I am trying very hard not to enter the Great Debate on Honda’s silly new color scheme, honest. All the expected criticisms and plaudits are flying around anyway, so there is little point in adding to the fuss – that would be giving Honda exactly what they want: news coverage.

It is becoming quite difficult to keep silent, however, especially when a little-regarded news item about changes in the FIA regulations for the future floats across my screen. The World Motor Sport Council is delaying until 2011 introduction of some of the green rules for engines. Well, that is no surprise, in view of the fact that they sound good but are almost impossible to put into practice.

Perhaps I should explain why it is so difficult for me to bite my tongue over these ridiculous issues. My problem is that I do not accept the first premise of the global warming theory – that humanity is causing the planet to heat up and will ultimately destroy civilization through climate change and the melting of the polar ice caps. Since I am actively involved in another site, Global Warming Latest, that points out the lies and misinformation propagated by the global warming activists, I can hardly go along quietly with all the lip service paid by the FIA and Honda to a theory that depends much more on the scare-mongering of politicians than the actual findings of highly-qualified climatologists.

But I am trying to remain silent, I swear it, and, if sometimes I cannot help myself and shout “Baloney!” at some ignorant and preposterous statement from anyone in charge of the future of F1, please remember that it was not I who introduced the subject in the first place.

So, ignoring the alleged green-ness of the Honda paint job, I should point out that it is, in fact, mostly blue. The black bit at the back is obviously to indicate the curvature of the earth and is not for sponsor logos – they have made other arrangements for those, it seems. Overall, I have to say that the look of the car is not bad; it’s a bit too fussy for my tastes but a whole lot better than the other pictorial representation on the grid – Toro Rosso’s cartoon bull. But it leaves the BMW Sauber in undisputed top spot, regardless of the result of F1 Fanatic’s survey of opinion (yes, I voted – you can guess for which team).

I admit that the Williams is pretty tasteful too, almost a negative version of BMW’s scheme, but then it comes down to whether you prefer dark blue or white as the predominant color. And the thing about white is that it allows you to see the shape of the car underneath – dark colors hide interesting bits in shadow.

To return briefly to the Honda, however, I cannot resist pointing you to the best comment I have seen so far. Have a look at this.

Now that puts things much more into perspective I think!

The customer car row continues to heat up, with Frank Williams pointing out that the concorde agreement for 2008 is not yet a done deal and Gerhard Berger promising to fight the matter in the courts if necessary. One can understand Frank’s point of view – as the last truly independent constructor in F1, he sees his future as threatened by the arrival of customer teams that will be, in effect, B teams for the manufacturers.

It does seem that the FIA have chosen to take the B team route and abandon the independent constructor by doing so. This quote from a Reuters article is very telling:

“We’ve signed a Concorde Agreement for 2008 and while it hasn’t been clarified, we’d never been told that customer teams would be included in it,” said Williams.

“That was until (International Automobile Federation president) Max Mosley very charmingly said to me over lunch in December: ‘You do realise, Frank, that your business model is history now?’

“I said ‘What do you mean?’ and Max said: ‘From now on, it’s manufacturers and B teams’.

That makes it pretty clear where Max’s thoughts are heading and he usually gets what he wants. And Prodrive’s Dave Richards agrees that this must be the future:

“Frank is talking this up for one reason only,” the former Benetton and BAR boss told the magazine.

“He can see that his business model — employing 600 people to build a racing car without manufacturer assistance — won’t stack up in the future.

“The business is changing. We need teams at the back given the same cars as Ferrari and fielding promising young drivers. That’s the spectacle we want to see.”

It seems that Frank is swimming against the tide and can expect no help from the FIA in his argument with Toro Rosso and Super Aguri in 2007. Spyker are in a similar position in spite of being owned by a manufacturer; the company is small and has to buy in engines from Ferrari so it looks likely that they too will be defeated by the costs at some time and have to throw in their lot with one of the big boys.

Like it or not, we are seeing the last days of the independent constructor. Unless the FIA changes its mind, the manufacturers and their sidekicks will be the only teams in F1. Frank and Spyker’s Colin Kolles will fight to the last, no doubt, but, even if they win in the courts this year, in the long run they will lose.

It may well be that Williams’ best hope for survival is the one I suggested way back in July 2006 – to become Toyota’s B team. If the new Williams FW29 maintains its impressive form into the 2007 season and they continue to beat the Toyota factory team, it would make a lot of sense for the Japanese giant to merge the teams and save itself a lot of money and embarrassment.

What Spyker will do, however, is anybody’s guess.

The big news today is Formula 1 Latest‘s new look, of course. Well, with all the teams unveiling new cars and colors, it was time for this site to do a bit of showing off too. All comments will be gratefully accepted.

There is a not-so-subtle hint as to my preference this season in the header. Last year I went with Renault (and guess who was right), this time it’s Honda’s turn. The fact that a black car goes so well with the design had a lot to do with it as well, I admit!

Otherwise, the main news is of the first day of testing in Jerez. McLaren continue their recent form with Pedro de la Rosa setting the best time but, perhaps significantly, the new Williams was next up in the hands of Alex Wurz. That is pretty impressive for a car on its first test run and brings to mind other years when Williams were the dominant team.

It is unlikely that we are headed into a similar year, however; the times are so close that the coming season looks to be the closest in years. Just about everyone seems to be on the pace, only the much-vaunted Red Bull RB3 lagging behind somewhat. If that continues, it would seem hardly worth Spyker’s time and money to take Toro Rosso to court over their use of the RB3 chassis, especially as Gerhard Berger says he’s more than ready to fight.

As you would expect, it’s the teams most likely to be affected by Toro Rosso’s and Super Aguri’s customer cars that are protesting loudest: Spyker and Williams. The others are not happy but make no mention of litigation. So it could be time for the four teams most involved to settle this like gentlemen. Patrick Head, Colin Kolles, Gerhard Berger and Aguri Suzuki, behind the bike sheds at noon – be there or be square!

Spyker stayed at home to let the new F8-VII out for its first run at a cold Silverstone. Albers expressed himself delighted with the car’s performance after putting over 100 miles on it. Which means that it’s looking good for reliability at least – if the car is as fast as it looks, there will be yet another team getting into the battle for honors in 2007.

Everyone keeps saying it but I can’t help repeating – this looks like being the best season in years.

Williams quietly unveiled their FW29 today and kept the hype very low key – the car must speak for itself on track, they advised. It is visibly a Williams with colors not much changed in spite of their new sponsor, Lenovo, but it appears to have grown a splendid mustache this year, the upper component of the front wing assembly curving up and away from the lower element. Messing around with the nose of the car is almost becoming a Williams tradition.

As I was looking through the photographs, I came upon the standard portraits of the drivers and was struck by the complexity of their helmet designs. Much of this is caused by the profusion of advertising, of course, but there does seem to be a trend towards increasingly confusing designs. These days it isn’t easy to identify the drivers as they whoosh past, hunkered down between their high cockpit sides and its shoulder bulges, and these modern helmets don’t help with their profusion of colors and strange shapes.

Even a driver as recently arrived as David Coulthard has a clear and simple design for his helmet, based on Scotland’s flag without embellishment and instantly recognizable as a result. Compare this with Kathikeyan’s, also inspired by his nation’s flag but managing to appear similar in its spiky Indian wheel to Wurz’s red and white zigzags. Considering how much of the helmet is obscured by adverts, it hardly seems worth going into such detail with the design.

Back in the good old days (said the old fart) things were much simpler. Nelson Piquet’s red and white teardrop and stripes were easily identified and Senna stuck with an even plainer theme of green and blue stripes on a yellow background.

Speaking of yellow, it does seem to be the in color of the moment – most new drivers use it somewhere on their helmets and Lewis Hamilton favors it almost to excess. I wonder if this is a subconscious hope that Senna’s magic might have come partially from his helmet colors. Don’t laugh – the F1 drivers are a pretty superstitious bunch.

Take green cars, for instance. There is a tradition going back over fifty years that green is an unlucky color in racing. That might have come from the fifties, when all the British cars were green and were routinely thrashed by the Italian red, and it should really have been exorcised by Lotus in the sixties and Benetton in the nineties. But I suspect that the myth lingers on, perhaps given new life by Jaguar’s brief return to F1.

To return to helmets, the fashion for complex designs certainly doesn’t help commentators and could make Murray Walkers of them all. Which is bad news for young drivers trying to make a name for themselves. If I were a driver just entering F1, I’d buck the trend and go for the simplest helmet design imaginable.

Oh, wait a minute – wasn’t Mark Webber wearing an unadorned white helmet in one of the recent test sessions…?