Jordan, Wrecks and the Areo debate - Mike's Column

Well it seem's Max Mosley has come out of hiding to go see the major sporting event of next weekend. The Jordan Rally. To go see Jordan host their first rally in WRC doesn't seem to abnormal for this much critizied head of the FIA however Max still seems to be shying away from the public eye. The Spanish GP see's the start of the FIA's 'Racing Against Racism' campaign. Is this not enough reason for the head of the biggest motorsport organisation in the world to front and see how this campaign is working?

A secret vote will be held in Paris on 3rd June when members of the FIA's general assembly will hold a vote of confidence. But Jordan have come out in support of Mosley and the crown prince spoke in favour of the FIA president.

"Max has been a strong friend and ally to Jordan and has supported us since we announced our bid three years ago, we are delighted that he will be sharing the historic occasion with us."

Poor young Sebastien Vettel.

Who would expect a 4 time winner of the ChampCar series destory a new car even before his highly rated and 'expensive' (quoted from Gehard Berger) had a chance to get to grip's with it?
The 'STR3' looked quick in the 'capable' Bourdais only 2.3 seconds of the slick shod Renault of Alonso.
Franz Tost had been looking forward to seeing how his new car came up to standard's, however the Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost was less than supportive for poor young Seb Srn when he summed up the accident in 5 simple word's; "He simply went too fast."

Before Bourdais chucked his car into the scenery he set a time of 1.20.715. This was only less than 2 tenth of a second behind 7th place Lewis Hamilton who completed 102 laps and only getting a time of 1:20.591.


Also this test saw Ferrari test out the F2008 seemingly naked of all its areo parts. With a set of slick boot's the returning Schumacher set the 2nd fastest time. The 2009 regulations will see slicks, no tyre warmers and little of an areo package. Very few people have talked about bringing back 'Ground Effect' (See our F1 insight) however its a very good issue. Banned from the early 70's in F1 Ground effect was a useful way making an F1 car fast through corners without effecting the speed on straights. The American racing series ChampCar use the Ground Effect theory on all its cars. The Ground Effect cars of the 70's were dangerous. Teams like Lotus pioneered this technology. It only became dangerous as the teams without the funding and technology like Lotus just copied the Lotus design. These teams basically stuck metal pieces under the car. However now ALL the teams have this technology to perfect this technology, should FIA follow the example of ChampCar and make all cars use this?
In this writers opinion, No. We want to make the cars challenging to drive. This is F1 NOT ChampCar.