On Tuesday May 6th, the news broke that Super Aguri had officially pulled out of Formula One. After ignominiously being denied entry into the paddock at the Istanbul F1 track, Honda (through the dog-with-a-bone that is Nick Fry) confirmed that no rescue package would be given the go-ahead to rescue the financially-stricken B-team and that Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato would have to watch from the stands.
Continue Reading 2 comments May 9th, 2008 Bealzbob
During todays race (which was the most boring race in the history of motorsport), wasn’t it nice to see Alonso climbing the verge to greet his fans? Motorsport at most levels allows fans to personally meet and greet their heroes and get involved in the hustle and bustle of the pits. In F1, it’s only the rich and the corporate sponsors who get to do this normally. Bring back track invasions I say.
9 comments April 27th, 2008 Roy Madden
There was only one side I hoped would win following the Champ Car/Indycar split and sadly the “wrong” side won. Nevermind. I’m not an expert on US single seater racing, perhaps some of you in the comments could comment on whether or not having a single series will help or hinder motorsport in the US.
Rather than talk about something I know very little about, I’ll point you towards this excellent writeup from the final race ever.
5 comments April 22nd, 2008 Roy Madden
By now you’ve probably heard the news that India’s Tata Motors Ltd has finalized its deal to acquire the luxury British car brands of Jaguar and Land Rover from the beleaguered ford Motor Company for $2.3 billion.
Tata Motors Ltd is India’s largest automotive producer and currently enjoys a market share of 65% of all vehicles sold in India. The cash rich Automobile manufacturer, with current reserves of $29 billion, secured a $3 billion bridge loan from Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase in order to acquire the remaining British marques of Ford’s Premiere group, which once housed the Jaguar Formula 1 team and PI Research group run previously by Bobby Rahal and Niki Lauda.
But just who is Tata Motors? The company is just one of the Tata Group’s multiple holdings as the family controlled business also owns the Corus Group, a Dutch steel giant, currently the sixth largest in the world, the Tetley Tea company as well as a portfolio of American luxury hotels including the Pierre in New York city.
Originally known as the TELCO (TATA Engineering and Locomotive Company), they first began producing locomotives in 1945. Tata Motors then made their very first foray into commercial vehicle production in 1954 in a joint venture with Daimler Benz, with production of a heavily copied truck model, with this arrangement lasting through 1969. Since India’s infrastructure wasn’t set up to accommodate heavy tonnage vehicles at this time, Tata set it’s sights on the Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) market segment instead, producing it’s very first in-house designed LCV vehicle in 1986, the Tata 407.
Tata then set about expansion at a moderate rate by participating in joint ventures and in 1993 formed an alliance with Cummins Engines for the use of high horsepower modern diesel engines. A further joint venture was launched with Tata Holset
UK in order to produce turbochargers for its Cummins engines.
In 2000, the company introduced Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) busses as well as launching it’s 1109 Medium Heavy Commercial Vehicle (MHCV) truck, designed to fill the gap in its vehicle line-up with this intermediate tonnage truck, along with other new vehicles.
After enjoying a long dominance of the commercial vehicle market in its home country, Tata launched its first passenger vehicle, the India. Although this design received less than positive press remarks, nevertheless it’s good fuel mileage, peppy engine and mass marketing made it an eventual sales success, with large quantities being exported to South Africa along with a Rover badged version being sold in the UK. This was the City Rover, a joint venture with MG Rover which lasted only briefly as the company went bankrupt before being sold to China.
With the huge success of the various India models, Tata set its sights towards Global expansion and in 2004 Tata purchased the Daewoo commercial vehicles company of South Korea. The acquisition of Daewoo Trucks allows the company to lessen its dependency upon the domestic market sales with production of such vehicles as the Tata Novice, a well selling Heavy tonnage vehicle (TDCV) in South Korea.
Continuing it’s International expansion, Tata next set it’s sights upon the Bus market, purchasing a 21% stake in Hispano Carrocera SA in 2005, selling it’s products in the Spanish domestic market, along with establishing a 51/49% joint venture with Marcopolo S.A, a Brazilian company that is a Global leader in bus body production.
Last year Tata produced approximately 600,000 vehicles and Ratan Tata, the 70yr old Chairman of the Tata Group claims the acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover is seen as a way to diversify itself against the upcoming stiff competition from ambitious Chinese auto makers.
Interestingly Daimler Benz currently holds a 7% stake in Tata Motors, while Tata also has a partnership arrangement with the recently shed Chrysler Motor Company, whose Global Motorcars division currently sells Electric versions of Tata’s popular Ace vehicle. Tata Motors will also begin production of the controversial Nano later this year, being the world’s lowest priced vehicle ever produced with a $2,500.00 retail price tag. Tata also has an interesting compressed air hybrid vehicle called the One Cat it’s currently working on.
Meanwhile the Indian Auto giant has also been aggressively unveiling multiple concept vehicles for joint partnership development in multiple Nations and is set to begin mass production in Thailand and Argentina, along with forming an alliance with FIAT to gain access to its diesel technology. With FIAT’s assistance, Tata is aiming to produce its Global pick-up for sales in Europe along with its debut in the United States slated for 2009.
Prior to Ford selling off Jaguar and Land Rover this March, Tata was listed as the World’s twentieth largest vehicle manufacturer, while Ford’s sale of it’s luxury British marcques also includes the Daimler and Rover nameplates, much to the chagrin of Chinese manufacturers.
Yet this sale is somewhat curious, as this now leaves Ford only with the Volvo nameplate in its stable of foreign Automobile manufacturers. Ironically Volvo’s truck unit currently competes against Tata for sales in India, with Volvo being the “Mercedes Benz” of trucks currently occupying the country’s roads as these two rival companies competes for vehicle purchases in the Tractor Trailer segment primarily as India’s road infrastructure has been vastly improved by their National Highway Act.
With Vijay Malia’s recent acquisition of Spyker F1 and the impending Indian Grand Prix slated for 2010, could Tata be enticed to buy the rival Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula 1 team and begin its own racing program?
While the Ferrari customer engines would give some prestige, why couldn’t Tata revive the stillborn Cosworth V-8 engine program with a little badge engineering to give Tata the global marketing prestige it so desires. Could we once again see the revival of Jaguar in F1?
Of course Tata would need to be careful to avoid the overambitious goals of Spyker Automobiles failed foray into Formula 1, which ultimately led to the team’s being sold to India tycoon Vijay Malia. Such an audacious move could see Malia forced into playing second fiddle inIndia’s burgeoning Automobile market…
5 comments April 10th, 2008 tomaso
The mechanical engineers amongst you might be interested in this
http://www.altran-academy.com/
2 comments April 3rd, 2008 Roy Madden
Several people in comments on this site have long expressed dislike for Max Mosley and personally I have long felt that is unfair. I appreciate that being FIA head is an intensely political role and I appreciate the sacrifices and strength of character that must be involved in maintaining your position at the top. It’s no place to be if you have a need to be liked.
The images that emerged over the weekend will have shocked many, but they were of events conducted in private and we’re all only human after all, each with our own foibles. It’s right that we should draw no conclusions on a person’s character from them. Unfortunately for Max, what would have been the source of merely titillating gossip in the office canteen if it was someone else involved takes on a more unsettling nature given his background and history. You cannot choose the family you are born into, but at the very least someone of his stature should have been aware of the impact and the consequences if the behaviour was exposed. A legal victory against a newspaper on the basis of an invasion of privacy does nothing to tackle the issues he now faces.
The Irish Prime Minister resigned today because a financial scandal was preventing his government from functioning effectively. He didn’t admit any wrongdoing and I’m sure he will work to clear his name, but it would have been detrimental to the greater good for him to continue in office. Max should think about doing the same.
3 comments April 2nd, 2008 Roy Madden
I’ve been made aware that there is a story in today’s News of the World which has the potential to cause serious embarrassment to th FIA president. The NOTW is a notorious tabloid rag and as far as I’m concerned I wouldn’t clean my floor with it. Because the nature of a site like Links which has a forum and allows blog comments, I’d people to please confine any comments to this forum thread as we don’t want to be receiving any legal threats.
Any comments on this story made elsewhere on the site will be deleted as soon as they are brought to our attention. Discussions on the forum thread will also be heavily censored. I’d ask you also to post no links to the NOTW story, you can find the story there yourself if you so wish.
1 comment March 30th, 2008 Roy Madden
It’s great to have a race straight after the season opener. Especially when the crazy opener whetted our appetite’s so well. Ferrari will also be relieved to be able to rectify the nightmare that was Australia, and McLaren will be looking to further stick the knife in to their title rivals.
Continue Reading 3 comments March 20th, 2008 Bealzbob
So the new season is upon us and as I write we’ve had the grand total of 2 practice sessions to make a first impression of what is up and coming this season. Of course it’s not enough evidence to put any money on any outcomes but hey, as a blogger it’s damn well my duty to jump the gun and make rash judgements so here we go 
It looks like everyone’s worst fears have come true (don’t worry I wont be bemoaning everything !!). It is looking very much like a Ferrari - McLaren cakewalk this season. After the first 2 practice sessions the big 4 cars are head and shoulders ahead of everyone else. And even worse than that, the big 2 (Kimi & Lewis) seem to be head and shoulders above their team-mates.
The Adrian Newey inspired Red Bull’s are looking very racey BOTH coming in as best of the rest in 5th & 6th. If they can combine their rumoured reliability with this speed then expect some mammoth qualifying efforts from Webber this season and some very tidy finishes from both.
The BMW’s, who were expected to be best of the rest, looked a little sluggish coming in 11th & 14th albeit the middle of the pack being separated by very little (7th to 14th separated by only 0.4 seconds).
Fisichella deserves special praise for getting his Force India into 10th place ahead of both Beemers and just behind Alonso’s Renault.
Alonso’s team-mate suffered teething problems and ends up 20th ahead only of the Super Aguri’s of which Sato was on the pace but Davidson was not.
The Honda’s at least look like they have potential. They were not cut adrift as some feared and they came in 13th & 15th and in the mix. Some development could mean a decent season.
Williams were touted as a potential spanner in BMW’s works in pre-season and Rosberg managed to come 8th overall with Nakajima having similar teething problems to Nelsinho eventually coming in 17th.
The Toro Rosso’s were not quite the pain in the backside to the bigger teams that they could’ve been, ending up 16th & 19th overall.
So all in all, the main protagonists have taken their place at the top. The 2nd division looks like it might shape up as expected albeit with a stronger Red Bull, a stronger Toyota and a marginally weaker BMW than expected.
But I think I’ll wrap this up by letting you have a look at the combined session times yourself and letting you jump to your own conclusions
P NAME TEAM TIME GAP 1 Raikkonen Ferrari 1:26.461 - 2 Hamilton McLaren 1:26.559 +0.098 3 Massa Ferrari 1:26.958 +0.497 4 Kovalainen McLaren 1:27.114 +0.653 5 Webber Red Bull 1:27.473 +1.012 6 Coulthard Red Bull 1:28.037 +1.576 7 Trulli Toyota 1:28.292 +1.831 8 Rosberg Williams 1:28.352 +1.891 9 Alonso Renault 1:28.360 +1.899 10 Fisichella Force India 1:28.469 +2.008 11 Kubica BMW 1:28.579 +2.118 12 Glock Toyota 1:28.582 +2.121 13 Button Honda 1:28.632 +2.171 14 Heidfeld BMW 1:28.731 +2.270 15 Barrichello Honda 1:28.849 +2.388 16 Vettel Toro Rosso 1:28.957 +2.496 17 Nakajima Williams 1:29.077 +2.616 18 Sutil Force India 1:29.161 +2.700 19 Bourdais Toro Rosso 1:29.363 +2.902 20 Piquet Renault 1:29.518 +3.057 21 Sato Super Aguri 1:30.663 +3.202 22 Davidson Super Aguri 1:31.527 +4.065
7 comments March 14th, 2008 Bealzbob
I see McLaren are getting in on this whole web2.0 malarkey. They now have a facebook page…
Pity they didn’t spend some time making their website more interesting (though they did remove mention of Coughlan from the bios - eventually).
3 comments March 12th, 2008 Don Speekingleesh
I take a look at some of ITV’s James Allen’s comments in his pre-season preview.
Continue Reading 17 comments March 11th, 2008 Bealzbob
Preseason testing has suggested that Ferrari and McLaren are clearly ahead of the rest of the pack for 2008. Towards the end of 2007, I had expected Ferrari and McLaren to be not so dominating in 2008 because they were working on improving their 2007 car till the last race at the cost of ignoring development of their 2008 car. In contrast, BMW and Renault had started development on their 2008 car midway through 2007. I had expected BMW to match, if not exceed the pace of Ferrari and McLaren in the early part of the 2008 season, but that is not evident from the testing so far. One would’ve expected the spy scandal to have had a negative impact on McLaren’s development of their 2008 car, but their pace looks good so far. But questions on reliability may well be answered only when the races start.
The new rule requiring gearboxes to last for four races will test the reliability of the cars and I think it is a step in the right direction by the FIA. This, along with the engine change rule will increase the longevity of future F1 cars. Such rules will ensure that research going into developing an F1 car is more relevant to commercial automobiles.
The surprise packages during testing have been Williams and Red Bull. Kazuki Nakajima has impressed with his pace, though its yet to be seen how he fares in the races. Nakajima and Rosberg form a formidable driver lineup to back Williams’ resurgent car pace this year. After the critics had virtually written off Frank Williams’ team, this will be a remarkable comeback by a man who has dedicated all his life to his passion for racing. If Williams returns to the sharp end of the grid this season, the comeback will be complete and this will be a much greater victory for Frank Williams than any of his numerous past championship wins.
It will be good to see Fernando Alonso in a not so competitive Renault this year. It’s not very often that one gets to see a double world champion, at the peak of his form in a midfield car. I think being in a car which is clearly not expected to win will help Fernando a lot. He will not have the pressure to win. At the same time, Fernando will give a big boost to the team – psychologically and on the track – and Renault may be challenging for the podium midway through the season. I think we will see the best of Fernando Alonso this season. Despite all that was talked about him last year, one should remember that last year proved only one thing – Fernando, like Michael Schumacher and most former champions, will go to any lengths to win. He is not a saint, and does not (or perhaps should not) pretend to be one.
I am an Indian, but I don’t have much expectation from Force India this season. They will do well to beat Super Aguri (if Aguri makes it to the grid). The other two Japanese teams look disappointing so far. Even the great Ross Brawn will need a couple of years to make a visible impact to Honda’s performance. In a grid dominated by promising youngsters like Nakajima, Nelsinho, Sutil, Kubica, Hamilton, Rosberg and others, David Coulthard and Giancarlo Fisichella seem to be out of place. 2008 may well be the last year for these veterans, who were good, but were always second best.
2008 promises to be an exciting season. We will find out if Fernando can win with a Renault, if Hamilton and Kovalainen can be friends, if Mario Thessien can finally mount the podium and if Mark Webber will finally get a car that his talent deserves.
2 comments March 8th, 2008 Kannan
Courtesy of your lovely hosts at Linksheaven we have a nice & easy fantasy competition for you to take part in for the upcoming season.
Continue Reading Add comment March 3rd, 2008 Bealzbob
Australia is only 13 sleeps away.
Place your bets boys and girls ’cause it’s on!
Will Kimi win?
Will Hamilton show Kovalainen who’s in charge?
Will Kubica get everyone’s hopes up and then fail to deliver?
Will Bourdais and Vettel drive better than their car allows them to?
Will Super Aguri make the grid?
And, of course, will Alonso bring Renault back to the podium?
So many questions, so few races.
4 comments March 2nd, 2008 Art
The very first day that newspaper editors heard that Lewis Hamilton would drive in Formula 1, newspaper editors and journalists wrote thunderous articles and opinion pieces condemning the displays of racism towards him. They bemoaned racism in F1, they bemoaned the attitude of the authorities and they shouted aloud with their cries of “why won’t other drivers take a stand with him”. Then they filed these articles and editorials away until such time as they found an opportunity to use them.
That opportunity came last week when a small group of fans hurled racist abuse at Hamilton. The editors hurriedly reached for their “draft” folders and pulled out their pre-written pieces. They added the date and the location and published. Finally they had an opportunity to release the story they had wanted to write for a year.
Give me a break - of course racism in F1 is unacceptable but the reaction to this incident has been utterly excessive. Authorities in any country cannot pre-vet the minds of people who enter a track and cannot be expected to stop a group of muppets who want to shout at a driver. The only response they can give is to use reasonable means to eject any troublemakers they identify. They also can’t be expected to have thousands of police on standby to eject these people within a milisecond of something happening. The actions of a small group of hooligans reflects on no-one but themselves.
The authorities in Spain have behaved correctly. The newspaper editorials are now calling for “something to be done” and for “Alonso to take a stand”. Alonso isn’t a racist and there is no need for him to come out in public and say he isn’t. The authorities have condemned racism and have said they will eject anyone they find who are taking part in this. What more can we expect them to do?
British Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said he would write to the FIA and his Spanish counterpart to express his concern about the “sickening images”.
“Racism should not be tolerated and this is not the first time British sportsmen have been racially abused in Spain,” he told the BBC. “This brings into question whether the Grand Prix should be held at this track.”
What holier than thou shite from this sniveling little man, he’s obviously never attended an England football match. The thought police are out in force and are abusing our sport.
14 comments February 7th, 2008 Roy Madden
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