Formula One aims for new beginning

The Formula One season opens with the question of whether the international series can leave behind the turmoil between drivers and teams that troubled the sport in 2007.

The series’ 18-race schedule kicks off with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on Sunday, or Saturday night on the West Coast.

Kimi Raikkonen, the laconic Finn who won last year’s championship with a dramatic comeback in the final race in Brazil, is back to defend his title with Ferrari and he’s also the defending winner in Australia.

The “Iceman,” as he’s called, won the Brazil race to capture the championship by a single point over then-teammates Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso of McLaren Mercedes. It was the series’ closest title chase in 21 years.

But McLaren also was at the center of a spy scandal that rocked Formula One last year.

The team was fined $100 million and stripped of its manufacturer’s championship points for allegedly using car data from leaked technical documents belonging to rival Ferrari.

McLaren issued a public apology in December, saying it was “embarrassed by the successive disclosures” by Formula One officials that the “Ferrari information was more widely disseminated within McLaren than was previously communicated.”

For Alonso, narrowly losing the title to Raikkonen last year was a fitting end to a forgettable season after the Spaniard had moved to McLaren from Renault, where he had won back-to-back titles in 2005-06.

Alonso chafed from the attention McLaren accorded the young Hamilton, who stunned the sport with four victories and came within a whisker of becoming the first rookie in history to win the Formula One title.

“It is not a secret that I never really felt at home,” Alonso said late last year as he and McLaren parted ways after only one year together.

So Alonso -- who also had four wins last year -- returned to Renault after the season. He will be joined by rookie Nelson Piquet Jr.

Heikki Kovalainen, another Finn and second-year driver, left Renault to take Alonso’s spot at McLaren.

At Ferrari, Raikkonen will again be joined by teammate Felipe Massa, who had three victories in 2007.

Hamilton, meanwhile, isn’t even thinking about a sophomore jinx but rather “to go one better and win the drivers’ world championship” after coming so close.

“My motivation is even higher than last year,” said the 22-year-old Englishman.

Hamilton’s four wins last year included the U.S. Grand Prix. But that race is no longer on the schedule because Formula One and the race’s host track, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, parted ways after an eight-year run.

That left the series without an American stop. And, with Californian Scott Speed released from the Scuderia Toro Rosso team last year, there also are no American drivers in the series.

Toro Rosso will draw attention again this year because its new driver is Sebastien Bourdais.

The Frenchman dominated the Champ Car World Series -- which is being absorbed into the Indy Racing League -- before moving to Formula One this year.

But it’s widely accepted that the Toro Rosso cars aren’t equal to those fielded by such top teams as Ferrari and McLaren, raising the question of whether Bourdais can even reach the front of the pack during his maiden year.

Formula One also will visit two new street courses this season, in Valencia, Spain, on Aug. 24 and in Singapore for the series’ first-ever night race Sept. 28.

“In all my years of racing I have never competed in a night race, apart from indoor karting,” Hamilton said. “I think it will be wicked.”

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