Spring Motorsports Roundup

[G.Irish]

SPRING MOTORSPORTS ROUNDUP
I'll start with F1 and see if I can at least work my way down through Moto GP and WSBK.

FORMULA 1

Predictions, Observations, and Mockery

Most Likely to Lose Job
-Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault) In a few races Fisi has been embarassingly slower than Alonso and the team owner already has a young gun that he can bring in next year if Fisi isn't more consistent.
-Felipe Massa (Ferrari)...he's doing a fairly good job but if its between him and Raikkonen guess who's getting the nomex boot to the derriere...

Fisi has gotten a contract extension so I was wrong there. He has alluded to having a Finn as a teammate next season and that means one of two people. GP2 star Heikki Kovalainen or McLaren ace Kimi Raikkonen. I'm sort of halfway hoping its Kimi so that we can see exactly how much of Alonso's success was the car.

Where Heads will roll if there aren't results
Toyota
Honda

Honda typically doesn't fire people very often (unless you badmouth the team/company like Max Biaggi of Moto GP did) but its safe to say that if a win or two doesn't come by the end of the season there might be a shakeup.

The axe has fallen and there's a bit of blood to be mopped up. Last week Honda F1 announced that they were restructuring the team. Technical Director Geoff Willis was being relieved of his trackside duties to spend more time getting the wind tunnel up to speed (Willis has a Ph.D in Aerodynamics), while at the same time long time Honda man Shuhei Nakamoto (Honda Racing Development Engineering Director) was appointed Senior Technical Director above his head. After that development Willis decided to resign.

Nakamoto is a career Honda guy, working almost 20 years in HRC in the 250 and 125 GP championship programs and later being the project leader for the championship winning RC45 and RC51. Personally I don't know if he'll be able to turn the team's technical fortunes around but he's certainly got a lot of success behind him.

No word yet on further personnel changes at Honda but I wouldn't be surprised to hear more in the intervening weeks. I expected this, but damn, not so soon.