TBK-Light.com

that is a shame for Jarno, thought he did a reasonable job this year, defo enough to keep his drive, I hope he stays in F1 even if Toyota do give him the chop

would be a nice driver for STR, he's Italian, the team is Italian...
but that is just wild guessing

Kobayashi is starting to come good on GP2, but replacing Jarno for him right now would be retarded. In 1 year time I could see this happening, but that depends on a lot of if's: if Glock remains the upper hand on Jarno he got in the end of this last season; if Kobayashi has a good GP2 season as he has indicated in later tests and in GP2 Asia; and if Nakajima shows nothing special at Williams in 2009.

I would say at the end of last year it more level handed than one driver doing better than the other. I do wnat to see Toyota win next year though.

Yeah, because every other driver in the Toyota for the past 4 years has produced good results...

Unless there's a break clause in Trulli's contract, which would save Toyota a fair chunk of cash, I can't see any reason for taking this decision

Yay for politics deciding driver lineups instead of talent.

Yeah, but they'd lose the same amount of cash in prize money.

On a Trulli-related note:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72486

If he gets let go, it'll be for being intoxicated on the job.

"Trulli has a year to run on his Toyota contract but has been with the team since 2005 and in the four years has failed to produce much in the way of results"

They must be watching a different driver to the one i've seen consistantly dragging that car into the points and qualifying above the potential of the car.

If they keep Trulli then it's a good move and i'd be happy to see him in F1 still. If they replace him then i can laugh at the team when Kobayashi fails to do any better. It's a win-win situation for me

December 20, 2008
Bernie Ecclestone hits back at Ferrari head by exposing the team’s ‘special deal’

Edward Gorman, Motor Racing Correspondent

Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One commercial rights-holder, launched a stinging attack on Luca di Montezemolo yesterday, effectively telling the Ferrari president to mind his own business, in the wake of the latter’s criticisms of the way Ecclestone is running the sport.

Speaking at the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy, this week, Di Montezemolo said that Formula One was not being run in what he called a “normal” manner, that the sport did not need a “dictator”, in a remark taken as a reference to Ecclestone, and that teams wanted more of the sport’s vast income and greater transparency from Ecclestone about the extent of that money. “We want to know more about the revenues,” he said.

An angry Ecclestone told The Times that Di Montezemolo should be the last person to be complaining about how much income the teams receive. “The only thing he has not mentioned is the extra money Ferrari get above all the other teams and all the extra things Ferrari have had for years – the ‘general help’ they are considered to have had in Formula One,” Ecclestone said.

It has always been known that Ferrari, whose presence on the grid is regarded as critical to the success and prestige of the championship, are on a special deal with Ecclestone’s company and get more money than their rivals. But Ecclestone put a figure on that for the first time yesterday, something that could be designed to drive a wedge between the Scuderia and the other teams.

“Ferrari get so much more money than everyone else,” he said. “They know exactly what they get, they are not that stupid, although they are not that bright, either. They get about $80 million (about £54 million) more. When they win the constructors’ championship, which they did this year, they got $80 million more than if McLaren had won it.”

Ecclestone added that the special deal with the Italian sports car manufacturer goes back to the attempt by the teams to form a breakaway championship in 2003, when Ferrari were the first to return to the fold. “They were the only team that broke ranks with the other manufacturers – why did they break ranks?” he said. “That’s where the $80 million comes in. We ‘bought’ Ferrari. We ‘bought’ Ferrari’s loyalty. Our deal with Ferrari was that we ‘bought’ them so they would not go to the others.”

Di Montezemolo’s call for more transparency about the huge annual income of Formula One was interpreted by Ecclestone as a thinly veiled attack on his business ethics. He said that since the first formal deal under which the teams race was signed, in 1981, the so-called Concorde Agreement, they have had the right to examine the finances of the business. “They have the right to send people into the company and search for everything,” Ecclestone said. “Ferrari in particular, more than anybody, from day one, have had the right and they’ve never done it. We have bankers here and we’ve got CVC (CVC Capital Partners, the principal owners of Formula One) checking every single solitary thing. So anybody that starts saying that we’ve done anything wrong, I’ll sue the a*** off them.”

As far as Di Montezemolo’s ambition to wrest more money for the teams from Ecclestone, the 78-year-old billionaire cast doubt on the chances of him agreeing to meeting in the new year to discuss this. Previously he had suggested that the teams should get less income, not more, in the light of the recent cost-cutting deal concluded with the FIA. He had a different idea yesterday. “What he should do, rather than asking for money, with all the extra money Ferrari gets, he should share all that amongst the teams,” Ecclestone said of Di Montezemolo.

The Ferrari president levelled a number of specific charges against Ecclestone, among them the decision to cancel the Canadian Grand Prix, which Di Montezemolo said he had found out about in the newspapers.

Once again the pugilistic Formula One official was having none of it. “The reason the Canadian Grand Prix is finished has been discussed with all the teams, including him, and it was agreed that what Canada was paying was nowhere near enough,” Ecclestone said.

In a final thought, he suggested that the Ferrari president knows less about his company than his own employees. “It’s a shame he’s not in touch with people that seem to run the company as opposed to what he does – work as a press officer,” Ecclestone said.

-

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 372488.ece

Obviously grandprix.com doesn't read the history books much on Trulli:
2005 - 3 podiums, 14 starts from the top 5 (including a non-start pole at Indy)
2006 - 4th at Indy
2007 - Bad year but qualified top 10 in all but 3 races
2008 - 1 podium, 10 finishes in the points

And on Ecclestone vs. Montezemolo,

2004 - 9 finishes in the points including 1 win, qualified in top 10 in all but 1 race (2 of them poles), 2 podiums.

Ecclestone vs Di Montezemolo should be to watch.

He was in Renault for most of the year.

His 2004 with Toyota:
Japan: qualified 6th, finished 11th
Brazil: qualified 10th, finished 12th

Pretty surprising that he opens up this much, I wonder how this will unfold..

Link

Now Renault could be in trouble

this has been a very dramatic off-season so far. I hope nothing else is to follow

This would explain why Renault was/is so interested in using the Cosworth standard engine

Mechachrome is working for Toyota and BMW too.

Anyone got a link to ITV's season review? Missed it this morning....