SofaF1

So it seems like, after three seasons in a middling team, this is the last we’ll see of Christian Klien. What did you make of him? I have never been totally convinced by him, but there have been times when he’s driven amazingly well. I think Bahrain last year? Nonetheless, he has been outperformed by his team-mates every time – and this year and the last by a man who was easily outperformed by Hakkinen and Raikkonen. In fact, the points deficit is quite shocking: 14 points to 2. But he is fast, and maybe he deserves another chance, but aren’t there a lot more drivers who deserve a chance too? His going effectively frees up the seat at Williams for Wurz – a driver that has waited along time to prove himself again.

I just received an email from autosport.com’s editor-in-chief saying that as of tomorrow news stories on his website will be free to read. There will still be pay content (worth subscribing to, I should add), but the most important part – the headlines – are yours now for nothing.

The most interesting section of the email, however, was the claim that the reason for doing this was that autosport.com was now the best F1 website on the internet. Do you agree? I certainly think it is – the news arrives there sometimes a day before it does on itv-f1.com, and the race reports are much more detailed. A swinger in the debate has to be the terrible ‘Italian GP Preview’ on itv-f1.com at the moment which tells you nothing about the race at all.

So Heikki will partner Fisi, Flav has re-signed for next year. And they’ve got Nelson Piquet Jr. as a test driver. They’re clearly keeping up the idea of bringing promising rookies in to F1.

But this announcement and its timing suggestes that Kimi is definately going to Ferrari.

I read this morning that Ferrari will announce their decision the moment the last of their racers crosses the finish line at Monza. So, if they want to delay the announcement, all they have to do is order Massa to stop his car a few laps before the end. Easy. Or, they could be thinking of saying the two Red Bulls are theoretically their racers too, so if one of them breaks down or has a crash…

According to the press this weekend Michael will either retire, carry on with Ferrari or race with Renault. What do you think. Say what you think will happen and what you want to happen.

But first here are the arguments for each.

Retire: Several people including Bernie himself have said that Michael will retire at the end of this season. The main argument seems to be that Michael has already achieved so much that he doesn’t feel the need to go on, that he’s lost some of his desire to win, that he feels the baton has been passed, that the Ferrari team are moving on and that he should go out on top.

Carry on with Ferrari: Michael has built the success story that is Ferrari and while he may want to go out on top he might not feel that he isn’t on top or at the very least in with a chance or being on top. And if you’ve got that feeling then why would you want it to stop. And if there’s the challenge of beating Kimi on equal terms in the offing that might just be an offer he’ll find hard to refuse.

Move to Renault: I think I might have only heard this one from Peter Winsor whose argument went something like this: why not? He also suggested that with Flav and Pat it would be like the good old days of Benneton. And he already knows it’s a fast car.

So which do you think?

Tickets for next year’s race at Silverstone have gone on sale and this year they’ve added a little gimmick in light of Jenson’s maiden win. If Jenson wins the race then they’ll give you fifty quid. (Expect Jenson in that weigh bridge)

The thing is that surely they must be expecting ticket sales to be up even before this. And also surely it would be better the other way round. Surely people won’t have minded paying top dollar for tickets if Jenson won but in case you’re upset Jenson lost then here’s fifty quid.

Everyone and their grandmother seems to be so I figure I should jump on the band waggon too. But how can Ferrari, MaLaren, Renault, Honda and Toyota all feel confident after the test? The answer is some of them must be lying.

Actually this feeds into a wider point. All of the teams I just mentioned and Williams and BMW all want to win the world championship. The others at least know that they never will although I’m not so sure about Red Bull. So lets say eight teams want to win the championship. This is crazy because at least one of them is going to come eighth. And if you’ve been gleaning money out of your paymaster overlords for years on the promise of a win how do you explain eighth place to them?

Okay so Red Bull will be happy whatever happens for the next few years. Williams are upset this year but will be attempting to build for the next few seasons during a period of renewal. And maybe that’s how it works. It can’t just be money because otherwise Toyota would be winning all the time.

But you’ve got to say with odds of one in eight of winning even after 100 Million dollars invested each year you’ve got to have some serious balls to turn round to your bosses and say, “lets play again, you see I’ve got this system it can’t fail. This time we’re going to win”.

The guardian has a story that at Monza Ferrari will announce three drivers for next year. Kimi, Massa and Michael.

This would fit with the earlier stories about Michael not having to decide until the end of the year.

According to a Spanish magazine “AS” (sorry no link) at Monza Renault will also be making an announcement about its driver line up. As apparently Kimi has also signed with them for next year. This contract apparently stands if Michael remains at Ferrari.

Part of the oddity is that Telefonica have upped their sponsorship commitment to Renault next year quite substantially at a time when Renault have less star power and no Spaniard. Although some people have taken it as a sign that Pedro de la Rosa will be moving over to Renault I wouldn’t want to see what Pedro would look like after he’d tried to wriggle his way out of one of Ron’s contracts!

A lot of commentators have been mentioning that Michael’s raggedness is a sign that he wants this championship worse than ever and that’s a sign that he’s determined to resign this year. Maybe it’s true, but I don’t think you would have found anyone in a previous season who would have argued that Michael didn’t want to win the championship so badly it hurt. He always wants to win. I just don’t think he’s been under as much pressure for a while.

And with the team clearly being a bit fairer between drivers maybe they are letting Michael know, and the rest of the world, that next year when he’s racing Kimi he’ll properly be racing Kimi.

I can’t believe I hadn’t focused on it but I just realised this week how bad it would be for Renault if they don’t win the constructors championship.

As Alonso is going to McLaren next year even if he wins the drivers world championship then his number 1 would go to McClaren and all of the status too. If Renault don’t win the constructors then next year it will be as though they won nothing. All of the benefits of having a world champion in your stable will be elsewhere.

And while Michael might be 12 points behind Alonso. Ferrari are only two points behind Renault.

Well here’s Kimi riding his new bike:

What’s that Ferrari Enzo doing in the back of his garage?