in the Japanese outfit. The reason behind such move is reportedly 10 million Euros in sponsorship money Filippi would be bringing with him. This is probably not what Anthony Davidson wants to hear.

Luca Filippi finished 4th overall in 2007 GP2 season, racing for Super Nova.

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F1Wolf

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During the past month I published series of posts with the high resolution photos of all the teams and all the drivers (well almost, one driver is missing) of 2007 Formula 1 season for download.

For those who missed it, here are all the links:

Kimi Raikkonen
Lewis Hamilton
Fernando Alonso
Felipe Massa
Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica
Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen
Nico Rosberg, Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima
Mark Webber, David Coulthard
Jarno Trulli, Ralf Schumacher
Sebastian Vettel, Scott Speed, Vitantonio Liuzzi
Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello
Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson
Adrian Sutil, Christijan Albers, Sakon Yamamoto

Screensavers are also on the way. If you do not want to miss out, subscribe to F1 Wolf via RSS Feed or E-mail

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Honda

Oh my…. What a season. This is a team that under its old identity BAR Honda finished 2nd in the constructors table in 2004. This is the team that recorded its first race win in 2006. This the team who’s driver Jenson Button finished 3rd in driver’s table in 2004 and scored more points than any other driver in the second half of 2006 season… They hoped for further step up in 2007, if not for a title fight than at least few more race wins… To promote enviromental issues they entered the season with an unique Earth livery, with no sponsors messages on the car. The weight of the whole Earth was apparently too much for them to carry …

The Australian Grand Prix was an eye opener. The Honda cars were solid midfield cars, far behind the leading Ferraris and McLarens. Both cars finished lap down, barely getting out of Q1. The pattern for the rest of the season has been set. The 3 week break before Malaysian GP did not help them much, more the opposite. By the Malaysian GP the main competion for Honda began to appear - Toro Rosso, Spyker, Super Aguri and Ralf Schumacher. Getting to top ten in 2007 meant to the team about the same as getting on podium in 2006. Scoring points in 2007 was on par with race win a year ago. Podiums and wins were totally out the reach for Honda. On several ocassion Honda was outperformed by their baby team Super Aguri, racing more less the 2006 Honda car. That was the clear indication of how bad the 2007 Honda car, the RA107 was.

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F1Wolf

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