BMW Announces F1 Withdrawal

The board at BMW has today announced the company's withdrawal from Formula 1 racing, effective at the end of the season.

There have been rumours for some time now that this or that F1 team was withdrawing, most frequently about Renault and Toyota and consistently denied by all parties. Announcements may yet prove forthcoming from other teams.

It is a shame that BMW-Sauber is the next team to jump. Just one season ago they were leading the World Championship. Many observers, including myself, believed at the time that had they not dropped the development of the 2008 car (in favour of the 2009 model) they would have had a good shot at winning either title by the end of the year. As it was, the regulation changes were so great the decision was made to attempt to steal a march on the field by switching development early.

It didn't work. The 2009 car has not been competitive since the early part of the season and doesn't seem to be improving relative to the competition, even if it has done so relative to where it was before. You would think they'd switch focus to the 2010 car, as is usual when performance falls short of expectation. That they are bailing out and that it was announced by the higher-ups of the company suggest this one was out of Mario Theissen's control.

I think this is bigger than one underwhelming season, there has to be more to it than that. The announcement talked about changing their focus towards "sustainability and environmental compatibility". F1 is not embracing this as much as it should be, with even the token-effort KERS looking like being withdrawn next season under FOTA proposals.

I'm sure the global economy, slow car sales, and of course the whole Mosely affair and the Ecclestone/Hitler comments did not help sell F1 to the board of a German company.

A shame. I always thought BMW-Sauber should have achieved much more than they did, and 2008 should have been the beginning of a competitive phase. It was not to be. Let's hope a buyout can be arranged, either internally a la Brawn, or from elsewhere.

Hinwil is a top notch facility and the engines were produced in Munich. This is ideal as Hinwil shouldn't have to be downscaled for any prospective buyer, all they need do is slot in an engine of their choice. Perhaps BMW could even be persuaded to supply engines to the team in 2010. All of this has yet to be decided.

Lots of news

Sorry for the short quiet period there - I had a great weekend of Wii, much beer and an engagement party (not mine!). Unfortunately that wiped out the last couple of nights as I had to do my college work then instead of in a block at the weekend.

A lot has happened in the six days since I last posted, it seems as though the racing world has just suddenly realised there's a season upon us in six or eight weeks.

Here are some snapshots:

F1
- Someone seems to be actually working on an American Formula 1 team. The idea has come and gone over the last couple of decades but nobody has really tried it since Penske in the 70s, and his cars were based an hour from me in Poole, England. Rumours suggest this 'USF1' team will be based in Charlotte, North Carolina with an operating base in Bilbao, Spain. I'm taking this with a pinch of salt until further notice. I didn't believe the Prodrive F1 entry until very late on and I won't with these guys, and that's down to a) their choice of splitting across two continents, b) the fact no bona fide indie has entered since who knows when (not counting Aguri), and c) uh, hello, recession? What is in their favour is the new agreements about 'cheap' engines and drivetrains.

- FOTA and the FIA have agreed to engines costing no more than 5 million Euros and a drivetrain (gearbox etc) 1.5 million Euros. They also agreed that any team may choose to use the control Cosworth/Xtrac option currently in development - you might remember Mad Max originally intended every team to use it. Discussions continue this week.

- The Singapore GP organisers plan to adjust the layout of the circuit for this year. The pitlane entry and exit will be moved away from the racing line, turn one will be tightened to create a harder braking area, and other turns will be reprofiled.

- The great Teddy Mayer has died aged 73. Mayer was the man in control of McLaren between the death of Bruce McLaren in 1970 (he helped Bruce found the team) until Ron Dennis bought his way in in 1982. McLaren were active in F1, CanAm and USAC/CART and won the Indy 500 with Johnny Rutherford. After McLaren, Mayer moved back to America where he set up a team in CART, hiring Tom Sneva who nearly won the title with them. After a stint with Beatrice back in F1, Mayer joined Penske where he remained until his retirement in 2007. His son Tim is the COO of the American Le Mans Series and IMSA.
Please read this obituary at Motorsport.com, with thanks to No Fenders for pointing it out.


IRL
- Multiple reports had Robert Doornbos signing with Newman Haas Lanigan, however his own site denied this - for the time being. Reading between the lines it seems they are still discussing the finer points of the contract.

- Yet more reports, originating from Robin Miller I think, have Milka Duno also joining N/H/L.... which will be interesting. It seems an odd choice to me and I wouldn't have put that team down as a ridebuying team, so I guess times really are hard.

- Five car manufacturers were unveiled as being in discussion with the IRL about future engine regulations. These were Honda, Audi, VW, Porsche and Fiat. Obviously 3 of those are actually under the same ownership now. The Fiat link is interesting, originally it was supposed to be their Alfa Romeo brand but perhaps with the recent Chrysler tie-in they may feel Fiat is the better marketing platform.


GP2
- Bruno Senna confirmed to Autosport.com that he will not be returning to GP2. The GP2 driver market has been hanging on his decision, expecting that with the Honda F1 team now defunct he would return for another year. Bruno seems to think he has a shot either at Toro Rosso, or is pinning his hopes on someone buying the ex-Honda team outright. I think he made the wrong choice - unless F1's 3-car rule comes into effect in which case he'll look very smart indeed. Or just lucky.

- Ocean Racing (formerly BCN) has signed Karun Chandhok for the 2009 main series.


Sportscars
- The ACO has received 82 applications for this year's Le Mans 24 Hours. There are only 55 spots. 15 places have already been allocated through invitations based on results at the 2008 Le Mans, Petit Le Mans and the championships of the LMS and ALMS. This leaves 67 entries for 40 places. The ACO will select 55 entrants and 8 reserves and announce them at the end of this month. I'm tempted to do a little blog post about that when it happens.


Loads more has happened but it's half past midnight and I want to go to bed!


**
Back tomorrow with Weekend Preview - although I think the Bud Shootout is the only thing on.

By the way, I don't know who of you is from Bristowe, Virginia and keeps visiting every two hours but please stop, you're fucking up my Feedjit stats. Just once (or twice) a day will be fine. Ta. You're probably a bot.

News Round-Up

I hope everyone had a good New Year! I had a quiet one after spending the last two years in central London, and the previous one in Edinburgh (the Home of Hogmanay and the best New Year's Eve street party in the world!). This year I just played a bit of Mario Kart Wii before heading into the middle of the little town I live in for the moment itself.

I thought I should catch up on some of the smaller bits of news I missed when I was revising for an exam in December, believe it or not when you summarise it a lot did actually happen even if it seemed very quiet day-to-day. And not all of it was bad, either. I'll skip the things reported by my blogging colleagues at the time, I mean we've all seen that, right?


F1
- Big news in sponsorship as Vodafone takes their primary sponsorship from McLaren to Ferrari for 2009 onwards.

- Allianz will continue with WilliamsF1 for the forthcoming year, however technical partner Lenovo have instead joined McLaren. No word on the plans of RBS after the bank was bailed out by the British government a few months ago, my fellow taxpayers and I now own 60% of the company.

- Teams have been testing the KERS system and new aero package, to varying degrees. BMW, Honda and Williams were among the first to test the new gear, while Red Bull has been running with '08 systems simulating '09 rules.


IRL
- 2008 GP2 champ Giorgio Pantano is looking for a ride in the US after the F1 teams showed no interest in him.

- Penske continue to state that an announcement on Helio's ride - i.e. will he drive or will there be a replacement - will be made 'in the next few weeks', although they've been saying that since November.


GP2
- Pastor Maldonado has signed with ART Grand Prix for the '09 European series. His teammate is expected to be Nico Hulkenberg.

- The Asia series is continuing with what is becoming a regularly revolving cast of characters. Seems several teams are using it as an extended driver test for the main series.

- The February round of the Asia series at Dubai has been moved to Qatar, and will become a night event under the floodlights. MotoGP race under the lights there last year.


F2
- At least 20 drivers have been signed up to the revived F2 series for this year and it looks to be oversubscribed, in which case it will be capped at 24 drivers. So far 10 drivers have been officially announced by MSV and more are being added to this page every week, presumably in order to get more PR from staggered announcements which is a good move.

- Great to see Red Bull joining the party and helping legitimise the series further, alongside MotorSport Vision and WilliamsF1.


F3
- Carlin Motorsport have switched from Mercedes engines to Volkswagen, marking a big increase in VW's presence in both the Euroseries and the British one. Carlin say they are following their backers Red Bull, who announced in November that all teams they are backing in F3 will run with VW.

- VW already confirmed they are dropping RC Motorsport, and will continue with Signature-Plus (both for the Euroseries), while in Britain they'll join with T-Sport.


Sportscars
- The Le Mans pre-event Test Day has been cancelled to reduce the costs for both competitors and organisers. Wednesday's qualifying has now become a mandatory practice session.

- Leo Mansell and dad Nigel tested the Ginetta-Zytek 07S LMP sportscar at Valencia. Meanwhile Leo's brother Greg tested the World Series by Renault FR3.5 car in a group test at Paul Ricard, back in November.

- Barwell Motorsport will not going back to ALMS this year with their bio Aston Martin. They will instead enter the LMS and FIA GT3. I'm not sure if they'll use that car but they will run Astons.

- BMW have been testing their GT2 class M3 in the US with World Touring Car drivers Andy Priaulx, Jorg Muller and Augusto Farfus. Priaulx says he'd like to take part in some ALMS races in the car, but Sebring clashes with a WTCC event at Puebla. Joey Hand and Bill Auberlen have been announced as the drivers of Rahal Letterman Racing's M3.

- The Britcar 24 Hours at Silverstone has been reduced to a 6-hour event for 2009 for cost containment reasons. Organisers hope to return the race to the full distance in 2010. It has only been running since 2005.

- Ex-Super Aguri driver Anthony Davidson tested a Peugeot 908 HDi at Paul Ricard and is the running for a race drive. Go Ant!


Other
- Both Subaru and Suzuki have pulled out of the World Rally Championship. Kawasaki looks set to announce a pull-out from MotoGP next week. Seems like the Japanese car and bike makers are in trouble.

- 1998 and 1999 F1 World Champion Mika Hakkinen has become a driver manager, alongside his own manager Dider Coton.

- A1GP has agreed with the Chinese government to run two rounds per season for the next five years. Venues were not confirmed. A1 has raced in Shanghai, Beijing, Zhuhai and Chengdu since the series started in 2005.

- Organisers of the Surfers Paradise street race are building a pit/paddock complex for 40 teams in time for the '09 event. That should be enough to service all of the A1GP and V8 Supercar teams.

- The Dakar Rally gets under way this week, but in Argentina. The African event was cancelled last year due to terrorist theats which prompted the move over the Atlantic, however a rival series called Africa Race has been set up and will be running at the same time albeit with far fewer numbers competing.

Blog
- Check out the Last.FM radio player in the white sidebar!

- The blog might be quieter than intended between now and June as I am in my final year of an accountancy course. It isn't quite 'Accountant' level, its the level just below it, but that doesn't make it easy! So I'll be quite busy doing that.

- It's New Year's Day, I didn't drink stupendous amounts last night yet my head still hurts because I have a cold, only a mild one but I HATE colds. Especially ones I pick up during a stock-take at work on NYE. I need a good rant so might come back soon to tell you all my pet peeves.

All stories shamelessely pilfered from the pages of the last several editions of Autosport magazine and reworded by me.

News and Notes to October 4th

Apologies for the sparseness of updates since Singapore, I know a fair amount has happened this week however I've been focussed on other things. It'll likely be this way until June when I've completed my accountancy course. Hey this ain't a news site, I don't need to keep to schedule.

So let's recap, with the aid of Sonador 1556, a lovely Cab Sauv / Merlot blend red wine from Argentina which I picked up cheaply from a booze warehouse near Calais a couple of months ago, and with Winamp running at random through my 2500 MP3s (check out my Last.fm profile - get one yourself!), as the autumn wind and rain hammer at the window.


- Helio & the Taxman
I'm sure you've all read about Helio Castrovneves (et al) and the trouble with the tax authorities in the US. Like all racing fans I truly hope Helio is innocent in all this, that he got screwed by a manager or advisor or someone. In saying that, I have a bad feeling about it, that maybe he isn't entirely clean. Just my gut, hope I'm wrong.

The official position of Too Much Racing is this: Let's wait and see, we don't have enough info as yet.


- Gerry & the Lawyer
Since the Helio story broke the otherwise big news of Paul Tracy suing Gerry Forsythe has hit the backburner. Basically, Tracy wasn't paid monies due by Forsythe according to the contract between them. Will at IsItMayYet? looks like he has some good access on this.

I don't trust Forsythe as far as I can throw him, though he has some good people under him. I was amazed when he announced his Indy Lights team.

The official position of Too Much Racing is this: "Go Paul Tracy!" I hope he gets the money owed to him, plus interest. I also hope he hooks up with an intelligent sponsor for the '09 season. I still think he'd do wonders for KV or Conquest. There's a part of me that still wants him to join an ex-Champ Car team, it wouldn't seem right any other way, and right now I can't countenance his o/w career being over.


- Andretti & the Europeans
Michael Andretti is in the Netherlands, apparently choosing to go to Zandvoort for his new A1GP venture rather than see his team's last attempt (for now?) at Petit Le Mans. I respect that decision greatly, it would have been easy for him to just go to Petit, but he wanted to see his A1 team off from the start despite the much-reported troubles of the series as a whole right now, despite AGR's involvement apparently only existing for mere weeks.
Make no bones about it, his presence and that of AGR boosts A1GP immensely right now, perhaps more so than Ferrari given it is they who seriously dropped the ball on car supply.

We're two weeks after the scheduled series start, which was cancelled, and still five teams are unable to participate due to lack of cars. Four teams this weekend have seriously struggled because their cars only arrived at the circuit on Friday, meaning some of the teams missed practice. A1Team.China still hasn't turned a wheel as I write this. A1GP had to schedule an extra practice on Sunday to compensate. This is after they introduced a 'dropped score' rule to compensate for the guys who don't have a car to run.

Back to Andretti. I'm pleased it is he who got the US franchise. He has unfinished business over here and it would clear his name, especially if he attends most of the races, gets his face about. The F1 fraternity has branded him as tainted after his McLaren run so Europeans often see him in that light rather than based on his Indycar credentials. Yes I know most of A1 takes place in Asia but most of the teams and personnel are European.
It is a big step for A1 to have an American team, rather than Brits in US clothing as most teams are (or have been - actually I've lost track of who runs what team now). More A1 teams should take this step. It is also better to have a true racing guy running the team rather than some businessman we've never heard of.

I've seen many blog posts deriding the choice of Marco and Danica. I disagree. I think it is huge boost to A1GP to have these more established drivers race rather than a bunch of younger guys who've grown out of F3 but couldn't get the budget for GP2 or WSbR, as it has been lately. No offence to Charlie Kimball who is a talented guy, I hope AGR gives him an IndyCar test. Also my nerdy-senses are tingling at the prospect of those two up against Bleekemolen, Carroll, and Jani who in my book are the clear frontrunners and are no slouches.

The official position of Too Much Racing is: to wish A1 well, after all it is a superior concept than Superleague. When the season gets under way properly, all problems ironed out, it'll be something to watch. I intend to find a way to watch it, albeit delayed, as I cannot afford Sky's prices. Apparently there is no US TV coverage at all so you'll have to use the same methods as me.

Hey - maybe Paul Tracy could be the driver for A1Team.Canada!


- F1 Fans & the Annual Survey
For the last few years, the FIA in association with AMD and F1 Racing have offered a survey to the fans of Formula 1. The questions were usually loaded so they got the answers they were looking for, but it was still worthwhile.
The new survey is out and apparently drops the association with the FIA. This year it is run by F1 Racing and ING (sponsor of RenaultF1 and several GPs).

http://www.ingf1racingmagazinefansurvey.com/

I've just completed it and it seems less loaded than in years past.
I strongly recommend to anybody who watches F1, complete this survey, tell them what you think, and forward the link to your friends or your own blog. It doesn't matter if you religiously watch every race or just a handful every year, this is your chance to be heard. All I ask is you don't put in stupid answers to fuck up the results, let's make this count people.


- TMR & the Bloggers
I've only been blogging for 8 weeks or so so I'm no old-hand, but it is always nice when you visit a site or blog you'd never taken the time to read before (for whatever reason) and find that you've been linked. One such blog is The Open Wheel. Having just read the last few updates I wish I'd known about it sooner. Thanks for the link, consider yourself reciprocated.

It is just as good, perhaps better, to find yourself linked at places you've been reading for months and - so I'd like to thank Pressdog, MyNameIsIRL and Meesh (you're blog name is too long!) who's links are in my sidebar already.
Final mention goes to The Starting Grid, who like this shit so much they invited me to post it at their site! My latest post is the thing about Singapore, check back there soon for a report about Petit Le Mans from Void who is there right now. I'm assuming he's doing a report. If I had a blog I'd be doing a report. Oh. I do have a blog.

While I'm here, check SniffPetrol.com on October 10th for the monthly update. Brit-biased, lots of in-jokes for regular readers, and very much Not Safe For Work (or kids). Meantime, spend a little time reading the history. You'll love it.

Given the wine consumed I think this last section has been the blog equivalent of the drunken "you're my besht mate, I luv you".


Sorry, I know blog posts are supposed to be short and snappy and I could have done 3 here, that's not how I do things.

One thing I've learned today: red wine improves my writing. Must do this again sometime.
Catch you later.