Archives for September 2009

Fernando Alonso's move to Ferrari, which was finally announced on Wednesday, is the most exciting shift in the Formula 1 fabric for years.

Assuming F1's traditional giants can both get back to the front, with Alonso at Ferrari going up against Lewis Hamilton at McLaren it sets the best two drivers in the world against each other in the two most famous teams.

Think of James Hunt against Niki Lauda, Alain Prost versus Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher taking on Mika Hakkinen. This is the historical lineage in which Alonso and Hamilton are taking their places, and they have all the qualities required to live up to those expectations.

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If Bernie Ecclestone ever wants to know why he needs to protect Formula 1's heritage and not abandon classic tracks for lucrative but boring modern autodromes, he could do worse than read the views of the readers of the BBC's classic grand prix series.

It has been immensely rewarding to see how enthusiastic and energised all the respondents on this blog have been for the last few editions, which have featured some of the greatest circuits in F1.

This latest edition is no exception.

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Jenson Button might have finished only fifth in the Singapore Grand Prix, but Sunday's race confirmed the impression that this year's world championship trophy already has his name written on it.

Yet again, Brawn and Button had a tricky weekend, qualifying in the middle of the grid, and yet again their major title rivals failed to take advantage of their problems.

Instead, Button drove another excellent race to finish fifth, actually gaining a point on his closest title rival, his team-mate Rubens Barrichello, and losing only one to Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. With a 15-point advantage over Barrichello and 25 points on Vettel with only three races to go, Button is now an even stronger favourite for the championship than before.

In many ways, Vettel's race summed up the season so far, in that with Button vulnerable and others in a great position to take serious advantage of the Englishman's difficulties, it was Vettel who cracked, and Button who engaged in a successful exercise in damage limitation.

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The latest edition of our classic grand prix series proved one of the most popular yet - and the decision of which race to highlight before Singapore this weekend one of the most difficult.

As there has only been one Singapore Grand Prix, we took a different approach this time and included in our choice alongside highlights of what is now one of the most notorious F1 events in history four great races from tracks no longer on the calendar - France 1979, Austria 1982, Dallas 1984 and Mexico 1990.

It was always going to be tough to choose between those events, for all are true all-time classics. But I have to admit I was surprised at how you all responded. (In this blog, incidentally, I will also give details of next week's classic Japanese GP choice - but more of that later).

I was expecting France 1979 to be a hands-down winner this time because of the spectacular last three laps of racing between Ferrari legend Gilles Villeneuve and Renault's Rene Arnoux. But actually that race came last in the popular 'vote' which we use to influence - if not decide - which event to make our feature.

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The decision to give Renault only a suspended sentence for the team's attempt to fix last year's Singapore Grand Prix seems lenient at first glance.

And, all in all, Renault probably will be breathing a sigh of relief, even if they know they will be disqualified from Formula 1 if they commit a similar offence before the end of the 2011 season.

As their employers, Renault could have been held responsible for the actions of former team boss Flavio Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds, yet there has been no fine and no points deduction. Looked at in the context of what happened to McLaren in 2007's spy scandal - when the team were thrown out of the constructors' championship and fined $100m (then £49.2m) - Renault do appear to have got off lightly.

But governing body the FIA has obviously concluded that it would have been wrong to punish Renault for something that it seems it knew nothing about, even if one has to question the culture of a team in which this sort of shocking event could be considered.

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Boy, do we have a treat for you in the latest edition of our classic grand prix series.

As this year's Singapore Grand Prix is only the second running of the race, we could hardly follow our usual approach of picking five of the best events from the past history of the race.

So for this one we have decided to add to the list selected classic races from venues that no longer feature on the Formula 1 calendar.

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Flavio Briatore's departure from his position as the boss of the Renault team in the wake of the Singapore race-fixing scandal robs Formula 1 of one of its most flamboyant and controversial characters.

The 59-year-old Italian, who has cultivated an image as a jet-setting playboy businessman, left his position as team principal after Renault decided not to contest charges that they had asked their driver Nelson Piquet Jr to deliberately crash in last year's Singapore Grand Prix to aid team-mate Fernando Alonso's chances of winning the race.

The allegation has rocked F1 to the core, the latest damaging episode for a sport that has recently suffered a number of cases that have brought its integrity into question.

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Jenson Button might have seen his team-mate Rubens Barrichello chip another two points out of his championship lead at the Italian Grand Prix but the Englishman was not feigning his delight in the post-race interviews.

Monza was a breakthrough race for Button. Such was the lead that he built up in winning six of the season's first seven races that it would be wrong to say his title challenge was ever really going off the rails, but his second place behind Barrichello on Sunday certainly appeared to be something of a new beginning.

The result ended a slump that had seen Button fail to finish on the podium for five consecutive races. And while some of that stuttering was certainly down to the Brawn car, there was no doubt that its driver seemed to have gone off the boil as well.

Italy was Brawn's first one-two since Monaco in May, but Barrichello won as recently as the European Grand Prix in late August, a race Button finished down in seventh place after a very messy weekend. Similarly, while neither Brawn driver scored well in Belgium two weeks ago, Barrichello qualified fourth while his team-mate was 10 places further back on the grid.

That result in Belgium appears to have been a bit of a watershed for Button. He had appeared a man struggling to cope under pressure at Spa, but observers say he has been almost like a different person in Italy.

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The 1988 Italian Grand Prix is our selection for the latest edition of BBC Sport's series of classic Formula 1 races.

It fulfils the description in almost every way. It was a momentous event historically - it was the one race McLaren failed to win in the most successful season in their history - and it had last-minute drama when race leader Ayrton Senna was taken out by a backmarker.

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After the embarrassment of riches in the Belgian edition of our classic grands prix series, the selection for Italy follows in the same vein.

Monza has a grand prix history stretching back to 1922, so it is hardly surprising that there have been some cracking races at the atmospheric old autodrome in the city's Royal Park. But even allowing for the unfortunate gaps in the BBC archive, we have some tasty morsels for you to enjoy.

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