2013 Chrysler 300 Glacier Edition launched
Al Pease Roger Penske Cesare Perdisa Luis PerezSala Larry Perkins
Al Pease Roger Penske Cesare Perdisa Luis PerezSala Larry Perkins
Only Lewis Hamilton truly knows where he wants to drive next season - and perhaps not even he does just yet. But the signs are that the saga that has been occupying Formula 1 for months is nearing its endgame.
Hamilton has two competing offers on the table for his future - one to stay at McLaren and one to move to Mercedes.
The word at the Singapore Grand Prix - for what it's worth - was that he is leaning towards staying where he is; one McLaren insider even suggested that a deal could be inked within days.
At the same time, there may be a complication. There are suggestions that earlier this year Hamilton signed something with Mercedes - a letter of intent, a memorandum of understanding, perhaps - that he would need to get out of before he could commit to McLaren. His current team have heard talk of this, too. Hamilton's management deny this.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
The conventional wisdom is that Mercedes are offering Hamilton more money and that the deal is sweetened further by greater freedom over personal sponsorship deals. Those are highly restricted at McLaren because of the team's breadth of marketing tie-ups.
But BBC Sport understands it is not quite as simple as that.
For one thing, some sources say the figures quoted for the Mercedes offer in the media so far - of £60m over three years - are significantly larger than what is actually on the table.
Of course, in theory, as one of the largest car companies in the world, Mercedes can afford to pay almost any figure it wants.
But the board's commitment to Formula 1 has been in question all year. While it is understood that the company has now reached an agreement with the sport's commercial rights holders defining the financial terms under which they have committed for the next few years, F1 is not a money-no-object exercise for them.
McLaren believe their offer to Hamilton is broadly similar to Mercedes', and that in terms of total remuneration he could actually end up earning more money if he stays where is.
How so? Well, it seems the headline salary figures may not differ that much - although I understand Mercedes' offer is larger.
Mercedes offer greater freedom in terms of new sponsorship deals with which Hamilton can top up his income, and out of which his management group - music industry mogul Simon Fuller's XIX - would take a cut that some sources say is as great as 50%, a figure XIX say is wildly exaggerated.
McLaren, by contrast, have strict rules around their driver contracts - they do not allow any personal sponsorship deal that clashes with any brand owned by a company on their car.
So deals with mobile, fashion, household products, perfumes, oil and so on are all out. Jenson Button is allowed to have his deal to endorse shampoo because it was signed before McLaren had GlaxoSmithKline as a partner.
McLaren, I'm told, have loosened some of their restrictions in an attempt to give Hamilton more freedom.
And in their favour is that all contracts contain clauses that define bonuses for success; in McLaren's case for wins and championships. These amount to significant amounts of money and on current form Hamilton would earn more in bonuses with McLaren than with Mercedes.
Financially, it is in XIX's interests for Hamilton to move to Mercedes - that is where they will earn most money.
But that may not be the case for Hamilton, which of course begs the question of whether the driver and his management group actually have conflicting interests.
While Hamilton has steadfastly refused to discuss his future with the media, he has been consistent in one thing. As he put it at the Italian Grand Prix earlier this month: "I want to win."
He knows exactly how good he is and it rankles with him that he has so far won only one world title.
In which case, the last few races will have given him pause for thought.
McLaren started this season with the fastest car in F1, the first time they have done that since at least 2008 and arguably 2005.
But Hamilton's title bid was hampered by a series of early season operational problems that prevented him winning until the seventh race of the season in Canada. Was it during this period that he signed that "something" with Mercedes?
After a slight mid-season wobble through the European and British Grands Prix in late June and early July, though, McLaren have come on strongly.
Upgrades introduced at the German Grand Prix gave them a big step forward, making the McLaren once again the fastest car.
Progress was disguised in Hockenheim by a wet qualifying session, which allowed Alonso to take the pole position from which he controlled the race.
Even then, though, with Hamilton out of the reckoning after an early puncture, Button ran the Spaniard close.
Since then, it has been all McLaren. Hamilton won from pole in Hungary and Italy; Button the same in Belgium. Then in Singapore Hamilton lost an almost certain victory, also from pole, with a gearbox failure.
Meanwhile, Mercedes have floundered. And while rival teams agreed that a big upgrade to the silver cars in Singapore did move them forward a little, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher only just scraped into the top 10 in qualifying and were anonymous in the race until Schumacher's embarrassing crash with Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne.
Undoubtedly, Mercedes will have given Hamilton the hard sell.
They'll have pointed out that they have won the world title more recently than McLaren - in their previous guise of Brawn in 2009.
They'll have said they are a true works team backed by a huge car company, whereas McLaren are from next year paying for their "customer" Mercedes engines.
They'll have argued that, in team boss Ross Brawn, Mercedes have the architect of the most dominant dynasty in F1 history - the Ferrari team of the early 2000s - who is determined to do it again. Triple world champion Niki Lauda, who is expected to be given a senior management role at the Mercedes team, has also been involved in trying to persuade Hamilton to join the team.
And they'll have said Hamilton has relative commercial freedom with them to make as much money as he wants.
What they won't have said is that the 2009 world title came about in rather exceptional circumstances and that at no other time has the team looked remotely like consistently challenging the best - whether as BAR, Honda or Mercedes.
And they won't have said that McLaren - for all Hamilton's frustrations over the cars he has had since 2009 and the mistakes that have been made in 2012 - have a winning record over the past 30 years that is the envy of every team in F1.
Of course, the past does not define the future, but the future is built on the past.
It's possible that the near future of F1 is one of Mercedes hegemony, but it would be a hell of a gamble to take for a man who professes he just "wants to win".
If the latest indications about his mind-set are correct, perhaps that is what Hamilton has now realised.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/hamilton_saga_nearing_endgame.html
Clemente Biondetti Pablo Birger Art Bisch Harry Blanchard Michael Bleekemolen
Nico Hulkenberg Denny Hulme James Hunt Jim Hurtubise Gus Hutchison
Carel Godin de Beaufort Christian Goethals Paul Goldsmith Jose Froilán González Oscar González
The remarkable story of Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's incredible season continued at the German Grand Prix as the Spaniard became the first man to win three races in 2012 and moved into an imposing lead in the world championship.
Those three victories have all been very different, but equally impressive. And each has demonstrated specific aspects of the formidable army of Alonso's talents.
In Malaysia in the second race of the season, at a time when the Ferrari was not competitive in the dry, he grabbed the opportunity provided by rain to take a most unexpected first win.
In Valencia last month, it was Alonso's opportunism and clinical overtaking abilities that were to the fore.

Other drivers may wonder how to stop Alonso's relentless drive to a third title. Photo: Getty
And in Germany on Sunday his victory was founded on his relentlessness, canniness and virtual imperviousness to pressure.
Ferrari, lest we forget, started the season with a car that was the best part of a second and a half off the pace. Their progress since then has been hugely impressive.
But vastly improved though the car is, it was not, as Alonso himself, his team boss Stefano Domenicali and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel all pointed out after the race on Sunday, the fastest car in Germany.
Vettel's Red Bull - which finished second but was demoted to fifth for passing Jenson Button by going off the track - and the McLaren appeared to have a slight pace advantage over the Ferrari, given their ability to stay within a second of it for lap after lap.
But Alonso cleverly managed his race so he was always just out of reach of them when it mattered.
He pushed hard in the first sector every lap so he was always far enough ahead at the start of the DRS overtaking zone to ensure his pursuers were not quite close enough to try to pass him into the Turn 6 hairpin.
After that, he could afford to back off through the middle sector of the lap, taking the stress out of his tyres, before doing it all over again the next time around.
Managing the delicate Pirelli tyres in this way also meant he could push that bit harder in the laps immediately preceding his two pit stops and ensure he kept his lead through them.
Equally, he showed the presence of mind to realise when Lewis Hamilton unlapped himself on Vettel shortly before the second stops that if he could, unlike the Red Bull driver, keep Hamilton behind, it would give him a crucial advantage at the stop.
It was not quite "67 qualifying laps", as Domenicali described it after the race, but it was certainly a masterful demonstration of control and intelligence.
And there was no arguing with another of the Italian's post-race verdicts. "(Alonso) is at the peak of his personal performance, no doubt about it," Domenicali said.
It was the 30th victory of Alonso's career, and he is now only one behind Nigel Mansell in the all-time winners' list. The way he is driving, he will surely move ahead of the Englishman into fourth place behind Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna before the end of the year.
At the halfway point of the season, Alonso now looks down on his pursuers in the championship from the lofty vantage point of a 34-point advantage.
That is not, as Red Bull team principal Christian Horner correctly pointed out in Germany, "insurmountable" with 10 races still to go and 250 points up for grabs. But catching him when he is driving as well as this will take some doing.
Alonso is clearly enjoying the situation, and is taking opportunities to rub his rivals' noses in it a little.
He is not the only driver to have been wound up by the index-finger salute Vettel employed every time he took one of his 11 wins and 15 pole positions on the way to the title last year.
So it was amusing to see Alonso do the same thing after he had beaten the German to pole position at Vettel's home race on Saturday.
The exchange between Alonso, Button and Vettel as they climbed out of their cars immediately after the race was also illuminating.
After standing on his Ferrari's nose to milk the applause, Alonso turned to Button and said: "You couldn't beat me?" He then pointed to Vettel and said: "He couldn't either."
All part of the game, but a little reminder to both men of what a formidable job Alonso is doing this season.
The race underlined how close the performance is between the top three teams this year.
Red Bull had a shaky start to the season by their standards - although to nowhere near the extent of Ferrari - but have had on balance the fastest car in the dry since the Bahrain Grand Prix back in April.
And while McLaren have had a shaky couple of races in Valencia and Silverstone, they showed potential race-winning pace in Germany following the introduction of a major upgrade.
Despite a car damaged when he suffered an early puncture on debris left from a first-corner shunt ironically involving Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa, Hamilton was able to run with the leaders before his retirement with gearbox damage.
And Button impressively fought his way up to second place from sixth on the grid, closing a five-second gap on Alonso and Vettel once he was into third place.
This has not been Button's greatest season, as he would be the first to admit.
Germany was the first race at which he has outqualified Hamilton in 2012 and even that may well have been down to the different tyre strategies they ran in qualifying.
Nevertheless, he remains a world-class grand prix driver and Germany proved the folly of those who had written him off after his recent struggles.
And despite Alonso's lead in the championship, the season is finely poised.
Germany was a low-key race for Mark Webber, who was unhappy with his car on the harder of the two tyres but remains second in the championship. And Red Bull's two drivers clearly have the equipment to make life difficult for Alonso.
The McLaren drivers are determined to make something of their season still and Lotus are quick enough to cause the three big teams some serious concern.
Mercedes, meanwhile, have a bit of work to do to turn around their tendency to qualify reasonably well and then go backwards in the race.
"It's going to be a great, great season," said McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh on Sunday. "It already has been a great season."
And the next instalment is already less than seven days away in Hungary next weekend.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/07/cool_canny_alonso_looks_diffic.html
Marco Apicella Mário de Araújo Cabral Frank Armi Chuck Arnold Rene Arnoux
Fewer races and more testing? No thanks, Alonso is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.
Fernando Alonso may not consider himself ?political?, but that doesn?t stop him from toeing the Ferrari party line on testing.
Fewer races and more testing? No thanks, Alonso is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/f1fanatic/~3/JEsIT2qJELQ/
Norberto Fontana Azdrubal Fontes Bayardo Carl Forberg Gene Force Franco Forini
Ray Crawford Alberto Crespo Antonio Creus Larry Crockett Tony Crook
HeinzHarald Frentzen Paul Frere Patrick Friesacher Joe Fry Hiroshi Fushida
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/12/20/montezemolo-on-technical-constraints-testing-and-third-cars/
Karl Kling Ernst Klodwig Kamui Kobayashi Helmuth Koinigg Heikki Kovalainen