More Post-Season News and a Look Back at 2011

December 9, 2011, 1:03 pm

By BRAD SPURGEON

The post-season news is still piling in this week as Formula One makes a slew of announcements before taking a break for Christmas.

On Friday the Lotus Renault team announced that Romain Grosjean would replace Vitaly Petrov and race alongside Kimi Raikkonen. Something is clearly happening with racing in F1 and France. There was a time when there were about seven drivers from France in the series — a few decades ago — but that dwindled over the last decade to one or none. Next year we’ll see at least two French drivers –? Grosjean and Charles Pic at Marussia –? and there is a possibility that Jean Eric Vergne will drive for Toro Rosso.

Earlier in the week the World Motor Sport Council of the International Automobile Federation announced several changes for next season, including a three-day test session during the year and a few changes to the sporting regulations. There was no change to the F1 calendar announced, despite uncertainties surrounding the Bahrain Grand Prix and the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin.

One of the new regulations is that drivers can no longer return to the racing line after protecting their position off the line. I’m looking forward to seeing how that one works out in practice – I mean, what does it mean? They get to defend their position, but if they do it successfully they can’t return to the racing line, and so end up in a precarious position in the corner? I will be fun and interesting to see how that is enforced.

For a look back at the season, my season review special report is now online. The overview article looks at the main themes of the F1 season this year. And speaking of rookie French drivers for next year, there is an article that examines how this year’s F1 rookies did, and the problems they have faced – notably with so little testing available to teams now to try out the rookies. And speaking of next year’s racing venues and the calendar, there is also a roundup the current state of the juggling of the F1 calendar. Finally, and perhaps most fun of them all, is the double Q&A with the two Ferrari drivers, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.? I interviewed both drivers separately and asked many of the same questions to both of them.

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The Driver Market and a Roundup of Other Racing News

The so-called “silly season” in Formula One, where the teams name their drivers for the following season, used to happen in the summer. This year it was delayed until after the season ended, and a couple of seats have just been claimed.

Force India announced Friday that Nico Hulkenberg would replace Adrian Sutil and join Paul di Resta as regular driver next year. Sutil had been with the team for several years, and Hulkenberg had worked as reserve driver this year.

“It wasn’t easy to watch from the sidelines this season, but I did my best to help the team and show what I was capable of,” said Hulkenberg.

In the past few weeks we also learned the Kimi Raikkonen would join the Lotus Renault team, and that his teammate would be Romain Grosjean. That ended the long saga of whether or not Robert Kubica would be able to return to the team after sustaining injuries in a rally accident last February.

We have also learned that there will be three Frenchmen in the series next year, with Charles Pic and Jean-Eric Vergne coming in as rookies to join their more experienced countryman, Grosjean. Vergne has joined Toro Rosso, and will race alongside the Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo; they are replacing Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari.

Alguersuari has expressed surprise at not being retained for next year, justifiably, since he had an excellent season – as did Buemi. But Franz Tost, the team director, has said that Toro Rosso is a team meant for training rookies. It was here, of course, where the Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel learned the ropes, and won his first race before moving to Red Bull to win the title the last two years running.

Sebastien Buemi “has been with us for three seasons and Jaime for two and a half,” said Tost. “Both of them worked hard for the team, doing their very best and achieving some good results.

“However, Scuderia Toro Rosso’s ethos has always been that of the ‘rookie training school’ and with over two seasons under your belt, you are no longer a rookie,” he added. “In an ideal world, drivers would move from Scuderia Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing, but there are no vacancies with our sister team right now.”

It is not just drivers who are being shuffled around. At the HRT team, which is moving from Germany to Spain this winter, the team director for the last two seasons, Colin Kolles, has been dropped and replaced by a Spaniard, the former driver Luis Perez-Sala. This is in keeping with the team, also known as Hispania, fulfilling its goal of operating as a wholly Spanish team.

Joining the recent flood of news before Christmas, the IndyCar series made public on Friday a report on the multiple-car accident at the Las Vegas Speedway that took the life of Dan Wheldon in October. The report said that the current car design and the design of the Las Vegas track both played a role in the accident, but played down the role of the track, saying the accident could have happened anywhere. At the time of the accident, drivers and the media had criticized the track for being too fast and too dangerous for the 34 cars that ran that race.

Although the report came with jargon-filled descriptions of what actually killed Wheldon, the conclusion in simple language is that his head hit a fence pole at the side of the track.

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Raikkonen Returns to Formula One

November 29, 2011, 12:36 pm

By BRAD SPURGEON

After a couple of years away from the series in a failed attempt at rally racing, Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 world champion at Ferrari, will return to race in Formula One next season.

Lotus Renault announced Tuesday that Raikkonen would join the team on a two-year contract. Raikkonen has won 18 races. His name came up throughout the season in association with either Lotus Renault — which lost its lead driver Robert Kubica to injuries in a rally accident — or Williams.

“There were two options – it was this team or Williams,” said Raikkonen. “And everything worked out with Lotus Renault GP as we wanted, so that’s really the reason.”

Raikkonen, who appeared to lack motivation in his last two seasons with Ferrari, said he missed the racing.

“The main reason was that I never really lost the passion for racing in Formula One, just maybe for all the other things around it,” he said, referring to his notorious dislike of the constant barrage of media interviews and sponsorship commitments of a driver in Formula One. “But when I did some NASCAR races this year I noticed that I was increasingly missing the racing side – to race against each other – because in rallying you really race against the clock.”

My question is whether Raikkonen is the best choice for the Lotus Renault team as it tries to rebuild and find a team leader after losing Kubica. Rubens Barrichello, who proved at Williams this year that he is still fast, is known for his feedback and experience and input with the engineers — whereas Raikkonen is fairly withdrawn.

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Weekend Roundup of Racing News

The Formula One season ended just a week ago, but the news has been piling up. In fact, much of the news coming through now is probably information that some put off announcing until after the season.

For instance, this morning the Mercedes GP team made an announcement that it would henceforth officially be named Mercedes AMG Petronas. AMG is the performance brand of Mercedes, and the team has decided this is a good way to emphasize the link to the sporting side of Mercedes.

“Our new team name fuses the proud traditions of AMG and the Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows at the pinnacle of motorsport,” said Norbert Haug, the director of Mercedes motorsports. “These three letters are synonymous with high technology, sporting performance and excitement and this step is a further strong sign of the strategic commitment Mercedes-Benz has made to Formula One.”

Yesterday’s big news came in bundles from the annual Autosport Awards ceremony for the year’s standout performances, where fortunately, there were few surprises. It was clear which drivers should win what awards and Autosport did not get it wrong.

Sebastian Vettel won International Racing Driver of the Year. In an interview with Autosport he said it would be tough to repeat that feat next year.

“There have been very few mistakes over this year, nearly faultless, from all of us – so it is never easy. But we will have to push very hard,” he said. “People will catch up, and it will be very tight as it has been at times this year. But I am looking forward to it, and that is what it is all about.”

Jenson Button, who was the second best driver in F1 this year, won British Competition Driver of the Year.

And Paul di Resta, who scored the most points of the five rookies in F1 this year, won the Rookie of the Year award.

The documentary film about Ayrton Senna won the Pioneering and Innovation award.

The Red Bull RB7 won the Racing Car of the Year award – and it really was the best.

That sums up the awards and the F1 highs of the year.

Unfortunately today’s news is a low: Peter Gethin, the winner of the 1971 Italian Grand Prix, died at the age of 71 after an illness. Gethin drove for BRM, McLaren and Embassy Hill Lola. The Italian Grand Prix that he won had five drivers finishing within .61 seconds.

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