The Inside Line

In June 2018 the F1 community awoke to the news that Red Bull Racing would be switching to Honda power for the 2019 F1 season.  The deal will carry them through until the regulation changes planned for 2021. Team principal of Red Bull, Christian Horner, said: "This multi-year agreement with Honda signals the start of an exciting new phase in Aston Martin Red Bull Racing's efforts to compete not just for Grand Prix wins but for what is always our goal-championship titles". It's certainly a bold statement and I'm sure that it left a lot of F1 fans in tears from laughter. Can Honda really compete at the top or will we see a repeat of Mclaren's situation? After tempers frayed between Honda and Mclaren, Honda made a deal with Toro Rosso to supply their engines for the 2018 season onwards. Many people believed this to be a stupid move for the team since they were changing from the Renault engine. However, the community quickly began to change their opinion af

Valtteri Bottas arrives at the end of his 2nd season in Mercedes fifth in the standings and not a single race win to his name. His teammate, of course, went on to win his fifth world title. After 2 seasons in arguably the best car on the grid, why hasn't Bottas lived up to his potential? With 2020 looming,2019 is going to be a make or break year for Valterri. The 2018 season was Valterri's most disappointing season to date. We only really saw flashes of his brilliance throughout the year namely Sochi. Of course, he really should have 2 wins on the board. He should have won in Azerbaijan but was robbed of it thanks to a puncture and he certainly should have won in Russia but he,of course, had to move over for Hamilton who was chasing the title. The rest of the year was nothing special. From a driver who was revered at Williams and a driver who was putting the car in positions that it had no right to be in, what's happened to Bottas? Perhaps his role as second

It's official! Confirmed in a statement by Williams this morning, Robert Kubica will take the seat next to George Russell for 2019. Having been the reserve driver for the 2018 season, he will return to racing after his horrific rally crash in 2011. Originally, it was thought that Kubica would take a full-time seat in 2018 but a late change of plans put Sergey Sirotkin in the seat, leaving Kubica in the reserve driver role. This has allowed Williams to assess his contribution to the team, both in his driving ability and most likely the financial support that he can bring to the team. It seems that year as reserve driver has impressed the team enough to give him a full- time seat for next year. Claire Williams stated, " We went through an extensive process for choosing the driver for 2019......we don't just go off how popular they are, we go off talent". This means that we will likely be saying goodbye to Sirotkin in Abu Dhabi. Williams now have a very inte

This year's driver market has been one of the craziest in recent years and even though we've had so much going on, we still have some empty seats to be filled! So, I thought it'd be nice to sit down and go through what we know so far. Who is driving where in 2019?. I've got an inkling that as soon as this is published, it'll be out of date!                                          Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton & Valtteri Bottas This came as no surprise to anyone really. With Hamilton on course to win his 5th world title, why should he go anywhere? Bottas has shown that he can beat Hamilton in a straight fight, a prime example being the Russian GP where he, of course, had to move out of the way for Lewis. His unquestioning obedience to team orders helped his cause as well. A man in his prime with the perfect wingman. Mercedes look good for 2019.                                                      Ferrari:Sebastian Vettel & Charles Leclerc

Speculation over Force India's future has reached a boiling point this morning after photos from the Belgian Grand Prix paddock showed Force India's lorries stripped of logos. While preparation for the Grand Prix continues as normal, uncertainty still lingers over the team's eligibility to race this weekend. Force India announced that they had entered administration a few weeks ago and that they were seeking investment to save the team from bankruptcy. Thanks to the efforts of Sergio Perez and the team, they were saved from this fate by a consortium led by billionaire Lawrence Stroll, father of Lance Stroll. It is reported, however, that while the physical assets of the team have been purchased the entry that allows the team to race has yet to be transferred. This means, of course, that Force India currently are not eligible to enter a Grand Prix. As well as this, it has also been reported that Liberty Media has approached all the teams in a bid to save the budget

From the gutter to glory and back to the gutter. This is the story of Williams in F1 in a nutshell. If you asked someone on the street today to name a Formula 1 team, the most likely answers would be Mercedes or Ferrari. If you asked the same question in the 80's and 90's, Everyone would most likely answer Williams. So what happened to Williams? What caused this huge decline and is there a way out for them? Williams' F1 journey began back in 1977 at the Spanish GP. The team failed to score a single point all season with driver Patrick Nevé picking up a best finish of 7th(bearing in mind the points system was different back then). The team then began producing their own cars in 1978 and scored their first win at the 1979 British Grand Prix. From then on, the team enjoyed huge success with Alan Jones winning the drivers title in 1980 along with the constructor's title. They went on to win EIGHT more constructors titles between 1981 and 1997 along with 6 more drivers t