Right then, I’ve just realised that this weekend is PACKED with motorsport goodness. We have The Rallye de Catalunya and the Jerez MotoGP; Boy do I wish I was in Spain this weekend!

It’s time to clean that rubbish you’ve been keeping on Sky+ off and make room for the weekend, here’s a list of what you should be saving.

• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Fri 00:00 - Rally Review
• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Fri 22:30 - Rally Friday
• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Sat 12:30 - MotoGP Practice
• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Sat 13:00 - MotoGP Qualifying
• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Sun 00:00 - Rally Saturday
• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Sun 08:45 - MotoGP Warm Up
• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Sun 09:15 - MotoGP Intro
• EuroSport ( 410 ) - Sun 12:30 - MotoGP Race
• ITV1  ( 103 ) - Sun 15:00 - British Superbike
• ITV1  ( 103 ) - Sun 16:30 - Rally Roundup (all three days)

Wow! going to be a great weekend for us petrol heads! Remember though it’s Mother’s Day Sunday, so give her at least 10 minutes of your time

Tags: WRC, Rally, MotoGP, Motor Sport

Who will win, and will it be the right thing for the sport if either win?

That's the question I'm asking after the various announcements by the two different parties over the last couple of days.

The FIA have decided that teams have a 1 week window (24th March - 31st March) to sign up for the 2008 season. They have also said that the GPMA have only themselves to blame for not submitting input into the 2008 season's rules.

If you would like to read the proposed rules for 2008 then have a look at this PDF but Pitpass have a nice breakdown of the significant points.

The biggest problem is, that if teams do not sign up for the 2008 season in the window allowed, then they will not be allowed any input into any rule tweaks that are needed. The kicker to all this though, to sign up to the 2008 season you will also need to sign up to the new Concorde agreement, and with that the GPMA will effectively be dead.

What will come of all this? Well we could have 3 teams (the 3 Ferrari teams) on the F1 grid in 2008, with the rest on the GPMA grid. Will this happen though? I doubt it.

With some luck the teams and the FIA will come to an agreement that will keep both sides contented.

The one major downside to the 2008 season rules? engine development will be stopped for 3 years; That's just madness, we will end up with Champcars (or even production cars like the M5) that will be ahead of the 'premier motor sport series', and I don't think the manufacturers can allow that.

Tags: F1, Cars, MotorSport, FIA, GPMA

F1 Malaysia happened over the weekend at the Sepang circuit. The Race was decent although not quite as good as last weekends opener (Fisi did well coming in first, with Alonso and Button after him)

However that was not really the story of the weekend, there has been a lot of fuss about Ferrari’s (miss)interpretation of the 2006 rules about movable aero surfaces.

This showed up last race when Renault complained that the Ferrari rear wing was deforming at speed, and then this week complaint’s the front wing was doing the same have come to light.

Now I’m all for trying to get the most from the rules you can, but building a wing that does deform, and is still able to pass the FIA checks is not the same.

It is believed that the front wing does what it does to stop the car’s balance being upset (low downforce at the rear, therefore if the front did not lower it’s downforce you would have a tail happy car SpeedTV have a good article on the nose wing).

The biggest problem though, is not the Ferrari team itself (the wings so far have not afforded them any better pace in reality), the problem is their boss Jean Todt who said this when asked about the apparent deal that the other teams had come to with him making Ferrari use a ‘fixed’ nose and rear for Australia

“We are not in Melbourne. Ask me the question in Melbourne. Myself, I try to be a manager. I’m not a technical director. So my people know much better, and they will then suggest me what to do. You must know your limits in life. I try to know mine.”

Asked whether a deal had been done, Todt said: “I would never do a deal with anybody in this business. Only people I contract to work with Ferrari. That’s the only deal I do.”

So then, will Ferrari turn up to Australia and try get away with the bendy wing’s or will they turn up and be slow(er)? What level of performance are they gaining because of the wing design? If the Ferrari’s keep the wing design, and it is ratified by the FIA then all the other teams will do the same thing (if they are not already working on them for Australia).

On a slightly biased note, it’s nice to see Toyota a bit quicker, Ralf posted a 1:35:686 fastest lap only 2 100ths slower than his brother in the Ferrari (also on Bridgestone’s), Trulli was struggling throughout the GP due to a damaged rear diffuser.

Well done to the Renault team and Fernando who managed the win the first race of the season.

There were also some other notable things to talk about, Kimi did well to finish 3rd (starting from the last place position!), Rosberg drove a great race (1 minor hiccup at the start) really quite impressive F1 debut! and the chat is that Ferrari needs to look at there rear wings, apparently Pat Symonds (Renault) as well as others are saying that it may be skirting the rules, more on that when/if there is any comeback. Toyota’s boss Tsutomu Tomita has ordered an inquest into the F1 teams complete lack of pace!

It’s nice however to see close, dynamic racing in F1…. Let’s hope it lasts, bring on Malaysia!

Qualification was a bit of a spectacle. The big news is that Kimi had a catastrofic failure of a rear wish bone and crashed out of the first session.

His only saving grace is that the Bahrain track is one of the better ones for overtaking, so with a little luck we should see Kimi proving his worth.

Ferrari have also shown that the 248 is a quick car, we will have to see how fragile it is in the race but it should be ok.

Renault have admited making a mistake with strategy and Alonso ended up 4th on the grid.

The top 10 looks like this :-

1.  M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari     1m31.431s
2.  MASSA        Ferrari     1m31.478s
3.  BUTTON       Honda       1m31.549s
4.  ALONSO       Renault     1m31.702s
5.  MONTOYA      McLaren     1m32.164s
6.  BARRICHELLO  Honda       1m32.579s
7.  WEBBER       Williams    1m33.006s
8.  KLIEN        Red Bull    1m33.112s
9.  FISICHELLA   Renault     1m33.496s
10. HEIDFELD     BMW         1m33.926s

Should turn out to be an interesting race with some luck as I think the Ferrari cars may be running less fuel than some of those behind them.

The second session has finished over in Bahrain. and here are the results

1.  DAVIDSON     Honda       1m31.353s
2.  M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari     1m31.751s
3.  WURZ         Williams    1m31.764s
4.  MASSA        Ferrari     1m32.175s
5.  ALONSO       Renault     1m32.538s
6.  LIUZZI       Toro Rosso  1m32.703s
7.  DOORNBOS     Red Bull    1m32.926s
8.  FISICHELLA   Renault     1m33.215s
9.  BUTTON       Honda       1m33.226s
10. KUBICA       BMW         1m33.244s
11. KLIEN        Red Bull    1m33.557s
12. RAIKKONEN    McLaren     1m33.577s
13. MONTOYA      McLaren     1m33.726s
14. HEIDFELD     BMW         1m33.848s
15. JANI         Toro Rosso  1m33.900s
16. SPEED        Toro Rosso  1m34.284s
17. WEBBER       Williams    1m34.333s
18. BARRICHELLO  Honda       1m34.384s
19. COULTHARD    Red Bull    1m34.432s
20. MONTEIRO     Midland     1m34.459s
21. ROSBERG      Williams    1m34.953s
22. R.SCHUMACHER Toyota      1m35.170s
23. WINKELHOCK   Midland     1m35.686s
24. TRULLI       Toyota      1m35.898s
25. VILLENEUVE   BMW         1m36.264s
26. ALBERS       Midland     1m36.314s
27. SATO         Super Aguri 1m37.588s
28. IDE          Super Aguri 1m39.021s

So a couple of things of note. The Honda has proved that it can be a quick car as everyone has been saying over the winter testing. The next fastest person on the track was Shumi’ nearly half a second slower (although his lap was a do or die one at the end of the session).

The shock (or not) is that the Torro Rosso V10 powered car has shown that it is a quick package, the inside track rumors that the V10’s restrictions where not enough seem to be showing some form of being correct.

The Race drivers showed that they are obviously trying to keep the engines in good condition as nearly none of the race drivers are as quick as there test driver equivalents (Honda especially), another shock is how low down the field the Toyota’s are, although Trulli had technical problems mid session.

Massa showed he could at least match the times Barrichello used to run at Ferrari (about half a second slower), and the more he gets used to the car the faster he should become.

Alonso finished the session fifth, but apparently looked like he was driving well within himself, so more to come there.

The times are down to around 1 second slower than last years times, I predict that we may even see lap times being equaled or bettered from last year. Why? well I think the aero guys have had a year to streamline the aero packages, and the tyre manufacturers have taken another step (they can change them again this year), that and the fact the V8’s are producing more power than the FIA thought they probably would means that the speed of the cars this year will not be significantly lower than last.

Like I said before should be a good season.

This weekend is the opening weekend for the F1 season at Bahrain. It should be a good opening race (Australia had to move due to the Commonwealth games).

We will get to see what the teams have been doing over the winter, if the new V8 engines are still frail due to the 40c temperatures on track. If the tyre manufacturers have made an advancements (all the teams are now seeming to be close to their 2005 times), and possibly the most important question, has the FIA got the V10 restrictions right, or are Torro Rosso going to be at the front!

The practice times are in from free practice 1, with BMW’s Robert Kubica setting the best time of 1:32:170, he was followed by Wurz at 1:32:184 and Raikkonen on 1:33:388. We obviously have no idea what setup and fuel level’s they where running (1:30:252 was the fastest lap last year).

The new qualifying session could throw some surprises, as the final set of teams have to run race fuel, and I welcome the fact that tyres will need changing again (well I am a Toyota supporter, and there on Bridgestone this year).

All in all it’s a new era in F1, the 2.4ltr V8’s will be proved as either a good or bad idea (I will miss the V10 wail though). I look forward to the teams being allowed to share more of their technology (not just the engine’s) with the smaller teams as it will mean a closer racing experience for us the viewers.

F1 2006, Bring it on

Audi motorport have put together a really nice video of the Audi R10 build (there LeMans car). It’s really nicely edited, and some lovely images in it (if you like engineering that is). Download it here it’s designed for an iPod or PSP but works fine on a PC playing with Quick Time. (click through for a YouTube hosted version)

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Audi have announced their driver line-up for the first outing of the R10’s.

The line-up is Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner in car 1 and Dindo Capello, Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen.

Audi seem to be going for it all out this year to prove their superiority in diesel technology (the R10 is derv powered) and with a driver line-up like this they should be well on track.

Just thought with the various seasons looming I would post some of the recent developments.

Team Super Aguri have shown off their 2006 spec car at Silverstone this week. The new car seems to be still based on the Arrows 2002 car with modifications to make it 2006 compliant. I really cannot see them doing well this year, but should become a stronger team when the new Concorde agreement allows them to use customer chassis (they will probably purchase the Honda works team chassis). Good luck to all the team anyway. One thing we did see at the Silverstone test was that the team is using a high intensity green light at the back of the car instead of the usual red, nice.

Pitpass have a decent article by Mario Theissen on the V8 vs V10 debate.

In the world of MotoGP the 06 Yamaha was launched this week in Milan. With the new bike comes a new sponsor. Camel have moved their allegiances over to the Rossi and Edwards team (they used to sponsor Max Biaggi), it will take some getting used to the Camel colours on a non Honda RC211V.

Suzuki have announced they will be joining the WRC ranks in 2007 with an official factory team using the SX4. The team has been successful in the Junior WRC class in the recent past.

In other WRC news David Lapworth has left the Subaru squad further adding fuel to the fire that the ProDrive outfit are looking to get into F1. The team have asked for planning permission for a £200 million development facility in Warwickshire (UK)

So things are looking to be hotting up on all front’s in the motorsport arena at the moment, it could be a great year for us fans!