Autoblog

Click above for hi-res gallery of our drive in a Formula Vee race car

There aren't a lot of things that will get an automotive journalist out of bed before dawn. But nearly all of them have four wheels, which is about the only thing a formula racing car shares in common with the kind of ordinary automobiles you and I drive regularly. The chance to drive one stands out as one of those few luring precipitators. So when the invite came to join a local racing team for a test session at a remote desert airstrip, we broke with tradition and raced the sunrise just to see if it would prove worthwhile. Follow the jump to read what we discovered.

Photos Copyright ©2008 Noah Joseph / Weblogs, Inc.

Formula 1 will hit the BBC air waves in 2009 after a long run on ITV. The move will require new figureheads to sit at the desk, and London's Times has said that Top Gear's Richard Hammond is the top man for the job. Economics at least partially drove ITV's decision to withdraw from F1 coverage. The coverage is expensive, so making money is challenging, even with newly rising star Lewis Hamilton making F1 more interesting for UK viewers.

Hammond's presence might help broaden the appeal beyond just racing fans, as would guest appearances by Jeremy Clarkson and James May, Hammond's cohorts on Top Gear. Letting Clarkson and May prowl the paddock could offer priceless moments of color commentary that would set YouTube alight. The BBC also plans to update the look, feel and pace of its coverage, and fans will be able to get at the presentation more easily with races going out across broadband digital outlets in addition to the standard radio and television. Thanks for the tip, Eric!

[Source: Times Online, Photo by Getty Images/Getty]

Click above to view in high-resolution

Formula 3, for any racing fans who don't watch the feeder-formulas like football fans watch college pigskin, is one of the most important lower formulas in international motorsports. While NASCAR may have its own hierarchy, the vast majority of racing's most successful drivers have at some point passed through F3, making the aray of regional and national series operating around the world an important stepping-stone for aspiring F1 drivers.

Although technically Formula 3 does not mandate a uniform chassis (like Champ Cars, IndyCars, GP2, and A1GP do), Dallara's permeation of the series might as well be a complete monopoly. Dallara also the builds chassis for IndyCars, the World Series by Renault (which feeds into F3) and GP2 (the next step up from F3). It built the immensely successful R8 endurance racer for Audi and the first batch of the KTM X-bow, as well as consulting on the development of the Pagani Zonda and Ferrari 333 SP.

Dallara's new Formula 3 chassis, despite FIA-mandated restrictions, benefits from significantly improved aerodynamics as a result of many hours spent in wind-tunnels and in CFD simulators. The Dallara F308 is also more compact than its predecessor while conforming to new side-impact regulations. In addition to the usual suspension set-up, a new pushrod unit is available designed to minimize understeer, and the car comes equipped with Brembo's latest brake package.

With Formula Three grids growing around the world, and the F308 now conforming to Spanish and Italian regulations, Dallara expects to sell 70 cars for the 2008 season. Check out the press release after the jump for more details, and the gallery below for more high-resolution images.

[Source: Dallara]

The World Motor Sport Council of the FIA, the international racing authority that governs Formula One, among other series, has rolled out a series of restrictions on the development of F1 cars starting with the coming 2008 season.

The restrictions include a complete freeze on engine development for the next ten years. In a speech delivered last week in Monaco at the Motor Sport Business Forum, FIA President Max Mosley (pictured at right) justified the decision by pointing out that the engines developed by F1's six engine suppliers – Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Toyota and Renault – are already evenly matched and incredibly advanced: "There is no need to develop an F1 engine any further." (Heck, let's go back to foot-powered Flinstones-mobiles then.)

The far-reaching restrictions also covered the use of wind-tunnels for the first time in the formula. The new regulations state that each team can only use one wind-tunnel, can only operate it for 15 runs per 8-hour day, no more than five days per week. Further limitations were set on how the wind-tunnel may be used, and to prevent teams from simply switching their personnel over to even more expensive Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulators, the FIA intends to put a cap on that, too.

Ross Brawn, former technical director at Ferrari and new team principal at Honda, recently pointed out that restrictions like these don't achieve their intended goal of reducing costs, they just force teams to find newer, more expensive ways to gain a performance edge. We'd have to agree with Brawn: you can't contain a competitive spirit, and F1's chock-full of 'em.

[Source: Autosport]

Kimi Raikkonen and the boys at Ferrari can breathe a sigh of relief, as their championship has been formally confirmed by the FIA. The title was appealed by the incredibly sore losers at McLaren, who insisted that because of a temperature irregularity in the fuel in BMW's and Williams' cars at the season closer in Brazil, those four cars should have been disqualified, thereby catapulting McLaren's Lewis Hamilton to the championship. (Yeah, they were serious.)

Hamilton, it should be noted, stated that he didn't want to win the championship that way. And nobody else wanted him too, either. Even F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone threatened to quit the sport if the FIA took the title away from Raikkonen and awarded it to Hamilton over the technicality.

The ruling was issued by a specially-convened panel of the FIA's International Court of Appeal, presided over by a Czech motorsport judge and three others from the United States, Greece and Portugal. The court, which heard testimonies from BMW, Williams and McLaren, convened in London instead of the FIA's headquarters in Paris due to traffic issues in the French capital.

Our take: Rules are rules, but if the FIA had stripped Raikkonen of his title, it would have been bad for him, bad for Hamilton, bad for F1 and bad for motorsports. We'll be waiting for Ron Dennis to find a way to blame us for this, too.

Full statement from the FIA after the jump.

History, they say, has a habit of repeating itself. That's certainly the way things have been looking in recent years as some of the greatest racing names in motorsport history have been making a comeback. But instead of the legends squeezing their aging selves into new racing equipment like so many sardines, it's the younger generation that's been hitting the scene lately.

Gilles Villeneuve's embattled son Jacques, it pains this Montrealer to say, may have turned out to be a bit of a disappointment in recent years, notwithstanding his earlier F1 and Indy titles. But Bruno Senna, nephew of the legendary Ayrton, has been working his way up the ranks, as has Freddie Hunt, son of '76 F1 champion James Hunt. Nico Rosberg has already made it into Formula One, following in the footsteps of his '82 world champion father Keke.

The next big thing in racing dynasties, however, is coming with back-up. Nigel Mansell's sons Greg (20) and Leo (22) are boarding the ark two by two to cross the Atlantic for next year. The brothers have been working their way up the racing ladder together, competing in the British series Formula BMW last year after just half a year racing in karts. Like their father who won the CART title in 1993, the pair has confirmed that they're coming stateside to compete in the Champ Char Atlantic Series, joining BMW-backed Canadian driver Kevin Lacroix for a three-car Walker Racing team in 2008. Some good ol' Mansell-style racing is one bit of history we don't mind repeating.

[Source: Auto Week]

Singapore is getting ready to host the first night race in Formula One history after the FIA approved the proposed calendar for next year's championship. Race promoters in Singapore got the clearance from the FIA to build the Monaco-style street circuit in May, and things are reportedly moving along well. The spectacle of the flood-lit road race in the Pacific city-state promises to inject some more excitement into what is already held as the pinnacle of international motorsport.

As we had reported earlier, there were a few proposed grands prix that were up in the air, but the motorsport governing body has approved them all. (Yay!) In addition to Singapore, the new event in Valencia, Spain, was awaiting approval. The French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours was under threat, as well. Even the perennial Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal wasn't for sure, as the economies of scale in schlepping the whole F1 circus to North America were eliminated with the cancellation of the race at Indianapolis. In the end all were confirmed, alongside the usual suspects in Australia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Spain, Turkey, Monaco, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Japan, China and Brazil. Only a few dates were changed around by the FIA in the process. Altogether it makes for a full eighteen races, and we're looking forward already.

Follow the jump for the full 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship calendar.

[Source: Autosport]

Fans had been looking forward to it for years, and now it's come to a close. For 2007, Formula One stepped out of the dominating shadow of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, the first season since his retirement, and came to today's final race of the season in a close three-way battle between Ferrari's "iceman" Kimi Raikonnen and McLaren's feuding fraternity of defending champion Fernando Alonso and amazing rookie Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari's brave Brazilian Felipe Massa having fell out of contention earlier in the season.

The 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix was a thrilling end to a thrilling season and a gripping race in its own rite. SPOILER ALERT: Follow the jump to find out who won the race, who took the title and how it all went down.

'You don't want us, and we don't want you.' That seems to be the consensus at Mercedes-Benz regarding Fernando Alonso, who has openly stated his displeasure over the course of the season with McLaren, the F1 team principally owned and powered by Mercedes.

According to emerging reports, the majority of the German automaker's executive board voted that Alonso is no longer a suitable representative of their company, and that his services should not be retained for an additional season. This despite the contract that binds the Spanish driver to the British team through 2008, but if neither party has any desire to uphold the conditions, the contract is rendered rather meaningless.

Mercedes motorsport chief Norbert Haug has also dismissed the speculation that they could prevent Alonso from going to a competing team next season by forcing him into a sabbatical until the contract has run out, saying, "That's not our style." Guess that means the one hurdle between the two-time world champion and a return to happier days at Renault, where he won said titles, has just been conveniently removed.

[Source: F1i.com]

With plans on the drawing board to potentially move the defunct USGP from Indianapolis to Las Vegas, BMW is ostensibly testing the waters by staging one of its popular Pit Lane Park demonstrations in Sin City this coming January.

BMW stages the public demonstrations at various grands prix and events around the world. The park features demonstrations of the team's F1 cars, a live pit lane display and a variety of hands-on experiences for racing fans. At the recent event staged at the British Grand Prix, the team brought in Nigel Mansell and Johnny Herbert who returned to the wheel of an F1 car for the fans' enjoyment.

The Vegas event, which will be located on the Gold Lot by the corner of Paradise Road and Convention Center Drive, will be held during the Consumer Electronics Show, held from January 7 to 10, 2008. At the same time as CES, Vegas is also usually host to a pornographers' convention, which, notwithstanding the wealth of electronic technology packed into a modern F1 car, may actually come closer to the obscenely ecstatic sight of the formula race cars pulling donuts and smokey burn-outs at close range.

[Source: Autosport.com]