Ecclestone's world is crumbling around him. He has lost control of his holding company and the banks are now running things. To make matters worse for him, the big manufacturer teams are about to split off in a rival series. He is making a last ditch effort to keep them around, but it doesn't seem likely they will stay. Looks like the USAC / Penske CART fight all over again. It's easy to follow the money trail. Ecclestone has been busy buying lavish estates worth upwards of 150 mill , and amasing a 3.9 billion dollar fortune off F1 revenues. That kind of high profile behavior tends to create a lot of jealousy in the team ranks. It's a common theme that has played out numerous times before. F1 may have just hit its zenith.

 

Thanks Larry! It's all very motivating. We had a speaker last year who has a T-shirt that says "If you think running a marathon is hard, try chemotherapy." When you think of it in those terms, it's not hard to be touched and stay motivated.

 

What really gripes me is that for all the US money in F1 there is zero push from the US companies to get any teams to even test a US driver. Townsend Bell ran F3000 and put in some very credible drivers in 03. It's ironic that it is taking a Swiss company to work hard to put an American in F1 again.

 

US Companies that advertise in F1 are doing so to capture business outside the US. Given world opinion these days, I'd say that theres little incentive to insist on a US driver. The push for an American driver is coming from European companies who assume, and judging by your angst, rightly so, want to increase interest in F1 in the US and figure a US driver would do that. I must admit I was surprised that Allmendinger didn't go to Europe, but hell, its not like they're all American drvers in Cart or the IRL.

 

What ever happen to the RedBull program, is it dead?

 

No! It's alive and well. It has some real promise of bearing fruit. There are at least a couple of Americans in Europe right now as part of the Red Bull program. They just sent a 13 year old karter to Italy to race there as they feel it has the best karting competition (it's where Schumacher and at least one other F1 driver really started to make a name for themselves).

Red Bull's support of racing in general and their support of this program directly resulted in my drinking Red Bull. Tried it the first time after a long hard day at the track and haven't looked back (although it was a bit of a developed taste).

 

As Geo mentions, the program is alive & well. Two of its drivers, Scott Speed & Colin Fleming, did very well in Formula Renault last year. Speed won the championship and I think Colin came in either 2nd or 3rd.