Video : A Lap around Valencia with Mark Webber
Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber takes us on a lap of the Formula One street circuit in Valencia, scene of the upcoming European Grand Prix
Credit : RedBull
Credit : RedBullThe final grand prix of the season in Abu Dhabi summed up why the 2010 season will go down in Formula 1 history as a classic year.
There were super-fast Red Bulls, world champion drivers in the thick of the action, strategic errors, raw emotion and a final twist in an epic tale as Sebastian Vettel won his first world title.
Before the race was run, the sun-soaked paddock was buzzing with talk of "the greatest season ever" and debate about the highlight of the season swelled.
In fact, as the dust settles on Abu Dhabi, the teams' attentions are already turning to 2011 - all the teams and most of the race drivers get their first run on next year's new Pirelli tyres at the Yas Marina track at the weekend.
With just 118 days to go until the cars and drivers return to the desert in Bahrain to rejoin battle, expectations are already building that 2011 could be another classic year, matching events this season.
As BBC pundit Eddie Jordan exclaimed on Sunday: "We have five world champions competing next year, what are we in for?!"
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Jordan is right to be excited.
The men who defined this season remain in situ - Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button at McLaren, Fernando Alonso at Ferrari, and Vettel and Mark Webber at Red Bull.
All of them know they have things to improve in 2010 - particularly the number of errors they have made. And the long winter will give each of the 24 drivers on the grid time to analyse and agonise over crucial mistakes and frittered points that ultimately defined their seasons.
"Every one of us made too many errors and that is why we found ourselves in a position with five guys fighting it out," reflected Button, who saw his title defence end in Brazil.
Though he was the first to bow out, Button had the cleanest season of all the five contenders but found himself let down by a lack of pace - particularly in qualifying - as he got to grips with a McLaren in his first season with the team.
Alonso will rue his uncharacteristic errors in Australia and China, his crash in Monaco and, most of all, the fatal call from Ferrari to bring him in early for fresh tyres in Abu Dhabi.
Hamilton will reflect on his ill-judged passing moves in Monza and Singapore, which effectively ended his hopes, while Webber will relive his frightening somersault in Valencia and his costly crash in Korea.
Vettel, too, made more than his fair share of errors. He must take the blame for crashes with his team-mate Webber in Turkey and an unwitting Button in Spa, while his attempt to go around the outside of Webber at the start in Silverstone earned him a puncture.
For Red Bull, though, one of the biggest areas of focus will be the poor early-season reliability, from spark plugs to wheel nuts, that prevented Vettel bursting into an early lead.
When Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko was asked on Sunday what his next goal was after his team captured both championships, he said they intended to cut out the errors so they could win the titles sooner.
All the top teams will be adding grease to their usually slick operations over the winter at the same time as building their cars to a set of regulations that have been tweaked again.
Gone will be the double-diffusers which caused so much controversy at the start of 2009, as well as the F-duct that McLaren pioneered at the start of 2010, forcing everyone else to follow suit.
Blown diffusers - 2010's other defining technical tweak - will stay to an extent, though.
In come those Pirelli tyres, while Kers energy storage and power-boost systems return after a year away. There will also be a new technical trick in the form of moveable rear wings, an attempt to solve F1's perennial problem even in a season as great as this - the difficulty of overtaking.
The success of the teams' research into the effects of these changes will shape next year's title chase - and it is by no means a given that this year's big three will be the ones who get it most right.
There have been concerned whispers that the efforts of waging a season-long campaign have diverted attention away from 2011 development programmes at Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren.
The strain of winning the 2009 championships certainly drained Brawn Grand Prix, which had a debilitating effect on them this season in their new guise as Mercedes.
However, with no championship to fight for, teams such as Mercedes and Renault, who stopped developing their 2010 car in September so they concentrate on next season, could make it a five-way battle for honours next year.
"It has been a special year," mused McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh. "Can there be more?
"We have to keep the focus on brave, fantastic drivers in great machinery; an even-handed regulator, stability and clear rules that are administered properly.
"We can't guarantee it but there is no reason the championship next year can't be as good - or even better."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sarahholt/2010/11/could_f1_2011_be_even_better.html
The agreement for Formula 1 to switch to a new energy-efficient type of engine in 2013, exclusively revealed by BBC Sport, is the culmination of months of in-depth negotiations about one important aspect of the future of the sport.
Increasing F1's sustainability was a key aim of both Jean Todt - the president of governing body the FIA - and the Formula 1 teams through their umbrella organisation Fota, and this move certainly makes a statement about that.
By replacing the current 2.4-litre normally aspirated V8 engines with 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbos with energy recovery and fuel restrictions, F1 has deliberately mirrored the way road-car manufacturers are taking the cars we all drive on the road.
Fossil fuel supplies are running out and there is an ever-increasing pressure on resources, but there is no realistic replacement in sight for the internal combustion engine for some time to come, despite the hopes for zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell engines, for example.
In those circumstances, car manufacturers have no choice but to produce ever-more efficient engines.
That is already happening with 'hybrid' cars such as the Toyota Prius and an increasing number of manufacturers rolling out energy-saving technologies across their ranges.
But the manufacturers involved in F1 hope that by adopting these technologies in a glamorous, high-profile activity they can speed up their adoption by making them 'sexy'.
So whereas now high-performance and fuel economy/efficiency are regarded among the wider public as pretty much mutually exclusive, F1 can prove otherwise and by extension help in dramatically reducing the carbon dioxide emissions produced by road cars in the future.
They will do this by producing new engines that reduce fuel consumption by as much as 50% while retaining the same power and keeping competition as close as it has been in 2010.
It is not all about philanthropy, though. Inevitably, there is self-interest involved too.
F1 is aware that it has an image for being profligate with resources. In an era when there is increasing pressure on energy supplies, it is nervous about its position as an activity that literally burns fossil fuels for fun.
By introducing these new rules, F1 is hoping it can go some way towards insulating itself against accusations that it is an irrelevant waste of resources.
It can counter any such claims by pointing out that the pursuit of the maximum possible power output for the minimum possible fuel consumption by some of the world's brightest engineers in the white-hot competition of F1 will lead to a much faster development of energy-efficient technologies.
These advances will thus transfer much more quickly to road cars than they would have done, thereby reducing global CO2 emissions quicker than if F1 had not bothered.
It is a noble idea and it sounds like a no-brainer - and regular readers of this blog may remember that I wrote about the likelihood of these rules as long ago as April - but there have over the past few months been serious doubts about whether they would be adopted in 2013, as was originally the plan.
That is because as F1's power-brokers began to discuss the idea, economics and politics threatened to put the brakes on it.
The move was opposed for some time by Mercedes and Ferrari because they felt it did not make any sense to commit to spending millions designing a new type of engine at a time when the sport was trying to cut costs, and teams were facing problems finding sponsorship as the global economic crisis bit.

F1 cars last used turbos in the '80s - they are coming back for 2013 in a very different form. Photo: Getty
Better, some felt, to delay such a big change by a year or two - or perhaps even five - and make some nods towards efficiency with the current engines, than embark on such a complex programme at such a difficult time.
How, these people argued, would they convince the boards of major car companies to spend anywhere between 50-100 million euros building new engines for F1 when the current ones worked perfectly well and all car manufacturers were struggling financially?
There were other objections, too.
The background to the talks was that the 2010 F1 season was developing as one of the greatest in the sport's history, with five drivers in three teams competing for the world championship.
All involved were painfully aware that it would be foolish to introduce a new regulation that put the closeness of competition at risk.
F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone put it this way to me when I spoke to him about the prospect of the new rules: "It's not necessary. We have a very good engine formula. Why should we change it to something that is going to cost millions of pounds and that nobody wants and that could end up with one manufacturer getting a big advantage?
"We don't need to do it; all the manufacturers are doing it (in their road cars) already."
At the same time, F1's senior figures were aware that while the current 2.4-litre V8 engines might appear to be wasteful, in actual fact they are more efficient in terms of specific fuel consumption - the amount of power produced per unit of fuel - than any road-car engine.
The counter-arguments to these objections were as follows:
Nevertheless, even the most ardent proponents of the new rules recognised that those arguing against had a point - no one had an appetite to spend tens of millions of euros on a new F1 engine and no one wanted to wreck the on-track show.
As a result, I'm told, a series of checks and balances have been built into the new rules to ensure that the engine manufacturers cannot engage in a spending war and to prevent one of them gaining a significant performance advantage over the others.
It was also recognised that an F1 car had to remain what it is - super-fast, with a very powerful engine. So the new engines will produce about the same total power output, 750bhp, as the current ones.
How they do it, though, will be very different.
Only 600bhp of that will come from the 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbo engine itself; the remainder will be generated by the energy recovery systems that will be integrated within it. Fuel consumption will be restricted both by limiting fuel flow and introducing a maximum capacity for races.
Current engines rev to 18,000rpm - a figure that has come down from more than 20,000rpm in recent years as the FIA has introduced limits as part of cost-saving moves. The new ones will not do more than 10,000rpm.
That in itself caused concern - believe it or not, there was disquiet that the new engines would not sound 'right', that they would be too quiet.
Anyone who has witnessed an F1 car at close quarters will be aware that they make a quite shattering noise - few things on this earth are louder.
Certainly, the new ones will sound different - and quieter - but whether that is better or worse depends on your point of view. It is almost certainly also a question that concerns the ardent F1 fans who live for the sport a lot more than it does the millions more who switch on their televisions every other weekend to watch a race.
It sounds almost surreal to think that this was a serious point of discussion among such serious-minded people, but I can assure you it was.
Whatever your take on it, though, the new engines have won the day, and their adoption will be announced sooner rather than later, even if it is not after the FIA World Council meeting on Friday 10 December, as I'm told it could well be.
This, though, is just the first of many sets of talks about the future of F1.
To come are negotiations over a new Concorde Agreement, the document that binds together the teams, the FIA and the Formula 1 Management (FOM) companies, represented by Ecclestone, and which runs out at the end of 2012.
The teams are pushing hard for their split of the sport's huge revenues to increase from 50% to 75%, and early indications are the FIA is also seeking a major shift in its relationship with FOM.
If talks over a new engine formula felt difficult and protracted, those over the new Concorde Agreement promise to be something else again.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/12/f1_moves_to_set_green_agenda.html
Filed under: Jimmie Johnson, Chase for the Sprint Cup, NASCAR
LAS VEGAS -- In a luxury suite in the Bellagio Hotel high above the Las Vegas strip, Jimmie Johnson was all smiles and "aw shucks" on the eve of collecting an unprecedented fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship trophy. He was at the hotel to meet with a small group of reporters and to unveil the true benchmark of an athlete's success. Forget the historic five NASCAR titles, Johnson now has a video game named after him: "Jimmie Johnson's Anything With an Engine." The game doesn't go on sale until 2011, but the concept launch this week meant the vivid collision between two of America's favorite pastimes, video gaming and NASCAR. And it was interesting to observe the hip, young gaming reporters, dressed in black adorned with lots of zippers and skull designs and colorful tattoos, sizing up the NASCAR All-American good guy's entry into their eclectic world. "So how does it feel to be a legend?'' asked Jon Carnage, a former professional wrestler who is now a reporter from the video game blog Destructoid. He clearly caught the humble Johnson off guard. "It's still strange to me that I hear that,'' Johnson replied. Perhaps he should get used to it.
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Chase for the Sprint Cup Richard Childress Racing Tony Stewart Kyle Busch
Red Bull appear to be having a bit of fun with the watching world ahead of the deciding race of the 2010 Formula 1 world championship.
With their drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel both trying to chase down the championship leader, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, the big question heading into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend is whether Vettel will help Webber win the championship if the German cannot do it himself.
This is quite a likely scenario, given the positions of the three drivers in the championship standings.
Alonso leads Webber by eight points and Vettel by 15. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton is still mathematically in contention 24 points behind the Spaniard but is realistically out of the running, with only 25 points available on Sunday.
There are any number of potential permutations and if you want to explore them all fully, Spain's Marca newspaper has produced a fun tool that does the job nicely.
On pure performance, Vettel, Webber and Alonso are likely to occupy the top three positions in Abu Dhabi, just as they did in Brazil last Sunday. If that happens, the permutations are relatively simple.
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If Webber wins the race, Alonso must be second to win the championship; if Vettel does, the Ferrari man need only finish fourth.
But what if Vettel is leading going into the last lap and Webber is behind him and Alonso third or fourth? Would Vettel hand the lead to the Australian?
Given the fractious relationship between the two men at times this season, it would not be an easy thing for Vettel to do. But both he and team principal Christian Horner hinted after the Brazilian Grand Prix that he would.
"In that scenario, it is something you will think of," said Vettel. "I think it's clear."
Since then, though, Red Bull team owner Dietrich Mateschitz, the man who founded the drinks company and has since made billions from it, has thrown in a curve ball.
The Austrian told Gerhard Kuntschick, a reporter from the Salzburger Nachtrichten to whom he is close, that if they cannot win he would prefer his drivers to lose out to Alonso "in the correct circumstances".
That is a reference to Ferrari's actions at the German Grand Prix, when the team gave Felipe Massa a coded message to let Alonso by into the lead so he could maximise his points in the championship.
Team orders are banned in F1. Ferrari's punishment, at the race and later confirmed at a hearing of the sport's governing body the FIA in September, was a $100,000 fine.Without the extra seven points he gained at Hockenheim, Alonso would be leading Webber by only one point and Vettel by eight. That would have made the Abu Dhabi race a winner-takes-all scenario for Webber and Alonso, and for Vettel if he headed a Red Bull one-two with Alonso third.
Mateschitz continued: "To interfere with the drivers was never a possibility for us. The whole world condemned Ferrari after what they did in Hockenheim, but we have turned out as idiots because we did not act in this way."
Mateschitz said Red Bull had never considered getting one driver to back the other "as long as both our drivers remain in the hunt for the championship".
He added: "A second place under correct circumstances might be better than a win on grounds of orders and confirmations."
What does this mean?
Will Red Bull really refuse to intercede and risk losing the championship to Alonso? Will they leave it up to Vettel's conscience?
Does the phrase "as long as both our drivers remain in the running for the championship" mean that Vettel will let Webber by to prevent Alonso winning the title (on the basis that Vettel, at that point, would no longer be in the running for the championship)? Apparently not.
Could Horner's "best result for the team" conceivably mean what Mateschitz says - that it is better to lose the title because they have not resorted to team tactics, rather than win it because they have?
If Red Bull will not use team tactics, why not?
Is that a decision based purely on wanting to be seen to be competing in the right way - following the old adage that it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game?
If so, this is not, shall we say, a philosophy that is universally shared in the "piranha club" of the F1 paddock.
Or is there more going on here than meets the eye?
The cynics in the F1 paddock - and there are a lot - will have a field day with these conflicting messages from the leading figures at Red Bull.

Just how alone is Webber at Red Bull this weekend? Photo: Darren Heath
If Vettel is in a position to help Webber and does not, some will wonder if that is because Red Bull simply do not want Webber to win the title, and would rather wait another year for Vettel to become their first champion. If that is the case, why would they not want Webber to win? Is Webber, as was speculated in Brazil last weekend, leaving the team at the end of the year following his complaints of favouritism?
All of this adds an intriguing extra dimension to an already absorbing climax to one of the best F1 seasons there has ever been. And it seems fitting to be discussing it at the end of a season in which Red Bull's perceived preference for Vettel over Webber has caused so much heartache within the team, and drawn so much attention from outside.
There was the fall-out from losing a one-two in the Turkish Grand Prix following a collision between the two drivers, when the team initially appeared to pin the blame on Webber, when most of the watching world felt Vettel was at fault. And three races later, there was the decision to take the only remaining example of a new front wing off Webber's car at Silverstone and give it to Vettel.
What else has been going on behind the scenes that the outside world does not know about?
Horner has continued to insist throughout that the team have supported both drivers equally - he reiterated that view to me in Brazil last weekend - but it has not always looked that way. I have spoken to a number of people in F1 this season who believe there is evidence that some kind of team tactics have been employed behind the scenes at Red Bull.
After inflicting so much damage on themselves in Turkey, did Red Bull dictate that once a driver was ahead, the other was not allowed to race him? If not, what - to bring up just one example - did Webber mean after following Vettel home in the Japanese Grand Prix last month? "It was fun to bring the gap back down to Seb and after that track position is king," said the Australian. "I know the rules and that's how it is."
If there have been tactics to control Webber, though, there is no hope of them happening in Abu Dhabi. With the title on the line, there will be no dutiful holding of position from whichever Red Bull driver is behind.
Of course, F1 would not be what it is without this added dimension of intrigue and politics - it's part of what makes it so fascinating. Yet it is easy to forget that before any team tactics can come into play, there is a race to be run.
Red Bull enter it as favourites, for the race if not the championship. But Alonso - who has beaten them three times in the last five races - can never be discounted. Of the three main title contenders, he is the only one with the experience of being in this situation before - when he won his back-to-back titles in 2005-6 with Renault.
With the pressure on all the title contenders so intense, will that be a deciding factor? Or, with all the contenders worried about engine mileage under F1's eight-engines-a-year rule, will it be reliability that wins the day?
One thing seems certain - it is hard to believe, after such an extraordinary year of shifting fortunes, that there will not be one final twist in the tale.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/11/are_red_bull_prepared_to_hand.html

This author is a HUGE fan of NASCAR licensed merchandise
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