Bruno Senna is considering Nascar as a back-up option should his F1 journey end for now.
That is the claim of the Italiaracing website, in the wake of the Brazilian’s loss of his Renault/Lotus race seat.

It is rumoured Senna, 28, could return to the team’s reserve role for 2012, but Italiaracing said Nascar is another option, where his countryman Nelson Piquet Jr headed after his own F1 career foundered in 2009.

The report said Senna has ruled out America’s premier single seater series, Indycar.

“My family would not let me (race there),” he is quoted as saying.

Senna’s fabled uncle Ayrton was F1′s last fatality in 1994, when Bruno was 10.

Nelson Piquet, the triple world champion and father of the 2008 and 2009 Renault driver, will wave the chequered flag at the end of the 2011 season finale at Interlagos later this month.
Marking 20 years since his last F1 win, and more than thirty years since his grand prix victory debut, the 59-year-old will also drive his 1981 Brabham at the Brazilian venue, Globo reports.

“The choice of Nelson Piquet to wave the chequered flag and drive his Brabham at Interlagos is to honour the importance of what he did for Brazil and in the history of formula one,” said a spokesman for the promoter.

Two former F1 drivers have defended Ferrari’s right to favour Fernando Alonso for the 2010 world championship.

The Italian team faced the wrath of spectators and the media recently after moving Felipe Massa out of the way for Spaniard Alonso at Hockenheim.

Ferrari will again be defending its actions at a World Motor Sport Council disciplinary hearing next month.

But Nelson Piquet Jr believes it is up to his Brazilian countryman Massa to prove that he is the driver Ferrari should be backing.

“It’s hard for Massa that Alonso came into the team later but is faster,” Piquet, who was Alonso’s Renault teammate in 2008 and early 2009, told the Brazilian newsmagazine Istoe.

“But Ferrari will not miss an opportunity to give a driver the opportunity to close the gap to the championship leaders,” added the ‘crashgate’ conspirator.

“If Massa doesn’t want this to happen, then he has to work out a way to go faster than Alonso — there’s nothing else he can do.

“Because if he’d been ahead of Alonso in the championship, it would have been him going past,” said Piquet.

Former 10-time GP winner and Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger agrees with Piquet that Alonso is the driver Ferrari should be concentrating on for the rest of 2010.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” the Austrian is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport.

“Alonso is clearly the better man in the team; their only chance for the world championship.

“(Ferrari president Luca di) Montezemolo went shopping for him and he is going to play this card as hard as he can,” added Berger.

Nelson Piquet Jr has admitted he never repaired his relationship with countryman Felipe Massa after the ‘crashgate’ scandal.

Ferrari driver Massa accused Piquet of “robbery” last year, after it emerged that he deliberately crashed his Renault during the 2008 Singapore grand prix.

The crash helped Piquet’s then teammate Fernando Alonso win the race, but Massa – who had led comfortably from pole position – famously drove away with the fuel hose still attached when he made a pitstop under the safety car.

“My relationship with Barrichello and Massa had always been very friendly — they always treated me very well, gave me a lot of advice,” Piquet, now a NASCAR truck series driver, told the Brazilian weekly newsmagazine Istoe.

“But after Singapore Massa was offended by me, and to this day he thinks he lost the 2008 world championship only because of me.”

It is true that Massa lost many points at Singapore, whilst missing out on the drivers’ title to Lewis Hamilton by just a single point.

“Massa is still completely insulted, I’ve never spoken with him (since),” added Piquet.

Nelson Piquet Jr has defended Felipe Massa after the Ferrari driver allowed Fernando Alonso to win Sunday’s German grand prix.

In the wake of the Hockenheim team orders affair, the Brazilian media has been hard on 29-year-old Massa, who according to some publications displayed a lack of courage on the anniversary of his 2009 crash.

Heavily criticised last year was Piquet, who argued he was ordered by Flavio Briatore to deliberately crash his Renault during the 2008 Singapore grand prix in order to bring out the safety car and boost Alonso’s chances of winning.

“Talk is cheap and it’s easy to criticise,” Piquet, now driving in NASCAR’s lower-tier truck series, is quoted by Globo Esporte.

“But the hole is deeper than you think.”

Indeed, Massa has been quoted in Brazil as saying “many drivers” would have acted similarly in his shoes at Hockenheim, and after leaving Ferrari, Rubens Barrichello revealed that he would have lost his job had he not moved over for Michael Schumacher in 2002.

Mika Salo subbed for an injured Schumacher at Ferrari in 1999, and he tells Finland’s Turun Sanomat that “they made it clear that if Eddie (Irvine) is behind me, my job is to give space”.

At that year’s German grand prix, Salo was leading the race.

“I looked in the mirrors and then I saw that Eddie overtook Frentzen.  After a couple of seconds Ross Brawn came on the radio and said Mika, we want you to let Eddie go.

“I think it makes sense that Ferrari sees Alonso with clearly a better chance for the title.  But it could have been managed quite a lot better, especially when the engineer asked Massa if he understood what he had to do,” said Salo.

In his El Pais column, Epsilon Euskadi chief Joan Villadelprat agrees that the team order was a flagrant rule breach.

“Of course, it was very clear.  He (Massa) was left with no choice.  All the fans knew it immediately, although it is possible the World Council will fail to demonstrate it.

“I remember in 2002 that Barrichello received a threat that it would trouble his contract if he did not budge.

“I think the worst damage is not the fine or a penalty, but that the brilliant work on the team and the drivers to catch up to Red Bull was spoiled by unnecessarily unsportsmanlike conduct.

“Ferrari’s errors this year have been too many and too large.  Someone has to take some action, to tell the team leaders that it’s enough.

“And someone should calm down Fernando, so that he doesn’t repeat comments like ‘This is ridiculous’ the first time he tried to pass Massa.

“We’re taking about a double world champion, the best driver in the paddock, a title contender, but on occasion it is necessary to put his brakes on,” added Spaniard Villadelprat.

The latest name linked with the hopeful American outfit Cypher Group is Nelson Piquet Jr.

22-year-old Indy Lights driver Jonathan Summerton has already confirmed he is working with the team to form “the American F1 team with an American driver”.

Italiaracing.net reports that Piquet, the Brazilian and crashgate conspirator, is also being linked with Cypher.

Since being ousted by Renault mid last season, the 24-year-old has been racing mainly in NASCAR’s lower-tier truck series.

It is also reported that Cypher has recruited Steve Brown, the former Brawn GP research and development engineer who switched to the abortive USF1 last year.

Despite the FIA agreeing to end its push to have a lifetime ban re-imposed, Flavio Briatore insists he is not guilty of race-fixing.

F1’s governing body on Monday announced that, after talks with the sacked Renault boss as well as ‘crashgate’ co-conspirator Pat Symonds, a settlement has been reached to end the scandal.

The FIA said the duo “expressed their regrets and presented their apologies”, in return for all legal action being dropped and the bans being effective only until 2013.

But Briatore, who turned 60 on Monday, later clarified that his regret and apology was not an admission of “personal guilt”.

The Italian’s statement, issued by his lawyers, also insisted that the settlement was not a recognition that the FIA’s verdict about Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate Singapore crash being true was “well-founded”.

“No further comment will be made by Flavio Briatore, who wishes to put behind him this matter and focus on his plans for the future,” added the statement.
GMM

F1’s governing body on Monday announced that, after talks with Singapore race-fixing conspirators Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, a settlement has been reached.

Briatore and Symonds were banned from motor racing by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council for ordering Nelson Piquet Jr to crash during the 2008 Singapore GP, but the former Renault chiefs won an appeal against the decision in the French courts.

The FIA’s appeal against that decision was pending.

But it was announced on Monday that the duo have now “expressed their regrets and presented their apologies to the FIA”.

In return, the Paris-based Federation has dropped its legal action, and Briatore and Symonds have agreed to “abstain from having any operational role in formula one until 31 December 2012″.
(GMM)

In what is the second week of testing at the at Jerez circuit, Sebastian Vettel completed the fastest lap in 1 minute, 19.055 seconds in his Red Bull, to finish nearly 1.3 seconds quicker than Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.

With intermitent showers,Toyota test driver Kumui Kobayashi was third fastest, while Nico Rosberg of Williams and MMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica made the the top-five.

Giancarlo Fisichella who is going into his 14th season, set a best lap of 1:21.584 for Force India, and declared: “It’s very promising and I felt much more consistency, even under braking, and more stability in the high speed corners. We are not that far away from the other people so I am looking forward to tomorrow and another day with more laps where we can try to improve the car a little bit and concentrate on reliability.”

McLaren’s Pedro de la Rosa and Nelson Piquet Jr. of Renault completed the field. Toro Rosso and Honda were the only F1 teams not present at the track in southern Spain.

With a last-lap pass of superspeedway ace Todd Bodine, Timothy Peters won Saturday, February 13^th night’s NextEra Energy 250 Truck Series race at 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway.

With a push from polesitter Jason White passed Bodine on the backstretch and won the race to the finish line. Bodine, who had won the previous two season openers at Daytona, crossed the stripe in second place but spun into the infield grass after taking the checkered flag.

“I can’t believe it — this thing drove like a Lexus tonight,” Peters said of his No. 17 Toyota Tundra. “We just won Daytona! I was just content where I was at, but the No. 23 [White] came up and gave me a great run.

“I can’t believe it — I’m going to Disney World!”

Peters’ only previous win in the series came at .526-mile Martinsville Speedway.

Dennis Setzer, White and Matt Crafton rounded out the top five, as Bodine took solace from his second-place run — magnified by wrecks that ruined the nights of defending series champion Ron Hornaday and Mike Skinner, perennial contenders for the Truck Series title.

“You’re a sitting duck leading,” Bodine said ruefully. “I saw the replay when I was sitting down there in the mud [after spinning]. Timmy did what he had to do.

“We’re disappointed. There’s no doubt about it. But second’s nothing to sneeze at.”

Two separate crashes on the pace laps — before the race had started — promised an action-filled evening, and, indeed, before the race was a lap old, Aric Almirola took the field three-wide in Turn 3. Austin Dillon, making his first superspeedway start, broke loose between trucks and ignited a nine-truck collision that damaged the trucks of Kyle Busch and Landon Cassill, among others.

“I really don’t know what was happening,” Dillon said after exiting the infield care center. “I was sucking up to Jason White and someone got under me. Just looked like they weren’t being very patient there to start. Just caught in the middle and got banged around there a few times and tried to save it — just nothing I could do there.”

Hornaday was the victim of a 10-truck wreck after a bump from Ricky Carmichael turned him into the outside wall at the end of the backstretch on Lap 32. The same wreck ruined the winning chances of front-row starter Elliot Sadler. Skinner’s race ended early after a tap from Peters launched him into the Turn 3 wall on Lap 62

Summary of the results: 1 Timothy Peters (Toyota); 2 Todd Bodine (Toyota); 3 Dennis Setzer (Dodge); 4 Jason White (Ford); 5 Matt Crafton (Chevrolet); 6 Nelson Piquet Jr. (Toyota); 7 Stacy Compton (Toyota); 8 Johnny Benson (Ford); 9 Donnie Neuenberger (Chevrolet); 10 J.J. Yeley (Chevrolet).

The Brazilian pilot, Nelson Piquet Jr., who shared a Formula One racing team with Fernando Alonso, revealed that his future with engines will be linked to the Nascar category.
He expressed that, after assessing his future options, he realized he’s disenchanted with what he had considered “a great challenge.” “Being successful in the Formula One was always my goal, but after my first eighteen months, things didn’t work out as I had planned and so decided to concentrate on something different,” he explained.
However, the son of the three times Formula One world champion did not explain in what category he will compete, even though last October he tested for the Red Horse Racing team, of the Camping World Series.
Piquet triggered one of the greatest scandals of the last times in the ‘Great Circus, when, after being dismissed by the Renault racing team he confessed to the FIA that his team had ordered him to produce an accident during the 2008 Singapore GP, so as to contribute to his team mate’s victory, the Spaniard Fernando Alonso.