Welcome to F1Minute for the 17th December 2008.

Prodrive boss Dave Richards has indicated that the new cost-cutting regulations may mean his team can enter the sport. Prodrive were intended to arrive on the grid this year but couldn’t make it work. Now Richards says: "I have always said there are two criteria for Prodrive's return to Formula One: one, we want to be competitive, and two, it must be financially viable. If we tick those two boxes there is a strong likelihood we will be back there."

Elsewhere, Vettel has finally ended Buemi’s run at the top of the testing timesheets. He finished ahead of his Red Bull compatriot at the final Jerez test day of the year. BMW were third fastest, still working on their KERS device, although they did suffer a setback with a suspected fire.

Finally, ex-Williams sponsor Lenovo have announced they’ll be partnering with McLaren from 2009. The deal sees Lenovo providing “mission-critical computing solutions.”

That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1Minute.