Kamui Kobayashi

A lot of things happened in Formula One last year. And because I wasn’t around to give you guys a blow-by-blow account of the going-ons in the sport, I’ll give you a brief recap of what happened since my last post.

First up, we have news about Kamui Kobayashi. The talented Japanese driver has recently signed up with BMW Sauber for next season. Kobayashi is a former Toyota test driver. He replaced Timo Glock in the last few races after Glock’s injury.

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This brings us to our next piece of news, which is that BMW Sauber will be back for 2010! After BMW announced that the car brand will be pulling out of the motorsport competition next year, the brand decided to sell its team back to Sauber.

Throughout the negotiations between BMW and Sauber, the F1 team didn’t have a confirmed slot for the 2010 Formula One Season. But when Toyota backed out of the series, the FIA decided to give Toyota’s slot to the BMW Sauber team.

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No doubt the BMW Sauber team is happy to find a slot for next season, but the same can’t be said about the team’s former driver, Nick Heidfeld. Heidfeld, who’s known as one of the most consistent F1 drivers today, is yet to find a confirmed drive for the coming season.

Though rumors circulated last December that Mercedes was considering signing Heidfeld for next year, the team released its lineup, and Heidfeld just wasn’t one of the drivers in the list.

(Personally, I’m hoping Heidfeld will find a ride for next season. He’s always been one of my favorite drivers.)

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Michael Schumacher

Which brings us to our next juicy tidbit…Seven-Time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher is set to make his F1 comeback next year!

You read right. The Mercedes F1 team didn’t sign Heidfeld because they got Schumi to say “Yes.” to racing alongside Nico Rosberg.

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Renault is also making a lot of changes for the coming F1 season. After selling a large stake in their team to Genii Capital, the team appointed its new team principal—Eric Boullier. Boullier is taking over Bob Bell, who temporarily acted as team principal after Flavio Briatore left back in September.

Boullier has a pretty impressive resume that includes being team principal for A1 GP Series team, Team France, and acting as managing director for Team DAMS back in ’03.

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Flavio Briatore

The highly-controversial former-Renault team boss Flavio Briatore, also received good news at the start of the year when the French court, Tribunal de Grand Instance, decided to overturn the FIA ban against Briatore. The ban given to Renault’s former executive director of engineering Pat Symonds has also been overturned.

Briatore was banned indefinitely from participating in any FIA-sanctioned sport, while Symonds was banned from F1 for five years.

Both Renault bosses were handed penalties for participating in the now-infamous 2008 Singapore GP Race Fixing Scandal.

Briatore contested the decision by questioning the FIA’s authority to hand out those penalties even if Briatore and Symonds weren’t FIA license holders. The court ruled in favor of Briatore’s camp, since both Briatore and Symonds weren’t subject to FIA rules.

Right now, the FIA is considering appealing the decision.

Source: Formula1.com

Images: WorldCarFans.com, Topnews.in, Guardian.co.uk