Shanghai may axe Grand Prix

Shanghai is considering axing its loss-making Formula One Grand Prix after the contract runs out in 2010, a senior official told AFP, dealing a potential blow to the sport.
Qiu Weichang, deputy director of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, said the situation was being assessed and a decision would be announced next year.

"We're doing the assessment. By next year we should be able to give you an answer," he said in an interview late on Thursday.
China's biggest city spent 240 million dollars on the state-of-the-art Shanghai International Circuit and hosted its first Formula One race in 2004.
But the event has been plagued by poor ticket sales and Qiu said its fate was in the balance.
"We want to create a win-win situation, for our side and for Bernie (Ecclestone) and the F1 organisers as well," he said.
"If this is something we can do, and our cooperation is very happy and smooth, we will consider it.
"Of course we would like at least to break even. But there are two factors, one is the assessment the other part is the win-win situation that we can create."
Qiu was also cool on the idea of night racing, which Formula One chief Ecclestone is pushing in Asia as a way to boost European TV audiences. Singapore held the first night Grand Prix in September.
"In Singapore... holding the event at night is a good way to attract tourists to a small country," he said.
"I think Singapore is hosting this event in their own unique way but we have our own situation."
Formula One events are often run at a loss with this year's Australian Grand Prix going 27 million dollars into the red. France recently cut its race over money worries.
But Asia is a huge growth market for the sport with South Korea due to host its first race in 2010 and India joining the circuit in 2011.
Shanghai's ties have soured since Yu Zhifei, who helped bring Formula One to China, was jailed in January in a massive corruption crackdown which brought down the city's top official.
The city has already pulled its annual Moto GP race, although Qiu said the circuit was in use for most of the year by car clubs and for private driving sessions.
"Even if we don't run F1 after 2010 we should be able to cover our bases because of events are taking place in the rest of the year over about 200 days," he said.
"We want to turn it into Disneyland for cars. Fans can go there if they want to really enjoy F1-style driving and enjoy the thrill of driving at speed at this venue.
"Thanks to F1 we have already created this huge wave of car fever, so in that sense it is good news."
The Chinese Grand Prix is one of a series of major sporting events that have helped raise Shanghai's profile during the economic boom of recent years.
The HSBC Champions golf tournament is one of Asia's richest, while the city also spent "over one billion yuan" (146 million dollars) on the Qi Zhong Stadium to host the Tennis Masters Cup, Qiu said.
He admitted the tennis stadium was also yet to make a profit with only a small number of events held there since its completion in 2005.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO - CHINA HIGHLIGHTS

Relive Lewis Hamilton's emphatic victory in this exclusive highlights from Sunday's Shanghai race...

One more race to go and still no clear winner, what to expect from Brazil ? Look out for further post over the next few days with details of the Brazilian GP with stats and comments from the F1 community.

In the meantime Enjoy the race highlights here

Chinese Grand Prix, a Look back at the Race

Lewis Hamilton again moved to a brink of becoming Formula 1's youngest ever world champion with a textbook victory in China, while Felipe Massa heads for home in a fortnight's time with it all to do.
We look back at how the race unfolded and ahead to the Interlagos decider; explaining how Hamilton and McLaren should be in better shape to wrap it up this time and why Massa can't afford to give up on his hopes yet. Lewis Hamilton dominated not just the race, but the entire Chinese Grand Prix weekend.
The only track session he did not finish in first place was Saturday morning practice, when Nick Heidfeld did a low-fuel flier in preparation for qualifying while Lewis carried the fuel he would be using in Q3.

In control
This was a disciplined drive by Hamilton, as perfect as Fuji was flawed.
The only moment of doubt was just before the lights went out, simply because of what had happened in Fuji.
But he got the car going better than Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari next to him and took the lead into turn one, never to be seen again.
Felipe Massa’s expression said it all afterwards.
He had not had the pace to challenge Hamilton all weekend and now he heads to Brazil with a seven-point deficit – which means he has to win the race there, but it’s out of his hands.
Hamilton will be world champion if he finishes fifth or higher, regardless of Massa’s result.

A clear focus
By a curious twist of fate, that was also the points situation relative to Raikkonen going into last year’s race and yet Hamilton managed to lose.
This year there is a very significant difference though. He does not have to worry about Fernando Alonso in the sister car.
It was the Spaniard last year who dominated Hamilton’s thoughts at the finale after a season of bitterness and recrimination.
Alonso felt that he could have won the title if McLaren had just restrained Hamilton a bit, and he’s right.
Going into that last race, Hamilton was four points ahead of Alonso and seven up on Raikkonen, who went on to win in Brazil.
Hamilton wasn’t really thinking about him and yet he emerged the champion.
This year Hamilton’s mind is clear; he knows that he will have a harmonious and serene atmosphere in his team all weekend and that he can focus all his attention simply on having a strong race, as he did here.

The Interlagos challenges
For me the only real points of concern will be his engine reliability and the start of the race, which is highly risky in Brazil, because of the way the first two corners flow with 20 cars arriving at speed with cold brakes and tyres.
I’ve seen some huge shunts there over the years and plenty of contact, spins and bits of bodywork knocked off.
Last year it started to get away from Hamilton at the start in Brazil and then his race was finished off by the gearbox gremlin which cost him 40 seconds.
Ferrari had a significant performance advantage over McLaren in Brazil last year, which it doesn’t look like they will have this year.
And just to make sure McLaren have been developing a special ‘Interlagos pack’ for the car, to give Hamilton the best shot at doing well there.
As this season winds to a close, Renault have made great progress to be the third fastest team in the field but are still not fast enough to get involved in the fight at the front – so in a normal weekend, Hamilton can expect to finish at least third and be champion.
The other thing to keep an eye on is the engine.
Heikki Kovalainen lost an engine which was on its second race in Fuji and prior to Singapore he had had to change his engine because there was a reliability issue there.
Hamilton will use his Shanghai engine again in Sao Paolo and even though he was able to turn the revs down in the final 10 laps or so today, it will still be a mild concern because of what happened with Kovalainen’s unit.
And as Michael Schumacher found in 2006, an engine failure at the end of the championship can happen, even to the most reliable of teams.

Massa's moment
Massa’s task in Brazil is clear: do what he has done the last two seasons and dominate the race.
He looks like he has his head down a bit now, after being outpaced not only by Hamilton but also by Raikkonen here.
He’s amazing at Interlagos and will no doubt be inspired by his home crowd, but there will be a bitterness about the experience too.
He knows that there is a very real possibility that this will be his only chance to win the world championship.
You never know when a chance is going to come and you have to take it when it does.
He was presented with this chance because his team-mate had major problems getting on with the 2008 Ferrari, but the team has set out an intensive test programme for 2009 which will see Kimi doing 9,000 kilometres of testing to make absolutely sure that he has a car he can challenge with in 2009.
And as a motivated Kimi is stronger than Massa, this could be it for the little Brazilian.
He looks back on the engine failures in Australia and Hungary and on the pit lane cock-up in Singapore and sees over 20 points gone begging which would otherwise have made him world champion today.
So the whole of Brazil will be at his shoulder but he’ll know that it is very hard for him to deliver, and that will have its own unique pressure.
He needs Hamilton to hit problems to give him the title. His mentor Michael Schumacher’s motto was always ‘don’t give up’ and Massa will no doubt follow it, but with some heavy doubts.
You can always look back on a season and think of what might have been.
Massa had those technical failures I mentioned, but Hamilton will point to Spa, where he was docked four points for cutting the chicane and Massa picked up an extra two points for being awarded the win. Without that penalty Hamilton would be champion tonight.

Final thought
Another behind-the-scenes story, which contributes to the outcomes we are seeing, is the Bridgestone tyre selection this season.
Because the McLaren and Ferrari cars use their tyres quite differently, one team is always going to get a slight advantage from the compounds Bridgestone bring.
Basically the softer the compounds are the better it is for Ferrari, the harder they are it helps McLaren.
As a rule the Ferrari works the tyre less over a 20-lap stint and thus is faster in race conditions, whereas the McLaren uses up its tyres more quickly.
Ferrari’s boss Stefano Domenicali compared this race to Hockenheim where Hamilton’s McLaren was surprisingly dominant, and it is interesting that the choice of tyres there was the same as here, medium and hard. Ferrari would have liked them to be a step softer.
The same could well be true in Brazil where last year they took super-soft and soft and Ferrari dominated. This year Bridgestone has nominated soft and medium, which will play more to McLaren’s strengths.

For more James Allen content, blogs and interviews go to www.jamesallenonf1.com

Lewis Hamilton Q&A: China just another step to title

Coming to Shanghai this weekend must feel like deja vu for McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton. Like last year, he is just a few points away from clinching the world championship. Will he endure a similar fate to the one that befell him in 2007, or has his time to toast a title finally arrived? And how is he feeling ahead of Sunday's all-important race? We caught up with him to find out…

Q: Lewis, how has your mindset changed compared to when you came to Shanghai in a position to win the title last year?

Lewis Hamilton: Last year I came here on a real high, I was nervous, thinking that I really could win the world championship - that was crazy. I drove well - under wet conditions I was very quick compared to other people. Especially after I did my pit stop I was much heavier than the others and still was able to dictate the pace, but one little mistake can hit home really hard. I came here this year with less hype, humble as can be, with the best kind of approach possible. We are still in the lead and still competitive and tomorrow I’m not approaching it thinking that we can win the world championship, as I also cannot lose the championship tomorrow. But I see it as another step to win the title as there are still two races.

Q: Fernando Alonso’s notion that he will help your rival Felipe Massa seems a bit like psychological warfare. How do you cope with this?

LH: I wish good luck to them both! It does not worry me because if I think correctly this is a two-time world champion and I have to trust that they both respect other people and behave as the professionals that they are.

Q: How important is it from a psychological point of view to start from pole position?

LH: It can only be positive - I can’t see any negatives in it as it is great to know that we are very, very competitive. And to show that we can be on the front row in the last two races is a big bonus for the team, as it shows what a great job they are doing and it will be interesting to see how this affects other people.

Q: How do you see your chances of winning the championship tomorrow?

LH: I haven’t thought about it, as it is not important to me about the championship. Our approach has to be the next two races, where we need to have two strong finishes. For tomorrow we have to take it easy and do our very best to score the best we can.

Q: How much of a concern is it for you that the driver alongside you on row one - Kimi Raikkonen - has nothing to lose?

LH: I don’t think it is something to be concerned about. I think that he will be very competitive but I think our race pace is also very good. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will stay the same, but I’ve heard that there is a chance of rain.

Q: But don’t you think that as Kimi has nothing to lose he will be willing to risk more than you?

LH: I don’t think so. He is the world champion and I am sure he wants to win this race as everybody else does, so I am confident that he will act sensibly.

Q: You described you pole lap as ‘hard core’. What did it feel like in the car on such a lap?

LH: I meant 'hard core' in the sense that I'd not done a great job previously, because it always makes it easier when you do a good first lap as you then can find those couple of tenths on your second lap. But if that doesn’t work the pressure is at its peak - and that is 'hard core'. It is great fun, you are racing hard and you’re really on a fine line throughout the lap.

Q: Both the UK and Brazil have been waiting for a Formula One world champion for quite a long time. How do you feel about that?

LH: My personal feeling is that however exciting, however amazing it could be, it is never done until it's done. I can only dream of how it will be to be world champion so I work every day towards it and just continue to do the best I can. And hopefully one day I will be world champion and I can only guess that my country will be very proud.