Formula One News — January 2009

Edward Everett "Teddy" Mayer died at his home in England at the age of 73.

There have been stories in the last 24 hours about the French Assemblee Nationale voting against the idea of a French Grand Prix in the Yvelines. This appears to be a misinterpretation of the amendment in question which is a technical step designed to save time and make the project easier, but does not cast any doubt at all on the project itself.

The Internet is filled with people with evil senses of humour and the arrival of the new Renault, with its garish colour scheme resulted in someone deciding that Ronald McDonald would be a good team member.

The Honda Motor Company still has to decide what it is going to do with its Formula 1 team and the latest suggestion, confirmed by all concerned, is that the Japanese are talking to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform about financial aid to keep the team in business.

There have been lots of rumours in recent days that all is not well with the aerodynamics of the new Renault F1 car. It is always hard to judge these things at this time of year but the car was not quick in the recent test in Portugal, and Spanish newspapers are reporting that Fernando Alonso is not very happy.

The signs are increasingly suggesting that Honda is working on a management buyout of the Honda Racing F1 team and that the end of January deadline for completing the deal is really not that important as a result. If the intention exists for this to happen, and it seems to be the best option open to Honda, the completion of the paperwork is not the key issue.

The FIA's Formula 1 Race Director Charlie Whiting has been talking about the key regulation changes in 2009 and the implications of the changes.

The FIA has issued the details of the Formula 1 races this season and the Australian and Malaysian GPs have been pushed back to 17.00 in order to be better-placed for the European TV audiences.

If taking over Honda Racing F1 proved to be too big a risk for David Richards in the current economic climate, the Prodrive boss nonetheless refuses to stop pushing onwards and has announced his plan to take Aston Martin to Le Mans to beat Peugeot and Audi.

The French Senate has agreed a plan to authorise the construction of a Formula 1 circuit at Flins, in the Yvelines departement, just to the west of Paris.

Ferrari's parent company Fiat is tipped to take control of the troubled US car company Chrysler.

The GP2 Series has cost a great deal of money for the competing teams since it began in 2005 amid promises that it would bring down the costs from the expensive Formula 3000 macchinery, which was costing teams around $750,000 a year.

The Dutch financial services company, ING Groep NV, which supports the Renault F1 team, has run into more financial difficulties. The company received $13bn from the Dutch government in October to help it through the financial crisis. According to reports this morning on Bloomberg, ING will axe 7000 jobs shortly and its chief executive Michel Tilmant, a Formula 1 fan, is to resign.

The polesitting Brumos Porsche of David Donohue, Buddy Rice, Antonio Garcia and Darren Law won the Daytona 24 hours.

According to reports in Argentina, former F1 driver Carlos Reutemann will stand for election as president of the country at the next elections in 2011. The 66-year-old has already held a number of political offices since his retirement from the sport in 1982. He enjoyed much success in F1 with Brabham, Ferrari and Williams, winning 12 Grand Prix victories.

Jackie Epstein, a wellknown driver, engineer and team manager, has died at the age of 74. Epstein raced in a number of non-championship Formula 1 races in the early 1960s in a private BRM, but became better known later as an entrant.

Formula 1 drivers are not struggling for cash. Even the men on the back of the grid are mightily rewarded for their endeavours. Most of the grid are millionaires, in US dollar terms. Many are multi-multi-millionaires. They say they deserve it. They are the stars, they have short careers and they are what drives the revenues of the sport.

Former Formula 1 World Champion Denny Hulme died in 1992, at the age of only 56. Yet at home in New Zealand he has not been forgotten. As the McLaren name continues to be high profile in Formula 1, the Hulme name is making a comeback with a new supercar being named the Hulme CanAm in his honour.

The word in F1 circles is that Scuderia Toro Rosso has done the intelligent thing and will retain Sebastien Bourdais in 2009. The Frenchman will help the Austrian drinks company expand its market in France and will provide the team with some continuity and experience alongside the new boy Sebastien Buemi.

There is a lot of discussion at the moment about the planned Indian Grand Prix, which was pushed back to 2011 a couple of months ago. According to our sources, the plan remains the same for the moment with the circuit being built in the Greater Noida development, as was announced in 2007.

Mike Hawthorn had been crowned World Champion on October 1958 after the Moroccan Grand Prix in which he had been beaten by his title rival Stirling Moss, but had won the World Championship thanks to Phil Hill, who obeyed Ferrari team orders and allowed Hawthorn up to second place. He retired from racing immediately at the age of 29.

In recent days there have been a flurry of stories on F1 websites about the F1 teams getting less money than before. These all come from a story in the Financial Times which quotes Formula One group chief executive Bernie Ecclestone as saying that teams are going to have to accept less money.

The Algarve test is not something on which one can base predictions for the future, but the teams present will be beginning to understand which cars are fast and which cars are not.

The BMW Sauber F1 Team launched its new F1.09 chassis this morning in Valencia with Robert Kubica doing the first laps with the new car. The team goes into its fourth season with the ambitious aim of fighting for the World Championship title.

The Arctic Lapland Rally, which takes place next weekend around the city of Rovaniemi, will see a battle not just between Kimi Raikkonen and Mika Hakkinen, but the two World Champions will be joined by two other of Finland's best known F1 names: Mika Salo and JJ Lehto.