Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen set the pace at Valencia testing yesterday, ahead of Nico Rosberg, driving the new Williams, and the McLaren duo of Heikki Kovalainen and Pedro de la Rosa. Former Williams driver Alex Wurz made his track début as Honda test driver.
Nigel Stepney, the man at the centre of last year’s spygate […]

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Yu Zhifei, ex-manager of the Shanghai International Circuit, has been jailed for four years after being convicted of embezzling more than 1m yuan (£69,500; $137,500) during the late 1990s, when he was head of Shanghai Shenhua Football Club.
Yu helped to develop Shanghai’s race circuit and helped to organise the country’s first Grand Prix in September […]

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FIA president Max Mosley has once again brought his unique sense of diplomacy to Sir Jackie Stewart’s call for a shake-up in the governance of the FIA.
“Dear old Jackie,” Mosley said, with a barely suppressed sneer. “He knows nothing about sports governance. Because he never stops talking, he doesn’t know much about anything, actually. He […]

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F1’s qualifying format will change for 2008, with the contentious Q3 cut to ten minutes to remove the ‘fuel burn’ phase.
The qualifying practice session will take place on the day before the race from 14.00 to 15.00. The session will be run as follows :
a) From 14.00 to 14.20 (Q1) all cars will be permitted […]

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Most people would consider a $100 million fine and losing all their 2007 constructor’s points a pretty harsh punishment for a F1 team but then most people aren’t Jean Todt and Luca di Montezemolo, who apparently won’t be satisfied until Ron Dennis gets publicly flogged.
“Should Ron Dennis be banned? We can’t rule in place of […]

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Former Renault F1 driver Heikki Kovalainen has been confirmed as a McLaren driver for 2008, ending Pedro de la Rosa’s hopes of a return to a race drive.
McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh said: “We had a number of options open to us and as always we want to make sure that we have the most […]

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The Renault F1 team have confirmed their 2008 line-up, with the return of double world champion Fernando Alonso and promotion of test driver Nelson Piquet Jr.
Speaking about the announcement Flavio Briatore said: “Fernando and Nelsinho will form one of the most exciting driver line up of 2008. We are delighted to be welcoming Fernando back […]

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Nico Rosberg has signed a new contract with the Williams F1 team for the 2008 and 2009 seasons, ending speculation that he was in line to replace Fernando Alonso at McLaren.
Martin Brundle, under fire from the FIA over an earlier column in The Sunday Times, has launched a robust counterblast in today’s column.
As a […]

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McLaren will have to wait until four weeks before the start of the 2008 F1 season to discover if their 2008 car is deemed legal, after the FIA decreed that other teams would be allowed to make representations at a further meeting on 14th February 2008.
Meanwhile, the FIA is to sue newspaper The Sunday Times […]

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Renault have been found guilty of being in possession of McLaren intellectual property at a hearing in Monaco today, however the team will not be penalised.
“An extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council was held in Monaco on December 6, 2007,” read the FIA statement.
“The World Council found Renault F1 to be in breach […]

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