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Red Bull confirm their interest in Alonso

Yesterday Flavio plays down Alonso’s interest in Red Bull, and Alonso following his ear tweaking from Il Padrino is getting his head down and towing the line.

The tremours rippling out from of Fernando’s manager blatantly visiting Christian Horner and apparently orchestrating a photographer to record the evidence appear not to be diminishing.

Alonso’s manager Garcia suggested following the meeting the matter for discussion may have been 18 year old Sainz. Yesterday, commenting on this specifically, Horner tells Bild, “Nonsense. Why would I talk to him about Sainz jr, who has long been in the Red Bull junior team?”

Marko has been remarkably quiet this year, except for saying early doors that Mark Webber was a driver who ‘bottled it’ and then delivering something akin to persistant ‘white noise’ for weeks over the ’testgate’ saga. Grinning whilst speaking to German TV that, a mischievous Marko refers to the meeting with Garcia suggesting, “I can’t remember if we talked about Red Bull or Spanish red wine”.

TJ13 has reported that Red Bull are under pressure from marko to take Ricciardo as a replacement for Mark Webber in 2014. Marko was wining the argument, hence the secret test for Daniel in idiada.

Horner’s view point gained ground as the debate in the Red Bull hierarchy continued. Webber has been an excellent driver for the team – Vettel has just been extra-ordinary. Recruiting Kimi or Fernando would be a continuation of the Milton eynes ‘official’ strategy of not having a number one driver.

Further, the advantage of this over bringing on Ricciardo is that Red Bull would deprive one of their rivals of their top driver.

Horner concluded, “We have won the world championships for the past three years, and we want to ensure we can carry on doing so in the future.”

1 week on: Reflections on the future impact of the new 2013 Pirelli tyre. (SKY)

“The 2012-spec of front tyre used in Hungary – and set to be used for the remainder of the season – is inherently less grippy than that used so far in 2013. It has a stiffer sidewall, absorbing less of the cornering force, more of which thereby gets fed to the contact patch and robbing the tyre of grip. This just might have been enough to give the Merc’s rears an easier time – enough to keep them away from that crucial temperature threshold at which they degrade rapidly”.

Ferrari release another lengthy edict which criticises Alonso (TJ13)

If you missed it , late on yesterday Maranello issued another lengthy diatribe on all things Ferrari and explaining the nature of Montezemolo’s criticism of Alonso.

Il Padrino further diminishes the importance of the driver and highlights it is Ferrari that ultimately matters. “Let me make it clear that it’s Ferrari I’m interested in. Drivers, we’ve had a lot, some very good, some great, but drivers come and go, while Ferrari remains.”

F1 V6 Turbo engine: A sound decision (Maurice Hamilton)

The ongoing feud that is between the FIA – specifically now, Todt – and Ecclestone was best epitomised for a number of years in the battle for the V6 engine. Mr. E argued that the engine noise would be greatly diminished and fans would be less interested in attending an F1 race. Interestingly Mr. E then cancelled FanVision, and I know a number of people who are not attending races in 2013 where they cannot get radio commentary in the native tongue.

Maurice Hamilton examines the issue of how important is the noise at a motor racing event.

“One of many occasions that stick in my memory occurred in the 1980s during a visit to the Long Beach Grand Prix. Someone suggested we F1 folk should take ourselves off for a night of sprint car racing at the Ascot Park speedway (now sadly demolished) to witness a round of the USAC Championship on the half-mile dirt oval.

These little front-engined monsters could extract more than 800 bhp from the methanol-fuelled V8s. When we arrived, the qualifying single-car run-offs were taking place. I’ll never forget the ferocious noise coming out of the stadium to shatter the warm evening air. It was like some wild animal, barking furiously as the driver stabbed the throttle in urgent bursts while throwing the thing sideways. A truly guttural roar. I couldn’t get in there quick enough”.

Just £16 to watch an F1 race (Economic Times)

With the cost if attending a Formula 1 event spiraling for most F1 fans in Europe and the USA, it may cheaper to fly around the world to attend a GP, than visiting the one nearest to where you live

Twitter and Alonso

Fernando as we all know has been bringing his fans closer to the ancient eastern wisdom of the samurai. On the back of his latest admonishment, he appears unbowed tweeting.

Sniff Petrol on Ferrari

Here’s something from our friends at sniff. A little pre-season preview of the team very much in the news at present.

FERRARI
Full name: Scuderia Totally Legitimate Nothing To See Here Ferrari
Engine: Ferrari
It’s business as usual at Ferrari with grumpy charm-vacuum Fernando Alonso and panda-faced pace-o-phobe Felipe Massa taking care of driving chores, all under the stewardship of Director Of Appearing On Television, Stefano Domenicali who sometimes finds time to run the team, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the vital business of locating and standing in front of TV cameras looking like a strangely unfunny impersonation of Vic Reeves. Boosted by successful pre-season testing, the team is said to be confident it can find several rules to bend and promises it is in good shape to make an annoyingly pompous fuss whenever another team does anything wrong.

more soon…..