Left field

Don’t write off the old continent just yet

By Alan Baldwin

Speaking about the Formula One calendar and the continuing expansion to east and west, the sport’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone declared this month that Europe was “finished“.

“It will be a good place for tourism but little else,” he told Spanish Sports daily Marca. “Europe is a thing of the past.”

With the financial pages full of Europe’s woes and the rise of the fast-moving BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) bloc, the 81-year-old was not just being his usual deliberately provocative self.

Formula One has always followed the money and there is still plenty of that sloshing around in the Middle East and Asia.

When it comes to the driver market, the situation is rather different. It has not been a good month for Russians, Indians or Brazilians while French fans can scarcely believe their good fortune.

Romain Grosjean will be Kimi Raikkonen’s team mate at Lotus next year, fellow Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne will be at Toro Rosso and Charles Pic makes his debut for Marussia.

Silverstone deal a triumph for commonsense

It is not by any means something that can be taken for granted in Formula One, but commonsense seems to have prevailed at last.

Silverstone’s deal with Bernie Ecclestone for the circuit to host the British Grand Prix for the next 17 years makes sense on so many levels and yet has been tougher to resolve than any of the controversies and scandals of recent years.

It is to be hoped that one of the longest running, and most tedious, sagas has now ended although that is probably too much to hope in a sport constantly making headlines.

“Bernie’s a driven man, he always wants better,” said Damon Hill, 1996 champion and president of the circuit-owning BRDC, with a resigned smile after announcing the deal on Monday. ”So I’m sure he will be looking to keep us on our toes”.

Ecclestone’s decision last year to do a similar 17-year deal with Donington Park from 2010 seemed to fly in the face of reason — not least because it meant a much-loved motorcycling venue taking over the Formula One and the MotoGP heading to Silverstone instead — and appeared unlikely from the very outset.  

Silverstone had the road access sorted, unlike Donington where getting in and out on a race weekend can be nightmarish, and the track itself is a part of the sport’s fabric and history as the first to host a championship race.

The end result was as many had predicted, with Donington’s promoters unable to provide the cash to match their ambitions and a return to square one.

Schumacher – The Comeback Part II (or not?)

A lot of people are getting quite excited about the possibility of Michael Schumacher coming out of retirement to race for the new Mercedes F1 team (formerly known as champions Brawn) at the age of 41.

The German’s spokeswoman Sabine Kehm feels it is highly unlikely while Mercedes said at the weekend that “some speculations are nothing but dreams which will not come true” (although note the carmaker did not specifically say this particular piece of speculation was one of them).

Team principal Ross Brawn, who is currently on holiday, has been quoted by Germany’s Bild newspaper as saying that “the media are trying to put together a dream. Michael would have returned to the cockpit for Ferrari, but only temporarily. He has no ambitions to start a new career.”

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone told the BBC on Sunday that he was “very doubtful” about any such comeback, however appealing it might be.

On the other hand, Kehm told Britain’s Times newspaper on Monday that “I can see a lot of tempting things in it for Michael, but I can also see a lot of non-tempting things. I don’t know.

“It is as it was in August when you couldn’t tell what was going to happen. Then I was convinced Michael would never come back and suddenly all the circumstances were right for him,” she added, referring to the champion’s abortive attempt to return as a stand-in for injured Brazilian Felipe Massa at Ferrari.

A Schumacher comeback has a lot of media appeal — witness all the stories — and not least because McLaren will have two British world champions next season in Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

The paying F1 driver is back (but not you, Jenson)

Jenson Button has earned his rewards but he is still one of the lucky ones.

While the Formula One world champion faces the difficult decision of whether to go to McLaren on six million pounds a year or stay with Brawn/Mercedes for what still amounts to a salary of lottery proportions, other drivers are not so fortunate.

With the departure of leading manufacturers and the effects of the global credit crunch, next year’s starting grid will see the return in numbers of a once familiar species that has been almost extinct in recent years — the paying driver.

They may not be obvious, and all will have the mandatory super-licences, but they will be there nonetheless.

Brazilian Bruno Senna, nephew of the late triple champion Ayrton, has the name and the personality to get plenty of attention next year when he races for the new Campos Meta team.

He was also runner-up in GP2 last year.

Despite his attributes, he will still not be getting a salary from the team.

Anyone still want medals to decide F1 title?

If Bernie Ecclestone had got his way before the start of the season, Jenson Button might have been crowned Formula One champion in Singapore on Sunday.

The commercial supremo’s plan for the championship to be decided by an Olympic-style medals system, with the title going to the driver taking most golds, would have left Brawn’s Button out of reach.

With six wins in the first seven races, the Briton’s tally cannot now be matched by anyone else.

Singapore winner Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Button’s Brazilian team mate Rubens Barrichello all have two wins with three races left.

The only interest in Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix would have been the constructors’ championship and it is pretty much a given now anyway that Brawn will win it in their first full season.

Brazil and Abu Dhabi, making its debut with what promises to be the most lavish race yet, would have been irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

As it is, Button has edged 15 points clear of Barrichello and could win the title at Suzuka. But the battle could equally very well go down to the wire as well. There is still plenty at stake.

Will there be a Japanese Grand Prix next year?

Toyota-owned Fuji’s announcement that they are pulling the plug on hosting the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix leaves a question mark over the country’s future on the championship calendar.

Fuji had been due to host the race next year as part of an agreement to alternate with Honda-owned Suzuka. However since that deal was done, Honda have pulled out of Formula One and may not have too much of an incentive to pick up the slack.

Kazuki Nakajima is the only current Japanese driver on the starting grid and he is a Toyota protege, racing for Toyota-powered Williams.

Honda pulled out for financial reasons, just as Fuji have now done.

Toyota have yet to win a race since their debut in 2002 but have been much more competitive this season than they were last year. What would Honda gain by picking up the tab for a Japanese grand prix without any of their cars present but that could be won by Toyota?

Asked about the situation on Tuesday, a Honda spokesman said Suzuka had made no decision beyond planning to host the race this year and in 2011 and it was now up to Formula One organisers to decide on the fate of next year’s race.

Japan is important to give the championship a truly global feel, particularly now that there are no North American races, and has been on the calendar without fail since 1987.

Why Ferrari is Formula One

One month on, and it appears to be all over. Ferrari won. In the war of the brands, it was no contest. And, in the end, it was Bernie Ecclestone who saw the writing on the wall for F1, too.

After a Paris breakfast with Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo on Wednesday, he told FIA president Max Mosley it was over. No more crusades, no more rows over rules and no more daft outbursts. Ecclestone had to save the F1 brand, protect the investment of CVC Capital and his own interests, and make sure his old friend and ally knew what to expect: Game Over, Max.

Even if Mosley is now threatening to stay in his post after being angered by some team comments to the press, really, we should have all seen his exit coming.

This is what Ferrari wrote on their own website on Monday: “Maranello, 22nd June 2009 – The British magazine SportsPro published a list of the world’s 200 most valuable sports properties. The Team Ferrari is the highest ranked European team property, place seven overall, behind the big US-American organisations such as NFL, MLB and NBA. Ferrari is followed by Manchester United Football Club and Formula 1. The classification has been set up using various factors such as the balance, the brand name’s prestige and other factors.”

And this is what they announced on Wednesday: “Maranello, 24th June 2009 – Today the FIA World Council accepted the proposals formulated by FOTA for the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship. A Championship, which will be held, as suggested by FOTA, in the spirit of sporting and technological competition, with clear and fixed rules and transparent governance, handled by the F1 Commission.

The objective is to avoid continual changes decided on by one person alone and to gradually reduce costs, to get back to levels of spending similar to those of the early Nineties within the next two years. The FOTA teams constantly promoted these objectives in the interests of motorsport and all its protagonists, first and foremost the fans.”

Peace breaks out in Formula One

Formula One stepped back from the brink on Wednesday as FIA president Max Mosley agreed a compromise with FOTA, the Teams’ Association, to save the sport from a rival breakaway series.

The disagreement, which centred on Mosley’s plans to introduce a budget cap for the 2010 season, had threatened to end Formula One’s 60-year existence with eight teams including champions Ferrari prepared to walk away for good.

To the relief of Formula One fans and teams including McLaren, Red Bull and Brawn GP who all faced having to start again in what would have been a hastily arranged rival championship, Wednesday’s world motor sport council meeting in Paris has finally ended that threat.

The compromise comes about as Mosley also announced that he would not stand for re-election as FIA president, something many thought would have to happen for any agreement to be reached.

The controversy of a possible split has overshadowed the sport in recent weeks but hopefully attention can now return to a season which promises a championship showdown between Jenson Button’s Brawn GP and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.

Roll on Germany’s Nuerburgring.

F1 worries about the size zero heroes

Formula One drivers are usually to be found with their arms around ultra-thin supermodels, rather than being compared to them.

However the parallels being drawn at the Spanish Grand Prix this week have been less alluring — more to do with size zero health concerns than sexy looks or fashion sense.

Williams’s Nico Rosberg is concerned that some drivers might be pushing their weight loss programmes to dangerous extremes just as models caught in the size zero controversy.

“I can see that some drivers are very, very thin now, me included,” he said. “Dangerous levels are always down to the person and the pressure you have from behind but in the conditions that we are racing, it opens up the possibility that you do go to dangerous levels.

“It’s like super-models. Some models are at dangerous levels.”

The advent of the new KERS systems, which can add 30kg to the car’s weight, has meant that drivers using the power boost device have less movable ballast available in setting up their cars at the minimum 605kg.

To reduce the handicap, some of those who are not naturally light appear to have shed weight dramatically over the winter.

More trouble brewing in F1

Even in the often bizarre world of Formula One, this week’s points system controversy takes a bit of explaining.

Ultimately, inevitably it all comes down to politics.

The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) wanted to show the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) who called the shots while the teams were determined to demonstrate their own new-found unity and leadership.

So we now have a situation, at least as far as deciding the championship is concerned, where there has been a lot of indignation and hot air but nothing has actually changed from last season.

That is pretty much what the FIA wanted in the first place, embarrassing climbdown or no.

They weren’t too taken with Bernie Ecclestone’s Olympic-style medals idea and did not want the teams deciding the rules either.

The teams can claim to have won the day by forcing the FIA, who appear to have flouted their own rules in the first place, to backtrack on the “winner takes all” system but what have they actually achieved? Their proposal of giving more points to the race winner was still roundly rejected by the world motor sport council.