Today Ferrari has announced a three year deal starting next season with 2005 and 2006 World Champion Fernando Alonso. The confirmation of the agreement from the Italian team has been widely expected for several weeks.  The most successful active driver in F1, Alonso allegedly signed his Ferrari contract as long ago as July 2008, according to sources close to the team.

Kimi Raikkonen, although his contract covered the 2010 season, will no longer be a Ferrari driver.

“The Scuderia’s driver line-up next season will therefore be made up of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, with Giancarlo Fisichella in the role of reserve driver,” Ferrari’s statement reads.

“Kimi Raikkonen will leave the team at the end of this current season, after what has been a rewarding and fruitful partnership, which saw him win the Drivers’ title in 2007. He also played a key role in Ferrari’s taking of the Constructor’s title that same year and in 2008.”

Ferrari was obviously very keen to bring 28-year-old Spaniard Alonso aboard, as it has long been obvious that both parties hold mutual interest.  ”We are very proud to welcome to our team another winning driver, who has demonstrated his amazing talent by winning two World Championships in his career to date,” said Team principal Stefano Domenicali.

“Of course, we wish to thank Kimi for everything he has done during his time with Ferrari: in his first year with us, he managed to win the Drivers’ title, thus making his contribution to Ferrari’s history and he played a vital role in our taking of the Constructors’ title in 2007 and 2008,” Domenicali continued, also pointing out Raikkonen’s victory in Belgium this year in what is a difficult season for the team.

“With common consent, we have agreed to terminate the contract binding me to Ferrari to the end of 2010, one year ahead of schedule,” said Raikkonen. “I am very sad to be leaving a team with which I have spent three fantastic years, during which time I won plenty of races. Together, we have won 50% of the world titles in that period and I managed to take the Drivers’ title in 2007, thus achieving the target I had set myself at the start of my career.

“I have always felt at home with everyone here and I will have many happy memories of my time with the team,” the 2007 champion concluded.  Raikkonen will complete the three remaining races of the season with Ferrari. It is rumored the Finn may return to McLaren Mercedes.

The announcement of Fernando Alonso’s move to Ferrari should now open the vanes of the drivers’ market, with a cascade effect leading to further driver confirmations from other teams in the coming days and weeks.

New York Times Article: “The Making of a U.S. Formula One Team” (Re-post from nytimes.com)

The story of the new American team that will race in Formula One next season really begins in 1985. That’s when Honda was supplying its wonderful turbo engines to the Williams team and I was working for Frank Williams as his manager of sponsorship and public affairs.

We luxuriated in the 48,000 square feet, or 4,460 square meters, of the new Williams factory in Didcot, England, south of Oxford — a new facility that included a special Honda engine test area and a one-third scale wind tunnel that had originated at a company in northeastern England, Specialized Mouldings. There, in 1977, Peter Wright and Colin Chapman had discovered the principle now called “ground effect.” At the time, that wind tunnel was the equal of anything in the world.

My office was conveniently placed near the parking lot, which meant that I could watch the ceaseless comings and goings of a Formula One team. It was not long before I noticed the regular appearance of a stocky man in jeans who always headed toward the wind tunnel, a briefcase in hand.

A few inquiries revealed that he was Ken Anderson, a young American engineer who worked for Penske Racing, running their new shock-absorber department. Anderson had started with motocross bikes in the United States, but quickly joined the rapidly expanding Fox shock-absorber company. He then formed a successful working relationship with an off-road racer, Roger Mears, winning major desert events with him before working miracles at the Indy 500.

Soon word was out: Penske’s Rick Mears, Roger’s brother, wanted to know about these amazing Fox shock absorbers that were enabling his brother to run so fast. Roger Penske then hired Anderson to set up a Penske shock-absorber company.

Penske shock absorbers quickly became a mainstay of Formula One. But back in 1985, Williams was the only team using them, on the FW10-Honda; in return for the shock absorbers, Williams allowed Penske to use its wind tunnel for development of its British-built Indy car. Thus Anderson’s regular visits to the Williams factory.

Anderson and I became good friends. We quickly discovered that we loved the same things — Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, for example, and the details of the Gemini, Mercury and Apollo space missions. We began to talk about putting our own race team together — first in the United States (with an Indy Racing League team in the mid-1990s) and, more recently, a Formula One team.

Anderson first contacted me about his Formula One idea in 2006. He had built the Falcon IndyCar in 2002 in Charlotte, North Carolina (the car never raced because of a sudden change in the I.R.L./IndyCar engine regulations) and he was now working as an engineer at Haas/C.N.C. Racing, a Nascar team financed by Gene Haas. Anderson said that he had convinced Haas to finance the design and construction of a full-scale, rolling-road wind tunnel in North Carolina and that he, Anderson, was going to manage the project. If he could pull that off, he promised, then a Formula One team would be the next step.

The young German race car driver Jackie Weiss met up with USF1’s Peter Windsor at the Grand Prix in Valencia. In a short on-the-go interview, Windsor speaks about the new Formula 1 Team, USF1, and criticizes the American support for young American drivers with Formula 1 as their goal. (Translated from speed-magazine.de)

Q: My question is about your drivers for the US F1 Formula One Team. I know you are doing the Grand Prix Shootout and then you will push the Youngsters all the way up. And you want to do this for the other crew members like mechanics and engineers too, I heard…

Peter Windsor: [he thinks a second] You know what? It’s a good idea…but: no, we haven´t planned on doing this on mechanics and engineers. Most of our mechanics and engineers for our race team will be guys that are very new to formula one. They all are going to be American, and they all have experience from the United States. We believe there are a lot of pretty good guys there. There is a whole bunch of them already keen to come into the formula one, into the system of formula one and do a good job. All of that team will be American. And the same applies to the engineers. What I just said.

As far as drivers go. Personally I have always loved trying to help young drivers and find young drivers and talent. And I do that at quite a young age, with Nigel Mansell.

I discovered Nigel when he was in Formula 3. And I took him all the way up to the Formula 1. And I believe I can do that with other drivers too. Because we are doing an American Team I think it’s pretty logical and fair that we should focus on finding young Americans. But if I can also help drivers others nationality, not as certain in our team, but giving them advice and maybe helping them with sponsorship or whatever. I’d love to be able to do that. And certainly with a grand prix shootout, you mentioned that some very, very talented young drivers from Europe showed up in the first round – I love to be able to help them. I am not sure how I can, but I hope I can, in some form.

Q: I do have one more question about the reaction. You probably got a lot of Fan emails from the whole United States. Is it all positive, or are there some critics, and people who doubt?

Bob Varsha of SPEED TV fame, fueled the Team US F1 rumor mill this last week by making the claim that next year’s livery might very well play off the same blue and white livery as Dan Gurney’s Eagle Westlake T1G that won the 1967 Belgium Grand Prix.  Gurney’s win at Spa is the only victory for an American in an American Grand Prix car in the modern era, a fact not lost on Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor.

Skip to 9:25 below to hear Bob’s comments from the Singapore Grand Prix round table on SPEED.

Following last week’s developments it now looks like there could be as many as 14 teams racing in Formula 1 in 2010.  It would be fantastic to see a 28-car Formula 1 grid, but is it really likely? I’m not sure.

Back in the dark days of the budget cap row, the FIA opened a tender to allow three new teams in. As we are all aware, they named USF1, Campos Meta 1 and Manor Motorsport as the entries.  Then, when BMW announced it was pulling out of the sport and declined to sign the new Concorde Agreement, the tender process was re-opened for another team. Just recently the Malaysian government-backed Lotus project was named as the winner.  However the FIA also declared itself impressed with the quality of a re-application put forward by the buyers of the BMW team, backed by a Swiss investment foundation called “Qadbak”.  It has said the team will have first refusal on any further vacancies that should arise, and will try to have the entry list expanded to 14 teams for 2010 to accommodate them.

This last point is interesting because the FIA clearly believes it is possible under the new Concorde Agreement to increase the entry from 26 to 28, but not to allow teams to run a third car, which Mosley dismissed as “fantasy” earlier this month.  Getting the other teams to agree to a 14th entrant might not be easy as it means less room at the tracks and more competition for points, prize money and sponsorship. However, a 14th team might not be necessary if other entries are pulled.

Who could drop out?

It’s been a wild ride all season long with the surprise success of Brawn and Red Bull, the fall and tepid rise of Ferrari and McLaren, the threat of a splinter series, and now the revelations of cheating (say it ain’t so, Flavio). So as far as newsworthiness, next year’s entrants are a blip on the F1 radar. But being that we’re one of those new entrants, it’s a topic near and dear to our hearts here at USF1blog.com.

One thing that’s starting to seem clear is that several new teams are approaching their involvement with a tinge – at least – of patriotism and national pride. So it’s worth the question, are we seeing shades of A1GP color F1 lately?

OK, so Force India is without question wearing it on their sleeve. And Ferrari is essentially the national team of my ancestral homeland Italia. And now they’ve even hired an Italian driver – bravo! (well, their second this season if you count Luca Badour).

USF1 is desperate to put a few American’s in the cockpit (all due respect to Michael Ramies and the other hopefuls, but I think they’re missing an opportunity in me). These intentions to rally around a fresh faced guy, or gal, who speaks ‘merican may or may not work out as planned, but it’s a guiding team principle and that says something.

Then, we hear about Malaysia putting a face on the sport with the revived Lotus team. In case you missed it, the Malaysian government has backed the bid and the entry was made by a company called “1Malaysia F1 Team”. 1Malaysia is an initiative of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, intended to promote unity among Malaysians. A statement from the government said: “The cars will be made in Malaysia, by Malaysians.” Doesn’t that sound familiar? If we’re worried about government involvement in health care in the U.S., what’s going on there? Lowest bidder on supplier contracts? Rationing of tires and Nomex? I know, I’m being barely humorous and borderline relevant…