After a year out of the paddock, Ross Brawn could return at team boss at Ferrari next season according to Jean Todt but the team is unlikely to have a new driver line-up – with Todt pointing out that both
Kimi Raikkonen and
Felipe Massa have contracts the team intends to honour.
Following the e-mail farce at Fuji that saw Ferrari ordered to pit its drivers for extreme wet weather tyres, the
FIA has confirmed that it will use ‘traditional methods’ to deliver future communications to the teams, while further follow-up news from Fuji sees Toro Rosso appeal against the exclusion of Tonio Liuzzi from the race – an exclusion that gave Spyker a first points finish of the year.
Finally, the Hamilton-factor continues to go from strength to strength, with ticket sales for the British Grand Prix having gone up by 50 per cent on the back of the youngster’s success. What bet a quick sell-out if he wraps up the title this weekend?
NEWS FROM THE TEAMS:
McLaren – Fernando Alonso (#1), Lewis Hamilton (#2):
With the way the points stand heading to Shanghai, perhaps the main saving grace for McLaren is that it doesn't have to countenance deciding which driver to favour in order to fend off a challenge from
Ferrari. Hamilton's twelve-point advantage makes him strong favourite to land the title, if not in China, then in Brazil two weeks from now, so the Woking team can effectively allow its line-up to go head-to-head, provided their rivalry doesn't get the better of them.
"To have both Lewis and Fernando going into the final two races of the season with an opportunity to win the world championship is a fantastic situation for the team," admitted CEO Martin Whitmarsh, "Whilst Lewis is clearly in a stronger position, it is by no means over for Fernando and we are going to have two very motivated drivers in China. Japan was the first race where two Vodafone McLaren Mercedes cars did not take the chequered flag, and this demonstrates the competitiveness of the team this season."
Hamilton's win in Japan saw him achieve another milestone as he became the first driver in the history of
F1 to reach the 100-point mark in only 15 races, eclipsing even the great
Michael Schumacher as he maintain a 100 per cent finishing record that has seen him outside the points on only one occasion, at the Nurburgring. Despite his current advantage over Alonso, however, the British rookie is taking nothing for granted.
"We are going into these races with a really tight drivers’ battle, with only twelve points between me and Fernando," he said, "Anything is still possible, but I am feeling confident and very determined and I hope we will have another couple of exciting races.
"There has been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about the championship, but I just push that to the back of my mind. I am only focused on the next two races and doing the best I can in China and Brazil. The last two races of this season are at tracks that I have not ever been to before, but I don’t see that as a problem, as this has been the case on four occasions already this season, at Melbourne, Montreal, Indy and Fuji - and I was on the podium at all of those. Everything is too tight for me to predict what will happen, but the races in China always seem to be exciting and I feel well prepared to take on the challenge."
Alonso's task has been made harder by an uncharacteristic error that took him out of the Japanese Grand Prix and left the Mclaren team with the job of replacing a badly-damaged MP4-22 in less than a week. With the car suffering significant injury, which is not reparable at the track, it was returned to
McLaren's Technology Centre and a replacement chassis despatched from Woking almost as soon as news of Fernando's accident reached base. That will become the 'new' spare, with the Spaniard using the spare from Japan as his race car.
"My retirement in Japan has not made it easy for me in the championship, but there are still 20 points to be won and I am going to fight hard for each one of them," the double world champion insisted, "There is always a lot of talk of pressure and distractions at this time of the year, but all I think about is racing and winning at Shanghai and Interlagos. We are all focused on this aim and giving the maximum over the next few weeks.
McLaren is no stranger to inter-necine duels for the title and engine partner Mercedes is keen that the outcome is decided in an amicable manner.
