Sadly for Mark Webber his crash Saturday morning in which the car had to be scrapped due to the damage he was unable to qualify and had to start from pit lane for the Japanese Grand Prix. After having to pit to fix a lose headrest and other minor issues twice in almost as many laps into the race his fate was sealed. Coming in two laps behind his team mate and winner of the race Sebastian Vettel. But there is an unseen upside to this in a time when there is no in-season testing for teams. Webber was able to test multiple front wings for the team during his 53 lap 'test'. During which he tested the wing intended to be used in Brazil in two weeks just after the safety car period where he turned in the fastest lap of the race in 1m 32.569s. So in effect RedBull is going into Brazil with somewhat of an advantage which may work into Sebastian Vettel's favor in his search to still possibly win the Driver's Championship.
With the exiting from Renault of Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds raises some obvious questions being that Renault will ‘not dispute’ the case against it made by the FIA. If this is basically an admission of guilt on their part then if they had not cheated in Singapore last year would Felipe Massa be the rightful 2008 Driver's Champion? You have to look over the historical points race and what changes to it would have been made had Alonso not won in Singapore. For all intensive purposes there is a good chance if Renault for sure cheated in Singapore that Massa is the one who would of been champion in 2008. It will be interesting to see how many lawsuits are produced from the FIA's findings on next Monday. There is a chance that Massa and/or Ferrari would be in line to sue Renault/Briatore for loss of the Driver's Championship. At least Ferrari won the Constructor's Championship in 2008 so that would be one less of many reasons for someone to sue. The truly sad part of this is that is Massa was the rightful champion it is way after the fact. There may have never been the hair raising end to the final race of 2008 in Brazil. It almost adds to the salt in Massa's wounds that if he were rightful champion he missed doing it in front of his Brazilian home crowd.
UPDATE: SpeedTV has written an article in which they address the potential of Massa being rightful champion.
It appears that USF1 has released their car design which is talked about on the SpeedTV webcast. There is an interview with Ken Anderson and Chad Hurley in which they include images of the car design so far.
In this exclusive interview, McLaren Formula 1 Champion Lewis Hamilton gives his pre-race thoughts just hours before Sundays Monza Grand Prix.
