The ever lively Fernando Alonso is having what he considers to be another failed year, at least according to cryptic messages he gives on a weekly basis. We know his comments stem from him desperately wanting to compete at the front and show his championship status. Clearly with Renault he cannot.

In Fernando’s mind, this season may be another personal failure for him, but from the whole team package point of view, I think he’s having a pretty good year and his 9th place in the drivers standings with 10 points really doesn’t do him justice. Always competing, always pushing, and ultimately getting every bit of result out of his car and doing all this in every single race. These qualities are clearly the qualities of a true champion.

Looking at his season so far, results are sort of a mixed bag with a few mistakes here and there clouding what really could be a great first half season given the package he has to work with. His 4th place in Australia was exceptional considering a 14th place on the grid and was also in part due to some pretty timely luck, but in a race with carnage at every turn, luck and staying out of trouble are key. Before his first stop of the race which was a long stint he managed to maneuver into 6th place, but fell to 9th after his first stop. The last safety car he passed Kovalainen and Raikkonen and finished 4th. As I said, luck was needed in Australia, but staying out of trouble was absolute and in true Alonso style, he did just that.

Malaysia saw him qualify 7th making Q3. An outstanding effort and maybe a sign of things to come. The race was not the best, but Alonso once again drove a steady pace staying out of trouble bringing home the car in 8th place.

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To say the least it has been a shaky start to Nelson Piquet Jr’s f1 career after finishing an impressive 2nd in the 2005-06 GP2 series.

His season started off badly in Australia with a 21st qualifying position and a first lap collision which ended his day on lap 31. He didn’t look comfortable in the Renault, but really should have had his feet under him being that he tested for Renault the previous year (although not much). I’ll give him Australia though because even the best fell flat on their faces in the first race without traction control.

Malaysia should have been better and it was. He started 13th on the grid and finished a fairly respectable 11th remaining on the lead lap. In Spain Piquet Jr had his best qualifying to date with a 10th grid start but sadly once again his race ended with an accident after only 6 laps. After running off track earlier, Piquet Jr, in trying hard to regain his position tried forcing his way past Bourdais in the Toro Rosso, the inevitable crash occurred and both went out. It was not a good pass opportunity, but rookie enthusiasm and lack of experience got the better of him when patience would have been the name of the game.

Turkey saw a poor qualifying for Piquet Jr in 17th at the start. His race was very uneventful eventually resulting in him being lapped. He brought the car home in a poor 15th. It really isn’t fair to compare Piquet Jr to team mate Alonso, but a 6th place for Alonso should easily have meant that somewhere around 10th would have been possible.

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Super Aguri is gone but not forgotten and so is Giedo van der Garde (we remember that name) who is now suing Force India in the amount of 2 million dollars of the 3 million his sponsors paid to Spyker to guarantee him 6000km of testing.

Van der Garde was to be the cash grab Super Aguri needed to survive in F1, but bailed, taking his the money with him resulting in the beginning of Super Aguri’s tail spin. Initially he was signed to be a test driver for Super Aguri in late 2006, but left and signed with Spyker who he felt he had a better chance of an F1 drive with. It didn’t end there because his new Spyker contract clashed with his previous agreement he made with Super Aguri who then blocked him from testing with Spyker.

The new issue with Van der Garde concerns his testing and the saga continued after Vijay Mallya bought Spyker and made them into his team Force India. This allowed Van der Garde to test, however he claims he only completed 2000km of the 6000km agreed upon after Tonio Liuzzi was signed and interest in Van der Garde faded.

Van der Garde is currently racing in the Renault World Series and in fact he is leading, but the advice he’s been getting in the last few years is certainly not doing him any favors and not many teams would are going to be interested in someone with that kind of attitude. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer they say.

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Although last season wasn’t such a good one for Renault, at least it was more peaceful that it is now. Heikki Kovalainen was driving ok and was doing what he could to help the team improve. Giancarlo Fisichella was also doing the same but with limited years left in him. The R27 took a big step backward and they knew it, but complaints and driver issues were kept to a minimum.

With the availability of Alonso in the off season, Renault’s future looked bright and they sunk all their cards into signing him. Nelson Piquet Jr had brought fairly impressive stats with him to F1 and Renault grabbed him too. Heikki gone, Giancarlo gone and both quite surprised with Giancarlo pretty upset about it. So where did all this get Renault?

The R28 is a little better, but not much. Alonso clearly makes the car look better than it is and for the most part is driving very well. But….

From day one of the season after actually driving the R28, Alonso hasn’t been impressed and has brought on new rumors about his future with Renault. He has not played the ‘cool the media’ game by squashing any rumors, but has instead almost led the media on with his comments.

In the other garage you have Nelson Piquet Jr who has struggled all season, has been under pressure by Renault to improve and now seems to have a serious confidence issue. Rumors and speculation about his career with Renault and even F1 have not helped and he may be in a downward spiral he can’t recover from at least with Renault.

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How’s this for a rumor. Motorsport Aktuell of Switzerland has published what is so far a rumor suggesting a 3 driver swap is on the horizon following the Canadian Grand Prix. What they say is that the poor performing Nelson Piquet Jr. will be replaced at Renault with David Coulthard. Piquet Jr would then replace Sebastian Vettel at Toro Rosso who would then take David Coulthard’s vacant seat at Red Bull.

The reasons? Piquet Jr would be allowed to develop as an F1 driver at Toro Rosso, more or less out of the pressure of a big team like Renault and Sebastian Vettel who has been linked to Red Bull all season would remain at Red Bull. This would be the arrangement for the rest of this season and for 2009. At the end of this season, David Coulthard would drift into his impending retirement.

Now this sounds a little crazy especially in mid season, but rumor or not, it makes some sense. Nelson Piquet is going nowhere fast with Renault. His confidence may be at an all time low and the pressure just keeps building. Surely going to Toro Rosso and out of the heat would help him out if he is indeed cut out for F1. I’m not sure about the David Coulthad part, but at the very least he could grab a point of 2 here and there.

Sebastian Vettel was going to go to Red Bull Racing anyway so this part could also make sense although in the middle of the season makes it a little odd.

As they say, anything is possible in F1 and even though this is a rumor, stranger things have happened before.

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It’s not very often that I get down on one particular driver for long stretches of time. Now however I am. The object of my discontent is Nelson Piquet Jr. Yes I use the ‘jr’ because he simply isn’t his father. Piquet Jr. has been dreadful this his rookie season and I don’t see it getting any better. Rumors are flying around the paddock as everyone tries to get a feel for what Renault is going to do about him.

Forget the fact that his team mate is Fernando Alonso who will out drive him on any given day. Forget the fact that the Renault isn’t up to the pace of the lead teams. There are other rookies in F1 this year much better than Piquet Jr, Nakajima for example who continues to improve and does it without any frills, unlike Piquet Jr.

Shortly after he was signed to Renault, his attitude changed to what is usually reserved for those who’ve earned it. He dropped his father as an ‘adviser’ and also dropped the Jr from his name. He also proclaimed that he intends to become an F1 legend like his father (that was in 2005 actually). Add these together and I got an unsettling feeling about him. I said to myself, you need to be a rookie and leave the ‘fluff’ behind.

To date Piquet Jr. hasn’t really done anything in F1 for Renault and now he’s clearly losing confidence and the pressure is on from Flavio Briatore and so it should. Briatore wants to win as in the past and needs to have drivers who can get the most out of the car as it is. He has a top 10 car at best and top 10 points for Renault are achievable for Alonso at least, but for Piquet Jr., there is no points.

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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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Is it really only May? It is, and the start of ’silly season’ may have begun already for one driver anyway at least. The talk is around BMW-Sauber driver Robert Kubica and who wants him? BMW-Sauber have him this year and have an option on him for 2009, but now Ferrari and Renault have started early and are knocking on his door.

Kubica has driven his BMW ‘to the max’ so far this year and has out driven Nick Heidfeld in just about every race so now his stock is beginning to go up substantially. This hasn’t escaped the eyes and ears of Ferrari and Renault and they have begun poking him to see where he’s at with BMW.

This could all be ‘bogus’ and a ploy on the part of Kubica’s agent Daniele Morelli to ‘up’ his salary and it probably is, but 2009 is an option year for Kubica and maybe a better offer will swing him one way or another.

Problem is, Ferrari have Kimi Raikkonen and don’t plan on sending him packing any time soon. Renault have Fernando Alonso and they hope to not have him packing any time soon either. Where would this leave Robert Kubica then? BMW-Sauber, that’s where.

Kubica is showing a great talent with his aggressive driving style and will to win and with the stats to back him. This doesn’t jive with being a second driver to anyone. BMW-Sauber have a no number one driver policy and so far it works for them. Ferrari and Renault on the other hand have a history of number one drivers and blatantly so, despite weak attempts on their part to convince us they don’t. Felipe Massa is suffering with this and Fernando Alonso certainly wouldn’t take driver equality or number two status under any circumstance.

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Another race of attrition today along with a serious looking crash by Heiki Kovalainen. In turn 9 what looked like a left front wheel rim broke sending Kovalainen straight and hard into the tire barriers. Thankfully he will be ok with what looks like no serious injuries.

Kimi Raikkonen led the race from start to finish with perfect pit stops, smooth driving, and a fast (not fast enough according to him) car winning the Spanish Grand Prix in fine style.

As I said, this was a race of attrition with only 13 cars finishing the race and that’s got to be disappointing to many of those teams. This track has seen kilometers and kilometers of testing by all of the teams including just last week. Brand new aero packages as well as other improvements yet crashes and failures littering the track.

The race started with Massa getting the best start moving quickly past Fernando Alonso and right up behind Raikkonen, but predictably backed off of a pass attempt on Raikkonen.

Heart break kid Sebastien Vettel was again knocked out of the race in a first lap crash. David Coulthard and Adrian Sutil bumped, Sutil spun and Vettel had no where to go but into the side of Sutil. Three first lap dnfs for Vettel is hard to take. Sutil, who had been squeezed onto the grass, but had plenty of room to get back to the track bumped Coulthard, was sent spinning, taking out Vettel. Too bad for Sutil with a dnf as a result, but to me, the crash was his fault and bad luck continues for Vettel.

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First qualifying since all the new aero parts and there certainly is some improvements and changes in the top 10. First is Renault and wow, Alonso 2nd after holding pole until Raikkonen pulls out a last lap to squeeze by Alonso. It’s a good bet that Alonso was light on fuel and will be one of the first to pit in the race. Both Renault in Q3 with Piquet in 10th. Now that’s an improvement for Renault with their new fin and Alonso driving.

BMW-Sauber’s Robert Kubica looked great throughout, but last laps of Q3 send him to 4th when Raikkonen and Alonso battled for pole. BMW sits 4th with Kubica and 9th with Heidfeld.

It was up and down for McLaren all through qualifying and in the end, they still need some speed from that car. Hamilton finishing 5th with Kovalainen in 6th.

Down the grid a bit and disappointment for Honda who had hoped for at least one car in Q3, but not today. Barrichello just missing in 11th and Button 13th.

Both Williams made it to Q2, but that’s as far as they got. Nakajima out qualified his team mate Nico Rosberg by 3 places and starts 12th with Rosberg in 15th.

Mark Webber did his job well today covering for a David Coulthard who failed miserably. Webber into Q3 and will start 7th ahead of Jarno Trulli in 8th and Heidfeld in 9th. His team mate Coulthard, the fast Coulthard in morning practice didn’t even make Q2 and will start 17th in more crash territory. Coulthard did have trouble with traffic and said he wasn’t able to get his tires up to temperature.

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