Your Random F1 News update for July 29

Glock's crash caused by faulty part: Toyota’s F1 team determined what happened to Timo Glock’s car that caused it to crash during the German Grand Prix back on July 20th. The team had said a part on the right rear suspension that was damaged during the British Grand Prix two weeks before was used again at the German Grand Prix. The team has now changed their inspection policy to make sure that this never happens again.

"Following Timo Glock's incident during the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, Toyota Motorsport initiated a thorough investigation," the team said in a statement. "This initially established that a rear toelink (trackrod) gave way causing Timo to lose control of the car, but confirmed that there were no exceptional circumstances before or during the incident in the German Grand Prix. Further investigation has established that damage sustained in the British Grand Prix two weeks earlier was the cause. During that race Timo suffered several incidents.

"As is normal practice, some parts from the British Grand Prix were carried over to Hockenheim, including most of the rear right suspension. Although the parts were subjected to the normal test and screening process following the Silverstone race and passed fit for use at Hockenheim, it has become apparent that it did not identify an issue which subsequently led to the incident at Hockenheim. As a result of this investigation, Toyota Motorsport has revised its inspection processes to include such cases and is extremely confident there will be no repeat."
Well, lets hope so. God knows we don’t need any more injuries caused by silly mistakes.

Toyota determine cause of Glock's crash [Autosport.com]

Renault boss says F1 needs makeover: Flavio Briatore says F1 needs a major overhaul to get the fans back love in with the sport. Briatore believes that Max Mosley’s sex scandal problems has damaged the sports reputation and have also hurt the teams along with the fans.
"His absence is felt as there's no project for F1. The teams feel abandoned," Briatore told Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper. "The Concorde agreement, the number of races, the costs, the spectacle, the imperative increase of revenues. Formula One needs to be re-designed. I feel that it should be down to the teams to decide, by electing in turns a director of operations. A guy who does things, not a PR person. On top of that, we need to decide with a 51% majority, not unanimously like now, otherwise we'll carry on being stuck."

"Nowadays [Bernie] Ecclestone takes 50% of all revenues,” he added. “But we are supposed to be able to reduce our costs by 50%. How? Starting from the engines. Making them more environment-friendly, accepting Mosley's challenge of reducing fuel consumption by 50% by 2015, while cutting the high costs of the engine themselves and also cutting the staff. The problem is that us, Renault, have stuck to the letter of the current regulations on frozen engines, and we've been buggered: others didn't do that and are far ahead, while we suffer. It's not fair."

Briatore says F1 needs an overhaul [Autosport.com]

Shocking

The FIA's introduction of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or KERS, is not going as smoothly as expected especially after a BMW mechanic received an electric shock from one during testing in Jerez, Spain earlier today, the mechanic only suffred an injury to his left arm.

The KERS system which is basically a new boost system that is powered by heat will be introduced to Formula 1 in the 2009 season,but there are still some bugs to work out though. Big bugs. The incident at Jerez isn't the only problem teams have had. Red Bull Racing last week had to evacuate part of their faclitiy after a battery test of the KERS system went horribly wrong. The teams are now very concerned about introducing the KERS system with all that issuses that have devleoped.

Toyota team boss John Howett spoke to autosport.com in Hockenheim about the issues: "I think all of these issues have been on the table from the beginning. So you have voltage issues, you have the battery issues; you have the cost of registering the batteries to transport them. People who use high-speed rotating flywheels have also got issues there.

"The perception of KERS is very simple, but the execution is incredibly difficult and the road car applications are completely different from a race car. Whereas the motor, the control unit, the battery, and the basic concept is similar, the actual sophistication and needs of a road car are completely different from what we are having to develop in Formula One. So there is a big difference"

Lets just hope that these problems get fixed before somebody becomes a roast duck.

BMW Mechanic Escapes KERS Scare [Autosport.com]

Kimi Raikkionen will not help up crying children

Kimi Raikkonen is very busy man people and he doesn't have time to sign your precious autographs or time console crying children hes just here to race, folks. Sure that may be cold, but then again hes called the iceman for a reason. He has a reputation to keep up.

He'll also shove photographers that get in his way:

Lewis Hamilton pulls it off at Silverstone

One of the most greatest things you can do in your Formula 1 career is have a victory in your home country. It only took Lewis Hamilton two years to accomplish that feat as he took victory Sunday in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in a difficult wet race winning by over a minute ahead second-place finisher Nick Heidfeld.

"This was the toughest race, but also one of the best ones I have ever driven," Hamilton said. "It was so extreme and slippery out there, very similar to the Japanese Grand Prix in Fuji last year. I had troubles with my visor and tried to clean it a couple of times. I thank my team for a great job; they did fantastic work and we always made the right decisions with the tires in the difficult conditions. When I came round the last time, I saw the crowd standing up and I prayed: 'Just finish, just finish.'

"It was a very emotional moment to win my home grand prix, and I want to dedicate this victory to my family. As everybody knows, I had some troubles over the past few weeks, and they have always been there for me and supported me."

For Nick Heifeld it was "close, but no cigar" once again. "It was a good race," Heidfeld said. "I am happy with second place because today it was the best I could achieve. Qualifying went well and in the race we did everything right. Obviously, it was crucial to make the right tire decisions. At the first stop we were wondering if we should stay with the used set of inters, but luckily we then decided on new tires. We were expecting a small shower, but when I drove down Hanger Straight and saw a black wall in front of me, I thought I should expect more than that!"

"The most difficult moments in the race were when cars were overtaking me who had been lapped but were just on better tires for the conditions at that time. There was so much water, and I couldn't see where it was lying. Once before Abbey I almost spun but just managed to keep the car on the track."

For Hamilton it had been a season of ups and downs. Amazing moments like wins at Australia and Monaco and disappointing moments like at Canada where ran into the back of Kimi Raikkonen on pit road.

Another feel good story was that Rubens Barrichello had a podium finish for the first time since left Ferrari back in 2005.

"It's a great feeling to be back on the podium today after such an exciting race where the weather conditions really helped us to get the best out of the car. The most important decision of the race for us was switching to the extreme wet tire when the heavy rain started to fall at half distance. I had a real moment at Club, going off at high speed and almost hitting the wall, and that made me realize that we needed to make a quick decision. After fitting the extreme wets, I was able to overtake the cars in front easily, which was a great feeling. Making such a crucial decision at a key time comes from experience and from the team having the confidence in me to make the call."

"I would like to say a big thank you to the team today -- to everyone back at the factory and also in Japan. Life is about learning from your experiences, and we have been through some tough times over the last couple of years. But I always had faith that there were good times ahead and I know there are plenty more to come."

Kimi Raikkonen, Heikki Kovalainen, Fernando Alonso, Jarno Trulli and Kazuki Nakajima rounded out the top 8 postions.

Meanwhile the battle for the world championship has tighten up even more as Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen are all tied for the points lead and Robert Kubica is only two points behind. The next race is the German Grand Prix in two weeks at Hockenheim.

Hamilton earns historic victory in British GP [Motorsport.com]

F1 Preview: British Grand Prix

The F1 circus heads off to the former World War II airfield and now racing circut and perhaps the world's busiest helipad this weekend at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. Felipe Massa had brillaint drive in the French Grand Prix and took the win and the points lead and now Massa hopes to continue his momentum at Silverstone. Meanwhile his teammate Kimi Raikkonen hopes some luck will get hims back into victory lane. Raikkonen had the strong car all day until his exhaust pipe came off, costing him the power necessary to keep himself in front of Massa.

Defending polesitter Lewis Hamilton also looks to get himself back on track after back to back pityful results at Canada and France. A win at home would be big for young Lewis. And the BMW boys will also be looking at getting back on top of the podium as well. The race will air at 1 pm eastern, Sunday on FOX.

Alonso's future? Wait until September...

Fernando is all mum about his f1 future, at least until after the Italian Grand Prix in September, when he will announce which car he will drive for the 2009 season.

"I think (I will decide) after the summer when all this period of races, then the break and then Belgium and Monza are over," said Alonso.

"They are very important races for us to try to get this fourth position in the constructors' championship. And after that will be time to think about what the possibilities are for next year."

"We need to work as soon as possible on next year's car, but this year's position at the end of the championship is very important for the team," he said. "It's not the same if you finish seventh or you finish fourth, which is the area that Renault is moving towards now.

"We are seventh in the constructors', but we know that our target is to finish fourth and we can do it. So that will make a big change in the budget and everything for next year, so we need to push in two parallel projects, the R28 and the R29, as hard as we can I think."

If Renault fail to get into the top three in the constructors championship, Alonso has the option of leaving the team at end of the year.

The most likely place where Alonso will go is to Ferrari where he may take over Felipe Massa's seat. But with Massa picking up the pace and some wins, not to mention the lead in the drivers championship it looks very unlikely that Alonso will be in a Ferrari. But two other teams are looking at getting Alonso's services: Honda, where there motto is "We always work towards next year" and Red Bull Racing. Both have drivers that are at the twilight of thier carrers and both could use a guy like Alonso to help get thier teams on track.

Alonso to decide future after summer [Autosport.com]

British GP to Donington Park in 2010

The FIA announced that the British Grand Prix will move to circuit at Donington Park from 2010 onward. The move comes at no surprise as the circut at Silverstone has been having a hard time keeping thier date on the F1 calendar secured. This will also be the first British Grand Prix not held at Silverstone since 1986 when Brands Hatch hosted thier final F1 race to date.

"After many years of patient but fruitless negotiation with the BRDC, we are delighted that Bernie has nevertheless been able to ensure that the British Grand Prix will keep its place on the Formula One World Championship calendar," FIA President Max Mosley said. "We understand that the development programme planned for Donington will achieve the very high standards we and FOM expect from a modern F1 circuit. Finally, British Formula One fans will get the Grand Prix venue they deserve."

"Finally the uncertainty is over. A contract has been signed with Donington Park and the future of the British Grand Prix is now secure," F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone added. "We wanted a world class venue for Formula One in Britain, something that the teams and British F1 fans could be proud of. The major development plans for Donington will give us exactly that. A venue that will put British motor sport back on the map.

"I am sorry that we could not have helped Silverstone to raise the money to carry out the circuit improvements and run Formula One. I believe that the government should have supported them which would have cost probably less than .002% of the government's commitment for the Olympic Games."

Silverstone loses British GP to Donington [Autosport.com]

Stewart to F1 drivers: Get a coach

Jackie Stewart thinks that F1 drivers need better training before getting behind the wheel of an F1 car, mainly through driving coaches.

"One of the weaknesses we have in F1 is the lack of training we have," Stewart said. "This is the only sport that I can think of that doesn't have coaching - at Wimbledon just now, coaches are coming out of their ears. And for sure it makes a difference. You have football coaches, you have rugby coaches, you have cricket coaches, and you have golf coaches.

"Tiger Woods wouldn't walk 10 metres without his coach, in terms of how that swing has to be repeatedly put into his head – is it too fast, too slow, the wrong muscular movement? Yet racing drivers claim they don't need any help at all."

"And when you suggest that they might benefit from it, there is a resistance. I don't understand that. They seem to think once you get into that zone that they race above it and don't need it – and they also wonder how is it going to make a difference?"

Stewart's comments were drawn from comments that F1 driver Lewis Hamilton made to the English Newspaper The Daily Mail.

"I'm in a unique position," said Hamilton. "Nobody has felt exactly the same things as I've felt. The only person I really take advice from is my Dad (Anthony). He's great. He says the right things. He's guided me the whole way through my career. So if I have any questions, I ask him."

Like on how to handle a expensive and borrowed Porsche on local streets.

"I don't doubt his motives. And I'm old enough to know whether to take his advice and also when to make my own decisions."

Like on whether to obey that red light at the end of pit lane or not.

"Whenever I speak to Damon or Jackie I do take what they say on board, but I'm not going to go searching them out and ask how I can be world champion. I want to do it on my own. I got to where I am on my own, with my family."

Good luck on that strategy, Lewis.

Stewart believes that accidents, like the one Hamilton and Nico Rosberg had in the Canadian Grand Prix earlier this year, could have been prevented.

"I think one of the biggest and most important elements is communication, and I don't think there is enough communication going on," he explained. "For example, the accident in Montreal – how did that happen? That happened because there was so much distraction going on, so much interference in the drivers' young heads, that they didn't hear the message: 'the pitlane is closed, the red light is on'.

"Here was Lewis, with nearly a nine-second advantage, and Nico with a very competitive car was up for a very good performance and possibly a podium, when the safety car comes out. It doesn't matter who you are, you are going to be upset and annoyed, and does it affect your head? Yes.

"They come in (to the pits), and they need to be talked down mentally. And that is almost a psychiatrist's job because that is where the coach could have come in, because the man who talks to him (the driver) should be the man who specializes in good, clear communication. He should know when to put the emphasis on a certain word – just like an air traffic controller.

"He will have had almost a lap to be talked down, to have his head clean, for when he comes in. There has to be the right choice of words, not unnecessary words spoken because that causes fog. So don't say anything you don't need to say.

"You have to bring the guys head down so when he accelerates out you say: "By the way the red light is on. The red light is on. Repeat. Do you understand?

"You say that while he is still in the pits. The blame that Lewis got and blame Nico got was all on their shoulders. That was wrong. Because the team should have actually ensured that they were clear, there was no big rush. The pitlane is closed, the cars are stopped. Each had the 'oh shit' factor. He looked up, and bang. They hadn't been properly prepared mentally to restart the race."

Stewart also beleives the teams should get into act of hiring coaches.

"I think it needs to come from the teams. At the end of the day they are the employer because they have so much more to lose than the drivers.

"Nowadays the safety factor is so big that there are not many penalties for drivers, but there are mammoth penalties for teams. If we in Williams do not finish races, the cost to Frank, the team and the sponsor not being as well pleased as they might be is very large. The leadership in this must come from the teams.

"I am a big supporter of Lewis although I have been quite critical. In 36 to 48 months is going to think back, why didn't I think about that? Why did I not do that? "

Stewart urges F1 to embrace driver coaches [Autosport.com]

The Batmobile lost a wheel...

The Toyota F1 team announced that they will team up with Warner Brothers to promote the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, at the British Grand Prix. Both Toyota drivers and cars will be decked out with artwork from the movie. But to be honest folks, I don't think Batman would be caught dead behind the wheel of say, a Toyota Camry. He's too badass to be a Toyota driver. The Batmobile and Bat-Pod will also be at Silverstone for the race weekend.

In Toyota related news, Timo Glock, who drives for the Toyota F1 team, will get a chance to get behind the wheel of a Toyota GT-One sports car, the same car the that took pole for the 1999 24 hours of Le Mans, at Old Time Grand Prix event at the Nurburgring circuit in Germany on August 9th.

Maybe Batman would like to drive one of those, instead.

Toyota join forces with Batman [Autosport.com]

Glock to drive Toyota GT-One [Autosport.com]

Coulthard not thinking about retirement

David Coulthard is not thinking about retirement from Formula 1. The oldest driver in Formula 1, at the age of 37, will be racing in his 14th British Grand Prix this weekend, but it is unsure if this will be the last time he races at Silverstone.

"We're all different, and I'm quite a realist," said Coulthard. "When something has happened, or a decision has been taken or whatever it happens to be, it's not something I dwell on, I just get on with the next thing. It's just one of those things. When that moment comes, it's the journey of life. You just move on to the next thing.'

"I'm currently a grand prix driver, I have been for many seasons, and I'm sitting here still as a grand prix driver because I still enjoy it, and I get a buzz from it, and clearly I deliver a value enough for the team to commit to me for the last few years."

"There will come a point, naturally, where that's not going to continue and... boo hoo, you know? There are a lot of worse things that can happen to you. You just move on to the next challenge."

Coulthard who drives for the Red Bull team has drawn the anger of fans and competitors for being old and in the way, but had a great run in Canada finishing on the podium. And there is now speculation that Coulthard will be replaced by the young German Sebastian Vettel in 2009.

Coulthard realistic about F1 future [Autosport.com]

Ecclestone warned Mosley about plot against him

A report in The London Times today said that FIA head Max Mosley was warned by F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone about the plot against him two months before the whole sex scandal started. Drew Attew, an consultant who had worked for both Ecclestone and Mosley in the past, was tipped off about the plot earlier in the year.

"I received a call from a friend in January this year," Attew told The London Times. "We had a meeting and I was told there was an open budget to effectively go out and source material that would bring Max to his knees, remove him from office, and discredit him publicly."

"The person contacted me because they knew of my relationship with Bernie, but they didn't know of my relationship with Max. The reason they contacted me was to find out whether I had any loyalty to Max, and whether I knew anything of value. I asked 'are you after Max, the FIA, or Bernie?' They came back a little while later and said they weren't going to pursue it for the time being."

Attew then warned Ecclestone about the plot, who then told Mosley about it.

"I sat down with Bernie and told him what I'd heard," said Attew. "Bernie then told Max, I know this because Max later confirmed it to me. I assumed the warning would be taken seriously. It was clear that Max disregarded the advice and failed to realise his vulnerability. The issue for me was his total disregard for genuine advice from individuals that he knew had his best interests at heart. I asked Bernie if there was anything anyone was going to find out about Max and he said 'you're not going to find anything because there's nothing there, he's Mr Boring in that sense'. Mosley had kept this a good secret."

Attew also believes that Mosley should had come forward about this incdient and shake off any indication that Ecclestone was involved in the plot.

"I hear people suggesting Bernie was behind this, but that's ridiculous," he added. "From the very first indication, Bernie and I, with Max's knowledge, have tried to find out who was the source. When we saw what was in the News of the World, Bernie was as flabbergasted as I was."

Ecclestone had warned Mosley about plot [Autosport.com]

Tire warmers to stay in F1 for one more year

The FIA have decided to keep tire warmers in Formula 1 for one more year. The original plan was for tire warmers to be banned after the 2008 season, but with slick tires being introduced next year the FIA decided to change their mind and give help the teams cut costs and be able to race competitively and calm fears about the amount of crashes happening on cold tires. Though Bridgestone, which supplies the F1 teams with tires, has opposed a keeping tire warmers saying that the rubber should be strong enough to not have so many crashes.

One option that has been suggested to substitute tire warmers is that of introducing a minimum tire pressure rule, but Honda boss Ross Brawn and quite a few others think that enforcing the rule will be impossible. Brawn had this to say to autosport.com during a recent interview: "You can run tyres for sure without blankets, lot of formulae do, but we are a particularly competitive formula and if you don't run blankets with tyres you need to have a minimum pressure control."

"We haven't worked out how to do that and that was the big concern – how to introduce it fairly and effectively for all the teams? And how do you avoid the massive overhead of policing it?"

"The TWG (Technical Working Group) said it wanted to keep tyre blankets because it could not see a solution to controlling minimum tyre pressure, and that was a big worry. So the option of having blankets was the easiest. And interestingly tyre blankets are not prohibited in testing, so for efficiency of testing we will almost certainly be using tyre blankets in testing. So we will have had them in testing and not racing."

FIA scraps plans to ban tyre warmers [Autosport.com]

2009 F1 Calendar is out

The provisional 2009 F1 calendar has come out today and the schedule will have a few changes to it. The first is that a new race in Dubai has been added to the schedule gving 2009 one more race than last year. The race in Dubai will occur in mid-November and will be the season finale.

Meanwhile the rest of the calendar remains the same with the exception of the Turkish Grand Prix which has been moved back to a date in August. The British and French Grand Prix, which will remain in Magny-Cours despite speculation, have swapped positions on the calendar.

The calendar once again will not have a round in the United States as Tony George and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway have failed to find a financial supporter.

Provisional 2009 F1 calendar:
29 March Australia
5 April Malaysia
19 April Bahrain
10 May Spain
24 May Monaco
7 June Canada
21 June Great Britain
28 June France
12 July Germany
26 July Hungary
9 August Turkey
23 August Europe (Valencia)
6 September Italy
13 September Belgium
27 September Singapore
11 October Japan
18 October China
1 November Brazil
15 November Abu Dhabi

No Indy on provisional 2009 calendar [Autosport.com]

Corn, France and Kyle Busch

F1: Man, I wish really had something to talk about this race, but the French Grand Prix was terribly boring. Felipe Massa got the win after his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen had a piece of his exhaust come lose that cost him dearly in the horsepower that he needed to get the victory, Raikkonen did hold on to second though. Jarno Trulli finished third in his Toyota, his first podium since 2005. Hekki Kovalainen, Robert Kubica, Mark Webber, Nelson Piquet and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top 8. Massa with the win, now takes the points lead away from Kubica. The F1 circus will head off to jolly old England for the British Grand Prix in two weeks.

Indycar: Despite the gloomy weather the state has seen over the past few weeks, Sunday produced beautfiul weather for the Indycar race in which Dan Wheldon, on his 30th birth used pit stratgey to hold off the young Japaneese rookie Hideki Mutoh for the win. But the day was for the flood victims as Wheldon and his teammate Scott Dixon donated thier winnings to the victims. Marco Andretti, Dixon and A.J. Foyt IV rounded out the top 5. Scott Dixon extends his points lead over Helio Castroneves to 48.

NASCAR: Kyle Busch got another victory on Sunday in Somona in a very strong car. Busch held off a final challenge by David Gilliand and took his fifth victory of the season. Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and Casey Mears rounded out the top five. Busch extends his points lead over Jeff Burton to 103 points.

Weekend Preview: June 21-22

F1: The Formula 1 circus is back in France this weekend and Robert Kubica is looking to continue his streak of momentum after winning for the first time in Montreal two weeks ago. Meanwhile Ferrari and McLaren are looking to get back on track after a disappointing showing in Canada that included an embarrassing pit road collision between Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen. Hamilton got a 10 place grid penalty and will start 13th on Sunday. Raikkonen meanwhile scored pole and will start next to teammate Felipe Massa on Sunday. The will be televised at 1 pm eastern, Sunday on FOX.

NASCAR: The Sprint Cup Series makes its first right turns of the year at the road course in Somona, California. Kasey Kahne scored his first pole on road course last night and streak of momentum spanning back a month to a win in the All-Star race in Charlotte. But the big story of the weekend will be the road ringers who have invaded the Sprint Cup series, some have come for glory and others have come in to bail teams out of a dangerous situation. But whatever their cause there are people out there who do not care much for the road ringers. All I can say to those people is since they're racing in northern California is would you like some cheese with that whine? The race will be on TNT starting at 3:30 pm eastern on Sunday

Indycar: The Indycar Series comes to a Iowa Speedway in a area that has been soaked by lots of rain and many people are still trying to recover from the floods. Meanwhile, the Indycar circus hopes that this race won't be the total wreckfest like it was last year. Scott Dixon also hopes that he can continues his momentum and score his fourth win of the year. The race will be on ABC starting at 1 pm eastern.

Grand-Am: Hey, there’s sportscar racing too, this weekend. The Rolex Sportscar Series is in Mid-Ohio for the EMCO Gears Classic and Brumos Porsche pairing of David Donahue and Darren Law is on pole, but everyone will have the eyes on the 01 Chip Ganassi Lexus with Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas behind the wheel. The pairing have won three races this year. The #72 Autohaus Ponitac is on the GT pole. The race is today at 5 pm eastern on Speed Channel.

Montreal to be reprofiled?

Officials at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve believe that the circuit may have to be reprofiled after parts of the circuit had problems during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend. Repairs were made to track during the night before the race and did solve some of the issues, but not the whole problem. The track's executive vice president Francois Dumontier said that the turn 10 hairpin, which caused most of the problems, could be realigned in the future.

"The problem seems to be in the curves," Dumontier said. "We'll look at the hairpin, and the configuration of the hairpin. We'll look seriously at it with the FIA.

"We had the same problem last year, since 2005 in fact, so after last year we took a serious look at what product to put there, and we really thought that what we installed was good enough to hold for the weekend.

"So we were pretty upset with what happened in qualifying, and we'll have to go back again and see what we can do. We'll look at what other tracks are doing, and see if we can use the same kind of product."

Dumontier believes the Montreal track is hard to keep in top condition due to the fact it used by the public the rest of the year and that it is exposed to extreme weather conditions all year long.

"We're the only racetrack that goes from plus-30 in the summer to minus-30 in the winter," Dumontier said. "The asphalt is affected by that, and the track is used a lot by buses and cycles all the time, so there's something there."

Montreal boss hints at track changes (Autosport.com)

F3 team to buy into Toro Rosso?

British Formula 3 team Ultimate Motorsports are in talks with the Toro Rosso team about buying the part of the team that is up for sale. Team boss Barry Walsh confirmed the talks with autosport.com that the talks are happening, but details about the talks are still hush-hush.

"We are in negotiations so I can't reveal too much about it until everything is final," Walsh said. "We always set out with Formula One as the target. I would only have got involved in the project in the first place if I was confident we could take it all the way to F1, that is the aim. If our plans go the right way, I'd like to think we could be on the grid for 2009. The aim is to have the whole structure, with the academy from karting, through Formula Three and the World Series, and Formula One at the top."

Sounds like some pretty big plans for a team that won their first Formula Three race only a week ago.

Ultimate in talks to buy Toro Rosso (Autosport.com)

Ex-Toyota team princnipal Ove Andersson killed in a rally crash

Former team principal for Toyota F1 Ove Andersson was killed in a crash during a vintage rally meet in South Africa, he was 70 years old. Andersson was killed when the car he was driving suffered a front end collision in a blind corner.

With Andersson, Toyota won four driver and three manufactuer championships in the World Rally Championship. Andersson became team principal for Toyota's new Formula 1 team in 2002, but retired the next year.

"Everyone at Toyota is extremely shocked and truly saddened at this terrible news," said head of Toyota Motorsport, Tadashi Yamashina. "Ove was an inspiration to our team and to many in motorsport. His passion for motorsport was legendary and he is a great loss to our sport. The thoughts of everyone at Toyota Motorsport are with Ove's family at this difficult time."

Toyota pays tribute to Andersson (Autosport.com)

FIA not scared by breakup talks

The FIA has said that they’re not frightened by talks about a split within the Formula 1 circus. As talks get underway for a new Concorde Agreement between the teams and the FIA rumors keep circulating that F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, will take some of the teams with him to form a new series if the FIA doesn‘t agree to the terms of the new agreement. However, Ecclestone has gotten very little support as some of the teams fear that it could cause damage to the sport.

"It is a shame if these things get discussed," Honda team principle Ross Brawn said. "I don't think anyone wants it (a breakaway). It didn't happen before and it is unlikely now. I think everyone wants to try and find a solution with Bernie and the FIA."

BMW motorsport head Mario Theissen could take a few weeks for matters to between the two sides to calm down. "Certainly there is a power struggle going on and it will carry on for a few more weeks before we see what direction it takes," he said. When asked if he felt a breakaway threat was serious, he said: "I wouldn't see it as a first option."

FIA will not be swayed by breakaway talks. (Autosport.com)

Kubica flies to victory in Canada

One year ago, Robert Kubica was involved in a terrifying crash that had him sitting out the next race. Now the young driver from Poland is on top of the podium for the first time in his young career taking victory in the Canadian Grand Prix becoming the first Polish driver to win a Formula 1 race and the getting the first victory for the BMW Sauber team.

"It is fantastic to win for BMW Sauber," said Kubica. "We grew up together and thanks to team for providing a good car we managed to do first and second. Maybe our pace is still not best as I couldn't match Lewis's [Hamilton] pace."

It seemed that was case as Lewis Hamilton quickly pulled away from Kubica at the start until Adrian Sutil parked his Force India car on the side of the track which called for the safety car on track. Then came pit stops, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkionen and Kubica quickly pulled out of their stalls and beat Hamilton, but had to stop at the end of the pit road, Hamilton then pulled out, but had a brain fade and ran into the back of Raikkionen's car, Nico Rosberg quickly followed and ran into the back of Hamilton. The Finn was none to happy about the incident.

"There's not much I can say. My race was ruined by Hamilton's mistake," said Raikkonen. "Obviously, anyone can make mistakes, as I did two weeks ago in Monaco, but it's one thing to make a mistake at two hundred per hour but another to hit a car stopped at a red light. I am not angry because that doesn't achieve anything and does not change my result."

"I am unhappy, because I had a great chance of winning. Once the graining had gone from the tyres, the car was going very well. I have failed to score in these last two races and now it's time to start winning again. There is still a long way to go in the championship and it is still very close and we have everything we need to regain the ground we have lost."

The race after that would then become a showdown between BMW Sauber Kubica and Nick Heidfeld as whose pit stratgey would win the race, in the end Kubica strategy would pay off as he would take the win over Heidfeld and David Coulthard. Timo Glock, Felipe Massa, Jarno Trulli, Rubens Barrichello and Sebastian Vettel would round out the top 8.

"It's fantastic for me, the team, my country and my fans." Kubica said. "Last year I struggled a lot but I fixed some issues that were not working properly. I am doing pretty well this season."
"Winning in Canada where I had big shunt last season and the goal to win a grand prix this season... We have done it and I'm leading the championship, so I hope the team will give me 100 percent support to defend it until last race."

Kubica now takes the world championship lead by four points over Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari still holds a three point lead over BMW in the constructor points.

Kubica celebrates 'fantastic' maiden win (Autosport.com)

Raikkonen 'unhappy' about Hamilton's error (Autosport.com)