Formula One Comings & Goings: Webber a Red Bull

By Motoring Channel Staff - 8/Aug/2006

Budapest, Hungary — It's all happening in the world of F1 at the moment, with teams signing new drivers for the 2007 season, new rules changes taking effect and of course the first ever win for Briton Jenson Button at the weekend.

We'll get to the stressful musical chairs game that drivers are playing in the F1 paddock, with news of Australian Mark Webber's new team, in a moment, but first the weekend's news from the Hungary F1: The Honda F1 Team achieved its first Grand Prix victory after British driver Jenson Button took the chequered flag in first place for the first time in his career. 

There were emotional scenes in the team's garage enclosure after Jenson displayed superb driving in the drenched Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest to come from 14th to win the race.

The race win was a huge moment for the young drivers, and a feat that he has been striving for since his F1 career began in 2000. Jenson Button was ecstatic at his Honda F1 car held up in the miserable conditions, saying: "Wow! What a day! This is such an amazing moment for me and one that I have worked my whole motor racing career for. I always had faith that we would achieve our objective together and this victory is testimony to that belief."

The win is all the more impressive considering the Englishman started the race at 14th on the grid, putting in a truly impressive drive: "There are so many people to thank right now - everybody in the team, Honda Motor Company, our partners and, of course, all the fans. I would also like to pay a very special tribute to my family who helped me start out on the path to victory. To win such a tough and challenging race from 14th place on the grid is incredible for me and all the more important because I know I won on merit today. No one can dispute that today the Honda Racing F1 Team got everything right."

Jenson Button's Brazilian team mate, Rubens Barrichello finished in fourth place, giving Honda much-needed constructors championship points and giving his ailing 2006 season a impressive boost. An understandably disappointed Barrichello (who chose the wrong tyres initially) was happy that his team mate scored a victory, but the sadness was evident in his sombre tone: "I am truly happy for Jenson and the Honda Racing F1 Team today. It was a shame for me that we had the wrong tyres at the start or we could have both been on the podium. A huge effort from the team this weekend and we hope to carry that forward for future wins."

Finally, the CEO of the Honda race team, Nick Fry, said: "There are hardly words to describe this moment. It is an historic day for Honda and the most incredible occasion for the whole team, its associates and fans all over the world. Everyone has worked so hard for so long to savour the taste of victory. Jenson has remained positive, as has the whole team, and I am immensely proud of everyone today, especially as the CEO of Honda Motor Company, Takeo Fukui, was here in Hungary to receive the trophy on our behalf. Now that we have reached this important milestone, we know we have what it takes to go on and do it again and again."

Expect Toyota to be somewhat miffed with Honda's win, as the Toyota F1 Team has thrown countless millions of dollars at its car to ensure victory, and no doubt wanted to be the first Japanese F1 team to to achieve victory in modern Formula 1 era. 

In other Formula 1 news, Australian driver Mark Webber has secured his 2007 drive with the Red Bull Racing Team after quitting the Williams team. Williams will say that they fired him, but word on the street suggests that the team couldn't afford to keep him. 

Also of note is that Webber will be returning to his old team - in a round about way. Red Bull Racing purchased the old Jaguar team when Ford sold it, for which Webber drove until the end of 2004, but the current Red Bull Racing (RBR) Team is a much more efficient group than the Jaguar team ever was, and there is even talk that Webber may be able to help secure the torque-laden Renault engines instead of the current Ferrari V8s that RBR is using in 2006, (thanks to his Flavio Briatore links) which would make the team a very formidable opponent in 2007.

Mark Webber said, "It's fantastic to be joining Red Bull Racing. It's clear that the team is very hungry for long-term success."

He even made a comment that he is hopeful of having his best F1 season yet with Red Bull Racing, after his Williams racing cars tended to break down race after race: "I hope that with Red Bull Racing I can have my best Formula One season to date and believe that we can be very, very strong together."

Mark Webber will replace Christian Klein for the 2007 season, taking his place on the RBR F1 Team beginning at the Albert Park Grand Prix in Melbourne, Australia, in mid March next year. He will be paired with team mate David Coulthard, who is now a veteran of the sport and who should make a good pairing with Webber. Showing how competitive the RBR F1 Team's cars are, Coulthard finished the weekend's 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix in fifth place.

Other big moves in the Formula One driver and team arena include Fernando Alonso's well publicised move from Renault (where he's been for the last five years) to Mercedes McLaren, which in 2007 will be known as the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 Team following a new sponsorship deal with the European telecom company. At the time of writing, McLaren's second team driver is not yet known, but with Mark Webber now out of contention after joining RBR, it is expected that Kimi Räikkönen will stay put to partner Fernando Alonso in what will likely be the team to beat in 2007. 

Some sources from Finland suggest that Ferrari is still in contention to get Räikkönen, signing a 5-year deal that could be worth more than €30 million per annum to the Finn.

Another Finnish driver, Heikki Kovalainen, is now expected to join Renault after testing relatively well for the team, but the chances of the most successful driver in the history of Formula One racing in 2007 are getting slimmer by the month. 2006 may well be Michael Schumacher's last season. His manager, Willi Weber, even admits that Schumacher has a 50-50 chance of getting a drive in 2007, which adds weight to the fact that Ferrari has not yet renewed his contract. However, there will be plenty of other teams that would be happy to have the German genius on their team, so we will have to wait and see on this one.

For the full list of confirmed teams and drivers thus far for the 2007 F1 Championship season, go to the bottom of the page, or click here to be automatically taken there. 

As well as the numerous driver/team changes in 2007, the FIA has also changed a number of rules that all teams, cars and drivers must follow in 2007, the most notable of which will be the change from two tyre manufacturers to one. The FIA (or 'International Automobile Federation' when translated from its French Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile") had originally planned on reducing the tyre manufacturers from two to one in 2008, but has brought the decision forward to 2007, after Michelin announced it would cease its F1 partnership at the end of the 2006 season.

Another change to the F1 rulebook will be the disallowing of teams to run a third driver on Friday testing, which will hurt the smaller teams more than the larger established ones, such as Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes McLaren, who have enough cash to carry out more winter testing than their smaller rivals.

The 2007 season will also be an interesting one as it marks the end of Bernie Ecclestone's quasi dictatorship over the Formula One Championship. The Concorde Agreement that was first signed in 1981 (then again in 1987, 1992, 1997/1998) between the FIA, the Formula One Administration and the Formula One teams, comes to a close at the end of the 2007 season, which was drawn up to ensure all teams would compete in races to please worldwide broadcasters. In turn, the revenues from the broadcasting rights were to be distributed between the teams and it widely known that GPMA (whose members include Honda, Mercedes, Renault, BMW and Toyota) has a number of issues (mostly financial) with the current Concorde Agreement and have made it known that they will collectively boycott the 2008 F1 Championship season if their demands are not met. It is rumoured that these teams would begin a rival F1 championship series, which would be interesting, and perhaps even benefit the spectators like motorcycle racings SuperBike and MotoGP disciplines.

Next up we have the confirmed F1 team drivers for the 2007 season (at the time of writing: 8/Aug/2006):