Brawn looked outclassed by the Red Bull, but Rubens brought his Brawn in third spot, even if it was certainly not the fastest car on the grid today.

Massa drove a decent race today as well to finish in fourth in the Ferrari, which the car didn’t look capable of for most of the weekend.

Nico Rosberg managed to hold of a late charging Jenson to take the fifth spot for Williams, but it seemed that Jenson struggled with balance and grip in the car all race, right up until the last stint on the second soft set of tyres, where he seemed to find some pace and catch and overtake Trulli, and then managed to get within half a second of coming fifth, but ultimately had to take sixth.

Trulli brought the Toyota home in seventh spot, and Kimi managed to bring the second Ferrari home in the last points scoring spot.

Vettel was without a shadow of a doubt the class of the field, putting that fastest lap in on regular occurrence, and the rest of the field had no answer for his pace.

The best battle of the race had to actually be with the old team mates, and world champions of Fernando and Lewis, a ding dong battle down in the 14-15th spot runnings.

Williams deserve some praise as well, Kazuki qualified excellently yesterday, even if it was with a low fuel run, and Niko drove very well today to grab the fifth spot.

Force India looked a lot quicker this weekend too, showing that their new Aero updates have done a decent job of improving performance.

One of the big news items from this weekend is the whole K.E.R.S thing. BMW have announced they are shelving the system for the rest of the season, and McLaren and Renault didn’t run it here either. That left only Ferrari with the system in place, and rumour has it that the team is looking to remove it as well, throwing into question why the FIA ‘forced’ the large teams into developing the system, at what is rumoured to be half a bullion dollars between the grid.

The only accident that happened this weekend was Bourdais and Kovalainen, Heikki was just out of the pits on a one stop strategy, and tried to block Sebastien, which caused Sebastien to run into the back of Heikki, knocking both drivers out of the race.

Add to that the troubles that Jenson seemed to be having with balance in his car means that he only starts from 6th spot.

The day however was dominated by the Red Bull cars. The new aero package the team brought to the race seemed to work brilliantly. A new nose, rear wing, diffuser v2 and floor seemed to allow the drivers a very balanced and neutral cars.

Vettel and Webber fought it out in all 3 of the sessions, being consistently the fastest cars on the track all through practise, and for the most part all through qualifying.

Vettel put together an awe inspiring lap to take the top spot of the grid, with the Silverstone master Barrichello putting his Brawn GP car in second spot, Webber seemed to struggle with race fuel on a little and only managed 3rd in the end, with Trulli showing the changes on the Toyota have kept them on something like front running place taking 4th place.

Nakajima put together a great lap in the dying moments of Q3 to take the 5th spot, and Jenson struggling a little grabs 6th.

Nico in the second Williams grabbed 7th, showing the Williams cars can be good on high speed tracks. He is then followed by Timo in the second Toyota.

Kimi is the only Ferrari in the top ten, sitting 9th, with the only Renault in the top ten being Fernando’s in tenth.

Weather should be a little warmer for the race, perhaps improving the Brawn GP cars abilities, but no-one would bet against a Red Bull car being at the front when the chequered flag waives. As for Lewis in the McLaren, all he can hope for is rain, as he proved last year, he can drive Silverstone like no-one else under those conditions.

The prize is a trip to the Valencia GP as the guest of the ING Renault team, full access to behind the scenes of the race weekend.

If your not lucky enough to win that, then there are plenty of other prizes to be had.

This means that Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, BMW-Sauber, Toyota, Brawn GP, Red Bull and Toro Rosso will not be taking part in next years FIA F1 Championship.

This leaves Williams, Force India, Manor, US-F1 and Campos as the only announced teams for the FIA event next year, with most of those teams currently using an engine supplied by a FOTA manufacturer.

What this will mean to the F1 championship we do not yet know, will all the cars now end up using the Cosworth engine and gearbox package (as it seems the only choice) at the moment, and how much does that mean as teams will have already started designing packages around the engines they expected to be using next year.

Here’s the FOTA Press Release (link).

Since the formation of FOTA last September the teams have worked together and sought to engage the FIA and commercial rights holder, to develop and improve the sport.

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 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, that 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. These teams therefore have no alternative other than to commence the preparation for a new Championship which reflects the values of its participants and partners.

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. The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motorsport will all feature in this new series. (editors highlighting)

Note to Eds: Statement issued by FOTA on behalf of BMW-Sauber, BrawnGP, Scuderia Ferrari, McLaren- Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, Renault, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Toyota.

So it seems this years British GP at Silverstone might be the last one for more than one reason.

The one good side to this story might be that the FIA are pressurised into forcing Max Mosley to resign, and try come to some agreement with the FOTA teams, as there will not be an F1 championship like we have come accustomed to if the manufacturer teams leave.

UPDATE – The FIA have responded to the FOTA press release with this.

The FIA is disappointed but not surprised by FOTA’s inability to reach a compromise in the best interests of the sport. It is clear that elements within FOTA have sought this outcome throughout the prolonged period of negotiation and have not engaged in the discussions in good faith.

The FIA cannot permit a financial arms race in the Championship nor can the FIA allow FOTA to dictate the rules of Formula One.

The deadline for unconditional entries to the 2010 FIA Formula World Championship will expire this evening.

The 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship entry list will be announced tomorrow.

Now I can assume that both the FIA and FOTA have probably been as stubborn as each other in any negotiations, however I also think that the FIA should have a lot less say in the technical rules of the championship, and stick to what they historically have done best, maintaining the safety of the drivers, fans and teams all around the world.

We know that Lola have pulled their application for the 2010 series, and as long as the funds are still around they may like to join the FOTA organised series. I’m also sure that Dave Richards would quite happily join the FOTA series, and brand the ProDrive team as Aston Martin.

We will have to see who speaks up next, and see if there is any possibility of the two parties coming to some agreement.

SCUDERIA FERRARI MARLBORO
SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO
RED BULL RACING
AT&T WILLIAMS
FORCE INDIA F1 TEAM
CAMPOS GRAND PRIX
MANOR GRAND PRIX
TEAM US F1
VODAFONE McLAREN MERCEDES*
BMW SAUBER F1 TEAM*
RENAULT F1 TEAM*
PANASONIC TOYOTA RACING*
BRAWN GP FORMULA ONE TEAM*

The teams with a * next to them are on the provisional list, with the FIA asking the teams to lift their demands for rule changes.

What does this mean? Well one interesting thing you will see is that all of the FOTA teams are provisional, however the two Red Bull teams don’t have the provisional sign next to them. This even though unlike Williams and Force India they have not lifted there demands on the FIA.

This could be a typo on the team lineup document from the FIA, or they have lifted there demands, and have just not told the rest of the FOTA teams.

Campos are a Junior formula team making the step up, Team USA we kind of guessed would get the nod, it’s a political hotcake, and would have been bad to leave the USA out, it is after all perhaps the easiest and best chance to get F1 into the USA. The strangest inclusion though is Manor GP, a relatively unheard of team.

So it looks like ProDrive, Lola and Lotus teams seem to be out in the cold (and there was good money on ProDrive getting in, seeming as they were approved once before).

Let’s see what the FOTA teams do now, as Max is saying that the Concorde agreement will not be signed in time, and that the teams should change their tunes, and play nice. I doubt if the big teams, Ferrari included will back down quite that easily.

Jenson who has a poor result record drove a great controlled race to take the win, with his team mate Rubens coming in second.

The Ferrari’s showed they have certainly taken a step towards the front of the grid, to take 3rd and 4th places with Kimi and Felipe.

The race was over as it commonly is at Monaco at the start when Kimi got a poor launch off the line and entered Sand Devot in third place. From there on in it was up to Jenson and Rubens to loose, and they controlled the poor super soft tyres well on their first stint. After that the Ferrari’s struggled to keep the pace of the Brawn GP cars.

There were a few bumps and bashes along the way, but the front runners stayed out of trouble.

Full race report shortly.

Raikkonen proved that the Ferrari has got some pace this weekend taking second spot, with Massa fifth.

Rubens get’s the spot directly behind his team mate in third, showing the Brawn is still the car to catch.

Vettel put the now Double Diffuser Red Bull on third spot, with his team mate Webber in eighth.

Rosberg puts the still there or there-about’s Williams on sixth, with Heiki putting the improving McLaren onto seventh.

Alonso will not be happy with ninth as he was hoping for a top 5 finish.

Lewis Hamilton won’t be too amused with himself after dropping the back and of his car in the casino section and breaking the rear left of the car in session 1. Especially after being so quick all weekend up to that point.

Red Bull again showed pace, as did Ferrari until Massa started to run short of fuel.

Rubens lead the first stint, but was leapfrogged by Jenson when he and his engineers switched from a three stop to a two stop strategy, leaving Rubens with the task of making up the 20 second deficit.

Webber drove a fabulous second part of the race to take third, ahead of his team mate Vettel, who if he was not held up behind Massa’s Ferrari for the first and second stints would have challenged the top two.

A Crash at the first/second corner took out a few drivers, and Ferrari although quickish when running had issues for both cars.

A full run down later.

However Red Bull and Vettel will be happy with getting the second spot, and Barrichello on third, who for most of the weekend looked to have Button licked.

Felipe will take the fourth spot, and significant improvement for Ferrari this weekend with there updated car.

Webber shows that the Red Bulls have kept pace with the front runners even though they have not got their updated rear end yet, taking the fourth spot.

Glock and Trulli put the Toyota’s sixth and seventh, cementing the fact that the Toyota’s have still got pace, showing that even though all the other teams have tried to play catch up, the Brawn, Red Bull and Toyota’s are still the cars to beat.

Fernando got into Q3 on his home GP, and starts from 8th spot, he then has Rosberg in the Williams who still seem to struggle a little with race fuel on board and Kubica in the ‘B’ spec BMW in tenth.

The cap is £40Million, that’s £10Million more than was originally proposed when the cap was first planned.

The cap will not be compulsory, rather an opt in / out system, with benefits to those teams opting in.

Teams that opt into the spending cap will be allowed greater technical freedom. These will be free revving engines rather than 18000RPM limits, Movable Aero – including rear, and unlimited out of season testing.

2010 will also see refuelling banned, and the use of tyre warmers stopped, refuelling I can see the point of, but stopping tyre warmers seems a little overkill, it wont reduce costs, in fact it will probably increase Bridgestone’s spend.

There has also been talk of allowing upto 13 teams onto the grid, making 26 cars. It seems that we will know what teams are planning on entering the 2010 season, as applications must take place between 22nd and the 29th of May.

Let’s hope the rumours of iSport and Lola, along with ‘Team USA’ are true, will be nice to see more teams on the grid again.