09-Mar-10: McLaren Confident Rear Wing is Legal

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Welcome to F1 Minute, it’s the 9th March 2010.

More McLaren news, as managing director Jonathan Neale has been speaking about the rear wing problem, suggesting that it really is just Red Bull and Ferrari’s problem. He said: “We’ve spoken to Stefano and some of the other team principals and colleagues there and of course everyone wants to see clarity. We’re doing the same on a number of other teams’ developments. There’s nothing untowards about it though – we’re quite confident the car is legal.” Neale also added that if the stewards did go against them, they have contingency plans, but he is not putting too much effort into them as they do not expect that to happen.

Finally, some new pictures of the work at Silverstone emerged today, and it looks as though they are almost done. The managing director Richard Phillips said: “The team has been working around the clock, through some pretty terrible weather conditions, to make sure the circuit is ready on time.” That’s Britain for you!

That will do for now, please join me tomorrow for another F1 Minute.

11-Feb-10: Kobayashi Steals the Limelight in Jerez

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It’s the 11th February 2010 and this is F1 Minute.

We saw a lot more laps in Jerez today, as the weather was much improved on yesterday. Sebastien Buemi led the way for the majority of the time, but he was beaten right at the last minute by a tenth of a second from Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi. There were a couple of red flags, one from Button and one from Hulkenberg, plus Timo Glock stopped the action when his front wing fell off. Virgin Racing confirmed they knew what the problem was but didn’t have enough parts to fix it, so they couldn’t continue testing for the rest of the day. Glock managed just 5 laps yesterday and only 11 today.

Meanwhile, the managing director of Silverstone, Richard Phillips, has confirmed that they will use the new layout for the grand prix this year. The design was originally brought in for MotoGP but Phillips says: “Some will miss not seeing modern day F1 cars accelerating through Bridge, but we have to move with the times and continue looking at ways to improve the overall experience.”

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

Virgin Racing – Jerez Calling

Virgin Racing are all set to begin pre-season testing after successfully completing a two-day shakedown at Silverstone today.

Having conducted a few initial exploratory laps in the VR-01 yesterday, Timo Glock kicked things up a notch on day two, completing 42 laps of the 1.8km Stowe circuit during the morning.

This afternoon, Timo reluctantly handed over the cockpit to Lucas di Grassi, who took to the track for the very first time as a fully-fledged Formula One racer. He went on to record a total of 36 laps. When asked how it felt to drive the car for the first time, Lucas said: “It feels good. It feels like home! I’m really happy and our first impressions of the car are very positive. It’s amazing what the team has achieved in such a short space of time. I think we have a strong car and a great team to get things started in Jerez. It was important for me to learn as much as possible here so I can start to put some real mileage on the car next week.”

Nick Wirth, Virgin Racing’s Technical Director, said: “I am delighted that we have successfully shaken down the VR-01. To achieve 100km of running out of the box is a great achievement with only a few minor issues along the way. We have acquired some good information to feed straight back into design for the development of new parts, which we may even be testing next week. All in all this is a very pleasing conclusion to a memorable week for Virgin Racing.”

Team Principal John Booth paid due credit to his brand new race team: “Our shakedown provided our very first opportunity to work together as a trackside operation and it couldn’t have gone any better. The way the team has come together to achieve such a successful shakedown has been commendable. I’m very proud of what we have achieved and we’re looking forward to taking our place alongside the other F1 teams in the pitlane next week.”

Virgin Racing – We’re Running

“Incredible” was the word on everyone’s lips at Silverstone today as Virgin Racing watched the VR-01 race car pull away for its very first lap of a race track.

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s public debut, Timo Glock was in the hot seat of ‘his new baby’ as the team began a two-day shakedown with a few exploratory laps of the Stowe circuit.

As the team prepared the car for action, an impatient Timo and his team-mate Lucas di Grassi revved up the crowd with some pretty hot recce laps in the boss’s Nissan GTR. Then, with the pre-flight checks completed, Timo finally got to grips with the VR-01.

Nick Wirth, Virgin Racing’s Technical Director, said: “After 10 challenging months, all the commitment and determination has finally paid off. Today was all about those tentative first few steps but the programme really gets underway tomorrow with a full day of on-track evaluation for both Timo and Lucas.”

So did Timo enjoy the ride? “It was a fantastic moment for myself and the whole team to see the VR-01 come alive. It’s great to be back in a racing car.”

Launched For the Very First Time

The brand new VR-01 was revealed to the world today, after a short delay. Virgin had planned an online launch, but their virtual photos took a while to be released due to technical difficulties. Nevertheless, the black and red livery was finally available to view with Lucas di Grassi and Timo Glock on hand in their matching overalls. The car is due for a shakedown at Silverstone next week.

Credit: Virgin Racing

Quotes Roundup – Week Ending 17th January

The very best from the mouths of those in the know.

Preparing to Test

The teams are starting to get ready for pre-season testing…

• “We have been given special dispensation to have six straight line/full-scale tunnel days, rather than the four to which all the other teams are limited. It is an example of how the FIA and the teams have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.” Peter Windsor
• “I think there is no other sport in the world where you test for seven days before the championship. I cannot imagine a tennis player testing seven times before Roland Garros, or a football player training seven days before a world cup, so this is something strange in our sport.” Fernando Alonso
• “All of the cars on the grid have had incredible reliability over the last few years – on the first day of running with the RB5 we did 90 laps. We’ve got high expectations in terms of track time with RB6 so we feel that it’s a plan that suits us and it’s one that we plan to execute.” Christian Horner on skipping the first test

Bernie Ecclestone’s Opinions

The FOM chief has been sharing his thoughts again…

• “Obviously when you speak to these people they say everything’s fine and there’s no drama. But I’m sure there is drama. I honestly believe that one or two of these new teams that are now coming in will be much better off running one car which is supplied by any of the other teams” Bernie Ecclestone
• “My idea was to make a much bigger gap between first and second, and maybe second and third. What I was trying to do was give people the incentive to overtake, not to sit there getting points.” Bernie Ecclestone
• “The other thing I’ve been pushing like crazy with people is that brakes these days are so efficient that – I’ll say this and it’s probably wrong – I could brake as late as anyone else if I saw the braking markers” Bernie Ecclestone

Talking Silverstone

The legacy that Donington has left behind…

• “Donington is a fabulous circuit and I think it’s such a tragedy frankly that it’s been buggered up so much. I’m afraid Simon Gillett’s done that circuit no favours whatsoever. An awful lot of promises, very few of which ever came to anything.” Jonathan Palmer
• “We are building the new Arena circuit. It has gone into the FIA for [F1] homologation so we should be able to run FIM MotoGP and F1 on it. The issue really for 2010, is whether we can do that logistically. So we have issues with maybe Paddock Club, and Paddock Club parking and things like that to resolve.” Richard Phillips, managing director of Silverstone
• “The facilities at Silverstone are already better than a lot of other grand prix circuits. We were at Barcelona for Formula 2 and the paddock area and buildings were far shabbier than Silverstone is now. Silverstone has worked really hard in the last year or two to smarten that place up and I think they’ve done a good job.” Jonathan Palmer

Force India – Dominic Harlow: ‘I can’t remember a better winter build period’

Even during the winter the pace never slows in Grand Prix racing, and it’s been a busy few months at the Force India factory at Silverstone as the team prepares for the 2010 season.

In some ways life has been easier than last year, when Dr Vijay Mallya made a relatively late call to switch to Mercedes power and a McLaren transmission. Hindsight shows that it was an inspired decision, but the drawback was that last winter the technical team had to make a lot of changes to a car design that was already in progress.

That is no longer an issue, of course. On the other hand time is a little tighter than last year, because the first race in Bahrain is two weeks earlier than the 2009 season opener in Australia.

However, the big difference in the Force India factory is the buzz about the place. After fighting at the back of the field for several seasons, last year the team earned a pole position and regularly challenged for points. Everyone expects that form to carry on in 2010.

Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer, says that there’s a great atmosphere in the camp.

‘I can’t remember a better winter build period for the team in the time since I’ve been here,’ he says. ‘It’s been good in terms of continuity, the general feeling, and the aims and the goals that we are setting ourselves. That’s all been very positive. It’s still a time for change and regrouping and planning and so on, so all of that is going on as normal.

‘But underlying that there’s just a confidence that if we carry on what we’re doing and believe in each other, then we will deliver. And unlike some other teams we’re not scratching around trying to put together a car at the last minute.’

Continuity is the key. Under its various identities over the years the team became used to changing engine suppliers at relatively short notice, so carrying over the Mercedes from 2009 – not to mention the fact that the same engine that won the World Championship – is a major boost.

‘It certainly is,’ says Harlow. ‘We’’ve kept the whole powertrain. The regulations are basically the same, although that helps every other team as well. We’ve been able to start everything much earlier and everything is as you’d want to have it now, rather than just being a reaction to everything else that’s going on around.’

Although the regulations are essentially unchanged after the huge upheavals of last winter, there are some issues that have to be addressed.

‘We have a narrower front tyre. And the tyres generally always change and are a little bit of an unknown – we’ll be interested to find out about them when we go testing. The deletion of spinners, or wheel discs, also has a big impact.’

The biggest change is that there is no refuelling at pit stops in 2010, so cars will start races with a much heavier fuel load than previously. Thus a major task over the winter has been to determine the size of the fuel tank – in other words calculate how much fuel would be required to finish the race which is heaviest on fuel consumption. Get the numbers wrong and make the tank too small, and there could be a major embarrassment.

‘We were pretty systematic,’ says Harlow. ‘We looked at everything we could think of that affects fuel consumption – the drag of the car, the circuits we run at, driving style, the way we run the engines, the fuel itself. We forecast that forward to 2010 and came up with a prediction based on the worst circuit in terms of fuel use, which is now Valencia. Then you have some design factors to include, such as the way a calculated fuel tank size never quite becomes a manufactured one – it’s a slightly inexact science.’

The lack of refuelling means that race strategy is now going to be quite different. Drivers still have to use both the prime and option tyres during a race, so there will be pit stops. But determining the best time to change – given that the heavy fuel load at the start will put more stress on the tyres in the early laps – is an extremely complicated equation.

‘It’s quite a big unexplored area, and there’s still a lot of modelling for the fuel consumption and the tyres that we still need to do. Depending on where we’re racing, I think people are going to be a bit more cagey at the start of the race.’

The extra complication for the drivers is that the car behaviour will change dramatically between the early laps, with a full load, and the latter stages of the race.

‘The car balance will change quite a lot as the fuel weight goes down. I think it’s another challenge, and as always, the cream will rise to the top. It will help the fastest learners. And for us it’s where the continuity and the relative experience of our guys is going to favour us.

‘In wet conditions the extra weight of the cars will be another interesting factor, and will probably accentuate the differences between the drivers even more than previously.’

Quotes Roundup – Week Ending 13th December

The very best from the mouths of those in the know.

Silverstone Gets 2010 Deal

The near-term future of the British GP is secure…

• “This will ensure that Great Britain will remain on the Formula 1 calendar for many years to come, which is something I have personally always wanted to see happen. The team at Silverstone already knows how to organise a good event, so now everyone can look forward to next summer at Silverstone.” Bernie Ecclestone
  
• “The place has an atmosphere that money can’t buy, and I have some fantastic memories of the track – winning both races in GP2 in 2006, getting an incredibly emotional and satisfying pole in ‘07 and winning in the wet in my championship year.” Lewis Hamilton
  
• “The BRDC and Silverstone have been absolutely mindful of the effect of the British Grand Prix on the industry in this country, which placed it in a difficult situation because they also had to think of their obligations to their own property and their own business. So it had to be a deal that was doable.” Damon Hill
  

Another Schumacher Comeback

The red team are keen on getting youngsters in the car…

• “Can someone who’s 40 or 41 years old compete against someone who is 24 years old? In other sports people have proven that they’re very capable even at that age, and I think that would add another fascinating aspect.” Nick Fry
  
• “He is exceptionally fit. He has never done anything else in his life — it’s the only thing he has devoted himself to — and the fact that he has gone and raced motorbikes shows that he has still got the need for speed.” Damon Hill
  
• “Schumacher coming back to F1 is great news for the sport. But I don’t know if it will be great news for Michael Schumacher. He will be putting his reputation on the line coming back into the sport.” Jenson Button
  

Brawn Recover From Their Year

Peter Sauber takes the helm once more…

• “The reaction we’ve got from most of the other teams is positive. Why anyone would not want to wish the name Mercedes, which I think is one of the top three brand names in the world, to be on a chassis would be an interesting discussion to have.” Nick Fry
  
• “After the race in Brazil it was an emotional moment and I was just knackered basically. I’d run out of steam because it was so stressful. Then you go through weeks of just waking up and not realising what you’ve achieved, other days you wake up and realise I’ve achieved my goal – I am world champion.” Jenson Button
  
• “The reality of life is that we have to up our game, because our competitors have upped their game. Cricket has gone from something that was as dull as ditchwater to something that is competition for F1. It is not the main competition, but it is example of how people have raised their game.” Nick Fry
  

08-Dec-09: Lotus F1 Boss Wants to Stay On

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This is F1 Minute and it’s the 8th December 2009.

Autosport is reporting that the boss of Lotus F1 Tony Fernandes will be staying on as team principal. The original plan was for him to see the team into existence, and maybe stick around for a race or two, but he’s thinking that he might stay on longer. He said: “The reality is that I will be real team principal. If you own an airline and say you are going to be an F1 team principal, then the shareholders are concerned. But now they are beginning to see that it is okay.” He added that he wouldn’t feel right abandoning the team so soon, considering that he was behind the whole idea in the first place.

Elsewhere, after announcing yesterday that Silverstone would be holding the British Grand Prix after all, they have seen a mass of tickets sold. Within 24 hours, they had sold almost six and a half thousand tickets, which is apparently a record amount. This is over £1 million in revenue, and organisers say they are very fortunate to have such fan support.

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

07-Dec-09: Silverstone Regain British GP for 17 Years

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It’s the 7th December 2009, and this is F1 Minute.

The BRDC confirmed today that Silverstone has secured a deal with Bernie Ecclestone to host the British Grand Prix from next year, and for 17 years altogether. There’s an option to review the contract after ten years, but either way, it’s an awful long time. President of the BRDC, Damon Hill said: “It’s not easy to enter into a contract of this magnitude and you have to take on a lot of responsibility, but the BRDC wanted this relationship to continue.” The track will be upgraded slightly, with work on the pit and paddock complex. The layout of the circuit has also been tweaked, subject to the FIA’s approval, and apparently there will be Silverstone run campsites, and better grandstands, to try and improve the experience for fans.

A quick note to finish, Stefano Domenicali is sure that 2010 will be better not just for Ferrari but for the sport as a whole. He said: “I am optimistic because we cannot go lower!” Too true.

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

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