No podiums for Renault?

"We are very far, very far," Renault driver Fernando Alonso was quoted as saying by AS newspaper. "I think it's looking like at the end of last year: two Ferraris, two McLarens and two BMWs, and if everything goes like that, you can almost only fight for seventh place."

According to Fred, things are looking grim for the parrot-liveried team, andt he expects them to continue on with the form showed throughout 2007: "Thinking about the podium would be too optimistic right now," He went on to speculate the qualifying performance of Le Parrot Deux: "In our current shape it will be hard to make it into Q3,"

Meanwhile, team principal Flavor Flav has dismissed speculation that the Renault are lagging behind in vehicle development, saying "There's no reason to worry, all we need is some -0.6s magic fairy dust from our always reliable 'magic fairy'."

Reducing the deficit

Recent testing form shown at Bahrain International Circuit by Scuderia Ferrari has gotten everybody in the paddock digging deep for ideas to claw back the performance deficit ahead of the season opener in Melbourne.

Speculation has it that Kimi Raikkonen's pace was aided by a special Driver Hydration System (DHS) pioneered by the Finn. Our spy photographers caught a glimpse of the Iceman using his DHS in Bahrain:


Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato attempted to replicate the results with his own Sake-based personal hydration system with disasterous results. The Japanese driver was inebriated for the majority of the small team's first test of the season, severely setting back the development program of the 2008 challenger. As a result, team principal Suzuki Aguri has decided to call off the official car launch which was due to be unveiled on February 18th.


Meanwhile BMW Sauber has chosen to exploit a loophole in the technical regulations to reduce the performance deficit. Dr. Mario Thiessen was able to provide us with some minor details regarding the innovative solution to winning races: "We found that the FIA has not imposed any restrictions on use of weapons in Formula 1, so our strategy is that if we can't overtake them we'll just destroy them."

Super Aguri Brothers?

There has been a lot of talk in recent days about an Indian bid to buy Super Aguri F1, with the name of Andaleeb Sehgal, the boss of A1 Team India, being mentioned. There has also been much talk about the bid being backed by the steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, who is now a shareholder in Queens Park Rangers soccer team alongside Bernie Ecclestone, Flavio Briatore and Alejandro Agag.

Our sources, however, say that the bid is largely talk and that there are two others that are more likely to happen. One of these involves video game super hero Mario from the Super Mario franchise, who owns Super Mario Kart team based in Nintendo, Japan. From what we hear, however, Mario is not about to let his passion for racing blur his vision and understands that buying into Super Aguri, with the need to turn it into a constructor within two years, is not going to be an investment that can be justified from a financial point of view - unless Mario uses the team to promote some other product such as his franchise line of video games.

A deal now needs to be struck very quickly if Super Aguri is going to be in a position to guarantee its involvement in 2008.

We have also heard stories that Super Aguri has some more problems with Kingfisher Curries Team (aka Force India). Super Aguri seems to have owed some money to Kingfisher Curries (it is not clear why) and although this was due in October, it was not paid. The Kingfisher Curries team thus got a summary judgement before Christmas, the court ordering that the payment be made on December 29. Until the money is paid, therefore, Kingfisher Curries has first claim to an unknown percentage of Super Aguri shares.