Nelson Piquet, a Brazilian racing driver, who was Formula One world champion in 1981, 1983, and 1987 has loses his driving license. According to O Globo, Piquet's Brazilian driving license has been revoked after a series of speeding and parking offenses.

Can you imagine an ex-F1 driver without a car? I can't. So, the 54-year old driver began a driving reeducation course. Funny, but Piquet is not a lone. His wife, Viviane, also joined her ex-champion husband in the class after having her license taken away for bad driving.

The couple will have to attend mandatory classes over eight days and pass an exam before getting back their licenses. I don't think Piquet will have trouble with that.

Photo courtesy of http://www.goodwood.co.uk

The FIA has confirmed the calendar for the Formula One 2008 world championship.

Valencia, Spain, will host the European Grand Prix on a street circuit on August 24, subject to approval. Singapore will also stage a street race on September 28, subject to circuit approval. In Singapore we may witness the first night race.

The 2008 calendar in full looks like this:

16 Mar Australia
23 Mar Malaysia
6 Apr Bahrain
27 Apr Spain
11 May Turkey
25 May Monaco
8 Jun Canada (Provisional)
22 Jun France
6 Jul Great Britain
20 Jul Germany
3 Aug Hungary
24 Aug Europe (Subject to circuit approval)
7 Sep Italy
14 Sep Belgium
28 Sep Singapore (Subject to circuit approval)
12 Oct China
19 Oct Japan
2 Nov Brazil

Photo courtesy of f1istanbulturkey.com

The FIA World Motor Sport Council acknowledged that McLaren had breached the sporting regulations by having unauthorised Ferrari documents in their possession.

I believe this is what every Ferrari fan was expecting. However, McLaren went unpunished. This is almost a comical situation indeed and I am deeply disappointed with the FIA's decision. And this is why.

Formula One is a sport where a verge of success and failure may lie in a thousandths of a second. In Formula One every detail is important. In Formula One there are no unimportant details.

Even if McLaren declares that they have not benefited from possessing the secret material, it might still have an impact on the outcome. If nothing else, it is psychologically devastating realising a fact that your competitor possesses your confidential material.

FIA, please bring justice to this case by imposing appropriate sanctions on McLaren. One of the reasons why we love Formula One is that it is extremely fair sport. Formula One is more than sport. Do not legitimize dishonest behaviour.

Photo by courtesy of www.leblogauto.com

Today I was checking visitor statistics and to my amazement over 80% of all visitors coming to Blogvasion.com from Google during past couple of days were searching for Formula 1 2008 Calendar.

Dear friends, unfortunately the 2008 calendar has not been confirmed yet. Moreover, there isn't even a preliminary schedule. Need a speculated one? Oh dear, here it is found on Wikipedia.

However, there are a couple of facts.

Fact number one is that we won't see the US Grand Prix. I've already written a post about this.

Fact number two is that Australia has lost the pole position and that Bahrain will host 2008 season opener.

Fact number three is that Bridgestone will be the official tyre supplier for the 2008 season and probably up to 2010.

The article on Wikipedia provides more "facts" but I don't take anything on Wikipedia as a fact. As soon as the Formula One 2008 schedule is confirmed, I'll publish it and where the hell I wrote down Bernie's cell phone... :)

It was believed and anticipated that Christian Klien would take the vacant seat at Spyker F1. However, the team management opted to go with the Spyker reserve driver Markus Winkelhock. Markus Winkelhock will make his Formula One debut at Sunday's European Grand Prix and we will see one more rookie in this season.

To Winkelhock this is a dream come true. The driver admitted that while he hadn't have much time in the car this year, he is prepared both physically and mentally.

I think Markus' appearance on the track is some kind of an experiment. This can be a one-off race or we may see Markus in subsequent races, maybe even for the rest of the season. One thing is clear that the team must make a decision who will be Adrian Sutil's partner for the rest of the season. Therefore, it will be an extremely important moment in German driver's career.

Brickyard drops off the Formula 1 2008 calendar, though the Indianapolis door is left open for potential future races. This was the mutual agreement between Tony George, the CEO of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Formula One Management Ltd. CEO Bernie Ecclestone.

In June this year, at the 2007 event, George and Ecclestone agreed to a mid-July deadline for a decision about future events. According to the speedway officials, they needed a long term solution and not the one-year agreement the speedway officials achieved with Ecclestone last year.

According to the estimates, the attendance at Indianapolis has always been good at around 125,000 people. It is believed that the inaugural race in 2000 drew more than 200,000 people. Exact figures have never been published but it was apparent the US Grand Prix has been a popular event. But in 2005 the event was spoiled. 14 of the 20 drivers pulled off the track just before the start over concerns about the safety of the Michelin tires used by seven teams. Tony George even refused to wave the checkered flag or join Michael Schumacher in the winner’s circle. Furious and dissapointed spectators and Formula 1 fans threw beer cans on the race.

With or without the Formula 1 event, the speedway most likely will be the site for three races next year. Along with Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's Allstate 400, the Brickyard will be hosting the MotoGP World Championship in 2008. Confirmation still pending on this.

But the Brickyard won't be the same without Formula 1 and I hope someday the sound of the Formula 1 car engines will be heard on this fast and wonderful motorway.

This post has been featured on BLOGVASION.COM

A controversy between Scuderia Ferrari and the McLaren-Mercedes team reached High Court in England this week.

Ferrari are accusing their former engineer Nigel Stepney in supplying the rival team McLaren's chief designer Mike Coughlan with secret Ferrari technical information in April. It is believed that the 780 page secret material was stored on two computer disks.

Ferrari representative, the lawyer Nigel Tozzi told judge Michael Briggs that the Coughlans should not have had documents which were found during the search.

Stepney does not plead guilty and denies any wrongdoing. But he is facing a criminal investigation under a separate process in Italy where Ferrari is based. Moreover, Stepney says that Ferrari is terrified that what he has in his mind is valuable. "I guess I know where the bodies have been buried for the last 10 years, there were a lot of controversies." continues Stepney.

The FIA is conducting its own investigation into the allegations. According to their representatives, McLaren may face points deduction as a form of punishment.

No matter how hard decision it was, the Spyker F1 team management has confirmed that Christijan Albers will no longer race for them in this season. According to the Spyker F1 team boss, Colin Kolles the decision has nothing to do with Albers' performance. Banal it may sound, but the main reason of such a tough decision was a problem with the driver's personal sponsors.

Ferrari's successful start in this season of Formula 1 World Championship was followed by a series of failures. As a Scuderia Ferrari's passionate fan, I was extremely disappointed by this. But Kimi Raikkonen's success at Magny-Cours last week, followed by today's magnificent victory made me happy :) Ferrari showed that it's way too early to consider this season's fate decided. Both last week and this week, Ferrari showed that their cars were equally fast, if not faster than those of the rival McLaren-Mercedes.