Prodrive in F1

Prodrive, run by former Benetton and BAR team boss David Richards, will join the current 11 teams as a new entry in the 2008 Formula One championship.

Out of 22 teams that had applied for the 12 slots in 2008, the 11 existing teams' application was accepted, and the new team to join them would be Prodrive.

Prodrive have been doing well in the other formulae and in other forms of motorsports and it would be interesting to see if they can step up to the world of F1. They should however be helped by the cost-cutting measures Mosley plans to introduce in the sport by 2008 - which was also the prime reason why 22 candidates had applied to be a part of the sport.

The most famous rejection was that of Paul Stoddart - who wanted to bring Minardi back to F1 in 2008. His application was rejected, and so we will continue to be deprived of the Bernie - Stoddart battles !!

Whither Honda ?

The F1 season is 4 races old now, and for me the biggest surprise has been the performance of Honda F1 team.

I know Jenson has qualified really well in all the races and Honda supporters may well point to a spate of bad luck events hindering their chances, but the fact remains that Honda have nothing to show for their efforts.

This has to be viewed in the perspective of the winter testing times. Honda racked up millions of miles with little reliability problems, and it seemed before the start of the season that Renault and Honda would be the teams to really look ahead to. Jenson's first win was almost taken for granted ! And with one of the seemingly best driver pairings on the grid of Rubens and Jense, Honda threatened to take the battle to Renault for championships.

Four races on, Honda have suffered many engine failures - the most spectacular being the one at Oz, with Jenson's engine collapsing on the last lap. Ironically, the team asked him to pull over and forfeit the points finish so they could get a fresh engine without penalty at Imola. And guess where Jenson finished at Imola ? 7th.

The car seems to be lacking pace over the race distance too, and this was never so dramatically evident as at Oz GP, when Button slipped gradually throughout the race from pole to 5th or so by the end of the race. Rubens has had trouble with braking, and in general, his form has looked a shadow of his (admittedly overshadowed) form at Ferrari.

Honda need to get more out of their car to be able to challenge the Renaults and even Ferrari. And soon - otherwise this could be a long difficult season for Honda.

Schu at Ferrari ?

According to the German newspaper Bild , Schumacher has been offered a $86.6m package to stay at Ferrari for 2 years with a "championship" get out clause. Which means if Michael wins the 2006 or 2007 championship, he can leave Ferrari the next day. Tempting.

And with scenes witnessed at Imola last weekend, I dont see why Schumacher will ever even think of leaving Ferrari! Tifosi are amongst the most passionate of fans you will ever see in any sport.. and for Michael, Ferrari is like a family.

I suspect Michael will have 2 more years in the Ferrari. His team-mate ? Wait and watch.

That Pitstop at Imola

Post Imola '06, it is tempting to conclude that Alonso lost the race when he pitted earlier than Michael, even though he had more fuel.

However, Michael did an amazing job before that pitstop to control the pace of the race. The commentators did briefly speculate if he was running in economy mode to conserve fuel so that he could lap later than Alonso - while that seems improbable, it certainly seems true that Michael slowed down considerably when he had Alonso behind him.

An article on Planet F1 has Pat Symonds explaining why Renault called in Alonso for his second pitstop earlier than scheduled.

Interestingly, he also believed Michael had a lot more performance in that car during the second stint and he was probably 'sandbagging' to fool Renault into believing they had a chance.

This is what Pat Symonds said :

The really significant thing was that on the free lap after Fernando pitted, Michael showed he had some performance in reserve. On the lap we pitted, he did a lap of 1:25.7 - where his average speed in the ten previous laps, was 1:27.4. The lap times during the second stint had not suggested he had that performance in reserve.

This is backed up by the timings shown during the race. When Alonso pitted, the gap was 0.3-0.4 seconds. Alonso pitted for 6.7 seconds, while Schumacher pitted for 7.1 seconds. Yet, Michael was ahead by 1.4 seconds when he came out of the pits !

Michael must have been laughing when Alonso pitted !!! What a great drive !