German GP 2006

A walk in the park for Ferrari, with a compromised Raikkonen claiming the third step of the podium afer a rumoured fuelling mistake in qualifying left him having to pit on lap 10. Jenson drove a solid race to surpisingly beat the Renaults who were off the pace for the whole race. A disappointing race for Williams with Rosberg crashing out early, and Webber driving a brilliant race, only for his car to give up seven laps from the end. Villeneuve had his BMW slam into the tyre wall after it had problems with oversteer in spectacular fashion.

I enjoyed that race a lot more than any of the recent Grands Prix, a bit more action, and Jenson and Williams doing well certainly helped!

Both of the Midland F1 cars have been removed from the results of the German Grand Prix following their disqualification over illegally flexing rear wings. The lower element of their wing was found to "flex excessively" by stewards after the race. Not that it makes much difference with Albers and Montiero finishing 13th and 14th respectively before the Steward's decision.

CPT F1 Star Drive Mark Webber [WilliamsF1]

Raceday Update

Toyota have been fined $5000 for the Pitlane incident where Jenson Button had to take evasive action to avoid Ralf Schumacher's car as he exited the Toyota Garage, however there is no news on Michael Schumacher leaving his Pit box to almost take the nose off of Alono's Renault. Niki Lauda had this to say:

"Alonso should calm down. I don't know if he has a problem with dealing with the pressure, but it is not a good thing if a racing driver is too emotional."

But considering his close ties with the Ferrari Team, that is not a surprising comment. To be honest, with the FIA's leniant attitude towards the cars with the Prancing Horse, I don't think we'll see any punishment headed Ferrari's way.

Hockenheim will not host the German GP next year, Bernie Ecclestone confirmed this morning, it will take place at the Nurburgring instead.

GP2 @ Hockenheim

GP2 Race 1 at Hockenheim was good! Although I was never really a fan of Nelson Piquet after I read Nigel Mansell's Autobiography, I really felt for his son in this race, his car stopping on the last lap after tagging the back of the car in front at the hairpin and sliding out of the turn he seemed to lose drive, reportedly due to a fuel pump issue. Lewis Hamilton came back from 8th on the grid to finish 2nd - helped by drive through penalties for Piquet Jr. and Timo Glock.

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Race 2 was not quite as exciting, more bad news for Piquet Jr. as he failed to leave the grid on the warm up lap and they couldn't get the car started, so no points for him this weekend and that leaves Lewis Hamilton in an extremely commanding position in the Championship as he moved his way from seventh on the grid to third. You also had to feel for Lopez, he is a very good driver and he will make F1 in the next couple of years, he led the race from Pole Position only for his tyres to go off towards the end and Glock caught him and forced a mistake on the final lap to take the win.

Hockenheim Qualifying

Well we went a bit dark ages here in deepest South Wales today when a tiny bit of rain caused a powercut - you'd have thought the Welsh would have got the hang of rain by now - but luckily it came back on in time for the Qualifying!

Q1 was stopped after Scott Speed decided to keep his foot in whilst on the grass and smashed up his Toro Rosso nicely. The usual suspects were dropped for Q2, which showed the Hondas to be back up to a respectable speed.

Not too sure what the Schumacher brothers were on during Q3, with Ralf deciding to hit de la Rosa at the hairpin, damaging his own suspension in the process. He came from so far back I can't believe that he thought he'd actually get past, especially as it was just the fuel burn section of Q3, it was a totally stupid move. As for Michael, what was he thinking? His entrance into the Pit would have got him a penalty in Indycar for unsafe driving, and for him to be released by his team to almost take the front of off Alonso's Renault should be severely reprimanded, it was an extremely dangerous maneuver. The same goes for Toyota for when they finally got Ralf's car fixed and sent him out, forcing Jenson Button to take evasive action - in the Pitlane!

This is supposed to be the pinnacle of Motorsport, but with actions like that it's more like a sunday down your local race track with a bunch of kids.

Kimi's on Pole, I think he's running light on fuel.

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I'm sat watching the F3 race from Snetterton, and have just seen Bruno Senna's massive crash that he was really lucky to walk away from unharmed. His car hit wheels with the car in front and was launched into the air, reports say that the car actually hit the underside of the bridge that goes over the circuit at that point - the TV pictures were not good enough to make it out - before crashing down and pretty much disintregrating!

Alonso turns 25 Today

As I have just found out from Renault F1's 'Blog, so for once I won't begrudge him a victory over the Williams's and Jenson - like either were ever gonna beat him anyway! At least Mr. Alonso is now an Oxford boy!

It's Hockenheim this weekend, and possibly for the last time unless a deal to alternate the German GP with the Nurburgring can be reached. For me I loved the old track, the fact it was purely about going as fast as you could - it was as close as modern F1 were going to get to an Oval track - and I was gutted when they let Tilke bastardise the track in the way he did, but to be fair, we've had some good races there since then, and I think it would be a shame to lose it from the F1 calendar. However, we have to lose some races for the newer ones that are coming through, and I think it's a bit unfair that Germany and Italy (and possibly Japan next year) get two races a year. But then I'm not part of the FIA, and we all know what I think of them by now!

Williams Confirm Engine Deal

Williams will run with Toyota power from next season for three years, apparently the deal gives them the same top spec engine as the works' Toyota team and Frank Williams wants to use this a s the basis to become a front running team again - let's hope they get the Aero department back on track before next season then.

Frank Williams has all but confirmed that Nico Rosberg will remain in a Williams seat next year, Williams have control of a multi year option deal with Rosberg. No news on Mark Webber other than the fact that his contract with the team does terminate at the end of this season.

Ron Dennis has stated that it is more than likely that McLaren protege Lewis Hamilton will be in an F1 seat next year, although probably not at the Woking based team. He said that if Alonso wins his second World Title this season it would be easier to justify putting a less experienced driver in the second seat, but he doesn't want to Rush Hamilton into a top seat in case it's too much too soon.

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edit 28/07/06 @ 1638

Williams getting the Toyota Engine has obviously left a great big hole in the back of the MF1 car, favourite to fill the hole is Cosworth - no surprises there - but a rumour doing the rounds (and not denied by Johnny Herbert) is that we may see Lewis Hamilton sat in a Midland car next season, with a Mercedes V8 behind him. A nice little solution to finding Hamilton an F1 seat without it being in a top flight team, but still getting experience of the engine he'd be running with when he finally makes the jump to a McLaren race seat.

Another one we'll have to wait and see about!

Huzzah For Common Sense!

The FIA have told BMW to remove their vertical wings in front of the Driver as they impair the Driver's vision - something that you may remember worried me as soon as I saw them.

The 'Twin Towers' are now officially banned, so the fears about Ferrari and Williams adapting them has gone - almost as soon as it came!

This is the first time for a long time that I have agreed with the FIA's decision making, let's hope that they continue with this new found 'common sense' approach.

As an aside, the GP2 races are being shown on British Eurosport at 1500 on Saturday for the Feature race, and approx. 0900hrs on Sunday for the Sprint race - or you can catch highlights on ITV1 a week later, normally around 1215 on Saturday afternoon. I strongly urge you to watch it, the racing and the Driver's provide excellent entertainment.

Williams and Ferrari to Run Vertical Wings?

Apparently both Williams and Ferrari are studying BMW's vertical wings that sit forward of the Driver. I can only hope they don't see anything useful in these studies as I'd hate for these cars to look as bad as the BMW.

I have yet to watch the French GP Properly due to having Family over, however, what I did see was not that interesting. In fact I'm looking more and more forward to seeing the GP2 races on Eurosport than the 'Main Event' of F1, that is how racing should be, and there are some great drivers in the GP2 championship. If you can, I suggest you watch it, it really is better than F1 at the moment.

BMW to Run New Wings at France

BMW Sauber are to run a new Aero package from this weekends French Grand Prix, they have modified their flexing rear wing, have new McLaren like 'ears' and these stupid little 'vertical wings'


My problem with these vertical wings is not only do they look daft, but surely if you get what we had at Indy, ie. a barrel rolling BMW, aren't they going to break off and possibly twat the driver in the face?! And what of visiblity? They must restrict the already poor peripheral vision of the Driver.

I have to say that when I first saw the picture above, I thought someone had been playing about with Photoshop because it looks so stupid. One of BMW's drivers has even said that he didn't know what they are supposed to do, I'm guessing they are there to clean up the air before it hits the engine cover and driver.

McLaren are refusing to comment further on the departure of JPM, with some people saying that Montoya breached his contract by revealing his 2007 plans and some people saying that Chip Ganassi paid McLaren $3.5m to release him from his contract. I guess we'll never know, and to be honest, it doesn't really matter. Chip Ganassi has said that he expects to have Montoya driving in a few NASCAR Busch Series races later in the year.

Montoya Out?

Rumours are going around this morning that Juan Pablo Montoya has breached his contract with McLaren-Mercedes by revealing what he will be doing next season, and that he will therefore not drive for the Woking based team again. Pedro de la Rosa will step up to the Race seat from the French Grand Prix this weekend.

Confirmation is expected from McLaren-Mercedes later today.

edit @ 10:46am

McLaren-Mercedes have confirmed that Montoya is to play no further part in the 2006 F1 Season.The following is a press release from McLaren Mercedes.

Team McLaren Mercedes and Juan Pablo Montoya have mutually agreed for him to step down in the forthcoming races of this year's Formula 1 World Championship. The team has decided that Pedro de la Rosa will join Kimi Raikkonen in the race driver line-up.

Juan Pablo has been an energetic member of the team since 2005, but will now spend the next few months based in Miami with his family and wife Connie who is expecting their second child in September. Following his agreement with Chip Ganassi Racing for next year, Juan Pablo will also be making initial preparations for his debut in a Chrysler Dodge NASCAR.

Pedro will make his second race appearance for the team following a thrilling points scoring debut in the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Nothing about a breach of contract, just that they support his decision to move to NASCAR and have come to an agreement to give him time to adjust to his new life.

I'm a bit gutted, I've been a fan of JPM since his CART days, so I was hoping to relish his final outings in F1. I would like to wish him all the best for his future in NASCAR and beyond, who knows Jacques Villeneuve has expressed an interest in racing there and apparently Mika Hakkinen is also looking at the possibility so it could be quite interesting to watch in the next few years!

Montoya Leaves McLaren

To join Chip Ganassi's Nextel Cup team in NASCAR, according to Ganassi - with whom Montoya won the 1999 CART Championship - JPM said to him

I want to go racing again

I honestly think that JPM's underachieving since his coming to F1 meant that he could no longer continue after this season, but I'm surprised by a move to NASCAR.

North America & Update

A couple of boring races to be honest, with the first corner incidents at Indianapolis, of which there were three - taking out a total of nine cars, and Jacques crashing out at the Circuit that's named after his Father being largely the only talking points. I'm glad that JPM wasn't penalised for causing the crash at Indy, cos I honestly think he didn't, I saw no reason for Kimi to brake that hard at that point, however being in front that's his right I suppose. For me the most interesting point about Canada was the 'marbles' that appear off of the racing line, causing a lot of Drivers problems. Surely if it's going to get like that, they need to do something about the tyres? If a driver cannot go offline to overtake, it's gonna get boring! But maybe that will be eleminated with the single tyre Formula.



BMW have finally been told to stiffen one of the elements in their rear wing, after a 'closer look' by the FIA at Indy. This has to be done by the French GP.

The FIA have also announced that from the French GP, the third stage of Qualifying will be shortened by five minutes. I think this will mean that the Teams will decide to only go for one hot lap, as opposed to the two we have become accustomed, so they can still maximise the fuel burn. Whether this makes the session more interesting is anyone's guess!

Sam Michael has admitted that Williams's lack of pace is down to Aero-efficiency, which is the same reason they give every year, about time for a reshuffle in that department? Shame they couldn't get to Adrian Newey before Red Bull as I think Red Bull will be consistently faster next year, especially if the rumoured Renault Engine deal comes off.