grandprix.com  > FIA announces future F1 plans

The FIA have gone ahead and announced that all Formula One teams will either have severe restriction or go for a new £40m budget cap.

The teams are shifting uncomforatably in their luxury seats as the penny pinching begins.

Refuelling, tyre blankets and P. Diddy will be banned from next season.

This will possibly lead to 26 cars on next years grid.

grandprix.com > McLaren decision

The FIA very sensibly didn’t throw the book, the bell and the candle at McLaren today and took the scapegoating, resigning  and grovelling as victory enough, leaving just a suspended sentence just in case any more blood is found on any more hands.

That penalty is a suspension of the team from three races of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. This will only be applied if further facts emerge regarding the case or if, in the next 12 months, there is a further breach by the team of article 151c of the International Sporting Code.”

Let’s hope they buy some soap…

grandprix.com > Diffusers are legal!

And the season can carry on as the FIA  has broken its rule of making silly judgements by declaring diffusers legal.

therefore, Button keeps his wins, BrawnGP stays on top and McLaren, Ferrari et al remain totally fucked.

The other teams all now have to try to sound angry (see kevin’s post) and yet somehow manage to sneak out their own double decker diffusers onto the grid that they’ve been making for the last month without the worlds press noticing and shouting “hypocrites”.

At last we can look forward to a Grand Prix where the result is decided as the cars cross the line. Not since the days of Sir Stirling Moss have fans been able watch a race decided at the track on a Sunday. Speaking last week in Paris as the FIA finally confirmed his 1992 championship Nigel Mansell said “I’m 72 you know”.

The best part of the appeal hearing for me is the fact that Ferrari’s legal attorney Nigel Tozzi (some jokes write themselves) QC seems to have taken it all so badly, perhaps fearing a horses head in his bed he decided to attack Ross Brawn by saying,

“Only a person of supreme arrogance would think he is right, when so many of his esteemed colleagues would disagree. Anyone with a command of English will tell you it is a hole.”

What? If you think you are right but your slower, bitter, wealthier and previously more successful esteemed colleagues disagree you should capitulate or be deemed arrogant .

Arrogance of course is a word that can no longer be associated with Ferrari after they forced the Oxford English Dictionary to change their definition of the word in 2004.

He continues “Do not let someone attempting to be clever with words defeat the express purpose of the rules.”

I have never sworn on the website before but that is about to change. FUCK OFF! You are a fucking wankstick of an attorney your job description is someone attempting to be clever with words to defeat the express purpose of the rules.

As for the holes of which you speak, they are not holes. What you can see next to Massa, Raikkonen and the teams names are in fact zeros.

Numbers can be confusing I know, and seeing as the rest of the team is now very busy re-designing the entire rear end of the car I’m going to help you, so repeat after me, zero, nothing, zip, nada, naught, fuck all, nul point, big fat zero……………

grandprix.com > McLaren sporting director suspended

though the wheels aren’t literally falling off the McLaren this season, it is starting to feel that the wheels are falling off McLaren.

After the latest saga of Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification from the Australian GP, now surely big enough to be given a -gate suffix, radiogate? ignoringate? the teams sporting director, Dave Ryan, has been susprended.

He’s been with the team for aaaages. So things can’t be good.

grandprix.com > FOTA questions FIA decision

After resolutely outflanking and fucking FOTA the FIA have come in for some backlash, not only have messrs schumacher, alonso and hamilton have said they’re not so keen on the idea but today the FIA have come out with some legalspeak and worked out that maybe the FIA can’t do it after all.

The amendment to the sporting regulations proposed by the World Motorsport Council was not performed in accordance with the procedure provided for by Appendix 5 of the Sporting Regulations and, as per the provisions of the article 199 of the FIA International Sporting Code, it is too late for FIA to impose a change for the 2009 season that has not obtained the unanimous agreement of all the competitors properly entered into the 2009 Formula 1 Championship.

Since the change to the scoring system unanimously agreed by the Teams and proposed to FIA did not receive approval of the WMSC, no change can occur in 2009, and the Teams wish to reaffirm their willingness to collaborate with the FIA in order to jointly define a new point system for the 2010 season within a comprehensive set of measures aimed at further stimulating the attractiveness of the F1 Sport.

James Allen on F1 > Todt and Ferrari part company

It looks as though Jean Tody has cut his ties with Ferrari.

Could this be to pave the way to line up to replace Mucky Max’s FIA presedency?