Victory for Raikkonen, glory for Fisichella at Spa-Francorchamps

Kimi Raikkonen became the sixth different victor in six races after putting Ferrari back in the winners’ circle for the first time in 2009, with a finely judged success in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, in which his KERS system played a crucial role in the opening stages. But he was dogged all the way to the flag by a gallant Giancarlo Fisichella in the Force India, who kept him honest throughout on the first medium downforce circuit of the season.

Behind them, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel drove strongly for third, closing on them both by the finish. Raikkonen crossed the finish line 0.9s ahead, with Vettel 2.9s behind Fisichella.

Jenson Button’s hopes of adding to his points tally in the Brawn GP ended at Les Combes on the first lap when he was spun out by Romain Grosjean’s Renault, while in a separate incident Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren tagged Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso while trying to avoid the melee. The two incidents are currently under investigation by the race stewards.

After a safety car intervention, Raikkonen, who had sped up to second behind Fisichella on the opening lap, lost no time using his KERS to slingshot by the Italian on the run up Raidillon to Les Combes on the fifth lap, but Fisichella pushed him all the way.Red Bull’s Mark Webber looked strong initially until an unsafe release from his first pit stop nearly put rival BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld in the pit-lane wall. A drive-through penalty subsequently dropped him to ninth.Renault’s Fernando Alonso also seemed on course for a healthy helping of points after running the longest opening stint, but a brush with Force India’s Adrian Sutil in La Source on the opening lap had damaged the left front wheel, and after a disastrously long pit stop on Lap 24 he had to come in again to retire a lap later when the left front wheel could not be secured satisfactorily.

Vettel was able to vault past a fast-starting Robert Kubica after his second stop on the 35th lap and said his Red Bull was perfect thereafter, but the Pole brought his BMW Sauber home fourth ahead of closing team mate Heidfeld. The German has passed Toyota’s Jarno Trulli for second at the start but ran wide and lost ground, allowing Kubica to nip down the inside to run third initially.Heikki Kovalainen did a one-stop strategy in his McLaren to stay ahead of Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello for sixth place. The Brazilian, who bogged down off the grid, was saved to an extent by the intervention of the safety car which enabled Brawn to refuel him for a longer opening stint in a fast first-lap pit stop, but had to back off at the end when his Mercedes engine showed signs of failing. He just made it to the flag ahead of a closing Nico Rosberg, who drove yet another strong race for Williams to score the final point, while Webber just missed out with ninth after a frustrating race.Toyota’s Timo Glock had a fuel rig problem in his first stop which delayed him, and could not better 10th, under pressure at the end from Force India’s Sutil. Behind them Sebastien Buemi brought his Toro Rosso home 12th ahead of Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima and an unimpressive Luca Badoer, who was the last finisher for Ferrari.

Besides Alonso and the first lap crashers, the other retirement was Trulli, whose front wing was damaged when he made contact with Heidfeld's BMW Sauber on the opening lap. That ruined the Italian’s race, as did a later refuelling problem, similar to Glock’s. He ultimately retired with a brake problem.

In the title stakes, Barrichello took two more points off Button, who still has 74 to the Brazilian’s 56. Vettel moves back ahead of Webber with 53 to the Australian’s 51.5.In the constructors’ championship Brawn have 128 points, Red Bull 104.5, Ferrari 56 and McLaren 44.

F1 teams drop breakaway bombshell

Formula 1 has been thrown into chaos after eight of its major teams said they are now planning to set up a rival championship for the 2010 season.
The threat by members of the F1 Teams Association (Fota) escalates their row with world motorsport boss Max Mosley over his budget cap proposals.
"The teams have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 F1 Championship," said the teams.
"We've no alternative than to commence preparation for a new championship."
Mosley was insistent on introducing a voluntary £40m budget cap for teams to curtail a "financial arms race" in F1.
But Fota refused to agree to his conditions, prompting championship leader Brawn GP, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso to take their drastic action.
They announced their decision following a four-hour meeting on Thursday night ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
"Since the formation of Fota last September the teams have worked together and sought to engage the FIA and commercial rights holder (Bernie Ecclestone), to develop and improve the sport," read a Fota statement.
"Unprecedented worldwide financial turmoil has inevitably placed great challenges before the F1 community.
"Fota is proud that it has achieved the most substantial measures to reduce costs in the history of our sport.
"In particular, the manufacturer teams have provided assistance to the independent teams, a number of which would probably not be in the sport today without the Fota initiatives.
The teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 world championship
Fota statement
"The Fota teams have further agreed upon a substantial voluntary cost reduction that provides a sustainable model for the future.
"Following these efforts, all the teams have confirmed to the FIA and the commercial rights holder that they are willing to commit until the end of 2012.
"The FIA and the commercial rights holder have campaigned to divide Fota.
"The wishes of the majority of the teams are ignored. Furthermore, tens of millions of dollars have been withheld from many teams by the commercial rights holder, going back as far as 2006.
"Despite this, and the uncompromising environment, Fota has genuinely sought compromise.
"It has become clear, however, the teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 world championship."
Fota added that its championship would put F1 fans first and boast the best drivers and sponsors.
"This series will have transparent governance, one set of regulations, encourage more entrants and listen to the wishes of the fans, including offering lower prices for spectators worldwide, partners and other important stakeholders," added the statement.

"The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motorsport will all feature in this new series."
Former champions Williams and Force India have already committed unconditionally to the FIA's world championship along with three new entrants - Campos, US F1 and Manor.
The FIA has said there are other would-be newcomers waiting to take the places of those teams that refused to enter unconditionally, although one, Lola, has already withdrawn its application.
The stage is also set for a legal battle, with the FIA saying champions Ferrari and the two Red Bull teams have existing contracts which commit them to the existing championship.
The FIA had set a Friday deadline for five teams - Brawn, BMW-Sauber, McLaren, Renault and Toyota - to convert their provisional entries into unconditional ones or risk being excluded.
There was no immediate comment from the FIA or Ecclestone.

All Teams submit F1 entries for 2010

Team bosses are all now signed up to compete in next season's campaign Ferrari and the rest of the teams in the Formula 1 Teams' Association (Fota) have submitted conditional entries for the 2010 championship.
Williams announced on Monday that they intend to enter next season's campaign. McLaren, BMW Sauber, Toyota, Renault, Red Bull Racing, Toro Rosso, Brawn GP and Force India have now followed suit.
However, the teams have only signed up to the new season on the condition that they are able to operate on the basis of current technical regulations. The teams and the sport's governing body, the FIA, have been at odds in recent weeks over plans to introduce an optional budget cap in 2010. The teams have tried to meet (FIA president) Max Mosley halfway on this one - it remains to be seen now if he agrees to their terms

Those teams who pledged to keep costs under £40m a season would be allowed greater technical freedom than those outside of the budget cap, but many of the teams felt the cap was far too strict, fearing it would create a two-tier championship.

Ferrari, Renault, Red Bull and Toyota all threatened to pull out of the sport if the budgetary restrictions were to be forced through. It prompted a crisis meeting between Fota and the FIA a fortnight ago, talks which failed initially to provide an acceptable compromise. But at a meeting at the Monaco Grand Prix last week, it was agreed in principle to delay the cap until 2011, while motorsport boss Max Mosley has made other concessions to the teams on governance. And it appears enough progress has now been made on that to convince teams to sign up to the new season - on the condition that a new financial agreement with F1's management is reached by 12 June.

"It could be the end (of the budget cap row) but we won't know for certain until the FIA publish its list of accepted teams and drivers for the 2010 championship on 12 June," reported BBC Five Live's F1 commentator David Croft.

"At the moment, it's the current 10 teams plus Prodrive, USF1 and the Campos team from Spain. Those teams will be offered technical assistance from the current entrants who, in return for that, want a sliding scale of cost-cutting. "That means instead of a £40m cap next year, say a spend of around £80m that reduces to somewhere around £40m by 2011.
"The teams have tried to meet Max Mosley halfway on this one - it remains to be seen now if he agrees to their terms." A statement on behalf of Fota said: "Fota confirms all its members' long-term commitment to be involved in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. "It has unanimously agreed further and significant actions to substantially reduce the costs of competing in the championship in the next three years."

The FIA now has until 12 June to confirm its intentions.
Toyota Motorsport boss, and Fota vice-chairman John Howett, whose team has long been rumoured to be quitting F1 at the end of the year, said: "We await a response from the Federation."

James Allen's Japanese GP verdict

Against all expectations, the Japanese Grand Prix took place in bone-dry conditions, but there was no shortage of entertainment, incident and controversy all the same – and title protagonists Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa were in the thick of it.
ITV Sport commentator James Allen analyses all the key performances, including Fernando Alonso's majestic drive to a second consecutive victory, in his regular post-race verdict.There is so much to talk about from this race, it’s hard to know where to start.
We had Lewis Hamilton losing his head when all that was required was some pragmatism, Felipe Massa showing his ruthless side, Fernando Alonso and Renault again excelling and then a highly contentious penalty for Sebastien Bourdais – which gifted Massa and Ferrari an extra point, reducing Hamilton’s lead to five points.

Red mist

Let’s start with Hamilton.
Starting from pole, he knew that Kimi Raikkonen was a threat off the startline, but he also knew that Raikkonen was no threat to his championship position.
Second place here behind Kimi would have been fine, as long as Massa finished behind.
Ron Dennis even made this point in his press gathering on Saturday evening. So Lewis was told by Ron: “If Raikkonen passes you at the start, let him go.”
Lewis did the opposite. Once again, faced with a Ferrari in front of him he got a red mist on, just as he did when Kimi passed him in the pit lane in Canada.
He lunged down the inside with his front wheels locked up and pushed Kimi wide, losing vital places himself in the process – but more importantly, putting flat spots on his front tyres which would have made the car undrivable over a 20-lap stint.
So already he knew that he would have to stop for new tyres almost immediately.
But he wasn’t thinking about tyres; he was thinking about Massa, who had got in front of him.
He repassed Massa, who ran wide and then came across the chicane at him, and the inevitable collision happened, which spun Hamilton around and dropped him to the back of the field.

Ruthless streak

This was a different Massa from the one we have seen in the past, who didn’t put up much of a fight at Hockenheim, or in Malaysia last year, when Hamilton passed him.
This was ruthless Massa; he’d lost the corner but he wasn’t going to let Hamilton get by, so he hit him.
Hamilton can have few complaints about it – after all he’s put some tasty moves on other drivers this year – but it’s definitely a marker for him that Massa will not be a soft touch in future.
For this incident Massa was rightly given a drive-through penalty, the same penalty as Hamilton received for the incident at the start.
This dropped both of them to the back of the field and from there it looked like a tough climb back into the points.
At this point Massa was 14 seconds ahead of Hamilton, but at the end of the race he was 32 seconds ahead.
In other words he was able to use the Ferrari’s speed to recover, while Hamilton found his car compromised by bodywork damage and didn’t have the speed to fight back.
Nevertheless, I think it is interesting that, for the second race in a row, Ferrari set the fastest race lap, with Renault the second fastest and McLaren third.

Catching up quick

It shows how impressive Renault’s development has been this season, considering that they were over a second off the pace at the start of the year.
They’ve found something in the last few weeks which has transformed their car.
It’s either an aerodynamic tweak or a mechanical one which allows them to exploit the tyres better. Perhaps it’s both.
If you bear in mind that their engine is a little bit down on the Mercedes and Ferrari – to the extent that the FIA have been persuaded to let them bring it up to the level of the benchmark units over the winter – it has been a great effort on the chassis by the team from Enstone.
I wonder if this was a discovery they might have made earlier in the year. Either way, Alonso has now scored 30 points in the past four races, way more than the two title contenders.
Alonso was simply magnificent again today.
He rode his luck at the start, losing a place to Robert Kubica, but emerged second behind him after the Hamilton/Raikkonen incident at the first corner.
He jumped the Pole at the first round of pit stops by making a shorter refuelling stop.
He believed that the Renault was a faster car than the BMW and he was proved right, because when he got some clear air in the middle stint he was very fast.
He was also very consistent. He put in a sequence of laps which were identical to within a tenth of a second.
This was the Alonso who won two world titles with his relentlessness and sheer desire.
He hasn’t let his motivation wane at all this season, even when the car was barely good enough to qualify in the top 10.

Unjust punishment

Returning to the subject of ruthless Massa, the major talking point as we left the circuit was the ridiculous penalty awarded to Sebastien Bourdais for the collision with Massa near the end of the race.
Bourdais was exiting the pit lane and the pit lane exit light was blue to warn him that a car was coming down the straight. They were racing each other for position.
Bourdais came out of the pit lane, with Massa well over to the left on the run to the first corner. Massa drove like a man who felt that a Toro Rosso had no business being in his way and should let him pass.
Bourdais did everything he could to avoid a collision, even putting his inside wheels on the kerbs, but Massa came across and spun around him.
He might argue that he had his front wheels in front, but the team managers I spoke to after the race all said that FIA race director Charlie Whiting had briefed them in Singapore and again in Fuji that the car exiting the pits has right of way.
So once again, the stewards have gone against the advice Charlie has issued to teams, as they did with the penalty for Hamilton in Spa (where Whiting had told McLaren he thought Hamilton had acted fairly).
If the teams cannot believe the race director, what hope have the rest of us and the wider public got?
The FIA styles itself as the referee in this sport, but surely it cannot afford to keep sending out such mixed messages.
It confuses the public and makes some of them think that these things are being done for Ferrari’s benefit.
Of the professionals I quizzed at the track, 99% were saying that this was in no way an offence by Bourdais – but it gives Massa another vital point in the championship, to go with the six he gained at Spa.
And like Hamilton’s penalty at Spa, this one cannot be appealed as it was a 25-second penalty added to race time, in lieu of a drive-through during the race.
But the incident happened on lap 51, some 16 laps from the end. The stewards had 20 minutes to consider their verdict.
Ironically it took them only 15 laps to award the penalties for Hamilton and Massa at the start, so they could have arrived at a conclusion before the end of the race.

Cause for concern

A final note on Heikki Kovalainen’s engine failure

This could be a bit of a worry for Lewis, as Kovalainen had used his free engine change in Singapore because there was a concern there. Now Mercedes has lost one in a race.
If there is a problem part, they haven’t got much time to put it right before Shanghai.
Lewis is due a new engine there and he hasn’t taken his free change yet, so can also have a new one in Brazil.
But it will be a niggling doubt in their minds. Another one, to go with the doubt about Lewis’s state of mind in the closing stages of another championship that is his to lose.

James Allen www.ITV.com

Team Force India's VJM01 makes track debut

Force India's 2008 Formula One car made its track debut at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on Monday, less than three weeks before the start of the season in Australia.

However, technical head Mike Gascoyne said the late appearance of the VJM01, named after Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya and Dutch entrepreneurs Jan and Michiel Mol who last year bought the Spyker team and renamed it, would not be a disadvantage.

"Over the winter we have really been working with the new drivers and we've certainly shown a new level of competitiveness, which is something that will benefit us going forward," he said in a statement.

"There has been a lot of work going on in the background and we should look to go to Australia and be very reliable, especially in the first few races and pick up whatever we can," he added.

Force India have recruited 35-year-old former Renault driver Giancarlo Fisichella, winner of three Grands Prix in a career spanning nearly 200 races, as teammate to inexperienced German Adrian Sutil.

Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi, who competed for Toro Rosso last year, has joined as test driver with an eye on a future race seat.

Spyker scored just one point with Sutil last year, finishing last but one in the constructors' championship thanks to McLaren being stripped of all their points for a spying controversy.

"Last year was very frustrating but now we are in a position to move forward from a much more competitive baseline," said Gascoyne.

"Certainly you will see that with the next new development we should look to racing properly with the midfield as soon as possible."

The new car is based on the version of the Spyker F8-VII that was introduced at last year's Italian Grand Prix in September, with aerodynamic and mechanical updates to be tested at the Circuit de Catalunya this week.

"Aerodynamically there has been a complete rework of the car," said Gascoyne. "With our two wind tunnels in Brackley and Italy now operating full time, we have been able to make a lot of progress in the aero department."

Team Force India Unveils New Team