“The direction of the new decisions is absolutely right in my view and has even the potential for a better show to come,” said Schumacher in an interview for his personal website.

“To increase the mechanical grip for example is perfect.

“Formula 1 will still remain the pinnacle of motorsports.

“It will change a bit, but life is about changes.”

He added that he was pleased that action was taken so quickly.

“It is clear that something has to happen in the light of the current situation worldwide,” said Schumacher.

“I am happy with the fact that the FIA together with the teams have taken the first steps.

“We have to carefully evaluate what to do now, and this is what happens at the moment.”

ITV

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Peugeot has branded as ‘totally false’ speculation linking it to a potential buy-out of the assets of Honda’s defunct Formula 1 team, insisting that it is suffering just as much as any other car manufacturer in the current economic climate.

It had been reported in Belgian motorsport magazine Autosportnieuws that PSA Peugeot-Citroën – whose last involvement in the top flight came as an engine-supplier to the ill-fated Prost Grand Prix concern in the late 1990s and into the turn of the Millennium – had added its name to the list of parties interested in the purchase of the Brackley-based outfit.

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A new permanent circuit is projected, based on an existing motocross venue in the Dolna Mitropolya region. The site, located near the northern town of Pleven, about 100 miles from the capital, Sofia, is being developed to host a round of the MotoGP series in 2011, and the government also wants it to stage a Grand Prix.

“The talks with MotoGP and Formula One are one of the main priorities for our country,” said Rumen Petkov, who was appointed as the Balkan nation’s minister of the interior in June last year.

Dolna Mitropolya lies in the hills and valleys of the Danube, Iskar and Vit rivers and has developed recently into an attractive mountain resort area with renovated recreation facilities and new hotels, restaurants and nightclubs. It is best known for an air force academy and for leisure activities such as hunting, fishing, mountaineering and horse riding.

The existing circuit staged successful FIM SuperMoto events in July and October this year, and last week it was voted the top track by the FIM Congress in Johannesburg.

The Grand Prix project is being led by Vesela Lecheva, chairman of the state Agency for Youth & Sports; Georgi Ianakiev, president of both the Union of Bulgarian Motorists and the Bulgarian Motor Sport Federation; and Bogdan Nikolov, president of the Bulgarian Motorcycling Federation.

“It will be very difficult, but I think we will succeed,” Nikolov said while preparing a detailed proposal that will be submitted to the FIA and the Formula One group on Monday, Dec. 15.

Autoweek

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Schumacher was speaking at Sunday’s Race of Champions event at Wembley, where he and Vettel teamed up to retain the Nations Cup for Germany.

Neither progressed beyond the last eight of the Champion of Champions, with Vettel losing out to eventual winner Sebastien Loeb, who took the honours for the third time in six years.

However, Schumacher said he thought that Vettel, who became the youngest winner of a Grand Prix last season when he took the chequered flag at Monza, has the talent to go all the way.

“I enjoy watching him. He has his own character, which he needs to develop, and then the results will come,” he said.

“He has the genes to become world champion one day, something he has demonstrated this year.”

Vettel won the Italian Grand Prix for Toro Rosso, his move to the sister Red Bull team having already been announced during the summer.

And, despite admitting he would like to emulate Schumacher and take the title driving for Ferrari, Vettel said he was looking forward to making his race debut for the Milton Keynes-based outfit.

“I’m feeling good about next year,” he said. “There’s still a lot of work ahead of us, but we are willing to work long and hard to get things right.”

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Asked by reporters if he would ever work for champions Ferrari, Briatore said: “I like to beat Ferrari but when my team doesn’t win, being Italian, I obviously support Ferrari.

“But I don’t think I will go to work at Maranello, especially as in two years I will stop.”

Briatore also hailed Formula One’s agreement to cut costs during the global financial crisis.

“The new rules will make Formula One more exciting and human. I agree that the constructors, in order to try to avoid the crisis, have given a good example by trying new ideas.”

Guardian

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Hamilton has had to wait almost six weeks to get his hands on the silverware following a thrilling conclusion to the 2008 F1 season in Brazil.

It was on November 2 that the 23-year-old clinched his maiden world championship, claiming the title on the penultimate lap of the final race of the season at Interlagos, pipping Ferrari’s Felipe Massa by just a single point.

It was arguably the most dramatic conclusion to a world championship since the inaugural season back in 1950.

The denouement to a campaign that started on Hamilton’s 23rd birthday on January 7 with the launch of the McLaren car that propelled him to glory unfolded in front of 585 specially-invited guests at the FIA Gala Dinner in Monte Carlo.

An hour long presentation heralded the champions in karting, regional rally, European rally cross, truck racing, historic rally, GT, the World Touring Car Championship, and the World Rally Championship, before finally concluding with F1.

A five-minute video montage began with footage and comments from Hamilton interlaced with those of his all-time hero in Ayrton Senna during his glory days.

There followed dramatic scenes from various stages of the season, before the curtain finally arose on Hamilton standing alongside his suspended McLaren, with its nose pointing to the floor.

“This year has been a very special one in my life, the fulfilment of a dream I have had since childhood,” said Hamilton. “It is the conclusion of an ambition that has taken me and my family on an amazing journey.

“The fact that I have the drivers’ world championship trophy in my hand makes me so proud, and it’s testament to the great determination and spirit that has helped me get here.”

The Press Association

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Max Mosley, president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, last week designated Cosworth as the preferred lead bidder in his plans to impose standardised engines and gear systems on F1 teams in a bid to rein in “unsustainable” spending in the sport.

But on Friday Cosworth remained in the dark over whether the cost-cutting plans agreed with the motor racing teams would allow it to re-enter the sport as an engine provider. It withdrew from F1 in 2006.

Mr Mosley’s plans for a standard engine, announced as Honda withdrew from the sport last week, rely on the FIA attracting the interest of at least four teams without tie-ups with rival engine makers.

There are also hopes that the FIA could attract the support of Renault, one of the manufacturer teams included in the Formula One Teams Association, for the option of commissioning an independent engine supplier.

Last week, Mr Mosley wrote to teams confirming plans to offer un-badged Cosworth engines at the upfront cost of €2m (£1.8m) plus €5.5m each season from 2010.

On Friday, though, the Paris-based FIA declined specifically to name Cosworth as its preferred engine supplier as it welcomed a broad agreement designed to halve team running costs by 2010.

New engines “will either come from an independent supplier or be supplied by the manufacturer teams backed by guarantees of continuity. If an independent supplier, the deal will be signed no later than 20 December 2008”, the FIA said.

Manufacturers known to be resistant to the single engine idea are Ferrari, Toyota and Mercedes. They have been given the option to continue supplying their own engines but only on an identical specification to ones supplied by Cosworth.

A return by Cosworth would reignite the long-running rivalry between Cosworth and Ferrari as the most successful engine providers to F1.

More at Financial Times

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The 20-year-old Swiss, who raced in the GP2 feeder series last season, was fastest again at Jerez circuit with a best lap time of 1 minute, 17.258 seconds.

Buemi is battling with 2008 Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Bourdais and Takumo Sato for one of the two vacant places. Sato was second fastest Thursday with a time of 1:17.520 in a Toro Rosso.

Dietrich Mateschitz, who owns Toro Rosso, said last month that Buemi “was very likely” to be one of the team’s drivers in 2009.

McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen was third, while Ferrari pair Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa rounded out the top five.

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At a meeting of the FIA, motor sport’s governing body, and the Formula One Teams Association, agreement was reached on measures to meet all the cost-reduction objectives put forward by the FIA for 2010. The teams have also made proposals for further significant cost-cutting measures in 2009.

Max Mosley, the FIA president, and Fota emerged from a four-hour session which has been described as “the most successful meeting on formula one matters any of the participants can remember”. Agreement has been reached on measures to meet all the objectives proposed by Mosley for 2010 and beyond. This response suggests at least four teams, as demanded by Mosley, have signed up to use a standardised engine, to be produced by Cosworth, for three years from 2010.

Mosley had issued a deadline of today for teams to comply with his proposal. The Japanese manufacturing giant pulled out of formula one last Friday citing the global economic downturn which had led to a dramatic slump in car sales. A final, formal announcement will be made after the World Motor Sport Council meets in Monaco tomorrow.

Mosley said: “I am delighted with the outcome of this meeting.” The Fota president, Luca di Montezemolo, added: “The unity of the teams was fundamental to meeting the goals for a new formula one, but with the same DNA, as requested by the FIA.”

Earlier in the day, Mosley slated Ferrari for their lukewarm reaction to rule changes designed to make formula one more technically challenging. The head of motor sport expressed surprise that Ferrari had objected to the Kers system, due to be introduced next year, which captures energy generated under braking and transforms it into short bursts of additional power.

“We’ve finally found a serious engineering challenge for the teams in Kers,” Mosley said. “Some manufacturers have risen to this challenge, one manufacturer has produced electric systems which will astonish people when they appear, another team is working on a completely new technology which will also astonish.

“But some leading teams, such as Ferrari, have said that they don’t like Kers because it is too complicated. Could you imagine the great formula one engineers like Colin Chapman [the founder of Lotus] or Keith Duckworth [co-founder of Cosworth] saying, ‘I can’t do that because it is too complicated’? It is a symptom of a disease in formula one where incremental change becomes the whole object of the exercise and real, serious innovation plays no part.”

More at Guardian.co.uk

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However, the damage was slight and only took a couple of hours to repair, enabling Alonso to complete a total of 105 laps.

At the end of the day, the two-times former champion said: “It was a good day and I’m happy to be back in the car. Unfortunately I damaged the car a little bit in the morning and so we lost some running, but the team did a good job to repair the car quickly and I was able to run almost all of the afternoon without any problems.”

Sebastian Buemi recorded the fastest lap time (1:18.07) for the second day in a row with two other Toro Rosso drivers in second and third place.

Fourth quickest was Pedro de la Rosa (McLaren) ahead of Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) and Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren).

Day 2 testing times:
1. S. Buemi (Toro Rosso) 1.18.073 (128 laps)
2. T. Sato (Toro Rosso) 1.18.601 (38 laps)
3. S. Bourdais (Toro Rosso) 1.18.673 (81 laps)
4. Pedro de la Rosa (McLaren) 1.19.032 (78 laps)
5. K. Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1.19.334 (89 laps)
6. H.Kovalainen (Mclaren) 1.19.631 (64 laps)
7. Fernando Alonso (Renault) 1.19.907 (106 laps)
8. N. Rosberg (Williams) 1.20.309 (122 laps)
9. N.Heidfeld (BMW) 1.20.365 (87 laps)
10. F.Massa (Ferrari) 1.20.490 (27 laps)
11. R.Kubica (BMW) 1.20.954 (38 laps)

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Hamilton, 23, became the youngest driver to win the world title when he snatched fifth place on the final bend of November’s season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix.

”I was born and grew up at McLaren. It is my home. Yes, I confirm I will never change team,” Hamilton told Tuesday’s Italian daily Corriere dalla Sera.

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis has had a long-standing relationship with Hamilton and the driver highlighted this as a major reason for his desire to stay at McLaren.

”I have a lot of respect for Ron and what he has done for me,” he added.

Hamilton also had words of comfort for fellow British driver Jenson Button, who could be without a team next season after Honda announced on Friday it would withdraw from Formula One because of the global financial crisis.

The team will fold if a buyer is not found.

”It’s a sign for sure. We’ve known for a bit that there are problems to resolve in the motoring world. I’m sorry for the team and for Button. I hope he finds a way out,” he said.

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They may also be pressing again for a postponement of the introduction of KERS – a move that every team with the exception of BMW was in favour of by the end of this season.

These suggestions carry no weight in themselves but can be adopted by Mosley and put before the next FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting this Friday. Anything on this subject that Mosley puts to the Council is in reality likely to be passed.

However, if the president is unconvinced by the suggested measures, he is likely to put his own fairly radical measures to the Council instead.

He has gone on record saying that F1 teams need to be operating on 20% of their former budgets – though whether he envisages this being achieved by next year is not clear.

To achieve such swingeing cuts in such a short time frame is unrealistic, as a significant proportion of an F1 team’s budget is represented by factory costs which in the short term are fairly inflexible.

Although Honda was believed to be 2008’s biggest spender in F1 at around £200 million, most factory teams operate on something closer to £140-150 million.

Up to a quarter of this is accounted for by factory running costs, although some of these – such as wind tunnel operation – could in theory be quickly trimmed back.

It is widely expected that a move will be made to limit the number of hours teams can run their wind tunnels, but the difficulty with this is that CFD (computational fluid dynamics) programmes are already taking over much of the work previously done by wind tunnels and controlling how much CFD computing power a team has at its disposal would be virtually impossible to monitor and police.

More at Itv-f1.com

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“This process had already begun over the last few years. But now it’s going to have a sharp acceleration,” team director Stefano Domenicali said in an interview with Corriere della Sera on Monday without providing further financial details.

Still, Domenicali warned that cuts in F1 spending shouldn’t reach the point where it wouldn’t allow healthy engineering competition. Ferrari announced in October it too would leave F1 if the sport’s governing body goes ahead with plans to have a sole engine and transmission supplier beginning in 2010.

“We’re at the forefront in the process of auto racing renewal, which has to remain a technological and sporting competition,” Domenicali said. “Ferrari will continue to be a leader. The fans should stay calm.”

Honda quit F1 on Friday, saying that in the current economic downturn it needs to focus on its core business of making and selling cars rather than spending $291 million a year to race them on Grand Prix tracks.

International Herald Tribune

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Formula One sources told Reuters on Tuesday that five teams, including former champions Renault, had expressed interest in the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA)’s proposals.

A Renault spokeswoman declined to comment.

The FIA confirmed, however, that there had been considerable interest since the latest details were outlined by Max Mosley last week.

“Since the President’s letter last Friday, there has been a very positive response from the Formula One teams regarding our engine proposals,” said a spokesman.

“It would however be inappropriate to comment on the status of any individual teams or to give any further details in advance of the World Motor Sport Council meeting on Friday.”

Friday’s meeting follows talks between the teams’s association FOTA and FIA President Max Mosley in the Mediterranean principality on Wednesday.

It also comes after Honda’s shock decision last week to quit the championship, a move that would leave just nine teams and has prompted fears of other manufacturers being blown out by the global economic storm.

Reuters

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“I’m not rushing in blindly and saying absolutely this is something I’ve got to do,” the Prodrive and Aston Martin chairman, who has strong Kuwaiti backers, told Reuters by telephone. “I want to know all the facts, first of all. I want to know the exact lie of the land before I commit myself to anything.”

Richards, who presided over the BAR team before they were bought by Honda, had planned to return to Formula One with Prodrive this season in what would have been the sport’s 12th team on the grid. That plan was shelved due to commercial uncertainty and a legal challenge to their intention to run McLaren chassis and engines as a ‘customer team’.

Honda, by many estimates the biggest spenders this year in a sport with some individual team budgets in excess of $300 million, announced last Friday they were pulling out for financial reasons in the face of the global economic crisis.

The British-based team had dismal 2007 and 2008 seasons and their abrupt departure would leave the sport with just 18 cars on the starting grid.

“It’s not about buying it,” said Richards of a team that may have little more than a symbolic price-tag on it given Honda’s determination to close it down if no suitable buyer can be found.

“It’s all very well going along and making the commitment to buy it because I don’t think that will be too onerous,” he added.

“The real issue is to make sure that you have the resources and the wherewithal to sustain it for the foreseeable future.”

Guardian

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Williams got a head start on its rivals, giving Formula 3 Euro Series driver Dani Clos some track time on Monday in a KERS-equipped and slick tyre shod FW30.

Williams will now stay on at the track with full-time race driver Kazuki Nakajima at the wheel today (Tuesday).

Toyota is expected to buck the trend, embarking on a private test at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit starting on Wednesday.

This week is just the second official test session since the end of the 2008 campaign and will see the teams resume their preparations for next season, as they work towards launching their 2009 challengers over the next few months.

itv-f1.com

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Prices as low as £1 have been put forward as possible prices tags for the Northampton based team, with Honda CEO Takeo Fukui stating that “Just to make the team possible to exist, a small price tag is acceptable”.

On Saturday the Japanese car giant said that before selling the team it was going to offer British driver Jensen Button, who had given the Honda team its only victory, a way out of his recently signed multi-million pound contract with the team so he could try to get a drive with other teams. However, Ross Brawn appears eager to retain the Briton and either retain Brazilian Rubens Barrichello or sign GP2 driver Bruno Senna, nephew of legendary racer Ayrton Senna.

At an industry awards dinner, Button indicated his desire for a buyer to be found for Honda, saying any buyer would get “… a great team with excellent facilities. And with the leadership of Ross Brawn, and the whole team as they are, we can come through this and be on the grid in 2009″. Button has also spoken of his shock and pain at Honda’s decision.

Ross Brawn, who was brought into the Honda team with much fan fare before the 2008 season, has spoken of his shock at finding out about the sale of the team. Brawn, who is credited with helping Michael Schumacher and Ferrari dominate Formula One for much of the last decade, indicated he was expected funding cuts and had prepared a reduced budget but hadn’t expected the full withdrawal of support that Honda announced. Brawn has also indicated understanding of Honda’s reasoning, with their sales down 40% in some markets and Honda F1’s £200m+ budget a cost they were unwilling to bear.

Though Honda has committed to providing a budget for the team until March, the budget is lower than that which had been expected and so the team has had to pull out of the crucial winter tests at Jerez. This has denied Formula One hopeful Bruno Senna another test with the team and has combined with the engine implications of Honda’s withdrawl to push the new car’s final testing from January to March, just weeks before the first Grand Prix in Australia.

Ross Brawn however remains confident of competing with new Formula One frontrunners BMW Sauber and Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has tipped the team as a great buy, saying “I’ve no doubt Honda would have been in top four next year without any problems. They’ve spent a lot of money to put themselves in that position so if anyone does want to be in F1 this is a team they should look to buy. It’s a big opportunity for any company that’s run efficiently to benefit”.

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Williams, the largest of the sport’s independent teams, said they were close to securing a full budget for 2009.

“We are unequivocally committed to F1,” a spokesman told BBC Sport.

“Unlike many of our competitors who are owned by car makers, for us the consideration to stay involved is superfluous, as we only exist to race.”

Williams last won a race in 2004 and are one of the few teams in F1 not either owned or part-owned by a road-car manufacturer.

They use customer engines, which they buy from Toyota.

Since Honda’s announcement, motorsport boss Max Mosley warned that cost-cutting was vital to avoid losing other teams.

Over the last few days five of Formula One’s top teams - BMW Sauber, Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes, Renault and Toyota - have all emphasised their desire to reduce costs and continue in the sport.

There has also been speculation about Williams’s future because of the difficulty of finding funding in the current global financial crisis.

But the spokesman said the team were in better shape this year than they had been ahead of the previous two seasons.

“We have been involved in F1 for three decades, through conducive and adverse economic circumstances alike, and we have every intention of racing for at least another 30 years,” he said.

“We have 90% of our operating budget in place for next season.

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And in an exclusive interview with The Observer, Dennis admitted that McLaren, one of the most successful - and biggest spending - teams in the sport, would also suffer.

‘Our budgets come from the advertising budgets of the companies that support us, and inevitably advertising budgets get slashed or, at least are significantly trimmed in times of economic strife,’ he said. ‘We know we have to reduce our costs to cater for the inevitable downturn in income that is coming in 2010 and 2011.’

He added: ‘We make no secret of the fact that we will try to do whatever it takes to be the best. It’s an intensely competitive world but if the economics don’t work then we will change them.’

Guardian/The Observer

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The team says it has had three credible offers for the Brackley-based team since Honda announced it was pulling out of Formula One last week.

Honda Racing CEO Nick Fry said: “We have to have credible interest this side of Christmas.”

Up to 800 staff could lose their jobs if a buyer is not found.

Honda blamed difficult financial conditions for its decision.

Mr Fry said Honda needed to be convinced a sale could be achieved early in the New Year.

He added: “Clearly, that doesn’t mean we are going to have a deal done by the end of the year, but Honda need to be convinced there are serious, potential buyers out there.”

BBC News

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