Alvin's Formula One Blog

Have you ever heard of the term "Gobledygook"? It's a term I learnt a long time ago when I was much younger. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the short definition is "speech or writing that is complicated and difficult to understand." The full definition is "wordy and generally unintelligible jargon". Wikipedia groups gobledygook together with gibberish: Gibberish and gobbledygook refer to speech or other use of language that is nonsense, or that appears to be nonsense. Lately the F1 rules by the FIA seems to be nonsense, isn't it? Especially with qualifying. The new rules on qualifying has been bent over so much that I have trouble figuring out what is going on. And that was last year. I finally got around to it and now they've twisted it even more. Then they said they won't have it by Melbourne but will start at Spain as Bernie Ecclestone claimed the relevant software and broadcast graphics would not be ready in time. No...

Formula One racing’s governing body the FIA has released a revised provisional schedule for next year’s world championship, with the season set to get underway in Australia in March, not in April as previously indicated. A record 21 races remain on the calendar, with the brand-new event in Baku, Azerbaijan taking place the week after Canada - one of six back-to-back Grand Prix weekends. Also announced at Wednesday’s World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) meeting in Paris were new rules to increase the noise of cars. From 2016, all cars must have a separate exhaust wastegate tailpipe through which all and only wastegate exhaust gases must pass. This move will not have any significant effect on power or emissions. Several other changes were announced to the F1 regulations. They were: Cars must now comply with all cockpit and safety equipment requirements during testing; such as the position of the driver’s head, all headrest padding, cockpit padding and ease of driver egress. Sport...

Meeting in Doha, the World Motor Sport Council has announced a number of changes to the Sporting and Technical Regulations. Along with these changes to the regulations, the FIA President confirmed that the focus will be on reducing costs, improving the show, making cars quicker and more difficult to drive, and reviewing the technical and sporting regulations, with the aim of simplifying the rules where possible. Sporting Regulations Points Points for both titles will no longer be doubled for the final Event of the Championship. Standing Restarts After consultation with the Teams who raised a number of safety concerns, Articles 42.7 and 42.8 on standing restarts have been rescinded. Virtual Safety Car (VSC) Following tests of the VSC system at the final Events of 2014, the introduction of the system has been approved for 2015. The VSC procedure may be initiated to neutralise a race upon the order of the clerk of the course. It will normally be used when double waved ye...

The 2015 calendar is out now and other than the surprise inclusion of  Korea , which the World Motor Sport Council admits has yet to be confirmed, the only change to the provisional calendar announced in September is that which sees China change places with Bahrain . The Koreans were surprised they were included. On the other hand, running the Korean and Spanish events back-to-back does appear ambitious, to put it mildly. Date Race Circuit 15-Mar Australia Melbourne 29-Mar Malaysia Sepang 12-Apr China Shanghai International Circuit 19-Apr Bahrain Sakhir 03-May Korea* Yeongam 10-May Spain Barcelona 24-May Monaco Monaco 07-Jun Canada Montreal 21-Jun Austria Red Bull Ring 05-Jul Britain Silverstone 19-Jul Germany Nurburgring 26-Jul Hungary Hungaroring 2...

Renault have been summoned by the World Motorsport Council to answer charges that they orchestrated the Piquet accident at last years' Singapore GP in order to make Fernando Alonso win the race. The hearing is set for September 21st. It seems quite logical for this to happen after watching the race. Immediately after the crash, I remember thinking to myself this was typical Piquet, that he couldn't handle the car but there was a niggling feeling at the back of my head that it could have been fixed. He could have done it on purpose. The accident looked fake even with Piquet's bad driving, he couldn't be that bad. To add fuel to the fire, Massa remarked to Flavio after the race, albeit in an accusing tone that the accident looked strange . What wasn't so strange was that Massa drove off with his fuel hose down the pitlane. After the race, there was some discussions that he faked it, he crashed on purpose. Now the worms are out of the can and Renault could be in for a...

Thursday 7th May 2009 Lewis Hamilton insists McLaren have not been swayed from their task of winning the World title by their recent headline-grabbing controversy. A little over a week ago McLaren faced the World Motor Sport Council to answer charges relating to the Liargate scandal that saw them thrown out of the Australian GP classifications. And although the saga made headlines around the world before finally being resolved with a three-race suspended ban for McLaren, Hamilton says at no stage was the team distracted by it. "I think what's been impressive is the team have not been effected by it," he said during Thursday's press conference in Spain. "We've been pushing since the test we had here and through past experiences they have been strong together, and we've focused on the primary goal. "For sure the team and the guys back at factory can focus more on getting the car back t...

Fair? Since when have the FIA or WMSC been fair to McLaren? We'll see. Monday 27th April 2009 Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that the WMSC will most likely heed Mercedes's warning when handing out punishment to McLaren in the Liargate scandal. It is a widely held opinion in F1 circles that McLaren will face some sort of punishment in the form of a race ban, a monetary fine or a combination of the two. In a thinly-veiled warning, Dieter Zetsche, the chairman of Daimler, recently stated that Mercedes may not remain in F1 if McLaren are slapped with an "unreasonable punishment." "If circumstances should change, perhaps because of an unreasonable punishment by the FIA, it is possible that we could consider our engagement," he told German magazine Focus. And it appears that the WMSC will heed Daimler's warning with Ecclestone revealing that, with all certainty, McLaren will receive a "...

Morgan B's comments on Planet F1 regarding this issue is so direct to the point that I re-produce it here. Friday 24th April 2009 "Some of the comments are so ridiculous I find it hard to believe some of you have ever watched a race, let alone a whole season. I absolutely know without any doubt that if it was your favourite driver telling a lie, or your favourite team, you would be a lot less intent upon dramatising this affair. Lie about it, I dare you. Come to this forum and lie to me that you would be exactly the same about any driver/team. Tell me you would have done this to Schumacher who we know for a fact lied, and we know for a fact cheated in a way that endangered another drivers life several times. Tell me a lie that you demanded his head on a platter." McLaren have written a letter offering their unreserved apologies to motor sport's world governing body, the FIA, in relation to the Liargate sc...

See Massa, your bitches at FIA are working on it already. Stay cool, soon you'll have your points. A ban is just what the FIA love to hand to McLaren. As I've said before, the FIA is hell-bent on destroying McLaren one way or another. Friday 10th April 2009 Lewis Hamilton could face the FIA's World Motor Sport Council without Dave Ryan as the FIA cannot force the former McLaren man to attend the April 29th hearing. Earlier this week McLaren announced that Ryan had been fired from his role as sporting director for his part in the Australian GP 'liargate' scandal. The announcement came just hours after the team learnt that they would have to face an extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council to answer five charges relating to Hamilton and Ryan misleading the Melbourne race stewards. "The FIA has jurisdiction only over its licence holders and their employees," a FIA source told The...

Wednesday 18th March 2009 ...the FIA go and spoil the party. If testing times are anything to go by we're on the verge of one of the most unpredictable and competitive seasons in F1. McLaren's lack of early season form - Brawn's phoenix-like rise from near extinction - BMW and Toyota's winter testing form all add to the intense focus and excitement building for Melbourne. And then the FIA go and ruin it. Yesterday's announcement that the FIA would not accept the points scoring system favoured by a global F1 audience was yet another slap in the face from the patricians in charge. The 'we're on the side of the fan, we know what is best for them' arrogance displayed by Max Mosley and the WMSC is breathtaking. Though there is a virtue to having a World Champion who's won the most races, what F1 fans don't want to see is teams manipulating results with team orders. Under the FIA's new ...

Tuesday 17th March 2009 The FIA's World Motor Sport Council met in Paris on Tuesday during which the following decisions were taken... FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP A number of measures were agreed to help reduce costs and increase interest in the FIA Formula One World Championship. 2009 Formula One Regulations Points The WMSC accepted the proposal from Formula One Management to award the drivers' championship to the driver who has won the most races during the season. If two or more drivers finish the season with the same number of wins, the title will be awarded to the driver with the most points, the allocation of points being based on the current 10, 8, 6 etc. system. The rest of the standings, from second to last place, will be decided by the current points system. There is no provision to award medals for first, second or third place. The Constructors' Championship is unaffected. The WMSC rejec...