Back on Track!

Holidays are over and F1 racing is back this weekend for the Grand Prix of Turkey. Friday morning we have second practice at 7am, qualifying on Saturday at 7am and the race is on Sunday at 8am. Forza Ferrari!

Briatore slams Mclaren

Flavio Briatore has suggested that McLaren was only able to keep up with Ferrari this year because of the spy scandal.

The Renault boss, who respectively beat McLaren and Ferrari for the world championships in 2005 and 2006, said he does not believe his counterpart Ron Dennis that no-one except Mike Coughlan at McLaren knew about the 780-page dossier of Ferrari secrets.

Briatore said the biggest disadvantage compared to Ferrari this year was its rivals' lack of knowledge of the Bridgestone tyres.

"Had I only known Ferrari's weight distribution, or how big their tank is, if I had a bit of those documents, then we surely wouldn't be in this situation today," the Italian told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Briatore charged: "Dennis says he's immaculate, but it's hard to believe him. No, I don't believe in his good faith. In a team everyone knows everything."

He also criticised Dennis for not yet sacking Coughlan, while Ferrari has on the other hand dismissed alleged McLaren informer Nigel Stepney.

"It's an extremely serious thing that he hasn't yet been fired," Briatore said, referring to Coughlan.

Hungarian GP - 2nd place for Kimi

Jean Todt:
"A second and thirteenth place are a meagre reward for this weekend. There is a slight bitter taste at seeing how competitive we were in the race with Kimi, as it showed yet again that starting from the front is vital, especially at a track like the Hungaroring where overtaking is almost impossible. Of course, Felipe was even more heavily penalized because of the negative outcome of qualifying, given that he was constantly stuck in traffic. We knew this track would not suit us that well. Now we need to try and get both our drivers on the podium all the time to try and make up the gaps in both championships for the remaining third of the season. We have all we need - the team, the car and drivers - but we have not always been able to put them all together to the best effect. If we don't manage it, the championships will not be won."

Kimi Raikkonen:
"My main aim today was to make up points on my three closest rivals for the title. I didn't manage it and so I cannot be completely happy. We knew we could count on a very good car in terms of race pace and so it was, as was clear to see on the few occasions when I could drive with a clear track ahead of me, but it was not enough to win. When you find yourself very close to a car with similar speed, unless it makes a mistake, it is very difficult to overtake, especially on a track like this one. I fought to the very end to try and win but I never had a real chance to pass Hamilton. We came in together for our first pit stop and at that point, the choice of fuel levels determined the final outcome. But bit by bit as the track rubbered in and got more grip, my performance improved. Clearly, on some tracks, we suffer a lot in qualifying and we have to understand why. I think that in the coming races the situation should definitely be better, starting in Istanbul."

Felipe Massa:
"It was a horrible race; there are no other words to describe it. At the start, I managed to pass some cars but at the exit to Turn 1, I lost position again. Then, at the next corner, I tried to pass Wurz but I ran wide and Sato also got past me. At that point, any hopes I had just evaporated. I had a very heavy car and lost downforce every time I tried to close on other cars. It's been a weekend to forget but I have not lost confidence. We know we have a good car and we must return to winning as soon as possible, starting in Turkey. We must not give up."

Ron Dennis - Take this !!!

Ron Dennis kept his drivers away from the press conferences in Hungary on Thursday. Maybe they were afraid of a question like this:

Journalist: "Fernando, your boss, Mr. Dennis, claims that Ferrari won the Australian GP with an illegal car, because subsequent to the race, a rule change was enacted that affected the use of a certain feature of the car. Now, it is well known that a rule change was made last year which affected the use of a certain feature on your car and as you had this feature on your car over two seasons (your two WDC seasons), do you agree that you won 2 championships with an illegal car?"

Fernando: "Let me get back to you on that..."

Courtesy Of Mario C.

Renault to attend spy appeal hearing

Formula One champions Renault will attend an appeal court hearing into a spying controversy between McLaren and Ferrari, team head Flavio Briatore said on Friday.

The Italian told a news conference at the Hungarian Grand Prix circuit that the French team would be there because the affair was damaging the sport's image and the outcome was important to everybody.

"This story involves everybody sooner or later," he said. "I want to know exactly what is going on because I think it is part of our job.

"If you see the newspapers in the last two months, we are not talking about who is the guy winning the race or losing the race. The spy story, if you want, is predominant in everything," added Briatore.

"I believe this story is damaging everybody a little bit, including me...Stuff like this is not good for the sponsors or anybody."

Red Bull team chief Christian Horner, whose cars are powered by Renault engines, said they would not be attending.

"The matter doesn't concern our team or any employees of our team and we trust in the governing body to make the right decisions," he said.

Briatore said Renault, winners of both titles for the past two seasons, attended a hearing in Paris last week that found McLaren to have been in unauthorised possession of Ferrari documents.

No penalty was imposed on McLaren, 27 points clear of Ferrari with seven races remaining, because of insufficient evidence that they had benefited from the data.

The team have said they did not know their now-suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan had 780 pages of Ferrari information at his home.

The affair has been sent to appeal, with a date yet to be decided. If the earlier verdict is overturned, McLaren could face suspension or even exclusion from the championship.

Webber defends Ferrari

Aug.3 (GMM) Australian formula one driver Mark Webber, who races for Red Bull, has defended Ferrari's heated attitude to the spy scandal.

Mark Webber, wrote in a column for Eurosport that he can see where Ferrari "are coming from" after hundreds of pages of sensitive team material was found in the possession of McLaren's chief designer.

"From what I've read and what I've been told," he said, "it wasn't just technical design details in the dossier that Mike Coughlan had, it was details about how the team was being run operationally.

"If that's true, and if the dossier was seen by somebody else, then it's a massive deal for Ferrari."

Webber echoed the sentiment of the rest of the paddock, however, by admitting that he would prefer the focus of attention to now return to the on-track action.

He said: "It isn't how we want people to see F1."

Response To Ron Denis' Letter to Luigi Macaluso

This is a post taken from the autosport forum:

On the one hand, they believe Stepney is acting as a whistle-blower, going as far as to say that "It is in the interests of Formula 1 that whistle-blowing is encouraged and not discouraged. If team members think that their identity will be revealed they will not whistle-blow."

Yet immediately after that, they took "steps immediately after learning of the contact between Mr Stepney and Mr Coughlan in March 2007 to ensure that Mr Stepney and Mr Coughlan ceased having any contact."

Apparently, as the letter goes on to explain, they didn't feel comfortable "with a disgruntled Mr Stepney being in contact with Mr Coughlan". Why? Didn't they just say that "whistle-blowing [should be] encouraged"?...

Furthermore, the very foundation of whistle-blowing is an insider providing information in order to put a stop to an illegal or immoral activity. Taking McLaren's details at face value, they received information from a whistle-blower that Ferrari are breaking the rules.

Well, the proof is in the pudding. McLaren didn't use the information to protest or complain about Ferrari; they used the information to inquire whether they too could run a system like that.

If the FIA replied to their letter "Yes, this system is legal", then it stands to reason that McLaren would have adopted it too.

Would McLaren then have been able to say that Stepney acted as a whisle-blower and that what they did was just and legal?

I don't think there's any doubt Stepney's motive was NOT ideological.

As someone who has had personal experience with people who genuinely risked their works and lives to expose illegal activities in companies or governments, I find McLaren's preaching that Stepney was a whistle-blower very insulting to the real whistle-blowers of this world.

Stepney is no Jeffrey Wigand or Sherron Watkins.