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The 2010 World Rally Championship, then. What should we be most excited about? Well, not the change to the points system. The FIA proposed that the new Formula 1 points system, introduced to reflect the increased number of cars on the grid this year, be copied across to the WRC. Why? No idea, but it was approved by “a fax vote of competitors”. That could genuinely have been as little as two people, one representing Citroen and Citroen Junior Team, and other representing Ford and Stobart Ford. Maybe Petter Solberg too. There are barely ten regular WRC competitors, so points down to tenth place seems like madness. In fact, there are 14 ‘main’ WRC entries – priority 1 and 2, whatever that means – to Rally Sweden, and that includes two very unlikely to bother the top ten. Indeed, at the time of writing the Super 2000 Skoda of P-G Andersson is in the top ten. Is that really the intention of the change to the points system? Anyway, there is lots to look forward to. Marcus Gronholm back for Rally Sweden, American Ken Block doing a selection of rallies, the success or not of Kimi Raikkonen’s change of career, the battle between Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen, Petter Solberg with a decent car all year, Dani Sordo and Jari-Matti Latvala trying to string together a decent season finally, and whether Sebastien Ogier will outclass the pair of them. And you can’t argue with a bit of Henning Solberg. Pre-season preparation is convenient: rather than confusing tests, it’s non-WRC events. So we’ve seen Hirvonen win the Monte Carlo Rally in the new Ford Fiesta S2000; Sordo win the Arctic Lapland Rally, and Raikkonen crash out of the same event. But what I’m most looking forward to is seeing what the coverage on Dave is like this year. I wasn’t optimistic, on the basis that Motors TV now has extended coverage, but the show’s presenter Neil Cole helpful put me right. So with less celebrities, I’m looking forward to the Rally Sweden coverage on Sunday evening. Fingers crossed, eh? With plenty of talent floating around, there was hope early in the winter that some of the new and vacated seats in Formula 1 might be taken up by Brits. It’s not really turned out that way, has it? Some time ago James Allen gave a bit of a shout to Anthony Davidson, Paul di Resta, Gary Paffett and Jamie Green. A couple of them did rather nicely in the rookie test late last year. The closest to getting on the grid was di Resta, who is Force India’s new reserve driver, tipped to step up to a race seat next year. Davidson will be back commentating on BBC Radio 5 Live, and is rumoured to be looking at DTM. The other three are confirmed DTM drivers. Mind you, there are still two seats up for grabs. On paper they are at Campos and US F1, but the state of those teams is hotly debated. It looks like Campos will morph into either Serbain mystery machine Stefan GP, or something to do with A1GP’s Tony Teixeira. There’s a degree of optimism to be had if Teixeira gets involved, in that he could put Adam Carroll, who took Team Ireland to the A1GP title, in the empty car. I’m not sure if Carroll considers himself British, Irish or Northern Irish, but in any case, it would be superb to have him in Formula 1. Otherwise, it seems entirely plausible that a driver would need to bring money to the teams with vacancies. Vitaly Petrov is due to be in one of the Renault cars backed by Russian money, but that might not be as forthcoming as hoped. Maybe that creates an opportunity for a British driver, but if a Russian driver can’t find backing in his home country, what hope does a Brit have? And of course there are plenty of other names who haven’t managed to secure a race seat: Nick Heidfeld, Giancarlo Fisichella, Takuma Sato, Jacques Villeneuve – and so on. There are more cars on the grid, but it seems harder than ever for drivers to get to – and stay in – Formula 1.
Formula 1 testing is well under way, two days having been completed in Valencia. There’s massive interest, which has led to a battle to produce the best live text coverage – because there’s no footage or live timing available – between the BBC, autosport.com, and James Allen’s new Twitter aggregation website. Usually the BBC live text is unbeatable, but it was Andrew Benson on duty today, and he’s just not as good as last season’s regular Caroline Cheese; autosport.com’s effort was probably better. Twitter is definitely the place to follow the action, but I’d rather use it as it is, so James Allen’s service is a little redundant, if neat. His assessments of the two days of testing thus far are very helpful, however. The summary, of course, is that we don’t really know who’s genuinely fast at this point. If Friday practice sessions tell us little, then pre-season testing tells us even less. So, before we get bogged down by too many reliable facts, I thought I’d put my money where my fingers are on the drivers’ championship. First, and most vaguely, my gut feeling is that Lewis Hamilton will take it. It just feels like it should be his. There’s nothing more to it than that. I really want it to be Felipe Massa though. My money was on him in 2008, and I maintain that he’s good enough to do it. To beat Fernando Alonso, even. He’s been top on the first two days of testing, but I take nothing from that. It would be a fantastic story if it happens though, after the horrendous accident last year. It would be great. Logic however, at this stage, points me towards Sebastian Vettel. There’s the driver: he was absolutely on form at the end of last season, winning two of the final three races. There’s the car: the 2010 cars we’ve seen so far have all owed something to the 2009 Red Bull Racing, so Red Bull Racing should be most advanced along those lines. And there’s the engine: people are saying that the Renault unit is rather fuel efficient, which will be important with the refuelling ban. Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher are the favourites at the moment though. I have no interest in either one of them taking the title. Please don’t let it be.
Are Britain’s racing circuits perhaps looking for a bit of free publicity at this time of year, hoping to sell a few more advance tickets for the season ahead? The reason I ask is that there’s been a curious glut of track works news stories recently. It started a week ago with extra run-off at Cadwell Park’s Barn Corner, which MCN picked up on. The same day, MotorSport Vision itself brought news of resurfacing at Brands Hatch, which Crash.net and MCN dutifully relayed this week. Not to be outdone, Thruxton communicated its efforts in extending spectator banking via BTCC.net on Wednesday. But Silverstone did the best job, getting details and photos of what they’re up to on the likes of Joe Saward’s blog and autosport.com. MCN, meanwhile, approached it from a different angle, getting the views of Bradley Smith, Scott Redding and Danny Webb. So: fancy going to a few race meetings now? It’s a funny old time for A1GP. The series sort of horribly fell apart, just before the first race of what should have been the current season. Now more rounds have been cancelled, it would be surprising if any of this season takes place, and the website is down. But A1GP boss Tony Teixeira seems to think that things are just dandy, and is one of the parties talking to new Formula 1 team Campos Meta about potentially stepping in as an investor. He told Reuters:
Which is what he’s been saying for at least a year or so. But as it stands, there is no A1 to bring into F1. Would it not perhaps be wise to fix that first? One thing at a time, surely. The BBC’s Andrew Benson points out that Formula 1 teams are becoming increasingly nation-specific: from the obvious Force India and USF1 (though now with Argentinian backing), and the the Malaysian-owned Lotus team, to the less intentionally British McLaren and German Mercedes teams. So we could have the curious situation of an A1GP team in the minority as a non-national team in Formula 1, when A1GP itself is all about national teams. If things keep going in the direction they seem to be, anyway. How galling would that be for Teixeira? Rumours are that Adam Carroll – who won the last A1GP championship for Ireland – could be lined up in the second Campos Meta seat if Teixeira buys into the team. That would be excellent. Formula Two champion Andy Soucek is reportedly another option, and fittingly he would be a Spaniard in a Spanish team. That would also be excellent. So it’s A1GP vs Formula Two, and also A1GP up against its own principles of favouring nationality. Confusing, isn’t it? Meanwhile, Superleague Formula has been quietly getting on with it. I was hugely sceptical about the whole concept, but now it seems like Sebastien Bourdais has been proven right: it probably is the best option for drivers outside Formula 1 in Europe. It could of course suffer a huge A1GP-style collapse, but from the outside things look pretty great: the season is extending to 12 rounds, and the prize fund is over €5 million. Perhaps most importantly, it’s had a title sponsor – Sonangol – since last season. Which all just proves, once again, that I know absolutely nothing. Mercedes GP launched their 2010 car in Germany yesterday, by unveiling last year’s Brawn GP painted silver. Brilliant. The big news to come out of the event, as far as I’m concerned, is that there’s a bit less minty green than the mock up released when Petronas was signed up as the team’s title sponsor. Inevitably, Formula 1’s proper news sites have made the most of the opportunity to hear what the team has told their drivers to say to the media. It’s too closely controlled to get anyone to say anything interesting. So what purpose does it serve? I’ve no idea. Ferrari and McLaren are both launching their 2010 cars this week, and I fully expect them to be similarly underwhelming affairs. What we need is for Bernie Ecclestone to get involved. He never misses an opportunity to create headlines, as proved by his trip to Ferrari and Ducati’s Wrooom ski shindig, where he proposed having short cuts on all Formula 1 tracks to generate more overtaking. It’s ludicrous, and clearly never going to happen. But does he let that get in the way of a good story? Of course not! If he was involved in launching Red Bull Racing’s 2010 contender, for example, he’d have an actual bull’s head, painted red, mounted on the front wing. He’d claim it’s there to intimidate other drivers, and that it’s well within the regulations. That would, of course, be a massive lie, and it would be gone when the car hits the track. But it wouldn’t matter by then; it would be a surprise, it would be plastered over the news, it would get people talking, and it would be a whole lot of fun.
Pedro de la Rosa being signed up by Sauber to drive for the team in Formula 1 this year is a good thing. When he got the chance to race during his long stint as McLaren reserve driver, he performed rather well, unlike certain reserve drivers last season. So it’s an opportunity well deserved. McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh agrees, though goes rather overboard in talking about de la Rosa on autosport.com:
Someone should tell Whitmarsh that de la Rosa has only moved along the pit lane, not died. |
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