F-1 Notes: Mercedes Planning Shakeup

October 26th, 2010

SOGGY CROWD: Fernando Alonso leads the Formula One field past the main grandstand at the Korean Int’l Circuit Sunday afternoon in Yeongam, South Korea. (Steve Etherington Photo)

YEONGAM, South Korea — The top five championship contenders posed for a photo on the pit wall in Korea with F-1 czar Bernie Ecclestone. It was a “remake” of the classic photo set up in 1986 at Portugal’s Estoril track with Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and Alain Prost.

“It was good to do the photo with all the guys [and] going back all those years with some of our heroes obviously in those photos.” Mark Webber said. F-1 photographers requested a similar photo several years ago with the title challengers, but then Ferrari boss Jean Todt snidely nixed the plan.

- Traffic was backed up for miles as hundreds of buses and cars were still waiting to get into the circuit as the Korean Grand Prix began.

The race day crowd was somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000, depending on which source one trusted. Traffic will be a very serious problem in future years because there is only one access road into the circuit.

n Bernie Ecclestone turns 80 Thursday (Oct. 28). Ecclestone, who once was a used car dealer, has always maintained that he will retire when he dies and he has no plans to die. However, when the official F-1 website asked him who his successor should be, he replied, “I have no idea. They should probably look out for another used car dealer!”

- Team Mercedes is planning a major personnel shakeup, but the details are not being revealed — not even to some of the team members themselves. “All we can say is that there will be a lot of shuffling around,” Nico Rosberg said. Sources tell Auto Action that Rosberg’s engineer Jock Clear may be heading for Williams to work again with Rubens Barrichello, whom he rates highly. Meanwhile, Barrichello’s current engineer Tim Ross could join Mercedes.

- McLaren insiders are concerned about Lewis Hamilton, National Speed Sport News hears. He has seemed to be a bit distracted. His recent string of retirements did not help his mood, but his strong second place in Korea certainly will lift his spirits.

He’s been going through a rough patch.

“It’s not been the greatest year for many, many reasons,” he told reporters in the paddock in Korea. “Not just in F-1 but outside of F-1. But things are on the up. I think they are. Everyone has times like this in their careers.”

At the beginning of the season Lewis told father Anthony that he would not be his manager anymore. Lewis also briefly broke up with his pop star girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger.

“Just the whole year has been difficult, family-wise…some family members not always well and it’s just been difficult the whole situation with my dad of course,” said Hamilton.

- The Williams team complained to officials that Michael Schumacher impeded Rubens Barrichello during qualifying. While Barrichello was not on his quickest lap, the stewards did reprimand Schumacher for not heeding the blue flags.

“Rubens is of the view that Michael is impolite and doesn’t give a s*** about anything else!” Williams tech chief Patrick Head exclaimed. Barrichello put it more mildly: “In life you have to give respect to get respect.” Schumacher apologized to his former teammate, but their relationship remains brittle.

- The Mercedes engineers are at a loss to explain why Nico Rosberg’s rear wheel parted company with the car after 48 laps in the Japanese GP. Renault says that Robert Kubica’s wheel fell off not because the wheel nut had not been sufficiently tightened but because of debris in the wheel hub.

- Mark Webber will have to fight for every point if he wants to win the world championship because the Red Bull team will continue to support the Aussie and his teammate Sebastian Vettel equally in the final two races of the season. And Vettel has vowed to keep up his attack as well.