Formula One News — October 2007

Nigel Stepney says that his plans to publish the full story of his adventures at Ferrari, in a book called Red Mist have had to be cancelled because the publishing company was "put under pressure" - but he does not know who was responsible for that because the publisher is unwilling to tell him what is happening.

The Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo is a highly intelligent individual and he knows that whatever he says will be slavishly reported because of who he is - and because of the newspapers he controls. But his recent attempts to undermine McLaren's success this year by claiming that the British team has copied the Ferrari are utterly unfair.

Ralf Schumacher has announced that he will not be at Toyota next year. It was not rocket science to work that one out and one can only say that it was nice of the Japanese car company to give Ralf the opportunity to announce the news first.

The soon to be completed sale of Spyker F1 to Vijay Mallya and the Mol Family, for around $130m, is going to create some interesting changes for the team as desires of the two partners must be balanced. Mallya wants the team to have a strong Indian flavour, while the Mols may well be arguing for Dutch orange to maintain the support they enjoy in Holland.

For most of the season the Formula 1 lawyers has been waiting for a Concorde Agreement dispute to be settled over the question of what constitutes "a constructor". This is clearly defined in the 1997-2007 agreement and Spyker F1 is arguing that neither Scuderia Toro Rosso nor Super Aguri F1 are true constructors and thus should not get the benefits and indeed results that they have claimed this year.

The 2007 Japanese Grand Prix was a complicated business but when you boiled it all down it, it was the day when Lewis Hamilton put himself into a position where it will take a force of nature to stop him becoming the first rookie in F1 history to win the World Championship. Such a thing was impossible to imagine nine months ago and yet as the F1 circus heads for China it will take a major upset to stop it happening.

As McLaren is moving towards becoming the first team with a serious customer supply deal, the rival F1 teams are beginning to react, knowing that McLaren stands to get an advantage if it uses all four cars successfully as this will mean that the chassis in question will get twice as much testing as its rivals and should therefore improve accordingly.

Bernie Ecclestone told the F1 team principals in Fuji that Prodrive has the money that is needed to launch its bid to enter F1 next year - using McLaren chassis and Mercedes-Benz engines.

Jean Todt will have set himself for a fall if Fernando Alonso ends up at Ferrari in 2008. Todt says that there is zero chance of the Spaniard moving to Ferrari next year. This contradicts reliable sources that are saying that talks are taking place to get Alonso into the team alongside Kimi Raikkonen.