Nigel Roebuck’s newsletter

In recent weeks – and particularly, for very good reason, since the Italian Grand Prix – praise of Sebastian Vettel has been fulsome and widespread. No surprise there, for the youthful German has impressed at virtually every race, and as the competitiveness of Toro Rosso has improved (due in no…

…

Although, 10 or so years ago, Bernie Ecclestone said he would, “Never, ever, ever, put on more than 16 World Championship Grands Prix in a season”, that has been ignored for a long time now, and in 2009 there will be 19 races on the Formula 1 schedule, followed by…

When the teams began testing without traction control, at the end of last year, most drivers were enthusiastic about the change, Lewis Hamilton and others commenting that being in sole control of the throttle, without the help of software, was extremely satisfying. Another who raved about the change was Rubens…

Years ago I concluded an interview with Bernie Ecclestone with a question about his relationship with Max Mosley. We all sit there in the press room, I said, and endlessly ask, ‘Well, are they joined at the hip, or what? Are they really at loggerheads about this or that? Or…

A week or so after the sad, but perhaps predictable, demise of the Super Aguri team, Tony Purnell (the former Jaguar team principal, and now, as an FIA consultant, something of a guru to Max Mosley) has written to all the F1 teams, putting forward some cost-cutting figures as a…

It may seem a strange moment to be praising Max Mosley for something (and I shall write in the next issue of the magazine of ‘recent developments’ in the life of the FIA president), but while I have by no means always been in agreement with his visions for our…

For the first time in many years, the Formula 1 rules are due to change very substantially in 2009, and Patrick Head recently talked about the problems implicit in developing, week in, week out, one car – the car actually competing at the moment – while attempting at the same…

In recent days, the big talking point in Formula 1 has been the racist gestures and insults aimed, by a few Spanish cretins, at Lewis Hamilton during a Barcelona test session. Lewis himself dealt with the situation calmly, saying only that the incident made him ‘sad’.

A colleague, who frequently covers…