2007 Season

Driver changes

The most significant move of the off-season sees Fernando Alonso, the back-to-back world champion, switch from Renault to McLaren after five years at Enstone. His arrival displaces Juan Pablo Montoya, who moves to NASCAR. McLaren pair Alonso with Lewis Hamilton, their GP2 Series champion and junior programme graduate — the first black driver to compete in Formula One. Kimi Räikkönen crosses from McLaren to Ferrari, replacing the retiring Michael Schumacher; he is now the only previous world champion on the grid alongside Alonso.

Heikki Kovalainen joins Renault to partner Giancarlo Fisichella, replacing Alonso. At Williams, Alexander Wurz steps up from test driver to a race seat, while Mark Webber moves to Red Bull Racing alongside David Coulthard, displacing Christian Klien. Robert Kubica retains his BMW Sauber race seat after replacing Jacques Villeneuve mid-2006, with Sebastian Vettel continuing as BMW’s test driver. Anthony Davidson joins Super Aguri, and Adrian Sutil takes the first Spyker seat, replacing Tiago Monteiro.

Team changes

Ross Brawn departs Ferrari after ten seasons as technical director, initially announced as a sabbatical. McLaren begin a title sponsorship deal with Vodafone, while Ferrari start a new arrangement with Alice, a Telecom Italia brand. Mild Seven ends a 13-year relationship with Renault; ING becomes their new main sponsor from the Dutch banking sector. AT&T joins Williams as main sponsor.

Honda runs without commercial sponsorship for the entire season, carrying an “Earth livery” — the first fully sponsor-free car since 1968. British American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike and 555 brands cease sponsoring Honda following changes to European tobacco advertising laws. Tobacco advertising promoting smoking products is banned from car liveries across the championship.

Williams switches from Cosworth to Toyota engines in a three-year deal. Red Bull Racing switches to Renault engines, while Scuderia Toro Rosso takes 2006-specification Ferrari engines. This is the first time Renault supplies more than one team since 1997, and the first time Ferrari supplies more than two teams since 2001. As a consequence, Cosworth withdraws from Formula One as an engine supplier — the first F1 season without a Cosworth-powered car since 1962.

MF1 Racing, sold to a Dutch-Arab consortium led by Michiel Mol, is renamed Spyker F1. Spyker take Ferrari customer engines, replacing Cosworth. Red Bull Racing officially registers as an Austrian constructor.

Calendar

The season runs to 17 races. No German Grand Prix is held for the first time in nearly half a century: the Hockenheimring controls the naming rights to “German Grand Prix” and could not reach an agreement with the Nürburgring, so the German round instead takes place at the Nürburgring under the title European Grand Prix — the first Formula One race not called the German Grand Prix since 1960.

The Japanese Grand Prix moves from Suzuka, its home for the past 20 years, to Toyota’s rebuilt Fuji Speedway — a circuit F1 last used in 1977. The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps returns after a one-year absence caused by track maintenance work. For the first time since 1975, no country hosts more than one Grand Prix.

Regulation changes

Bridgestone becomes the sole tyre supplier after Michelin’s withdrawal at the end of 2006. Each driver receives 14 sets of dry-weather tyres per weekend: four sets for Friday only, ten for the remainder. Both the hard and soft compounds must be used at least once during the race. From Malaysia onwards, the softer compound is identified by a white stripe painted into the tyre tread.

Friday practice sessions are extended from 60 to 90 minutes. Teams finishing 5th–11th in the previous constructors’ standings are no longer permitted to run a third car on Fridays. Engine development is frozen following the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix, with the resulting homologated units to be used through the 2008 season as well.

Cars must be fitted with red, blue, and yellow cockpit LED lights to relay track signal information directly into the driver’s line of sight. A separate warning light connected to the FIA data logger faces upward from the survival cell, giving rescue crews an immediate read of accident severity.

During safety car periods, no car may enter the pit lane to refuel until all cars have formed up behind the safety car and the pit lane is declared open. Lapped cars must pass the safety car and rejoin at the back of the field rather than maintaining their physical position.

The season is the seventh and final year in which traction control is permitted. Standardised electronic control units are mandated from 2008, which will prohibit traction control entirely. All teams now use 2.4-litre V8 engines — 2006 was the last season in which V10s were an option. Each team is limited to 30,000 km of in-season testing under a voluntary early adoption of the 2008 testing agreement.

Pre-season testing

Testing opened in November 2006 at Bahrain and continued in February 2007 at the Circuit de Catalunya. Felipe Massa topped the times on the first two days at Barcelona; Luca Badoer was fastest on day three, though the session’s main story was Mika Häkkinen joining Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa at McLaren for a one-off test. Hamilton topped the timesheets at Jerez in December, and Fernando Alonso made his McLaren testing debut on the final day there, following the end of his Renault contract. Jenson Button missed the November tests after a hairline rib fracture sustained in a go-karting accident.