The plan to freeze the development of engines in F1 for the next five years, starting from the end of this season, is sure to have a big impact on the world's most expensive form of racing. The freeze should be a godsend for Cosworth, assuming F1's only independent engine builder is able to wrap-up a deal to supply the Midland team with engines and therefore continue in F1 next year. Midland has been sold to a Dutch consortium called Spyker and it's not yet known if a Cosworth engine contract is part of the deal.
As everyone knows, Cosworth does a tremendous job with one-tenth the financial resources, or less, of the major manufacturers. F1 needs Cosworth because it's the only way that any remaining private, non-manufacturer-owned team can compete and
Bernie Ecclestone is deeply aware of Cosworth's importance. If Cosworth is able to continue in F1 it will leave the door open for new, relatively small teams to come and go.
It will also be interesting to see how much more competitive
Williams is next year with
Toyota engines than the team was with Cosworths this year. Williams has been surprisingly competitive in many races, in contrast to the still-struggling Toyota team, and next year we'll be able to directly compare these two very different operations.
In contrast to
F1, where there are just two or three superstars at any one time, NASCAR has acres of them, although Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Tony Stewart stand out. At various stages this year, there were worries that all three would fail to make the Chase for the Championship but, as it turned out, defending champion Stewart was the only one to miss the cut. Stewart's loss was Kasey Kahne's gain as this year's winningest NASCAR driver elbowed past Stewart at Richmond on Saturday night to steal the last qualifying place for the Chase. Stewart had another bad weekend, crashing his intended race car in practice and finishing eighteenth in a back-up car after starting fortieth.
