Will you still watch F1 without the big teams?

FORMULA One has been thrown into chaos after the Formula One Teams Association (Fota) carried out its threat to set up a rival championship in 2010, reported BBC today (read story here).

Fota had been against the voluntary budget cap proposed by world motorsport boss Max Mosley, which would have resulted in a two-tiered competition, and had been in negotiations with FIA and F1 rights owner Bernie Eccelstone recently over the issue.

Negotiations have now broken down and eight teams – Brawn GP, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso – have indicated that they will set up a rival championship next year instead of participating in the 2010 F1 season.

With some of the more illustruous names now out of F1, would you still watch the championships, of which one race is held in Singapore?

Would you still watch a Ferrari-less Formula One?

THE pinnacle of motorsports is in real danger of losing one of its crown jewels, as Ferrari had their appeal against FIA’s proposed optional £40m budget cap thrown out by a French court in Paris yesterday. (Read BBC story here)

FIA president Max Mosley had argued for the optional cap to be in place to stem the spiralling costs of the sport that is also deterring potential new teams from joining the ranks of Ferrari and McLaren.

Teams that adhere to the budget cap would have more technical freedom to modify their cars, which could in turn prove decisive on the tracks.

Ferrari, along with Renault, Red Bull and Toyota, have threatened to quit F1 if the budget cap comes through, but the new rule could attract the likes of “Wirth Research, Lola, USF1, Epsilon Euskadi, RML, Formtech, Campos and iSport”, according to a statement by the Italian team.

The thing is – would you rather watch a Formula One race without Ferrari – one of the sport’s traditional powerhouses – or prefer a possibly more unpredictable race season, with ‘poorer’ teams be able to match up to the likes of McLaren and Ferrari due to the technical freedom that comes with the budget cap?

How will the new F1 season pan out?

Will the likes of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello be able to sustain the form? (Picture: AP)

IF YOU missed the season-starting Melbourne Grand Prix yesterday afternoon, you would have missed out on a highly entertaining race.

Not only did the Brawn team make a fairytale ending by becoming the first team to have a 1-2 finish on its debut since 1954, the race also saw defending champion Lewis Hamilton battle his way from 18th on the grid to third, after Jarno Trulli was penalised for overtaking Hamilton when the safety car is out.

From the testing stages right up to the chequered flag in Melbourne, F1’s Big Four – Ferrari, McLaren, BMW Sauber and Renault – have struggled against the likes of Brawn, Toyota, and Williams, the latter group of which have used a controversial diffuser.

And while appeals have been launched against the use of the diffuser, The New Paper’s F1 analyst Luke Netto fully expects the Big Four to start developing their own versions of the component as well (read his full story in today’s edition of The New Paper).

Will the Big Four recover from the lag time in designing and building the diffuser, as well as modifying their chassis, to reclaim their dominance in the championship?

Or will the likes of Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel and Timo Glock be able to build on this early season momemtum to challenge for both the drivers’ and constructors’ championship come November?

Can Danica Patrick help boost the troubled Formula One?

USF1, Formula One’s newest team, is looking at the possibility of recruiting Indycar driver Danica Patrick for the 2010 season, according to various reports.

The competition has been badly hit by the global financial meltdown, which has resulted in Honda pulling out of F1, new rules that are designed to cut costs among the teams, as well as the recent news of ING not renewing its sponsorship of the Renault team at the end of this season.

Formula One has injected some excitement back to its fans in recent years with some novel experiments, including last year’s inaugural night race here in Singapore.

With people all around the world tightening their purse-strings in anticipation for more bad times ahead, the series would need something more to entice fans to fork out money to watch the races, where tickets have traditionally been costly.

And a classic battle between the sexes may just generate enough buzz to save the sport from going further south.

After all, Patrick is not just a pretty face (she famously posed in a swimsuit for the cover of Sports Illustrated, as well as men’s magazine FHM). The 26-year-old became the first woman to win an Indy car race last year in Japan, three years after turning professional.