Kimi Raikkonen admits Ferrari's wait for a first win of the season is set to continue beyond the German Grand Prix even though he expects the Nurburgring will be more suited to the F60.

The Finn claimed just a single point in Turkey and Britain with the reigning world champion team experiencing a slide in competitiveness on the high-speed circuits compared to its promising showing at Monaco, where Raikkonen claimed its sole podium of the season so far.

And although Felipe Massa surprised both himself and Ferrari by finishing fourth from 11th on the grid at Silverstone after the team had struggled all weekend, Raikkonen is keeping his expectations for the Nurburgring in check despite the fact the car will feature further updates.

“Realistically this year [in Germany] our objective can’t be a win,” he told Ferrari’s official website.

“We still have to make up ground compared to the leaders as far as the performance is concerned.

“That’s why the team continued to work very hard over the last weeks to bring some new solutions to this race.

“The track should be better for the F60’s characteristics than Silverstone, but we’ll get a clearer picture during Friday’s free practice sessions.

“To be competitive you need a car with good traction, which is very stable while braking.”

And after writing off its chances of a victory, the Finn says a return to the podium has to be considered as Ferrari’s realistic target.

“It’s always difficult making predictions and promising something to the fans, but for us today a place on the podium is already a good result, considering that we’ve been there just once this year,” he added.

Raikkonen insists, however, that Ferrari will keep working hard in the second half of the season to try and win again even though the championship leaders are realistically out of reach in the points standings.

“There are still nine races until the end of this extremely difficult season for us,” he said.

“Our objective has to be to give it our all race after race, without thinking that the leaders are so many points ahead of us.

“I really trust the team’s work and its capacity to close the gap between us and the leaders.”

The Finn heads to the Nurburgring aiming to improve on a wretched race record in Germany, having finished on the podium just twice at the Eifel Mountains venue and Hockenheim.

But although he has retired from races in the country an amazing nine times out of 14, Raikkonen insists he does enjoy racing on both tracks.

“The statistics tell the opposite but I really like racing in Germany, especially at the Nürburgring,” he said.

“I gained the pole four times [in Germany], but I could never win.

“Maybe I just wasn’t lucky enough here and at Hockenheim.”

The Japanese Grand Prix is facing an uncertain future after Fuji Speedway announced that it was no longer willing to hold the race.

The Toyota-owned track had been set to share the Japanese round of the World Championship with Honda's Suzuka circuit, alternating on an annual basis.

With Suzuka back on the calendar this year, Fuji was intended as the venue for the 2010 race, but the circuit announced today that it was pulling out of F1 due to the economic downturn.

"In view of the sharply deteriorating business conditions and few signs of a rapid economic recovery, we decided it would be extremely difficult to continue holding the F1 Japanese Grand Prix," said a Fuji statement.

Fuji, which hosted the first Japanese GPs in 1976 and 1977, had undergone a huge revamp to bring it up to F1 standard earlier in the decade, but is now set to exit the schedule having held just two races in the modern era.

It won the right to host the race from Suzuka and returned to the calendar in 2007, when Lewis Hamilton famously won an extraordinarily wet race.

Shortly afterwards, it was announced that Fuji and Suzuka would alternate after 2008, with Suzuka returning this season.

Fernando Alonso won last year's Fuji event, which now appears to have been the circuit's F1 swansong.

With Suzuka's owner Honda having sold its F1 team to Ross Brawn at the start of the year as it felt it could no longer be in the sport during the recession, today's news raises questions about whether Honda would be prepared to hold a GP at Suzuka every year now that it can no longer share the task with Fuji.

Personally, Suzuka is a better track but the excitement of FUJI especially when it was hammering down with rain a couple of seasons ago when Hamilton won and Alonso had that massive crash, was probably 1 of the best races of the year. FUJI will be missed by F1 and drivers alike.

Kimi Raikkonen is to make his debut in the Wold Rally Championship at the end of next month when he competes in his native Finland.

The 2007 world champion, who has competed in three non-championship rallies already this year, will be behind the wheel of a Fiat Abarth Grande Punto for Rally Finland, with the event to mark his first on a gravel surface.

Raikkonen will be co-driven by Kaj Lindstrom, his fellow Finn having formerly partnered multiple WRC champion Tommi Makinen, with the rally to start four days after the Hungarian Grand Prix, and in the first week of F1’s month-long summer break, on July 30.

"I've said before that the WRC is built on heroes and iconic figures – and they don't come any bigger than Kimi Raikkonen,” said Simon Long, the boss of WRC promoters ISC.

“It's superb news for the Championship and hugely exciting that he'll be competing in Finland."

The Ferrari ace, who has previously indicated he could consider a future career in the category once he leaves F1, made his rallying debut in Finland's Arctic Rally last January and finished a competitive 13th.

He subsequently finished 17th at another snow event, before retiring from his rally debut on asphalt in Italy after damaging his car’s suspension when he clipped a wall.

Ferrari will reportedly confirm the signing of Fernando Alonso at their home race, the Italian Grand Prix.

Rumours of his pending move to Ferrari have dogged Alonso for the past three years, however, instead of joining the Italian marque he spent the 2007 season at McLaren before returning to Renault.

But his days at Renault are reportedly numbered.

Spanish daily Diario AS is claiming that on the Friday of the Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari will confirm that Alonso will be joining them next season, having signed a five-year contract.

It is not known, though, whether he'll be replacing Kimi Raikkonen or Felipe Massa, who have both had a trying start to this year's campaign.

But whoever stays, his days too could be numbered as AS speculates that Ferrari are also interested in signing Sebastian Vettel for the 2011 season.

This news story is NOT confirmed. It's hard to see Ferrari dropping Massa or Kimi because they both have contracts for 2010.

The problems that have kept the 2009 Ferrari off the front-running pace might not be possible to resolve this year, Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo has admitted.

The reigning constructors' champion squad has just one podium finish - Kimi Raikkonen's third place in Monaco - on its 2009 tally, and is a distant fourth in this year's table, 79 points behind Brawn.

Di Montezemolo said that while he was confident that Ferrari would keep moving forward, ultimately the car would probably never be as competitive as the team would want.

"I'm confident that we can improve our performance in the next races," he said in an interview for Ferrari's website.

"Having said that, it's quite difficult, if not impossible, to really dramatically change the car in the season without testing.

"When you have a car prepared at the start of the season with certain characteristics, it's difficult to change it during the season between one race and the next."

He reiterated his belief that Ferrari lost out because it followed a more conservative version of the controversial diffuser rules, and because it used resources on its KERS device whereas others chose not to bother.

"Unfortunately we started the season with grey rules, difficult to give a correct interpretation," said di Montezemolo.

"The proof is that the three teams that have won the last three world championships - Ferrari, McLaren and Renault - have done the same interpretation and they are not as competitive as before.

"I'm very confident that we can improve our performances in the next races, and then we can be fully concentrated on next year - without KERS and with clear rules."

Di Montezemolo reckons it was inevitable that Ferrari would have a slump at some point after its long run of success.

"Ferrari is not doing extremely well this year," he acknowledged.

"Having said that, it is not possible to do well every year.

"We won eight championships in the last ten years, we won the manufacturers' championship last year and we lost the drivers' championship at the last corner of the last lap of the last race of the season.

"So I think we're still at the top."

He added that Massa's charge from 11th on the grid to fourth at Silverstone last week had fired the team up to keep improving over the coming grands prix.

"I was pleased to see Felipe Massa doing a fantastic race at Silverstone, and the fourth place is something important for the morale of the team," di Montezemolo said.

Felipe Massa has called on Ferrari to implement additional upgrades at the next race in Germany after equaling his best result of the season at Silverstone.

Ferrari headed into the British GP with an upgraded F60, which included a lighter chassis that Massa put to good use, improving from 11th at the start to fourth when the chequered flag fell after the 60 laps.

It was a solid showing from the Brazilian, moving him up to sixth overall in the Drivers' standings, a position he hopes to better when the F1 circus heads to the Nurburgring in two weeks' time.

"Next we go to the Nurburgring, where we have not been for two years," said Massa, who is most likely praying it doesn't rain during F1's upcoming visit.

"But I can still remember the 2007 event, where I had a great race and would have won, but it rained in the last few laps and I really struggled on my rain tyres that were giving me a lot of vibration.

"That allowed (Fernando) Alonso to catch me and we had a good fight, then we touched each other and he got past and I had to settle for second.

"It was a shame as the race was in my pocket until the conditions changed. All the same it was a good result and I'd shown good pace, setting the race fastest lap."

But with two years between races and an array of changes to the design of the cars, including aerodynamics and a swap from grooved to slick tyres, Massa concedes Ferrari are heading to the Nurburgring in the dark as to whether the track will suit their F60.

"As we haven't been there for a while, it's hard to tell if the Nurburgring will suit our car, but it is a good track and maybe the KERS should be more useful there than it was in Silverstone," he said.

"Whatever happens, I hope we can have some more developments on the car for that race and I look forward to having a good weekend there."

Source: Planet-F1.com

"A very positive and constructive result for all the involved parties, which allows us to move on in a good and calm way.” Luca di Montezemolo, leaving the meeting of the eight FOTA teams today at Bologna, was satisfied with the agreement reached yesterday during the meeting with the FIA World Council in Paris.

Today’s meeting underlines what FOTA had already decided and was accepted unanimously yesterday by the Council: cost reduction and the objective to improve the spectacular aspects of the Championship, starting with certain rules and a stable situation, convincing all the big teams to remain in this Championship with agreements at least until 2012. Montezemolo said he was "struck by the enthusiasm people from F1 supported us when a break-up seemed unavoidable.” As far as the agreement is concerned the Chairman added: “We were coherent from the start and finally yesterday FIA accepted our proposals, guaranteeing certain rules, stability and allowing to reduce the costs.”

As far as the rules are concerned he underlined that “possible modifications to the rules, from now on, will be consigned to the F1 Commission", where also the teams are represented.

The Chairman and FOTA also thanked the FIA President: “Mosley was very clear and honest. He said that he had thought about leaving already some time ago and that his staff knew about it. Therefore I have to say, in a moment when Mosley is leaving, that I have to thank him, beyond the points of controversy we had, because he has been working very well, especially as far as safety is concerned.”

Formula One Teams’ Association chairman Luca di Montezemolo says Max Mosley’s eclipse and the governance changes agreed as part of Wednesday’s breakthrough deal mark an end to what he views as the autocratic way in which Formula 1 has been run.

The FOTA teams claimed the scalp they were looking for when Mosley agreed not to seek re-election as FIA president after his current term runs out in October – although Mosley later claimed it was always his intention to stand down provided the FIA’s authority was not in jeopardy.

Mosley pointed to a clear affirmation by FOTA of the FIA’s mandate as evidence that he had brought the rebel teams to heel.

However, FOTA extracted significant concessions over the sport’s future governance, including restoring the role of the F1 Commission in the rule-making process and transferring powers from the person of FIA president to the Senate.

Montezemolo said FOTA had succeeded in marginalising Mosley and getting its entire agenda on governance and cost-cutting adopted by the World Motor Sport Council.

“The satisfaction is that all of our requests have been accepted,” the Ferrari president told Italian media.

“To us three things were most important: that F1 stay F1 and not become F3; that there is no dictator but a choice of rules, agreed and not imposed; and that whoever had a team was consulted and had a voice.

“Mosley has announced that in October he will stand down, with an irrevocable decision, and that from now on he won't get involved in F1.

“Now finally we have stability of the regulations until 2013.

“I want to thank all our fans, because the public had had enough of these changes.”

Montezemolo said FOTA would not allow Mosley to renege on his promise to stand down, and added that both the FIA president and Bernie Ecclestone had learned to treat the teams’ alliance seriously.

“Could Mosley change his mind? He can, yes, but we won't,” said Montezemolo.

“What has been fundamental is the unity of the teams, of the manufacturers.

“Ecclestone said that he fed FOTA's cards to his dogs, Mosley said that he didn't know what FOTA was; today it seems to me that both of them have something different to say.”

FOTA vice-chairman John Howett also feels the peace deal agreed in Paris on Wednesday will bring a new era of cooperation and “stable, proper governance” to F1.

“I am pleased that FOTA's proposals have been endorsed and approved by the WMSC today,” he said.

“This will ensure that we move forward on the basis of stable, proper governance and this will ensure an outcome which is very good news for all of Formula 1's many stakeholders.

“This has been a challenging period but thanks to the unity of the FOTA teams and the foresight of the World Motor Sport Council members we have achieved the right result for Formula 1.

“We look forward to working with the FIA Senate to achieve a prosperous and exciting future for Formula 1 and its millions of fans around the world.”

Ferrari have hailed Wednesday’s breakthrough agreement with the FIA as a victory for the Formula One Teams’ Association and the realisation of its purpose.

The eight FOTA teams have abandoned plans to break away from Formula 1 and start their own rival championship after the governing body made major concessions at the World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris.

FIA president Max Mosley - the focal point of FOTA’s ire - has agreed to stand down when his current term ends in October, and also to drop his controversial £40m budget cap in favour of FOTA-influenced cost-cutting measures.

Mosley suggested following Wednesday’s meeting that he had achieved his key aims of cutting costs and attracting new teams to F1, but Ferrari presented the outcome as an unqualified victory for FOTA.

“Today the FIA World Council accepted the proposals formulated by FOTA for the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship,” Ferrari declared in a statement on its official website.

“A Championship which will be held, as suggested by FOTA, in the spirit of sporting and technological competition, with clear and fixed rules and transparent governance, handled by the F1 Commission.

“The objective is to avoid continual changes decided on by one person alone and to gradually reduce costs, to get back to levels of spending similar to those of the early Nineties within the next two years.

“The FOTA teams constantly promoted these objectives in the interests of motorsport and all its protagonists, first and foremost the fans.”
Details of the governance reforms that have been agreed remain opaque, but the FIA indicated that changes would be made as part of an amended Concorde Agreement - while emphasising that the manufacturer teams had agreed to recognise “the permanent and continuing role of the FIA as the sport’s governing body”.

According to FIA president MAX MOSLEY, A breakthrough deal has been reached that will prevent Formula 1 splitting in two.

No F1 split in 2010 - Mosley

Following a meeting of the governing body’s World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Wednesday, Mosley said a new approach to cost-cutting had been agreed and that the FOTA teams had now dropped plans to start a breakaway championship.

“There will be no split,” said Mosley.

“We have agreed to a reduction of costs.

“There will be one F1 championship but the objective is to get back to the spending levels of the early '90s within two years.”

As part of the deal Mosley has also agreed to step aside as FIA president when his current term of office runs out in October, despite having signalled on Tuesday that he would stand for re-election.

"I will not be up for re-election now we have peace," he said.

More to follow…