F1 News

May I take this opportunity of wishing the Teams, Drivers, Fans, Marshall's and all those connected with Motor Racing generally all over the world a very  

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous 2010.

Updates and General News
Silverstone has at last been granted an extended license for an unspecified period (albeit 17 years has been mentioned) to host the British Grand Prix at its rightful home. This will give Damon and his team the opportunity to make the required investment in the circuit with guaranteed return. Well done the BRDC and about time too.

Points System for 2010
Changes to the points scoring for drivers and constructor championships come into operation for the new season as follows: 

1st - 25, 2nd - 20, 3rd - 15, 4th - 10, 5th - 8, 6th - 6, 7th - 5, 8th - 3, 9th - 2, 10th - 1.

That will make a big difference to the spread of points across the drivers and teams. Points for 
 9th and 10th will make a difference to the lower places as they are still achieving points for their efforts.

New Rules 
New rules come into force relating to race day incidents. There will be a permanent panel of stewards who iwll go to each GP along with an additional local steward for each circuit. These 4 stewards will also be accompanied by an experienced former F1 driver to add to the decision making process. These may well help iron out some of the anomalies which have hindered drivers and teams over the past couple of seasons.

New Driver Appointments 
The appointment of drivers is now changing by the day and once the places are all filled I will publish the full driver/team line up. This will finally update the last one I published a few weeks ago. News from this last 2 weeks.

I am pleased to hear Kobayashi has been given a drive with BMW Sauber for 2010 and we all wait their place on the grid to replace Toyota. Kobayashi sprung into the limelight for the last 2 races in 2009 replacing the injured Timo Glock at Toyota. He drove 2 fantastic races in both Brazil and Abu Dhabi and is without doubt a talent for the future.

Virgin Racing (Manor Grand Prix) have announced Lucas Di Grassi and Timo Glock and that sounds an interesting partnership for a new team.

Lotus have also announced their driver line up with Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalinen. Let us all hope the resurgence of Lotus can match the talent of both drivers, if it can they should be up and around mid pack.

It was also nice to hear Felipe (Massa) is back in winning ways after winning the 500 Miles of Granja Viana Kart race in Cotia, near Sao Paulo. Felipe had team mates of Lucas di Grassi and Julio Campos and crossed the line first after 644 laps - or just under 11 hours of racing. Welcome back Felipe and all the best for 2010.

That's all for now and I will continue with the updates and any important news after Christmas.