Not new news, but confirmed news

Red Bull have finally announced, to nobodies surprise, that Sebastian Vettel will take David Coulthards seat at Red Bull from 2009, ending any interest from double world champion Fernando Alonso. The young German started his F1 career in 2006 testing for BMW. He has been racing for Red Bull's sister team, Toro Rosso, since the sacking of Scott Speed in mid-2007. Although having a drive at McLaren blocked by Toro Rosso's Gerhard Berger, he has remained focused at Toro Rosso in the hope of getting a seat at the main Red Bull team. He will be second driver to Mark Webber.

In a statement yesterday, Vettel said: "I am very proud to be joining Red Bull Racing and it’s always good to have an early decision on what you are doing next year. I have been part of the Red Bull family for a long time, with its Junior Team since 2000. Throughout my career, they have offered me great support and now, to drive for their senior F1 team is a dream come true and I am looking forward to having a great season next year, even if I still have a lot to learn about F1.”

This ends rumours of Red Bull being interested in filling Coulthard's seat with Fernando Alonso. This means the Spaniard's chances of leaving Renault for a more competitive team next season are fast running out. This also leaves a spare seat at Toro Rosso for next year. GP2 driver, Bruno Senna, who is challenging for the GP2 title this year, has been heavily linked with Toro Rosso and has also said he wants to enter F1 in 2009. Other hopefuls include A1GP champion for Switzerland, Neel Jani, GP2 drivers Karun Chandhok and Roman Grosjean and also Red Bull test driver, Sebastien Buemi who would also successfully fit the current trend of Sebastiens in Toro Rosso.

Toro Rosso have not yet issued a statement but Red Bull team principle, Christian Horner said: "We are confident that Red Bull Racing will make the most of these attributes and believe that, in Mark and Sebastian, we have a very competitive driver line-up for 2009.” The 21 year old German driver will be staying at Toro Rosso for the remainder of the season and will hope for a strong result this weekend at his home GP.

What about the Aussies?

Bernie Ecclestone has one again changed his mind over the future of F1 in Australia when the FOM announced that the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne will continue to host the Australian Grand Prix until 2015 last week. From 2009 onwards the Grand Prix will start at 5:00pm local time (6:00am GMT), one hour and a half later than this years race start.

At the beginning of the season, Bernie had said he wanted the Australian race to take place at night to make viewing times more appropriate for European audiences. This year the race start in GMT was 4:30am which was described by Bernie as "Unacceptable." Just before this years race, Bernie threatened to kick the Melbourne race off the calendar after 2010 saying "At the moment, it is ridiculous that people are asked not to sleep in order to see it live. That can't carry on. The alternative is to pull the race completely from Australia. I've spoken to (Australian prime minister) Kevin Rudd and he's told me it would cost too much to re-stage the race, so I guess that's it. We won't be going to Australia for too much longer."

When offered a 5:00pm race start, Ecclestone insisted that was not enough to keep the race. "A 5:00pm start doesn't help a lot, that's not really what we are looking for. It needs to be a night race" but the event organisers responded saying "We've made it absolutely clear that there will be no night Grand Prix race in Melbourne. We don't support it now, we don't support it post-2010. We can't be more unequivocal than that." It turns out that the Australian race organisers were right to stand there ground as Bernie turned his opinion of a 5am start around saying last week "I'm satisfied that the decision to move to a later start time for 2009 races is a win for television audiences in Europe and Asia, a win for Melbourne and a win for Formula One as a whole."

The Australian Grand Prix is likely to remain the first event on the calendar for the next few seasons, but this is just another example of the head of the FOM's threats coming to nothing.

One last British GP for DC

David Coulthard has enjoyed 15 years of Formula One, but has announced today that 2008 will be his last. The Scot has said this weeks British Grand Prix will be his final race at Silverstone and he will leave his Red Bull team with a spare driver seat in 2009. In a press conference today, with fellow British drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, Coulthard said: "After 15 years I am clearly not going to battle for a World Championship and am
unlikely to win another grand prix unless something remarkable happens this year. I feel fulfilled in the role I have played at Red Bull. I just think it is a good time [to retire]. I will be 38 next year and nothing lasts forever. I have enjoyed my racing and now is the right time." As for David's future, he also said today "I will have a test development, consultant role with Red Bull Racing which will enable me to have an interest in F1 and the paddock. I will look at the other opportunities that might be there when the time is appropriate." He is also rumoured to join the commentating team when F1 returns to the BBC in 2009.

David started his career in 1994 at Williams as a replacement to Ayrton Senna after his tragic death at Imola. In his second season in F1 he came third in the championship before moving to McLaren until 2005. Red Bull have built a more competitive car this year, which achieved a third place for David in Canada behind the BMW 1-2. He'll be hoping for a strong set of results for the rest of his last season. I'll make sure I post an F1 Focus feature for Coulthard's career once his F1 duties end in November.

Meanwhile David's teammate at Red Bull, Mark Webber, has signed a contract to stay with the team for 2009 and become the first driver. The Australian said “Continuing with Red Bull Racing for 2009 was a very easy decision for me to make, as I enjoy being part of this team and that has shown through in my driving."

I'll leave you with one last quote from Coulthard. "For nice, emotional reasons I wanted to wait until Silverstone to make the announcement and now that it’s out, I can just get on with the racing. I hope we have a good weekend and that Red Bull can score some points. Maybe there can be a British winner and maybe we can all go home and think that was a good weekend for the sport."

Calm down dear, it's only provisional

Most of us probably wont want to think to much about 2009 yet, but yesterday the FIA released the provisional calendar for the 2009 season. The races are yet to be confirmed and changes can still be made, but there are no real surprises on the first draft of 2009.

I'll look at the races in a moment, but first I want to mention the dates. At the moment, the season looks to be starting much earlier than normal, and ending much later. I'm struggling to find an F1 Grand Prix that has been held as late as November 15th. Perhaps a reason will be provided when an official calendar is released.

The debut race for 2009 is once again Australia. No complaints from me, but if Bernie gets his way this could be the last one in Melbourne. It all depends whether they decide to hold a late or night race, which is unlikely. Malaysia is still next, no further word on the possibility of an Malaysian night race but it looks likely.

The British Grand Pix leapfrogs the French, with no week gap. Another race under threat but with Sliverstone's forthcoming improvements, F1 looks like it will stay in the UK. France somehow remains on the calendar after two final GP's. The German Grand Prix switches back to the Nurburgring and Turkey returns to it's later season date.

The Japanese Grand Prix is back in Suzuka (yes!) after a two year break and the season finale leaves Brazil and heads off to the newcomer, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The GP will take place around the Yas Island circuit as a further expansion into the middle east. Of course this calendar is only provisional and everything I've just said could be irrelevant depending on what changes are made. The official calendar will be released later in the season around September/October time when more minds are on 2009.

Too many second places?

BMW have come a long way since their takeover of the long-running Sauber team in 2005. In the twelve year history of the Swiss team, they not once finished a race in second or higher. Although BMW's first season in the sport wasn't quite what they hoped, they were consistence point finishers and did get a couple of podiums. They improved on Sauber's last season finish, completing 2006 in fifth place. The improvement in 2007 was clear to see. They began battling with the Ferraris and McLarens with Heidfeld starting the season with three consecutive fourth place finishes. The real ability of the F1.07 car became clear in Montreal, Canada. Nick Heidfeld performed solidly to finish in second. Robert Kubica, however, had a less satisfying race. His massive crash at the hairpin put him out of the next race. Nevertheless, Heidfled's second remained their best result in 2007. Whilst they finished best of the rest in the 07 championship, this year they are fighting for top status. Robert Kubica just missed out on pole in Australia, he got pole in Bahrain and he very nearly won the Monaco Grand Prix. Having now secured 3 second places this season, it cant be long before they do one better. Canada was the scene of their best 2007 result. Will it be the scene of their first win this year?

Madness at Monaco

The last wet race at Monaco was in 1996 (before traction control was re-introduced). Oliver Panis won the race in his Ligier after starting 14th. The race set a Formula One record as only 3 drivers managed to finish. Nobody was expecting quite as manic a race last Sunday, but only 6 cars retiring doesn't tell the whole story. Can rain really make that much difference at Monaco?

Last years race was uneventful at best. I really can't think of anything interesting to say about the 2007 outing. The McLarens lead the whole weekend and Alonso completely dominated. Far more happened off the track than on it. The same could be said for 2006 with Micheal Schumacher's antics in qualifying being the talk of the weekend. It seems this year the sport is slowly returning to the track action. There are still big stories going around behind the scenes about Max Mosley and so on but only 6 races have gone and there is still plenty of racing to talk about. The Monaco Grand Prix has always been a strange one though. It seems to require maximum concentration, yet when it rains, maximum concentration isn't enough. Maybe this is the reason for Ayrton Senna's success at the streets. It requires a little something more in the wet that not all racing drivers have. Whatever it is, it makes for great racing, and with two more Monaco-Style street races still to come we should hopefully see more. Last years most eventful race was arguably the Canadian GP, so with Montreal returning next week, we should be in for a cracker.

And then there were ten...

After half a year of uncertainty, Super Aguri have finally announced their withdrawal from the 2008 season. Aguri Suzuki said, after a meeting with the Honda board in Japan, "In order to realize my dream to become an owner of a Formula One Team, I applied for a grid position in the FIA Formula One World Championship in November 2005. Since then, I have participated in the championship for 2 years and 4 months with the Super Aguri F1 team, but regretfully I must inform you that the team will be ceasing its racing activities as of today." The team, which was originally set up by Honda to give Takuma Sato a drive, has struggled from the start by only just making the final cut into their first season in 2006. The team managed to overcome their original financial struggles and by 2007 secured a permanent second driver, Anthony Davidson, and things stated to look up for the Japanese squad with an improvement in their results. The 2007 Canadian Grand Prix was their strongest outing with Takuma finishing in 6th with his British team-mate heading for a 5th place before colliding with a groundhog. At the end of the championship they managed a 9th place constructors position beating the short-lived Spyker team and only just behind a severely under performing Honda (and helped by the exclusion of McLaren). Whilst preparing for their next season, however, their major 2007 sponsor, SS United, breached their contract and failed to payout any of the agreed deal plunging the team into the financial struggles seen at the beginning of the season. But what does this mean for the sport? With the races back down to only 20 drivers and teams with small budgets finding it harder and harder to start up a team with less people interested every month, it seems the FIA have to be more extreme with their cost-cutting plans. All hope for the two drivers may not be over however, with the team going into administration we might yet see a return by some of the core of the Japanese squad in 2009.

Nick's had enough

The future of Super Aguri is looking grimmer by the minute. Over the past week the Japanese squad has been in talks with the Weigl Group and everything seemed to be going to plan. All that was needed was the approval of Honda. Unfortunately that's when things stated to go wrong. Nick Fry didn't seem to approve of the deal saying "It would appear unlikely that a company the size of Weigl is able to support a competitive Formula One team, unless of course there are other partners of which we have not been made aware." Super Aguri, however, seemed optimistic that Honda would approve the German company's deal and sent their trucks and motorhome to Istanbul. When they arrived they had quite a surprise. The team was denied access to the paddock and were left waiting outside the track for further information. The reason for the refusal of entry was Formula One Management had been informed that Super Aguri would not be racing. The FOM had been informed by Honda CEO, Nick Fry who made it clear that his team could not longer support Super Aguri saying "We tried to help as much as possible and Honda never intended to fund two F1 teams. We've gone way beyond what was ever originally anticipated." Clearly this is the end of Honda's involvement in Aguri Suzuka's team and it looks increasingly lightly that nobody is interested in buying the team. Aguri will be meeting the Honda board tomorrow where it looks likely the team will announce their withdrawal from the sport.

Somebody was bound to bring it up

The general secretary of the Czech Automobile Association, Radovan Novak, has accused Ron Dennis, in a Prague radio interview, of bringing the Max Mosley scandal to public attention. Max who is currently suing the news of the world tabloid, has not commented on the accusation, however when the scandal broke in March he had said "I understand that over the last two weeks or so, a covert investigation of my private life and background has been undertaken by a group specialising in such things, for reasons and clients unknown." Ron has responded to Radovan's comments saying "I categorically deny that I have anything to do with the News of the World investigation into Mr Mosley. We are writing to Mr Novak and are currently considering the appropriate route via which the remarks that have been attributed to him may be withdrawn or corrected." Hardly surprising Ron has been accused of setting him up after the events of 2007 and the spygate controversy, but it's hard to imagine Ron would be foolish enough to do something on this scale to embarrass Max. The Czech has issued a further statement saying "It's definitely one of the possibilities every intelligent person has to consider. But maybe Mr. Mosley already knows who is behind it." Max will face an FIA vote of confidence in Paris on June 3rd but whatever happens, it is unlikely we have heard the last from Ron Dennis about the scandal.