Formula One News — February 2009

The F1 teams were busy last week with two tests sessions going on: one in Bahrain and the other at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain. There were three teams in Bahrain and five in Jerez, leaving just Force India and Honda not testing, as neither currently has a car available.

There have been a lot of attempts in recent years to get an F1 team off the ground in the United States. None of them have been successful. It is, however, someting that F1 would like to see, and so people in power make encouraging remarks when such ideas pop up.

The French daily sports newspaper L'Equipe is reporting that Renault F1's chief engineer Denis Chevrier is to be dropped by the team. The stories can be trusted as Chevrier is married to L'Equipe F1 journalist Anne Giuntini.

Peter Windsor says that the new USF1 team will be launched on Speed TV on February 24. The new team hopes that the announcement of the project will result in more backing arriving.

According to our sources Bruno Senna has now signed for the Honda Racing F1 team - and an announcement that the team will be going ahead will be made soon. The team is expected to use Mercedes-Benz engines and Senna will be partnered by Jenson Button.

The testing in Bahrain has turned into an expensive disaster for the Ferrari, Toyota and BMW Sauber teams with sandstorms making it impossible for the teams to achieve any running at all on Thursday.

FIA President Max Mosley has written to the Grand Prix Drivers Association, responding to their press release of last week, which complained about the price of Formula 1 Super Licences.

Formula 1 drivers do not like to talk about their salaries - as FIA President Max Mosley discovered recently when he asked them to prove that they were suffering hardships because of his demand for higher licence fees.

The Ferrari, Toyota and BMW Sauber teams went to Bahrain this week to try to avoid the bad weather that has been disrupting pre-season testing in Spain and Portugal in recent weeks.

The Formula 1 media seems to have it in for Donington Park, although it is really not clear why this would be. Silverstone has long been the home of the British Grand Prix and while people are used to going there, it is not THAT special a place. It is not as bad as some in F1 would have you believe, but nor is it a truly world class venue. It is just Silverstone. Part of life in modern F1.

Although the Grand Prix Drivers' Association is advising its members not to agree to the new Superlicence charges, the campaigning will be undermined somewhat by the suggestion that three drivers have already paid up and applied for their licences.

At this time of year it is very dangerous to start prognosticating about which cars are fast and which are not. The drivers may already have an idea whether they have a car that is capable of doing well, but they have yet to run with the whole field and so no-one can really be sure.

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone says that he will not be happy if the German Grand Prix follows France and drops off the F1 calendar in 2010. He is not the only one.

Yorkshire's Croft racing circuit has been ordered to pay $1.2m after being found guilty of noise pollution. The ruling could result in the closure of the facility and could have knock-on effects on other racing circuits in Britain.

The French government has agreed to loan Renault and Peugeot $3.8bn apiece to help them through the credit crisis. The loan is being justified as a way of helping the two companies to finance the development of vehicles with zero or very low CO2 emissions.

Red Bull Racing has unveiled its latest F1 challenger with the RB5 being shown to the world for the first time in Jerez. The car is the latest to be produced by Adrian Newey and his engineers at Milton Keynes and the team hopes that this will provide them with the chance to finally break into the big time in F1.

The Formula 1 testing restrictions were designed to keep costs down. The limited amount of available running means that every test has become vital, not least because there will be no testing once the season begins.

The Formula 1 drivers has issued a statement trying to justify their claims that they are asked too much for their F1 superlicences. This is not a very smart move, given the economic hardships in the world and the vast salaries they are being paid. The drivers complain about the increases and that they were not consulted and say that the increases are "inherently unfair".

With Scuderia Toro Rosso having announced a deal for Sebastien Bourdais and no word yet from the team formerly known as Honda Racing F1, the future of Bruno Senna remains undecided.

For much of the last year Max Mosley has stayed out of the limelight in Formula 1, after the bizarre sex scandal that threatened his position as FIA President in March last year. Mosley believes that the aim of that scandal was to remove him from office and says that he believes he knows who organised it.

The Science Museum in London is to open a new exhibition highlighting how F1 technology can be applied to other fields of research and innovation.

As we predicted last week, Sebastien Bourdais will stay with Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2009, partnering Sebastien Buemi. The announcement is entirely logical given that the team will benefit from Bourdais's experience and from a little technical stability.

The FIA says it is continuing with its efforts to bring down the budgets in Formula 1 to levels at which teams can survive with minimal sponsorship income. The aim is to reduce spending to around $65m a year.

The automobile industry has been waiting with some trepidation for the latest US car sales figures to see whether the trends in recent months are continuing, or whether there is some hope of a recovery. The news was not good.

The idea that there might be a US Formula 1 team is very attractive for the sport. The United States remains the world's biggest consumer market and the sponsors in F1 are keen to get a higher profile over there, something which F1 has consistently failed to do for them.