This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Toyota Aiming for Form Bernie Still CARTing

Toyota Aiming for Form

At the opening races of the season, Toyota have been disappointed not to score points, after taking what they believe should have been a competitive car to the events. However, after discovering an issue with the fuel pick-up and pressure systems, the car could only be relied on to run if it was carrying an extra 20 kilos of fuel, which brings a penalty of more than half a second per lap.

Before the season started, when Jaguar opted on to the Friday testing route, there was some concern at Toyota that the extra track time to set up the car could provide some significant advantage. On balance it was concluded that over the first half of the season, it was advantageous to run Friday tests, but as the car became better known and new developments came online, the reverse would become true. On balance, Friday testing is not the optimum route for the season. Which was just as well: by this time this conclusion was reached, it was too late to realistically change the test program, which looks set to use around forty days of testing this year.

Of course, the car was supposed to be reliable before going to Australia, so the fuel problem has provided an extra source of frustration for the team. Getting a fix sorted out before Brazil has come at the expense of some testing on new developments and set-ups that need to be checked ahead of the San Marino Grand Prix: recovering that lost testing time is a tough business. Mind you, it shouldn't be a dead loss: recovering half a second by fixing a problem is more important than looking for the odd tenth through new development or set-up tweaks, so the team has effectively seen their race pace take an important step in the right direction.

Brazil's bumpy circuit is expected to throw up its normal reliability issues; coupled with a half way decent performance, that gives a very solid opportunity to score points. However, Toyota's midfield rivals do not see why the team believe they will have improved noticeably from fixing their issue - unless Toyota really dropped the ball in Malaysia, anyway. Had they been compelled to run an extra 20 kilos of fuel at all times, they would have taken off 20 kilos of ballast, negating the time penalty from the extra fuel. The tank would effectively be 20 litres smaller, affecting strategy, but the absolute pace of the car would be much the same.

Bernie Still CARTing

Rumours of Bernie Ecclestone's continued interest in CART have been doing the rounds again, promoted by British broadsheets including The Guardian. Like all smoke, it requires some form of fire as a source, and as usual, there are some politics to keep this interesting. The latest round of speculation, on the face of it, is simply driven by a recent meeting between Chris Pook and Bernie Ecclestone.

There are a lot of reasons for Ecclestone and CART to be interested in each other. The CART series is overcoming some serious pressure, based on the withdrawal of engine manufacturers, due to a dictatorial change in the engine rules, and a solid sponsor exodus to the rival IRL series, drawn predominantly by the lure of the Indy 500. Many of the leading CART teams have followed their sponsors and engine suppliers over, which has not been good for CART stock. Despite having what appears to be an intelligent plan for developing the formula over the next few years, its listed value has plummeted.

Establishing a relationship with Ecclestone - especially if his own money is involved by buying into the series - makes a lot of sense to CART. Ecclestone brings respectability and a lot of connections in the motorsport and media industries around the world, so raising the sport's profile, and making it easier to penetrate Europe. The association would further align the sport with Formula One, on top of existing measures, such as the introduction of F1-like engines (three litre, normally aspirated V10 units) by 2005, and the ongoing work to widen global awareness by taking more races abroad.

Ecclestone is facing a troubled time getting the teams to renegotiate the Concorde Agreement, which is vital to the continuation of Formula One within the structure he has brought about. Without it, the rights to the sport become a free-for-all at the end of 2007, with the individual teams once again responsible for negotiating every aspect of the organisation of the Championship between themselves, the FIA and the individual venues. Inevitably, to minimise the administrative overhead, maximise the bargaining position and generally ensure the whole remains manageable, some form of organisation will be invited to control those aspects: as it stands, the major car manufacturers formed the Grand Prix World Championship (GPWC) specifically to handle that role, intending to offer teams a substantial return on the revenues the sport generates in return for operational control.

If the GPWC had maintained their confrontational course with the FIA, then things would no doubt continue to be quiet on the CART front. However, it appears they are now prepared to accept the role of the FIA as a governing body for world motorsport, and are applying to be recognised to run a series of their own. If they are successful, the GPWC would effectively be validated as a concept, making it a credible rival to Formula One in the future.

On the face of it, buying a controlling interest in CART brings Ecclestone a ready-made route to counter the GPWC and retain control of the Formula One name and worldwide rights, as neither the Drivers' or Constructors' Championships are really dependant on who runs the cars, provided they adhere to the sporting regulations: should the current teams defect to the new series, they can be replaced wholesale.

Then again, this could all be high stakes posturing by the teams, manufacturers and Ecclestone as they manoeuvre around the requirements of a new Concorde Agreement. The potential to extend the current agreement by ten years has been tabled by Ecclestone, and effectively rejected through lack of interest - all the manufacturer teams are certain they can get a far better deal from fresh negotiations. Not that those negotiations will take place by the teams sitting down around a table! This game, as always in Formula One, works through continued posturing, negotiating behind closed doors, and surreptitious trading of support for slices of the pie.

Using CART to leverage the teams into a new contract presents Ecclestone with a win-win situation. Even with the stock value surge arising from the rumours, there is little doubt the purchase would be cheap at the current price; putting some effort into continuing the alignment to Formula One, turning it into the main feeder series, based on similar cars and engines, would reduce the negative comparison with IRL. It would provide the Formula One teams with a proving ground for potential drivers, Ecclestone with a support series to add to the circus (and an implicit threat to keep the teams in order), and the engine manufacturers with a marketing route into the US. Everyone wins.