Those are some valuable digits

RichardsF1    Formula 1     Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, Sponsors

Banking and insurance giant – and let’s not forget the principal sponsor of Ferrari – has insured Fernando Alonso’s thumbs for €10 million!

Personally, I’d have insured all of the fingers! The insurance giant announced the policy signing overnight at Madrid, in the lead-up to Alonso’s home grand prix this weekend.

"Being at risk in my profession made me understand that protection is a fundamental aspect," Fernando said at the media function. "I knew that Santander is the best bank in the world but now I have also discovered that they are leaders in insurance, so I could only choose one of the best possible partners in this field."

Who wrote those lines for you, Fernando?

[Original image via GP Update]

It’s Helmut Marko’s birthday today!

RichardsF1    Birthdays, Former F1 Figures, Formula 1     Helmut Marko, Red Bull Racing

Helmut Marko, one of Red Bull’s head honchos – and an accomplished F1 driver in his own right – is celebrating his 67th birthday today.

A close teenage friend of Jochen Rindt, Marko earned a law degree before concentrating in earnest on his own motorsport ambitions. He quickly developed a reputation as a great sports car driver, and was snaffled up by BRM for Formula 1 during 1971.

Showing great form in the 1972 French GP at Clermont Ferrand, his helmet visor was shattered by a flint (above left) which lodged itself in his left eye. Somehow, Marko was able to bring his P160 to a halt without a massive accident, but the sight in his injured eye was ruined, and a potentially great racing career was cut tragically short.

Realising he could still contribute in a management capacity, Marko ran Renault’s competition activities in Austria, going to establish a successful Formula 3000 team to help blood young drivers. He now heads up Red Bull’s young driver programme.

[Original image via The Cahier Archive]

Happy birthday to Bob Bondurant!

RichardsF1    Birthdays, Former F1 Figures, Formula 1    

Former F1 driver Bob Bondurant will be celebrating his 77th birthday today!

A regular in sports cars in the 1960s, Bondurant was one of the key figures in the Shelby American Cobra sports car project, taking seven victories en route to the Manufacturers’ World Championship in 1965.

Bondurant drove one-off races for Ferrari and Reg Parnell at the end of the 1965 season, but ran a BRM under the Team Chamaco Collect banner in 1966, taking an attrition-assisted fourth place at the season-opening Monaco Grand Prix.

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A new engine formula in sight?

RichardsF1    Formula 1     Technical

Spain’s El Mundo newspaper is reporting that F1 teams are close to agreeing to new engine rules for the six-year period starting in 2013, when the current 2.4-litre V8 rules end.

The newspaper claims that an in-principle agreement has been reached that would see 4-cylinder, 1.5-litre engines, fitted with a twin-turbo and direct injection. The new formula would also reportedly involve the reinstatement of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS).

The replacement should ideally see similarly powerful engines, but that should reduce the sport’s carbon footprint, use less fuel, and keep costs for the smaller teams to a minimum.

Formula 1 last ran turbo-powered engines in 1988 after Renault pioneered the concept in 1977.

Ferrari’s CEO Amadeo Felisa told Autocar magazine: “If F1 has to develop something helpful for real driving conditions [for consumers], then the best solution is for an engine that is turbocharged and GDI (gasoline direct injection).”

[Original image via The Cahier Archive]

Hakkinen considering a return to F1

RichardsF1    Former F1 Figures, Formula 1     Lewis Hamilton, Mika Hakkinen

Don’t panic! Mika is not pondering a comeback to a driver’s cockpit!

Double World Champion Mika Hakkinen is considering a full-time return to Formula 1 – as a driver manager!

Admitting he still feels a lure for the sport – although not to the extent that his fierce rival, Michael Schumacher, is doing – The Finn told Bild am Sonntag: I miss racing every day. It’s very close to my heart.”

Hill: Silverstone’s Arena layout ‘a corker’

RichardsF1    Formula 1     Damon Hill, Silverstone

Despite having previously criticised the revised layout to the Silverstone circuit, British Racing Driver’s Club President Damon Hill is now singing its praises, describing the Arena layout as “a racetrack of the future”.

Speaking with the Daily Mail, Hill added: “It looks like it has the potential to be a real corker. We have designed a challenging, exciting track for them [the drivers] that will make them like racing here more than ever".

The new loop – 760m in length and replacing the sequence between Abbey, Bridge and Priory – was originally planned for MotoGP, but will also be used for July’s British GP.

Lotus expects big things from Spanish upgrade

RichardsF1    Formula 1     Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli, Mike Gascoyne, Team Lotus, Technical

The Lotus team looks set to make considerable progress up the timesheets at next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, if their new upgrade goes to plan.

Heikki Kovalainen told Auto Motor und Sport that the team is aiming for an improvement of “more than a second [per lap].”

The Finn also acknowledged that, with Spain being the first real opportunity for all teams to produce new components for their cars, he expects many of those teams to improve as well.

Coulthard finishes maiden DTM race

RichardsF1    Formula 1     David Coulthard, DTM, Gary Paffett, Paul di Resta, Ralf Schumacher

David Coulthard has achieved his stated aim of finishing his maiden DTM race, bringing his Mercedes across the line in 12th place in the series’ opening round at Hockenheim.

The event was won by McLaren test driver Gary Paffet, who led home a Mercedes 1-2-3-4 after a closely fought qualifying session with the rival Audi cars. Paffet led home Bruno Spengler, Jamie Green and Force India test driver Paul di Resta.

Former F1 race winner Ralf Schumacher finished the race in 9th place.

[Original image via DTM]

Jean-Pierre Beltoise turns 73 today!

RichardsF1    Birthdays, Former F1 Figures, Formula 1     Jean-Pierre Beltoise

The last man to ever take a Grand Prix win for BRM  – Jean-Pierre Beltoise – is turning 73 today! Having forged a successful career in motorcycles – indeed, he won no less than eleven national titles in the space of three years – this son pf a Parisian butcher’s four-wheeled motorsport career almost ended as soon as it began, courtesy of a massive shunt at the Reims12-hour race that badly broke his arm and restricted its movement ever since.

Having recovered, he moved to the F3 scene, and won at the scene of his tragedy in 1965 for Matra, with whom he graduated to F2, winning the German Grand Prix support race.

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Happy birthday to Johnny Dumfries!

RichardsF1    Birthdays, Former F1 Figures, Formula 1     Ayrton Senna, Johnny Dumfries, Team Lotus

Former Lotus driver and team-mate to Ayrton Senna, Johnny Dumfries – better known by his royal titles as the 7th Marquess of Bute, or Earl of Dumfries – is celebrating his 52nd birthday today!

Determined to make it in his own right as a racing driver without the aristocratic lineage he carries, Johnny made himself out to be a south London painter and decorator in a bid to thwart his true identity being discovered.

He needn’t have worried about his royal ties, as his motorsport talent was quite sufficient to see him quickly rise through the ranks. Joining British F3 in 1983, he landed a plum drive with Dave Price Racing in 1984, and swept all comers to take the British crown – and nearly, the European title as well – with a staggering total of 15 wins.

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Armor All 600 International Driver Profiles

RichardsF1    Former F1 Figures, Formula 1, IndyCar, V8, WTCC     Andy Priaulx, David Brabham, Gianni Morbidelli, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Salo, Sebastien Bourdais, Tiago Monteiro, Yvan Muller

So just who are these 18 international drivers who’ve signed up to compete in the Armor All 600 V8 Supercars event scheduled be held on the Gold Coast later this year?

These 18 top-line drivers hail from all car-racing circles, and have achieved particular success in the fields of Formula 1, USA-based open-wheelers, and touring cars.

Our resident IndyCar writer Matt Lennon and I sat down to compile the following driver profiles. Just who do you think will shine?

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Looky-Likey #3

RichardsF1    Formula 1     Looky-Likey

Innes Ireland, 1960s F1 hell-raiser	John Button, dad to ‘hellraiser’ Jenson

It’s Felipe Massa’s 29th birthday today!

RichardsF1    Birthdays, Formula 1     Felipe Massa, Ferrari

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa is celebrating his 29th birthday today! Feliz aniversário, Felipe! No word as yet on how he’s celebrating today, but we’re sure it’ll be good! [Image via Bruno Mantovani]

Book Review: ‘The Grand Prix Who’s Who’

RichardsF1    Books, Reviews    

Now having been published in its third edition, Steve Small’s The Grand Prix Who’s Who is – and there’s really only one way to describe it – an absolute labour of love. This massive volume – over 600 pages – contains the complete statistical record of every single driver (and every single race in which they competed) to have started a Grand Prix in modern-era Formula 1. Every driver profile is coupled with carefully researched biographies and supported with black-and-white photographs (totalling over 800), it is a comprehensive resource for any F1 statistics buff or historian.

How on earth Small has managed to put this record together is beyond the scope of my understanding…!

A book like this has the huge potential of being utterly dull and wrapped up in its own sense of importance. I am delighted to say this is not the case with Small’s work, which is easy to read and objectively (yet sympathetically) portrays the back story of each of the drivers it profiles.

If you’re a Formula 1 fan who’s interested in learning about the drivers and their personalities, then this is definitely a great book to have as part of your collection.

Using our unique ‘Chequered Flags’ rating system, we award The Grand Prix Who’s Who…

The Grand Prix Who’s Who is available at Amazon.com

It’s Mike Taylor’s birthday today!

RichardsF1    Birthdays, Former F1 Figures, Formula 1    

Former F1 driver Mike Taylor is turning 76 today! Born in 1934, Taylor competed in two Formula 1 World Championship Grands Prix, making his debut at the 1959 British Grand Prix at Aintree in a Bob Gerard Racing Cooper T73, in which he finished 14th overall. Taylor had planned to compete in the US GP later that year, but was forced out with illness.