F1 Loses Another Team

A couple of days ago it was officially announced that Toyota has dropped out of Formula One. The automaker came into the sport only seven years ago and since then has produced a handful of good results and zero wins. The company was hoping to secure its first win this season, but after some hopeful qualifying results, the race results never transpired. The auto giant threw a lot of money at the sport, but could still never get the ultimate result that it wanted. This probably goes to show that racing in Formula One has a lot more to do with the people that are in and around the team, rather than simply having a ton of cash. The company has cited the economic downturn for their dropping out and now join Honda as the next big manufacturer to leave the sport.

What this means for Formula One is that there are no more Japanese manufacturers in the sport. In fact, there will be zero Japanese presence after Bridgestone leaves after 2010. This is a bad turn for a sport that prides itself on being a “World Championship” (even though there isn’t a round in the largest auto buying market in the world in the USA, but whatever Bernie). Plus, with no Japanese automakers on the grid, there will probably be zero Japanese drivers. Takuma Sato was always backed by Honda, and he is no more, Kazuki Nakajima was backed by Toyota and probably won’t have a seat and newcomer Kamui Kobayashi – though very impressive in two races – is most likely also going to be without a seat.

And at the end of next season, after Bridgestone leaves, there will really be zero Japanese contingent, other than the race at Suzuka. But the big draw for that crowd was to come out and cheer on their countrymen and the cars they drive, but they probably won’t get a chance to do that.

Luckily for the sport, Renault has decided to continue on, despite the controversies of this year. It is always good for the sport to have big names there so people can root for them against a rival team. Imagine what the sport would be like if there was no McLaren to battle Ferrari, or a… well I guess that’s kinda it now isn’t it. Of course there will be other battles, but you won’t have a Honda vs. Toyota race or a BMW vs. Mercedes race anymore. Now you will have a Campos vs. USF1 race, which though it may be entertaining, will most likely not be for any points. More stories are bound to come up over the course of this winter break, and there are only 100 days left until the first round of the 2010 season starts in Bahrain.

All About Kimi

Brawn GP has a seat open. Rubens Barrichello is moving to Williams next season to be alongside the rookie Nico Hulkenberg. This basically means that Brawn GP’s seat will be filled by Nico Rosberg. I think I may have even said as much a couple of posts ago.

This arrangement is even better confirmed by the fact that Brawn have also made it clear that Kimi Raikkonen would cost them too much; and considering that he wants $30 million for a drive, I would think most teams are not willing to sign him. I didn’t want to make this all about Kimi, but that’s what he would like, so here I go. Kimi is self-centered and doesn’t care if he drives in F1 next season or not. I know this because he has it in his contract that he can go rally driving during the season. This was not a problem for Ferrari, but McLaren – the only viable team for him now – say that rallying is not an option. But he maintains that he will be allowed to go rallying because he isn’t removing it from his contract. Personally, I say that if Kimi wants to have rallying in his contract, then go drive a rally car. Don’t get me wrong, Kimi is a good driver, but only when the mood strikes him. He didn’t care about the last two seasons because there was nothing to play for. If he doesn’t go out and win in the first couple of races, he becomes disinterested in the rest of the season. Case in point, he could have easily had a point or two in the last race if he would have just tried a little harder (look at Kamui Kobayashi for that) and gotten Ferrari third place in the Constructor’s title. Instead, he celebrated his final race for the famous prancing horse by driving around the track in a lowly 11^th for most of the race. If he doesn’t see the prize at the end of the stick, then he ain’t going to be interested in doing anything. For that reason, I think that the move to get Alonso into the car is a good one. As much as I am not a big fan of Alonso, I do think that he is better prepared to help the team get back to winning than Kimi. Raikkonen should really just take his $20 million from Ferrari that he is going to get and go listen to his stereo with the stone speakers and drive his little Suzuki through the forests. It would be more relaxing for him to drive that car, and he could then go out and party in a gorilla suit more often if he really wants to. Just the fact that he is getting $20 million from Ferrari after the season, then has the balls to want $30 million for a drive is outrageous. Plus, this doesn’t even take into account the sponsorship money that he pulls in (of course, that’s assuming that Mr. Self-Centered actually shows up for those things – which he probably won’t) and that is probably a couple more million right there. All in all, I think that Kimi has had his run in F1 and is just as sick of it as many other people are now getting of him. So please, go and leave the racing to people who actually care about making their cars and teams better and stop driving.

Race 17: Abu Dhabi

Well, that’s it. It’s all over except for the celebrating…for some anyway. This past weekend was the final race of the 2009 Formula One season, and it went out in grand, albeit boring, style in Abu Dhabi. The Yas Marina Circuit is the latest in a line of “new world” grand prix circuits in Bernie Ecclestone’s desire to go to new, and increasing more expensive, countries. This was the first time that a Formula One race had gone from day to night, in that they started the race at dusk and crossed the finish line under artificial lighting. The track itself is impressive to be sure, but I still think that the thing is just too big. When I say that, I mean that the track is too wide and has too many good runoff points. While it may seem like a wider track will allow for better passing, that would entail that there are still places to pass. And this track does have them, but they are few and far between. With a wider track, the cars are also allowed to move a bit more under braking and can weave over the track more. This allows for more blocking maneuvers and less passing. In the race itself, it turned out to be very much like Monaco, in that, the passing that was done was mostly in the pits. If it wasn’t for Hamilton breaking down like he did, I still contend that he would have won that race. But, as it was, the podium was Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber and Jenson Button. The rest of the points scorers were Barrichello, Heidfeld, Kobayashi, Trulli and Buemi. As far as my predictions went, I did have Button in third with Vettel second, so pretty good there. But I only got Webber and Kobayashi right on the other people to score points. Kimi couldn’t come through and neither could Kovalainen, while Rosberg was no where to be seen. Oh well. In the end, the overall results of Jenson Button being World Champion and Brawn GP being Constructor’s Champions still ring true. So now the winter months begin, and there is no testing until sometime in February I believe. However, there will certainly be more stories coming up, with drivers moving all over the place, including Barrichello and Raikkonen.