Formula 1 and other stuff

Mercedes GP announced this morning that Petronas, the Malaysian oil giant, will take title sponsorship of the team from 2010 onwards.

Team principal Ross Brawn said:

Everyone at Mercedes GP is delighted to confirm our long-term agreement with Petronas and we look forward to working closely with our new partner in the future. The collaboration of the premium automotive brand Mercedes-Benz and a company as prestigious as Petronas gives our team a fantastic base from which to achieve our ambitions of competing at the top level of Formula One and building on the success of 2009 which saw the team achieve the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships. Our plans for the new season are progressing well, as is the development of our 2010 challenger, and we look forward to seeing the car run in the new Silver Arrows and Petronas livery at the Valencia test in February.

There had been much speculation in recent weeks that Mobil 1 would either leave McLaren or split its involvement between the two, but it appears that Mercedes were looking for more than just a technical partner. Mobil 1′s financial input into McLaren is relatively modest but the arrangement has been mutually beneficial, so it saw no need to spend more on a title sponsorship. Neither did it wish to transfer its allegiance from a team with which it has enjoyed considerable success.

When synthetic oil was introduced to the market in the 1970s, in the wake of the first oil shock, it was viewed with suspicion by many customers. Mobil 1 conquered this and established itself as a market leader by getting involved in motor sports and demonstrating its product there. It has been involved in over 100 Formula 1 wins, over half of which have come through its relationship with McLaren.

In recent years oil has become an increasingly important development path. The freeze on R&D, and the move to multi-race engines, has increased the demands on the lubricant in two ways: it must protect the engine over a longer duty cycle, but it can also liberate more power if blended to exactly the right viscocity.

It will be interesting to see what effect the move has on Mobil 1′s relationship with Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines in Brixworth.

I never spent much time chasing Flavio Briatore around the paddock; not because I found him odious, but because I couldn’t understand a word he said. I’m not the only one – an F1 high-up once told me that for similar reasons, whenever Flavio telephoned him he’d just say yes to everything.

Still, he was a fascinating character, and one of F1’s chief power brokers by dint of his friendship with Bernie Ecclestone and his network of F1 driver management contracts (not to mention his lucrative involvement in GP2 and related businesses). Besides keeping him plugged in to an inordinate number of revenue streams, this made him a far more influential figure in F1 than many people give him credit for.

It is for this reason that he has embarked on what appears to be the fools’ errand of launching a civil action in the French courts against the FIA. His lifetime ban from motorsport was calculated not only to deny him income but chiefly to exclude him from that which he held most dear: his seat at the top table of international motorsport; and his status as second only to Ecclestone among F1’s movers and shakers. Acquisition of money and dispensation of power; shorn of these facilities, he is just one of the little people.

The court will reach a judgement early next month and it is tricky to predict the outcome. He was caught bang to rights in the race-fixing scandal and failed to turn up at the World Motor Sport Council meeting that determined his fate; and yet it is possible that his claims about the punishment being excessive – and motivated by Max Mosley’s personal desire for ‘revenge’ – may find a sympathetic ear (not on this blog, since you ask).

It says much about the arrogance of power that Briatore thinks he can erase the stain of his loathsome conduct. He doesn’t trouble himself with what the man on the street thinks. What matters to him is to regain some grip on the reins of power: the who-goes-where of the driver market and the what-goes-where of engine, chassis and tyre contracts.

So I was interested to hear in Monaco last week that the French court may not be Flavio’s final port of call. Some say that he and his people are already lobbying the new FIA president for an official pardon.

Stranger things have happened. Remember Richard Nixon?