Once again, Ferrari has affirmed that Michael Schumacher will be closely involved with the team, even when he is not present at the race. This time, it’s their technical director, Mario Almondo, making the announcement.

It all sounds wonderful, with Michael supplied with a remote connection to the team for instant communication, a big office at HQ for the man and even a role for him as talent scout at karting events. Well, okay, the karting is new but haven’t we heard all the rest before? Isn’t it a case of “methinks the lady (in red) doth protest too much”?

What this constant repetition and confirmation of Michael’s position within the team does tell us is that Ferrari too is a bit nervous about the coming season. For years they have relied on “the dream team” to deliver the results and suddenly it is broken and scattered. Who can blame them for wondering whether success has departed with the mighty three, Schumacher, Todt and Brawn?

So they cover their fears with frequent declarations that nothing has changed, Michael and Todt are still on board, even though in different roles, and the red machine will roll smoothly on into the future. It’s themselves they’re trying to convince, not us.

It is apparent too that Ferrari has begun to have doubts about Kimi’s suitability for the team. Last week he was promised a talking-to about his offtrack behaviour, this week we are given the promise that he will smile a lot more. Now there’s one that might not be so easy to deliver, and I’m not even sure I want to see what the frozen-faced Finn’s smile looks like. We are so used to the flat delivery of the men from the land of lakes and forests, after all.

My theory is that it’s not so much that the Finns have absorbed the icy nature of their homeland but rather that their language produces the deadpan, passionless sound that we hear when they speak English. We call them the icemen but in reality they are as passionate as anyone else – it just doesn’t come across that way when they speak a tongue foreign to them. Remember Mika Hakkinen’s despair and tears when he threw away an Italian Grand Prix through a silly mistake?

And now Ferrari wants Kimi to smile. Pardon me for saying so, but there is implied criticism of their new employee in that idea. And that is hardly the way to welcome your new hope for the future.

All signs of nervousness in the Ferrari camp. If I were to wish them well (and I don’t – you know I’m backing Button for 2007), I’d tell them that we already know that Michael will continue in an advisory role and just to get on with it. But as for Kimi, my advice would be to leave the poor guy alone; give him the car and he’ll produce the goods – who cares about his public persona if he’s the fastest man on the track?

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Yes, I have to admit it – the holidays are upon us. And, to provide a bit of entertainment, I thought I’d present you with one of my hare-brained inventions of long ago. To explain it, I have to tell a little story, so I must ask you to bear with me.

It begins in the mid-sixties, when it was decided to change the formula for F1 cars from 1.5 liters to 3.0 liters. This came at a time when two or three of the engine manufacturers had just invested huge sums in fiendishly complicated little engines that they thought would outperform the rest. And so the FIA threw the manufacturers a bone: an allowed alternative to the big 3.0 liters was a 1.5 liter supercharged engine.

This was actually no compensation at all. At the time, no supercharged 1.5 could hope to match the power of a 3.0 liter and so the provision was ignored for ten years. But over those years the science of turbo-charging developed and, in 1977, Renault entered a turbo-charged 1.5 liter car. It was fast but unreliable at first but, as the engineers solved the heat problems of turbos, it became clear that such an engine could produce far more power than any 3.0 liter. The turbo era of the eighties dawned.

But, if I may take you back to the time of that rule change in the sixties, a wild idea had been born in my imagination. I read an article in a motoring magazine that considered the alternative specification that had crept into the regulations and pointed out that, if one could supercharge a 1.5 two-stroke, it would produce phenomenal amounts of power. Theoretically, such an engine would be an almost unlimited power source; what a pity that it was impossible to supercharge a two-stroke.

“Is it?” thought I. One sees the problem immediately: no valves. Without valves, any pressure built up by a supercharger would force the mixture straight through the combustion chamber and probably cause a nice little explosion in the exhaust system. But what if you added valves? Ordinary valves won’t do, of course – the ports in a two-stroke are in the sides of the cylinders and any valves would stick out and get wiped off promptly by the piston. But there are other types of valve that don’t need to protrude into the combustion chamber; rotary valves, for instance. And one could time the opening of the valves so that the exhaust closed just as the inlet opened.

Now, anyone who knows anything about engines also knows that rotary valves are more trouble than they’re worth. They have tremendous problems with sealing – finding a material that will stand up to the heat and wear implicit in seating such a valve would be enormously difficult. The valve would have to rotate at astronomical speeds to keep up with the high revs of our theoretical engine. It was probably beyond the technology of the time to seal such valves effectively. But today, it might just be possible. Certainly the Mazda engineers have solved similar problems on the rotary engine that bankrupted NSU in the sixties.

So I maintain that it’s not impossible to supercharge a two-stroke engine. And, if my memory serves me correctly, the article I read suggested that power output of such an engine would exceed 700 bhp. With that sort of power, it would have dominated F1 for a decade at least.

If it had ever managed to finish any races, of course. Merry Christmas everyone!

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Colin Kolles has announced the signing of young German driver, Adrian Sutil, to be Spyker teammate to Christijan Albers in 2007. This is slightly surprising, since most had expected that Tiago Monteiro would continue as Spyker’s second driver.

But it does tie in with the sudden fashion for giving rookie drivers a chance. With Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, Robert Kubica at BMW, Heikki Kovalainen at Renault, Anthony Davidson at Super Aguri, and now Sutil at Spyker, F1 is filled with fresh new faces. I cannot recall a previous season in which so many first-time F1 racers entered the sport.

There are two reasons for this, I think. Clearly, the instant success of Robert Kubica at BMW made team managers realize that there were discoveries to be made within the ranks of hopefuls graduating from F3 and GP2. As the GP2 Champion of 2006, Hamilton was an obvious pick but there were others who seemed just as talented. Two who made it into test driver seats are Sebastian Vettel and Gary Paffett, both of whom look to be just as quick as any of the new drivers.

And then there came the retirement of Michael Schumacher. Somehow his disappearance has created a lot of space in F1 and allowed teams to be more adventurous in their choice of drivers. It may well be that memories of Michael’s debut at Spa in 1991 were stirred and the hunt for the next Schumacher has started. The weight of expectation falls heavily on the shoulders of Hamilton and Kubica but the others too will be watched closely for signs of greatness.

Every year we hope for a really good season to come but the changes and shake-ups of 2006 point to a fascinating 2007. So many imponderables have been thrown into the mix that there are bound to be surprises in the forthcoming races. Out with the old, in with the new!

So how good is Adrian Sutil? He finished second to Hamilton in Formula 3 Euroseries in 2005 but otherwise his reputation rests on the potential he showed in his few tests for MF1/Spyker this year. Colin Kolles has made it clear that he was impressed by Sutil’s performance and that is why he was given the nod over Monteiro.

Personally, I applaud Spyker’s decision. Monteiro is a known quantity and the team have nothing to lose and everything to gain by letting Sutil have a go. Albers is competent enough to ensure that the Spyker car will at least achieve its potential and Sutil offers the possibility that it might do even more.

It all adds up to a great season to come. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait.

Paul Stoddart has brought the Minardi name into Champ Cars by buying into the CTE Racing-HVM team. He is also hoping that there will be no need for politics in the American series as there was in F1. And who can blame him after the antics he was forced to get up to for Minardi to survive in F1?

It is good to see the Minardi name live on but, of course, the ethos of the team is long gone. In their Italian days, the team was the embodiment of all that was good in F1: a love of motor sport for its own sake, a light-hearted spirit that refused to be depressed by adversity and the best food in the paddock. Most of that had evaporated by the time Stoddart bought the outfit and now it is only a memory.

In reflecting on his foray into F1, Mr. Stoddart confirms what we all knew – that it has ceased to be a sport and is now a business. Small wonder that tiny minnows like Minardi have been squeezed out. But perhaps the most interesting point Stoddart makes is that he knows of at least one other F1 team considering making the move to Champ Cars.

One casts around quickly to see if a possible taker might be identified; but there is no obvious candidate. Red Bull already have a finger in the pie so perhaps this is what he means. But, if he has some other team in mind and especially if it is true, this is a telling comment on the fluctuating fortunes of F1 and Champ Cars.

When Champ Cars first began, it was not given much hope of survival in competition with its alter ego, the Indy Racing League. To everyone’s surprise, it has blossomed and become a major outlet for European and South American drivers who cannot get into F1 – there is currently only one American driver involved. If it now starts to siphon off teams from F1 as well, even the FIA would have to admit that there is something wrong with their sport/business.

Champ Car is attractive because it does not have the convoluted politics of F1, it relies on lower and less costly technology, but still delivers on the entertainment side. Battles between leading drivers are just as enthralling as in F1, perhaps more so since they are all in approximately equal machinery. It is a sport still and the main business of competition on the track has not been forgotten.

Perhaps F1 could learn a few things from it…