Formula 1

[Noxide]

Japan.jpg.........................

I love this race. Except for the fact that I have to get up at 04:00 to watch the practice

[Kendu10]

I am so happy that in my timezone almost all the time all formel races are on day.

[Noxide]

I am so happy that in my timezone almost all the time all formel races are on day.

There are two early races and one late race. The rest are all during the day.

[Noxide]

Ferrari has decided to bring back the pitstop 'lollipop' for the three final races of the 2008 championship battle.

Following problems with the Italian squad's unique 'traffic lights' system in Singapore and also elsewhere, Team Principal Stefano Domenicali confirmed to Sky Italia that Ferrari will fall in line with the rest of the Formula One teams for the decisive races in October and November.

He insists that the traffic lights system usually delivers 'significant time savings' at pitstops.

"But we are going back to the old system, with a lollipop, because we have recognised that the team needs to be calm," Domenicali said.

At the last race in Singapore, when a mechanic wrongly pressed a button while Felipe Massa's car was still being refuelled, the Brazilian driver ripped the hose from the rig and dragged it the entire length of the pits.

Instead of taking the championship lead from McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, he fell a potentially terminal seven points behind with just the Japanese, Chinese and Brazilian Grand Prix to go.


Domenicali continued: "At this stage of the season and with all the tension, it is better for everyone who works in the heat of the battle to do so with as little stress as possible."

He acknowledges that Massa's points position now makes the title less likely, but vowed to push hard to the finish.

"I am convinced that we have the right ingredients to win the next three races," Domenicali said.

"It will not be an easy task, but it is definitely not impossible either," he added.

[Lemmings]

It's about time!!! Hopefully the pitstops won't be problematic anymore?

[Noxide]

I think it worked, but the people in control of it didn't.

[EvilSpaghetti]

Formula One has been told it needs to implement drastic cost-cutting measures by 2010 if it is to remain "credible".

FIA president Max Mosley told BBC Sport that the global credit crisis had only exacerbated problems for F1 and several teams were now in danger of quitting.

"It has become apparent, long before the current difficulties, that Formula One was unsustainable," said Mosley.

"It really is a very serious situation. If we can't get this done for 2010, we will be in serious difficulty."

Mosley said there was a very real threat that some of the smaller independent teams would be forced to withdraw from the sport because of spiralling running costs.

"At the moment we've got 20 cars," said Mosley. "If we lost two teams, we'd have 16. (If we lost) three teams (we'd have) 14. It then would cease to be a credible grid."

The days when they could just toss out the 100, 200, 400m euros a year, which is what Formula One costs those big companies, I think they are finished

Max Mosley

Mosley claimed the smaller teams needed vast sums of money just for the privilege of taking on the big manufacturers like Ferrari, McLaren and BMW.

Even then, he said, some of them were struggling to make an impression at the back of the grid.

"It depends at the moment on millionaires - billionaires, we don't have millionaires now - subsidising it, people like Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher (Force India) or Dietrich Mateschitz of Red Bull (Racing)," Mosley told BBC Sport's Adam Parsons in an exclusive interview in Paris.

"Without them, those teams wouldn't be there."

But Mosley warned that even the major players were beginning to feel the financial squeeze.

"The days when they could just toss out the 100, 200, 400m euros a year, which is what Formula One costs those big companies, I think they are finished," he said.

Mosley, 69, said one of the areas where costs could be reduced was the "drive train", or the moving components of the car.

"If you can believe this, the engine and gear box together for an independent team is upwards of 30m euros a year," he said.

"That could be done for probably 5% of that cost without the person in the grandstand noticing any difference at all.

"Even those big spenders, if they are given the opportunity to save 100 or 200m euros a year will do so."

Mosley warned: "We've got various means of making sure they don't spend that money, but it does mean some draconian changes."

The FIA has given Mosley the power to negotiate directly with the Formula One Teams Association over proposed measures to cut F1 team costs in half by 2010.

[Noxide]

I suppose cutting costs is a good thing, but it means the cars will have to get smaller engines, less resources will be put into aerodynamics etc etc.

We'll be watching go-karts in 2010.

[Noxide]

The Canadian Grand Prix, staged at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal since the late 70s, has been left off the latest F1 calendar.

After a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council on Tuesday, the sport's governing body issued an amended 18-race calendar, omitting the race previously scheduled for 7th June.

Instead, the Turkish Grand Prix has been moved from 9th August to June, creating an August 'summer break'.

The loss of the Canadian Grand Prix was news to the race organisers at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. In a statement the organisers said they would not comment until they have spoken with FOM and the FIA.

Another significant development to come from the Extraordinary meeting is to allow 'teams to equalise engine performance across the field for 2009, pending the introduction of cost-saving measures from 2010'.

Meanwhile, in the FIA's row with the German racing federation ADAC, the FIA vowed to ensure that the associated authority DMSB 'is truly independent of the ACAC and capable of running the sporting power in the country'.


FIA President Max Mosley was also given authority to negotiate with the F1 teams' alliance FOTA and introduce 'radical measures to achieve a substantial reduction of costs in the championship from 2010'.

And in a Formula Two development, the top three drivers in the new low-cost feeder series 'will qualify for an FIA Superlicence', the Paris-based body said in a statement.

2009 FIA Formula One World Championship

29 March Australia
5 April Malaysia
19 April Bahrain
10 May Spain
24 May Monaco
7 June Turkey
21 June Great Britain
28 June France
12 July Germany
26 July Hungary
23 August Europe (Valencia)
30 August Belgium
13 September Italy
27 September Singapore
11 October Japan
18 October China
1 November Brazil
15 November Abu Dhabi

[Noxide]

This is beyond belief.
Hamilton is being hailed as the next great thing, and, according to Mosley, it's because he's black.

Thank you for ******** up the sport you Nazi-prostitute loving a-hole.

Lewis Hamilton has had an impact on the traditional 'image' of Formula One, according to FIA President Max Mosley.

He is quoted by The Guardian newspaper as crediting Hamilton, the 23-year-old championship challenger who drives for McLaren, for leading F1 away from its perception as a 'white elitist sport'.

"It has that image, inevitably, because it's so expensive to get into," Mosley, 69, said.

The Briton said Hamilton's success has opened F1's doors not only to a wider public in the UK 'but even more so abroad'.

"He's come from a pretty ordinary background, he's black and he's very successful.
For us, if he's successful, it will be excellent, really, really good for Formula One.

"But that doesn't mean we're going to help him, and it certainly doesn't mean we're going to hinder him," Mosley added.