T.P.S (picture) Report - Interlagos

I've been late with this so here is a short pictorial report

Massa waves the flag for the 5th place driver at Brazil and makes him World Champion...deja vu


"F**k my life"


Lewis: "Congrats man, your so cool! Take my team-mates spot next year, please!"
Jenson: "Thanks for the offer mate but the next thing I'll be taking off you is that pussycat slurry!"


Mark Webber celebrates his 2nd career win...with recycled bottle caps

T.P.S Report - Suzuka

After a 2 year stint at Fuji raceway the Japanese Grand Prix returned to Suzuka.

( The new 'Schumi Jump'? )

Many of the drivers had never driven on the famous figure 8 circuit before and during Qualifying we saw plenty of drivers going off the track. Friday was wet and saw hardly any driving time done by the teams as everyone looked to wait for the dry Saturday sessions. This meant teams hadn't set up cars properly for dry running and drivers were used to going much slower than they now could. Most of the incidents on Saturday happened at Degna 1 and 2 with drivers admitting to pushing too hard while Timo Glock had a loss of concentration on the entry to the main straight and hit the tyre barriers. He received a leg injury during this crash and could not compete on race day. So after all we had seen in Qualifying and Practice everyone was expecting a race full of fireworks and incidents.

The race was uneventful in Suzuka standards. The grid was shaken up after cars completed their final Q1 laps under caution flags and Mark Webber continued his trademark bad luck by starting from the pit lane. The drive of the day would have to go to Vettel for absolutely dominating the race and over the entire weekend he seemed to be the one driver that nailed the laps consistently. The Toyota team also did an amazing job getting Jarno into P2 and this has been their 2nd podium finish in a row! Its also been great to hear all the drivers rave about the Suzuka circuit as I be live it's one of the best race tracks in the world. Fuji Raceway is really no comparison to Suzuka and I hope Formula One realizes this with Suzuka becoming the permanent home of the Japanese Grand Prix.

If one good thing can be taken from the race it was that Vettel is still in with a chance to win the WDC. While it might be a long shot all you have to do is look back to Kimi in 2007. Going into the last 2 races that year Kimi was 17 points behind Hamilton, Hamilton was worried about battling his then teammate Alonso for the title but Kimi ended up winning the WDC by a single point in the last race. This year Vettel is 16 points behind Button with 2 races to go and like 2007 the Button's closest challenger is his own teammate Barrichello. Button has been on a bit of a form slump lately and Rubens will be giving it 101% at his home track next race. On top of all of that the last race of year at Abu Dhabi is making its debut and no driver or team has any experience racing there.

The Constructors title will be tied up next race most likely as Red Bull are only still in contention by half a point. The only real battle in the constructors championship will be for 3rd place between Ferrari and McLaren. Based on form it seems McLaren will get there but with Massa possibly making a comeback for the final race it's going to be close.

Silly Season - Suzuka Edition

Guess what! Alonso will be driving a Ferrari next year!



Now that the big announcement is past we can expect to see other driver news come out this weekend at Suzuka. It is highly expected that Brawn will sign Nico Rosberg and Rubens will be going in the opposite direction, Kimi looks like going to McLaren or retiring, Kubica should move to Renault and both Toyota drivers could move anywhere seeing as the team has made it public knowledge that they haven't signed either driver for the 2010 season.

Firstly lets have a look at the Alonso announcement.
Many fans and journalist are confused by this deal, not that it wasn't expected, but no one at Ferrari seems to be able to give a reasonable reason for ending Kimi's contract a year early to bring in Alonso. It was no secret that the Ferrari F60 was not the fastest car on the grid this year yet late in the season Kimi has squeezed results out of it despite Ferrari stopping all development on the car in August. Lets also not forget Kimi won the 2007 WDC bringing Ferrari it's first drivers title since Schumi in 2004. I believe the problem from the start was that Ferrari signed Kimi because he was the best available at the time, not because they actually wanted him. When Jean Todt was still with the team, Felipe Massa was the garage favourite. He had Todt's own son as his manager, Schumi was mentoring him and the mechanics loved his personality. In this way Kimi has always been the outsider. This year huge praise was laid upon Massa by Ferrari bosses after pushing the F60 to a podium yet when Kimi took the car to a race win not a word was said in the press about it.
It seems in the end that the Alonso deal was pushed forward a year because of money. Santandar just signed a major deal with Ferrari while still sponsoring McLaren for the next year. From what I have been reading, the opportunity came up for Ferrari to sign the bank as a sponsor one year in advance but the catch was that they wanted Alonso at the team. Various rumors going around claim Kimi's Ferrari contract next year is being payed off by Santandar and if he moves to McLaren they'll also pay part of his salary there as well, this way they get to advertise 4 of the biggest names currently in Formula One.
Overall I think the deal is great as I've said before, but you have to wonder, if Ferrari's 2010 car is one of the front runners would Kimi have been able to achieve the same results as Alonso could?
My opinion is that he probably could.

The probable Brawn - Williams swap of Rubens for Rosberg is the other talking point at Suzuka.
Rubens has done enough this season to show that with a better start he would very well have been world champion this season. The trigger for this move seems to be that Mercedes Benz want to integrate themselves more the Brawn team. Whispers lately have even mentioned the Mercedes and McLaren are to split soon with Brawn becoming the Mercedes main team. With the German car giant getting more involved in the team they have requested a German driver, Rosberg. This move could be great for Nico if the Brawns are once again leading the pack next year as I beleive the kid has some pace in him. Being mentored by Ross Brawn will also go a long way. Rubens gets the shit end of the stick I'm afraid. Williams has said that they will be dropping their partnership with Toyota in 2010 and have said they're looking into Cosworth engines. Rubens probably only has one more season left in him and unless a miracle happens at Williams I don't think he's going to have a great last season.

Could McLaren survive with Lewis and Kimi?
McLaren have been saying 'yes' but being careful not to confirm anything. Many believe Kimi will move onto McLaren on a 1 year contract. Heikki would then be free to drive for any team with his best bet being one of the new teams as his knowledge from McLaren and experience would be valuable to them. The general consensus is that Kimi and Lewis would work fine and in the long run would help Lewis develop into a better driver. Currently Lewis hasn't been pushed by his team mate at all, apart from the 1 year with Alonso. If Kimi was there he wouldn't just settle to be No.2. Kimi would push Lewis every race and give him that inter-team competition that he needs t develop his skills further. Given a good car they could be lethal on the race track.

Renault are in damage control. At this point it looks as if Kubica will be heading there in 2010 but his teammate remains unconfirmed. I've said this to people before and I still believe it, Kubica could be a world champion one day. This move to Renault wouldn't exactly be his first choice but he really has no other options left. If the team continue to clean house after the Lie-Gate affair, they could easily rebuild their team around Kubica and given a few years he could be back at the top fighting for wins.
The only problem of course is whether Renault will stay in Formula One after next season.

The last team who will see some driver changes in Toyota. At this point they have said that both drivers are available to talk with other teams. I always thought they would let Trulli move on as his best is past him but to be willing to lose Glock is stupid. Timo has great potential and teams will be rushing to talk to him after his Singapore podium. The only thing I can make from this is that Toyota are getting ready to pull out of the sport. It really doesn't make sense to me. On he business side Toyota have had a bad year, as has every other car manufacturer, and the fact that Williams will no longer be buying engines off them hurts as well. I have a feeling we'll have a sense of where this is going after this weekend.

2010 is looking like being one hell of a season. If Ferrari and McLaren can pick up their game and start challenging Brawn and Red Bull we're going to have 8 of the best drivers on the grid going for the world title!

I seriously cannot wait!

But before then we have 3 races still to go, Friday practice is about to start in Suzuka where it's currently raining and is predicted to all weekend. This season still has some mayhem left in it!