It hasn’t been very long since Super Aguri vanished from F1 throwing their drivers to the dogs, but there is hope for Takuma Sato in the near future (if 2009 is near). He has been linked to Honda and weakly rumored to Renault by French Magazine Auto Hebdo.

Rubens Barrichello may retire at the end of the year although he doesn’t seem ready based on what he says, or he may be shipped out of Honda for younger blood. I tend to believe that this year will be Barrichello’s last year at Honda and he will be replaced by ‘?’

The weak rumor circulating is that Takuma Sato may test with Renault this summer along with Romain Grosjean as an option to replace Nelson Piquet who is having a dismal start to his rookie season. Renault are trying to be positive about Piquet improving, but how can they. He isn’t giving them any reason to believe he can improve.

Steve Nielson had this to say:

“Formula 1 is a business – it’s a very cut-throat business – and if people don’t deliver, they go the obvious way.”

This fit of Fernando Alonso with either one of these drivers is much more appealing than Robert Kubica joining Renault, but these are just rumors and facts won’t come for a while.

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This past 4 day test session at Catalunya was the second in a series of 2009 slick tire test sessions and so far so good. Speeds and handling haven’t been much of an issue for any team on sicks and times have been good to say the least. Giancarlo Fisichella and Rubens Barrichello posted very good times and had no complaints.

Not only that, but they also ran slicks without tire warmers which of course are banned for next year. This issue has and to be expected, met with some resistance through the paddock with Pedro de la Rosa, Michael Schumacher, and the most critical of them all, Nico Rosberg.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Rosberg. “Running out of the pits it’s ridiculous. It’s not racing, it’s survival. It’s just survival out there, and that’s ridiculous.”

On the other hand, Tetsuro Kobayashi, Technical Manager at Bridgesone Motorsport was pleased with the testing and is happy with the outcome. He also says that the issue of tire warm up has improved since the first testing.

Honda Racing is backing the tire warmer ban and Engineering Chief Steve Clark hints that with warm conditions (most races are) that there shouldn’t be any issue. Honda themselves had no problem in the warm conditions in Barcelona and are looking forward to next season without them.

Opposition to this has to be expected, but Nico, don’t you think you are just a little overboard?

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What was more anticipated, the car or the livery?

Honda revealed a different coloured car than we saw earlier this week at their official launch. The launch took place this morning at their headquarters in Brakley.

We’ve already seen the new RA108 on the track in it’s initial shakedown and a little bit of testing and initial impressions are, well, it’s better than last years car.

Honda has reaffirmed it’s commitment to F1 and is determined to revive a hurting team. One process in achieving this was to change direction in car design philosophy and this is exactly what is happening with help from a stronger engineering team with more experience. Ross Brawn having taken leadership has also steered this team in what they hope is a new direction and the right direction.

Livery! Toned down quite a bit and incorporating the teams’s Earthdreams Program. Essintially this is a concept representing Honda’s commitment to harnessing the passion of Formula One and its partners to provide support and investment for good causes through a unique cause related marketing initiative.

I’m really pulling for Honda this year. It was an embarrassing 2007 season Honda who have had such a successful time in F1 over the years. Let’s hope they can shave a few seconds.

Ross Brawn, Team Principal says:

“The RA108 car is a wholly different concept to its predecessors, in terms of its aerodynamic layout and mechanical structure. The design philosophy has been developed to allow greater scope for aerodynamic packaging and exploitation, particularly to facilitate the introduction of performance upgrades through the season.

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Now that the McLaren-Ferrari espionage scandal is officially over, the teams can get back to the business at hand; preparing for the 2008 season.  We’ve read news story after news story about this for months now and it’s time to move on. 

News stories we would all like to read have been pushed back in the pages to accommodate this mouth watering event and I for one am glad we can move on.  Writing on these scandals can be exciting and feedback and opinions, well, there’s plenty of it, but I’m looking forward to the 2008 season now and am hoping for a relatively clean season.  The team drivers have almost been chosen with prominent names moving about and looking at the drivers lineup as it stands right now, I see some great opportunities for a few notable teams and drivers.

Fernando Alonso signing with Renault again is pushing the team to perform at a much higher level than in 2007.  Fernando quite possibly will have a competitive car and will be in the hunt at every race without having to deal with an ‘interfering’  team mate.

McLaren with Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen and strong backing will be a tough pair to beat.  Heikki with a great package underneath him may push Lewis on the track rather than off and Lewis is looking forward to it.   Now, If McLaren stick to their ‘equal driver’ status, who will be the better driver?

Ferrari have basically maintained a status quo with their drivers and why wouldn’t they.  Both drivers are capable of winning races time and time again and coming off the high of Kimi Raikkonen winning the 2007 championship Ferrari are confident in getting back to the Michael Schumacher winning years.

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