French Formula One:

Timetable
Friday March 10th
11:00-12:00 Friday Practice 1
14:00-15:00 Friday Practice 2

Saturday March 11th
11:00-12:00 Saturday Practice
14:00-15:00 Qualifying
                    
Sunday March 12th
14:00 Race

GMT + 2:00 (local race time)

TV Coverage
Sunday 12th Formula One Word Championship. Round 11. Grand Prix de France 2006 10:30pm - 1:00am 10

FORMULA ONE News
Saturday, 8th July 2006

FIA to axe third cars in 2007.

The FIA, the governing body of the Formula One World Championship, has announced plans to axe the use of third cars during Friday practice in 2007.

Currently teams that finish outside the top four in the constructors' championship are allowed to run a third car.

Changes will also be made to qualifying and could come into affect for the French Grand Prix next weekend, with five minutes being taken off the final session, in which the remaining ten drivers' battle it out for pole.

There were other slight changes as well to the 2006 regulations, including the proposal to ensure "all three periods of qualifying finish in the same way - i.e. drivers having started a lap started by the time the session ends will be allowed to complete it".

Furthermore under the revisions to the 2006 rules drivers would not be able to take time penalties under the safety car, unless they are already in the pits before the SC is deployed.

A statement issued by the FIA on Friday read: "Following a meeting of the Formula One Commission in Paris on 6 July a number of changes were proposed to the 2006 and 2007 Formula One Sporting Regulations. The proposed changes have been put to a fax vote of the World Motor Sport Council. If agreed, changes which affect the 2006 regulations will come into force at the French Grand Prix."

Source: http://www.crash.net/news_view~t~FIA-to-axe-third-cars-in-2007-~cid~1~id~133406.htm

Why start it now, why not wait for the 2007 season?  Seems nonsensical to me.

They don't make a lot of sense anymore, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, just like the tyre rule last year.

Schu concedes the dream is over

Michael Schumacher recognises that his dream of retiring from Formula One with an eighth championship is over.

The Ferrari great effectively conceded defeat after an engine failure while leading the penultimate race of his extraordinary career put paid to the hopes that had flowered only the day before.

"To be honest, I don't think there's any chance left for the championship," he said as Renault title rival Fernando Alonso celebrated a surprise Japanese Grand Prix victory in front of a 161,000-strong crowd yesterday.

Ferrari had started with both cars on the front row but finished licking their wounds.

Reigning champion Alonso now has a 10-point advantage going into the season-ender in Brazil on October 22.

Schumacher can only beat him now if he wins at Interlagos and Alonso suffers a similar nightmare.

He said, however, that he would not wish such misfortune on a rival and preferred instead to focus on a constructors' championship that Renault lead by nine points.

"We've got to see that as clearly as it is, because we all know that Fernando only needs one point now," the 37-year-old said.

"That means it'll be more or less a walk in the park for him now and go easy on everything.

"To assume that someone will not finish, or to plan on winning (the championship) on something like that, isn't a basis that I want to build upon.

"I've digested it already," he said of the engine failure, his first in a race since the 2000 French Grand Prix.

"There aren't any more chances left (in the championship). I've tried everything this year, we all tried everything we could. It wasn't to be."

Schumacher can still hold his head up high after a remarkable comeback, winning five of the seven races before Suzuka to regain the lead in the championship after being 25 points adrift of Alonso in June.

He could still take a 92nd win in Brazil, thereby equalling the combined tally of the two men immediately behind him on the all-time winners' list - France's Alain Prost (51) and Brazilian Ayrton Senna (41).

With Ferrari he won five drivers titles in a row and six constructors' championships.

"We did everything right. That's why I'm very content. That's life. It has its ups and downs. That's what makes it so interesting. Life would be so boring if there were only ups," he said.

-Reuters

http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200610/s1758309.htm

Related Stories:

Japanese win puts Alonso on brink of second title

Renault's Fernando Alonso had a second successive Formula One title in his grasp on Sunday after Michael Schumacher's hopes went up in smoke at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

The 25-year-old Spaniard cruised to a stunning victory after his Ferrari rival, leading the penultimate race of an extraordinary career, pulled over with a blown engine 17 laps from the end.

Until then it had looked as if Schumacher, winner of five of the past seven races and the most successful driver the sport has ever seen, would take a significant stride towards an unprecedented eighth title.

Instead it is Alonso who heads for the Interlagos circuit in Brazil where he won his first title last year with a 10-point advantage. He has 126 points to Schumacher's 116.

Both men have seven wins each, meaning the only way that Schumacher can walk away from Formula One on top is by winning in Brazil while Alonso fails to score a point.

"It's a complete surprise so the taste of victory is even better," Alonso said, who refused to take anything for granted after an afternoon that defied all prediction in handing him a 16th career win.

"The championship will be decided in Brazil," he added. "You never know what can happen. The same thing can happen in Brazil and you lose everything."

Engine smoke

Schumacher, leading from the third lap after starting on the front row, had been cruising towards a 92nd career win when a plume of smoke from his engine signalled calamity.

He climbed out of his car, waved to the crowd and then waited calmly for marshals to unlock an exit gate before walking slowly back to the pits, where he hugged team boss Jean Todt and technical director Ross Brawn.

"It is inexplicable how Ferrari blew this race," former Ferrari champion Niki Lauda told Germany's RTL television.

"Michael never had to push the car to the limits, especially the engine.

"Michael drove a perfectly planned race but then they dropped a real clanger."

Alonso, who had complained about feeling lonely and abandoned by his team earlier in the week, did a victory jig as he stepped out of the car and leaped over the barriers to embrace his mechanics.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa finished second, 16.1 seconds behind, after starting on pole position with Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella, in tears on the podium in remembrance of a close friend who died on Thursday, in third place.

Australia's Mark Webber was forced to retire from the race.

Champions Renault extended their lead in the constructors' standings to nine points.

Alonso had started the race in fifth place on the starting grid but he threw caution to the wind when the lights went out, roaring past the Toyota of Italian Jarno Trulli into turn two as the Ferraris led the field.

He then overtook Ralf Schumacher's Toyota for third place on lap 13 as Massa pitted and then came out ahead of the Brazilian after his own first stop two laps later.

Briton Jenson Button finished fourth at his Honda team's home circuit with McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen fifth.

Trulli was sixth, ahead of Ralf Schumacher, and Germany's Nick Heidfeld took the final point for BMW Sauber.

-Reuters
[url]
http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200610/s1758161.htm[/url]

Sad.  

Former F1 driver Regazzoni dies in crash

http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200612/s1812961.htm

McLaren fined $118 million in F1 spy scandal
Formula One leaders McLaren have been stripped of all their 2007 constructors' points and fined $US100 million ($118 million) in a spying controversy involving Ferrari information.



But the governing FIA ruled that the team's championship leader Lewis Hamilton and Spain's double world champion Fernando Alonso could keep their points in the drivers' contest.

"The WMSC (World Motor Sports Council) has stripped Vodafone McLaren Mercedes of all constructors points in the 2007 FIA Formula One world championship and the team can score no points for the remainder of the season," the FIA said.

"Furthermore the team will pay a fine equal to $US100 million, less the FOM income lost as a result of the points deduction."

Points gained by other teams so far this season would also not be affected, it added in a statement.

McLaren, one-two winners of last weekend's Italian Grand Prix at Monza, were accused of having benefited from a dossier of Ferrari data found in the possession of now-suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan.

Asked by reporters whether justice had been done, the International Automobile Federation president Max Mosley answered: "Yes".

The decision effectively ensures Ferrari the constructors' championship but keeps a thrilling drivers' battle alive.

McLaren were 23 points ahead of Ferrari, who are in turn 57 clear of BMW Sauber. Hamilton, the 22-year-old rookie sensation of the season, leads double world champion Alonso by three points with four races remaining.

The FIA said the drivers were not punished because they had been offered immunity in return for providing evidence.

It was not immediately clear how much the fine would ultimately be, but it was sure to be the biggest ever handed out in motorsport.

The previous record was $US5 million ($5.9 million) handed out to the Turkish Grand Prix organisers last year for a podium ceremony controversy.

Team boss Ron Dennis said however, that it could ultimately be closer to $US50 million ($59 million).

"We have offset revenues which will probably halve the actual size of the cheque," he said.

- Reuters
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/14/2032504.htm

Don't want to upset any one, but as a one time fan of motor racing (in the years before advertising stickers blotted out the colour of the car) I find that F1 and most racing today is slightly less exciting than, but closely akin, to slot car racing.

This is a shock!  

Honda quits in Formula One bombshell
Posted 28 minutes ago
Updated 20 minutes ago

Honda has announced it is pulling out of Formula One due to the global financial crisis, raising further concerns over the notoriously expensive sport's future.
Honda Motor president Takeo Fukui made the announcement at an emotional press conference, repeatedly apologising to fans, staff, drivers and F1 authorities.

"Honda Motor Co. has come to the conclusion that we will withdraw from all Formula One activities, making 2008 the last season for participation," Mr Fukui said.

"This difficult decision has been made in light of the quickly deteriorating operating environment facing the global auto industry, brought on by the subprime problem in the United States, the deepening credit crisis and the sudden contraction of the world economies," he added.

Honda has been involved with F1 since 1964 and has clocked up three wins, including Jenson Button's in Hungary in 2006.

The team finished ninth in the constructors championship this season with 14 points. Veteran driver Rubens Barrichello achieved the team's best result with a third-place finish at Silverstone.

Honda Motor also supplied engines and other technical support to Formula One team Super Aguri, which called it quits due to financial problems in May.

Formula One events are also feeling the pinch with this year's Australian Grand Prix going $27 million ($41.9 million) into the red and France axing its race over money worries.

Shanghai organisers recently cast doubt on the future of the Chinese Grand Prix but then retracted their remarks.

Max Mosley, the head of motorsport's world governing body, the FIA, has urged teams to come up with cost-cutting proposals in the face of the global financial downturn, which has hit automakers hard.

"It had become apparent, long before the present economic difficulties, that Formula One was unsustainable," Mr Mosley said in October.

Honda, Japan's second largest automaker, is reducing production and cutting hundreds of job cuts in response to slumping car sales.

Japanese manufacturers have expanded rapidly in recent years to meet brisk demand for their smaller, fuel-efficient cars, but they have not been immune to the financial crisis, even if they are in better shape than their US rivals.

-AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/05/2439327.htm

Buyers interested in Honda: Ecclestone
Posted 49 minutes ago


Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone says several parties have shown interest in buying the Honda team, which has confirmed it is pulling out of the sport.

"I think it's OK. I think there's a number of people out there that have shown a lot of interest," Mr Ecclestone said.

Mr Ecclestone, saying he knew of two separate enquiries, added that Honda's withdrawal was a wake-up call for the sport.

"Both Max (FIA head Mosley) and myself have been campaigning now for quite a long time to try to reduce the necessity to spend vast amounts of money to be competitive," he said.

"What we are trying to say to the engineers is 'do all these things, come up with the ideas but try to remember the cost'.

"When you consider that Honda have got 700 people working there to put two cars on the starting grid, it's a little bit cranky to be honest with you."

The head of Honda's Formula One team Nick Fry said he was hopeful a buyer would step in.

"We've had two or three global players contact us already who are interested in a top level team... I think there's good reason for hope for the future," he said.

"Formula One is up there with the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global popularity and that's why there are so many huge companies involved because it is a global stage where they can present their products."

Mosley said there would be plenty of potential buyers but only if the cost of competing could be controlled.

"We must get the costs down to the point where a potential purchaser can see that he can run the team without having to subsidise it with huge sums of money and then there has to be a source of an engine," he said.

"All of those conditions can be satisfied, so I'm optimistic that it can be solved though I think it's by no means certain."

Former team boss Eddie Jordan was also confident there would be a buyer for the Northamptonshire-based team.

"I do believe that Honda will be snapped up," he said. "It's too good, it's a jewel in the crown.

"I think you have the basis of something that can be bought at a very, very discounted price for a huge advantage.

"These are the best facilities that you can ever imagine and to lose that to Formula One would be catastrophic."


'Cut costs'

Meanwhile German carmaker Mercedes says Formula One teams must cut costs by at least 50 per cent over the next two years, although its own financial position remained solid.

"Within the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) we're working very hard on measures to cut costs, and over the next two years we must achieve cuts of at least 50 per cent," said Norbert Haug, the head of Mercedes Motorsport which powered Lewis Hamilton to victory in this year's championship.

"Our Formula One involvement is built on financially solid foundations and is in large part financed by our sponsoring partners.

"This pullout is very sad. It only shows how important the cost-cutting measures are that we've been advocating for more than five years, and which have only been realised to a small degree.

"Mercedes-Benz's contribution is cost-efficient, the resonance in the media and in the public which last season and Lewis Hamilton's win generated was worth many times our financial investment."

BMW board member Klaus Draeger, whose team won in Canada this year and finished third overall, said in a statement that Honda's decision would have no bearing on his company's involvement in Formula One.

"F1 involvement is an integral part of the company strategy," he said.

"There is no better platform than Formula One for demonstrating our brand values.

"BMW, moreover, makes targeted use of the Formula One project as a technology accelerator for series production.

"With the BMW Sauber F1 Team, we have from the start focused on high efficiency and have achieved our successes with a compact and powerful team. The cost-benefit ratio is commensurately positive."

Renault also said it remained committed to the sport.

-Reuters

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/06/2439549.htm