Delta Wing’s CEO Dan Partel says the unique single-seater is by no means dead. In fact, Partel is confident he will be able to strike a deal in the next month to build and test a Delta Wing prototype with a plan to race the car in 2013. In recent weeks Partel has had meetings with a number of European automobile manufacturers who have expressed interest in building 1.6 litre in-line four-cylinder ‘Global Racing Engines’ which are ideally suited to the Delta Wing.

“We are moving absolutely as fast as possible and I hope to have something concrete in three or four weeks time,” Partel told me this week. “If this comes together in the way we hope we will be looking for the very best talent in every category. We want people who are the best and the brightest. We want to get a prototype up and running in the next six months and then test and develop the car so it will be ready to race in 2013. And the beautiful thing about motor racing is there’s more than one sanctioning body out there.”

Partel is convinced the ‘Global Racing Engine’ concept will take off over the next few years with four or five manufacturers already looking at supplying different versions of the ‘GRE’ to different categories from touring and rally cars to single-seaters.

“Chevrolet, Ford, Mazda and BMW are up and running with their in-line fours,” Partel says. “The FIA regulations for the GRE will require the automobile manufacturers to sell or make available to the public the basic components of their engines within six months of entering competition. We believe we will be able to buy production engines that would require a dry sump lubrication kit and a few other bits and bobs for $15,000-$20,000. This whole thing has been well thought-out by the engine manufacturers working with the FIA and obviously they are going ahead with it.”

Partel says he’s sure the VW Group will also produce a ‘GRE’. “At the moment there are a lot of internal politics going on inside the VW Group so it’s difficult to say what’s going to happen, but I have no doubt that Volkswagen-Audi will be I-4 engine suppliers in the future.”

Meanwhile, IndyCar’s suddenly-embattled new CEO Randy Bernard has been told by most of his team owners that they cannot afford to buy and race the proposed new Dallara-Honda combination in 2012. Partel ridiculed last month’s ‘Iconic’ committee decision. “Now that the Chevy, Ford, Mazda and BMW in-line four engines are available,” Partel remarked, “I’m perplexed about how the ‘Iconic’ committee came to the conclusion that nobody wanted to supply an I-4 engine.”

Partel also offered a few words of advice to Bernard. “When you’re trying to develop or maintain a racing series you have to look at the key figure, which is return on investment for your teams. If your teams are financially healthy the whole series will be healthy. The return on investment has to be at least equal to the cost of operating a competitive team. That is the first target any series must set for itself. How do you create and build the proper media platform for your teams so that sponsors have confidence?

“To my thinking this has not been done by the IRL and I’m not sure they have the opportunity to do it because of budget constraints. In my opinion, the IRL are under spending, forcing Randy Bernard to do things that probably are not in the best interests of the series in an attempt to reduce the IRL’s deficit. That’s a tough assignment.”

Is it possible the Delta Wing will come to life while IndyCar’s 2012 Dallara-Honda formula will be delayed or stillborn? At this point it’s impossible to predict what the future holds for American open-wheel racing.

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The place wallows in history. And so does the rally that takes its name from a small town in Flanders where the land is flat and the language impenetrable. The Ypres Rally, established in 1965 and now part of the FIA Intercontinental Rally Challenge, has a special place in the history of motor sport, and rightly so.

The all-asphalt stages are spread across the Fields of Flanders, scene of so much death and destruction in World War I and at the centre of which is Ypres, or ‘Wipers’ as the Tommies called it during those dark days.

Now these fields are bursting with life, the rally cars blasting between rows of vegetables. Cabbages, potatoes, beetroot and corn as far as the eye can see. Speeds are high, there’s barely a hill worth its name, and the challenges come from long, fast straights leading to right-angle corners. The surface varies, the asphalt offering dramatically differing levels of grip.

The winner will need experience, local knowledge and lightning reflexes if he is to avoid the rocks that lurk in the apexes as well as the dust and gravel off-line. Enter Freddy Loix, local hero and five times an Ypres winner. Now 39 years old, he’s back from retirement and strapped into the potent Skoda Fabia. This charming man attacked and attacked again, until his younger and more flamboyant rivals slipped or rolled into the fields and ditches. First it was championship leader Juho Hänninen, stuck in a ditch, then reigning champion Kris Meeke, rolling across a field, allowing Loix to lift off just a touch and come home to a rapturous reception in the shadow of Ypres Cathedral on a hot summer night in Belgium. With him on the podium were Skoda works driver Jan Kopecky and a delighted Thierry Neuville, who salvaged some honour for the defeated Peugeot team.

And thereby hangs a tale. The Skoda IRC team is a fully supported works effort, the Czechs fielding two new Super 2000 Fabias for Hanninen and Kopecky as well as a Skoda UK car for Guy Wilks, who missed Ypres after being injured in a crash on the Sardinia rally. And, of course, the car for Belgian favourite Loix.

All this does not please Peugeot, champions for the last three years, and still entered semi-independently by the Kronos team. The French outfit is pleading ‘poverty’ in the face of the mighty Skodas, claiming that the IRC should not be permitting factory outfits. But this does not concern the organisers themselves, who respond to cries of foul by pointing out that the championship changes organically all the time and is not closed to manufacturer teams.

“If we complain, people will say we are bad losers,” says Marc van Dalen of Kronos. “But that is not the case. We simply don’t have the resources or the budget to fight a full works team in the IRC.” Series promoter Jean-Pierre Nicolas, a former WRC team boss at Peugeot, denies there is a problem. “It is not unfair to have a works team in the IRC,” he says. “The IRC is strong, we have hundreds of independent entries, and sometimes we will have an era when a factory team wants to come in and compete. There is a good battle between Peugeot and Skoda, it’s exciting and good for the series which grows in stature.”

Whatever the ins and outs of this, the huge crowd that gathered in Ypres on Saturday night cared only for one thing. Their man Freddy was back, and back on the top step for a sixth victory. And Monsieur Loix will be out in his Skoda this weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Give him a cheer. This is how comebacks can be done.

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It’s a fact that many of us left Bahrain in a downbeat frame of mind, for this 2010 Grand Prix season had been anticipated – for a variety of sound reasons – with a great deal of relish. Yet the opening race of the season had been one of the most boring in recent memory, like a re-run of qualifying in slow motion.

Many immediately suggested it had been a mistake to get rid of refuelling and demanded immediate changes, some of which had merit, some not. Bernie Ecclestone counselled against knee-jerk reactions, and anyone with half a brain agreed with him.

Race two, in Melbourne, was as diverting as Bahrain had been bland, and much of this – rightly – was put down to uncertain weather conditions, which have spawned exciting races since the beginning of time. It isn’t much of an intellectual stretch to understand that when you get a wet race track – even a damp one – you have less grip, and when you have less grip you get more driving errors and therefore changes in the order.

Not rocket science, is it? Which makes it the more unbelievable that, between them, the FIA and the Formula 1 teams – all of which have recently wakened up to the fact that racing fans like racing – cannot between them come up with a set of regulations to promote it. Last year, those teams which designed ‘trick’ double-diffusers into the concept of their cars deliberately ignored the aims of the FIA Overtaking Working Group – and the governing body then shamefully declared them permissible.

All concerned knew of the adverse effect this would have on the sport’s appeal, and all – for reasons of self-interest – chose to ignore it. A plague on their houses, as far as I’m concerned – but the FIA Court of Appeal stands especially culpable, for while it is in the DNA of F1 designers to look for loopholes in the rules, it is the interests of the sport which should always be paramount to the people who run it.

Patrick Head once pointed out that the Monaco Grand Prix would be highly diverting if all the cars ran with ‘Hockenheim wing settings’, and on another occasion even more radically suggested that wings be banned altogether – although that, he smilingly admitted, would never be accepted by the team owners given the amount of ‘sponsorship area’ on the car that would be lost.

For the fans, the people to whom manufacturers and sponsors are trying to sell things – and therefore, in the end, the people who pay for this sport – what constitutes the ideal racing car? No one ever defined that better than Tony Brooks, the great Vanwall and Ferrari driver of half a century ago: “A Grand Prix car,” he said, “should always have slightly more power than the chassis can comfortably handle…”

Simple, isn’t it? And the abiding problem of contemporary F1 is that the ratio between power and grip is out of kilter. The ban on traction control was a good move, but still the fact remains that F1 cars race today with 300 horsepower fewer than we have seen in the past – and don’t tell me that the grip levels in the 1980s (during the turbo era) were anything like those of today.

Some years ago Max Mosley decided that horsepower was getting out of control, and declared that the 3-litre V10 engine should be replaced by a 2.4-litre V8. He then imposed the ‘frozen engine spec’ rule, and that was probably essential, given the amounts of money being spent on the endless quest for another 10bhp.

Unfortunately, attempts to change the aerodynamic rules – so as to cut back on grip – have proved far less effective, and thus we have a situation where a dry day means a procession, where only adverse weather conditions can guarantee a memorable afternoon. Can’t be right.

After Bahrain, there was hand-wringing by some of the team principals, who had apparently become suddenly aware that a Grand Prix can be boring, and were demanding all manner of instant changes to spice up ‘The Show’. One instant change might be to be receptive in future to technical changes proposed by the Overtaking Working Group, rather than ignore them for the sake of self-interest.

And to think there was a time when we used to joke about spinklers…

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Touring cars are great to watch for a number of reasons. Mostly notably the racing is extremely close and you’ll see cars passing each other in places that you never thought possible. Another draw, for me anyway, has always been that you can clearly see that they carry some DNA from their road-car equivalents.

Let’s ignore the silhouette racers in Germany’s DTM for the moment, and the fact that underneath the shells of WTCC and BTCC cars very few have anything resembling what you’d find on your mother’s SEAT. What’s important is that these cars look like something you could go and buy in a showroom the next day. ‘Race on Sunday, sell on Monday’, as they say.

You can imagine my excitement then at the fast-approaching new FIA GT1 World Championship. Ford GT40s, Lamborghini Murciélagos, Corvettes, DBR9s, MC12s and GT-Rs on tracks such as Spa, Interlagos, Silverstone and the Nürburgring. Oh, how the mouth waters… As the promoter of GT racing Stephane Ratel points out, “they are truly inspirational cars – the ones everyone dreams of owning”.

The series, the fourth FIA-sanctioned World Championship after Formula 1, WTCC, WRC and Formula 2, has 10 events on four continents with 24 cars expected to grace each grid. Twelve teams will run two cars each with the same livery and each race will be a one-hour affair or, as the video below suggests, a one-hour long cacophony of engine noise. The European-based FIA GT2 and GT3 championships will also support the events with their own races.

“We have shaped the new championship with the aim of making GT racing more fan and media friendly,” Ratel continues. “Before, the racing consisted of long-distance racing, a mix of GT-spec cars in the same race, teams competing with a number of different cars – it was all very confusing to follow. It takes time for any sports series to become well established but GT racing will take a major step forward in becoming one of the major World Championships in 2010.”

Ratel (above) is certainly the right man for the job when it comes to making a success of a GT1 championship. Let’s hope it is exactly that, as these cars will be great to watch. The season kicks off on April 17 in Abu Dhabi – a date for the diary, I would have thought…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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FOTA has reacted to the FIA World Council’s tough new measures to force cost cuts in Formula 1. The governing body has rejected FOTA’s proposal of the 12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1 points system in favour of awarding medals for race wins to ensure the driver who wins the most races becomes World Champion.

The FIA has also announced plans for a two-tier system in 2010 where the teams can choose to run to a budget cap of £30m and a more open rule book or choose to spend more and run to the current regulations. Unsurprisingly FOTA has responded coolly to the World Council’s ruling. Chairman Luca Di Montezemolo said:

“With regard to the decisions taken today by the FIA World Council, FOTA would like to express its disappointment and concern at the fact that these have been taken in a unilateral manner. The framework of the regulations as defined by the FIA, to be applicable as from 2010, runs the risk of turning on its head the very essence of Formula 1 and the principles that make it one of the most popular and appealing sports.

“Given the timeframe and the way in which these modifications were decided upon, we feel it is necessary to study closely the new situation and to do everything, especially in these difficult times, to maintain a stable framework for the regulations without continuous upheaval, that can be perplexing and confusing for car manufacturers, teams, the public and sponsors.”

It appears the gloves are off between FOTA and the FIA.

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On March 5, in Geneva, FOTA – Formula One Teams Association – had its inaugural press conference, and my immediate impression was to feel a touch underwhelmed. Luca di Montezemolo, the association’s president, was at his most patrician as he addressed the audience, but if we had been expecting a bombshell announcement of any kind, it never came.

There was plenty of emphasis on the teams’ new-found togetherness, of the need to work with the FIA and with Bernie Ecclestone on the future of the sport, and so on, and a great deal of time was given over to the need for cost-cutting. By 2010, Montezemolo said, the cost of Formula 1 – in terms of a team’s expenditure – would be 50 per cent of what it was in 2008, a remarkable achievement in itself.

There was also pleasing evidence that at long last F1 has examined what Flavio Briatore calls ‘the product’, and concluded it needs to become more ‘fan friendly’, both on the track and off it. There is, for example, a proposal that pit-to-car radio transmissions be made available to broadcasters – quite something for a society normally given to Masonic secrecy.

There were plenty of suggestions and ideas, and it was all very politically correct, but when you looked a little more deeply into what had been said – and, more to the point, what had not been said – a more significant picture began to emerge. Yes, Montezemolo had said that all parties were likely to sign a new Concorde Agreement in the near future, which concerns the ‘commercial arrangements’ – 50 per cent of the monies from race organisers, TV companies, and so on, going to the teams, and 50 per cent to Formula One Management (Ecclestone) – but this will take us only up to 2012. And if you listened closely to Luca, you concluded that thereafter the teams will require a significantly larger slice of the financial cake.

Whether some or all of FOTA’s proposals will be adopted by the FIA remains to be seen, but clearly the teams – unified as they have never been before – will have a stronger voice in future. Mindful of what happened to CART, they do not want to run the sport themselves – but nor do they wish any longer to be pushed around.

As one team principal said afterwards, “We don’t want to make the rules, but we do want to have some say in them. And, given that we’re all together now, we do have the facility to vote with our feet…”

Go on, I said. “Well, for example, take refuelling. Most of us never wanted it in the first place, because it’s expensive to lug all that stuff across the world, it’s an unnecessary danger, and it adds nothing to the show. Yes, it’s going to be banned in 2010 anyway, but if that weren’t the case, we could simply not take the refuelling equipment with us, couldn’t we? I’m sure they would still want us to race…”

On the surface, then, a commitment to work with the FIA and FOM, and I’m sure that’s what all in FOTA would prefer. Under the surface, though, is a message, polite in expression, but resolute in tone: the days of ‘divide and rule’, as perfected by Mosley and Ecclestone down the years, are over. Interesting times, one feels, lie ahead.

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Finally we have news on Honda Racing. It’s taken a fair bit of time, with rumours of various buyouts including a Richard Branson/Virgin takeover, but finally Ross Brawn released a statement at midnight last night to say that the team has reached an agreement to secure its future.

The former Honda team principal has now received full ownership of Honda Racing F1 and has renamed the squad as the Brawn GP Formula One Team. What’s more, both Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will return as drivers – which has put an end to Bruno Senna’s dreams of racing in F1 in 2009 – and the team has agreed a partnership with Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines to supply the power plant for the first ever Brawn GP car, whose colours are rumoured to be yellow, black and white.

“I am delighted that Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will form our race driver line-up for the 2009 season,” said Brawn. “The vast experience and knowledge that both drivers bring to our team will prove invaluable as we aim to get up to speed to be ready for the first race of the season in Melbourne on March 29. In what will be their fourth season together, their experience with our team in Brackley, our systems and our engineers will prove a real asset.

“The past few months have been extremely challenging for the team,” Brawn continued. “But today’s announcement is a very pleasing conclusion to the strenuous efforts that have been made to secure its future.”

It certainly is a welcome announcement, not just for Formula 1 fans, but also for the likes of Bernie Ecclestone who was perilously close to the minimum number of cars that contractually he has to field. The fact that Brawn thanked so many people and organisations in the statement goes to show just how much help he has had in getting the Brackley-based team back on the track. “I would like to express particular appreciation for the support we have received from Mercedes-Benz Motorsport, the FIA, FOM, FOTA, (UK business organisation) BERR, Bridgestone, our other team partners and our many fans the world over.”

A very heartfelt congratulations to everyone involved from Motor Sport, and especially myself, as only a matter of six months ago I placed a rather optimistic bet that Honda would be fighting for the World Championship in 2009…

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Let us begin with a simple fact – a simple fact this particular week, anyway. The penalty for almost causing a collision in the pitlane is a drive-through penalty. This we know because Bruno Senna was thus punished in Saturday’s GP2 race at Spa, and it cost him the race.

In the following day’s Belgian Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton drove a quite brilliant race, scoring his fifth victory of the season, and moving himself into a commanding lead in the World Championship, with five races to go.

After the race, though, those dreaded words appeared on the TV screens in the press room: ‘Incident involving cars 1 and 22 under investigation’.

This referred to Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari and Hamilton’s McLaren, which had been locked in battle all afternoon. “I’d been pushing and pushing,” said Lewis, “but four laps from the end I thought, ‘I can’t catch this guy’. I was praying for rain, because I knew it was my only chance to pass him. When I started getting spots on my visor, my hopes were raised – and when I saw Kimi start braking earlier, I knew it was on…”

On the increasingly slippery surface, Hamilton swiftly closed on Räikkönen, and as they approached the right-left chicane at the end of the lap, with two laps to go, he jinked left of the Ferrari, as if to pass it on the outside. Kimi, Lewis said, had braked very early, and that had presented this opportunity. Side by side into the turn, though, Räikkönen was not ready to cede, and Hamilton, keen to avoid a touch, went over the corner, in the process momentarily taking the lead.

Told by his team to let the Ferrari by again, Lewis did as bidden, but into La Source he immediately wrong-footed Räikkönen, and went by once again, there to stay. Whereupon Kimi, fighting harder than we have seen for a very long time, spun off into a wall on the penultimate lap.

The matter under investigation, apparently, was whether, although he allowed Räikkönen to re-pass, Hamilton had ‘gained an advantage’ from the manoeuvre as a whole. “I did not do anything wrong,” Lewis said, “and if we get a penalty there’ll be something wrong, but we know what they’re like, so…”

We do indeed. But even as he murmured the words, we wondered at the wisdom of it. Free speech is hardly encouraged, after all, in the Formula 1 of today.

A couple of hours later came the verdict of the FIA stewards – and perhaps we should have expected nothing else. Hamilton was indeed adjudged to have ‘Cut the chicane, and gained an advantage’, this despite the fact that Räikkönen was clearly ahead once more as he and Hamilton began their penultimate lap. It was hardly Lewis’s fault that Kimi made a novice’s mistake at La Source, and left the door wide open.

The punishment for Hamilton’s offence, the stewards decided, was a drive-through, but this – given that the race was long over – was somewhat difficult to administer, so the stewards instead added 25 seconds to Lewis’s elapsed race time, which neatly moved him from first to third, and made Ferrari’s Felipe Massa the winner of the Belgian Grand Prix. Instead of leading Massa by a comfortable eight points, Hamilton suddenly found himself a scant two points ahead.

I ask the reader now to consider the opening paragraph again, the one dealing with Senna’s drive-through penalty in the GP2 race. In Valencia, two weeks before, Massa’s Ferrari was involved in an identical incident, and after the race it was announced that the incident was ‘under investigation by the FIA stewards’.

Open and shut, surely. The penalty for almost causing a collision in the pitlane is, as we saw from the Senna incident, a drive-through penalty, and if it is applied after the race, that equates to a 25-second penalty, right?

Well, not exactly. Or at least not always. That was the punishment if you were Senna at a race in Belgium in September, but if you were Massa in Spain the previous month, it was a fine – for his team – of 10,000 Euros, which Ferrari found themselves well able to pay.

What a lucky fellow Massa is. A 25-second penalty in Valencia would have dropped him from first to third, as with Hamilton in Spa, but as it was he kept his Spanish win – and inherited a Belgian one.

This is no longer, happily, the era of Jean Todt, and we may believe Stefano Domenicali when he says that at no stage did Ferrari enter any sort of protest: rather, he pointed out, he and his driver were summoned by the stewards.

Whatever, one marvelled yet once more at this sport’s unrivalled ability to shoot itself in the foot. What we saw on Sunday afternoon was a magnificent motor race, utterly compromised and belittled by a post-race decision most considered obscenely unjust. But… perhaps we should have expected nothing else.

Massa won the Belgian Grand Prix, then, although at no point did he threaten the chief protagonists. For 40 of its 44 laps, the race was a relatively mainstream affair, with Räikkönen and Hamilton running first and second, rarely more than a couple of seconds apart. There was no lack of tension, but, as Lewis said, the closer he got to the Ferrari, the more difficult his McLaren became to drive: the old ‘dirty air’ problem which has plagued motor racing for more years than we care to remember.

At around the 25-lap mark, though, it had been announced that ‘Rain was expected in 20 minutes’, and on this occasion the forecast proved uncannily accurate. On lap 38 Fernando Alonso, running fourth, radioed the Renault pit to reports ‘drops of rain’ at one particular point on the circuit, and a couple of laps after that it began to come down rather harder, and over the entire track. That was when Sunday afternoon at Spa came truly alive, and when Hamilton did the work that won him – or should have won him – the race.

Joining Hamilton and Massa on the podium was Nick Heidfeld, and although the BMW driver had qualified well for once, you wouldn’t have put much on his finishing as high as third (which became second, of course), for he was turfed off the road by Heikki Kovalainen at the first corner, and spent the afternoon playing catch-up. At the start of the last lap, indeed, he was in eighth place.

Ah, but Nick had made a smart move. “When it began to drizzle,” he said, “I thought no one would have the balls to change tyres – so I thought I would. I went onto intermediates, and they were perfect…” They were indeed. So treacherous were the conditions by now that in the course of the last lap Heidfeld passed Bourdais, Kubica, Vettel and Alonso.

If, over the last few races, the World Championship appeared to be distilling to a fight between Hamilton and Massa, as big a talking-point, as Spa approached, was the fall from grace of Räikkönen – the reigning World Champion, lest we forget. In Ferrari circles the belief, while not publicly aired, is that for some time Kimi has done justice neither to himself nor to their car, and this they find vexing, not least because he is paid approximately five times as much as team-mate Massa.

Stefano Domenicali insisted there was no crisis involving Räikkönen, no suggestion that his motivation was not what it should be, but still, in assessing Kimi’s form, state of mind, whatever, the Belgian Grand Prix was thought crucial, for Spa is the purest of driver’s circuits – and a place in which Räikkönen has traditionally excelled. If he were to fall short here, of all places, there really would be cause for serious concern – and not only because, at two million dollars a race, he is a pricey item on any team’s budget, Ferrari included.

Through qualifying Kimi was always thereabouts, but never there, and as usual it was Massa who took the fight to McLaren.

In the race, though, Räikkönen began to drive like Räikkönen again, for the first time in months, and looked very settled in the lead, apparently heading for his fourth consecutive victory at Spa, a record which would have equalled that held by the late Jim Clark. In the end, though, it all came to nought, and Kimi was not in a great frame of mind as he left the circuit – with first practice at Monza only five days away.

Before the race Hamilton, the man on pole, was asked if he had any worries. “Not really,” he said, “although if it’s a wet race the white lines are going to be slippery as hell…”

Not only the white lines, some wag said on Sunday evening.

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The Max Mosley scandal has dominated much of our time and energy this month, and that is reflected in the June issue (on sale Friday May 2) of Motor Sport. It was inevitable. When motor racing becomes a regular subject for the front pages of national newspapers – for all the wrong reasons – we feel compelled to take a stand. It’s the least you, our readers, should expect.

We’ve taken a hard line on Mosley because we believe his position as FIA President, the most important job in world motor sport, is untenable. As you’ll read in Matters of Moment and Nigel Roebuck’s excellent column, we’re not taking a moral stance here. This has nothing to do with what Mosley does in his private life. What counts is the damaging effect these revelations are having, and will continue to have, on our sport. That’s all we care about.

But what do you think? Let me know by clicking here. I’d value your opinions and we’ll print a selection of your views in the next issue so that the FIA members know exactly what Motor Sport’s readers think ahead of the General Assembly meeting on June 3.

Happily, the magazine has a lot of pages these days, so there is plenty more to read in the issue aside from this grubby and unpleasant political scandal. You’ll be pleased to see there is the usual wide variety of stories about actual motor racing, past and present, too!

My highlights? Well, as ever Simon Taylor’s ‘Lunch with…’ feature is a treat. The legendary Chris Amon has always been great company, and Simon’s only problem this month was fitting everything in to eight pages. Take some time to enjoy it. You won’t be disappointed.

Nigel found a welcome diversion from the Mosley saga by writing about one of his childhood heroes, the inspirational Archie Scott Brown who died 50 years ago this month. Meanwhile, our US editor Gordon Kirby presents an extract from his new biography of Rick Mears, telling the story of how the great oval racer turned down the chance for F1 stardom.

We also have a fantastic new columnist in Mat Oxley, one of the finest motorcycle writers around. Bike racing is unfamiliar territory for Motor Sport, but we think you’ll enjoy the extra diversity it will bring to our pages. Mat will return from time to time to bring us updates from the MotoGP world, and as he has this month, he’ll draw some fascinating parallels to the four-wheeled sport.

Enjoy the issue, and don’t forget to give us your opinion on the FIA president. We want to know what you think.

Comment on the Mosley scandal

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Is Max Mosley’s position untenable? Or does his private life not affect his work as the president of the FIA?

Let us know what you think and we’ll publish a selection of your comments in the next edition of Motor Sport.

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Wow, what a week! And, as one of our bloggers remarked, wow, what a speech! The week in Bahrain was, as you might expect, dominated by revelations in the News of the World. As I was parking my car at Heathrow on March 30 I was blissfully unaware of this venerable publication’s ‘shock-horror’ expose of the FIA president. But not for long. As I dragged my suitcase to the bus stop I heard a shout. “Hey, Rob have you see the News of the World?” I looked up to find A1GP Team India boss Mike Earle, on his way to Delhi, with a rolled up newspaper under his arm. Now, looking at the front page and the double-page spread inside, this was shock and awe. Surely even the president would struggle to survive this one?

Touching down in Bahrain at 5am on the Monday it was already hot. In more ways than one. Emerging from immigration and customs into the sultry warmth of the early morning I heard a shout. “Hey, Rob, have you seen the News of the World?” Looking up, I see David Tremayne of the Independent, this time clutching print-outs from the News International website. Before long, the paddock at Sakhir would be humming with reactions, opinions and suggestions of how these activities came to the notice of the best-selling newspaper in Britain. Not until the racing cars came out on Friday morning did the sound of speculation finally give way to spectating. Max Mosley himself, unsurprisingly, was nowhere to be seen.

Very much in view, however, was Ron Dennis, chairman of the McLaren Group. Immaculate as ever, despite the heat, Ron made a quite exceptional speech to the Bahrain Motorsport Business Forum last Wednesday, a copy of which I immediately sent to my editor. With permission from Matt Bishop, the new head of communications and public relations at McLaren, of course. The former editor of F1 Racing is doing a fine job by all accounts. Later in the day I spoke to Ron and that interview, along with a full report on the first forum to be held in the Middle East, will apppear in next month’s Motor Sport.

Common sense, and a little cowardice, prevents me from commenting any further on the problems facing Mosley. Everybody will have their opinion. I will be interested to see how the sport’s organising body deals with what is undoubtedly some kind of crisis.

Then, refreshingly, there were the old boys. A fine sprinkling of anciens pilotes, who had come to the Gulf to race in the Dubai-based Speedcar Series. The what, I hear you ask? To be brief, the cars are based on NASCAR but are less sophisticated. Big V8 engine, four-speed manual gearbox, and not much in the way of an ‘aero package’. For those who like a bit of detail, the cars weigh in at 1300 kilograms while the 6-litre V8 produces 620bhp at 7500rpm – so they’re heavy, and only quite powerful. More intriguingly, the Speedcar series was germinated, created and delivered to the circuits of the Middle East in just under a year. Impressive. But, yes, the drivers. In a tent in the paddock I find Jean Alesi, Johnny Herbert, Stefan Johansson, Jacques Villeneuve (above) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen, refugees all from the F1 paddock. And a nicer bunch of blokes you couldn’t expect to meet – well, JV didn’t want to talk much, but what’s new? I do like the man all the same. He’s bright, feisty and he still ambles around in absurdly baggy overalls.

“The racing is fun,” says Johnny, “and it’s good to be with your old mates. The cars are not easy to drive on the limit and the brakes are pretty non-existent. I mean you want to be thinking about braking all the way down the straight. And the prize money isn’t bad either.” German touring car veteran and Le Mans winner Uwe Alzen has done much of the winning, and Alesi has won twice. “Why should I stop racing?”, says Jean. “I still love it – the atmosphere, the friendships, the driving. The races are a good show, the fans love it, and I love my life now – my job is my passion, you know?” More racing drivers should be like Alesi, at least I reckon so.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

One of the recent headlines in Formula One has been the possible introduction of budget caps. When a steering wheel costs £13,000 and the typical costs of running a team are nigh on £100 million it was only a matter of time before yet another rule to allow the smaller teams to compete on a slightly more level playing field was introduced.
It may seem unrealistic that the cost of running these machines could be anything but sky-high, but if American Airlines managed to save $40,000 in 1987 by merely taking out one olive from their first class salads, anything is possible.

The plans are still just that; plans, but it is clear that something will be done in the future. We are in the middle of an engine freeze and that certainly seems to be working (depending on which angle you look at it from).

There is an argument however, that Formula One is the pinnacle of motoring technology and warrants large expenditure. Teams often say how some of their technology is passed down to the road division, some tending to publicise this at every given opportunity. If we regulate the cost of Grand Prix racing surely this will also slow down road car development?

Of course the ever-changing regulations mean that the Formula 1 cars we see today look nothing like what could be if the designers were allowed a free reign. I suggest the end product would be so otherworldly that no human being could physically drive one. Of course this is the main limiting factor but the budget cap will slow the process even further.

If we don’t want to scare away the smaller teams but also want to see machines racing to the maximum of their potential (within the rules) where does that lead us? Well, as the FIA will tell you, to a bit of a conundrum. Formula One would hardly be worth watching with only 5 teams on the grid. How about slackening the regulations and giving each team say, £70 million a season. They can then do with it what they will as long as they race at each event. They would then have to decide whether it is worth paying a high-profile driver £30 million or spending half that and the rest on development. The money would be easy to find, £70 million would just mean removing an olive from everybody’s salad. Almost.

The budget cap is a good idea but let’s hope that it doesn’t stunt the growth of the sport.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

I was watching News at Ten this week and up popped Eddie Jordan, looking tanned, relaxed and rich. Wrapped in an expensive leather jacket, EJ was standing in a smart London street, talking about the extraordinary outbreak of racism at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona. I could see by the caption that he was ‘live’ on the air and so I imagined that either something dreadful had happened or he had decided to come back to Grand Prix racing. The latter, I thought, was most unlikely and, turning up the volume, I heard him mention Thierry Henry. Had the man bought a football team, I wondered, spurred on by Flavio Briatore’s success in dragging Queens Park Rangers up the first division? (My bet is that QPR will be in the premier league very promptly). But no, it was about Spanish fans taunting Lewis Hamilton during testing at Catalunya.

What a very sad and dismal story this is. It reminded me of both Thierry Henry and Eric Cantona, Henry suffering at the hands of a racist referee and Cantona being taunted by racist fans while weaving his magic for the great Manchester United. (My bet is they will beat Arsenal to the Premiership title, and I hope they do). Both Henry and Cantona spoke eloquently about the problems of racism in sport, both Frenchmen having finally lost their tempers with ignorant spectators. Footballers, of course, are performing very close to their supporters, and their enemies, so it is more tempting to react on the spur of the moment.

Lewis Hamilton, by contrast, could only watch in despair from the pitlane as a small group of idiots in rude t-shirts set about ruining his day in Spain. I trust that Fernando Alonso, despite the tensions of last season with Lewis at McLaren, would not condone this kind of lunacy from his fellow Spaniards, even if they do claim to be his fans. Eddie Jordan suggested that the Spanish Grand Prix be cancelled, that the FIA remove the race from the calendar. No doubt the race will go ahead and anyway it is not the answer. As far as I am aware, Hamilton has experienced similar racism during his early karting days but never before in the rarified atmosphere of Formula One. And it has to be stamped out, now. Never must a handful of clowns be allowed to damage a sport that has a worldwide audience. Some might say the business has conspired to make a dent in its image. But racism is a whole different story.

Don’t cancel the Grand Prix. Find out who the idiots are and ban then from the circuit. Similar action has made a huge difference to the atmosphere in football stadiums.

But well done EJ, for coming on ‘live’ and calling for immediate action. Grand Prix racing needs a good, clean and positive year, especially for Hamilton and Alonso. Silly politics and resentment, of any kind, is – as they say on the catwalks – so very last year.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Having not made it onto a racetrack at all last season I am in the throws of doing my medical and re-applying for my racing licence. The medical can pretty much be passed over the phone and the most taxing thing the doctor will do is to take your blood pressure.

All types of motor sport are good fun, be it kicking tyres in the paddock or trying to take Eau Rouge flat without making a mess of your FIA homologated suit – I sadly/luckily have managed neither. But as with all the popular hobbies, there is a price attached to it and motor racing is one that can drain your bank account quicker than being stuck in Duty Free with a delayed flight.

In order to try and stem the haemorrhaging of funds my father, brother and I, try and enter long distance races for three drivers meaning that we get lots of time on track and the bill is split three ways. Having enquired about the Le Mans classic only to find that the entry fee alone was 4900 euros we decided to look elsewhere but is this actually that expensive nowadays?

To make things easy, if you cancel out the travelling cost against the excitement of racing abroad then you are left with the entry fee (and petrol, wear and tear etc.). Of course 5000 euros would be, although still expensive, good value for money if it was a series of 24-hour races. To get a better idea of exactly what the racing costs I did a quick calculation of what each series charges per minute of racing. Admittedly this all sounds rather geeky and tight fisted but it is surprising what I found…

The Grand Prix Masters costs around £15 per minute whereas the World Sportscar Masters is a paltry £7 (this is based on the entry fee for their races at the same track, over the same weekend). Other popular series come out as follows: The HGPCA – £9pm, Gentleman Drivers – £9pm, Top Hat – £9pm. Throwing a £10 note out the window every minute of racing seems to be the going price.

However, as soon as a well-known name is attached to the race meeting, i.e. ‘Le Mans’ the entry fee suddenly becomes slightly punchier. Even though you get 3 hours of racing for your 4900 euro entry fee, that still means you are paying £20 a minute to test your metal at La Sarthe. Racing on the 24 Hour circuit is something which many of us will never get the opportunity to do, add to this the man-power needed to run a meeting at such a venue and perhaps 4900 euros is a small price to pay?

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine