Champ Car in the rocks?

I have been tentatively following this wherever I can over the last while and by the sounds of it Champ Car is really on the rocks. They've only got about five drivers signed up to drive this year, a poor home-grown driver presence and the need for drivers to pay to drive - there seems to be more mounting talk about the Indy Racing League and Champ Cars (finally) rejoining to form one series.

For those of you not familiar with the split, the old Indycar series was split in two. Champ Car, then known as CART, had all the big name drivers and teams while the IRL got the Indy 500. How things have gone pear shaped over the past few years. Champ Car's fall seem to begin when their teams began to make once-off appearances for the show-piece event.

This was followed up by the big name teams like Andretti Green, Chip Ganassi, Rahall et al switching codes. Now Champ Car runs majority with non-American drivers who couldn't make the step up to Formula One on this side of the Atlantic. While Bourdais has walked away with multiple titles, one must consider the lack of top class competition for the Frenchman during his time. Would he have been as successful back in the days of Andretti, Montoya, de Ferran and Castroneves graced the field?

Now all that is left is the carcass of a once great series. It appears to be a matter of 'when' and not 'if' it will either close it's doors or goes into talks with IRL. Champ car stalwarts Newman Hass Lanigan Racing, one of the last of the big name teams left in the league has sent the clearest message, claiming that they will leave for the IRL unless a merger between the two series is found.

A merger would allow single seater racing to once more flourish state-side. Since the split, both series have failed to dominate the motorsport market. In fact it seems that NASCAR has driven down the middle and sits atop of American motorsport. A united series that took advantage of the circuits and drivers under each organisation could once more return respect and television coverage for the single seater division.

Of course that all depends on people looking past their ego's for the betterment of the sport.

T-Minus Sixty-Five Days

This week sees the 2008 season begin in earnest with the first car launches. Title hopefuls Ferrari and McLaren were the first to showcase their championship challengers followed by Toyota’s new challenger and Force India confirming the final available race seat.

The defending champions Ferrari launched on Sunday, once more christened with the number one plate in the traditional red. The car features a longer wheelbase than last year, a feature that many teams appear to be employing with the traction control ban. This area is one that Ferrari may capitalize on compared to other teams given that the F2007 featured a longer wheelbase than others – the reason pointed out for the lack of success on places such as Monaco and Hungary. What is yet to be seen is whether Ferrari have improved on the weak reliability of the 2007 car, so often an Achilles heel to the Italian team.

McLaren followed up their launch 24 hours after Ferrari with the MP4-23. The car has a #23 number plate and Hamilton’s 23^rd birthday was all on the day of the launch. The conspiracy theorists must have had a field day with this one. It’s a sign! Didn’t hear any of them point out that it’s Heikki driving the #23 car though. The car looks much the same as last years and would beg the question of how much Ferrari-stolen data parts did they have to tear off for the car to be legal this year. The big question many ask is how competitive will it be with the fallout from Spygate. How long will it be before Ron uses it as an excuse? Not long I bet.

McLaren have failed to build a decent car two years in a row over the past number of years. They are either ultra competitive or title challenging, thus not devoting as much time to the development of the car for next year OR they are stuck in the doldrums in which they give up early and focus on the car meaning they come out ultra competitive. It’s the cycle they have become trapped in and need to break.

After the big guns came Toyota with a car that isn’t an evolution of their previous buckets. Time will tell if it’s all big talk which Toyota are becoming well-known for or if they have actually made a step forward. Their head boss has been giving two years to prove his worth, or more so the teams worth in Formula One. The honeymoon period is long over for the Japanese giant and if things don’t improve I’d expect them to cut their losses and jump ship from the sport in 2010.

The week finished up with Force India confirming Giancarlo Fisichella as team-mate to Sutil. Given the options he probably represents the best choice for the former Spyker team. While Luizzi and Klien have raw pace they both lack the experience that someone like Fisichella can bring to a team like Force India in the development department. Even if Sutil shows him the way around the track in 2008 both he and the team can learn allot from the Italian. Case in point is the improvements in 2007 of Williams and Nico Rosberg with an old hand like Wurz in the team.

Just got to hope those trousers aren’t going to be a common thing in the paddock!

Dakar Cancelled

The prestigious Paris-Dakar Rally has been cancelled amid terrorist threats. The event was due to begin in the first week of January from Lisbon.

It isn’t the first time that the rally, one of the toughest off-road events has come under threat from forces in North Africa. The biggest question is whether the event can recover from the cancellation. The organizers have announced that the rally will return next year but one has to question if it is nothing but hopes and dreams. The event has to take into account the financial loss from it’s cancellation along with the prospect of such issues arising again in the future. Political stability isn’t something we are likely to see happen in Africa anytime soon and now that the terrorists know it is possible to ‘win’ against the rally I see no reason why they cannot do this again next year.

In it’s current format it’s likely we have seen the last of the Paris-Dakar. If it is to return I would forsee changes to ensure that such threats won’t grind the rally to a halt in the future.

Unwarranted Invite

Just when we thought we were seeing the beginning of the end of the Spygate affair, Luca di Montezemolo comes out with another prod towards McLaren. We really didn’t need one of the childish jabs from the Ferrari boss especially given that after months the fans were getting to the end of the tunnel. McLaren owned up in admitting that things had gone farther than they claimed to know. The FIA in turn cleared their 08 car and more or less began to wind down the Spygate affair.

For him to come out and offer the photocopy employee that alerted about Couglain’s shenigans to come over to Italy shortly after the aforementioned just seemed to be nothing more than one more swift kick aimed at McLaren. It reminds me of the petty gamesmanship that we saw around Spa when even Hamilton got involved in some of it. Ferrari have been vindicated from their point of view so why not just keep the head down and focus on 2008 and be the bigger ‘man’ so to speak.

Thats it for 2007. We have much to look forward to in 2008 with car launches in early January before the work towards the new season begins in earnest. Bring on Melbourne. Hope you all have a happy and safe New Year.

The Good, the Bad and the Racing

Over the last few days we’ve seen the two faces of McLaren. The good in the signing of Heikki Kovalainen to partner Hamilton. The fact that Heikki was left out in the cold at Renault was eye catching, given how he outpaced Fisichella for the majority of the year. One of the rumours going around is that Heikki was dropped because he was considered too fast for Alonso who is out to avoid a 2007 repeat. He must not remember that Piquet Junior did finish second to Hamilton in GP2 and I doubt he will be keen to lie down given the opportunity.

With the freedom of Kovalainen, he was the obvious choice for the second McLaren seat. I’m sure fans of the Finn were getting a little worried that de la Rosa, with his Spanish connections to many sponsors who joined because of Alonso would get the nod. Nice to see McLaren do the right thing and bring in a top driver who will hopefully push Hamilton and bring the most out of both drivers.

Of course we saw the bad of McLaren over the weekend as well with an admission (finally) over the Stepney-gate issue. A statement claimed that dissemination (in English – transmitting) of Ferrari data went deeper than originally though. They have stopped development on three parts that could be potentially linked back to Ferrari data. It makes the FIA’s decision to wait till February to clear the McLaren 2008 car more prudent now. It’s possible the FIA stewards found something and have given McLaren an opportunity to rectify the problem.

The statement has led to calls for the head of Ron Dennis. Personally, I would be happy if this was the end of someone who whinges anytime his team got beaten. End of the day the buck stops with him. He staked his reputation on his team been clean and playing by the rules and the statement appears to be nothing but an admission of guilt. Will he survive this? Time will tell. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of this spy fiasco once and for all so we can go racing clean again.

Race of Champions was on this weekend in Wembley – an event I unfortunately missed due to television issues. That was a shame because I was looking forward to the crème of racing talent going at it, especially to see Schumacher racing again for fun. If the go-kart racing in Brazil was anything to go by it would’ve been a treat. Funny thing I noted was that the Brits were selling up the prospect of Hamilton been there to race Schumacher months back. But come the event there wasn’t a peep and no Hamilton, out because of a sponsorship commitment or something similar. After all the chat about the prospect of him been there one would think they would bother to say ‘oh, he actually isn’t coming – maybe next year.’ Should be able to catch a highlights show of it somewhere.

Speaking of Schumacher, it would appear he has found a part-time hobby as a taxi driver. Running late for a plane the champ took over from the taxi driver and drove to the airport. Bloody hilarious that and decent of him to give a generous tip. The taxi driver will have a story to tell his kids. That been said, how proud of his own driving can he be when he had to give up the seat? This is one of the stories that are a bit surreal. It’s the sort of story you would think ‘I wonder what they a racing driver would do in such a situation’ and it was just great to see Schumi take the bull by the horns.

To-mato, To-mat-o

After a few weeks of relative silence in the F1 world we finally got some action both on and off the track the past week.

Spygate round two ended up with a result that has baffled many with Renault guilty but not penalised for it. This response has set many raging bias towards McLaren. Interestingly enough people seem to forget that McLaren were guilty but not penalised on the first hearing as well. Still the fact that Renault got away without penalty just adds more fuel to the fire. It’s just added to the ire of fans who claim that the FIA give Ferrari a different set of rules to the rest of the field.

The FIA aren’t making any friends right now especially with issuing a writ against Brundle for his piece in the Times. So I suppose I should be careful what I say here in case they try to lamp me up as well for expressing an opinion based on the facts put forward!
McLaren won’t have their car designs looked over till February which again is another strange decision. Why can’t the FIA delegates decide now looking at the blueprints that would be different come February when the car is built? It just once more puts questions marks over 2008 which we all hoped were to be left behind after this year’s politics.

Elsewhere Alonso finally decided to rejoin Renault, no doubt having waited to see if the team was going to be penalised over Spygate II. The choice of Nelson Piquet Junior as his team-mate I predicted at the start of the year, but not at the expense of Heikki. With more and more noise been made about de la Rosa for that second McLaren seat – due to his Spanish ties and his inability to cause Hamilton any problems – it could mean the talented Finn is going to spend a year off the grid. This is something I find baffling especially given some people that will make grid next year that really shouldn’t.

On the topic of drivers seeking seats, Ralf seems suitably unimpressed of the Force India after finishing slowest of those in the shoot-out for the second seat. Not long after the test he announced he wasn’t going to peruse the seat in what seems like salvage some pride attempt. Shame it came after he chose to drive the car and not before.

In another interesting decision by the FIA, they have released the 2009 and 2010 calendars for the WRC. With 24 events on their books all events are now only going to be bi-yearly. While it’s great to see Ireland with a place it’s an odd way to go towards the future, especially when it means that long standing events like Monte-Carlo, Britain, Finland are going to only happen once every two years. While a series should be all for expanding, it should also remember the foundations that it was built on.

Rally Ireland; F1 Transfers; Nascar Finale

What a historic weekend for Irish motorsport with our first ever World Rally Championship event.

It was a great success to boot! I would’ve loved to have gone out to the West to watch it. Alright, in fairness I would’ve loved to gone out and took part but we don’t always get what we want. I’ve always felt from years of travelling our back roads that we would make a great staging for a rally event and finally the dreams of many came to fruition. Of course, with someone as savvy as Eddie Jordan involved at the helm of an operation any plan can get done! Watching it on television as the next best thing and we got a fantastic event. It’s a shame that we appear to be only on the calendar bi-yearly though. That been said, given that most motorsport is heading towards Asia for new events it makes the achievements of the Rally Ireland team all the more impressive.

I have to give a massive amount of credit to Michael Lyster who headed up the RTE programming. While it didn’t show as much action as I would’ve liked, for a presenter who is usually associated with Gaelic and hurling here he did a brilliant job and at no time looked out of his depth when talking about motorsport. The same can’t be said for the droning of Peter Collins in the actual live commentary. One of those from the old RTE F1 commentary team that would give James Allen a run for his money in terms of poor ability to convey excitement in the sport. Oh the painful memories of having to watch an F1 race with them behind the mike.

In F1 news – McLaren’s appeal came to nought as many expected. At this stage to change the champion would have been nothing short of farcical. McLaren’s already tattered reputation took another couple of dings from it. They have spent weeks claiming that they were not appealing for the title but their lawyers were looking for the disqualification of the BMW and Williams. Wonderful PR disaster there for the team. At least it is all over now and that we can finally look forward to 2008!
Timo Glock has been confirmed as Toyota driver after the contracts board ruled on it. This will be Glock’s second stab at F1 after a brief stint with Jordan where he scored a point on his debut. After a stint in Champ Cars and GP2 will only make him stronger. At the very least he should keep Trulli on his toes! Today Briatore says that Alonso is 60% certain to be in a Renault. That must mean there is a 40% chance of a sabbatical given there is no currently free seats.

I have to admit I’m a bit surprised that some teams didn’t wait for him to make his call. I expected the market to revolve around him and that empty McLaren seat. It could be down to an early decision to join Renault which has only been delayed by the current spy allegations against the former world champions. With each passing day it looks like we have seen the last of Ralf Schumacher and Fisichella with only the Force India/Spyker seats open. Neither appears to have been invited to test for the team with a raft of younger drivers been given a shot in recent tests.

Over Stateside and Jimmie Johnson has successfully defended his Nextel Cup in the season final against team mate (and owner mind you) Jeff Gordon. I’m really hoping to have some way to watch NASCAR next season live and not have to resort to watching a flash page update every lap. Juan Montoya secured the Rookie of the Year award in the series. Montoya has come along way since his departure from F1 and say what you want about US racing, it is in no way easy to make the transition that he made. Next year will be another acid test for him. It’s one thing to win on a road coarse but if he wants to be taken seriously he’ll need to start racking up those oval wins.

Quick Weekly Digest

So much has gone on in the last week and I’m finally back after graduation exploits (codename for hangover!) So here is the digest of what’s gone on since I last posted.

Schumacher is back – with a bang! Like anyone, I was chomping at the bit to see how Schumacher would be lap time wise against the rest one year after the last driving an F1 car in anger. The result – fastest laps on both days so far and back where he belongs. Ahh the nostalgia.

Hamilton’s decision to move, as with anything in British tabloids have people talking. So what if he is joining the cadre of sports people in Switzerland for avoiding the public eye and tax reasons. He earned every penny this year and like everyone wants to protect what he earned! There are very few drivers these days that live in their own country so why is there a need to jump on his back for it when so many do the same?

Renault are up on spy charges. Ever get the feeling that the floodgates on such accusations have opened up and we are in for a witch-hunt? Be interesting to see how it plays out or better yet if there is consistency in the FIA ruling. I would say this whole issue is likely to be the reason Alonso hasn’t signed yet either, maybe fearing a reduced budget to develop the car for next year.

Nakajima has secured the second Williams seat. A bit of a surprise as many expected Luizzi to be in the running or Piquet Junior if the Renault musical chairs saw him been left out in the cold. The Japanese did a decent job at Brazil and obviously shows potential aside from the one-off to warrant a drive – or is it a slash in the cost of Toyota engines that maybe swayed the team in the end.

Honda have scored a sizeable coup by signing Ross Brawn especially when it seemed a dead cert he would be back with Ferrari. It could turn out to be a fruitful relationship (yes excuse the bad pun). It would seem Button wasn’t even in the know given his quit ultimatum a day before the announcement.

Finally the final race of the NASCAR season is this weekend with Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon going head to head for the Nextel Cup. Of course with no way to watch it I’ll be following it online as best as possible – no way to watch a race that! One would have to feel bad if Gordon doesn’t win the title given his massive 400 odd point gap he had before going into the Chase format. If he loses the title it could lead to changes to offer someone who gets in that sort of position gets a bonus, similar to that offered to drivers who win a race before the Chase begins.

Till next time and hopefully a bit more active now!

Alonso Looks Towards New Pastures

So it’s been a while! Starting a new job and the end of season lull until last week have meant I haven’t been up to date as I would’ve liked. Never the less back I am!

Alonso is out of McLaren. Well not like it wasn’t expected. Of course they are playing the happy façade faces that it was mutual termination and that things were not as bad as it appeared. Actually on second thought, mutual termination is probably the right word for it. McLaren wanted him out and Alonso wanted out which makes both sides happy.

Neither camp is willing to rush into their next move leaving the media to have a field day over who ends up where. McLaren and Alonso have the luxury of controlling the market. Nobody is going to put their John Hancock on a contract until the aforementioned decide their paths. It gives both of them an opportunity to, at the very least attempt to make the right move without rushing into things.

The Iceman Taketh

Alls I can say is what a race!

It all seemed set for either McLaren to take the title and Kimi pops up and takes the title by a point from the McLaren pair. The most unlikely of scenarios to have played out in a race that was edge of the seat stuff from start to finish.

So the question rages on did the right man win the title. Well the points total tells you that it was for any naysayers. Alonso didn’t seem at the races at all and Hamilton received the mechanical jinx we have seen become synonymous with McLaren over the past few years. His tactics for the first lap were strange given his position. Like in China he raced for position and wasn’t thinking of the championship. He was lucky these days there are more run-off areas than gravel traps if a car runs off. His charge through the field was good to watch, but hardly groundbreaking.

His change from a two to a three stop didn’t work. I don’t agree with Ron Dennis in his statement that they gained 10 seconds from it. He was running on the skirts of the top 10 on his first stop. Why the decision to go onto a three stop was a little baffling. Had it worked, it would’ve rated with the times that Schumacher had the ability to make an extra stop turn into a great result.

Personally I’m not a fan of the whole ‘give way to the championship leader barging through’ that many of the lower ends of the grid showed. In fairness, only the BMW’s looked like they came to race and not give way, which is the way it should be. Kubica not showing any mercy to Alonso, albeit on a different strategy was good to see. Hamilton’s overtaking move on Rubens, well it was risky. Like Italy though I reckon he would’ve been in the wrong had the Honda driver turned in on him. He did come from too far back and was lucky that a Rubens sighted him.

Kimi Raikkonen – World Champion. It’s been long overdue for the Finn who from the moment he stepped into a Formula One car has shown brilliance behind the wheel. After a first half of the season struggle he really rebounded well. Of course we have to wait for the courts to decide if it will stand over the appeal. After all the talk of ending the championship on the track the fans once more have to wait for a court to decide how things end up. It is shambolic that we are in that situation. While Alonso’s ‘I’d be ashamed if the championship was won in this way’ comments but fair juice to Hamilton coming out to say he wouldn’t want to win the title by appeal. He is a true racer and without a shadow of a doubt a future world champion.

Another season done, well, not officially till the McLaren appeal is heard. We’ve had a great season of racing mashed with ugly politics. Opinions over the year are likely to be the talking point over many a drinking session in pubs around the world.

Good, bad or indifferent the 2007 season will be one long remembered.