This weekend’s German grand prix will be the last race at the Nurburgring supported by the state, according to a government minister.
Earlier this year, it emerged that the new SPD/Green government alliance for the Rhineland-Palatinate state was only willing to support two more races at the Nurburgring until the current arrangements expire in 2016.

“Until 2016, there will be only one formula one grand prix sponsored financially by the land, and it’s 2011,” Eveline Lemke told business newspaper Handelsblatt. “That’s it.”

The News Corporation scandal might have damaged the Murdochs’ plans to take over formula one.
That is the claim of F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, who said he feels “sorry” for Rupert Murdoch amid the fallout of the phone hacking scandal and closure of the News of the World.

Earlier, FOTA chairman Martin Whitmarsh insisted he thinks News will survive the scandal to be “alive and powerful” again.

“I’m terribly sorry for Rupert, who I know quite well, and James (Murdoch) because they are running their businesses very well,” Ecclestone told the Telegraph.

“If they were to bid for F1 they might find that people would object to it. We have still had no contact from News Corp about a takeover of F1.”

The 80-year-old also ruled out a move for F1 to Murdoch’s pay-TV networks and said he hoped the sport stayed with the BBC in Britain.

“Let’s wait and see about the BBC because at the moment they want to make a noise,” said Ecclestone.

“I can’t see how the BBC could cancel (its contract). We could probably sue them.”

Martin Whitmarsh on Friday tipped News Corporation to survive its current turmoil.
As the phone hacking scandal worsened, media magnate Rupert Murdoch pulled the plug on News’ UK tabloid News of the World and then dropped plans to buy the rest of BskyB.

And the implications continue to unfold, with News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks resigning and the billionaire Murdoch facing official investigations in the UK and potentially also the US and Australia.

Before the scandal erupted, News was linked with a potential buyout of F1′s commercial rights, with leading teams including McLaren reportedly meeting to discuss becoming involved in the bid.

“Yes, they’ve got a lot of challenges at the moment in the UK, but nevertheless we all know that News International and News Corp will be alive and powerful in the media in 12 months’ time,” Whitmarsh, McLaren team boss and also chairman of the teams association FOTA, is quoted as saying on Friday.

“They will move on, but there will be casualties, as they’ve closed down a newspaper, which none of us would have believed two weeks ago,” he told F1′s official website.

“But News Corp is a 20 billion or whatever turnover news corporation, so I am sure they will remain a big player. But I don’t think that formula one needs to rush into their arms,” added Whitmarsh.

Virgin has dismissed speculation it may lose Jerome d’Ambrosio’s services and backing for the 2012 season.
The Belgian rookie’s manager, Renault team boss Eric Boullier, said at Silverstone that he will talk about the 25-year-old’s future with Virgin “and another team at the Nurburgring”.

But Virgin team president Graeme Lowdon dismissed the reports.

“I spoke to Jerome’s manager at Silverstone and that is simply not the case,” he told The Star. “We are happy with the guys we have got and it would be nice to continue with the same lineup next year.”

D’Ambrosio’s 2011 teammate is German Timo Glock.

“We are extremely happy with the drivers we have got and we have no plans to change,” added Lowdon.

He said Glock, who is reportedly happy with Virgin’s split with Nick Wirth and the new tie-up with McLaren, has shown no signs of making alternative plans for 2012.

“We have an extremely open relationship so if anyone was talking with him then we would be the first to know,” said Lowdon.

Ferrari is closing in but Red Bull has nothing to fear, according to 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell.
The winner of 31 grands prix was the driver steward at Silverstone last weekend, where Fernando Alonso seemed to break through Red Bull’s dominance at the half-way point in the 2011 world championship.

Some commentators saw the Spaniard’s win as the turning point for the season, despite Red Bull leading McLaren by more than 100 points, while Sebastian Vettel is almost the same margin ahead of Alonso in the drivers’ standings.

“The result (in Britain) was great for Ferrari and good for formula one,” Mansell is quoted by Germany’s Speed Week.

But he warned: “Red Bull was as strong as ever, second and third, which with its clear lead in the world championship is no problem.

“Red Bull are still going to be very, very difficult to beat,” added the Briton.

Alonso’s Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa agrees.

“My experience in 2008 (against Lewis Hamilton) and Kimi’s in 2007 shows that anything can happen,” said the Brazilian, “even if this year (winning the title) will be difficult.

“Vettel would have to make a lot of mistakes,” added Massa.

John Howett has emerged as a surprise candidate for a leading role at the formula one teams association FOTA.
The Briton was president of Toyota’s F1 team, and the deputy chairman of the teams alliance, until the Japanese manufacturer quit the sport at the end of 2009.

When Howett left F1 and the role, FOTA praised his “great passion” and fundamental contribution”, and he was credited for playing a leading hand in the heated political machinations of the time and the threatened breakaway split.

Internet reports by Germany’s motorsport-total.com, the Dutch portal f1today.nl and Hungary’s formula.hu say Howett is in line for the role as secretary general, currently occupied by Simone Perillo.

McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh and Renault’s Eric Boullier are the FOTA chairmen.

Howett’s appointment would be timely, with the teams set to negotiate a new Concorde Agreement with the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone.

But despite further talk of a potential sale of the sport’s commercial rights by CVC, the F1 chief executive has played down the importance of the forthcoming period.

“The bottom line is simple,” Ecclestone told the International Herald Tribune. “If there is no Concorde Agreement it doesn’t make that much difference.

“All the agreement is really is us telling the people (teams) what we are going to pay them. If there was no Concorde Agreement, same thing, we would run the championship and we would pay the people probably a lot less than they get now,” he added.

Bosses have reportedly dismissed moves to enclose the cockpits of formula one cars.
Technical chiefs began to investigate the possibility of jet fighter-style canopies for the cockpits in the wake of Felipe Massa’s near-fatal crash in Hungary two years ago.

“You can have covers and you can have canopies, but you also have to be able to get at a driver to extract him. There are a lot of secondary considerations,” said Ross Brawn.

According to the Daily Mirror, F1 chiefs have rejected the idea of a roof over the drivers’ heads.

The report said the FIA had considered “poly-carbonate screens” for the cars, but “drivers fear the device could prevent escape in the event of a car overturning or catching fire”, while spectators would be “at danger from flying debris ricocheting off the screens”.

Cosworth is staying in formula one and designing a V6 engine even though it only has two customers for 2012.
Team Lotus switched to Renault power last year and Williams is following suit for 2012, leaving struggling Virgin and Hispania as the only Cosworth teams on the grid.

The independent Northampton based engine maker said when it returned to F1 in 2010 that it needed a minimum number of customers to make its programme viable.

But when asked if Cosworth can survive with only two teams on the books, boss Mark Gallagher told Auto Motor und Sport: “We can.”

He explains: “We regard each of our customer contracts as a separate deal. Each has fixed costs: engine, support at the track, development, individual adjustment to the car.

“So there is a profit with each deal. With regards to 2012, instead of having three separate profits, there will be only two.”

Chief executive Tim Routsis expands: “In 2010 we supplied mainly new teams, and no one knew whether they would survive. It would not have made sense if we had not taken a potential collapse of one of these teams into account.

“As a fourth team, Williams was for us rather a bonus,” he added.

And Routsis said it was always clear that Williams might jump ship at any moment.

“(Chairman) Adam Parr was always quite clear with us, saying from the outset that they would jump at the first chance of being with a car manufacturer,” he said.

As for the future, Cosworth is happy with the change of plan from four-cylinder to V6 engines to debut in 2014.

Said Gallagher: “For the four cylinder there was no cost-curbing device. The big manufacturers were counting on at least EUR 60 million for development, while for us we are dependent on the payments from our customers.”

He added that the V6 rules restrict development costs much more effectively.

“We also have a customer guarantee,” revealed Gallagher. “Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault have committed that at least two customers will stay with us. Three would be ideal.”

Auto Motor und Sport speculated that Cosworth has set its sights on signing Force India, or the team currently known as Lotus Renault GP.

The blown exhaust saga is over for now, the FIA confirmed on Thursday.
After a weekend-long saga of seemingly constantly-changing regulations, the F1 world departed Silverstone believing the teams had finally agreed to revert to the Valencia rules.

In a media Q and A distributed by the governing body, the FIA said the matter has indeed been settled.

“Yes, and all cars will run under Valencia conditions for the remainder of the season,” said the document, referring to unrestricted off-throttle blowing but ‘parc ferme’ conditions for engine map changes between qualifying and the race.

The FIA said it is confident the saga is now over.

“We are optimistic that there will be no protests over any engine mapping and exhaust tailpipe issues this season,” it confirmed.

“In addition to the main part of the agreement reached (at Silverstone) it was also agreed that no team would raise a protest against another on these matters for the rest of the season.”

Mark Webber on Thursday said he is “positive” of his chances of staying with Red Bull in 2012.
Although team boss Christian Horner was reportedly furious when the Australian ignored team orders at Silverstone, owner Dietrich Mateschitz this week suggested the 34-year-old will almost certainly be staying on board.

Webber confirmed to BBC Sport: “The team and I are talking about whether I continue with Red Bull in 2012 and it’s positive.

“What happened on Sunday does not turn my world upside down.”

But despite the potentially serious implications of his actions, Webber insists he has no regrets about refusing to back off the tail of his teammate Sebastian Vettel.

“It was obviously a difficult situation, but I still feel comfortable about what I did,” he said.

“Christian and I had a chat about the situation after the race. We both put our cases forward and I think we came away seeing it from both perspectives,” added Webber.

Team Lotus has struck a deal with its technology partner Red Bull to use a KERS system in formula one.
Malaysian Tony Fernandes’ small team is this year using the hydraulics system and gearbox run by the reigning championship-winning outfit in 2010.

And Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper reports that, next year, the green liveried team will take yet another step forward because its Red Bull parts will be the ones currently used on Adrian Newey’s dominant RB7.

And the KERS to be used by Team Lotus, Turun Sanomat continued, will be the Magneti Marelli system that is developed in cooperation with Renault and Red Bull.

Fernandes confirmed: “Yes, we have agreed with Red Bull on KERS.”

Red Bull might be an odd choice as KERS supplier for Team Lotus, given the team’s struggles with the technology so far in 2011.

Newey said last month that energy recovery is “Not really our forte. We are an aerodynamics and, sort of, chassis composite engineering group rather than a KERS group”.

A defeat for Red Bull in the 2011 world championship will no longer require a “miracle”, according to Pedro de la Rosa.
McLaren’s veteran reserve driver admitted the mood had been pessimistic leading into the British grand prix, because Silverstone is a circuit “which appeared to have been designed for the Red Bulls”.

McLaren ultimately had a disappointing weekend, but Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were both beaten to the chequered flag by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

“Perhaps this has been the most convincing victory of the whole season,” he wrote in his column for formulasantander.com.

“The mistake with Vettel’s pitstop and Red Bull’s need to issue team orders to protect their number one invites us to think that the comeback is now not a miracle, it is a possible reality, difficult but possible,” added the Spaniard.

Alonso meanwhile said that while his win is a big morale booster, Ferrari’s new approach – more aggressive than in the recent past – will remain.

“Maybe it will happen that we pay a high price for that (approach) but there is no alternative,” he said.

“We are definitely not giving up, but we must not think about the championship — as Montezemolo said, we are keeping our feet on the ground.”

Patrick Head has admitted he will begin to take more of a back seat at Williams from 2012.
Earlier this year, the famous team’s 66-year-old co-founder released most of his shareholding for the Frankfurt floatation, before chairman Adam Parr announced to the press that Head “will be retiring at some point this year”.

Head reacted angrily to Parr’s statement but at Silverstone admitted that his director of engineering role at the Oxfordshire based team is changing.

“All I know is I’m not retiring,” he is quoted by the Independent newspaper.

“I probably won’t be involved with Williams formula one in the same way from the end of the year but I’ll still be involved in some Williams activities,” added Head.

The newspaper said a change of title is likely for Head, but not a stepping back as a shareholder or board member.

Head added that he will “certainly turn up at a few races” in the future but will not have a hands-on engineering role at the grands prix.

Robert Kubica has confirmed his desire to return to formula one next year with Renault.
Asked by a fan on the team’s website if he will be ready for the 2012 season and a title fight, the injured Pole answered: “Yes to the first question.

“For your second question, we will have to wait until the first test in 2012!”

There have been rumours recently of disagreements between Renault team chiefs and Kubica’s management, particularly over the timing of the return from his horror rally crash.

“I’m a Lotus Renault GP driver,” insisted the 26-year-old. “Of course, I’m missing not being able to drive this season but I feel that my job in Enstone isn’t finished yet.”

Kubica insisted he is mentally strong but in a physical sense “still a bit weak”.

“But my general condition is quite good,” he said. “My weight has now returned to its normal level and for a few weeks I’ve been able to walk without help. All in all I feel pretty well.

“I am satisfied with how things are proceeding,” Kubica told another online fan.

“The improvement is in line with the expectations, and luckily there are no complications that could affect the recovery time.

“It is still too early to have a clear picture for the timing of my return but the important thing is the final outcome not the hurry.”

French carmaker Renault’s continuing involvement in formula one relies on “certain conditions” being present.
That is the claim of Carlos Tavares, who is the marque’s freshly appointed chief operating officer.

After the ‘crashgate’ scandal, Renault effectively withdrew from F1 as a works team and is now only an engine supplier to the Red Bull, Lotus Renault, Team Lotus and – in 2012 – Williams teams.

“It was a reasonable decision which led us to a level of expenditure in line with our means,” Tavares is quoted in a French language report by Agence France-Presse.

“Renault does not have infinite funds,” he insisted. “This decision allowed the company to refocus its efforts on the core of the race engines.”

AFP said that instead of paying EUR 220 million to run the works Renault team in 2009, the marque now spends just 60 million on its F1 programme.

Asked about the difference in image, Tavares answered: “I don’t know that we have lost anything.”

As for the future, he said Renault’s “strategy is to be the leaders in zero-emission vehicles.

“Our commitment to F1 is long-term when the conditions of cost, image and sporting fairness are also met”, added Tavares.

“As long as the conditions are there, there is no reason to not be in F1. It has been almost 30 years that we have demonstrated our passion (for F1) and we continue to do so every day.”