Frank Williams

Jenson to Williams for 2016?

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Brought to you by TheJudge13 contributor Fortis Formula one is a sport that’s  filled with drama, intrigue and suspense around every corner, something that the late Alfred Hitchcock would be extremely proud of. Following the continued rumour as to whether or not Kimi Raikkonen will be replaced at Maranello at the end of the current … Read more

#F1 Daily News and Comment: Wednesday 31st December 2014

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This page will be updated throughout the day. Please if you are on Twitter press the tweet button below. If you re-write and tweet individual story headlines don’t forget to include #F1. You may not realise how hugely important this is and has helped grow our community significantly OTD Lite 1998 – Arise Sir Frank … Read more

On This Day in #F1: 21st March

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Brought to you by TheJudge13 chronicler Carlo Carluccio – 1960: Ayrton Senna – The birth of a legacy. On this day – Ayrton Senna was born at 1.15am in the Sao Paulo province of Santana to wealthy parents Milton da Silva and his wife Neyde Senna da Silva (whose family is of Italian lineage). He … Read more

On This Day in F1: 17 May

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On this day in F1 – 17 May, brought to you by TheJudge13 chronicler BlackJack’sBriefs  1733 England passed Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum & molasses imported to the colonies from a country other than British possessions… 1890 Comic Cuts, first weekly comic paper, published in London… 1895 WG Grace scored his 100th century… 1900 … Read more

WTCC more viewers than F1, Evolution of RB cars, Bahrain: More trouble for F1, Alonso Samuriesque, F1 on a slippery slope

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Follow thejudge13: Why not follow thejudge13 by email. Click on the button at the top right of the page to receive an email when (and only when) a new article hits the interweb.

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Editor’s note: Sorry the news roundup is a little late today, I spent quite a long time piecing together Gary Hartstein’s conversations over the past week or so for the earlier article. It appears today is rather bitty news, but here we go.

Spin, spin and more spin: The World Touring Car Championship site released the following last night.

“WTCC’s TV audience is growing fast. Since the inception of the World Championship in 2005, figures grew from 70 million viewers across 20 broadcasters to over half a billion viewers across 84 broadcasters in 2012.”

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Nurburgring lifeline, Consistancy analysis, Vettel yellow flag storm brewing in Italy, Kingfisher Airlines finally finished, Champagne & Hot Dogs in Milton Keynes

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Vote for thejudge13 at the Silverstone media awards. “Best F1 blogger” is the category if you think we are. (Link). It only takes about 1 minute to do. I believe we have 14 votes so far from thjudge13 readers.

Nurburgring: My favourite subject, the 2013 F1 calendar. It’s a week for lifelines, first HRT and now Nurburgring. To cut a long story short, in February the operators of the circuit, NAG, were given an eviction notice for non-payment of rent. Today Motorsport are reporting this matter is now ‘settled’ – how or by whom we don’t know.

2 weeks ago a spokesman for NAG said, “Formula 1 is no more at the Nurburgring”, discussions with Ecclestone were cancelled and all the other 2013 events were at risk.

Today, “Now we have to make progress in the talks with the Bernie Ecclestone toward a contract”, said Thomas Schmidt of NAG. I presume the operating company had been declared insolvent or bankrupt and the original contract is therefore no longer in force. Anyway, good luck lads – Bernie’s feeling a little down and unwanted at the moment, you may catch him in a rare moment of weakness.

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Resource Restriction ‘Agreement’ – You’ve got to be joking

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Try and find the RRA?

What is the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA)? Try Googling it, try searching the mainstream F1 media sites, try Wikipedia, try even asking senior team F1 personnel. There’s plenty of articles to be found where F1 people are for it, against it and mostly there is an agreement that costs should be controlled. Yet there is nothing out there that defines the scope of the RRA.

Formula 1 has in the past been most profligate in the area of spending. Rumours have it that Ferrari in their dominant era were spending $100m a year on tyres that were bullet proof. Honda allegedly spent $1bn during 2008 on the present car and the design of the 2009 car. Ironically following Honda’s last minute withdrawal from the sport at the end of 2008, the car they had designed for 2009 won both WDC and WCC titles under the badge of Brawn GP.

At the other end of the spectrum teams have regularly run out of money and ceased to exist and even more that sell out and change their names due to funding problems. In the last 10 years alone, these teams have gone from the Sport: Jordan, BAR, Renault, Jaguar, Arrows, Minardi, Toyota, Honda, BMW-Sauber, Midland, Super Aguri, Spyker, Brawn and Virgin. So the casualty rate is high, and its mostly to do with a lack of funding.

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