Formula 1 commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone has been flapping his lips again; this time; the 82 year old is claiming that F1 still has too many teams despite the departure of HRT, who failed to lodge an entry in time for financial reasons. Basically this is because; under the new Concorde Agreement; there would have to be 10 teams or less to trigger a clause which will allow teams to run three cars, which of course suits Ferrari; Bernie is pandering to Maranello & di Montezemolo again!
Personally I don’t like the idea of three car teams as only the top three or four teams have the financial clout to field three cars; hardly a level playing field when some teams have three cars while others have two cars. The other question would be; can all circuits accommodate 30 cars should every team bring three cars to races? Plus as far as I know, only Ferrari has expressed a wish to field three cars; I don’t recall any other team wanting to run three cars? leave a comment If I’m wrong!
There was more controversy caused by Ecclestone; the Briton labeling Ferrari’s call for clarification on whether 2012 world champion Sebastian Vettel passed Jean Eric Vergne under yellow flag conditions “a joke“. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo hit back at Ecclestone, saying “We must respect the elderly, especially when they can no longer control their words.” I have seen the video and it does appear that the German overtook under yellow flag conditions, but the FIA claim that there was a marshall waving a green flag on the left of the track before Vettel made his move.
Meanwhile there has been talk of Turkey returning to the F1 calendar after New Jersey failed to make the 2013 calendar because of delays in building the street circuit. But the track promoters said that the Turkish government would have to financially back the event for it to go ahead. The Turkish government swiftly released a statement saying it would not put any money into the event, so it looks like that idea is dead in the water and we’ll have just 19 races this upcoming season!
