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Saw this in yesterday's Timesonline. Thought it might be of interest
Martin Brundle
Despite German drivers populating a quarter of the grid, it looks like being a British, Finnish or Brazilian victory in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
Lewis Hamilton has made himself firm favourite for the chequered flag with what looked like a comfortable high-precision run to pole position in a McLaren that both drivers say has significantly improved in the past few weeks. Hamilton says he has increased his performance by “tidying up several small areas” of his driving, while his teammate, Heikki Kovalainen, is third.
Felipe Massa sits menacingly alongside him in a Ferrari that could well be faster over a longer run, but the biggest question mark surrounds Kimi Raikkonen, who could manage only sixth behind Jarno Trulli's Toyota and Fernando Alonso’s Renault in the other Ferrari, although he is probably fuelled very heavily.
July has traditionally been the trigger point for the Formula One driver musical chairs. The global slump clearly has not affected this market. The best of the speculation surrounds the plans of Raikkonen and Alonso.
With Raikkonen refusing to confirm or deny that he is considering retirement – maybe even at the end of this year – the expectation is that Alonso would replace him should he do so, and that the Spaniard will be at Ferrari regardless in 2010. After he shoved a photographer on the grid at Silverstone a fortnight ago, and watching him behind the wheel here at Hockenheim, there is a part of Kimi that is unhappy and frustrated at the moment. I would still be more than surprised if he retired this year, but if he wants to sign off as world champion, he needs more speed and balance in his car.
What would Raikkonen do if he stopped? I cannot easily imagine him as a businessman, a media person or a home-loving family man. I find it hard to think of him as anything other than a one-dimensional, totally focused born racer. So he would go snowmobile racing for fun, and occasional form suggests he might drink too much. You would actually worry more for him if he retired than if he was still racing.
There are rumours that the Spanish banking group Santander will at some point be leaving McLaren for Ferrari, taking Alonso with them. They sponsored McLaren originally in order to be with Alonso, not expecting him to be out after just one year of a three-year contract. Although they are an international organisation the lure for them of Alonso and Ferrari is understandable.
So if Kimi does continue into 2009, where would that leave Alonso? He can't go back to McLaren, so the only realistic place for him to move would be Ferrari or BMW. The latter team is surely interested but I’m absolutely certain they would want to contract him longer term and wouldn’t be up for providing a nice cosy stepping stone for a year while he waits to slot into Ferrari with all BMW’s systems and data. So he will stay put at Renault and dream of scarlet cars.
We can discount the wild rumours of Hamilton going to Ferrari. He is staying put at McLaren, probably for many years to come.
But there are stories linking Williams driver Nico Rosberg with the seat alongside him in place of Kovalainen. I’m a big fan of Heikki as a driver and a person but regardless of the reasons for his poor form this year he really needs a couple of very good results, starting today. I can imagine Rosberg’s German nationality being attractive to McLaren’s partner Mercedes-Benz.
Elsewhere, Germany’s brightest new star Sebastian Vettel has been confirmed as the retiring David Coulthard’s replacement at Red Bull next year, and there is fevered speculation about which other drivers might end up in which cockpits for 2009.
I would expect that the space created at Toro Rosso by Vettel’s departure would be filled by GP2 star Bruno Senna, the nephew of the late Ayrton. This would please Bernie Ecclestone, whose influence in driver selection should not be underestimated.
He is not particularly proactive on the subject but he is the circus ringmaster who always seeks new high-wire acts. He needs wheelsmiths who will get TV sets turned on and who will attract new sponsors and exotic grands prix locations.
For example if he has second-generation Brazilian stars like Senna and a Piquet on the grid he will be content if a long-running star like Rubens Barrichello doesn’t get a berth.
However, on the back of his great podium result at Silverstone, it seems more than likely that Rubens will remain at Honda alongside Jenson Button for another year. This emphasises just what a strange business the driver market is. You can easily go from hero to zero and, thankfully for many of us, it can quickly reverse.
You really are only as good as your last race. It is ridiculously fickle because it is such a subjective decision, the toughest decision a team principal has to make. The driver is the final link in the chain and inevitably the biggest because once team members all step back from the grid, it’s largely down to him, at which point the $400 million budget is resting on the shoulders of him and his crazy young teammate.
The teams have copious amounts of data on all of the drivers, analysed in great detail, but it’s still a subjective call ultimately in that they don’t know how he’s going to gel with the team, with his race engineers, and the design philosophy of the car.
So it ends up being a fashion business. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t, but the data and gut feeling helps take some of the gamble out of hiring a new charger behind the wheel.
Nationality can figure in driver choice too, but it’s interesting to explore why Germans currently dominate in numbers when we’ll be down to just two Brits next year. Is it the flywheel effect of all those dominant years from Michael Schu-macher? Are we going to see five Alonso-inspired Spanish drivers on the grid in future? Is it about the two German car manufacturers in F1?
When I came to F1 in the 1980s there were around 30 cars and 13 of them were driven by Italians, although that was more about sponsorship and convenient tax provisions.
Maybe it’s all just a coincidence, but hopefully Hamilton and the new UK ‘Go Motorsport’ initiative will keep Britain at the centre of global motorsport.
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