Ross Brawn announces his retirement, nobody believes him.

After 16 championships won in 22 years of F1,  a wealthy 59 year old Ross Brawn might reasonably dedicate himself to his fishing hobby for good.

Funny thing is nobody seem to buy it!
Check out some of the articles in the British motoring press, they all report his words:

“February, March and April are never good months for me to go fishing – but this year is different, having stopped. What they didn’t realise when I was invited here was they had a scoop because the world’s press was trying to find out if I was retiring or not. I’m retiring – it’s not tongue in cheek. I’m going to take a year to enjoy the fishing and then see what life brings. I’m looking forward to it, but I’ve got no other plans."

but there is not one who seems to take him at those word.   For once I completely agree with them.

Turbo in the Tron Era

"I think that in a racing engine, the closer it is to disintegrating, in general the better its performance will be "
Keith Duckworth

Big hair, big turbos and Tron state of the art electronics, in this classic mid 1980s documentary chronicling Cosworth's development of its first turbo formula1 engine.

At the time it was thought to be a great idea to run $1200/ gallon toluene based fuel in 1.5 liter turbo engines that would last 500 km or less. BMW was the first to come up with the exotic fuel to power their 1500 hp four pots. All controlled, of course with state of the art onboard computers the size of a ...VCR!

The Cosworth-Ford GBA 1.5 liter v6 had no success, despite being relatively reliable it was given to the hopeless Beatrice-Hass team first and late for one season to the new Benetton team.

You can find an extensive article on the GBA here

It's a long two part, detailed documentary so make some time for it. Oh and keep an eye out for a young Ross Brawn working the wind tunnel at Lola. So much has changed since then but so much about Formula 1 has not changed at all!

Part II is after the jump. Many thanks to those who take the time to preserve and share these old gems.

Vaporware...

Vaporware is a term associated with Silicon Valley startups that are not quite what they claim to be. USF1's first major sponsor was a huge coup: YouTube... Or at least that's what everyone thought at first. The truth was somewhat less exciting as you will remember, Chad Hurley, one of YouTube's founders had agreed to invest in the team, an unknown amount of course. In reality once the news went out about YouTube there was little effort to really clarify the situation and that's perhaps understandable for a startup looking to attract attention.

Fast forward to the end of the 2009 season and we start hearing conflicting rumors of the health of some of those new teams who are to step in and fill the gaps left by Toyota and Sauber. USF1 in particular has been at the center of a lot of talk. Yes, they showed pictures of CNC machines and autoclaves but, frankly, they could have just as well been pictures from anywhere.

Then came the announcement that USF1 would not, as was their founding principle, hire American drivers. This was blamed on the delay signing the concorde agreement and on the fact that no available American driver possessed, or is in a position to be approved for, an FIA superlicense. OK right.

Before the final GP in AbuDhabi there was the announcement that USF1 had chosen as a European base of operations, Motorland, a motorsport complex in Aragon, Spain. That is great, where are the trucks, hospitality facilities, tooling, crew...

But what I think really got people talking online is the clip the Speed TV crew (of which Peter Windsor is a part of) slapped together for their Abu Dhabi broadcast.

Ostensively a visit by commentator Steve Matchett to the USF1 headquarters in North Carolina, it struck many as odd, especially the section with the computer modeling. Take a look...

Of course you cannot expect a company to show you their secrets but from that clip it looked to many like USF1 has a different sort of secret to hide.

This week we have a quote from World Champion Ross Brawn about how USF1 has yet to crash test any of their components, "For a beginner that's strange" said Brawn. The same report has Peter Windsor as the only person at a recent FOTA meeting who questioned the rule preventing teams from selling their entry spot.

If it turns out USF1 will not make the 2010 grid was it correct of SPEED TV and Windsor to create segments that perpetuate the illusion there is any fire behind the smoke? Maybe that's what David Hobbs' double take was really about.

UPDATE: USF1 Issue Denial.... more after the jump


Interesting, right after we noticed an increase in "chatter", USF1 has issued a denial. Motorsport-Total.com asked Ken Anderson for a reply to Ross Brawn's comments and about the apparently widespread feeling in F1 circles that the ultimate goal is the sale on their 2010 entry slot at a profit.

"The stories, as usual, are wrong" replied Anderson. "We have passed all necessary tests for the moments and have more planned for November and December" and goes on to say that even if the equipment is not there at USF1, they are within walking distance from many companies work can be outsourced to in Charlotte, NC.

"Ross is right, you have to experiment and that's what we are doing, every team has their own schedule, some will not do their crash tests until February. This is not unusual. You have to spend as much time as possible developing"

Brawn had said that BrawnGP had already crash tested a number of components in preparation for the official FIA tests and was surprised USF1, a novice, had not done the same.

As far as the sale of their 2010 entry Anderson launched a broadside at BMW-Sauber " There are people who hope Sauber can be saved and dream of ways tis could happen. I hope they get Toyota's entry slot and stop annoying us" and goes on to deny the issue of selling entry slots ever came up at a FOTA meeting. "Our entry slot is not for sale and never will be" concluded Anderson. Motorsport-Total's agrees that the entry slot sale is a pipe dream at best: nobody would need to buy it from USF1 if the American team failed to attract proper US based sponsors and make it to the grid, Sauber now has access to Toyota's slot and it's far to late for any other teams to be ready for 2010.

(pardon any bad translation... via Motorsport-Total)


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"To Be Honest..."

After today's German GP, Rubens Barrichello went into one of his usual hissy fits claiming he would have won the race if it hadn't been for the team screwing up his strategy and pit stops.

"To be honest, I wish I could just get on a plane and go home now. I don't want to talk to anyone in the team, because it would be a lot of bla, bla, bla, bla... And I don't want to hear that. I'm just terribly upset,"

Ross Brawn actually was honest and replied to the assembled journalists:

"Rubens had the 11th fastest time in the race today....You cannot win a race, whatever strategy you have, if your best lap is only 11th quickest. It is just not possible. Those are the facts."

To be honest Barrichello, who famously called Schumacher gay, should make an effort to enjoy his last seven races in F1 rather than spend his time crying. On the other hand he has more material for that famous tell-all book he threatenend to write.

(via Autosport)

(via Scuderia Asino Grigio)

And here is the rest of it.

No team orders at Brawn GP

Riko.it




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Diffusers are go...

As expected the FIA, probably most interested in not contradicting itself, declared the Brawn, Toyota and Williams diffusers to be legal.

What was not expected and a big disappointment was to hear Ferrari's lawyer refer to Ross Brawn as "a person of supreme arrogance" for essentially coming up with his own, clever interpretation of the rules as written. Compound that with the apparent argument made by Adrian Newey that these diffusers are unsafe because they make cars too fast and the whole thing just looks bad plain stupid from the outside.

As a counterpoint of course, this ruling goes completely against the FIA stated intentions of cutting costs as many teams will be forced to spend huge amounts to rush new parts onto the cars. It was rumored Mclaren spent a few million on a front wing just for Interlagos last year, imagine what a complete re design of the rear aerodynamics of the car must cost.

Also the 2009 rules arise from recommendations made by the Overtaking Working Group which was made up by designers from Ferrari, Mclaren and Renault. It is understandable why those three teams made the argument that there was an infraction against the spirit of the regulations and it is understandable why their cars were not designed the same way. However proving infractions against spirits never worked very well and good luck getting a ruling that would have annulled what has been a dream media story again for Formula 1, right at a time when the sport so needs to be at the center of attention. Not to mention stifling that essential element for technical progress: creative disregard for "the way it's done".

For one interpretation of how the Brawn diffuser works look HERE

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F1 Re-Evolution, Alonso joining Honda a possibility?

As you heard by now Ross Brawn is joining Honda in 2008 and Jean Todt steps (or is stepped) down from the Ferrari Gestione Sportiva handing the keys to Stefano Domenicali. Todt will continue as Ferrari CEO.
Its not surprising Todt stepped down, I was always under the impression he stayed this year only to provide some continuity to a team that had just lost both Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn. Holding down the Ferrari F1 and the Ferrari SpA jobs cannot have been easy. It could also be that Monsieur Todt just has had enough, he certainly has been in motorsports a long time and with incredible success.

The whole Alonso musical chairs business becomes more interesting now as Todt was always the most outspoken critic of a possible Ferrari-Alonso future. Is this why Alonso has been holding out? can we imagine an Alonso- Raikkonen pairing as soon as next season? I doubt it.



And what a present for the beleaguered Jenson Button! After getting battered by the Hamilton effect and having stoically suffered a horrid car in 07 this must feel like early Christmas...




But the bombshell could be another, voices of a Brawn-Alonso package have been around for a while as have voices of an imminent retirement for Rubens Barrichello and of course there is the prospect of Renault getting a Mclaren sized fine... Maybe Honda, who is sponsorless at the moment, will be the the recepient of the giant sponsor package behind Fernando? We all remember what happened last time Ross Brawn joined a two time world champion at a beleaguered team.