F1Break

In a surprise move, Red Bull has bought back Gerhard Berger's 50% stake in Toro Rosso. This comes after Dietrich Mateschitz revealed - at the start of last season - plans to sell his share in the team, by the end of next year. Following this announcement, Berger appeared determined to continue, and was reported to be searching for a new partner.

More recently, though, Mateschitz's interest in Toro Rosso seems to have been rekindled, with suggestions that the Austrian billionaire would be prepared to keep his stake in the team if a compromise over the customer car issue can be reached. This is likely to be in no small part due to Toro Rosso outperforming their sister team during 2008, with a smaller budget.

After stepping down from his role fronting BMW's Formula One engine programme, Berger was known to be chasing a return to the sport. A deal which saw Mateschitz acquire half of Berger's road haulage firm allowed the former McLaren and Ferrari driver to do just that, through a 50% stake in Toro Rosso.

It's not clear why Berger has now agreed to relinquish his stake in the team. After a hugely successful season which saw the team secure its first win, the Austrian appeared understandably enthused during interviews.

One possibility is that Berger wasn't confident of finding a new parter in the current economic climate. Should Mateschitz not be persuaded to continue his involvement with the team, he could withdraw funding if unable to sell his stake. This would in turn reduce the value of Berger's share-holding in the team dramatically.

From Mateschitz's perspective, he now has the option of continuing Red Bull's involvement whilst having complete control of the team. But if he decides to sell, finding a buyer should now be easier, as he can offload the whole team, rather than have to search for an investor who is prepared to work with Berger.

Reports have emerged from ABC, Australia's public service broadcaster, that Mark Webber has been seriously injured whilst completing in his multi-sport charity event. The exact nature of his injuries are unclear at this point, but they are not believed to be life-threatening. He has been airlifted to a nearby hospital.

Initial reports stated that Webber suffered multiple fractures, but ABC sport reporter Alistair Nicholson believes injury has been limited to a broken leg. Sergeant Jon Ford, of the Tasmania Police, has given a brief statement to the AAP news agency.

"As a result of the collision, the rider, Mark Webber, suffered serious but non life-threatening injuries," Sgt Ford said.

"He was attended at the scene by paramedics attached to the event before being airlifted to the Royal Hobart Hospital."

The incident occurred on the Fortesque Bay Road - near Port Arthur - which is in a remote part of Tasmania. Webber was competing in a bike stage of the charity event, when he collided head-on with a Nissan X-Trail. Reports from the scene stated that he was unconscious following the accident.

The Mark Webber Challenge was set-up in 2003 in order to raise money for children's cancer research charities. A number of high profile sport stars besides Webber have competed in the five-day event, including Pat Rafter, Steve Waugh, Cathy Freeman and Heikki Kovalainen. There have been no injuries to competitors reported during any previous running of the challenge.

Last updated 05:08 GMT

According to Madrid-based sports daily AS, Catalan Pedro de la Rosa will replace Giancarlo Fisichella at Force India in 2009. The paper claims that the deal will be announced officially in the coming weeks, and that Adrian Sutil is likely to remain with the team.

If true, team owner Vijay Mallya will have gone back on his word to retain both Fisichella and Sutil for next season, something he stated publically little over a month ago in Shanghai.

De le Rosa will test for Force India over the next two days in Barcelona, but refused to be drawn on the prospect of a permanent deal when speaking to El Mundo Deportivo:

"For now the only thing I can say is that I will test for Force India on Tuesday and Wednesday," he commented.

"That is a result of the agreement between Force India and McLaren and I'm happy to help. Besides being my job I think it [Force India] is a team with high ambitions."

Five-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb was incredibly only 1.2 seconds off the pace during today's test at Barcelona. The Frenchman proved to be in good humour after an impressive day's running.

"I don’t think I'd like to take this much horsepower into the forests!" he joked.

Much is made of the importance of preparing drivers for Formula One correctly. The generally accepted route now is for children to start in karting, before rising up the various stages of the single-seater ladder. Loeb has done none of that. In actual fact, he came to rallying late, after a successful career as a gymnast.

To put Loeb's performance into perspective, young hopefuls Bruno Senna, Giedo van der Garde and Lucas Di Grassi were all well over two seconds off the Frenchman's pace. Whilst the youngsters completed less laps than Loeb, they have spent almost their entire lives preparing to drive Formula One cars. Loeb, by comparison, has virtually no single-seater experience.

As you would expect, as the day progressed Loeb got faster as he learnt more about a car that behaves entirely differently to his usual equipment.

"It was a great experience and I had fun, although I have to say that driving one of these cars is tougher physically than driving my rally car," he explained.

"Towards the end of the day, I began to get a good feel for the car and enjoyed the sensation of it moving around on the track. I have to say that the level of grip in the high speed corners is very impressive."

Such was the speed that Loeb adapted to the RB4, he was asked by the team to contribute to their 2009 developement programme. As a result, he spent the afternoon session evaluating Bridgestone's new slick tyre.

Image courtesy of Red Bull Racing

British journalist Ed Gorman, Motor Racing Correspondent for The Times, has attracted interest in Spain after readers of his blog voted Fernando Alonso as the best driver of 2008. Marca, the largest sports daily in Spain, reacted with a degree of surprise that Alonso had been chosen ahead of world champion Lewis Hamilton by commentators on a blog belonging to a British newspaper.

It should be noted that Gorman does state that Alonso wasn't his own personal choice, but he understands why so many voted for the Spaniard. The Times aren't the only example of a large British media organisation that have offered recent praise of Alonso either. During the final races of the season, ITV's Formula One commentators James Allen and Martin Brundle (likely freed from their normal editorial constraints due to the broadcaster handing over coverage of the sport to the BBC, in 2009) both opined that Alonso was the best 'pound-for-pound driver' on the grid.

Is the praise justified? Well, it certainly seems reasonable, given Alonso's performances during the latter half of the season. As some Renault employees have cheekily pointed out, if the championship had started in Valencia, then the man from Asturias would have been crowned winner. Quite remarkable, given that he had a car and engine package some way short of either McLaren or Ferrari performance capabilities.

Image courtesy of Jimmy Liew

Prior to Sebastian Vettel coming home first at Monza earlier this year, the last win for an independent Formula One team took place over four years ago when Juan Pablo Montoya won the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix for Williams. Clearly life for teams which don't have strong links to a car manufacturer is tough.

A few eyebrows were raised when Vijay Mallya stated that he hopes to see Force India challenging for points on a consistent basis next season, before scoring wins in 2010. These are highly ambitious targets, even on the back of a new agreement that will see McLaren supply Force India with engines, hydraulic systems, gearboxes and technical support from next year.

Even with an improved package in 2009, Force India will face stiff competition. Williams, Red Bull and Toro Rosso all run with respectable budgets, and have close links to manufacturers. Williams, for example, work particularly closely with Toyota - both teams running the same engine and drivetrain set-up during the 2007 season.

There's a very definite change of approach to how Mallya's team will be going Formula One racing from now on. Having taken over the team late in 2007, Mallya opted to leave Mike Gascoyne in charge of the team's technical department, and provided increased funded in order to drive development forward.

Following the conclusion of Force India's first full season, it was announced that Gascoyne would no longer be part of the team. Mallya himself will take a more hands on roll in 2009, and given the monumental budgets involved in the sport these days, the team will be looking to ease the pressure on their in-house R&D team with support from McLaren.

Turning Force India into a team capable of challenging for wins regularly by 2010 is an undeniably huge task, but there's something refreshing about Mallya's ambition. Vettel's win at the Italian Grand Prix this year was universally popular amongst Formula One fans, and an increased challenge to manufacturer teams by the independents would likely be welcomed by most, if not all.

Ever since photos of Williams running a 2009 rear wing started to circulate, there's been much speculation over exactly what we can expect from Formula One machinery in 2009. According to the head of Altran, in Spain, fans could be in for a few surprises.

Alfonso Martinez heads up the Madrid branch of Altran, a French engineering company who are working with Renault on the design of next year's R29 chassis. The two companies are long-time collaborators, having worked together for six years. In a recent interview with Marca, Martinez explained the relationship between the two organisations.

From 2005 onwards (the season in which Fernando Alonso won his first World Championship), Altran have had an engineer permanently based at Enstone. Borja Rendueles, who coincidentally like Alonso hails from Asturias, works directly with the French manufacturer at their factory in England. The rest of the team from Altran are based in Madrid.

The Altran engineers obviously know what to expect from the R29, but Martinez thinks the sport's fans will be left open-mouthed.

"[The cars] will have a retro look and there's going to be a tremendous shock when you see them," he explained. "There is still dirty air generated, less than before, but it's still there. However, the size of the rear wing has been significantly reduced."

Martinez's comments about the amount of dirty air generated are interesting, as the basis for a radical redesign of the cars was to reduce this particular effect. Let's hope it has proven successful.

There was quite a degree of surprised generated in the Formula One blogosphere when photos of the Williams using a 2009 wing first emerged. I suspect, though, that a few races into the season we'll have forgotten all about the cars' physical appearance and will be discussing the latest on-track controversy. And getting rid of winglets - that just has to be a good thing.

In a sporting weekend that included the finale of the Formula One World Championship, as well as the New York Marathon, it should be of little surprise that the World Rally Championship struggled to attract press interest. Although the fact that the Stanford Super Series - a cricket tournament about as welcome as a phone call from Jonathan Ross - received more publicity seemed a particular injustice.

Last weekend saw Sebastien Loeb clinch his fifth straight World Rally Championship title. This was a truly extraordinary achievement, from a man who's dominated his chosen sport. Such is the level of Loeb's dominance that in 2006 he was forced to miss four rallies (25% of the total) due to a broken arm, but still won the title.

It has been announced that Loeb will test for Red Bull Racing later this month, during the official Formula One test at the Circuit de Catalunya. This isn't the first time the Frenchman has tasted Formula One machinery either, having tested for Renault last year. Loeb's run with Renault last year took place at Paul Ricard during a private test, whereas at Barcelona he'll be up against full time Formula One drivers. This isn't something that's been lost on the most successful rally driver in history.

"I'm now going to find myself in the midst of all the regular F1 drivers during an official test. I just hope that I don't make a fool of myself," he joked.

The relative merits of Formula One drivers compared to their rally counterparts is a hotly debated topic amongst motorsport fans. There's very little in the way of conclusive proof to support either side. Colin McRae received a run in Martin Brundle's Jordan during 1996, and proved to be only two seconds slower than the Englishman. Brundle himself was only 1.2 seconds off McRae's pace in a Subaru Impreza over a short rally stage. So honours even there.

It's unlikely that we'll be provided with an answer to the Formula One vs. rallying debate anytime soon, as Loeb has confirmed that a switch isn't something he's currently thinking about. The Frenchman will therefore defend his World Championship once again next year for Citroen, although he is due to test sister company Peugeot's Le Mans challenger at the end of this month, having already ran competitively on two previous occasions at the endurance event.

Image courtesy of Marco Murray