[F1] F1 nieuwtjes topic deel 58 - Seizoensfinale 2009!

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The presence of a lot of heavy-hitters from Stuttgart was noted in Abu Dhabi with the whole board of Daimler AG rumoured to have been present, in addition to Manfred Bischoff, the head of the company’s supervisory board. There were also a lot of lawyers. This was not a tea party. Although everyone was wandering around smiling like game show hosts, it is clear that there some serious meetings going on about the future relationship between Mercedes-Benz and McLaren and my sources tell me that the purpose of all of this was to terminate the special relationship as quickly as possible so that Mercedes-Benz can paint the Brawns silver and take a more important role in the team. The word is that they are fed up being junior partners in McLaren. This all makes sense, given that McLaren blocked Mercedes-Benz from advertising Brawn’s success this year – and launched a supercar straight into one of the major Mercedes markets. A supercar with a McLaren-branded engine. Some of my German colleagues have come up with figures being asked for a settlement with McLaren hoping to recover its 40% stake for free, be paid something in the region of $300m and be given free engines for two years. This may sound wildly expensive for Daimler AG but these are the kind of figures that one would expect given the company’s apparent desire to get out of the arrangement.

The financial windfall for McLaren would give the team the money it needs to invest in its own engine programme so that it can continue with its strategy of becoming a totally independent car manufacturer, promoting its products in Formula 1.

I would not expect anyone involved to say anything at all until the deal is done but my German colleagues say that this is now close and that we may be getting an announcement by December 1. They are generally pretty good at sourcing information so watch out for that happening.

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There is a worrying feeling in Formula 1 circles that there could be bad news from Toyota when the main board meets to discuss the company’s F1 programme in Japan on November 15. The team management in Europe says that it has had assurances that the operation will continue, but no-one seems very reassured by that. Why? Because the team is sending out all the wrong messages.

For a start, Toyota has no drivers signed for next year, and with Williams jumping ship into the HMS Cosworth there are no engine customers either. Worse still, there seems to be no urgency at all to sign anything and the team seems to be quite willing to see Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock – both decent drivers – going off to other jobs. Admittedly, Trulli and Glock both have flaws: Jarno qualifies brilliantly but rarely races as well, while Glock qualifies badly but races like a tiger. If the two men had their talents combined Toyota would have a mega-star.

The smoke and mirror men are no doubt telling the big wigs in Japan that all is well with the car and that the drivers are no good and that what is really needed now are new stars – like Kamui Kobayashi and Adrian Sutil. Such an idea could get the Japanese execs in Toyota Town in the mood for cheque-signing, but will that really win races? Anyone can create rumours of Kimi Raikkonen or Jenson Button moving to Toyota, but no-one has yet come up with a good reason as to why either man would actually do this.

Kobayashi has done well thus far but it is hard to say with any certainty whether he will be a race winner. And Glock is wandering around the paddock in fairly rude good health so his supposed sniffles and scrunched vertebrae sound like very hollow tales which merely suggest that one cannot trust everything the corporate little wigs in the racing team say. There are a bunch of folk in the F1 paddock who feel that the team will never be a success because the chief goal of some of those involved appears to be to keep their jobs rather than being committed to winning.

In the final analysis, the team has been a money-burning furnace on wheels in recent years and the cynics (of which I am one) sometimes get the impression that the machine lumbers onwards with everyone shovelling money into the fire while trying to figure out how to steer in the right direction…

Back home in Japan, where the frugal folk live and where Toyota is a paragon of careful management and efficiency, they are looking at the numbers and gulping quietly. They need to cut budgets by 40% and yet the team has a vast staff, built up because the money-shovellers have looked in every corner for excuses and created new departments to solve problems that are not the reason for the failures.

This year Toyota has outrun customer Williams in the World Championship but probably did not deserve to do so. Firstly, Williams did not deliver the points that it should have done early in the year (there must be some reason that Williams did not fight very hard to keep Nico Rosberg) and secondly it was, in effect, a one-car team because Toyota suggested (with a cheque) that Kazuki Nakajima was the answer to Team Willy’s problems. Kazuki is a very lovely bloke and he looked like a decent compromise between speed and cash, but alas he ends the year looking like a man with a big future in Japanese GT racing.

The problem for Toyota is that they have created a very expensive factory in a country where laying people off is very tough. Toyota’s investment in the Cologne facility is such that it makes more sense to redeploy people and resources rather than firing them. In order to justify this there would need to be a new goal for the company. A hybrid sports car campaign to win the Le Mans 24 Hours might solve the problem as such publicity would be terrific for the company, which is already the market leader in hybrid technologies and has terrific products. So shifting half the staff and half the equipment on to such a project is an option as they downsize the F1 team to meet the agreed FOTA limits. But is it a good idea to have two high profile motorsport projects at the same time? And that is forgetting also that Toyota has a big old NASCAR programme going on as well.

These are the questions that the board has to consider in mid-November and why people in the team are feeling just a little uncomfortable at the moment… The good news for F1 is that if Toyota does decide to throw the money-shovellers into the furnace, a place will miraculously open up for Sauber and the 14th Entry Crisis will be over.

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Fernando Alonso stapt in februari pas in Ferrari
02 november 2009

Fernando Alonso zal in februari pas voor het eerst met de nieuwe Ferrari gaan testen. Zo heeft de tweevoudig wereldkampioen laten weten. De Spanjaard zal dus weinig betrokken zijn bij de ontwikkeling van de opvolger van de F60.

"In februari zal ik voor het eerst met de nieuwe auto van Ferrari gaan rijden", vertelde Alonso tegen de officiële Formule 1-website. "Dat geeft mij dus niet zo heel erg veel tijd om met input te komen. Tot mijn eerste test zal ik mij concentreren op het leren kennen van het team en mij zo goed mogelijk proberen voor te bereiden."

Alonso finishte zijn laatste race voor Renault zondag op de veertiende plaats.

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Op maandag 2 november 2009 12:14 schreef bodylotion het volgende:
Williams confirms Barrichello and Hulkenberg for 2010

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Op maandag 2 november 2009 23:13 schreef Googolplexian het volgende:
Todt points out ''importance'' of French GP

Ben benieuwd hoe hij het gedonder rond o.a. Silverstone / Donington goed gaat praten.

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Toyota has scheduled 8 November to announce its plans about the 2010 Formula One season, it has emerged.

It was expected that the Japanese carmaker's decision about whether to continue funding its Cologne based team would not be known until the much-vaunted Tokyo board meeting a week later.

Toyota's racing budgets are always approved in advance by the end-year board meeting, leaving some experts concerned that a separate announcement has been deemed necessary ahead of 2010.

The November 8 announcement was revealed by Germany's Auto Motor und Sport magazine, and the Independent newspaper in Britain also expects that "bad news" could be emanating from Toyota "later in the week".

"(Japanese) auto and auto-part makers are questioning what they can gain now by spending hundreds of millions of yen in taking part in Formula One," said Tatsuya Mizuno, an auto analyst at Mizuno Credit Advisory.

On the bright side, Toyota's withdrawal would make room for Sauber, whose official application to race in 2010 will be automatically activated in the event of a vacancy.

But it would be very bad news for Kamui Kobayashi, the Japanese F1 rookie who has impressed Toyota with his two races in Brazil and Abu Dhabi.

The 23-year-old told reporters before leaving the Yas Marina Circuit that he has "no budget" to fall back on GP2 in 2010, after finishing sixteenth in the F1 feeder category this season.

"I would probably go back to Japan to maybe work with my father in his sushi restaurant. It was like that two months ago," said Kobayashi.

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Op dinsdag 3 november 2009 10:04 schreef Atreidez het volgende:
Wat is de reden dat Alonso pas in februari voor het eerst met de Ferrari gaat rijden? Ze mogen voor die tijd toch al wel testen

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Op dinsdag 3 november 2009 10:04 schreef Atreidez het volgende:
Wat is de reden dat Alonso pas in februari voor het eerst met de Ferrari gaat rijden? Ze mogen voor die tijd toch al wel testen