Barrichello Visits The Williams Factory, While Hulkenberg Targets His Pace

Rubens Barrichello has visited the Williams F1 Team factory at Grove, Oxfordshire today to have a look around and to get to know some of the people who will help him fight for 2010 title better.

Barrichello took time out to see the factory and also walk the hallowed territory through the famous private museum.  Both locations, I have visited (see: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/my-day-at-the-williams-factory-thanks-to-philips/  ) and can vouch for their quality and brilliance.

“I am going to realise a dream, because ever since I saw F1 on TV for the first time, I have dreamed of driving for them,” Barrichello told O Globo the Brazilian TV channel this morning.

Rubens also revealed that he had contract talks with McLaren, and that he only had a contract for the first 4 races of the season with Brawn in 2009, with the rest of his contract being based on performances.

Meanwhile new team mate Nico Hulkenberg says he wants to match Rubens’ pace, and hopefully beat the veteran challenger on a few occassions.

The German GP2 Champion also pointed out he would be stupid to ignore the advice of a driver with so much experience.

“I hope that I’ll be on his pace right from the beginning and that I can match his speed and results – and maybe even beat him at some point!” 22-year-old Nico told reporters on Wednesday. “I just want to have the best team-mate I can get; one who’s quick, experienced and a good driver – and that’s what I see in him.”

Barrichello and Hulkenberg Unveiled As Williams’ New Drivers

Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg have been unveiled today as the new driver pairing for the Williams F1 Team for 2010.

Rubens Barrichello joins the team on the back of a strong season with Brawn GP, where he finished 3rd in the title standings fighting World Champion Jenson Button hard for the title and helping Brawn to the constructors title victory.

Nico Hulkenberg has just won the GP2 series, and also has won championships in Formula 3, A1GP and Formula BMW Deutschland.

Team principal Frank Williams said: “Rubens needs no introduction. He is not only the most experienced driver in Formula 1, but a passionate and talented driver who fought hard for the drivers’ championship this year.

“Nico Hulkenberg won the GP2 Championship this season as a rookie and has previously won the F3 Euro Series, A1 GP and Formula BMW Germany.”

Nico Rosberg now looks set to move to Brawn, and Kazuki Nakajima looks increasingly more likely to have no drive for 2010.

Rubens with Frank Williams back in 2004, after the USGP.

Barrichello and Glock To Confirm 2010 Drives Soon

Rubens Barrichello, Timo Glock and newly crowned World Champion Jenson Button will all be confirming their 2010 race seats within the next few weeks if paddock rumour at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi is to be believed.

Barrichello looks to be heading out of Brawn GP and off to Williams, a move almost confirmed by Michael Schumacher’s manager Wili Weber earlier in the week.  He will be partnering Nico Hulkenberg at the Grove based squad, which he described as one of the best teams in F1 a  matter of days ago.

“In one week we will know more for sure,” the Brazilian said, clarifying that the plans of his Brawn team-mate Jenson Button will have no bearing on his own.

“At the moment there are more important things than the announcement of my contract for the coming year,” added Barrichello.

Timo Glock on the other hand has said he has no contract with Toyota for 2010, where Jarno Trulli, Kaumi Kobayashi and possibly Kimi Raikkonen are all fighting for seats at, with the rumour being that the German is heading to partner Robert Kubica at Renault.

“Nothing has been signed,” the German’s manager Hans Bernd Kamps insisted. “For 2010 it looks good and perhaps next week we will have something surprising to announce.”

Weber Lets Cat Out Of Bag On Williams New Drivers

Michael Schumacher’s manager Willi Weber has well and truly let the cat out of the bag with regards to the Williams F1 Team’s two new drivers for the forthcoming 2010 season in an interview with German newspaper Die Bild am Sonntag.

Weber was discussing his driver Nico Hulkenberg with the tabloid favourite and he told the reporter “I think he [Hulkenberg] will be a match for his new teammate Barrichello,”

That pretty much tells us all we need to know about the Grove outfits two drivers for 2010.  Hulkenberg has been the test driver for two seasons at Williams while pursuing a highly successful career in lower formulas including winning the F3 Euroseries and GP2 world titles.  He also shookdown Williams’ FW31 car for the first time in front of the media before the start of this season.

Rubens Barrichello has been linked with the team but would not give a confirmed answer to even Brazilian media about the switch from Brawn.

It leaves Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima without drives however, but Rosberg could be off to either Brawn GP or McLaren Mercedes.  If he were to go to Brawn, it looks likely Jenson Button would go to McLaren and Rosberg could be joined by any number of drivers, even possibly Kimi Raikkonen if he doesn’t sign with Toyota.

As for Kazuki Nakajima, his best chance is probably with one of the new teams, perhaps Lotus.

Hulkenberg (L) and Weber (R)

Italian GP 2009: Barrichello Takes Strategic Win Of Quality Race

Rubens Barrichello took the chequered flag, and another win for himself and the Brawn GP team in today’s Italian Grand Prix after  a fantastic strategic effort from Ross Brawn.

The single stop strategy employed by the white cars of Brawn led to Jenson Button joining Rubens on the podium in 2nd, with Kimi Raikkonen being gifted 3rd place on the last lap.

Race Review

Lewis Hamilton didn’t get a great start, unlike Kimi Raikkonen and the Finn was forced onto the grass going down to the first chicane.  He managed to make a pass on Adrian Sutil, while the rest of the field fed around without bother – Timo Glock the only driver having to use the escape road.

Then into the second chicane, the first major incident – Robert Kubica tipped Mark Webber’s Red Bull round into the gravel and the Australian was forced to retire after just a handful of corners.  The incident led to front wing damage to Kubica’s BMW, and the Pole was forced into the pits some laps later as the FIA were concerned about its’ safety at 220mph.

Heikki Kovalainen had a terrible start, losing out to Barrichello and then Liuzzi and Alonso, despite claiming pre-race that he could win the GP and indeed his KERS system.

Hamilton then started to pull well away from Kimi Raikkonen, who to all intents and purposes held up Adrian Sutil as the Ferrari looked to struggle.

These 3 drivers at the top on 2 stop strategies made a big gap over the two Brawn’s behind them, and then Tonio Liuzzi held 7th well with Fernando Alonso hustling the Renault behind him, trying to squeeze every last bit of performance from the R29.

Hamilton pushed incredibly hard, the McLaren right on the ragged edge many times.  He pitted early, and Raikkonen & Sutil pulled ahead.  Hamilton was released into favourable traffic ahead of Liuzzi and Alonso.

With Raikkonen and Sutil then pitting, the now lighter Brawn’s pulled well away with Rubens Barrichello holding a good dap lead over championship rival and team mate Button.

Robert Kubica ended up retiring, with some kind of oil leak – although Martin Brundle claimed on BBC television that they were saving the engine as they were nearing their allocation limit.

Tonio Liuzzi too had a scare when he was driving through towards the Roggia chicane when at around 200mph the clutch appeared to break completely and the Force India driver ended his day in the sliproad of that chicane.  Disappointing after a fairly good weekend.

Giancarlo Fisichella looked largely average making his Ferrari debut, losing out on positions to various drivers, which in the end meant he finished the race in 9th place just behind Sebastian Vettel.  A shame for Fisichella not to score points on his debut.

After the final stops, Hamilton came out in 3rd behind the two Brawns and immediately started chasing.  Hamilton said after the race every lap was like “a qualifying one”.  Raikkonen and Sutil had a pitstop race, but both made mistakes! Raikkonen nearly stalled leaving his box, and Sutil tried to run down half his pitcrew.  Raikkonen came out in front and despite massive pressure would hold Adrian off until the end of the race.

The final piece of action really came from Lewis Hamilton, who, chasing down those Brawn’s managed to lose the car on the exit of the first Lesmo, spinning and smashing into an unforgiving tyre/concrete mixed barrier.  He ripped lots of bodywork off the car and left it strewn across the track. The ensuing double waved yellows and safety car board [in vein!] Raikkonen cruised passed and into 3rd place.

Classified Results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	R. Barrichello	Brawn Mercedes	1.16.21.706
2	J. Button	Brawn Mercedes	+2.866
3	K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	+30.664
4	A. Sutil	Force India Mercedes	+31.131
5	F. Alonso	Renault	+59.182
6	H. Kovalainen	McLaren Mercedes	+1.00.693
7	N. Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+1.22.412
8	S. Vettel	Red Bull Renault	+1.25.472
9	G. Fisichella	Ferrari	+1.26.856
10	K. Nakajima	Williams Toyota	+2.00.000
11	T. Glock	Toyota	+2.43.925
12	L. Hamilton*	McLaren Mercedes	+1 lap
13	S. Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+1 lap
14	J. Trulli	Toyota	+1 lap
15	R. Grosjean	Renault	+1 lap
16	N. Rosberg	Williams Toyota	+2 laps

*: Lewis Hamilton crashed on the final lap but was still classified by order of being 1 lap ahead of other runners classified lower.

Fastest Lap: A. Sutil (Force India) – 1.24.739

Retirements

Driver	Team	Lap	Reason
L. Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	55	Crash
V. Liuzzi	Force India Mercedes	23	Clutch
J. Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	20	Unknown
R. Kubica	BMW Sauber	16	Oil Leak
M. Webber	Red Bull Renault	1	Crash

Italian GP 2009: Qualifying, Hamilton Takes Pole

Lewis Hamilton slotted his McLaren into pole position for tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix, as the KERS and Mercedes Benz engined cars made the most of their performance advantage.

Indeed, Adrian Sutil will line up alongside Hamilton, his best ever qualifying in the Force India.  Kimi Raikkonen stares down Hamilton’s back end and will be looking for a good start, and possibly a 2nd win in a row for the Scuderia.

Kovalainen, Barrichello, Button and Liuzzi continue down to 7th, making it 6 cars in the top 7 with the Mercedes power units.

Alonso takes 8th, something to remove the limelight of Crash-Gate away from Renault.  His rookie team mate Romain Grosjean is down in 12th.

Splitting them are the Red Bull’s who really have lost their way over the past few Grand Prix.  Fisichella takes 14th in his first qualifying for Ferrari.

Jaime Alguersuari qualified last, and also takes a 5 place penalty for changing Gearboxes.

Post qualifying reaction here:

Pos  Driver       Team                       Q1        Q2        Q3
 1.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:23.375  1:22.973  1:24.066
 2.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:23.576  1:23.070  1:24.261
 3.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:23.349  1:23.426  1:24.523
 4.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:23.515  1:23.528  1:24.845
 5.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:23.483  1:22.976  1:25.015
 6.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:23.403  1:22.955  1:25.030
 7.  Liuzzi       Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:23.578  1:23.207  1:25.043
 8.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:23.708  1:23.497  1:25.072
 9.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:23.558  1:23.545  1:25.180
10.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:23.755  1:23.273  1:25.314
11.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:24.014  1:23.611
12.  Grosjean     Renault               (B)  1:23.975  1:23.728
13.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:24.001  1:23.866
14.  Fisichella   Ferrari               (B)  1:23.828  1:23.901
15.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:23.584  1:24.275
16.  Glock        Toyota                (B)  1:24.036
17.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:24.074
18.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:24.121
19.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:24.220
20.  Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:24.951

Mercedes Benz Look To Purchase Part Of Brawn GP Team

Plans for Mercedes Benz to buy in to the Brawn GP team have emerged today in well respected British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper suggests that Mercedes will not complete a full buy-out of the team, and instead purchase a percentage of it in a similar way to McLaren.  Then use their stake, of probably around 20% to assist the team with equity and a certain engine and development deal.

Brawn get this news on the back of a positive few weeks in terms of sorting things out for next season, with Nick Fry telling the media that Brawn have a confirmed big name sponsor for 2010 which could be Emirates Airlines.

Mercedes Benz didn’t comment with much as always, but their other big investment team McLaren did, seemingly they are not concerned Mercedes Benz could leave the Woking based squad for Brawn’s new rockets.

“Mercedes-Benz’s engine supply contract with McLaren is a very long-standing one – it’s in its 15th consecutive year, in fact – and it will continue to run for many years to come,” said the McLaren spokesman.

“However, we’re supportive of our partner’s plans regarding engine supply of other teams in Formula 1, and we were delighted earlier this year that a Mercedes-Benz engine supply deal was able to be done with Brawn, thereby saving that team from likely extinction.”

Belgian GP 2009: Kimi Raikkonen Takes Ferrari’s First Win Of Season!

Kimi Raikkonen delivered an emphatic first win of the season for Ferrari this afternoon after a highly exciting Belgian Grand Prix.

Suprise pole sitter Giancarlo Fisichella came in 2nd place, Force India’s first ever points and thus podium, while Sebastian Vettel kept his championship hopes alive while others around him faltered with 3rd place.

Race Review

The getaway from the line was mostly noted for Rubens Barrichello’s anti-stall kick in, forcing Kimi Raikkonen around his outside and bunching everyone up into La Source hairpin.

Raikkonen dived onto the astroturf around the outside of the turn and raced down to Eau Rouge with Fisichella in the lead and the BMW’s far up the pack.  Further back in the field various cars including Fernando Alonso, Jaime Alguersuari, Adrian Sutil, Timo Glock, Jarno Trulli and Lewis Hamilton were all tangling with bits of bodywork flying everywhere.

The cars were bunched as they headed down the straight to Les Combes, where Romain Grosjean tagged Jenson Button forcing him into a spin.  Jaime Alguersuari tried to miss Button and ended up ramming Lewis Hamilton forcing them both out as well as Button and Grosjean.  This left us with a Safety Car situation with all these cars hanging off the track.

Some drivers including Rubens Barrichello decided to pit in.

When the safety car finally returned to the pits, Kimi Raikkonen using his KERS system to full effect managed to get ahead of Fisichella and that is where he would stay for the rest of the race.  The gap between the two was not very large, and the pitstops [all on the same laps for the pair] didn’t yield a position change.  Had Raikkonen not being using the KERS system then he would almost certainly have lost the place to Fisichella, whose Force India car looked frighteningly quick.

Sebastian Vettel had a very quiet drive to 3rd place, managingto make use of accidents and retirements.

Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld managed to get a great result for their BMW team, with 4th and 5th places.  They stayed out of trouble throughout the race, but were almost certianly helped along by faster rivals being knocked out in the first corner accident.

7th place finisher Rubens Barrichello never looked like troubling those at the front after his poor start.  He did well to end up in the points, but in all honesty was lucky to finish with his Brawn GP car pluming smoke for the final 3 laps.  The Brazilian’s car then set on fire as he returned to the pitlane after the race!

Just finishing ahead of Rubens was Heikki Kovalainen, the sole finishing McLaren using good strategy to make the position from a poor qualifying start.  8th was Rosberg picking up vital points, but Mark Webber really should have been there but he had a pitlane incident where he was released into the path of Heidfeld, focing the German to nearly crash and got given a drive-through penalty for it.

Timo Glock should also have finished higher than 10th, but a fuel rig failure ruined his chances of points from early good running.

Sutil, Buemi and Nakajima came next in the classifications with fairly average races, and Luca Badoer brings up the rear of the field [again] in what is likely to be his last Ferrari race.

Fernando Alonso retired with a broken front left wheel and suspension, while we do not know Jarno Trulli’s problem possibly a fuel pressure issue.

Classified Results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	1.23.50.995
2	G. Fisichella	Force India Mercedes	+0.939
3	S. Vettel	Red Bull Renault	+3.875
4	R. Kubica	BMW Sauber	+9.966
5	N. Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+11.276
6	H. Kovalainen	McLaren Mercedes	+32.763
7	R. Barrichello	Brawn Mercedes	+35.461
8	N. Rosberg	Williams Toyota	+36.208
9	M. Webber	Red Bull Renault	+36.959
10	T. Glock	Toyota	+41.490
11	A. Sutil	Force India Mercedes	+42.636
12	S. Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+46.106
13	K. Nakajima	Williams Toyota	+54.241
14	L. Badoer	Ferrari	+1.38.177

Fastest Lap: S. Vettel (Red Bull) 1.47.263

Retirements

Driver	Team	Lap	Reason
F. Alonso	Renault	27	Tyre/Suspension
J. Trulli	Toyota	21	Fuel Pressure (Poss.)
J. Button	Brawn Mercedes	1	Accident
R. Grosjean	Renault	1	Accident
L. Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	1	Accident
J. Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1	Accident

Brawn GP Secures Future Funding

The Brawn Gp team, which despite being haistily put together weeks before the start of the 2009 Season has been a massive success have announced to Autosport Magazine that they have funding to see them right through 2010 on a full programme of development.

The team, born out of the wreckage of Honda, is based in Brackley and signed a minor sponsorship deal with Virgin at the start of the season.  A full car roll out and sponsorship deal was never reached because of difficulties between both sides and as such the car was left in the white and fluroescent yellow paint scheme for the season.

Although Brawn GP have not confirmed the names of these sponsors yet, they can confirm they are big money and there will be a proper car launch and livery.  Suspected candidates for sponsorship including Bwin.com and Emirates Airlines.

For Virgin Group, they have found sponsorship solace with Manor Grand Prix, one of the new teams.  We had indications this was true, but in the interview with Autosport Nick Fry confirmed the detail.

“We have zero worries on funding for this year, next year, the year after, and the year after that.   I smile when people talk about money, because we’ve always had the finances for this year, and neither Ross nor I would not have taken on the team if we did not have the money for this year.

“We’ve signed some nice contracts, and those will come out into the open when we launch the car next year, but we will see what happens. There is zero worry on our side.”

“We’ve had a great relationship with Virgin.” Fry added

“You have noticed different stickers from Virgin on the car over the year, and that is the result of additional requests from their side, which has increased our income as well, which is nice. I think they have had a great initiation into F1, and we are helping where we can in advice about what they can do with Manor.”

Brawn Applauds Barrichello On “Great Win”

Ross Brawn has heaped praise on his driver Rubens Barrichello after his victory in the European Grand Prix.

The 37 year old Brazilian has been there or thereabouts all season with racing, but today managed to secure his first win for 5 years.

Brawn, his boss, is in discussions with Barrichello about a contract extension for 2010 for the Brazilian.

“It’s just a sensational performance,” Brawn told the BBC. “We have had these races where Rubens was very good in qualifying and it hasn’t quite come together in the race, but today he was perfect.

“He pushed exactly where he needed to, and kept the gaps exactly what he wanted.

“And then when we got on the radio and said we had to push, then the little red lights came up. So it was just a fantastic performance.”