Today it was announced that Pirelli will be the new tyre supplier for F1 next year. Pirelli will take over as the sport’s sole tyre supplier from 2011, following Bridgestone’s decision to withdraw at the end of this season. The Italian company will provide all teams with rubber for the next three years, in compliance with existing F1 sporting and technical regulations.
Nicolas Prost had the honour to follow his dad's footsteps in Formula 1 as the Frenchman completed his first laps in a Formula 1 car at Magny-Cours on Saturday. The 28-year-old joined the Renault F1 team at the French track for the Renault F1 roadshow. Nicolas Prost completed laps both in the morning and afternoon in the Renault R29 and was closely watched by his father Alain. The four-time Formula 1 champion was clearly proud to see his son following in his footsteps. Speaking about his first laps in a Formula 1 car Nicolas Prost said: "It is a fantastic car obviously. The acceleration of the car is just incredible and everything works so smooth."
Virgin Racing owner Sir Richard Branson has set his sights on a top-10 finish - worth £17m - for his team in the 2010 world championship. Virgin are battling for 10th place with Lotus and Hispania Racing, the other two new teams in Formula 1 this season. "The more times we can get the two cars finishing then that would be great," said Branson to BBC. "If we can get a point or two, then even better." Teams finishing in the bottom two of the table will not get the windfall (payed). After eight races this season, Virgin are holding the wooden spoon in the points table.
Points are scored down to 10th place in each race, and neither Virgin, Lotus nor Hispania Racing have achieved such a result this season.
Sebastian Vettel has announced that he would not change his actions, if he were put in the same situation regarding the moments preceding his collision with team-mate Mark Webber in Turkey. The German, who calls the crash as a racing incident, insists that he was doing what felt right at the time.
With Vettel having put his car on the inside line heading up to Istanbul Park's Turn 12, the German began to reposition to the middle of the track as the corner's braking zone approached, crashing into Webber's car before spinning into retirement.
Red Bull has announced that mark and Sebastian are going to bury the hatchet. Red Bull said in their press release "sh*t happens" and that both drivers have put it behind them and are willing to forget about the crash.
Red Bull racing statement -
'It was a positive meeting, which draws a line under the incident that happened on Lap 40 of the Turkish Grand Prix. The team is now fully focused on next week's Canadian Grand Prix.'
Both drivers have apologised to the team. Both of them say they are both racers and that’s what sometimes happens in a race. They say it was an unfortunate accident and they both hope it won’t happen again
Force India designers join Lotus. Lotus have recruited three designers from rivals Force India in a bid to turn around their ailing fortunes. Mark Smith will take over as the team's technical director, Lewis Butler joins as chief designer and Marianne Hinson will be head of aerodynamics. Team owner Tony Fernandes said: "I am honoured that these fantastic talents have put their faith in Lotus, and see the very bright future we have." Lotus are yet to win a point since returning to Formula 1 this season.
After the Red Bull crash in the turkey race, there is now more controversy in f1. The controversy is over Christian Horner telling Webber to go into fuel saving mode or turn down his engine (save fuel but go slower) and then telling Vettel to turn up his engine (make his car go faster but use more fuel.) This would subsequently make Vettel faster than Webber. If this is true it would explain why Vettel was faster coming out of the turn. It would also explain why Christian Horner has taken Vettel's side. Christian Horner has always said he considers both driver's as equal’s but it has been thought for a while that Horner likes Vettel more than Webber. I will keep you posted on this story.
It has been confirmed that five illegal immigrants were discovered in the media trucks of sporting governing body Formula One Management (FOM, the company owned by Bernie Ecclestone) after travelling back from Monte-Carlo last week.As with all teams, FOM's trucks departed Monaco ahead of this weekend's round in Turkey, heading back to base at Biggin Hill Airport in Kent. However, upon their arrival in the United Kingdom last Thursday, lorry drivers realised that stowaways had hidden in the vehicles, believed to have forced an entry during a stoppage in Calais, France.
Jenson Button is optimistic over McLaren's potential ahead of the upcoming Turkish Grand Prix. Although the World Champion - whose last win in 2009 was at Istanbul Park almost year ago - feels that mistakes from Red Bull may be required in order for rivals to continue challenging, the Somerset driver is pinning his hopes on latest updates. Button registered his first retirement of the season last time out in Monaco after team members made the crucial mistake of leaving a panel in one of the car's sidepods, preventing cooling and therefore resulting in an overheat of the engine whilst the Safety Car was on-track.
Ross Brawn is the first to admit that Mercedes GP did not perform as it should have in the Monaco Grand Prix, with Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg's sixth and eighth places eventually translating to seventh and twelfth after the 7-time World Champion was penalised by FIA race stewards. Having debuted its radical new engine cover plus a longer wheelbase car in Spain, the title-defending team reverted to its shorter MGP W01 for Monaco, a more nimble version of the car to cope better with the tight confines of the principality's streets.
The boss of a track in New York state has announced, it is in talks to host a Formula 1 grand prix in 2012. Representatives of Monticello Motor Club and F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone have been in talks regarding bringing the sport back to the United States. "There was some agreement that Monticello could host a race," MMC chairman Bill McMichael told BBC Sport. The US last held a grand prix in 2007 at the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. Its eight-year run was ended after Ecclestone failed to come to an agreement with the circuit's chiefs over new terms.
With Istanbul Park having been resurfaced ahead of this year's Turkish Grand Prix, McLaren Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh believes that the smoother tarmac should help the Woking-built cars to return to Barcelona-like pace.
Having lost the lead in both title races after Monaco, McLaren heads to Turkey following a wheel rim-related crash for Lewis Hamilton in Spain and a human mistake which led to the overheating of Jenson Button's engine in Monaco. However, Whitmarsh remains upbeat as Round 7 of 19 nears closer.
Renult have allounced that they are positive that Robert Kubica will remain on-board next year, despite rumours which continue to circulate linking the Polish driver with Ferrari. After suffering a miserable season with BMW in 2009, the Kraków man has now picked up two podium finishes with the team which finished eighth overall last year.
Schumacher has been penalised with a 20 second penalty. Schumacher was 6th after he over took Alonso but the stewards have now demoted him to 12th. This means Schumacher will be leaving this race with no points.
The stewards gave Schumacher this penalty because he over took Alonso under the safety car. There has been controversy over this because the regulations were not clear about if it was legal to overtake on the last lap past the safety car overtaking line after the safety car has turned in. Ross Brawn said "i told my drivers to start racing again, even though it was only 1 turn I told both of them to do what they can to get past the drivers in front"
Ross brawn thought the regulations stated that the drivers were allowed to overtake at this time but the stewards say it was illegal and he deserved to get punished.
McLaren's Jenson Button has accused Ferrari's Felipe Massa of holding him up during Monaco Grand Prix qualifying. Defending world champion Button said the Brazilian blocked him early in the final session on today. "It was very annoying that he got in the way because it was blatantly slowing me down," said Button. Massa denied any wrongdoing, saying: "The car in front of me backed off, so I backed off as well. These things happen. There is nothing you can do." But Button, who will line up eighth for Sunday's race with Massa fourth, insisted that Massa was in the wrong and that with the field reduced to 10 cars for the final shoot-out there was no excuse for his behaviour.
Ferrari will not be running their f-duct this weekend. Having made use of its f-duct system in Spain last weekend, with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa covering a hole in the cockpit side in order to stall airflow to the car's rear wing, Ferrari has confirmed that it will not be using the system in Monaco.
First developed by McLaren, the blown rear wing feature allows drivers to control how much air passes to the rear wing - and therefore the about of downforce - in order to achieve greater top speeds on straight sections of track.
Monaco will not be changing it Qualifying setup. This weekend there were rumours around the paddock about Monaco changing its qualifying setup due to concerns about it being dangerous to realise all 24 cars onto the tight circuit of the Monaco temporary track during Q1 9the first Qualifying which lasts 20 minutes).
Rumours first started when Bruno Senna (nephew of the great Ayrton Senna) realised that he was going to talk to race organiser Charlie Whiting about having Q1 for all the new teams to fight for grid places, so then the rest of the teams could have the remaining Qualifying sessions to fight it out. Senna said "the new teams just don’t want to get in the way of the established teams.
But today the FIA dismissed ALL these theory's, saying "that is what motor racing is about, if you get stuck in traffic, tuff!"
Also McLaren team principal and FOTA chairman martin Whitmarsh said " There are those who are concerned about the safety and the randomness of it" ""The counter flip is that the sport needs a bit of a shake-up and if there are problems and issues in qualifying and that influences the grid then it means the teams will have to deal with that in the race and that's good for the show."
Ferrari f1 team have been fined $20,000 (£13,500) due to them releaseing Fernando Alonso into the path of Nico Rossberg. This happend when Nico was going out of the pits, he was going down the pit lane, then suddenly fernando alonso came out of his pit garage and almost hit nico into the pit wall. After careful cosideration the FIA decided to give ferrari a $20,000 (£13,500) fine instead of a grid penalty
World Champion Jenson Button was annoyed to have made an error on his final qualifying hot lap in Spain on Saturday. After running wide at Turn 8, the last corner before the run up to Campsa, the McLaren driver qualified fifth.
Button's mistake means he shares the third row of the grid with fellow Champion Michael Schumacher's Mercedes although Jenson, who qualified just 54 thousandths of a second slower than Fernando Alonso, has allowed one Ferrari to slot itself between the two Woking-built cars of himself and Lewis Hamilton.
"I made a little mistake at Turn 8, which is frustrating," Button explained to the BBC "I ran over a green section of AstroTurf - I'd rather be a bit further up but it's not a bad place to start."
Virgin has been given a 5 place grid penalty, the stewards gave them this penalty because the team failed to inform Formula 1 governing body the FIA about their gear ratio settings after Friday practice.
