1. In fifteen of the last nineteen seasons - including each of the last three - the winner of the opening race of the season has gone on to win the Drivers Championship. Jenson Button is now the favourite and the best price available on him is 3/1 with Boylesports.
2. The winning team at the first Grand Prix of the season have won the Constructors Championship in seven of the last nine years. Brawn GP are still available at 11/5 with Boylesports but Ferrari, who broke this trend last season to triumph, are still favourites. The best price available on the Scuderia is 11/8 with Ladbrokes.
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali believes drivers should not be immune from F1’s cost cuts.
In an interview with Autosprint, Domenicali said: “I think in the following months there will be a major revolution, also with the drivers, as far as retainers are concerned.
“Let’s be clear: at a moment when the teams, whether big or small, must reduce costs in a significant way, one could feel like saying you need an ace (driver) to make the difference.
“However, I feel in the current climate the big teams won’t have the ability any more to think of offering certain amounts of money that some drivers get. So discussions can be held on this issue.”
Spanish fans desperate for Alonso to leave Renault
In a poll conducted by Spain’s Sport newspaper, an overwhelming 74% of F1 fans voted in favour of Fernando Alonso moving to Ferrari.
We have no doubt that Alonso will end up wearing the red overalls of the Scuderia, but not for another couple of seasons. If you want to make money out of Alonso, bet on him moving to Ferrari in 2011, by which time Kimi Raikkonen or Felipe Massa (possibly both) will no longer have a seat.
In other Renault-related news, Flavio Briatore has announced that he will quit F1 in two years, presumably so he can dedicate more time to his charming WAG. [Guardian]
This weekend, Rubens Barrichello won Felipe Massa’s International Challenge of Go-Kart Champions - but it seems unlikely that the win in the charity event will have any outcome on Rubinho’s future in F1, even though he beat the man who wants his Honda seat, Lucas di Grassi, as well as the great Michael Schumacher.
Schumi, who won last year’s event, could only manage eighth, a result that will please Rubens immensely. In the last few weeks, it has become clear that Rubens has major issues with his former team-mate.
Ferrari must be concerned about Barrichello’s threat to spill the beans about his career with them - and there’s no doubt that an explosive, revelatory book is in the works. Rubens played the obedient No.2 to perfection during his six seasons as Schumi’s wing-man, but today it’s a different story: Rubens has ‘gone rogue’.
Barrichello has already claimed that Ferrari threatened to “take a closer look” at his contract during the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when he famously followed team orders to let Schumi overtake him.
“For me it was pretty clear. Take my foot off the pedal or get fired,” Rubens claimed this week.
Enjoy this extended footage from the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix.
This was the second race of the season, and only the second GP of Lewis Hamilton’s F1 career. But was he overawed by Felpe Massa? Hell no. Great driving by the rookie to keep the Brazilian at bay.
For the record, Lewis finished second, behind then-teammate Fernando Alonso, with Massa in fifth.
The latest KERS news, with supermodel Miranda Kerr
KERS is dull, Miranda Kerr is not
Ferrari have yet to test KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) on a real circuit. Everyone thought that the Scuderia had already begun circuit trials of the new energy recovery system at Barcelona last week, when its F2008K development car showed off a new bump on the top of its right sidepod.
But Auto Motor und Sport claims that the sidepod bump contained nothing more than ballast and a cooling mechanism for KERS. The German magazine also predicts that Ferrari will finally test KERS for real at Jerez next month.
Valentino Rossi thinks he could get to the top in F1. The MotoGP world champion made the claim after testing for Ferrari at Mugello on Thursday.
Rossi has tested in a Ferrari before, and proved his four-wheeled prowess by finishing second at the Rally of Monza - an event he has won before - last week.
The Italian completed 30 laps of Mugello in an F2008, recording a fastest time of 1:22.5 before bad weather curtailed the session. That’s almost two seconds off the pace of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.
“The times we did in Fiorano, here and in Valencia have been analysed and with some good hard work and lots of effort I could become a good Formula One driver,” said Rossi.
“It’s difficult to say whether or not I would win, but the potential is definitely there.”
Ex-world champion Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that he lacked motivation at times during the 2008 season. We knew it!
After winning two of the first four races, Kimi faded away. He never got to grips with his Ferrari and often gave off the air of a man who had fallen out of love with F1.
In an interview with Finnish broadcaster MTV3, Kimi admitted:
“That is the way it is; if you know you are fighting only for third place then you maybe don’t have the same speed for the whole race as normal.
“If you have no chance to overtake or improve your position, it is definitely not very interesting. When you are driving for the title, naturally things are completely different.”
Is Kimi entitled to take such a negative view, or is he merely being realistic? Given that Ferrari pay him several million pounds every year to drive their car, you might think they were entitled to expect Raikkonen to drive as fast as possible, all of the time.
