Alpine F1

Carlos Ghosn dropped a hint, or did he? Today he actually questioned the purpose of having Formula1 and the purpose of having manufacturers participate in Formula1.

He brought to light the environmental concerns of the sport – while teams on one end are attempting to produce ‘green’ cars, on the other they are blowing up gallons of fuels and lubricants racing around the globe and in turn increasing their carbon footprints globally. He also posed an interesting question – is the advanced technology used in the racing world directed towards creating ‘greener’ cars?

While he did express shock of F1 having lost 3 world class manufacturers in less than a year – he also hinted at there were a lot of unanswered questions in Formula1. Costs aside, what is Formula1 trying to prove? Is it only about entertainment – or is about manufacturers trying to prove their might by producing the best racing cars? If so, at what cost? And when does the vicious cycle stop?

I think F1 at large needs to set objectives for each stakeholder – while entertainment is the key reason for existence – it still needs to address various issues that the teams have. Constantly changing regulations and the expensive cost of operations are two of the primary reasons for manufacturers to call quits on their F1 programs.

Yes, F1 is a massive marketing platform that appeals to a global audience, but manufacturers certainly are seeking much beyond that. If an F1 program is solely to win races without much adaptation to their road car programs, reasons for manufacturers to exist might just cease! Will we see yet another manufacturer exit? Are Renault on their way out too?

Lets not even open the 'Spy Gate' scandal and their 'suspended sentence' - Renault do seem to be headed towards the exit...

There is a ton of interesting information in this post at the BBC’s “F1 Mole.” And none more so than the insight that Brawn GP made a calculated decision to switch development from the 2009 car to the 2010 one when Ross Brawn himself determined they had enough in the tanks for 2009 to win the championship.

If that doesn’t sound like the Magnificent One himself, I don’t know what does.

Given Brawn’s strategic genius, the idea of his calling the team together and saying, essentially, “We’ve got enough to get us home, get started on 2010″ is one we all should have considered.

Conventional wisdom has been that maybe Brawn just didn’t have the money to keep development the car, which was obviously the most advanced one at the start of the season.

Now, if Brawn really did actively switch development to the 2010 car—well, that certainly has to throw them back in the mix for 2010 along with Red Bull, McLaren, and, if it gets its act together, Ferrari.

In other words: Don’t count Brawn and Jenson Button out just yet.

Here’s the “Mole” information on Brawn:

Team boss Ross Brawn admitted on Saturday night that his car had been out-developed by Red Bull and McLaren, but revealed an impressively daring strategy that should ensure his team are not a one-championship wonder.

The Brawn car arrived at the first grand prix this year as the most developed car of all. Where other teams were only on their Mark I designs, Brawn was at the equivalent of Mark III.

Add what turned out to be the legal double-diffuser concept and they had a massive head start.

The team did some development work on the car, but by the time of the Turkish Grand Prix in early June, Brawn took a gamble.

He believed the car had enough in hand to win the championship, so told his design engineers to switch their attentions to the 2010 car.

Brawn told us that they only switched wind-tunnel attention back to the 2009 car for one week between mid-summer and the end of the season when they realised they might need a bit more performance to secure the championship.

All the other time was spent on next year’s car.

Ross Brawn is clearly building foundations for the long term, and since the 2010 car won’t have the compromised radiator layout and gearbox mounting that this year’s car had to accept because of the late switch to Mercedes engine, next year should be stronger still.

And now some further snippets on the two Red Bull teams:

Red Bull also face a potential problem with their engines.

Team boss Christian Horner’s desire to have the Mercedes power-plant in his cars seems to have been torpedoed. A final decision from both sides was delayed for so long that it is now too late to incorporate a change of engine.

Rumours in Abu Dhabi suggested Red Bull’s Mercedes deal was blocked after pressure from current Mercedes teams Brawn and McLaren, who don’t want a potential championship rival sharing their ‘best in class’ engines.

So, needing to know which engine to build his car around, design chief Adrian Newey was left with no choice but to stay with the Renault, despite Red Bull’s very public comments and private concerns about the French engine being unreliable and lacking top-end power.

[snip]

This won’t be confirmed for a few weeks, but Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari will be staying at Toro Rosso for next year. Team boss Franz Tost let the cat out of the bag when we spoke on Friday, albeit in the context of a slightly negative remark about his drivers.

The gist of it was that Toro Rosso has essentially had a good season and had scored some points, but there had been too many mistakes from the young drivers. When they both come back next year, Tost explained, Buemi and Alguersuari will be expected to deliver, drive fast, and not crash.

The post has a little on most of the teams, as well.

  Share on Facebook

With Renault toying with the idea of quitting Formula 1, yet another driver sees his 2010 chances dwindle. Robert Kubica was quickly snapped up by Renault after BMW made their intentions of departing from the sport clear in mid-season. The former title contender seemed to have at least found himself a seat.

The Pole was rightfully plucked by Renault to head their 2010 season. The reasons were simple; he is a driver of controlled pace and consistency and has a great deal to offer a team who needed to fill a massive void left by Fernando Alonso’s exit.

Yet the recent news that the Renault F1 team are contemplating disbanding comes as a further blow to all who work within the garage and also their new driver.

Their decision to contemplate such a move however seems more out of cowardice than it does logic. Whereas Toyota left for financial reasons, Renault’s choice seems relied upon their race fixing scandal coupled with a lacklustre season where throughout their Spanish double champion saved their blushes, outperforming the car to the maximum of his ability.

Without the Spaniard, Renault may have been in grave danger of finishing the season with a single digit tally of points. Realistically only Toro Rosso and Force India were weaker.

They have deferred their decision as whether to leave the sport until the end of the year, which in some ways will be frustratingly nerve wracking for Kubica as a drive he thought was written in stone could therefore be jeopardised at a time when further line up decisions will be made for other teams.

For someone with the calibre and potential of Kubica this would portray an appalling handling of the situation by Renault if they did decide to scarper. The resolution of them disappearing off of the 2010 calendar is that it would be Robert who would suffer more.

What would probably be for the best intentions for the team is to allow Kubica to look elsewhere now as opposed to months from now when it may be too late.

The driver deserves a good team, and not a team who from the outset will provide him with a mountain of issues.

Renault of course may be trying to enact some sympathy back to their team after recent controversies and lack of pace. A threat to leave the sport may be an attempt to challenge the world of Formula 1 as to how much they are wanted.

Their fall from grace has been somewhat tragic since Alonso’s title winning seasons. It also only took a minority of people to damage the teams’ reputation with the aforementioned race scandal from Singapore 2008. Of course the FIA did not take lightly to this and punished those who required it.

Their major concern for their survival though seems to lie at the hands of their CEO more than anything else. Carlos Ghosn who took the role in 2005 promised a commitment to the sport but was not shy in portraying his viewpoint and commented on Formula 1 as a business that was only profitable for Renault if successful results continued. The simple reality that he foretold was that as soon as Renault began to struggle he may be inclined to pull the plug.

Yet the Renault team have built a solid foundation beforehand and alongside the large mistake by a small dose of people they should now allow it to affect their future prospects. A grid without Renault would look quite bare given their triumphs in recent years. Robert Kubica in a car unworthy of his talents would also be a huge and unwarranted travesty.

Since Jean Todt’s FIA has very little to say about the recent Bridgestone, and Toyota announcements, other than the obligatory “we’re concerned and might sue” statement sprinkled with a dash of “see? Mosley was right about cost-caps” nonsense, it seems we have to look to the person who should have been elected FIA president, upon Max Mosley’s retirement, for actual presidential leadership .

Ari Vatanen has spoken out about the recent shock news in F1, which I am just waiting for someone to coin “manufacturer-gate”, or “Maker-gate”, following Bridgestone and Toyota’s announcement of their departure from the series. Renault is understood to be seriously considering exiting the sport, as well in an extraordinary meeting of the board of directors yesterday.

If I am honest, I was expecting much more from Jean Todt than the weak and heavy-handed press release the public received yesterday concerning the news. In fact, it was downright depressing to be honest. The tone, content, and hind-pokery was just sophomoric, and smelt of week-old Mosley wordsmithing.

A clear indicator that what the FIA member clubs voted for was indeed a regime, and it is made manifest by the notion that the first crisis, since taking the helm, for Jean Todt is met with the most pedestrian of Mosley-esque moves. The clear design that commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone is still at the helm, and that the FIA is a shill for his needs, and desire to reduce the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) to a shambling heap of gelatinous goo.

FOTA is now reduced to three manufacturers, and Ferrari issued one of its strongest statements yesterday concerning Toyota’s exit equating it to a murder mystery. The new teams, as I stated before, are like the remote African FIA motoring clubs who will vote anyway you need them to, as the promised checks are enough of an incentive to cast integrity headlong into the wood-chipper.

So is Ferrari right ? Is it economics, or something else akin to an Agatha Christie novel? Vatanen thinks it’s the latter:

“If you analyze it Renault is right, they are a serious international corporation and not loonies like Max Mosley [former FIA president] has called them, they are just very disillusioned with the governance of Formula One,” he said.

“[Renault] would stay in the FIA championship if the sport was known for positive news and if it was a good avenue for marketing and promotion — but Formula One is only known for conflict, crisis and court cases recently, and big companies cannot afford that,” Vatanen added.

“We must realize the economic realities is nothing to do with the crisis. Big companies always look to market and promote, even when times are tough, but only if it is in a sensible way.

“I do hope [Renault do not leave], but if they do it is the final alarm call that we cannot continue with business as usual. I’m sad to say the old guard are still in power in the FIA but teams are starting to vote with their feet,” Vatanen added.

Like Ferrari, Vatanen sees the Molsey regime still in power, and actively diluting the FOTA position. FOTA won victory last summer, and both Ecclestone and Mosley knew all too well how dangerous the combined efforts of manufacturers could be, but they sallied forth to destroy FOTA, and have done a yeoman’s job of it by successfully replacing Mosley (forced out by FOTA) with a hand-picked successor who would follow the beat of the Ecclestone drum in lockstep with the Mosely regime.

The Mosley regime is an insidious machination working within the guise of the FIA, and Ecclestone himself is the largest part of their leadership. FOTA failed in successfully starting a breakaway racing series last summer, and at some level were duped by Ecclestone/Mosley into re-signing the Concorde Agreement.

Now they have Todt carrying water for the sycophants, and perhaps the future looks bleak for the world’s largest car makers. Perhaps in time we will see the real reason for leaving F1, but until then, Toyota, Bridgestone, and possibly Renault, are content with blaming the economy.

Despite Renault managing director Jean-François Caubet’s insistence that the team will remain in Formula One, the official line is this: We haven’t decided.

Reuters has the word from a higher source than Caubet—Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn.

Here’s the Reuters report :

PARIS, Nov. 5 (Reuters)—French carmaker Renault (RENA.PA) said on Thursday it would decide by the end of the year whether to stay in Formula One following Toyota’s exit from the sport.

“You will have to be patient,” Renault Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn told reporters. “We will make an announcement on our participation in Formula One before the end of the year.”

Toyota announced on Wednesday it was quitting the sport, less than a year after Japanese rivals Honda pulled out and only days since BMW ran its last race.

Sole tyre supplier Bridgestone has also said it will leave at the end of 2010.

Renault won the 2005 and 2006 championships with Fernando Alonso, but the Spaniard has now left for rivals Ferrari. Title sponsor ING has also departed, leaving a big hole in its budget.

If I were Robert Kubica…well, I don’t know what I would be doing now. If I were Timo Glock, I’d be calling McLaren right now.

My best sense is that Renault will sell the team and become an engine supplier for that team plus Red Bull.

Thoughts? What do you think would be Renault’s best path?

Share on Facebook

Renault’s managing director Jean-François Caubet insists the can maker is fit to stay in F1 for 2010.

“We have already contracted our drivers, had our budget approved, and are enrolled in the world championship,” Caubet told daily sports newspaper L’Équipe . “Season 2010 has begun already. We will not be world champions in 2010, but we do have hopes to be much improved.”

While this is certainly the decision many in F1 want to hear, there is no official statement from the team as of yet.

It seems logical that Renault would discuss their future in F1 as their results have been very dismal and the 2008 Singapore race-fix incident cost them dearly.

Toyota’s announcement of their departure from F1 effective immediately may have given board members cold feet and the perfect timing to bow out.

If Caubet is speaking on behalf of the company, then perhaps we will see another year for Renault—a growing year, no doubt, as the team has lost its upper management, engineer, and star driver.

It could be argued that Renault’s position is tenuous regardless of their 2010 commitment. Some in the media have suggested that perhaps a 2010 commitment would be swiftly followed by an exodus in 2011 and that the manufacture would only remain as an engine supplier.

Supplying engines is also part of what the team will do in 2010 as well, as Red Bull announced their intention to remain with the French engine maker.

Renault has also signed highly-rated Robert Kubica as their lead driver for 2010 and one could assume that it is more than a one-year contract.

Toyota has left question marks, namely at the FIA and FOM HQ’s, regarding the legal actions that could be leveraged against them by their departure from F1.

Toyota, like Renault, signed the Concorde Agreement extension, which placed strict penalties on teams that left before the end of the 2012 season.

While the FIA has been rattling sabers the last 24 hours regarding possible law suits, it has to be something Renault considered when discussing their options.

Last summer, the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) placed a $50 million fine on any team leaving the organization prematurely after Williams bailed out on the group to side with the FIA’s application process.

If one extrapolates this line of thinking, you could safely make a blind leap to a similar fee for breaking the FIA’s Concorde Agreement.

A fan could also presume that Renault’s mission in F1 has historic precedent and prestige where Toyota’s was perhaps narrowly focused on Honda’s involvement.

We will all keep a close eye on the proceedings, but perhaps today we can collectively breathe a partial sigh of relief until the official word is given.

Share on Facebook

The Telegraph has an interesting story that largely covers the Ferrari thrust at Jean Todt and the FIA, but which also suggest Renault could decide to sell the team a la Honda and Ross Brawn.

  Too bad about that lifetime ban, Flavio.

First up, though, the story’s focus on Ferrari’s passionate statement yesterday, which charged the FIA leadership with slowly killing F1, suggests Ferrari’s claim is getting notice and traction.

And that means at some point, Todt will have to respond. And that the other teams will have to do something about it, as well.

Here’s the Telegraph on Renault:

Renault’s board met in Paris last night for an extraordinary meeting at which the subject of its own involvement in F1 was discussed.

It is unlikely that the French manufacturer will announce anything on Thursday, as it has an important PR event.

However, it is entirely possible Renault will decide to quit a sport in which it had its least competitive season since 2001, one in which it was drawn into the hugely damaging race-fixing scandal that saw team principal Flavio Briatore and director of engineering Pat Symonds banned from the sport.

The Renault team also received a ban, suspended for two years, as punishment.

However, the FIA’s leniency on that occasion is believed to have been partly down to assurances from Renault that it would stay in the sport. They recently signed Robert Kubica to replace lead driver Fernando Alonso, strongly indicating they will compete in 2010.

It is understood that the French manufacturer may try to sell the team in the manner that Honda did to Ross Brawn last winter. A deal with Briatore had been mooted before the Italian was banned and no doubt there would be other interested buyers.

I can’t help wondering if Max Mosley saw the sale to Flavio Briatore coming, and that was really his push for the lifetime ban. At the least, by the time Flav got it overturned in court, Renault would be sold to someone else.

Does anyone have any sense of who else there is out there who might be willing to buy the team? And what might that do its role as an engine supplier?

There is a lot of hyperbole surrounding today’s Renault “emergency meeting” to discuss its future in Formula One.

Given Toyota’s exit, and Bridgestone’s promised departure after 2010, it is easy to see why people would be expecting the worst.

All the headlines have not helped. The spin, naturally, is “Renault considers F1 exit” or the like.

Putting my dusty journalist hat on, I think that is true, and mostly valid, but for the past month the signs have been pointing in the direction of Renault staying in Formula One. The team said it would be staying, after its Singapore crisis, and then went out and signed Robert Kubica as a solid replacement for the departing Fernando Alonso.

The latest is we will not be hearing anything official today.

In the past few hours, however, I have seen some of the more mainstream press harden their position on a Renault exit. My best example is the BBC.

Earlier, it posted a blog entry that suggested Renault would decide to stay. It even noted that we might see Timo Glock announced as Kubica’s partner on Thursday. [I mentioned that blog in a post here on a different topic.]

The current BBC story doesn’t mention Glock, and overall seems to be learning more toward a Renault pull-out:

Renault have held an emergency board meeting in Paris to discuss pulling out of Formula 1 with immediate effect.

The French car company was considering whether to remain in the sport with its own team, switch to simply being an engine supplier or quit altogether.

The outcome of Wednesday’s meeting was not immediately forthcoming.

News of Renault’s possible exit comes on the day Toyota said it was quitting F1, becoming the third car company to leave the sport in the last 11 months.

Renault’s emergency board meeting was attended by F1 team bosses Bob Bell and Jean-Francois Caubet, although neither man was allowed to take part in the debate about the team’s future.

Renault have had their least competitive F1 season since 2001 and finished eighth out of 10 teams in the constructors’ championship after Sunday’s final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

We will keep watching the rumor mill. But it does look like it will be Thursday before we hear officially.

The second-place finishers in this years constructors championship were long-rumored to be seeking an engine supply deal with Mercedes for the upcoming season but apparently the details of the deal are where the devil resided. 

According to Autosport, the deal may have fallen through leaving Red Bull to seek a retention for their Renault supply.

Maybe its supposition on my part but this makes sense.  Two engine failures is never good in a season but in the long run, RBR may have had good luck with the French lumps and who actually thought Mercedes would make it easy for their main rival to share the same shove as McLaren and Brawn GP?

The options were Ferrari (supplying sister team STR), Toyota (rumored to be leaving the sport within a few weeks), and Cosworth (untested from a reliability stand point). As it is, Renault seems to be the evil they know instead of the evil they don’t know…specifically in the case of Cosworth.

The one remaining mystery is what will become of BMW’s F1 engine program? Surely if the wayward team does find a way tot he grid, it will be pushed by the famous lump from Munchen, but there were rumors of a McLaren interest in purchasing the program.

Surely Red Bull could launch itself into the future as a full constructor by owning its own engine program and if Qadbak’s boys from Bavaria don’t get the coveted 14th spot in the grid, chances are someone in the Rhine will be looking for some cash.

According to Red Bull, the lack of refueling in 2010 may play in to their hands as Renault is stingy with fuel use and could be a champ in the mileage game (starting to sound like NASCAR):

“Since Monza, Renault has remarkably raised their game and done everything they could for us to have such a strong finish of the year,” said Christian Horner.

“Renault has fuel-efficient engines which will be very important in 2010.”

Maybe Renault should have thought of this a few weeks ago as a way to get Kimi on board?

Autosport is reporting today that Robert Kubica’s maiden race with his new team, Renault, likely will happen later this month—at the Rally du Var:

Kubica is a long-time supporter of rallying—even running his own Skoda Fabia WRC for private testing—and has been linked to an entry in a Clio R3 rally car for the final round of the French Rally Championship on the Cote d’Azur. The Saint Maxime-based Rallye du Var runs for three days from November 26-29.

Kubica was quoted on French website autohebdo.fr as saying: “It’s [the entry on du Var] not 100 percent certain yet, but there are very big chances.

“It will be only for fun, I’m not interested in times. I already asked for a video of the stages. I know some roads in this region and I realise how difficult task it will be for me.”

I think it was Cale Yarborough who I saw say that there is no better training for driving than driving. I also believe he was commented on some of the NASCAR drivers of recent years, such as Carl Edwards, who emphasize the gym.

In that sense, I think getting into a car and doing some different driving makes sense. Plus, it is good cross-promotional PR.

Ah…PR. That’s why they didn’t bother with Kimi Raikkonen.

Share on Facebook