Welcome to another Motor Sport audio podcast. There was no avoiding the team orders scandal from Hockenheim, but we also have a look at the Formula 1 driving standards, the relationship between Vettel and Webber and whether it’s too late for Schumacher to start producing the results.

Anyway… enjoy and do let us know what you think. We’ll be back on air later this month or early next month with another guest so ‘stay tuned’.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

After the whirlwind of action over the past few weeks in Formula 1 the dust is finally settling.

Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams found a loophole in the regulations regarding the rear diffuser. They took it and at the pre-season tests they were considerably quicker than the other cars. The other teams complained, the FIA provisionally said that they were legal – as did the stewards at the Australian Grand Prix – and more recently an appeal has been considered and rejected.

Forgive me for being cynical but do we really think that the other teams, if they had spotted the loophole, would have thought that it just ‘wouldn’t be cricket’ if they were to follow it up? No. That is about as likely as Mr Mosley putting a ‘Spank it to the Max’ sticker on the rear of his car (an item you may be interested to hear that can be bought at the Nürburgring).

What’s more, Ross Brawn approached the other teams before the season started asking whether they wanted to clarify that area of the new rules. They politely declined.

Formula 1 is all about (restricted) innovation. And I admire any team that can gain an advantage by legally interpreting the rules in a different way. If the FIA was to rule the other way at the appeal and claim that the diffusers were illegal then it would have been a sad, sad day for the sport. What was quite telling was the fact that certain teams started redesigning their rear diffusers as soon as they saw the Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams cars, long before they were declared legal…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

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…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

I set out, the other day, to talk to two of the Fat Cats of Formula 1. It was only a partial success.

I wanted to talk to Nick Fry (above) from the Honda team and to Christian Horner (below) from Red Bull Racing. I succeeded in the former and dismally failed in the latter.
Nick Fry because I wanted to know more about the arrival of Ross Brawn in the team and Christian Horner because of the progress that Adrian Newey is clearly making with the 2008 car.

By the time I’d got myself organised and had an interesting chat with Fry, I had missed Horner. Quite understandably he’d given up waiting and probably had far better things to do with his time just ahead of the European season. Problem is, will he ever speak to me again? Have I gone into the black book of people who wasted his time? Hope not, as he’s an articulate bloke and his team is showing all the signs of moving up the order. Anyway, I apologised, and will wait a decent interval before knocking on his door again.

I like Nick Fry because, it seems to me, he has taken a lot of flak over the disappointing performance of the Honda Grand Prix team and yet he always seems so positive and upbeat about life. He came to Formula 1 from the motor industry, not an easy move, as things change a lot more rapidly in racing than ever they do in industry. He climbed the corporate ladder at Ford with almost indecent haste but his move to the whirlwind of F1 coincided with a dreadful time for the Honda team and somebody had to take the blame. The wacky ‘earth dream’ livery for the cars hardly helped the team’s predicament.

Things are looking up, however, for Fry and some of this is undoubtedly down to his recruitment of the highly respected Brawn. Will he be the miracle cure for all their woes?

“The effect Ross has had on the team is nothing, and everything, depending which way you look at it,” says Fry. “Over the past year or so we’d been building up a very good engineering team so we had already made progress and let’s not forget that this year’s car was designed before Ross joined us. However, and this is a very, very big however, when Ross arrived he gave us all huge confidence, and that is so important. Without him, we might have begun to panic, but he is turning our natural optimism into a reality. He has helped us to focus on getting the basics working properly, he has laid a steady hand on the tiller, and – because of his past achievements – he has instilled more confidence into the people who work for him. I was absolutely singular in pursuing, and then hiring, Ross – he can definitely do for us what he did for Ferrari. We’re not there yet, but we will be in the top 10 in the next few races.”

So the much publicised recruitment drive of last year was worth all the stress and controversy?

“I interviewed more people from other teams than I can possibly tell you,” he smiles, “including a couple that became very public. If our dining room walls had ears then they would have a great story to tell, with the number of people who passed through there, but I’d made up my mind that Ross was the right person to get the job done. Given time, I have no doubt at all that we can be competing for the world championship. We’ve already seen what he can do, we have new aero packages, and there is no fallback plan. We are on our way, and I am absolutely convinced we will build from here.”

Nick Fry also has a feeling for the history of Grand Prix racing. He’s read Motor Sport since he was a teenager and says he always will. That’s good. And he likes Spa and Monza. “Yes, the sport has to retain some of its heritage,” he says, “and I can still get misty-eyed at Monza, even on a wet Wednesday. Formula 1 would be much the poorer for losing those European circuits and I can never see that happening.” Let’s hope he’s right.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The passage of time means different things to different people. For a geologist, two hundred and fifty million years is a long time. For us motor racing nuts, seven weeks is a long time. That’s how long it is until the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. And it seems more than fifteen weeks since we saw Kimi Raikkonen cross the line at Interlagos. Wonder what he’s been doing? World Champion seems to be a very low-profile achievement these days. Pictures of Kimi grinning, in public at least, are rare but perhaps they are on the walls of every bar in Helsinki. We didn’t hear much from Fernando Alonso during the previous winter did we?

What we need, to lift the general gloom that seems to be settling over Gordon Brown’s Britain, is a British world champion. Now it is a long time since we had one of those. At Silverstone the other day I bumped into the last man to do it for us while chatting with another man who could, and should, have done it for us. Both had what it takes, skill and grit, and both are great ambassadors for motor racing. Damon Hill, now President of the BRDC and no longer looking like a heavy metal star, is busy putting back some of what he took in 1996. Derek Warwick, also busy finding, and helping, young British drivers would have made a wonderful World Champion. He turned down an offer from Frank Williams in 1985, the seat went to Mr Mansell, and he became, yes, a British world champion.

It’s all about being in the right place at the right time. Even Gordon Brown knows that. And so does Lewis Hamilton. But we don’t want to go over all that again do we? I fear that ITV will have more than enough to say as we edge closer to the sunshine of south Australia. Thank goodness for Martin Brundle, always a source of knowledge and humour amidst the hysteria. I watch ITV for Brundle in the same way as I bought Autosport, until this year of course, for Roebuck. And unless Matthew Paris makes a move, I shall continue to buy The Times. I’d like to read Alan Henry in the Guardian but the rest of that newspaper makes no sense to me at all. Reading is one of life’s great pleasures, along with Grand Prix cars at Spa, or just about any of the Greek islands.

You can probably tell I am a virgin blogger, a big, fat book beating a blog any day. But we must move with the times. Wonder what Jenks would have made of blogging? It would have been tricky for him to have got himself on line, the great man’s home not being connected to a supply of electricity. But I digress.

Seven weeks, then, until we get some real clues about the new Grand Prix season. For me, Jenson Button will be the interest. If Ross Brawn does not make a material difference to the Honda team I will be surprised. It is said that Mr Capello will do the same for England. Time, probably a couple of years in both cases, will tell. And it’s time I got on with writing up my chat with Derek Warwick. You can read it in your magazine two months from now.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine