F1 2007-2008 Silly Season

[Kitdy]

Toyota team principle Tadashi Yamashina has revealed in his annual report that his higher ups at ToMoCo have given Toyota's F1 racing program until 2010 to get better results.

Source

[ringle]

Toyota team principle Tadashi Yamashina has revealed in his annual report that his higher ups at ToMoCo have given Toyota's F1 racing program until 2010 to get better results.

I suppose this can only mean that the Toyota F1 team will be sold in the next 2-3 years, seeing how they cannot build a competitive race car.

[Kitdy]

Word on the street is that Giancarlo Fishicella will be confirmed as Force India's second driver alongside Adrian Sutil and that Tonio Liuzzi will be their test driver - all this is expected to be announced Thursday.

[go.pawel]

The silly season isn't quite over yet. Todaywe got to know the name of Force India's drivers (Fisichella, Sutil, Liuzzi), but there's another news: Wurz is back!
Despite announcing his retirement from racing last October, Alex has been signed by Honda as their third driver. Interesting - did he simply want to get out of Williams? Or maybe he decided that he feels better as a test driver, than a race one. Whichever is true, it's certainly good news for Honda. After all, Wurz has always been regarded as one of the best test drivers.

[fpv_gtho]

I wonder if Mallya will be able to re-light the fire under Fisichella's backside, after it was seemingly extinguished by Alonso.

[JorisP]

I wonder if Mallya will be able to re-light the fire under Fisichella's backside, after it was seemingly extinguished by Alonso.

I cannot understand anyone still wants Fisico. Even with all his experience, he's allways running behind the place his car ought to be.

[henk4]

he's allways running behind the place his car ought to be.

he is going to have serious problems to achieve that in the Spyker....

[Kitdy]

The EU has called on the FIA to introduce greener practices in F1. From Autoblog:

The European Parliament has called for Formula One to adopt more environmentally-friendly engine alternatives, and the FIA seems to be all for it.

The CARS 21 report, passed with 607 EU legislators in favor, 76 against and 14 abstentions, praised the FIA's actions to make F1 greener, but called on the sanctioning body to do more. The report concluded by calling on the FIA to revise its formula to include "environmentally friendly technologies like bio-fuels, four-cylinder engines or hybrid". FIA president Max Mosley, who has been vocal in his desire to make F1 greener, subsequently issued a statement supporting the EU report.

Several racing series - including A1GP, ALMS, Champ Cars and IndyCars - are now running on bio-fuels, and Formula One has been toying with electric hybrid regenerative braking technologies. As we reported earlier, the moratorium on engine development in F1 was shortened from ten years to five, and the FIA is preparing to launch a new engine formula within the next couple of years. If regulatory bodies like the EU and the FIA get their way, F1 cars in a few years could be powered by four-cylinder electric-ethanol hybrids.

Though I can't stop thinking this is kind of lame, I really think that F1 could have been more of an industry leader with this sort of technology had they introduced these standards years ago. I think that it is somewhat depressing that F1 didn't take the initiative earlier and that instead road car technology is being transfered to F1 cars. F1 is supposed to be introducing new technology for the street - but I guess it has been quite a long time since this has been true. I guess the last major things that were form F1 to the street were paddle shifting and electronic stability control (not sure about the electronic part).

I can imagine a lot of manufactures probably wanting this as then they can claim that F1 is helping increase green technology and setting new standards for road cars.

[Kitdy]

Word form Max Mosley is that there will be a budget cap in 2009. The cap however will not apply to engines, driver wages, team principal wages and marketing costs.

[Kitdy]

Fernando Alonso is making a reported $46 million dollars this year, 1 million more than Kimi.