Latest F1 news in brief

Fry says Alonso more adaptable if car is inferior

Europe to 'brush off' F1 investigation – report
Haas basing F1 team on 'Nascar' approach
Alonso 'more adaptable' than Raikkonen – Fry
Spa extends F1 race deal through 2018
Two new teams developing 2016 'test' F1 cars
Korean Grand Prix dropped from this year's F1 calendar
Haas F1 staff to begin working in UK this month

Europe to 'brush off' F1 investigation – report
(GMM) The European Commission looks set to dismiss claims formula one authorities are acting anti-competitively.

Recently, it appeared likely the European Union's executive body would launch an investigation into the sport, following a letter by concerned British politician Anneliese Dodds.

Her concerns, reportedly backed by disgruntled smaller teams including Lotus, Force India and Sauber, centered around the FIA's exchange of decision-making power for a 1 per cent shareholding in F1's commercial rights.

Smaller teams were in turn locked out of the new Strategy Group, where Bernie Ecclestone and the grandee competitors make key decisions about the future.

The Times this week reported that an anti-competition chief at the European Commission, Krzysztof Kuik, had spoken to team bosses and experts.

Correspondent Kevin Eason said there is "widespread apprehension that a Competition Commission investigation could stop F1 in its tracks", as it could result in "wholesale changes in the way that the sport is run".

But F1 business journalist Christian Sylt, writing for Forbes, concluded that Kuik's written response to Dodds in fact signals that the Commission has "brushed off" the anti-competition allegations.

Kuik wrote: "We are aware of the recent allegations regarding formula one's governance, as described in your letter and the recent press reports.

"I appreciate it that you have provided information about those issues and have taken note of your concerns."

Sylt concluded that the letter "comes across as a brush off as he gives no indication that any specific action will be taken".

He said Dodds shares that view, as she has now written back to the Commission's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, this time with "some very specific requests".

Haas basing F1 team on 'Nascar' approach
(GMM) The collapse of Marussia and Caterham may be the definite end of an era in formula one, according to the sport's newest team entrant.

American Gene Haas, basing his 2016 outfit in North Carolina, is also setting up camp in the UK, probably at ailing Marussia's Banbury facility.

He told F1 business journalist Christian Sylt that work in England will begin shortly.

"We are moving right ahead and in January we are going to start having a few employees in the UK," Haas is quoted by the report in Autoweek.

His business model, however, will be vastly different to that of Marussia and Caterham, who tried to compete with F1's established and grandee teams as full constructors.

"Our business model in formula one is based on our Nascar race team where we use other people's engines and chassis," Haas said.

"If Caterham doesn't come back there are going to be nine teams so we will be the tenth team and I don't think Bernie is going to allow start-up teams anymore."

Haas said Caterham and Marussia's failure shows that the old model of smaller teams "just doesn't work".

"I look at it and say it is insanity," he said. "If you want to become a doctor, you have got to spend 10 years going to medical school. You've got to learn from somebody. That's why we have partnered with Ferrari."

Tweaks to the rules have made Haas' new approach possible, where significant support and components can be supplied by a parent team like Ferrari on top of the basic customer 'power unit'.

And Haas said the tie-up with Maranello could also help Ferrari.

"I think they would like to partner with somebody that can give them some feedback, so if we can provide value to them I think then that this will work out very well," he said.

"It is basically an experiment to see if this new way of doing things is beneficial and also whether a new team can be competitive. To me the new teams are just so far behind that they can't even catch up," added Haas.

"If we do it right we will look like geniuses. If we can get it half right that would be pretty awesome."

Alonso 'more adaptable' than Raikkonen – Fry
(GMM) Fernando Alonso is more adaptable than Kimi Raikkonen and better able to cope with a difficult car.

That is the claim of Ferrari's recently-ousted technical chief Pat Fry, musing the key differences between the Maranello team's 2014 pairing.

For 2015, Spaniard Alonso has switched to McLaren-Honda, but Raikkonen is staying put and will be joined this year by his friend Sebastian Vettel.

Ferrari's champion of 2007, and having thrived at Lotus, Finn Raikkonen notably struggled alongside Alonso last year and Briton Fry thinks he knows why.

"There were two issues," he is quoted by Brazil's Totalrace.

"The first is that Fernando is more adaptable and the second is that the limitations of the car and tires are especially difficult with Kimi's driving style.

"It was the same at McLaren," Fry added, having also worked with Raikkonen at the British team.

"He was very sensitive to the front of the car — when he and Montoya were together, I think we had about seven different front suspensions for the season.

"To get the most out of Kimi, you need to give him the car to do it," he said.

The F1 circus will race at the majestic Spa-Francorchamps through at least 2018.

Spa extends F1 race deal through 2018
(GMM) The future of the historic Belgian grand prix at popular Spa-Francorchamps appears safe.

La Libre, a French-language Belgian newspaper, said the economics minister of the local Walloon region has authorized the extension of the race contract.

"There will therefore be a grand prix in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018," minister Jean-Claude Marcourt is quoted as having said in parliament on Tuesday.

He revealed that additional investments into the fabled Spa circuit have not been requested by F1's governing FIA as the facility is already up to scratch.

Marcourt did admit that the 2014 Belgian grand prix recorded a EUR 7 million deficit, partly because of the negotiations for the 2015 contract, but he also said the local and international impact of the race justifies the cost.

Two new teams developing 2016 'test' F1 cars
Two new constructors are developing cars to the 2016 Formula 1 technical regulations it has been revealed, but neither of them intends to race in the world championship. Instead by designing and building cars that are fully compliant with the 2016 rules both groups intend to offer a low cost route for drivers wanting get enough mileage in a grand prix car to get a Super License. The ambitious Perrinn company, based in the Yorkshire Dales region of England has already announced its project and Racecar Engineering has confirmed that there is also a second design in development elsewhere in Europe, but that project has yet to be made public.

The 2016 Super License regulations require a driver to clock up at least 300km in a Formula 1 car built after 2011. Currently this tends to mean that drivers must pay teams very large sums of money to drive what the FIA calls 'Previous Cars' essentially an otherwise obsolete V8 powered design. The mileage can be accumulated using a 2014 or 2015 design, ('Current Cars' in FIA parlance) but the cost of the power units is thought to be prohibitive, leaving young drivers few opportunities to get up to the required mileage without a substantial financial outlay.

Testing restrictions mean that teams are generally unwilling to use up their already restricted track time with current cars on getting young drivers super licenses.

The two new projects aim to offer a lower cost way to achieve the mileage required by the Super License rules, by building a 'Current Car' and not entering it into the championship. 'This is not an official Formula 1 car, instead it is a car fully designed to the Formula 1 technical regulations' Nicolas Perrin, who believes the Super License cars can be built up to a rolling chassis for a fraction of the cost of other teams cars. 'We are not a Formula 1 entrant and we have no intention of being one.

It means we have a lot of potential, we could be an engine manufacturer or technology test bed, young drivers could use our car to get a Super License or to get up to speed with modern F1.'

The FIA regulations specifically allow this approach, stating that the cars used must be designed and built in order to comply with the 2014, 2015 or 2016 Formula One Technical Regulations, however the rules do not state that the cars be built by Formula 1 entrants or indeed have ever been used in the Formula 1 World Championship.

Without the demands of competition the development and operation of these cars is thought to be significantly cheaper. Staffing levels are substantially reduced, lead times for component manufacture can be increased and the 'development war' is ignored, all of these and many other factors which also come into play cut costs substantially.

Both of the new designs are expected to shakedown in late 2015 or early 2016. Racecar Engineering

Korean Grand Prix dropped from this year's F1 calendar
The Korean Formula One Grand Prix has been formally dropped from the 2015 calendar after its surprise inclusion last month for contractual reasons.

A revised 20-race calendar, starting in Australia on March 15, appeared on the governing International Automobile Federation's website (www.fia.com).

An FIA spokesman confirmed the race had been removed because it was not viable.

That came as no shock, with the sport's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone telling reporters in December that the local South Korean promoters did not want to hold the May 3 race but he had to include it for legal reasons.

"We have a contract with Korea. We have to put it on the calendar,"Â� he said then. "If we hadn't have done, they could have sued us. We let them off for a year on the understanding they would be back."Â�

The race, first hosted at the southern Yeongam circuit in 2010, did not take place last year.

The decision to axe it again from what would have been a record 21-race list leaves a three week gap between Bahrain on April 19 and Spain on May 10.

Some Formula One teams had seen the decision to include the Korean race as simply a means of allowing teams to have five engines per car this season and avoid a planned reduction to four.

The wording of the regulations had stipulated that the teams could have five engines if the calendar "as originally scheduled"Â� had more than 20 races.

That move was subsequently rendered unnecessary by a decision to allow limited in-season development for the existing engine manufacturers, although McLaren's new partners Honda will not benefit from it.

Haas F1 staff to begin working in UK this month
American Formula One team owner Gene Haas says his staff will begin working on his F1 project in the United Kingdom this month ahead of its debut in 2016. That is sooner than expected but Haas says his team cannot wait any longer.

"We are moving right ahead and in January we are going to start having a few employees in the U.K.," he says. "We have to start ordering all of our haulers and trailers by around February or March as they need six months to build them. We have got a lot to do."

Buying Marussia assets

Haas is understood to have bought the former shop of the Marussia F1 team which is in administration, the British equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The team launched in 2010 but only managed to score a total of two points and ceased trading in November.

Its base is located in Oxfordshire in southeast England, and the price tag is likely to have been lower than its true value: Marussia needs to urgently sell its assets to clear debts which come to $48.9 million, according to its administrator, the FRP Advisory. The administrator expected to get $1.7 million for Marussia's plant, fixtures and equipment, so it is unlikely the shop cost more than this.

The Haas F1 team's race operations will be based in the U.K., and approximately 250 staff members will be employed there. In contrast, the design division will be based in North Carolina alongside the Haas co-owned Stewart-Haas Racing team which won this year's NASCAR Sprint Cup championship with Kevin Harvick.

Ferrari engines, but prices need to come down

The Haas F1 team will use engines from Ferrari — one of three automobile manufacturers involved with F1 along with Renault and last year's champion, Mercedes-Benz. However, Haas says he thinks F1 would benefit from more manufacturers joining the series because this would increase the level of competition and attention paid to the sport.

Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault supply engines to the other teams in F1, and last year engine prices doubled to around $30 million for a season-long supply as 2.4-liter V8s were swapped for new, more high-tech and environmentally-friendly 1.6-liter turbocharged V6s. The price increase fuelled the collapse of both the Marussia and Caterham teams; the biggest creditor of the latter is Renault, which is owed $11.6 million for supplying engines. AutoWeek