F1 BLOG

It’s official. Fernando Alonso will be driving for Renault in 2008. Fernando seems pleased to be returning to his old team. I wonder how much of that is happy memories with his two back to back championships with the team?

If Renault is not competitive next year it will be interesting to see how far into the season we get before Alonso begins to whine about something?

If Renault doesn’t put a very competitive car on the track next season I think they are in for a world of grief.

Speculation and rumors are flying that Alonso may leave McLaren at the end of the season. After this weekend’s events and reports that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are not speaking to each other it is clear that Alonso is really not happy.

Alonso is under contract until 2008 with McLaren but tensions in the McLaren team are clearly running very high at this point. When asked by the Spanish media if he would be staying with the team until the end of his contract Alonso’s reply was simply “I don’t know”.

When the question was put to McLaren team boss Ron Dennis he stated that this sort of speculation is inevitable but that McLaren will honour its contracts with the drivers and he hopes that the drivers would do the same.

The Renault team has said they would love to have the world champion Alonso back. I think Fernando would be unlikely to return to Renault with their current level of performance and I hope that both Lewis and Fernando can work through their differences and get on with making McLaren the best team it can be.

After one of the best final qualifying sessions in a while we have a very interesting looking grid for the start of tomorrows race. With Massa, Alonso, Kimi and Hamilton making up the first four places it’s going to be one hell of a start.

While watching the qualifying I found my self wondering about Ferrari. Everyone has been talking about Kimi being the Ferrari number one but the more I watch the more I think that Massa is actually turning out to be a little better than Kimi, perhaps even a lot better.

It also looks like Renault is really struggling these days. I’m not sure what their problem is but they just seem to have fallen on some hard times so far this season. Perhaps they will get their act together but they better do it soon. It was hard to believe that both their cars were out before the finally qualifying session.

I’m looking forward to tomorrows race. It looks like it’s gonna be a real Mclaren / Ferrari battle!

With Coulthard and Barrichello taking an engine penalty the final grid looks like this:

Felipe Massa
Fernando Alonso
Kimi Räikkönen
Lewis Hamilton
Nick Heidfeld
Nico Rosberg
Robert Kubica
Jarno Trulli
Ralf Schumacher
Mark Webber
Heikki Kovalainen
Giancarlo Fisichella
Takuma Sato
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Jenson Button
Scott Speed
Anthony Davidson
Alexander Wurz
Christijan Albers
Adrian Sutil
David Coulthard
Rubens Barrichello

Enjoy the Race!

Can it be true? Are they really testing brake lights on Formula one cars?

According to a report over at F1-Live that is exactly what they are doing.

It would seem that several of the teams were testing brake lights in Bahrain including Toyota, Super Aguri, McLaren, Renault and Ferrari. It looks like they hook them up to the red rain light.

The speculation seems to be that it may be introduced as a safety measure. Does anyone other than me have the opinion that if you need brake lights on the car in-front of you in an F1 race then perhaps you should not be driving a Formula One car?

What’s it gonna be next? Turn signals?

Maybe a baby on board sign?

It looks like the ever shrinking GPMA has lost another member. According to a statement ….

“Renault believes that in order to achieve constructive dialogue with the FIA on the future direction of the sport, it is important to work in consultation with all manufacturers participating in Formula One, including Ferrari and Toyota”

I guess the tension between the constructors and the sport’s governing body is slowly fading away. Does anyone really think the GPMA actually accomplished it’s goals?