The Times is reporting that in a meeting between Renault team principal Flavio Briatore, McLaren chairman and CEO Ron Dennis, Toyota team principal and FOTA vice-president John Howett and Bernie Ecclestone, Dennis and Briatore threatened to boycott the Australian Grand Prix.
They allegedly told Ecclestone that unless he wrote them a check they wouldn’t put their cars on the specially chartered flights to Australia last Sunday and neither would the rest of FOTA. The money in question is in payment for signing a new Concorde Agreement, something the teams are yet to do.
According to Ecclestone:
Flavio said, we’re not going to put our cars on the plane, we’re not going to Melbourne.’ He – Flavio – started it, aided and abetted by Ron Dennis.
Unfazed, Bernie decided to called their bluff:
I picked up the phone to our people that handle all the freight to ask them to cancel the aeroplanes. They were saying, all the Fota-schmota are not going – nobody’s going to go.’ So I said what I’d better do is cancel the aircraft obviously. It costs a fortune to charter those things and almost as much to cancel them.
All the cars are now in Melbourne so the threat obviously wasn’t carried out. The first race hasn’t even been run but we may already have the Bernie quote of the season:
If they come in here with a gun and hold it to my head, they had better be sure they can fucking pull the trigger. And they should make sure it’s got bullets in it because, if they miss, they better look out.
The tensions between FOTA and the FIA/Ecclestone has undertones of the FISA-FOCA war of the 80’s. Back then, Bernie Ecclestone as Brabham team owner and Max Mosley as his legal advisor were on the other side of the conflict that culiminated in a boycott of the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix. Among the complaints of the FOCA teams were FISA’s handling of regulations and financial compensation.
Sounds familiar…
February 27th, 2009
David
It seems like fins may be making a return to Formula One in 2009.
Renault’s R29 was launched with an elongated ‘shark fin’ engine cover and Toyota, despite launching their TF109 without it, have been using one in testing.
Now, at the launch of their final high-tech livery for 2009, Williams’s FW31 has grown a pair of ‘skate fins’ either side of the cockpit.
Red Bull was the first team to introduce a fin-shaped engine cover on their RB4 in pre-season testing at Barcelona last year and by the end of 2008 almost all the teams were using some kind of elongated engine cover. Williams tested a shark fin but never raced it.
The shark and skate fins are intended to improve the quality of airflow over the rear wing. This increases downforce and so allows the teams to run a lower rear wing angle, thereby increasing top speed. It should also provide enhanced rear-end stability under braking.
Given the reduction in downforce levels for 2009 it is perhaps surprising that only Toyota and Renault have chosen to carry over the full-blown shark fin from last year and Adrian Newey, the man who first introduced it to F1, has shrunk the fin on the new Red Bull RB5 to a pointy little spike (stingray barb?)
The new aerodynamic regulations for 2009 have forced the car designers to go back to the drawing board and I expect we will see other teams finding holes in the regulations that they can exploit as the season progresses.
Pictures of the new Williams FW31 livery are below:
February 11th, 2009
David
BMW, Toyota and Ferrari must be wondering whether it was such a good idea to abandon Jerez to test at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit.
Wednesday’s morning test session was red-flagged when a sandstorm prevented the medical helicopter from taking off. The same thing happened on the opening day of testing on Tuesday when the helicopter was grounded by fog.
After the first group test in Portimao was disrupted by heavy rain the three teams were hoping for some fine weather to justify the hundreds of thousands of pounds extra it costs to test in the Middle East but the outlook for the rest of Wednesday doesn’t look good. Even if the wind stops the track will have to be cleared of sand so the teams might not be able to continue testing until Thursday.
Meanwhile, back in Spain, Mark Webber has climbed into an F1 car for the first time since breaking his leg in a cycling accident three months ago. He took the new Red Bull RB5 out onto the Jerez circuit for the first time on Wednedsay.
Image: Ferrari S.p.a.
The rain that continues to affect the Algarve Motor Park is making testing difficult for the teams at the Portuguese track. Sebastien Buemi’s interim Toro Rosso posted the fastest time on Tuesday of 1:34.429, three seconds clear of Pedro de la Rosa in the new McLaren MP4-24. Jarno Trulli was third fastest in the Toyota TF109 followed by the Renault R29 of Nelson Piquet and Nico Rosberg’s Williams FW31.
The wet conditions make it hard to evaluate how the cars will perform on a dry circuit and with the lack of in-season testing in 2009 the teams are missing out on vital testing miles.
But it does give us a chance to see how the new cars compare in the wet. Jarno Trulli has found the new Toyota hard to drive at Portimao:
In the conditions it was very difficult to get temperature in the tyres. It was really hard for everyone out there and it was nearly impossible to drive. This is the first feeling!
But McLaren’s Pedro de la Rosa didn’t seem to have the same trouble:
The car has a little bit more grip at the front end generally and it is very responsive to steering. You have to put everything together – if you put these tyres onto last year’s car, we would be three seconds a lap faster.
It’s always hard to compare lap times in testing as different teams will be testing different setups but perhaps this gives us a clue that more work is needed on Toyota’s 2009 goal of “stability”.
Toyota has launched their 2009 challenger, the TF109, in an online launch today where Team Principal Tadashi Yamashina said the team was targeting its first win in 2009.
The team have been working on the TF109 since October 2007 developing the car in parallel with last year’s TF108. This is quite impressive as Toyota made signifcant improvements to last year’s car without compromising the development of the TF109. Still, Toyota had the biggest budget of all the teams in 2008 so I guess it’s not surprising they found the resources.
Senior general manager (chassis) Pascal Vasselon said that due to the regulation changes in 2009 that reduce the level of downforce the emphasis for the 2009 car was stability:
We expect top speeds to be similar and sometimes even faster this year but there will be less downforce; this makes stability very important. We also expect the slick tyres to generate a different front and rear grip ratio which will affect stability so that is one of the primary goals for the TF109.
Toyota Preisdent John Howett said the team had the “potiential” of using KERS. Although Toyota are developing a Kinetic Energy Recovery System the team have made the decision to start the season without it. It is still unclear how many teams will use KERS at Melbourne and how many will introduce it at a later date. While KERS will give a short boost of power that may help overtaking, the devices are complicated and add extra weight to the car.
Howett also said he was happy with his drivers saying that Jarno Trulli is still the quickest qualifier on the grid and “if we give him a good car he can deliver.”
Yes, Jarno is often quick in qualifying but we will see if can take the TF109 on to become more than just a rolling road block for the drivers behind him.
