BAR-Talk.com Newsletter 010

By Phil Huff (10/11/2004)
November 10 2004

This week there's been some good news - Anthony Davidson is on the option list for the spare seat at Williams. There's also been some bad news - Anthony Davidson is on the option list for the spare seat at Williams.

While the opportunity of a drive at Williams should never be overlooked (just ask Jenson Button), if Davidson was to be lucky enough to get it, it would be a blow to BAR.

Davidson's performances at BAR over the last few years have been consistently superb, contributing significantly to the teams upturn in performance. Losing that to a rival team would do no end of harm, especially with few replacements seemingly on the horizon.

There's Enrique Bernoldi but, without wanting to sound unkind, he's not what I would see as the future of BAR. How about Nelson Piquet? No, not that one, but his son. Nelson Jr has just won the British Formula 3 championship and is looking for a gentle introduction to the world of F1. With Jenson seemingly leaving the team at the end of 2005, could this be a potential future BAR star?

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The British F3 championship has a few races at Silverstone, home to the British GP. Or not, and it's all the fault of Ferrari, at least if you believe the rest of the media.

However, there's simply no link between Ferrari and any failure to get the British or French GP's on the calendar.

Nine teams (including BAR) have agreed to reduce in-season testing to just 24 days, although at least one of those teams won't be on the grid in 2005. That's it. That's all they've agreed after years of warnings about reducing costs.

The theory is that, with the money saved, the teams wouldn't need compensating for running 19 GP's, effectively subsidising the extra races.

The agreement is, however, worthless. The FIA cannot enforce it as a) it has nothing to do with safety and b) it doesn't have unanimous agreement throughout the teams. The agreement is nothing more than some public posturing by the teams in order to force Ferrari into a corner, and hopefully redress the balance in F1 slightly.

Ferrari, however, don't need to save money. If they can't run around Fiorano all day, then they'll just find another way of testing that will, most likely, end up costing even more.

Even worse is that it appears the team principals have finally lost the plot. Ferrari are not party to this gentleman's agreement, so will go on testing regardless. The other teams, all of which are at least half a second a lap behind the best funded team in F1, have decided the best way to fight back is to test their developments less. That's right, they'll run far fewer development miles than the most dominant team in decades.

Genius.

Until the next newsletter, keep it at BAR-Talk.com.

Phil Huff
BAR-Talk.com