New Jersey Grand Prix for 2013 set to be announced

Formula 1 will hold a Grand Prix in New Jersey in 2013, West New York mayor Felix Roque has claimed.

The United States will feature on the Formula 1 calendar for the first time since 2007 with next year's race in Austin, Texas.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie could announce the deal at a press conference scheduled for Tuesday.
Roque said: "It's incredible. This is going to be an economic boom for this whole region."

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They compare it to Spa but it will have the feel of Monaco

West New York attorney Joe DeMarco

It has been claimed that the race will take place on a four-lane motorway that runs alongside the Hudson River in Weehawken, West New York.
"It will provide a very challenging course," West New York attorney Joe DeMarco said.
"They compare it to Spa in Belgium but it will have the feel of Monaco."
Lewis Hamilton won the last US Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2007.
The event's eight-year run there came to an end when F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone failed to agree new terms with the circuit's owners.
Ecclestone's plans to take a race to the New York area were first revealed when he began talks with representatives of Monticello Motor Club (MMC) in New York in 2009.
Austin-based promoters Full Throttle Productions overcame competition from MMC to stage a race at a purpose-built track with a deal through to 2021.
But, two years on, a deal has now been reached with a consortium of investors and city and state governments for a race to take place in New Jersey.

Schumacher upbeat ahead of home race

Michael Schumacher is hopeful that the promise shown by his Mercedes GP squad at Silverstone can be translated into a better performance next weekend, with the German preparing for his home event at the Nürburgring. The seven-time Champion says he has 'a good feeling' ahead of the race, admitting that a strong result here is vital.

Schumacher finished ninth at Silverstone after colliding with Kamui Kobayashi

"With two home races in a row, we are fortunate to be given an extra boost as we head to the Nürburgring next week for the German Grand Prix, just two weeks after Silverstone," Schumacher explained.
"This season has been a difficult one for performance predictions so far; however I can predict one thing for sure: the extra boost we are receiving will be transformed into extra motivation.
"We saw some improvements over the Silverstone weekend with our new exhaust system, along with improvements to how we work with the tyres, so we go to the next race weekend with a good feeling added to our fighting spirit. We definitely want to show our home crowds our best level of performance possible.
"It will be the first time that I race through the corner which is named after me (Turns 8 and 9), and obviously I would like to believe that this is not only making me proud, but also even faster."

We need to push for more, admits Brawn

Ross Brawn admits that Mercedes GP are yet to achieve a pace with which they can enjoy consistent runs at the front of the field, with the silver arrows having suffered a highly frustrating start to the season. Heading to Turkey, the Champion team of 2009 sit fifth in the championship and over two 1-2 finishes away from Red Bull Racing.

“The team and drivers have worked extremely hard in the short break before the European season begins to ensure that we continue to move forward,” the Team Principal began. “We have a fundamentally good car and we need to achieve its full potential in the races to come.

“The Chinese Grand Prix reminded everyone at the team what it is like to fight for a race. We didn't succeed on that occasion but it's a feeling that we would like to experience more often.

“When the car is working properly, we can be more competitive and the solutions we are bringing to Turkey will help us achieve this level more consistently.

“However, we also know that we need to push for more performance if we want to fight regularly at the front. The first three races have been a challenge but we have pulled together and will continue working hard to make progress.”

A closer look at the pace of the F1 cars post Melbourne

Over the winter we were told by teams and drivers that it was very hard to guess what the pecking order was simply from looking at testing.
With so many variables like the DRS wing, KERS and fuel loads, establishing a clear picture was difficult during the four official tests.
On top of that the McLaren car which turned up in Melbourne at the weekend was so utterly transformed, performance wise, from the one which stuttered through testing that it was unrecognisable.
This shows that the scope for rapid development with these new rules is significant, at least in the early stages of the season. So the gaps will change a lot in the next few races.

Most of the downforce on an F1 car is generated by the diffuser and with these being cut back from single to double diffusers this year, the pressure is on to get the exhaust gases blowing across them and to find every possible way to maximise the downforce of the car, efficiently, with not to much drag. Hence the exhaust arms race going on at the moment, which was started by Renault.
Red Bull has clearly got the most advanced car; Vettel was 17km/h faster through the high speed chicane at Turn 11 than Hamilton’s McLaren and more like 25km/h faster than the midfield teams.
The time sheets from the first Grand Prix of the season tell a partial picture, as not everyone was able to unlock the pace in their car; Ferrari and Mercedes in particular were not as fast as they expected to be in qualifying and at the other end of the grid, Lotus did not show the step closer to the established teams on Saturday they believed they had achieved.
Vettel was on pole by 8/10ths from Hamilton, with Alonso six tenths slower than the McLaren, Petrov three tenths behind. To me that indicates that the Renault is probably as fast as the Ferrari. Rosberg was a couple of tenths behind, with the Sauber there too. Williams didn’t show what they can do in qualifying or the race, really. It was a messy weekend for them.
However looking through the fastest laps from the race points out a few more important indicators about performance. Jarno Trulli’s fastest lap was a 1m 32.550, one second slower than the Force India of Adrian Sutil. This is still not as close as Lotus thought they were, but still a big improvement on their qualifying pace and on where they were last year.
Meanwhile Virgin’s pace in the race highlights just how far off they are, D’Ambrosio’s fastest lap was two seconds slower than Trulli’s. They are adrift at the back of the field, and judging from a comparison of the lap times that Liuzzi turned in his brief spell on the track, there is a danger that Hispania might actually be faster than Virgin, once it gets a chance to do some set up work, in Sepang.
Meanwhile at the front, Vettel and Hamilton were cruising on Sunday, Hamilton had a damaged floor and Vettel just maintained his pace to manage his tyres. He could have gone a lot faster if he needed to.
So the fastest race lap was the Ferrari of Felipe Massa, pushing very hard in the closing stages after a late pit stop for new tyres, Alonso was also quick after his third stop. Although these laps on fresher tyres do not tell the whole story, they do show that there is pace in this Ferrari. Its problem is high tyre wear.
Sergio Perez amazingly set the 7th fastest lap – fourth fastest team – on tyres that had done 16 laps and when the car was still heavy on fuel. The Sauber is quite a car it seems, capable of qualifying in the top ten and easy on its tyres, with plenty of raw pace. That’s a points scoring combination.
Toro Rosso were consistent; they qualified 10th and 12th and in the race set the 10th and 11th fastest laps.
However we must be careful, Melbourne often shows a picture which isn’t born out by the races that follow. KERS will be more important in Sepang and Shanghai and whatever system Red Bull has, it’s going to need some help from it at those two circuits. Tyre wise Sepang is smooth, like Melbourne, although with some higher speed corners, so the tyre wear will be slightly higher, but not back to Barcelona levels.

Massa samples new Saudi Arabian circuit

Last Thursday saw Ferrari’s Felipe Massa travel to Saudi Arabia in order to try out a brand-new race track, the Reem International Circuit close to capital city Riyadh.

The event, organised by Ferrari sponsor and Marlboro parent company Phillip Morris International, involved the Brazilian driving around 40 guests at the track in a Ferrari F430 challenge. Also present was Team Principal Stefano Domenicali, watching the action from the pit wall.

Team Principal Stefano Domenicali also attended

“It’s always nice to visit somewhere new and I’m just sorry I can’t spend more time here,” said Massa, who replaced team-mate Fernando Alonso, with the Spaniard having been described as ‘under the weather’ by the Italian team.

“The track is very interesting and fun, so I hope I get a further opportunity to drive here. At the moment, our work in the build up to the start of the World Championship is intense and so we have to get back to base soon.”

“Events and venues like these are important to boost motorsport in countries which have only recently embraced it,” Domenicali added. “For Ferrari, the Middle East is a very important market which we watch very carefully.”

Murray Walker: Artificial rain not Formula 1

Legendary Formula 1 commentator Murray Walker has expressed his opinions over Bernie Ecclestone’s idea to introduce fake rain in a bid to spice up races courtesy of an automated sprinkler system, with the 87-year-old dubbing the idea as unnatural and not in the nature of the sport.

“I’m an old-fashioned traditionalist,” Birmingham-born Walker explained on BBC Radio 5 live’s season preview podcast. “I yearn for the days when the driver got in the car and there was a clutch pedal, a gear lever and a steering wheel and he went for it.

‘I would far rather have the races with rain coming totally unexpectedly’ – Murray Walker

“Nowadays there are so many artificial aids, so many buttons for the driver to press - it’s going to be terribly confusing for them this year - but the thought of turning sprinklers on during a race…it’s so artificial and so contrived that it’s not going to be Formula 1 anymore.

“I would far rather have the races with the rain coming totally unexpectedly; when you go to Belgium and Spa, for instance, you can be sure that there’s going to be rain at some time during the meeting but you don’t know when it’s going to be. But I would hate to know that, at whatever race you are going to, there was going to be an artificially induced wet track.”

He added that such novelties would simply not be necessary as long as the audience is well-informed:

“You know as well as I do that there is no such thing as a dull Formula 1 race. There can be a processional Formula 1 race, but there’s always something dramatic and exciting if you know where to look. Formula 1 is a very complicated sport but there is always something dramatic going on.”

Williams' radical gearbox hard to copy

Sam Michael is confident Williams' innovative 2011 car will be hard for the British team's rivals to copy.
The Oxfordshire based team's technical director singled out only four innovations of note among the class of 2011: Renault and Red Bull's exhaust systems, the Toro Rosso double-floor, and Williams' ultra compact and low gearbox.
He is quoted by The Sun as saying the first three innovations will be quite easy to copy "whereas a gearbox is a completely different kettle of fish".
Australian Michael said all the teams have been closely studying each other's new cars, but "We have no idea where everyone is".
Following the launch of the FW33's new livery, a photograph of the newly painted car circulating at an unidentified circuit with Pastor Maldonado at the wheel was published by Brazil's Globo Esporte.

Di Montezemolo considering politics again

Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo has again sparked rumours that he may soon switch to a career in politics, with the 63-year-old having also been connected with such a move in the past.

“In Italy we need to rediscover the culture of consensus, to rediscover a sense of community, not always everyone against each other,” he is quoted as saying by Reuters.

“We need to carry out a series of fundamental reforms that are neither of the left or of the right, a reform of the state, a reform of tax laws and a pact for growth.

“Unfortunately many Italian politicians do not have a culture of competition - just take a look at the electoral law. If I, as a voter, cannot decide who to send to parliament because someone else (a political party leader) has to decide, that is the very opposite of competition.”

‘Indian GP reason for Karthikeyan F1 return’

This year’s inaugural Indian Grand Prix is playing a crucial role in the Formula 1 comeback of Narain Karthikeyan, according to principal sponsor and car manufacturer Tata, which is India’s largest company.

Karthikeyan is back in Formula 1 after a five-season absence

2011 sees Karthikeyan return to the sport for Hispania Racing after last being seen on the grid with Jordan six years ago, with Tata having backing having been in place since 2002.

“It has been a long association between Karthikeyan and Tata,” R. Ramakrishnan, Vice President for the commercial passenger business unit of Tata, explained to the IANS news agency.

“The New Delhi race was certainly one reason why we supported him. Besides this, we remain committed to motorsport activities as it helps tremendously in brand enhancement.”

Bahrain Unrest

MikeGascoyne

  

GP2 race has been cancelled in Bahrain. Big uncertainty about testing there next week. Hope our GP2 guys get home safely

Pirellis on course to demand two stops

Pirelli’s tyres are on course to demand drivers make two stops on a regular basis in races during the forthcoming season, according to the Italian firm’s motorsport director Paul Hembrey.
Formula 1’s new sole tyre supplier has deliberately developed tyres that will be more challenging for drivers to manage during the course of races in 2011 in a bid to add to the spectacle, and Pirelli has been pleased with the performance of its new rubber so far.
After the conclusion of the second pre-season test in Jerez over the weekend, Hembrey says the data Pirelli has managed to collect from the performance of the tyres over longer runs shows that in most circumstances drivers won’t be able to make one set of tyres last almost an entire race distance.
“From what we learned from those [teams’ long runs] so far, we believe that we’re still on course to see two pit stops per race, which obviously might be one stop on some circuits and three stops on others, depending on the individual cars and track characteristics.
“A number of drivers have mentioned to me that our tyres are going to be great fun to race with, which is exactly what we are aiming for.”
With a number of teams having continued to encounter teething problems with their 2011 cars, Hembrey says the relative lack of mileage for some teams also didn’t help Pirelli’s data-gathering process – although he has nonetheless been pleased with the reliability of its tyres.
“We’ve accumulated a huge amount of data, which we will now be analysing closely before the next test in just a few day’s time in Barcelona,” he added.
“Unfortunately there were several red flags over the four days here due to cars going off and other non-tyre related incidents, which meant that there were quite a few teams that did not manage to complete the full programmes that they anticipated.
“That affected us to some extent too but from our general point of view, we enjoyed perfect reliability once more and saw some longer runs than we had seen previously at Valencia.”

Ecclestone concerned about strife in Bahrain

Bernie Ecclestone on Tuesday refused to say the 2011 season opener in Bahrain next month will not be called off due to strife in the island Kingdom.
Inspired by recent anti-government revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, thousands of pro-democracy protesters are clashing with riot police armed with tear gas and batons, and three people have reportedly already been killed.
The vice president of Bahrain Center for Human Rights was quoted on Tuesday as warning that the Grand Prix next month "is not going to be peaceful".
Asked if the event might have to be called off, F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone said: "I have no idea. It's hard to establish exactly what is going in."
The Briton said he has been trying to contact Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman ibn Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa.
"He is a bit busy, as you can imagine, so I don't know yet exactly what is going on," Ecclestone told the Daily Telegraph.
"The danger is obvious isn't it? If these people wanted to make a fuss and get worldwide recognition it would be bloody easy, wouldn't it? You start making a problem on the start grid in Bahrain and it would get worldwide coverage," he added.
"As I say, I'm speaking with the Crown Prince later on. We're watching events closely. We'll rely on what they think the right thing to do is," said Ecclestone.
Bahrain's Sakhir circuit is scheduled to host a round of the GP2 Asia series this weekend, before the F1 circus arrives for its season opener and a pre-race test.

Citroen says Raikkonen free to make F1 return

Kimi Raikkonen can pull out of the 2011 world rally championship to return to F1 if he wants to.
That is the claim of Citroen's rally chief Olivier Quesnel, amid reports the 2007 world champion is now contractually committed to rallying for this season.
The Finn and his management have not yet responded to multiple attempts by the Formula One media to confirm rumours that Raikkonen, 31, is a candidate to replace the injured Robert Kubica at Renault this year.
After making his full-time world rally debut with Citroen last year, the former McLaren and Ferrari driver has announced he will drive a Citroen DS3 under the Ice 1 entry in 2011.
"If he wants to leave, I couldn't say anything because he is a client," Quesnel told RMC Sport.
"He has rented a car from us and drives with his own sponsors," added the Citroen boss.
"I suppose there may be considerable pressure from Bernie Ecclestone, the FIA and the whole world of F1 who want to see him come back because he is still an emblematic driver for the sport."
However, Quesnel indicated that he doesn't think Raikkonen is too keen to go back to F1.
"If he is taking phone calls, they would have to be very convincing to get him back there," he said.

Pirelli to organise Option markings for Bahrain

Formula 1 tyre supplier Pirelli is yet to confirm how it will distinguish the two available tyre types during Grand Prix weekends this season, but insists that a system will be in place for the opening race in mid-March.

Since 2007 and with four dry tyre compounds available, drivers have been obliged to use the two on offer per race weekend - both the harder (Prime) and Option (softer) – over the course of a race distance.

As seen in recent seasons, former supplier Bridgestone placed a green stripe on the Option compound in order for quick recognition during Grands Prix. However, Pirelli is yet to decide its final means of identification.

“There is no news yet but it will be ready for the Bahrain Grand Prix,” a company spokesperson explained to GPUpdate.net on Wednesday morning.

 

Heidfeld and Liuzzi in frame for Renault drive

With Robert Kubica almost certain to miss the majority of, if not all, of the 2011 season following his Italian rally accident on Sunday morning, a number of names are now being linked to the vacant Lotus Renault GP seat alongside Vitaly Petrov.

Although all thoughts continue to remain with the injured Pole, who requires at least another two operations following initial seven-hour surgery on Sunday, a selection of drivers are already being named as possible replacements – not least 2007 World Champion and current World Rally driver Kimi Räikkönen.

With Kubica out of action, the search is now on for a substitute

However, Team Principal Eric Boullier has now also mentioned former Sauber and Force India racers Nick Heidfeld and Vitantonio Liuzzi as candidates.

“We spent about a quarter of an hour with Robert (in hospital),” Boullier explained to IVG.it. “We joked and were in good spirits. Of course, he immediately wanted to know the team’s schedule for this season.

“We are searching for a Kubica replacement. The possible names are (reserve driver) Senna, Liuzzi and Heidfeld. The team is close to Robert, though, and we are waiting with open arms, hoping he can return by the end of the season.”

FIA Academy names 12 winning drivers

A total of twelve drivers have been handed places for this year’s inaugural FIA Institute Young Driver Excellence Academy, with the entire scheme being organised and run by the motorsport governing body plus Alexander Wurz and Robert Reid.

Selected from a variety of motorsport formulae, the 12 drivers are:

- Kevin Abbring, 21, Netherlands
- Paul-Loup Chatin, 19, France
- Albert Costa, 20, Spain
- Alon Day, 19, Israel
- Philipp Eng, 20, Austria
- Robin Frijns, 19, Netherlands
- Timmy Hansen, 18, Sweden
- Egon Kaur, (23, Estonia
- Andreas Mikkelsen, 21, Norway
- Alexander Rossi, 19, USA
- Richie Stanaway, 19, New Zealand
- Stoffel Vandoorne, 18, Belgium

All 12 men will now be coached in the car by ex Formula 1 pilot Wurz and out of the car by Reid, former World Rally Champion co-driver of the late Richard Burns. The first Academy workshop will be staged in Edinburgh on Saturday 26 February.

Glock adopts realistic approach

Timo Glock says Virgin has to remain realistic about how much of a relative step forward it can make with its second Formula 1 car – but thinks it can set its sights on catching the teams at the back of the midfield pack.
Virgin and fellow 2010 new teams Lotus and Hispania were cut adrift at the back of the field in normal conditions last season but the former two teams in particular are eyeing significant progress in their second campaigns.
Lotus has been particularly bullish about its prospects and has spoken about challenging the likes of Williams and Renault by the end of the year.
Asked at the launch of the new Virgin challenger on Monday if he was concerned that the ambitious Lotus outfit might pull away in 2011, Glock argued that the large gap both teams found themselves trailing the top squads by last year would be too large to bridge over one winter – therefore it was wise to set more achievable targets.
“It’s difficult to say, I just try to be realistic,” he told reporters on Monday.
“We were three to four seconds off the pace – sometimes even more – [last year] same with Lotus and I don’t think it’s just possible to catch up four seconds over the winter time or three [seconds].
“Realistically for us I think we should be two seconds behind the top teams, [which] would be great, maybe two and a half, and then close to the midfield teams – that’s the target.
“If Lotus is pulling away then they did a fantastic job over the winter. I think they’ve got different possibilities than us, different budget than us and a lot of experienced people from Toyota.
“So let’s see. I think our car looks quite a step forward, so I hope we are in front of Lotus at the end of the tests and the end of the year.”
None of last year’s newcomers managed to get near a points finish but Glock wants to see Virgin moving up on some of the grid’s more established teams with its new MVR-02.
However, after its debut campaign was beset by reliability problems, Glock admits that above all else he just wants to complete more mileage on a consistent basis from the car's first test next week onwards.
“[An] Acceptable level would be very close to teams like Sauber, Toro Rosso, maybe Force India,” the German driver said.
“But being strong at the tests already, not in terms of performance, but in terms of making…. I just want to drive 800ks a day and I want to fall to bed and say ‘hey, I did enough today’ and it was not that the car broke down again.
“That’s what we have to make sure, that at the first test we have to hit the track and we have to drive, drive, drive and see where the bad points are on the car to already sort this out before the first race, because if it comes to the first race and you have a list of problems [that] you have and you cant sort it out you are already in trouble and you start on the back foot.”
Speculation at various stages of 2010 suggested Glock may have been seeking to leave Virgin and rejoin a more established team as his new employer struggled at the back of the field.
The former Toyota man admits there were various times when he called into his question his bold decision to move to the start-up operation, but says he never expected its first year to be easy and first 12 months proved to be a “character-building” experience.
“To be honest I had some thoughts about ‘bloody hell, what am I doing here’ because fighting the whole weekend and then you go into the race and after 10 laps you got a radio call ‘Timo, you have to come back to the pits’…it was just quite tough, quite hard,” Glock confessed.
“As well like races in Korea where we sorted out everything, we were quick, I was quick, in the wet conditions and [we were] just unlucky [to be] taken out by Sebastien Buemi.
“But that’s how racing is and that’s how a first year of a complete[ly] new F1 team is.
“It was a good experience for me, a good experience for the team, and character building and now we should be on a way to be in a better position.”

Why racers take risks and why we love them for it

‘Did you never think of stopping Robert (Kubica) from taking part in rallies?’ asked L’Equipe newspaper to Renault team boss Eric Boullier today.
“Not for one second,” replied Boullier, “He could just as easily have been knocked over by a bus. Robert is a racer, he loves cars and he lives for nothing but racing. Competing is his essence. At 14 he slept in a kart factory because he loved racing. From the outset it was agreed among us that Robert would do rallies as well as F1. It was vital for him. His strength comes from that passion. I never thought about the risk. Motor sport is dangerous, but he loves it.”

Photo: Darren Heath

I have found the reaction to Robert Kubica’s accident fascinating and enlightening. There is the team principal above, who understood him and attempts here to justify the decision to let him compete elsewhere, then the rival team bosses who are both appalled by the injury and surprised by Renault’s relaxed attitude to Kubica’s extra curricular activities. There are the fans and media, some of whom castigate him for taking unnecessary risks so close to the start of the season and others who simply feel terribly sorry for him and his plight.To recap, the latest bulletins from the doctors suggest a horrendous injury to his right arm which caused him to lose a lot of blood and despite some heroics by surgeons, the experts in the field to whom I’ve spoken suggest he may never regain fine motor function in that hand and if so his F1 career is unlikely to continue. Of course there are always miracle comebacks, but that is what will be required here for him to race an F1 car again. Renault disagree and say the doctors are exaggerating and that he will recover within a year.
Kubica was injured in a rally car, when a pole supporting an armco barrier, appears to have pierced the floor of the Skoda he was driving and caused the injury. A freak accident, like the one Frank Williams suffered on the road. A few years ago Kubica walked away from an accident in Montreal which was many times worse in terms of impact energy, but F1 cars are built much more strongly than rally cars.
So why did he do it? Why did he take the risk of losing everything just to satisfy some urge to drive fast? And will this put an end to drivers doing anything but the most safe hobbies in future?
I grew up with a father who was a racing driver. He raced for Team Lotus in the 1960s. If you’ve not lived with it, it’s hard to explain the ‘daredevil gene’ racers have, which forces them to race. It’s a restlessness, a need to challenge oneself. At the margin it’s almost a kind of rage.
I don’t have it, I recognised that early on, but throughout 22 years working in F1 I’ve seen it countless times in the eyes of the racers I’ve encountered. Why else did Valentino Rossi and Kimi Raikkonen do rallies while holding down major roles with leading teams? Why did Jim Clark or Stirling Moss drive every kind of car they could get their hands on?
Juan Manuel Fangio once said, “There are those who keep out of mischief, and there are the adventurers. We racing drivers are adventurers; the more difficult something is, the greater the attraction that comes from it.”
This is the best quote I’ve ever come across to explain why racers race and it also why we love them for it. Nowadays F1 cars are still challenging to drive on the limit, but they are so safe that drivers have become quite matter of fact about the risk in their job.
1970s F1 driver Patrick Depailler used to enjoy hang gliding in his spare time. He had a bad accident and was still recovering from it when he was killed in F1 testing in 1980. No-one would allow an F1 driver today to go hang gliding, but the question is, in this age of ultra professionalism, should drivers be forced to avoid all dangerous sports in their spare time? I think they might after this and a little bit more of that racer spirit will be lost.
This looked set to be a breakthrough year for Renault after two years of struggle. Team owner Gerard Lopez said last summer that he wanted to build the team around Kubica, so should Renault have stopped him taking part in the meaningless rally in Italy which has now put the team’s whole season in jeopardy? Who is going to score 150 plus points for them?
Other team principals I’ve spoken to today say that their drivers would not be able to take part in such activities. Insurance is a big factor. To insure an F1 driver for F1 driving is actually quite cheap now, because the cars are so safe. A team will typically insure a driver against being unavailable to them. So if a driver is unavailable, the insurance company will pay out for his replacement. They may also pay out for his salary.
The driver, on the other hand, will typically insure himself against injury and loss of earnings. The premiums rise significantly the more they take part in dangerous side sports like rallying. Kubica’s manager Daniel Morrelli is a very precise, careful individual and he will no doubt have taken care to ensure that his client was correctly insured.
Bruno Senna is reserve driver and if he has brought money to the team, as has been suggested, that may come with a clause which gives him the drive da facto. If not, Renault may look to someone like Nico Hulkenberg, who will have a clause in his Force India reserve driver contract releasing him if a race seat comes up elsewhere. That is standard. It may be Nick Heidfeld who gets yet another chance.
But one thing’s for sure, Renault will have to look to someone else to drive for them this year.

By James Allen

Raikkonen to replace injured Kubica?

Kimi Raikkonen is top of Lotus Renault's list to replace the injured Robert Kubica following his crash at a rally event on Sunday morning.

Kimi Raikkonen relaxing before Rally Finland in 2010. Photo by Red Bull GmbH and GEPA pictures GmbH.

Despite original fears that the 26 year-old might loose his right hand following the accident in Italy, surgeons have confirmed that he is expected to make a recovery but that he is not likely to return until the end of the year. This has left Renault with few options open to it to find a suitable replacement before the season kicks off in Bahrain on March 13th.
As the 2007 Formula One world champion, Raikkonen would seem to present the perfect choice in terms of previous success although he recently announced his plans for 2011 in the World Rally Championship. Last year, the Finn made his WRC debut with the Junior Citroen WRC team and now as team owner/driver - the same as Petter Solberg, and like Solberg, he has in place a contract with the French-based manufacturer to campaign the 2011 season with Citroen.
There are however, potential stumbling blocks over a possible deal with Raikkonen. A much publicised spat with the Renault management last year following reports the Finn was negotiating a drive for 2011 and also the salary demands he is likely to command. It was rumoured in his final year with Ferrari in 2009, the ex-world champion was in receipt of little less than £25m and while his absence from the sport will have devalued his stock slightly, the fact that his contract with Citroen may have to be bought - from their fiercest rival, that tally could possibly surpass the monumental mount he received 3 years ago.
Nick Heidfeld however, presents a safer investment option for the Enstone outfit. While unlikely to win races on a regular basis, he is a proven 'points generating' driver and the belief is that with all top line drivers unavailable for hire, if Renault's aim is to collect as many points as possible in place of the injured Kubica, Heidfeld could be given the nod.
While Bruno Senna was confirmed as the teams third and reserve driver at the recent R31 launch, it is understood that Lotus Renault team principal Eric Boullier is now in the search for a more established 'name' to fill the seat vacated by Kubica and that negotiations with Raikkonen have begun to try and buy him out of his contract for a reasonable price.

Cause of Buemi stoppage still unknown

Toro Rosso have not yet revealed why Sébastien Buemi’s car came to a half in the final 20 minutes of Valencia testing on Wednesday, with the Swiss driver having stopped his new STR6 just past the pit entrance on the Ricardo Tormo start/finish straight.

When contacted by GPUpdate.net on Wednesday afternoon, the team was unable to reveal the reason for the stoppage and its daily press release also failed to explain a cause.

Jaime Alguersuari remained in the hot seat for the morning

“This afternoon was my first time in the car and it felt good to be driving again after the winter break,” Buemi commented. “I ran for about three hours managing 46 laps, which is quite encouraging for a first day.

“It is going to be an interesting evening studying all the data, as so much is new to us and we also need to understand, as soon as possible, how the car behaves; so tomorrow will be a case of carrying on down this route.”