F1 news round-up: 27th March

Posted on

| Written by

Here’s a collection of my F1 clippings from the past 24 hours. If you’ve spotted any more stories worth sharing please post them below.

Turning Point

Article in the Wall Street Journal with some quotes from me.

FOA issues media statement

"FOTA claimed that monies are owed by CVC (FOA’s controlling shareholder) to the teams for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Championship seasons. Neither CVC nor FOA owes any amount to any team."

Why Virgin is getting into bed with Brawn

"The Brawn cars will totally dominate this weekend and the next few as well, until the others can catch up."

The Williams Blog

"The test session went well from a performance point of view, but it was a logistical challenge to run a car in southern Spain this close to the first race. Many of the spare parts in Jerez will be needed in Australia and they had to be driven back to the factory on Tuesday night. But even that wasn’t straight forward because Nico [Rosberg] crashed on Tuesday afternoon, forcing us to re-schedule our plans."

Q & A with Nick Heidfeld

"I think the issue with points and they way it was done just before the first race was not clever and then to introduce it, and then nobody liking it, not the fans, not the drivers, not the teams – or just a very small per cent. And then reversing it but saying we will introduce it in 2010, this I think is not nice. But the other thing with the diffusers is just part of the sport."

Alonso: Ecclestone must heed drivers

"Unfortunately we had a bad last three or four weeks for our sport, with the change in rules and this attempt to change the world championship, to be decided by victories. We are happy they regretted their decision and they went back to the normal points. But now there's this diffuser thing, and I think for the fans it is impossible to understand how Formula 1 can start a championship like this with so many doubts and so many changes. We will see when it's over, and then for race one we can talk about the sport, about having fun in the car, and hopefully the spectators will enjoy it."

Hamilton joins the GPDA

"Hamilton revealed on Thursday in Australia that he has joined the GPDA following talks with chairman and team-mate Pedro de la Rosa."

Formula 1 circuit guides – 2009

Cool new F1 circuit guides from the BBC

These are links I’ve bookmarked using Delicious. You can see my Delicious profile here.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

4 comments on “F1 news round-up: 27th March”

  1. Well done, Keith! It made me wonder how much they left out. How many questions were you asked?

    Also, How about a post with the FOTA and FOA comments together? This is potentially earth-shattering stuff and I’m sure others would love to weigh in.

  2. Pretty kool for you their Keith to have you quoted in such a prestigious journal as the Wall Street Journal huh?. You must be so proud. A good article too.

    I also like the bbc graphics for the race circuits too, though it’s a shame for me (an expat living in the states) no to be able to watch the classic races off the bbc site. Especially as i can watch them anyway off you tube.

    And as far as FOA are concerned they need to stop acting like they own the world and put all the blame on the teams for the financing issue. The teams shouldn’t have to sign up to a concorde agreement to get paid by the cvc. Without the teams, the circuits and the fans they wouldn’t get ONE red cent.
    The previous article about how much the Melbourne race cost last year was a good example, and i agree with all those residents who are mad about it. How can CVC possibly have a good reason for charging circuits so much, if anything the circuits should be charging the FOA for the use of their circuits, not the ther way around. I think maybe $100,000,000m huh?

  3. Quote from FOA statement:
    FOA has no relationship with FOTA. It has always had a direct relationship with teams and will continue to do so.

    >>what the hell that means? “Theres no FOTA for us, there are only teams” ? Are Bernie saying that he dont consider FOTA a representative of teams? Is teams unity that much pain for Ecclestone?
    I ask because as not-english I may read it wrong, but for me that means war :)

    1. Not really war, more a polite cold-shoulder. When Bernie says ‘FOA has no relationship with FOTA’ he means that there is no contractural relationship between them. FOA does not need to have contracts with FOTA, but it does need them with the teams. As the FOA statement says earlier, they have exisitng contract with individual teams and on-going negotiations with the others.
      What’s interesting here is that Bernie is adamant that FOA owe nothing to any teams, whereas Uncle Ron and Flavio seem convinced that FOA do owe them money. This looks as though it’s been going on for a while, and is coming to a head. Why these two teams, and when did ‘the problem’ arise?

Comments are closed.