Canada
It has finally been announced that the popular Montreal circuit will be back on the calendar for 2010 after the Canadian government helped it secure a five-year deal to host the race.
The deal will begin in June 2010 and the backers will each receive 30% of ticket sales.
The Quebec minister or finance declared himself “delighted”. Well that’s alright then.
Raikkonen
The official WRC website is stating that “nothing is signet yet, but a source close to the 2007 F1 World Champion told WRC.com that only little details needed to be tied up before an initial announcement is made in the coming days.
The Finn’s 2010 WRC programme is understood to have been funded by Red Bull – one of Raikkonen’s personal sponsors and a major backer of Citroen’s World Rally campaign.”
With all the to-ing and fro-ing with Kimi Raikkonen’s future lately, I am taking this latest claim with a sizeable pinch of salt, bit IF it is true, it would mean that we would get to watch Kimi in WRC as early as February, which is a massive plus.
However, Mikko Hirvonen is not expecting Raikkonen to repeat his F1 championship success in rallying straight away. He says “…preparing pace notes is a difficult case for him…it’s difficult to imagine that Kimi could succeed, at least in his first season.”
- Charmant, as the French would (might) say.
Lotus and Manor
FOTA unanimously agreed to accept Lotus and Manor’s applications for the 2010 Formula One Season, in a meeting that also saw Luca di Montezemolo announce that he will be stepping down as chairman of FOTA in the near future.
This means, then, that Manor and “Lotus” will be the 3rd and 4th new teams to join the rest of the grid next year.
Quickies
- Campos passed the FIA’s tests.
- Alonso made another “unofficial” trip to Maranello to spend a couple of intense days with the Ferrari engineers.
- Bernie has denied the recent rumours that said he has staged a Donnington revival by buying them out of their recent troubles.
- Bruno Senna has declared – incredibly articulately – his intention to step out of his late uncle’s legendary shadow with his new team, Campos F1.
- Flavio Briatore will have to wait until 5th January 2010 to find out the verdict on his lawsuit with the FIA to get his lifetime ban overturned. He is also suing the FIA for £900,000.
