On top of the exits of Bridgestone and Toyota came news that Renault had held an emergency board meeting to discuss their future in Formula 1. According to Andrew Benson at the BBC:

The French car company was considering whether to remain in the sport with its own team, switch to simply being an engine supplier or quit altogether.

Were Renault to pull out, it would conclude the removal of all of the major manufacturer teams in F1. Honda, BMW and Toyota have all gone in the past year. Renault are now seriously considering leaving.

In terms of manufacturer involvement, that would leave engine suppliers Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari. Both Mercedes and Ferrari are as close to being permanent fixtures as it comes in F1. Mercedes have been involved in F1 uninterrupted since 1993. With their increased involvement in Brawn, they look set to stick around. Ferrari have been in F1 since the beginning in 1950 and were they to leave it would be the end of F1. As such, you can more-or-less exclude both Mercedes and Ferrari from the list of manufacturers at risk of leaving F1.

I have to admit that I am wary of what Renault might do. I always suspected that Renault would be the first manufacturer to leave, certainly since Carlos Ghosn took over there. Now they are effectively the last one remaining. That is a surprise. Does it make it more likely for them to stay in the long run? Or is this the opportunity to join the queue of companies leaving the sport without looking a bit silly like Honda did?

There are more questions. Was Max Mosley right all along to push forward with his anti-manufacturer proposals? His justification was that manufacturers might leave with no warning, so it was wise to slash costs, freeze engines and neuter the sport in all sorts of ways. Now that manufacturers are leaving in droves, it looks like he may have been right.

The alternative possibility is that the changes he has forced through, along with the screeds of bad publicity it caused, have fundamentally made the sport less attractive. The manufacturers could well have preferred a breakaway than live with the FIA’s vision. But the FIA’s vision is what we’ve got. Ferrari certainly have their own views.

The thing is, manufacturers are always fickle. They always have been, and always will be. They will leave at the drop of a hat if it no longer forms part of their marketing strategy. Motorsport is not their core business. At the end of the day, if they won’t sell on Monday, why should they bother trying to win on Sunday?

But it was Max Mosley who originally moulded F1 into a sport dominated by manufacturers. He said that teams like Williams were not his vision of F1’s future. Now Williams is the model of the sort of team that will occupy around half of the grid next year.

In a sense, you can see this current phase as the F1 equivalent of a market correction. The bubble has burst. But while it seems painful now, this process paves the way for a more stable situation.

Throughout its history, Formula 1 has had a healthy mixture of manufacturer involvement and privateer passion. In recent years, the scales had tipped a bit too far towards the manufacturers, which drowned out the privateers to an almost dangerous extent.

F1 had become the plaything of manufacturers and multi-trillionaires. Let us not forget that alongside the likes of Honda and Toyota, businessmen such as Dietrich Mateschitz and Vijay Mallya — who have more money than they know what to do with — have bankrolled F1 teams to success. You will notice that, ignoring the ‘For Sale’ sign outside Toro Rosso (which isn’t very prominent), these teams have remained in F1, unlike the manufacturers.

They are a bit more like privateers in the traditional sense. They don’t want to sell cars, though they may want to sell drinks. But in a way they are in F1 because they are attracted to it as a sport, just as people like Frank Williams and Ken Tyrrell were. Manufacturers just do it because they feel like they should.

Next year there might be too few manufacturers. For there to be just three companies supplying engines would be a situation almost as unsustainable as what has happened up to this year. Cosworth may be crossing their fingers though. Their business model might work if they supply more teams.

But I can see Renault playing a happy role as an engine supplier, even if the Renault F1 team is put up for sale. I am certain that there would be a lot of interest from serious people wanting to buy the team. Despite the turmoil of this year’s scandal, and the fact that the team has gone off the boil for the past few years, this is a team that has the facilities and the capabilities to win World Championships.

I would be upset to see Renault leave the sport. I have a bit of a soft spot for them. Toyota were cold and clinical, on top of being comically bad considering their budgets.

Honda were always a bit of a fairweather presence. They took over BAR more-or-less because there was no-one else to do it after tobacco companies left the sport. Then they set up Super Aguri because they were scared to sack Takuma Sato properly. While many were attracted to Super Aguri for their pluck and while struggling at the back in difficult circumstances, it should never be forgotten that Super Aguri was always a crass and expensive publicity stunt.

Renault, though, have real heritage. They have a history in the shape of their involvement in the sport in the 1970s and 1980s. And the current incarnation of the team has been notably successful, mostly for being the one team that has been able to put up a sustained fight against Ferrari in this decade by beating the Scuderia two years in a row.

Here’s hoping that Renault don’t decide to depart. I am especially hopeful for Robert Kubica, a hugely talented driver who after being put through the wringer at BMW this year does not need this again. But, unlike the other teams, I have a feeling that the future of the Enstone-based squad will be perfectly safe no matter who owns it.

It is often said that if you painted all F1 cars the same colour then they would all look the same. That’s not quite true. They might all look broadly similar, but all of the cars have their own characteristics. For instance, McLaren have their distinctive ‘horns’.

Nevertheless, it is rare to see any teams doing anything all that radical. And whenever they do innovate, there is often a feeling in the back of your head that there is probably a reason why nobody else has done it before. Remember Williams’ radical nose? It turned out not to be up to much, and they haven’t looked up to much since.

BMW came to the French Grand Prix with interesting new aero parts. The radical fins on the nosecone are being used in conjunction with McLaren-style horns to help the rear wing work. It is certainly nice to see a team trying something different, but the fins surely hinder the drivers’ visibility and are therefore fairly unsafe. Apparently the drivers are used to it though. It would certainly put me off a bit though!

But I can’t help being reminded of X-wings. These unusual sidepod-mounted winglets were first used by Tyrrell in the mid–late 1990s before being adopted by Jordan, Sauber, Prost and Ferrari at certain tracks. As I recall, these were actually banned for being too ugly!

This weekend is the Monaco Grand Prix, probably the most famous of them all. It’s meant to be the jewel in the crown of the Formula 1 season. As such, there are probably a lot of people who aren’t necessarily Formula 1 fans, but who tune into it especially because it’s the Monaco GP, in the same way that non-tennis fans will still watch Wimbledon and non-football fans will watch the World Cup.

What a shame it’s such an inadequate circuit then!

The Monaco Grand Prix usually isn’t a good demonstration of what F1 is all about. It can go one of two ways:

1. Mundane procession where the person on pole position leads the race from start to finish due to the fact that it’s almost impossible to overtake on the narrow, twisty street circuit
2. All-out crash-fest where no-hopers can grab a few points just for staying on the track

One of the first Monaco GPs I saw was back in 1996, a race which was won by Olivier Panis in the unspectacular Ligier car (the team only scored 5 points in the whole of the rest of the season). Mika Salo in the Tyrrell was able to collect two points without making a pit stop.* Only four cars saw the chequered flag! These sorts of races can be quite exciting, but it hardly makes for beautiful viewing, no matter how nice it is to see complete underdogs grabbing so many points.

Luckily, last year’s Monaco Grand Prix was quite good, with plenty of overtaking which is very unusual for Monte Carlo. I particularly remember Michael Schumacher’s cheeky move on his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, on the last lap. Barrichello was less than impressed.

Not all races at Monaco are that good. There might be a few crashes, if that’s what you’re looking for, but the chances are that the race will be processional. The circuit is so narrow that Nelson Piquet likened it to “flying a helicopter in your living room.”

My advice to you, if you are not really a big Formula 1 fan but are planning to watch the Monaco GP anyway, then catch the qualifying session on Saturday as well.

A lot of drivers are warning that the qualifying session this year is going to be truly insane, with 22 drivers all trying to record a fast lap in just fifteen minutes. Qualifying is going to make for very interesting viewing, as drivers will almost inevitably get stuck in traffic. Some big names could lose out.

And because qualifying near the front is so vital at Monaco, drivers will be all the more eager to perform well. At Monaco, the real racing will happen during the qualifying session.

Update: BlogF1 brings us a history lesson.

While we’re at it, I forgot to mention that this weekend McLaren are celebrating their 40^th anniversary in F1. They’re celebrating by racing with diamond-encrusted steering wheels this weekend. The diamonds gimmick is getting a bit old now — Jaguar did it a couple of years ago at Monaco, and I seem to remember McLaren racing with diamonds in the drivers’ helmets. I personally prefer the ice car!

Check out the changes that McLaren and F1 have gone through in the past forty years.

* Update: Don Speekingleesh in the comments pointed out that Salo’s non-stop effort was actually in 1997 (I need to get the old season review videos out to refresh my memory!). I remember now because that was the race that was hit by a tremendous downpour, leading to the race ending after the two hour limit, shortening the distance by 16 laps. So Salo finished fifth in both 1996 and 1997!

Well now that Mike Gascoyne seems to have properly left Toyota as technical director (chassis), some people are asking if he actually deserves to get another job in Formula 1. The people in the Pitpass Forums certainly seem sceptical! It is a comment that comes up every time Mike Gascoyne moves on to another team in a blaze of hype: he’s never been responsible for a World Championship-winning car.

But is it really feasible that Gascoyne made a name for himself purely through chance and bluffing as some in the Pitpass Forums seem to be suggesting? Well, looking at the career profile that the BBC provided in their article, it is hardly anything to set the pulse racing.

• 1989-1991: McLaren (aerodynamicist)
• 1991-94: Sauber (head of aerodynamics)
• 1994-98: Tyrrell (deputy technical director)
• 1998-2000: Jordan (technical director)
• 2001-03: Renault (technical director)
• 2003-06: Toyota (technical director chassis)

The only seriously impressive car there is the 1989 McLaren (Wikipedia says Gascoyne worked for Tyrrell in 1990 and 1991), and he probably didn’t have an awful lot of influence on that. Those years at Tyrrell in the mid-1990s are probably ones he would rather leave out of his CV — although at the time he apparently impressed Harvey Postlethwaite who was no dummy.

Gascoyne’s spells at Jordan, Renault and Toyota have all produced noticeable upswings. I don’t know how much input Gascoyne would have had, but when he joined Jordan in 1998 they hadn’t scored a single point. By the end of the season they had won a race and finished 4^th in the Constructors’ Championship. 1999 was even more successful. But it also marked the high point, and Jordan’s descent also began under Gascoyne.

When he moved to Benetton / Renault it also marked the start of an upswing. 2001 was an absolutely horrendous season (they scored just 10 points and finished a disgusting 7^th place in the Championship, compared with 20 points in 4^th in 2000). But by 2003 they were showing real improvement — enough for them to win a race. But by the time that win came, Gascoyne had been sent on gardening leave. Some would say that the upswing in form was more to do with Renault’s impressive launch control system and the engine’s good accelleration than anything Gascoyne did. After all, the win did come at Hungaroring where a good start and accelleration is key.

Rumour has it that Gascoyne wasn’t really keen on joining Toyota in the first place. He apparently went up to Flavio Briatore and waggled Toyota’s high offer in front of him. Gascoyne was looking for a wage rise, but instead he was told to go away and join Toyota. Briatore can’t have been much convinced about Gascoyne’s talent!

Let’s not underestimate the task that Gascoyne faced at Toyota. He had to turn a team that had always trundled around near the back of the grid into potential Championship winners. In 2002 they scored two points, the same amount as Minardi and Arrows (who went bust mid-season and didn’t even compete in all of the races). 2003 and 2004 saw only minor improvements.

But 2005 was truly a successful year for Toyota. Okay, their performance may have tailed off towards the end of the season, but at the start they were securing podium finishes at will, and they were still gabbing the odd one at the end of the season. They finished 4^th, ahead of Williams and Honda. I would say that’s pretty good going.

At the start of the 2006 season, it is true that Toyota were a bit of a shambles. But that could easily be explained away as a tyre problem. And they’ve already turned it around by scoring a podium in round 3. And let’s also remember that if you forget the results of the 2005 season, those performances at the start of 2006 would not have been abnormally slow for Toyota.

Maybe you would still say “no excuses” — if Gascoyne is such a great technical director he shouldn’t be making cars that are finishing 14^th and 16^th in a field of 18 finishers, ahead of only a Midland and a Super Aguri. That only makes it all the more confusing, though, that Toyota and Gascoyne should decide to part company when they score a podium result again.

I think it is really difficult to judge just how good Gascoyne is. He’s had a hand in some teams’ greatest moments (Jordan and Toyota), but also some of their worst moments (Jordan and Renault). One thing I would say, though, is that I find it unlikely that any big team would want to hire Gascoyne. I am sure that Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Honda, Red Bull and particularly Renault are all very happy with their current setup. If he gets another job as technical director for a Formula 1 team, it would probably be for Toro Rosso or somebody like that. It’s probably just as well he wants to “spend more time with his family”.