F1 tyres are prepared ahead of testing in Jerez earlier this year. Bridgestone have confirmed that they definitely won’t be in the sport in 2011, dismissing rumours that the FIA could offer up a deal that would see them remain. The managing director of Bridgestone has hinted they might sell their tyre technology onwards but they won’t be using it themselves.

Credit: Bridgestone Motorsport

All Tired Out

Today is the 18th March 2010 and this is F1 Minute.

Martin Whitmarsh has confirmed that McLaren have bought back the majority of the 40% stake held by Mercedes in the team, leaving them with much less. During an event today to launch the new McLaren supercar, Whitmarsh said: “I think it is about 11% that is still owned by Mercedes, but it’s not an important or significant number.” Apparently, the buy-back was agreed upon in November, and will be complete in 2011 – and it makes sense as the two are now full competitors out on track.

Elsewhere, Bridgestone have said they do not intend to reverse their decision to leave the sport, despite rumours that the FIA were keen for them to stay on. Hiroshi Yasukawa, director of motorsport, confirmed that the FIA will have to open a tender process, and the company may decide to sell the tyre technology to whoever is stepping in, but no matter what, there will be no Bridgestone tyres in 2011.

That’s all for today, please join me again tomorrow for another F1 Minute.

18-Mar-10: McLaren Buy Back Majority of Mercedes Shares

This is F1 Minute and it’s the 17th March 2010.

Jose Maria Lopez has been talking about his former team US F1’s foiled attempt to enter F1 and admits he was misled from the very beginning. “As soon as I arrived in Charlotte in February, I realised that everything they were saying was not true. What happened to us was unthinkable: in 60 years of Formula 1 it never happened that a team signed up and didn’t make it. They hid things from us.” He does sound a little knocked by the whole debacle, but is determined to carry on and look for another way into F1.

Elsewhere,engine suppliers Cosworth were happy with their first outing in Bahrain, and general manager Mark Gallagher says: “From an engine performance point of view, I think we can be very satisfied with the performance of the CA2010 in Bahrain with both Williams drivers finishing the race with Rubens picking up a championship point for tenth.” No mention of Lotus, but Mark does say they have plenty of feedback and data to improve from here onwards.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.

17-Mar-10: Lopez Hits out at US F1 Failure

Jenson Button has been defending his confidence to the media, after losing out to Hamilton in the opening round of the season. Button finished 8th and over 20 seconds behind his teammate, but says whilst his qualifying pace could use some improvement, he’s not too worried about it yet.

Credit: www.mclaren.com

Reflecting His Confidence

The repercussions of Sunday’s race continue to reverberate around the F1 world and a select few are speaking out about what can be done. Christian Horner and Martin Whitmarsh in particular are keen to have a rule mandating drivers to take two pitstops be introduced. Horner said: “I think it would be a great shame for the fans if all the races were one-stop like today and I do think that’s a real danger. ”

Credit: Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Image

The Great Shame, Blame Game

Welcome to F1 Minute, it’s the 16th March 2010.

The reaction continues to pour forth regarding F1’s first race of the year, with Webber going into more detail than his initial tweet. He said: “I spent 48 laps staring at the gearboxes of first Schumacher and the Button and there was nothing I could do to pass them.” He added: “I was quicker than him but I was unable to find a way through. He didn’t make a mistake and if I’d tried to force the issue, it would have ended in a crash.”
Coulthard has joined in the call for mandatory pitstops, suggesting that as it is now, it’s all about reliability rather than racing.

Bernie Ecclestone has warned that the sport shouldn’t over-react though. He said: “There is no panic, no crisis for F1. I think there is nothing we can do immediately and we should not just knee-jerk into changes… The first race with new regulations was always going to be a learning curve for them all. Now they know they can make improvements and be a bit bolder and we will get more action.”
Let’s hope!

That’s it for today, please join me again tomorrow for another F1 Minute.

16-Mar-10: Ecclestone Tells F1 Not to Panic

Jarno Trulli holds off the competition during the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend. The team are more than happy with their double finish, which is all they had aimed to do. Technical chief Mike Gascoyne is positive they will go onwards and upwards from here, saying: “This is the worst we will do.”

Credit: Lotus Racing

Underperforming Overachiever

Q: Did the performance of the FW32 match your pre-season expectations?
SM: We had quite a few issues to sort out in the days leading up to the Grand Prix and it became apparent early on that we would have some fire-fighting to do in the build-up to the race to ensure we finished on Sunday. Because of that, we had three or four things on the FW32 in Bahrain that we couldn’t change quickly. Most of those elements can be corrected over the next couple of races and that should offer a good step in performance.

Q: Rubens set the sixth fastest lap of the race. Does that give us an indication of the car’s true potential?
SM: Not really. When Rubens set that time he actually had some damage on his car. We expect to be stronger in forthcoming races.

Q: How did the tyres hold up during the race, particularly during the early stages when the car was at its heaviest?
SM: Tyres weren’t a problem. The option was the strongest tyre throughout the race. The prime was good, but it offered less grip.

Q: Did the team have any reliability problems during the course of the weekend?
SM: Yes. We had some issues during practice but, through a huge amount of effort and late nights put in by the team’s mechanics, we managed to keep them contained.

Q: Were you pleased with the performance of the Cosworth engine?
SM: Yes. The engine is good and the crew in Northampton have done an exceptional job in a short space of time.

Q: How did Nico handle his race debut?
SM: Nico handled himself well. He was quick throughout practice, but then he made a small, but time costly, mistake in qualifying. He then had a bit of a messy race. Nico is a smart guy who’s developing a great relationship with his engineers, Tom McCullough and Andrew Murdoch, and I know he’ll deliver.

Williams – Bahrain Grand Prix Review

Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi both got off to a great start, Timo gaining a place and Lucas making up three positions on the opening lap of his own F1 racing debut. Just three laps into the race Lucas pulled over into turn 9 after losing hydraulic pressure. All hopes rested on Timo Glock. After spending a lot of time behind Kovalainen, Timo finally made his move in a deft overtaking manoeuvre and was going great guns. In the space of just a few laps he went on to lose 3rd gear then 5th gear. He pitted in the hope that the problem could be diagnosed and fixed so that he could return to the racetrack and clock up crucial mileage. Sadly it was not to be and the team reluctantly retired Timo’s car from the race.

Timo Glock #24

“The race was going quite well for me after I managed to overtake Heikki. We were having quite a good battle for where we were and it was nice to have that racing feeling again. But first I lost 3rd gear and I was having to drive around it. Then 5th followed and it was impossible to continue. We tried to find a fix but there was no way of getting back in the race, not even to get some important development mileage. It’s disappointing but we have to take the rough with the smooth at this stage. We just need to focus now on doing whatever we need to do to come back stronger in Melbourne. My personal thanks to everyone in the team here in Bahrain and back in England. It has been an epic battle for us to reach this point and the single biggest thing we can take as a reward was our qualifying result yesterday, which showed what we can do if we continue to keep pushing.”

Lucas di Grassi #25

“I got a great start and the car was feeling pretty good. I think we could have had a good race with the car that we had but then just a few laps into the race I had to pull over in turn 9 and my race was over before it had really begun. There’s no point being downhearted. We’ll be back in Melbourne with some new developments and a fix for the problems we experienced here. It’s race one of 19 and there’s a long way to go yet. I would like to thank the team for an incredible job here and over the past few months. It’s been a huge effort and I hope for a better result for the whole team in Australia in two weeks’ time.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director
“Lucas retired due to a hydraulic fitting failure, which has occurred at other points during this weekend. After some laps in the race Timo’s car experienced an unexpected rise in gearbox temperature followed by a gradual loss in the number of gears he could select, which ultimately caused him to retire. We’re still currently investigating the cause of the high gearbox temperature. So we leave our first Grand Prix disappointed that we did not manage to get either car to the finish but at least we haven’t had a repeat of any of our winter testing problems. Most importantly, we now know that our faith in the all-CFD design approach was justified, as we have demonstrated that we have built a competitive Formula 1 car. That is one reward that we can take away from this weekend. Finally, congratulations to Lotus Racing on achieving a two-car finish in their first race. It is a fantastic achievement for a new team and I hope we can get Timo and Lucas to the flag in Melbourne in two weeks’ time.”

Virgin Racing – Round 1 – Bahrain Grand Prix – The Race

It’s the 15th March 2010 and this is F1 Minute.

The immediate reaction following the season opener is… not good. Several drivers, including Webber and Kovalainen, have been tweeting about the race in Bahrain, both particularly worried about the lack of overtaking. Martin Whitmarsh has discussed the possibility of introducing a two mandatory pit stop rule.
Whitmarsh has also been talking about his team’s performance, though, and said: “We had two great pitstops and at both of them we overtook somebody, which was good for the team, and good for team morale. You want to be the best at that and we certainly proved that today. Then following the stop Lewis had good race pace. So after the shattering time difference on Saturday, to be there or thereabouts was good.”

More reaction came from Mike Gascoyne at Lotus who said: “This is the worst we will do. We know we have a reliable car now, we know we need to put bits on it to make it quicker.”

That’s all for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.

15-Mar-10: Whitmarsh Believes McLaren Can Close the Gap