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[sagi58]

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/356 ... nal-stages

...Handling the talks himself, Hamilton has revealed they are now close to signing a new contract.

"It's been an experience. Learning something new and experiencing something like this, I'm glad I've done it," he explained...

Hamilton has shown growth even in this area of racing!! He's gone from family, to business agent,
to himself in a bid to find the best person to negotiate for him!

I think it's great that he's getting a new/different perspective!!

[overboost]

Fernando Alonso crash 'very strange' says Flavio Briatore


By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer
Fernando Alonso's manager Flavio Briatore says the testing crash in which the Spaniard suffered concussion was "very strange".
Briatore told Italian television that doctors had found the McLaren driver had no health problems other than the injury sustained in the accident.
Briatore said he had seen video of the accident, which was "not even that dramatic. The impact was not so hard.
"He crashes without any reason," he added.
"We have to see if there was a steering problem."
McLaren have said that they have found no evidence that the car suffered any kind of mechanical failure to cause the crash at Turn Three of Spain's Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on 22 February, or that there was any irregularity in the energy recovery system.
Briatore described the decision by doctors to advise Alonso to miss the first race in Australia this weekend to avoid the risk of a potentially dangerous second concussion before the first is healed as "logical".

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/31806850

[myownalias]

I was reading that news article earlier and found it interesting that most of the speculation was untrue, Alonso did not lose 20 years of memory, he only lost fragments of memory temporarily.

[sagi58]

Briatore is not the only one that thinks the accident was strange:

, Gary Rose wrote:">Fernando Alonso: David Coulthard says crash 'does not add up'

"Something does not add up" about Fernando Alonso's pre-season testing crash, according to former McLaren driver David Coulthard.

Alonso, 33, crashed in his McLaren during the second pre-season test in Barcelona last month, suffering concussion.

The Spaniard will miss next weekend's season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

"I think there is more to this than we are being told about at this time," said BBC F1 co-commentator Coulthard.

Former world champion Alonso is in his first year back at McLaren - the team he raced for in 2007 - after five years at Ferrari.

It is a move Coulthard described as "not a marriage" but of just "pure convenience".

The Woking-based team, who have not won a race since 2012, have endured a difficult pre-season, with reliability issues plaguing them throughout testing.

Alonso's crash, which happened on the final day of the second test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, was said to have been influenced by a strong, gusty wind.

He was driving at a speed of 215km/h (133.6mph) when he lost control of his car, hit a wall, suffered two blows to his head and was flown to hospital, where he was kept for three nights.

McLaren boss Ron Dennis said four days after the incident that Alonso was not concussed and Coulthard added: "There is conflicting information coming out, saying there are zero signs of any injury but then three days of hospital for concussion.

"It does not add up. He does not need three days of privacy, he can go to his own private residence and have that."

Coulthard was speaking on the F1 preview programme, which will be broadcast on BBC Red Button on Tuesday 10 March at 22:00 GMT.

[1Lemon]

If anyone has inside sources in McLaren, it has to be DC.

Surely we'll get some more info from EJ once the BBC coverage starts

[sagi58]

They are not alone:

, Staff wrote:">Rumors persist of shocking cause of F1 driver Fernando Alonso’s crash

McLaren-Honda calls crash ‘normal,’ but questions about cause of crash in Spain remain

Now just days before the start of the Formula One season, the now-rampant doubts about McLaren-Honda driver Fernando Alonso's mysterious crash in a Feb. 22 test session in Barcelona will not go away.

Previously, suggestions there is more than meets the eye to what McLaren-Honda called a "normal" crash and concussion for the Spaniard were dismissed as mere conspiracy theories. On Twitter, Alonso called it all "science fiction.”

However, the questions about what really happened in Barcelona's turn three and beyond are now being asked so widely and by so many that it is easily the hottest topic in the sport at present.

"I have been in Italy for three days," former F1 driver Patrick Tambay told RMC Sport. "I was invited by Ferrari to see the new buildings. Everyone there was talking about Fernando Alonso's accident, and they were calling it an electric discharge. There is a lot of concern for their former driver.”

Doctors around the world are also tossing around hypotheses.

"The known elements of the story are more than enough to say with confidence that Alonso has the typical symptoms of post-convulsive syndrome," Antonio Picano, an Italian psychiatrist, is quoted by La Repubblica newspaper. "It is a transient noise of the brain that after being reset by an electric shock needs a certain period of time to resume its function. It is obvious that what happened to Alonso can happen to any other driver at any time."

In Spain, newly emerged amateur video of the incident was published by the broadcaster Antena 3, with the Italian publication Autosprint surmising that a "strange noise" was made by Alonso's McLaren-Honda.

"What bothers me," said 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, "is that we do not know the full story. The wind? Come on, it also blows at Indianapolis when you're doing [235 mph]. Some people are talking about an electric shock but I can't comment on that. But if there was, it would mean that you cannot race anymore with these engines.

"There is something hidden and we are not being told, and that is worrying.”

Gerhard Berger, a former Grand Prix winner, team owner and FIA official, urged the sport's governing body to get to the bottom of the Alonso crash mystery.

"It is important to clarify whether it was the technology or the driver [to blame]," the Austrian is quoted by APA news agency. "We need to understand what has happened here. Someone has been hurt.”

[josric77]

for my opinion, Alonso will not even on Malesia GP.

[josric77]

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/36074/Briatore-baffled-by-Alonso-crash

Flavio Briatore has denied that Fernando Alonso had health issues before his Barcelona accident, but has admitted the Spaniard "crashed without any apparent reason".

Double World Champion Alonso will miss this weekend's opening race in Australia after doctors advised him to skip the grand prix after he suffered concussion during his shunt on the final day of the second test on 22 February.

There have been plenty of question marks over the circumstances surrounding the accident with some saying he wasn't feeling well before the incident while others claim he blacked out.

McLaren have dismissed the reports and Briatore, Alonso's manager, has also insisted that medical tests after the accident shows he was in fine health.

"If Fernando had had a problem, a heart problem, a small stroke, a blood clot; it can happen even to a great sportsman," Briatore told Sky Italia.

"And we have seen that absolutely all the examinations and tests made on the driver were negative."

He added: "If Fernando had had problems, the doctors would have discovered them. If he had passed out briefly, they would have seen. We did hours of tests with the leading specialists in Europe."

As for the accident itself, Alonso's MP4-30 crashed into the wall after Turn 3 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and Briatore admits he is none the wiser after viewing footage of the incident.

"I saw footage, which Bernie Ecclestone sent me, where we see that the impact is not so hard. [Ferrari's Sebastian] Vettel is behind, he passes, and you see Fernando crashes without any apparent reason," he said.

"We have to see if there is a steering problem. We have not had any information on that from McLaren.

"The accident, if you see it, you do not say: 'Mamma mia, what a crash.' It is the sort of accident you see all the time.

"The angle in which the car hit the wall could have been bad for Fernando. The impact was hard."

There have also been reports that Alonso suffered electric shock, but Briatore is waiting for the FIA report on the issue.

"The FIA is investigating the accident. I hope not, but if there was an electrical problem they must say because it could happen to other drivers. We have to know what has happened for everybody's peace of mind.

"But you all know that there is a cut-off [in the electrical safety system]; it was closed for Fernando."

[sagi58]

This looks like fun:

 wrote:">Formula 1 quiz: From father & son drivers to Lewis Hamilton's dogs

Think you know all there is to know about Formula 1? If so, answer the questions below that stumped the BBC F1 team and then watch the above video for the answers...

I would have copied and pasted it here; but, I can't figure out how to post that video!!

[sagi58]

Kate Walker wrote:">Condensing the calendar

Formula One is set for its latest start to the season since 1988 with the knock-on effect of squeezing the following 20 rounds into a much shorter schedule, as Kate Walker explains

This year's winter break was unusually short. Pre-season travel was reduced by holding all of the winter tests in Spain, but many of those arriving in Melbourne for the first race of the year were already feeling the effects of the travel.

Chatting to a colleague in China about recent health problems, he joked that the reason we were all suffering was because it was the 22nd race of the 2014 season.

From that perspective, starting the 2016 season at the end of March sounds almost luxurious - an extra month to sleep regularly, eat properly, spend time with friends and family. But the sting in the tail is the condensing of the calendar it requires, and the loss of precious time off in-season.

While working in Formula One is a privilege, it is a lifestyle that takes its toll on the body. For the bulk of those working in the sport, a season means 100,000 miles flown in economy, countless time zones crossed, and hours lost and gained. Hotel rooms are shared, nights are late and mornings early, and sleep is worth boasting about.

In-season, time between races is spent catching up on sleep, work, and all the life admin that builds up when out of town, leaving little time to spend with friends and family. Being there, physically, but not actually present in any meaningful sense.

The draft calendar currently circulating is accurate enough that FOM have deemed it worthy of a denial, and while tweaks will almost certainly be made before the final version is confirmed, it looks as though Australia's late start comes at the cost of the August break.

The two-week summer shutdown was a useful opportunity to recharge before starting the punishing second half of the season, with its back-and-forth between Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East. Because the teams all stuck to a gentlemen's agreement to down tools for a fortnight, the F1 circus could rest easy in the knowledge that their competition would be doing the same. Psychologically, it was the only point in-season where one could fully relax.

The benefits of having a longer winter are questionable, as the draft calendar didn't come with handy notes about what the changes would mean for pre-season testing. With March now there to play with, the pre-season tests could be rescheduled with longer gaps between each four-day session so that teams can make greater improvements between the first test and the season opener.

That may be beneficial to the show, but to spread testing across a seven-week period would not mean any additional time off for those at the coal-face of the sport. There would be more travel (albeit of the short-haul variety) as teams returned to base between each test, and the long hours of preparatory work would extend over a longer period.

From a broadcasting point of view, holding races in a repeating pattern (every other week, or a back-to-back followed by a week off, say) makes it easier for fans to follow. Recent years have seen F1 follow such a fractured schedule that it is hard to establish a regular viewership outside the sport's hardcore fanbase, in addition to all of the problems associated with the move to subscription access.

With all that said, however, it is still (just) April. Provisional calendars usually don't start doing the rounds until late summer, making this leak rather ahead of schedule. In some way, its release has been designed to put pressure on someone: promoters dragging their heels in negotiations, teams discussing regulations and costs, broadcasters questioning value for money...

Later drafts of the calendar will establish just who was the target of this premature release.

[sagi58]

Everything is always a push/pull in F1, eh?

 wrote:">Horner: “If we had eight engines a season it might help us” – But will rescue plan go through?

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner has again reiterated that he expects the agreement between F1 teams to allow a fifth engine per driver to go through, but added that his drivers would need that upper limit to rise to eight or nine engines to avoid penalties this season...

...In Malaysia the teams agreed that, for this season, sticking to the rules would mean that cars didn’t run much in practice and this would harm the show for fans on TV and spectators at the circuit, so they agreed to allow a fifth engine. But, as always in F1, the devil is in the detail of how that fifth engine might be introduced and what it might be for.

Some teams need it just to get through, the four Renault powered cars and also McLaren Honda in particular. Renault has lost engines with both Red Bull and Toro Rosso repeatedly...

...Currently D Day for this proposal is the 14th May meeting of the F1 Strategy Group, which precedes the next FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting, at which any change for 2015 would need to be approved...

...For the small teams there is also the question of cost; they already pay a very high figure for their engine supply in comparison with the V8s pre-2014. A supply varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, from around $20 million a year upwards, in comparison with around $7 million for the old V8s. There is now some pushback from the smaller teams on the fifth engine on cost grounds...

...“If they freeze this engine effectively in February next year then you are going to freeze advantages and disadvantages,” said Horner. “I think it has to be opened up to allow more development as this is a very immature technology. The downside is cost. Or you come up with regulations that make the engine less of a performance differentiator and take costs out. Whatever you do you will have happy and unhappy faces. So the real question should be what is best for Formula One. But the teams have to look out for their own interests, so there will always be those that try to exploit the rules and it is against everything that a competitive team is to give away an advantage.”

[sagi58]

 wrote:">Mosley proposes budget cap with design freedom

Max Mosley has urged F1 teams to rethink the idea of a budget cap -- with an added twist. In 2015, the issue of spiralling and unmanageable costs is high on the agenda, and not just following the collapse of Caterham and Marussia.

Three bigger teams - Force India, Lotus and Sauber - reportedly only made it to the Melbourne grid when Bernie Ecclestone fast-forwarded some of their due income. And even the competitive Williams team cited the cost of the new turbo V6 era on Monday as it revealed a $50 million financial loss. "We actually never wanted to get back to these times that power trains cost that much," Sauber team boss Monisha Kaltenborn told F1's official website on Tuesday.

So now, the sport as a whole is considering a rethink of the rules for 2017. On May 14, the powerful Strategy Group will sit to consider the future of the sport, and former FIA president Mosley has undoubtedly now given them another item to discuss.

One of Mosley's regrets is that he was not able to push through his budget cap proposal before handing over to new president Jean Todt some years ago. But now he has added a new twist to his idea. Mosley told Germany's Auto Motor und Sport on Tuesday that big teams, if they so desire, should be free to keep spending multiple hundreds of millions of euros per year under the current rules.

But those who agree to be capped to 100 million per year, Mosley says, should be given almost complete regulations freedom to design their cars. "I can imagine that very soon all the teams would fall into the camp of the budget limit," said the 75-year-old Briton. "They would realise that you can also do great motor sport and build technically advanced cars with 100 million," Mosley added.

[darwin dali]

Fine by me IF there's a set of stipulations such as overall maximum car size, 4 wheels, severe and increasingly more stringent fuel limits, and more.

[sagi58]

Ian Parkes wrote:">Bernie Ecclestone says F1 Strategy Group should be axed

Bernie Ecclestone believes it is time the Strategy Group was axed and for the FIA and Formula 1 Management to again call the shots.

F1's commercial rights holder feels the influence the leading teams now have on F1's future is having an adverse effect compared to the days when he and former FIA president Max Mosley were in charge.

Although such an alliance had its own problems, at present there is often too much self-interest from the major teams that prevents firm decisions from being taken.

Ecclestone feels a more united front with FIA president Jean Todt would drive things on.

"We should stop mucking around and asking for opinions," said Ecclestone, speaking to AUTOSPORT.

"The problem is we are running something that is too democratic, and Jean won't go along with things.

"I said to him the other day 'if you come up with something sensible, on whatever it is, I'll support you.

"The same thing - if we [FOM] come up with something sensible you should support it'.

"Between us we should say 'these are the rules of the championship, if you want to be in it, great, if you don't, we understand'."

Asked whether F1's Strategy Group should be removed, Ecclestone replied: "Yeah, absolutely.

"It's bloody difficult for the constructors to come up with anything.

"If you were Mercedes you wouldn't want anything changed.

"At last month's Strategy Group meeting nothing was decided - not even the date of the next meeting.

"We could have voted on something then and put it through, but nothing."

Ecclestone has support from two of the teams in Red Bull and Toro Rosso, along with tyre supplier Pirelli.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner recently remarked: "Every team has its own agenda and is going to fight its own corner.

"Bernie and Jean need to get together and say 'this is what we want the product to be, this is how it needs to be governed', and then give us the entry form and see if we want to enter or not."

Toro Rosso counterpart Franz Tost added: "The Strategy Group itself will never come up with a proper solution.

"It should be Bernie and Jean together who should decide what we have to do.

"They should not even ask the teams because the teams never will come up with an agreement."

Hembery said: "In any sport it shouldn't be the competitors that are involved in deciding changes.

"As Christian said, defining between the FIA and FOM how the sport is going to be, and then the teams can decide whether they want to adhere to those guidelines."

[Jabberwocky]

Not sure that is the right way to go.