Brawn Mercedes driver Jenson Button won today’s FIA Formula One 2009 ING Turkish Grand Prix on the Istanbul Racing Circuit at Istanbul, Turkey. This became his six win in the season after seven races complete to be the fifth driver in history after Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher (twice). Jenson won four races in a row.

Pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull-Renault) made a crucial error on the first lap by leaving the track and lost the lead to Button. This spoiled the three pit-stop race strategy for Vettel who lost the second place to his teammate Mark Webber. Jarno Trulli finished fourth for Toyota.

Button’s teammate, Rubens Barrichello, had a poor start, damaged his car after several unsuccessful overtaking attempts and later leaved the race as is Giancarlo Fisicella (Force India). Gearbox problem concludes the first retirement of BrawnGP car in this season.

Nico Rosberg finished fifth for Williams as Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber) on his back. Trulli’s teammate Timo Glock closed the top eighth with one point in the race standings.

Jenson Button now owns 61 points of 70 possible after 7 races in the Drivers’ championship with Barrichello 26 and Vettel 32 points behind. Brawn GP still dominates the Constructors’ standings with 96, nearly 40 points ahead of Red Bull and even more ahead other teams.

European Parliament logo

Monday, June 8, 2009

People across the European Union have been taking to the polls over the course of the previous four days. They were electing Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) as part of the European Parliament election, 2009. Voting began on Thursday in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and parts of Ireland. It continued on Friday across the rest of Ireland and parts of the Czech Republic. On Saturday the countries of Cyprus, France (for part of Outre-mer), Italy (day 1), Latvia, Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all voted. Yesterday, the final day of polling, the remaing countries of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy (day 2), Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden will be voting. Votes were released last night and will be continued to released over the course of today with the exception of Netherlands, which has broken rules and partialy released them on Friday.

The current President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering

The European Parliament is divided into constituencies, which have a group of representatives (the MEPs). Each constituency elects them proportionaly. The amount of MEPs representing a political party depends on the percentage of votes they gain. For example, if 50% of the electorate of a constituency vote for the x party then 50% of the MEPs in that constituency will be from the x party. In total there are 736 MEPs up for election by approximately 500,000,000 Europeans across 27 member states making it the largest transnational election in history.

The elections didn’t quite go to plan across the Netherlands, as the European Commission have asked that Dutch officials give an explanation to results they released. As countries across Europe vote on different days, the results of the election can only be released on the last day (Sunday), so that the results in other countries will not influence the decission made by people in countries that are still voting. Despite this, the Netherlands released some of their results on Friday: 92% of the votes have currently been counted. Further controversy arose from the results themselves. Results so far show that far-right Dutch Member of Parliament, Geert Wilders’s party the Party for Freedom (PVV), appears to have come second behind the Christian Democratic Appeal. Wilders is facing prosecution in the Netherlands for an anti Islamic statement and was refused entry to the United Kingdom on grounds of the intent to incite hatred.

It had initially been foreseen that the Treaty of Lisbon would have entered into force by the time of these elections, making them the first to be held under its provisions. However, primarily because of the failure of the referendum in Ireland, the framework established by the Treaty of Nice will be used again. Amongst other differences, the number of MEPs to be returned depends upon which rules are in effect: while 736 MEPs will be elected under the Nice rules, this number would have increased to 751 if the Lisbon Treaty were in force. A further change that Lisbon would have brought was an increase to the powers of Parliament, including powers over the appointment of the President of the European Commission.

In the previous election, German Hans-Gert Pöttering of the centre-right EPP-ED won with 34% and Martin Schulz of the Socialists came second with 26%. Despite this, during the last term the two leaders shared, each serving approximately two years in office.

A Genesee County, Michigan auto dealer led group made a purchase offer for the Pontiac brand. This bid, originally thought to have gone nowhere, is suddenly back on the table after General Motors stating the brand was not for sale. Now GM stance that “nothing is off the table” and will listen to reasonable offers since going into bankruptcy.

Jim Waldron, owner of Waldron Pontiac, Buick and GMC in Davison, is leading the is behind the push to save Pontiac. He made the announcement in a taping of ABC12’s Newsmaker Program on May 1. He indicated that another auto dealer and five other investors are involved and have been in talks for months after the high probability that General Motors would end the Pontiac brand. Waldron expect to meet with GM next week for talks.

Waldron indicated that the group was interest in purchasing the brand name and product licensing only. The new Pontiac under Waldron would purchase vacant factories in Michigan to build cars. His goal for Pontiac is to help out Michigan’s people and its economy and keep the brand viable.

Several GM divisions spokesperson have previously indicated that the Pontiac brand is not for sale. GM Vice President of North American Communications Tom Pyden indicated that the viability plan send to the USA National Government has the Pontiac brand shut down at the end of 2010 with no plans for sale. Waldron said he submitted the plan and the plan is being reviewed by GM legal department, so the GM communication personnel may not know about the proposed purchased. With only about 40 standalone Pontiac dealerships nationwide and franchise agreements restricting dealers from showing other brands in the same showroom, Jim Hopson, a spokesman for the Pontiac brand, indicates that an independent Pontiac might have problems with the dealer network.

Joe Serra of the Serra Automotive Group indicated that his corporation is not involved in Waldron’s Pontiac offer. Serra Automotive Group is multi-state multi-brand auto dealer group headquartered in Grand Blanc Township, Genesee County, Michigan.

GM revealed that the Saturn brand along with Saab and Hummer were up for sale when unveiling their restructuring plans to Congress for governmental loans. While the Pontiac brand was originally to be a niche brand, GM had changed plans recently to eliminate the brand. Pontiac is currently GM’s third best selling brand.