Formula One 2015

[Lineker]

It has been a busy two days in F1 broadcasting land, with both BBC and Sky holding their annual media days.

The BBC have officially confirmed their 2015 team which, as expected, is identical to their 2014 team. The main bit of news is that Suzi Perry will be presenting an F1 Rewind programme on BBC iPlayer and the Red Button, which is essentially a repackaged classic race. It also will be turning up on BBC Two, presumably on Saturday’s when the European season starts, as has been the case recently with their FA Cup Rewind programming. On 5 Live, Jack Nicholls will be commentating on five rounds (China, Austria, Hungary, Japan and Russia) with James Allen the lead commentator on the other 14 rounds.

BBC Head of F1, Ben Gallop, says: “With the current World Champion writing exclusively for the BBC, our access and insight into Formula 1 cannot be beaten. Across TV, radio and online, our top-class team will get audiences as close as possible to the starting grid, paddock, pit-lane and track – bringing expert analysis and insight throughout the race weekend. We are all hugely looking forward to the 2015 season and delivering every moment of Lewis Hamilton’s defending season to millions of F1 fans.”

This season, it looks like the BBC’s web offering for their live races will now be more expansive than Sky’s. The latter have decided to tailor their Race Control offering to just iPad and Red Button, dropping the web version entirely, which seems like a silly decision to me. I can’t speak for others, but I used Race Control online whenever Sky Go was playing up, so I’m disappointed to see it disappear. Whether it is related to costs, I don’t know. I do wonder if this will also be the case for Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia as well…

On the brighter side, Sky say that, they will “offer eight individual on board feeds from different cars on the Race Control iPad app”, a total of 14 live streams.

[Chris2K]

I do love when the BBC say that people are "exclusively writing for the website", as if Lewis is sitting down at a laptop every time and writing a column in Word, spell-checking it, editing it and posting it directly to the site.

[Lineker]

Sauber says it will "take all necessary steps" to protect the team's interests following Giedo van der Garde's decision to take legal action against the Swiss Formula 1 outfit.

Van der Garde, who was Sauber's reserve driver in 2014, claims the team exercised an option to run him as a race driver in 2015 last June.

The Dutchman says the Swiss team reneged on the deal in early November and instead handed seats to Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson.

Court documents, seen by AUTOSPORT, say van der Garde took his case to a Swiss arbitral tribunal, which ruled in his favour.

"The respondent was ordered to refrain from taking any action the effect of which would be to deprive Mr van der Garde of his entitlement to participate in the 2015 Formula 1 season as one of Sauber's two nominated race drivers," read the documents.

However, Sauber says the ruling is a "first partial award" and "not yet final".

The Dutchman has this week brought an application before an Australian court in Melbourne, which hosts the season-opening grand prix on March 15.

Sauber says it will defend the application at a hearing on Monday.

"As this matter is currently before the courts it would be inappropriate for me to comment on specific details," said Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn.

"However, we will take all necessary steps to protect our company, this team and its interests.

"Last year was a challenging time for us but going into the 2015 season we have been focused on putting steps in place to ensure that we are delivering the best outcomes for F1's fans."

[MJB]

Roberto Merhi has been confirmed as Manor's other driver.

[Lineker]

It's only a one race deal at the moment to cover Melbourne. It remains to be seen if he gets the funding to go on.

I reckon that if van der Garde loses his court case and isn't inserted in to the Sauber, he will eventually find his way to Manor.

Mehri does make sense though. He raced for Manor in other formulas.

Unsurprisingly, Justin King has been named as the teams development driver.

[MJB]

Van Der Garde won his court case!

Sauber. This won't be pretty.

[Lineker]

Oh my.

The backers of either Ericsson or Nasr will sue, depending on who is dropped.

[hugobomb]

Surely they can't force Sauber to give him the seat? Can courts force a sports team to use a certain person?

If Sauber don't use him, I'm sure he'll get compensation for breach of contract, since by the looks of it, they did promise him the seat only to take it away and give to Ericsson or Nasr (more than likely money related). But can Sauber be forced to race him?

[EddieG]

Surely they can't force Sauber to give him the seat? Can courts force a sports team to use a certain person?

If Sauber don't use him, I'm sure he'll get compensation for breach of contract, since by the looks of it, they did promise him the seat only to take it away and give to Ericsson or Nasr (more than likely money related). But can Sauber be forced to race him?

If the contract says he gets to race at Melbourne, then surely, yes.

I don't think VDG will be driving, they'll probably settle, but the reason he was dropped, is to save money, so if they have to pay him out, it could bring Sauber very close to bankruptcy.

[The Lusophone]

If the contract says he gets to race at Melbourne, race him at Melbourne, then drop him.

[EddieG]

The contract says he has a seat for this season.

[MJB]

I'm not convinced Giedo will settle for anything other than a raceseat. Isn't he pretty much loaded anyway, hence him paying for the drive in the first place?

[JasonM]

Yeah, Giedo might be in the right here. But he's ensuring that he will have burned every single bridge before this is said and done.

He might get a token race seat and cause Sauber more issues, but after his run with Sauber is done he'll be shunned completely... Trying to force your way into a seat is pretty much one of the biggest no-no's in the sport, and there isn't going to be any team that wants to touch him with a ten foot pole after this.

And when he gets to drive, he's gonna drive in a car designed for another driver, and the engineers have little work with Giedo. So the odds of him having any sort of success will be very minor...

He must be really feeling that he won't get a drive otherwise, because he surely will never get one again after this row is done.

[Lineker]

So according to Joe Saward, who is very in the know on these matters and has been following this very closely:

Sauber intended to run Bianchi and van der Garde. Bianchi was genuinely a talent and running him also meant a heavy discount on their power units from Ferrari. VDG brought money but was also an ok driver who had past race experience.

Then Jules gets injured. Sauber have Marciello named as a reserve driver but Sauber still have to pay a much steeper price for the power units.

Ericsson then comes in to fill the second seat with him backing. However Nasr then comes along with his Banco Brazil funds exceeding what Giedo was offering. So the obvious team to do was for Monika and the team to just pretend that Giedo never existed and just plough on not thinking about possible repercussions.

So pending the appeal, expect more court orders to be issued by Sutil and either the sponsors of Ericsson on Nasr.

What a mess. Shame that Jules got injured as him and VDG would have been quite good actually.

[Troy Maskell]

The appeal was dismissed. VDG is racing this weekend

[Lineker]

Or they somehow pay him off. Whatever happens, they're boned.

[Lineker]

Grain of salt, etc...

[MJB]

Manor apparently have a software issue and may not run at all this weekend.

VDG turned up at the circuit, took a while to get a paddock pass, waltzed into the Sauber garage, put on Ericsson's overalls and had a seat fitting.

However, the FIA then refused to renew his super-license and now won't drive this weekend

So yeah, all going well!

[JasonM]

So I assume VDG will take the next step and sue the shit out of the FIA.

It's hard to comprehend the convolutedness of this entire Sauber/VDG row, so many angles of it are stupid to the core, from Sauber's boneheaded decision to VDG's insistence of driving... To now the FIA deciding to throw their hat in the ring and essentially flip off the justice system by helping out Sauber on this case.

I really want to know what's going to happen next, because I know it's going to be silly and headache inducing.

[Lineker]

Ridiculous to deny him a super licence. And to do it on "safety grounds" makes a mockery of what is actually a very important issue. JB summed it up perfectly, the therm should not just be thrown around like that.

Now. Sleep or P1 and P2?