What would Formula 1 be without all the rumours? Here is a taste of what might happen next season. A lot of this is, of course, unconfirmed, and will change..
Right: my first heading; “rumours”. And, yes, there are loads of them I can write about. Renault’s driver, Fernando Alonso, who won the World Championship twice with Renault, is rumoured to be leaving Renault and heading off the those beautiful red cars of… Ferrari. The obvious question is: which driver would he replace? Felipe Massa is contracted until the end of the 2010 season, but Raikkonen’s contract runs out at the end of the 2009 season. Is there room for Alonso to move? Of course, he may be forced to move, or not have a driver for the 2010 season – Renault are (rumoured!) to be leaving the sport, due to, what else? Lack of money.
The FIA have (definitely!) moved the limit on the amount of cars on the track during a race from the current 24 to 26 for 2010, meaning that 13 teams could, potentially, enter. One team that have been confirmed as submitting an entry to the FIA are Prodrive. The Aston Martin chairman and Prodrive founder David Richards has entered the team for the 2010 season, after a failed attempt to join F1 in 2008. Another possible new team is Lola. The company is a British racing car constructor, and has been involved in F1 in the past. Another team also made an entry; Team Superfund. Funded by Group Superfund owner Christian Baha, the team prinicipal will be a former F1 driver – Alex Wurz. Other teams who have been linked with entering F1 include Campos Meta 1, US Grand Prix Engineering, Litespeed GP, and March Racing. It will be announced on June 12th which teams have been accepted.
Which races will there be? And what will be different to the 2009 season? Well, there are several rumours saying that the Portuguese Grand Prix – last raced in 1996 – may make a return, at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, although this may happen in 2011, rather than 2010. Argentina has also confirmed they are in discussions with Ecclestone over a possible Argentine Grand Prix for 2010. A definite new race will be the Korean Grand Prix (held in South Korea, obviously). This will be a regular on the calendar, as it the contract continues to 2017. The rest of the Grand Prix held in 2009 will be there again, with the possible excpetion of three that are currently unconfirmed – Britain, Turkey and Italy. The British Grand Prix has been the cause for most speculation. The race, which has been held at Silverstone since 1987 will definitely not be held at Silverstone in 2010 – due to lack of the all important money. On July 4, 2008 Donnington Park took the contract for the British Grand Prix, but since then have run into legal problems. If these can’t be sorted out, there will be no British Grand Prix, for the first time in the Formula One World Championship’s history. There have also been murmurs that a North American Grand Prix will, once again, be held, with either a United States Grand Prix, or a Canadian Grand Prix – or even both!
Another highly interesting rumour is that Virgin may buy Brawn team, meaning that it would run under the name of Virgin Racing or Virgin Grand Prix. But do we belive them? Hmm.
One of the most highly publicised rows to hit F1 is the rather scientifically named “budget cap row”. I shall try to summarise simply for you. The FIA passed a rule to introduce a budget cap of £40 million; the teams then threw a tantrum. Not quite as simple as that, of course. The rule does not mean teams have to work within the £40 million cap; teams who do, however, get a reward. Ferrari were the first to come out and object, but not any old objection; they said that they would leave the sport. They were quickly joined by Renalut, BMW, Toyota, Red Bull and Toro Rosso. Later, all teams signed an agreement with FOTA, to say that they would leave F1 if the budget cap rule was not removed; however, just three days later, Williams went back on their agreement, and entered the 2010 season anyway, saying that, as a company with no other source of profit, they could not leave. Makes you wonder why they signed the agreement in the first place. Anyway, FOTA then decided, very decently, to have a tantrum as well, suspending Williams completely from FOTA. Mind you, Williams had been very stupid to sign the agreement in the first place – obviously they left their brains at home that day. However, all the teams have, now, put in entries for the 2010 season, on condition, of course, that the budget cap rules are taken away. Discussions are still ongoing, but, so far, no agreement has been reached between FOTA and the FIA.
But will (or would) all the teams of left? When they were actually faced with reality, would teams like Ferrari really leave the sport? I don’t think so. Ferrari’s image has been projected through F1 for years; it hardly makes sense for them to leave, does it? Personally, I think teams would only leave if forced for other reasons, as well.
And, of course, you have to consider into all these rumours and tantrums, there is only one thing that really matters: money, money, money.
