Essential Reading for January 3rd, 2009

Recommended links for January 3rd, 2009:

• 2009 The new stars – There isn't a team in the paddock who wouldn't give their right wheelnut to employ Sebastian Vettel just now. He has talent, he has car control, and he's also consistent. He had a terrible run of bad luck in the first half of last season, but from Monaco onwards he scored in all but three races, and ended up eighth overall. At 21, he was the youngest F1 race-winner ever. The only people in front of him were the two McLarens, two Ferraris, two BMWs and Alonso in the Renault. In a Toro Rosso car, that was pretty special.
• Why Donington might well work – The bit I was sceptical about was the financing of the whole thing using a debenture scheme.

  But the critical point, according to Gillett, is that the risk on the scheme doesn’t lie with him, it lies with his debenture partners IMG, the sports marketing firm and Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. He says that they committed to the programme before the credit crunch came, so he will get his money anyway whether they sell 10 debentures or 10,000. He gets the up-front money, they get the annual fee.

• Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica goes back to his roots – The Polish Formula One driver has taken up a new challenge by setting up his own karting team.

  Kubica has returned to his roots by going into partnership with the Italian company Birel formed by the Sala family, for which he raced in the European and World Championships in 2000, taking a management role in the team competing in major international karting events.