BlogF1

A team with an enormous budget like Toyota should be winning championships and dominating the sport in Ferrari-esque style. Alas they are not quite there yet, but the other Japanese team - Honda - is showing signs of progress, competition is heating up and I’m sure the ever loyal Asian fans will be getting very excited. Continue Reading…

Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head, the main men behind Williams, have been due for a comeback for many years now. Since 1997 (read 1996 really), they haven’t shown dominant championship promise. And despite a flutter of wins here and there, the team appear to be lacking confidence and motivation.

I say 1996, the year when Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve dominated the championship, because in my opinion, Williams only managed a title in 1997 due to Mercedes unreliability in the back of the McLaren. And yes, they have won races since with Heinz Harald Frentzen, Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya. But they haven’t really relived the pre-97 times since, despite shaking up the drivers and the team. Continue Reading…

Let the battle commence! Between Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, that is.

Honda finally bought out BAT’s remaining half of the team last year (then known as BAR, now renamed to Honda) and now have a fully-fledged squad to attack the championship with. Honda have also hired Barrichello to partner Jenson for 2006, and seriously look like F1 race winners now. The team is really coming together, as are their facilities and technical knowledge. The team appears to be better structured and - well - it all looks rosey over at the Japanese garage.
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First of all, let’s remind ourselves that Red Bull Racing have competed in Formula One for one year, and one year only. In that time, they have managed to secure the services of a proven race winner - David Coulthard - who may have been a little desparate at the time of signing, signed none-the-less. Also in that year, they managed to score sevral points in the championship and managed not to embarass themselves on a global scale. Later in this same year, the team bought out Minardi to be used as Red Bull’s second Formula One entry, they secured Ferrari engines for 2006 and they blagged one of the worlds top aerodynamicists - Adrian Newey - from McLaren.
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Apparently, I can only have one voting thingy activated at a time. So whilst the “Where should Kimi go?” booth is open, the “Who will win the title” booth is closed. It displays a message if you click on it and will not record your vote.
The Kimi vote will only be up for a short while anyway (maybe a week), so I hope it doesn’t matter too much.

Ollie.

Update: It would appear you can vote on both - I’m obviously going crackers!

The Finnish press are currently up in arms over a supposed leak from a member of staff at Ferrari. The member of staff has apparently told Ilta-Sanomat tabloid in Finland that Kimi Raikkonen has signed for Ferrari for the 2007 season. The insider has also said that whilst Ferrari can announce the deal, they do not want to because of the issues raised when McLaren announced the signing of Fernando Alonso late last year.
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In a bid to retain some of the heritage of the teams past, BMW have decided to keep the teams old name for this year, which means that whilst Peter Sauber will not be seen leading his privateer crew with his customary cigar, his name will remain for another year at least.

The German car makers bought Sauber last year after a rather tumeltous relationship with Williams as their engine provider. Now they have split with Team Willy to go it along as a constructor, led by Mario Thiesson and the brilliant engine gurus at BMW. This is a big move for BMW, as they have been praised in the last few years as having one the best engines on the grid. Certainly one the most powerful with rumours hinting at 900bhp plus. But now they must also build a chassis to hold the power plant, and the car company enters a new era in their illustrious journey in motorsport.
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As I was kind of expecting, the Indianapolis circuit bosses are going to wait until after this years US Grand Prix before deciding on the future of the F1 event. After last years farce of a race, Formula One took quite a beating in the US and I am sure the event organisers are concerned about F1’s reputation in the States.

I guess we shall have to wait and see what the outcome is after the race on July 2nd. But Bernie Ecclestone has aparently looked into moving the event to Nevada if the worse came to the worse.

Via BBC Motorsport.

Midland F1 competed in Formula One last year after buying out Eddie Jordans’ Jordan Grand Prix. They kept the name and branding in 2005, but this year sees the proper induction of the team onto the grid.

The team managed a podium last year with Tiago Monteiro, but it was the facrical US Grand Prix, and realistically speaking a couple of points finishes would be all they could muster. And unfortunately, I cannot see how they are going to improve on that for this year. Like in 2005, they have the Toyota engine in the back of the car, but as they didn’t use it to its full advantage in ‘05, why would they do this season?
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