2006 Malaysian Grand Prix - Race 2/18

FIA to publish 2008 entrants next month

The FIA has announced that it will publish the list of entrants to the 2008 Formula One world championship as early as next month - further increasing pressure on the manufacturers to commit to next week's entry deadline.

While FIA president Max Mosley has talked openly about his plans for the 'window of opportunity' for 2008 entries between March 24 and March 31, it was not thought likely that details of the entry list would be put into the public domain until the eve of the championship.

However, revisions to the Sporting Regulations agreed by the FIA World Motor Sport Council on Wednesday have included the fact that the list of teams eligible to race in 2008 will be published on April 28.

The 2008 Formula One Sporting Regulations said: "All applications will be studied by the FIA and accepted or rejected in its absolute discretion. The FIA will publish the list of cars and drivers accepted together with their race numbers on 28 April 2006, having first notified unsuccessful applicants as set out in Article 41. Out-of-time applications will be considered separately."

This means that those teams involved in the Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association will have to make a swift decision about whether they sign up to the championship, or whether they press ahead with their breakaway plans.

Mosley's justification for the short entry window is that the FIA needs to finalise the 2008 regulations by the end of June this year, and wants to do it in consultation with the teams who will actually be racing.

Should the manufacturers not sign up by the entry deadline then they will be frozen out of these rules talks.

Mosley did make it clear in a letter to the GPMA on Wednesday that the only way they could make changes to the sporting regulations was to sign up to the 2008 championship.

"Although the 2008 Sporting Regulations are now fixed, any element could be changed on proposal of a simple majority of the entered teams sitting in the Sporting Working Group (Appendix 5) and that the Formula One Commission of World Motor Sport Council would only reject such proposal in the overall interests of the Formula One World Championship or of motor sport in general."

The fact that the GPMA launched a last-minute bid to make changes to the Sporting Regulations, which came at 10:11pm on the night before the World Council meeting, indicates that the manufacturers are not happy with the rules as they stand at the moment.

However, their only way of making alterations will be to sign-up to the F1 championship – and in doing so all-but end the threat of the breakaway championship.

The FIA has created a Sporting Working Group, made up a representative from each team, to discuss changes to F1's sporting regulations.

Like the Technical Working Group, which is involved in changes to the technical regulations, changes agreed only need a simple majority vote before they are put to the Formula One commission.

The commission, which has been reduced to 13 members, will then only be allowed to reject or approve the proposed changes before they go to the FIA World Motor Sport Council for final approval.

The manufacturers, in their letter to Mosley on Tuesday night, said they were not happy with the fact that the commission could veto the changes agreed by the teams.
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Late GPMA move fails to foil Mosley’s vision

Enmity between F1's carmakers and FIA President Max Mosley resumed in Europe this week.

At 10pm the night before Wednesday's meeting of the world motor sport council, the GPMA alliance - including five manufacturer-owned teams - faxed a letter to the FIA's Monaco office; even though Mosley was in Paris for the meeting.

It highlighted 'concerns' with the 2008 rules, asking the council to consider implementing their ideas rather than ratify the controversial Mosley-plan.

The council, however, basically ignored the GPMA appeal, Mosley noting in a reply that 'none of you attended' meetings in 2005 'to discuss the 2008 regulations, despite repeated invitations to do so' .

So, in one stroke, the draft 2008 rules became law.

As well as a three-year engine 'freeze', the F1 calendar will be expanded to a maximum of 20 races, the 10-place grid penalty replaced with a 15kg 'ballast' scheme, and the $48m new-team bond axed.

Also in 2008, testing will be cut to 30,000km per team, spare cars banned, parc ferme conditions in force all weekend, and gearboxes will have to last four races.



Letter from the GPMA to Max Mosley

Dear Max

Thank you for your letter of 15 March 2006, enclosing a copy of the 2008 Sporting Regulations which are to be approved by the World Motor Sport Council on 22 March 2006.

We are pleased to note that the FIA wishes to involved teams in constructive discussion with a view to adopting changes to such Regulations with further aims as set out in your letter, once entries into the 2008 Championship have been accepted.

However, prior to any such discussions, we feel that it is appropriate for us to identify as number of significant concerns which we would prefer to raise now before the said Regulations are approved by the World Motor Sport Council.

Organisation Agreement

The 1998 Concorde Agreement, to which the teams and the FIA are parties, guarantee the current participating teams, during each year of the term, a right to entry into the Championship. Furthermore, the 1998 Concorde Agreement provides for the teams, as stakeholders in the sport, to have a significant role in its governance. These provisions appear to have been removed from the latest proposals submitted by the FIA post 2007 and we would ask that provisions to accommodate these concerns be taken into account in the draft 2008 Sporting Regulations to be approved by the World Motor Sport Council.

Engine Homologation

Whilst all signatories to this letter (and Cosworth) agree and confirm that they are committed to reducing engine costs, we realise that there is no time to discuss this issue further with you before the meeting of the World Motor Sport Council; we would respectfully request that Regulation 86e and Appendix 6 be agreed before the Sporting Regulations are adopted.

Rule Changes

We have noted that the provisions for changes in the Sporting and Technical Regulations which are currently set out in Appendix 5 of the draft 2008 Sporting Regulations, are different from those proposed in your letter of 18th November 2005. We would wish to see the composition, voting structure and proves of the Formula One Commission and its related working groups being established in line with your 19th November 2005 proposal. In particular, we believe that, further to previous discussions, if the majority of teams vote in favour of a change, such a change should not be capable of being vetoed by the F1 Commission.

In addition to the above, we do have a number of other concerns which we would also wish to discuss with you, which include the restriction on testing (Article 63 (b)), the engine ballast penalty (Article 86 (a)) and the gear box rules (Article 87). We believe that changes could be made to these provisions which would better achieve the FIA’s three objectives set out in your 15th March 2006 letter.

We very much hope that you will accept this letter in the constructive spirit in which it is offered and take our above concerns into consideration before the draft 2008 Sporting Regulations are submitted to the World Motor Sport Council for approval. Further, we would be very happy to discuss them with you in a constructive manner at a mutually convenient time and place.

Kind Regards

Yours sincerely

BMW, Honda, McLaren, Renault, Toyota and GPMA.




Letter from Mosley to the GPMA

Gentlemen

Thank you for your letter of 21 March, which was sent to us at 22.11 last night.

The World Motor Sport Council took account of the contents of your letter, but noted that it contained no proposal which could be substituted for any of those in front of the Council, sent to you on 1 March and the again, with minor modifications, on 15 March.

The World Motor Sport Council has also noted that none of you attended the meetings which were held early in 2005 to discuss the 2008 regulations, despite repeated invitations to do so, and that the proposals which you promised to deliver to us in June 2005 are still not to hand.

In the circumstances, the Council decided to adopt the proposed Sporting Regulations in their entirety and extend an invitation to all interested teams to enter the 2008 Championship and participate in discussions on any element which they believe could be improved.

The Council notes that although the 2008 Sporting Regulations are now fixed, any element could be changed on proposal of a simple majority of the entered teams sitting in the Sporting Working Group and that the Formula 1 Commission or the World Motor Sport Council would only reject such proposal in the overall interest of the Formula One World Championship or of motor sport in general.

Yours sincerely

Max Mosley.
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I would just like to mension in this thread that the Australian V8 super cars have there first round this weekend.
Its the clipsal 500 at Adelaide. They race 250kms on saturday and 250kms on Sunday.
So if anyone that likes motorsport you might like watching this if you can :)
 
Zip said:
I would just like to mension in this thread that the Australian V8 super cars have there first round this weekend.
Its the clipsal 500 at Adelaide. They race 250kms on saturday and 250kms on Sunday.
So if anyone that likes motorsport you might like watching this if you can :)
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Need to check if Motors are still doing their delay 'live' coverage of this :)
 
Type_R said:
Sorry no more info on the device at the moment. Autosport should have some news soon I would thinK!
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Could be the carbon disks that Ferrari have been sporting on their wheel rims which are classed as part fo the braking system...but also seem to smooth the airflow over the wheels..

Both of which are illegal btw... :D

Simon/~Flibster
 
Not sure if this is the same as whats being discussed, it certainly doesn't look like a movable aerodynamic part, but it does have aerodynamic benfefits. Heres the link.

Key point is this: "It completely fills the space inside the wheel rim, not only improving brake cooling, but also dramatically reducing the vortices generated by the rotation of the wheels, hence making this area more aerodynamically efficient."

A few shots of the ferrari brake: 1 2 3
 
lineaR said:
Not sure if this is the same as whats being discussed, it certainly doesn't look like a movable aerodynamic part, but it does have aerodynamic benfefits. Heres the link.

Key point is this: "It completely fills the space inside the wheel rim, not only improving brake cooling, but also dramatically reducing the vortices generated by the rotation of the wheels, hence making this area more aerodynamically efficient."

A few shots of the ferrari brake: 1 2 3
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Looks awesome but I fear another ban coming up :(
 
WOW!......... just watched Senna at Phoenix......


thanks for reminding me of this Simon....

Murry and James hunt.. now that brought back memories :)

Senna was just awesome... a certain german racer would not be 7 times champion now "For Sure!" :D
 
so many memories.........

so many great RACES.....and overtaking moves.... and pre butt face commentaries.... :D

Will we ever have it as good again?

I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it :(



A commentary test.... from Mr Hunt " Look at that there're neally touching"


Who and Where??


One of my all time bestest quotes :D
 
Richard T said:
nope, Now that was overtaking!!!

It may of been "Look at that there're almost touching".... :o
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Was it in fact:

"Wheel to wheel stuff! ...They're almost touching!..."

?

If so then it was Mansell (Williams) getting alongside and overtaking Senna (McLaren) at the end of the of the main straight at Barcelona into turn 1 in 1991 - quality move, altho Il Leone's move on Piquet into Stowe in '87 was better due to the quality dummy he sold Piquet :D

& a special mention must go to his move (in the Ferrari) on Berger (McLaren) into the Peraltada at Mexico in 1990 - Murray's commentary was brilliant - "and Mansell goes round the OUTSIDE!! INCREDIBLE!!" :D
 
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Richard T said:
Murry and James hunt.. now that brought back memories :)
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Murray and James originally really didn't like each other. :D However they became friends over the years. They were the best commentary team in F1 though.

Oh - trivia about them...Whenever Murray said that "James has just gone for a look at the other side of the circuit" Murray had kicked him out of the commentating booth as he wanted to smoke a joint. :D

Richard T said:
How brutal that Mclaren must have been around the 'proper' monaco track:eek:
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Many driver wore a larger glove on their right hand and packed it with padding for Monaco back in the day...

Many's the time you'd see drivers bleeding from their palms due to all the gearchanges. :eek:
 
Just received a good piece of rumour.... :D

The guys who own Cosworth at the moment *Gerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven iirc* bought Cosworth as...

a) It was very cheap - Ford had put a confidentiality clause in the contract to hide just how cheap...

b) To keep engine supplies coming for the Champ car series.

However - Cosworth now have a very good V8 engine for F1...

So....Who needs a exclusive engine supply to start moving forwards and win races and has the rumoured $50 million needed to buy Cosworth?

Oh yes...Dietrich Mateschitz....

Apparently he's been sniffing around Cosworth as he knows that he will never win being a Ferrari customer.

Hmmmm... ;)

Simon/~Flibster
 
Rinland defends Ferrari over flexi-wing

Former Sauber chief designer Sergio Rinland has spoken out in defence of Ferrari over the controversy regarding flexing wings.

The Argentinean, who now works as technical director of the Trident GP2 team, said Ferrari's rivals are also using similar systems to improve the performance of their wings - but these are not as visible as the Maranello squad's.

"The commotion around Ferrari's flexing front wing is a bit of a litmus test for F1," Rinland wrote in his column in Autosprint magazine.

"That's because, with the solution of the extra flap on top, the Maranello men put in practice what every other team do, but while Ferrari's solution is visible to the naked eye, their rivals' isn't.

"Everyone works towards making the front wing not only flex, but also give it torsion capability. McLaren, for example, obtain this effect even without the aid of the extra wing Ferrari has. Congratulations to them.

"I've been very surprised by Renault's rear wing, with its ability to flex along the vertical axis. But the FIA, who introduced a long series of checks on wings flexibility, in this case verifies the deflection only along the horizontal axis. I'm surprised no one has copied the R26 yet."

The FIA said on Monday there were concerns regarding several teams but they would be rectified before the next race.
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Cora lands Leon Supercup deal

Cora Schumacher will become Germany's fourth best paid driver after signing a deal to race in the SEAT Leon Supercup, according to Bild magazine.

The 29-year old, the wife of Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher, will compete in the series, which takes place as a supporting event to the DTM championship, during the whole 2006 season.

Cora had made her racing debut last year, when she took part in the Mini challenge.

"I'm very happy that everything turned out that way," Cora told Bild.

According to Bild, Cora will get €500,000 euro for driving in the series this year, putting her only behind Michael and Ralf Schumacher and BMW's Nick Heidfeld on the list of highest paid German drivers.

The magazine says she will earn more than Williams driver Nico Rosberg and DTM's Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

Cora will test the SEAT Leon for the first time next weekend.
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Googles for an image of her....and got this...

***CAUTION***

REAL, LIVING, BLOW UP DOLL CONTAINED IN THE LINK BELOW

http://www.formula1.com/gallery/tvimages/12/1802.html
 
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