Archive for 'rumours'

Nov201004

Mark Martin

1

Will Porsche return to F1 with Williams?

The Mexican grand prix in 1991 was the last time that a Porsche powered F1 car raced. In the hands of Michele Alboreto and Alex Caffi, the Footwork Porsche cars failed to qualify for most races and when they did make the start the cars wouldn’t last long before suffering reliability gremlins. It was an unfitting end to the German manufacturer tenure in the sport, with them having won three world championships in the 1980s with Mclaren. However, Porsche may be about to put all of this right.
The appeal of F1
Formula One is still massively popular, with Formula One Management suggesting that a global audience of about 600 million people see at least some F1 action every single year. It’s appeal is universal and it has made global megastars out of the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso. Nigel Mansell can still make money from his association [...]

Apr201013

Rob

0

Briatore and Symonds could be back in F1 for 2013 as the FIA drop appeal

The FIA has dropped it’s appeal against a French court ruling that it’s punishment of Flavio Britore and Pat Symonds formerly of Renault. This whole saga seems to be based around an apology from the pair that means they now acknowledge their part in the scandal following on from the Singapore race fixing.
Their actual punishment now means that they can’t take part in any FIA competition until the end of the 2011 season and any F1 involvement until 2013. Apart from the fact that no F1 of any significance would want to hire these two after what has happened it remains to be seen what 4 years out from the sport would mean for an engineer/manager. Geoff Willis has already been commenting on the state of the HRT Cosworth car that was built by people outside of the paddock so would a four year exile have the same effect [...]

Mar201003

Rob

2

US F1 bite the bullet and try to defer their entry until 2011

US F1 have finally held up their hands and said that they’re not going to make Bahrain, they might next year though and so have applied to the FIA to have their entry deferred for a year. What on earth are they playing at? I think that the whole saga should just be put to bed now – you failed.
Why should US F1 get the leeway to have another year to make the grid? I think that it does depend on how the FIA deal with the last slot on the grid, they should give it to Stefan GP if they can make it in time and then give US F1 a backup slot for next year. If the FIA are serious on the number of teams on the grid then they can’t give US F1 a guaranteed slot for next year.
What will happen if they turn down the request? [...]

Feb201024

Rob

0

How the FIA failed entirely in expanding the grid

When it was announced that the FIA would be looking for new teams to bolster the F1 grid I was surprised – isn’t this a club where you have to know Bernie and have had dinner with him a few times plus have filled his pockets with gold before you can fill in the form? But no, they were indeed opening up F1, and they had a lot of applications.
The FIA (and Bernie) should have looked at the applications that were tabled and then thrown away the financially unsound ones and then looked at what was left, there was a lot of talk about due diligence  at the time. This process was obviously not through enough, two of the teams that were granted entry have been sold and bought before the new season has even started (Campos Meta and Manor), and a third is rumoured to have mounting financial problems [...]

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